Zel genuinely wasn't quite sure how to proceed. In terms of pure physical endurance, she could keep going. Red had pushed her much further than this. Her lungs, however, wouldn't hold. She could already feel them breaking down. A swig of Witch's Brew forestalled the decay, but only for so long. She knew why, deep in her gut. The Primordial Self had used a distinctly limited duration as leverage to achieve the great performance they had exhibited thus far. Third's demonic construct floated in the midst of devastation, continuing its impression of a lighthouse.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the Truthseeking Revenant came to a halt, staring at the giant puppet. The cyclone of cast-off, loose aura had by now calmed to a relatively slow, outward spiral. It was now just very dangerous rather than guaranteed death to any mortal who came in contact with it.
She wasn't sure of anything about the tense stare-down. Not the reason for the puppet, nor the reason it seemed to perturb Third more than her continued existence.
Both of those questions were answered for her in the next few moments.
The giant servitor was motionless, unmoving, and Victor felt what needed to be done. He felt the vast, unknowable power that flowed through the Oculus, and knew that it would be the ignition key for this titan just the same as his Black Sun Keys were the lifeblood of his individual servitors.
It was all so clear, now. Despite the crushing pressure acting on him, Victor knew what had to be done. He felt his armor cracking and its musculature tearing as he, through sheer will, forced it to move him and blast him up to the vessel’s head. A passage from the Itrian Scroll replayed in his mind, and he spoke it aloud as he flew towards the giant’s head and reared back his hand to bury the Oculus into the back of it. There was only one option. Victor felt his thrusters sputter out from under him halfway up the giant’s back, so he grabbed on with his third arm for dear life, climbing up to the giant’s shoulders with his right and third hands. Once there, he righted himself and reared back to embed the Oculus into the vessel's head.
“By this holy implement, I offer up this vessel, that the works of evil might be turned against their makers!”
The Oculus' spear-end sunk in, and Victor grasped its ring, turning the staff as if it were a key while chanting a sutra. Its words could not be understood, but the meaning within it was as clear as could be; a call to something, or perhaps someone, to inhabit the vessel. The rift within the Oculus’ eye flared and a burst of iridescent light ran down the staff's length, into the vessel's head.
In an instant, the vessel began exuding a truly vast presence and stirred into motion. It clapped its hands with a thunderous noise, and the mouths littering its chest began repeating Victor's sutra. In moments, every shred of stray sacrificial aura was drawn towards the giant, swirling around it. A storm of weeping revenants continuously flooded towards the Oculus, and Victor knew it was his duty to purify them. Each. And. Every. One.
Victor could do naught but keep chanting for dear life, shifting to a purifying sutra right away, and by some miracle, it was enough. By rights the strain should've torn his soul in two, but the same presence that had been roaring inside his head also took away the fear of that happening. For the briefest moment, Victor found himself spirited away from reality, into the depths of his thoughtscape.
There, his Thinking Self beheld a vast and incomprehensible presence of pure valor, a figure wielding a giant spear in one hand and a purifying khakkhara staff in the other. Four more, six-segmented arms erupted from its back. It stood tall, and with its four arms, it held up a gigantic meteor of congealed, weeping souls, preventing it from crushing Victor.
The giant faltered. One of his hands slipped. The meteor moved closer. Victor instinctively reached out, and he was suddenly standing atop the beastly form of his Primordial Self. The thoughtform was utterly gigantic, hundreds of meters tall. Its clawed tail whipped forward, taking on some of the weight. Together with the nameless divinity, they could bear even the weight of thousands of sacrificed souls.
The shining giant looked down upon him, with a boisterous grin upon its otherwise indistinct face, and bellowed: "CHANT, INHERITOR OF THE SECOND! MY STRENGTH MAY BE A SHADOW OF WHAT IT ONCE WAS, BUT THIS MUCH AID, I CAN RENDER. CHANT, NOW! WITH EACH REVENANT PURIFIED, THE NEXT SHALL BECOME EASIER AND MY STRENGTH SHALL GROW!"
Suddenly, he was back in reality, chanting the sutras of purification he had memorized from the Itrian Shrine Guardian Scroll... And the vessel was moving of its own accord. It rose up from the ground, fully embodying that divine presence from before. Thousands of revenants swirled around it, solidifying into armour. The countless weeping faces which had gathered on the giant's chest also swirled together into one, forming a sneering, demonic visage with red-black fire in its eyes and fanged maw. It contrasted sharply with the faceless, helmet-like appearance of its head. It was no longer a mere vessel, but the avatar of a fallen god.
"I AM THE MIGHTIEST OF THE EIGHT GUARDIAN DEITIES!" the Avatar proclaimed. Its body, previously just humanoid, suddenly shifted, becoming powerfully muscular and perfectly proportional in a single monumental flex. The sickly, fleshy colour became as white as mutton-fat jade. In that single instant of transubstantiation, a hodgepodge of mangled mortal bodies became the temporary home of a deity.
The Truthseeking Revenant lashed out, its arm extending with explosive force. The Avatar, despite its incomplete state, weathered the assault, grabbing the Revenant’s arm before it could retract. As if its very touch were poison, the Revenant emitted an unearthly scream and separated its arm just above where the Avatar had grabbed it, reforming the limb right away.
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