It moved.
The mana Kai and his undead had been steadily approaching, pulsing rhythmically, like a beating heart, shifted.
A ripple in the current. A retraction. It didn’t vanish, it moved. Pulled somewhere deeper into the mimic’s unfathomable anatomy.
’Blood?’
But now, something else stood between them and that source. A presence. One Kai felt before, but avoided. It was unlike any of the mimic’s natural defenses, unlike the mucous-dinosaurs or malformed antibodies. This mana was heavy. Heavier than anything he’d felt. Dense enough to clog the lungs and silence thought.
And worst of all, it wasn’t mortal.
Kai took a cautious step forward, and immediately froze as a head poked through the wall.
A human head. Smiling.
"I say!" the head said cheerfully. "To what do I owe the honour?! Guests!"
Kai stumbled back, nearly drawing a spell on instinct. The wall, a curtain of wet, pulsing flesh, parted like mist, and the man stepped through as if it were nothing more than vapour. His steps didn’t squelch. The mimic yielded to him.
He was flamboyantly dressed in a royal purple suit with gold threading, a top hat perched at a cocky angle, and a monocle that shimmered with raw condensed mana instead of glass. His face was youthful, sharp, eyes wide and sparkling like starlight, far too energetic for someone who clearly wasn’t human.
Kai narrowed his eyes. "A god... I take it."
The man waved a gloved hand. "Now, now, little fellow! Let’s not use such crude terminology. I take offense, honestly. God is such a bloated word. I prefer... divine explorer."
He struck a pose, hands on hips. "Name’s Cladeus! Knowledge is what I seek, mystery is my mistress, and this lovely creature..." he gestured at the surrounding mimic walls, which seemed to hum at his touch "...is my long-time travel companion. Little Mimi’s been letting me crash here for the past... what? Three hundred years? Quite accommodating. Though I suppose if she didn’t, I would obliterate her instantly."
Kai’s thoughts stumbled.
’A ravine-sized mimic. Obliterated. Instantly.’
"...Charming," Kai muttered.
Cladeus waved them forward, casually strolling through the fleshy corridors with the ease of someone walking through a marketplace.
"Come, come! I haven’t had visitors since that death-priest accidentally summoned a time-wyrm in here. Ugh. Took weeks to clean. Don’t worry about Mimi, she won’t attack you while you’re under my hospitality."
He led them into a room that shouldn’t have existed. A door made of clean, varnished oak slid open at his touch, and they stepped into a wooden cabin.
The space was cozy, if cramped. A bedsit arrangement, bed, desk, bookshelves, stove, and a cramped little washroom behind a curtain. Dozens of oddities lined the walls: skeletal hands mounted like trophies, bottles that held tiny stars, and a mobile of spinning planets that defied gravity. The only thing truly out of place was the bookshelf. It wasn’t the fact a bookshelf was there, but as a god who mentioned their love for knowledge, Kai found it strange to be empty.
Even empty, radiated mana so thick it made Kai’s teeth ache.
He pointed. "That bookshelf-"
"Ah, yes! My backup brain. Don’t touch it, or your soul might try to alphabetise itself!" Cladeus said with a grin.
Kai didn’t ask.
"Mimi, hey?" he said, changing the topic.
Cladeus beamed. "Cute name, right? Took me a century of workshopping. Naming things is hard, okay? I’m Cladeus, by the way! And you must be... Luke Pascal, oof, nasty business, that extradition, or Kai Tensen the name wasn’t bad, gotta hand it to your parents, rest their souls. And finally... Mirlin Orth! You little necromancer, you!"
Kai stiffened.
Cladeus giggled. "Don’t look so surprised! The moment you stepped into Mimi’s lovely innards, the cosmic web started screaming. I know everything there is to know about you. Did you know that half of my colleagues are scouring the world trying to find you. You’ve stirred up quite the fuss."
Kai noticed then: the room wasn’t sealed. Outside the wooden paneling, the mimic still pulsed. Breathing. Alive.
’Are we at its heart? I need its brain...’
"And you?" Kai asked warily. "You here to kill me too?"
Cladeus shrugged, flopping onto his bed with theatrical flair. "If the world ends by your hand, or mine, or the hands of any of my god-peers... well, that’s history, darling! We did massacre your people, so who could blame you for wanting a little cosmic revenge? I would ask you to leave poor little Mimi out of it, though. Are you planning to kill the gods?"
"If they get in my way."
The mood in the room shifted. Slightly.
Ralts, Kai’s undead lich, turned toward Cladeus with a slow, cautious tilt of her head.
Cladeus met her gaze.
With a flick of his wrist, she vanished.
Kai’s breath hitched. "What-"
"Oh, don’t panic. She’s fine. Just a peek."
In his palm, a crystal formed.
A prism of writhing light.
"Fascinating creature," Cladeus muttered, holding it to his eye. "She sees things. Things we don’t. Not like your other minions. And she has no soul. Not a trace! And yet... she’s thinking, adapting, curious. How did you do that? A sentient undead construct? I’ve never seen anything like it."
He paused, then smirked, not giving Kai a chance to respond. "I have to know. These runes... Forebearer language? That’s really old stuff. Even older than us. Some say the Forebearers were the original gods. How did you learn enough to turn their language into runic structure? Into sigils? How?!"
Kai gritted his teeth. "Where is she?"
"Oh, your precious lich?"
Cladeus tossed the crystal toward Kai. It shattered on impact, but no explosion came. No magical backlash. Just soft, molten light that melted away like warm wax.
Suddenly, Ralts appeared in Kai’s arms, body cold, solid, and real.
Kai stumbled under her weight and quickly set her down.
She blinked up at him. Not confused. Not shaken.
Just... curious.
"Blimey, me, though. I’ve got to be off. A volcano is about to erupt just off the main continent. Bye!"
Cladeus disappeared.
A meeting like no other. Demeris was tame compared to the anarchy that was the second god he’d ever met.
Kai growled, fury rising. "Fucking gods. Thinking they can do whatever they want. Maybe I will kill them all. So much for thinking I’d be out of their reach here..."
Ralts tilted her head again, studying him.
"And you?" she said. "You baffled a god of all things. What did I create?"
Kai stared at her.
"I... Don’t know."
Her voice was coarse. Like speaking through rotten vocal cords.
She spoke.
’She fucking spoke?’
"You... fucking spoke?"