"Ha! You think you're puny little virtue will stop me? I don't even need to lift a finger and you will fall." As the Fae spoke an eerie gray green light seemed to ooze out of his every pore. Making him look ghastly and ancient.

"I wouldn't undereestimate me. I've kiilled a Haloed and I've only grown since then." Stygian projected a deep slurring grumble both psychically and aloud causing a disharmonious echo

The Fae sneered, and though he was a centuries old Crowned he couldn't hold back a shiver. There was something deeply wrong with the bug before him, as though the rules he had built his whole powerbase around didn't apply to the bug.

"Kehehekehehe." Stygian chattered with laughter, "You're actually neervous. I can see it on the suurface of your mind, hear it in what passes for your heaart. It's good. Prrey should be afraid."

Psychic aptitude shining through revealing a new capability, to read surface thoughts of those nearby without directly penetrating their mind. Stygian activated Lurk and Disguise leaping backwards into the darkness. To the eyes of the Crowned, Stygian became a living shadow and disappeared from sight. Though Disguise was meant for shapeshifting into other humanoids that didn't mean Stygian could be a humanoid shadow. With the right coloration and texture of flesh Disguise could help one blend in anywhere. Before doing anything else Stygian popped into the garden for a breather. Resting in here wouldn't offer the bug new prompts since the outside world was so slowed down, it gave the bug a chance to plan and potentially do something really dumb.

It was time to let nature's perfect asshole have some fun. Stygian had been experimenting a lot with a wasp and mosquito hybrid, but that was only the first variant. Stygian was trying to make a super combat species of bugs. Stygian kept mutating them over and over. Until they were perfect. Unfortunately they fell just short of perfect.

The bugs were almost as big as Stygian was being way more oxygen efficient than anything else Stygian had created. The proboscis had become a sword-like protrusion meant to inflict pain with a toxin designed just to distract from the real horror. The stinger injects the young into a living target in less than five minutes the young will explode out adding to the swarm. In flight the swarm is like a hurricane of razor blades with the wings and legs able to cut just as deeply as the former proboscis. What's worse is that the perfect asshole could survive solely on ambient Mana if there weren't too many of them. Stygian had only ever let one sack hatch and it took nearly a whole day to put the garden back in order. That is because of the one flaw in the creation, their minds were a bit scrabbled and savage. But Stygian had an idea for controlling them. There five sacks of young beings which were kept from hatching by the Cytonic Spiders. Stygian brought one sack out into the real world.

Almost immediately the sack started hatching and Stygian began to pull in all the energy it could. Gathering all the nearby soul fragments Stygian waited, and slowly as the assholes came to life they each began to generate a soul. Curiously these souls weren't much smaller than any Stygian had seen on the surface, and it was taking longer than it should've. But once the souls seemed to stabilize Stygian speared every single one with a bland thread of souls. Weaving all of them together Stygian fashioned a single soul where the connection began and ended. Picking up a skull from the ground and infusing the controlling soul inside, at least Stygian hoped it would work like that. Stygian had wasted no more than a minute. Still our bug could feel the Fae gathering a fuck load- sorry, I mean a gargantuan amount of power and skeletons.

Without further ado Stygian began to gush Mana, in the reverse of whirlpool and like a true Fount mage. The assholes began to greedly drink in the free energy growing to full size relatively quickly. When they were big enough Stygian thunder with a psychic whisper, 'Destroy. Him.'

The glinting chitin of the freshly born terrors flashed as they sped through the darkness, shining with the eerie gray green light of the Crowned. The assholes were to be a distraction while Stygian and Prime thinned the numbers of undead. Stygian needed to even the playing field. Embedding the skull into it's shifter flesh, Stygian paused. As the assholes rushed, Stygian pulled up so much neglected information.

Gluttony

Devour all... 50%

Wrath

Devour your enemies... 61%

Feeling the rage build Stygian tried to stay calm. Since the bonding of the devourer thread wrath and gluttony had shifted, but not increased. Despite Stygians bravado fighting a Crowned who had been around since before the fall of the Fae was not an easy task. Gwyn was one thing, freshly forged, but this... No Stygian would allow no doubt it had to win there was no other option.

Our bug began ripping a tearing at every nearby soul, if Stygian couldn't forcibly obtain Horns then the next best thing was to load up on souls. The skeletons began to flee from the soul sucking bug, but Stygian couldn't care less as the bug waded deeper and deeper into the horde of skeletons. More and more power began to click in place, as Stygian exceeded the limits of its body. But then it wasn't just power that was clicking into place, but Stygians chitin was splittering from the inside out. Stygian began shutting everything else out and was only vaguely aware of twin voices screaming at the bug in despair.

Off in the distance our lazy revenant was having a hell of a time killing the assholes. They were so good at feeding on Mana that they could pull it out of spells and area effects. One of the downsides of being a Sloth Horned was the sheer lack of interest in physical activity. It also doesn't help when one spends centuries underground not doing much of anything. Granted normally anything that got too close would be immobilized by Sloth, but not the magic eating assholes. The harassing was nonstop and after thirty minutes only one asshole was killed. They were serving their purpose.

