Cait and Fate wound their way through the twisting hallways and spiraling staircases of the palace, finding no other opposition during their search. After what felt like hundreds of turns and thousands of stairs, they found a promising sight. At the end of the hallway they were currently in was a grand set of doors of macabre design.
They were made of solid dark gold, with engravings in white gold of screaming skulls, abominable affronts to nature, and animals whose original designs had been perverted into horrible creatures of bare flesh and extra mouths.
At the top of the doors was the image of a man, embossed in rose gold, with a halo above his head, a swirling ball of energy in his right hand, and a scepter in the left. The ball of energy he held crackled, as if alive, zapping through the metal of the doors and lighting up the grim display set beneath the figure. The whole thing was easily twenty feet tall, split down the middle with no visible handles.
"Ythmun sure has a high opinion of himself," Fate muttered.
"Soon he'll have such a low opinion that he might as well be in the dirt," Cait said.
"…That joke was horrible."
"I'd like to see you try to come up with something better."
"Not a joking kind of guy." Fate averted his eyes, pretending to be even more interested in the door than before.
"Then stop complaining."
"Alright, fine. Let's just go kill this guy already."
They pushed open the door, finding a throne room of the same dreary dark stone as the rest of the palace. It was surprisingly bare, with no windows or fancy artwork. It was well-lit, which was odd considering no discernible light sources were visible.
The only thing in the hundred-foot-long room was a throne of black stone, resting on a dais that went up for ten feet, allowing the man on the throne to leer down from on high at the new arrivals.
The man was remarkably good-looking, like the standard arrogant young master of Chinese cultivation novels. His dark, sword-like brows rested over apathetic black eyes, which watched the worst of the world unfold like a terrible movie. His long hair was parted at his face by a circlet of pure gold, with a dazzling sapphire in the center of his forehead.
He wore little armor, only a simple metal pauldron on his right shoulder and greaves covering his legs over brown pants and a black shirt. He gave off the impression of a warrior king, one who had seen hundreds of battles. His cheek rested on the fist of his right hand, eyes gazing at the two with no apparent emotion.
Resting at the foot of his throne's dais was a large bear-thing, six feet tall and nearly as wide, with a hairless purple body covered in pustules, scars, and the screaming faces of men and women. Its snout was devoid of flesh, exposing the bones of its jaws, and its black eyes were surrounded by pulsing green flesh.
It opened one such beady eye, appraising the intruders and gauging the level of their threat to its master. Seemingly satisfied with what it saw, and closed its eye, a low snoring filling the room. Worryingly, both individuals were Personifications.
"Welcome, Embodiments," the man on the throne said. "Thank you for culling the weak in my staff. I, Ythmun, emperor of this world, shall reward you with a quick death." He gestured nonchalantly with his left hand, and a strong surge of Divine Energy rushed out, latching onto Cait and Fait and trying to take something vital.
Fate slipped into his Manifest Power's intangibility, feeling Cait next to him use her Manifest Power to stop the surge before it could touch her. He felt the energy heading her way stop in its tracks entirely, only to turn and rush back at the man on the throne with twice the speed.
Ythmun waved his hand once more, and the energy became as docile as a tamed animal given a treat. He held his hand out, palm up, and the energy flowed into his hand, disappearing inside him.
"So that's how you've beaten everything I've thrown at you? Immunity to the Manifest Powers of others? Let's see how long that holds up, shall we?" His outstretched hand turned, palm pointing at the duo. A telekinetic push bore down on them, Fate letting what he could pass through him and sapping the strength of the rest, and Cait breaking the attack apart with the brute strength of her Divine Intent.
Ythmun frowned, showing the first emotion since they had gotten here. "Annoying," he muttered. "Usually, I don't even have to try to kill someone… very well," he said, raising his voice. "The two of you have the pleasure of being the first people on this planet to see my true power."
His aura gushed out, revealing the comprehension of his Manifestation to be deeper than even Garrett's was, an amazing 9.2%. He was perhaps one or two massive revelations away from becoming a lofty Incarnation, at which point the chances of survival for Cait and Fate would become staggeringly low.
The duo grew serious as Ythmun stood from his throne. The bear Griffith pushed itself to a stand at the bottom of the dais as it yawned, revealing a long, serpentine purple tongue. It glanced up at its master as Ythmun stepped slowly down the stairs to his throne, the air growing stifling as the room itself seemed to breathe to the tune of Ythmun's heartbeat.
Even the walls pulsed to the rhythmic pumps of his heart, bits of stone falling from the walls to reveal grotesque purple eyes surrounded by seas of black. Cracks spread through the floor, opening to form yawning mouths with teeth as large as Fate was tall.
Ythmun stopped at the foot of the dais, Griffith moving to stand next to its master. He spread his arms, a proud smile blooming on his face. "This is what will bring you to your doom. My magnum opus, the Palace of Trekna."