Carl: Now!

Emberus, crying, sobbing, enraged, growing, reared back with a flaming ball in his hand.

Donut zapped into the room, using one of Lucia’s infamous loop-de-loop traps, replacing Penny, who had suddenly been teleported outside, right at the feet of Taranis.

Penny was, also, now in the same area as Khepri, whose god effect was the reason why I’d chosen that god to appear in the first place. She was invulnerable for ninety seconds.

Donut had her Scorpion’s Bite weapon mount with the crossbow on her back, cocked and ready to go.

Loaded into the weapon was Katia’s Bolt of Ophiotaurus. Donut aimed, and she fired true. The bolt buried itself directly into the smoldering eye socket of Emberus. A second bolt shot entered the second eye. This was one of her ten Danforth bolts designed to hold the god in place.

The yellow invulnerability glow winked off. The god was now vulnerable for fifteen seconds. And he couldn’t move.

At the same moment, Emberus hurled some sort of fire incineration spell directly at my chest that would, under any other circumstances, have killed me instantly.

Your Four-Leaf Clover Patch has activated! Your party member Penny has received the attack!

Outraged, now clawing at his face, Emberus continued to glow, and the heat of the room became unbearable.

“Toodles,” Donut said as she jumped to my shoulder and activated Puddle Jumper.

At level 17, the spell had the ability to return her to any place she’d recently visited at almost any distance. In this case, she took us outside to the entrance of the arena, where a scene of absolute chaos greeted me.

The food truck was spinning in circles, flames pouring from the side window near the deep fryer, missiles launching one after another at the Krakaren boss as sluggalos crawled over the thing.

The Krakaren boss was now in the stands, smashed amongst the unmoving horribles avatars, health in the red as two tentacles waved. It appeared she only had two tentacles left, the rest ripped off by Taranis and scattered across the arena.

Taranis, outraged, was now bent over the tiny bubbling pile of plasma that was Penelope the pig.

Penny wasn’t dead, but she would be if she didn’t heal within the next ninety seconds.

Khepri the god also stood off to the side, looking about, confused as fuck.

Scolopendra, the largest thing in the arena by far, remained on the ground, wrapped around the shattered tree, chittering, also confused and angry, glowing, spinning up another attack.

And all around, multiple vehicles and mounts zoomed through the arena, mowing down monsters left and right. It was like a goddamned demolition derby. They’d allowed us to have our tenth-floor vehicles, which were all upgraded to the max, and we were using them to the best of our ability. Imani and Elle’s APV, driven by Bodi, cut through a group of trolls. With poor Sweety dead, Jurgen and Prepotente had moved to the RV with Makana. Prepotente and Jurgen stood back-to-back on the roof of the RV, screaming, shooting lightning, and throwing potions at the mobs while Bianca circled overhead.

Jamal jumped through the arena, flamethrower roaring, landing upon monsters and snapping them in half. His Tundra, which he’d been driving, sat in a heaping, smoking wreck where it had crashed into the wall. Samantha was with Jamal, sitting directly on his head, also screaming a war cry.

Lucia and Florin were back on their tuk-tuk, Florin driving with one hand as his shotgun roared in the other. Lucia was in her beautiful form, shooting lightning bolts at the monsters left and right.

The monsters themselves didn’t have a chance. Despite there being literally thousands of them, they ran, they fell, and they died. Tipid was behind the wheel of the former One Fine Pig truck. The flowers had all fallen off, revealing the wrap featuring the two Tigrans kissing the butt of Penelope. Racing next to him was Rosetta on the back of Onikuma the bear. The bear jumped, landing upon a scattering group of razor-backed monkey mobs. Old Shuck was also in the fray, biting and snarling.

Right next to where we’d teleported, Mongo and Rend were tearing through some spiked turtle monster. Rend was sitting on the upside-down beast’s head as Mongo viciously pulled its leg out from the shell.

Blood and hundreds of horribles masks littered the ground.

I took all this in all at once.

Emberus burst from the center of the kaiju bug, rising and rising, changing from the human form to the massive, half-faced monstrosity that could melt worlds, turning, spinning, screaming, fire flowing down the sides of his head as he wailed, “Carl, Carl, Carl!”

He was still vulnerable, but only for a few more seconds.

System Message: Scolopendra is preparing attack number three of nine. Time until the next attack: 30 seconds.

I would be invulnerable, but everyone else was not.

“Oh shit!”

Taranis, seeing his little brother rising in the arena and knowing he was the one who had fired the attack at his beloved pig, raised his hand.

Emberus paused, a moment of lucidity coming over the insane deity.

“Brother, no,” he said.

Taranis twisted his wrist.

I grasped Donut, and I held her tight in my arms.

Zap.

With one second left on his invulnerability, Emberus, god of sun and ash, exploded.

It was like I’d been hit by a car. All of us were knocked off our feet.

All the vehicles and mounts and surviving mobs blew back, flying to the edges of the arena. I took damage, but because of my temporary invulnerability, I wasn’t hurt. Donut cried out in pain.

A deity has fallen. The heavens tremble with rage.

Above, Krakaren was in the stands, still alive. Scolopendra was still alive despite the massive hole in the center of the creature. The centipede had a health bar now, but it was still in the green.

Imani: Check in! Everybody, check in! Elle! Elle!

Carl: Everyone, get back into the RV!

Prepotente: I fear the RV is broken in half and no longer counts as a shelter. We do not have an accommodation large enough to house us all!

Across from us, Mongo stood, shaking his head. Rend, too, stood. Gonk had hidden behind Simoom, and they remained on their feet.

Jamal was smashed against the far wall, his legs absolutely wrecked and fallen off of him. But he was alive. The Tigran APV was on its side. Rosetta was off her bear, trying to get to Tipid inside the APV. Right next to them, the old RV was broken in half.

Lucia floated on the far end of the arena, holding Florin, who was alive but had a red health bar. Their tuk-tuk was smashed and smoldering.

Khepri was blown off his feet, having fallen like a building collapse.

The food truck, miraculously, was still upright, still on fire, still spinning, though most of the sluggalos who’d been on the outside were now gone. The missile launcher was wrecked.

The Abrams tank, too, remained unharmed. The main gun creaked, turning toward Krakaren in the stands as hexcrafter Sarah Hayse stood out the top, casting a spell, causing the gun to glow black. The gun belched fire directly into Krakaren. Her health barely budged, but the boss didn’t respond, either.

The gun started to glow again.

Most everything else in the arena was dead or dying.

Elle: I’m alive. Barely. Someone help dig me and Bodi out of this truck. It’s wrecked pretty good. I haven’t been folded like this since Brandon showed us how to use Tinder.

Taranis was back to his knees, and he had Penny scooped up in his hands. He cast something on the pig, and she glowed, instantly reforming. He reached down and touched the side of her face. She squealed.

“What did you say, my love?”

She squealed again, louder.

“You . . . you want splooge? Well, I, uh, I was hoping to take you to dinner first.”

I checked my inventory, and the final items I needed were there. I pulled my motorcycle from my inventory and jumped on it, Donut moved to my shoulder.

“Get off!” I yelled to Donut. I had sixty seconds left on my invulnerability. She had nothing.

“Go fuck yourself, Carl,” Donut said.

I didn’t argue, and I revved the engine.

And that’s when everything froze.

System Message: Eris has entered the Realm.