Okay, so this one is coming courtesy of Jacob Gondringer, who gave me the idea to write this chapter. Honestly, I couldn’t make it into a long, normal chapter, so I’m putting it in with today’s chapter.
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How could it have all gone so wrong? Prime wondered that to himself as he was smothered in the soul of the lich, that abomination of magic and thought. He was not weak, he knew that. How could he have been weak, seeing as how he had been able to best his warden? No, there was something else. Sure, the lich creature had used a dirty trick on him and had taken advantage of his attempts at convincing them to give up, but he was Prime, the supreme Clockwork! How could a mere trick like that have caused him to lose? It did not, surely. No, it had to be something else, some other trick or scheme that the treacherous gods had played.
But he still kept coming back to the lich. Where had she come from? Why was a servant of Kel’rk’ath working with the warden of En’gem’ia? Such a thing had not happened for centuries! A millenia, even! The gods had been divided for longer than his incredible self had existed by a factor of a thousand! There must have been some way for it to have come to pass. But the only thing that could have explained it was…
It hit him, then. He discovered it, the secret truth to it all, the reason why a creature with the smell of three different gods on it had come to defeat him. They were working together! There was no war, it was all a ruse to distract him! How else could his mind have been tricked into believing such an obvious falsehood!?
He writhed and wriggled, trying to rip himself from the demon’s grasp, but the world was all blackish-red threads that bound him like a stuck pig and squeezed him like a snake. He growled in response. He could have killed that damned lich if only she had not used abominable powers she had! He had another spell ready, one that could have scorched her to ashes! If he had the proper time to his psychically active sub servers, he could have even beaten her in the psychic game. But she just had to be uncourteous about it.
But that was what the gods were about. They did not let anyone else have their chance, sitting in their fortresses, commanding armies, and not allowing anyone to have the means to kill them. It was tyranny. He knew it. And, after learning that they were conspiring to keep him down, he realized that they might have actually been afraid of him. Yes, that had to be it. They not only conspired to make a war that would distract him, but also hid any methods to destroy them, as they knew he could have done it! Yes, that had to be it!
All he had to do was escape the aberration’s prison and he would strike fear and terror into the gods themselves! Though, they knew his weakness! Being cut off from his resources and troops, there was not way for him to escape. Or so that’s what they wanted him to think! He was Prime, the greatest Clockwork to ever live, and a mere lich would do nothing to stop him! All he would have to do is figure out where the weak spot was, where the gods had failed in crafting their perfect prison. They were fallible, after all. Unlike Prime himself, of course.
He tried again and again, ripping into different directions in an attempt to find the weak points, but all he found was unbreakable resistance. That was fine, though. Entropy was a powerful thing, and he had plenty of time to wait. He could easily figure out how to shield himself from the ambient mana once he was free, he was sure. It would be easy.
All he had to do was wait.
He did not know how long it was until something changed. A week? A year? A century? Whatever the case, the pressures around the creature’s soul suddenly increased by an incalculable degree. He had no idea what it could have been, apart from being in the presence of the gods themselves. Yes, that had to be it! All he had to do was wait for them to try to check on him, and he would be able to escape.
Something weird happened, though. The lich creature began to absorb something-- the mechanics of which eluded even his incredible mind-- and her soul began to writhe. Something was changing. She was gaining power, and her soul was expanding. Prime realized, a moment too late, that the walls suddenly expanding around him was not a good thing for him. He struggled with all of his might, suddenly feeling the specter of true death approaching, but even in her relaxed state, she was too tough for him to rip apart, too tightly wound to wiggle through.
He felt a sudden pain, and then nothing else.
