Both had struck. Both had landed killing blows.

  [Interesting.]

  [I already know who the victor shall be.]

  The voice slithered through Oliver’s skull, and then the world lurched.

  Vertigo hit him like a hammer. His balance shattered, his knees buckled, and he fell into the sand.

  Then came the scent.

  For the first time, Oliver smelled Energy. Not just the flow, not the burning heat in his veins, but its stench. It was sharp, raw, intoxicating. It was like alcohol vapor spilled into the air, acrid and sweet at once, burning his nostrils, filling his lungs until he choked on it.

  The desert itself seemed drowned in it. An impossible tide of Energy pressed against him, saturating the air, forcing its way into his body whether he willed it or not. It was everywhere, above him, beneath him, inside him.

  [You have obtained one point in Myth.]

  [The soldiers of your enemies are already whispering of your deed.]

  [You are no longer a Lesser Myth. You have become a Notable Legend.]

  [Atlas, the Dragonslayer.]

  The words appeared across his vision.

  Oliver’s breath quickened. His vision blurred, not from exhaustion, but from the invasive flood coursing through him. Since their arrival on Fantasia-3, he had felt it. An unseen hand, a presence brushing against his mind.

  The Chaotic One.

  Now, there was no doubt. With the dragon’s death and his new Myth level, the veil had ripped open. The Chaos was in them, threading its Energy into their veins like poison, like a parasite crawling beneath their skin.

  Oliver clenched his fists, but the strength in his arms betrayed him. Every nerve burned. He felt the Energy moving through him, not his own, not natural, but alien. It slithered into the deepest parts of him, rewriting, reshaping, claiming.

  His teeth ground together as darkness closed in. His eyelids grew heavy, as if unseen hands pressed them shut. His vision dimmed, black creeping in from the edges.

  Stay awake.

  But the weight was too much.

  The last thing Oliver saw was the silver ichor of the dragon burning across the dunes.

  And then everything went dark.

  --

  With the blink of an eye, Oliver was no longer kneeling in the sands.

  In fact, he wasn’t in his own body at all. He knew it instantly. The weight, the rhythm of breath, even the subtle pull of muscle and bone were not his own. This body belonged to someone else.

  And yet, somehow, he was here.

  He tried to turn his head, to scan his surroundings, to anchor himself to something familiar. But the body did not obey. He was trapped within it, a passenger peering through another man’s eyes.

  The sensation was hauntingly familiar. He had felt this once before, when he had drawn Athena’s memories into himself. The same dissonance, the same helplessness.

  Am I inside someone else’s memory? Oliver wondered, his mind reeling.

  “My Lord! The Proud One. He has brought his army!”

  The voice snapped his attention forward.

  There, sprawled across the blackened stone floor, was a creature disturbingly similar to what they had fought in the desert. Half-scorpion, half-man, if such a word could even apply. But where the desert abomination had been grotesque and malformed, this one was precise. Its humanoid torso was dark like obsidian, its skin appearing more crystal than flesh. Its limbs were not twisted or clumsy.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The words had barely faded when the chamber itself seemed to respond.

  A thunderous boom reverberated through the hall, shaking the air, and with it came a surge of Energy so dense it was suffocating. Oliver felt it press against him, filling his lungs, poisoning the air like radiation. It was intoxicating, overwhelming, almost toxic to simply exist within.

  The hall itself was vast, carved from stone, and yet Oliver felt he had seen it before.

  It was similar to the place where he meets with Athena and Cernunnos. The architecture was not identical, but close.

  Only here, the pillars had been replaced.

  Instead of towering columns, there were statues, dozens of them, lining the chamber. Each statue depicted the scorpion-men, frozen in various poses: warriors mid-charge, hunters crouched low, guardians standing tall. Their armor was bronze, burnished with an orange hue, each figure radiated menace.

  Some carried the same long bronze spears as the desert monster. Others bore shields carved with sigils.

  “How dare he trespass in my domain?!”

  The words tore from Oliver’s throat before he even realized he was speaking. The voice was not his own. It was deep and heavy with authority and madness. He was not Oliver here. He was something else.

  “So… he wishes to play with us? Then show them what chaos and insanity can grant to lesser beings!”

  “Yes, my lord!”

  The soldiers before him answered in unison. They moved with mechanical precision, filing out of the temple, their bronze armor clattering along the way.

  Through their departure, Oliver caught a glimpse of the outside world.

  It was a city.

  Thousands of stone houses stretched outward, built into the cavernous expanse. The architecture was familiar. They were like the ruined homes scattered in the Oasis. But here, the structures were whole, alive with activity. Yet there was no sun. The city was bathed in shadow, illuminated only by the flicker of torches and the faint glow of crystalline lamps embedded in the walls.

  Above, the cavern’s ceiling stretched thick with colossal roots that snaked downward.

  “My lord, shall we activate the defense system?”

  The voice came from one of the scorpion-soldiers at the foot of the throne, his crystalline skin gleaming faintly.

  “Not yet,” Oliver’s mouth answered, the Sovereign’s voice dripping with cruel patience. “Let them come closer. Let them land. When retreat is impossible, we will seal them in… and annihilate them.”

  The soldier hesitated. His features flickered with unease, his mandibles twitching in protest. But in the end, he bowed his head and obeyed.

  Oliver’s awareness shivered. He could feel it now. Not just the Sovereign’s words, but the Sovereign’s emotions. They bled into him, saturating his own thoughts. Arrogance. Fury. But also… doubt. The faint shimmer of fear beneath the bravado.

  He’s a Sovereign… but he feels? Oliver’s mind reeled. They have emotions?

  Of course they did. Deep down, he had always known. Athena’s sharp wit and pride. Cernunnos’s pride and competitiveness. They were gods, not machines. They were immortals burdened with power, yet still tethered to the same human flaws.

  But to feel it directly, to be inside it… was something else entirely.

  The realization unsettled him. These beings who shaped the flow of worlds, who crushed armies and bent legends to their will, were still creatures of pride, fear, and ego.

  Once more, Oliver’s vision dimmed, like ink spilling across the edges of his sight. For a moment he thought he might awaken in his own body, but when the darkness lifted, he was still trapped within this one. The body of the Chaotic Sovereign.

  He did not know how much time had passed. Seconds? Hours? Days? The flow of reality here felt different, distorted. But when his sight cleared, the scene before him had changed.

  An army stretched out across the cavern floor. Hundreds of soldiers stood in formation. Yet their postures betrayed them. They did not stand with pride. Their mandibles twitched, their heads shifted uneasily. Many did not look eager for war. Some did not even look convinced.

  “My lord,” one of them spoke, stepping forward, his voice a metallic hiss. “They have landed. We activated the defense system as commanded, but… they continue to advance.”

  The Sovereign’s voice thundered from Oliver’s throat, so deep it reverberated in the bones of every soldier present. “How?”

  The soldier bowed his head, trembling. “We do not know. But they press forward across the desert. It will not be long before they find the entrance.”

  A silence fell, heavy and suffocating.

  Then the Sovereign’s fury surged like a storm, spilling into Oliver’s veins, into his very mind.

  “Then we will not wait for them to find us. We will meet them before the gates. We will strike them first!”