Though Stygian was in terrible agony, the bug couldn't deny the raw power that it felt. Stygian the creatively dumb bug that it was, was stripping away everything from a soul and cycling through its body like blood or Mana. The logic behind this idiotic act was 'Hey blood makes me move and certain types of Mana can reinforce the body, so why can't I do the same with a soul? It is arguably a way better source of power.' However soul stuff wasn't supposed to be fluid or cycled like blood. Hence why Stygian was intermittently exploding. Meanwhile Prime was herding skeletons towards Stygian while the twins were in the Soul space unable to help.

Stygian felt it as another asshole died, and then shortly after another. It seemed that the Fae was picking up his pace.

"Prime! Get over here." Prime rushed through the horde of skeletons crushing several. "Destroy everything you can. Nora and Reya. Nora I'm bringing out some Cytonic Spiders, and Reya I'm bringing the Fyreflies back out. I've never asked this of you guys, but command in my stead keep the skeletons off of me while I fight the Fae."

Though the soul familiars seemed unintelligible, it was quite the opposite. They hadn't ever needed to convey thoughts or ideas with words since mere thoughts and impressions were enough. Connecting nearly a hundred minds together under Nora and Reya, Stygian was confident that this army could hold their own. Stygian's best chance was now while the majority of the soul stuff was still empowering the bug. The assholes were down to just two as Stygian rushed back towards the Fae. Finding the nearest dead asshole stygian ripped it's head off, fighting a Crowned with no weapons seemed extra dumb. With the sword like proboscis at the ready wrapped in shifter flesh at the end of Stygian's right hand and a shield like protrusion on the left, our bug felt ready. As Stygian felt the last two assholes die it once more laid upon the Crowned Fae. Feeling through the control skull, Stygian pulled all the attached soul in adding one final boost before combat began.

The revenant Fae was pissed, first that monstrous bug challenged him and ran off, then had the audacity to use such cheap tactics. The bug had no honor and nothing would prevent its destruction. As the Fae's ire swelled he laid eyes on the monstrous bug disgust ran through the Crowned. Stygian was horribly disfigured missing massive chunks of chitin, with artificially enhanced flesh bulging out. Our bug was bleeding and oddly enough the blood seemed to be both glowing and boiling. However before the Fae could look more the bug dashed forward. Almost blurring the Crowned barely had time to activate its Sloth Aura, even then Stygian only slowed down a bit.

Blasting the Fae with a psychic scream, Stygian slashed at the Fae. Unfortunately, the scream only caused the aura to weaken giving the revenant time to dodge and blast Stygian with a bleam of green light. Stygian jumped as fast as possible, yet could still feel the scorching pain as the light clipped its left foot. One moment there was pain the next nothing. Looking down Stygian saw why just below its ankle was nothing but a nub of bone. Shifting it's flesh around to create a temporary fix, Stygian made note not to get hit by the bleam, and rushed back in.

Using every muscle in its body Stygian lunged for the Fae, though the Fae was a Sloth Horned he was still fairly agile and was able to dodge. Fully expecting this Stygian warped and stretched its flesh mid stab slicing through the revenant like hot steel through ghost butter, or what most people call ectoplasm. Though Stygian's strike seemed devastating, the Fae just shrugged it off as its body knit back together. If anything it only seemed to piss off the Fae more. Readying another spell the Fae aimed straight at Stygian, but this time our bug forced a psychic connection. Invading the mind of the Fae Stygian forced all of its available Mana in a raw unshaped spell; our Deväk disrupted the casting of the Fae. Miscasting such a powerful spell had a severe cost, while the backlash hurt, the inability to cast spells for the next five minutes was a death sentence. Plus the gathered Mana exploded in the Revenants hands.

Fearing death the Fae turned to fly away, but Stygian there in an instant cutting the wings from the back of the Crowned in one downward strike. Screaming the dewinged Fae fell to the ground and rolled away. Not bothering to chase Stygian slowly walked towards the crippled Fae, and asked aloud in grinding tones, "Hoow does it feeel, to be brought low."

"Plea-se, please..." Said a sobbing Fae, not even looking at the monster approaching.

"Please whaat? Beg me nicely and I might just kill you quickly."

"Please, please just..." The Crowned paused only to flash a wild grin and continue, " Just give me another second."

A brilliant flash of light was emitted from the revenant's crown. Shifting from green light to gold the point on the crown elongated into blade, while the halo morphed in a hilt and cross guard. The process took less than a second, but when all was said and done the magic caster was now armed with a golden rapier with green flames coming off of the blade.

"Oh come now you didn't think it would be that easy, did you? Didn't you know that it's important to be well rounded?" Taunted the manically grinning Fae.