At that very moment, the Stillborn Hegemon and Ashokan watched Jonathan through a scrying orb. They were seated around a large obsidian table, formed by Ashokan. The centaur’s powers revolved around control of Earth. That control went beyond simply elemental manipulation. He could turn his entire body to stone of any kind, and merge with the world around him. To a limited extent, he could form weapons out of mountains, or make his own.

  Both Circle Lords were ensconced within the Stillborn Hegemon’s keep, which, after having been reinforced by Ashokan’s element, was sturdier than ever before. Hopefully enough to stand up to anything that Jonathan could throw against it. After seeing the way that the so called Hellbreaker had dealt with the Tier 6 monsters of the Swarmlands, both of the lords were more apprehensive than before. It was one thing hearing about the exploits of the slayer of Granath and Slothari, but it was another seeing them in person.

  The scrying orb was a gift from the inscrutable lord of the eleventh circle of the Hells, now the undisputed sovereign of the Greater Circle of Sloth. Lady Azal, as she called herself, was the most humanoid of the various monsters that made the Greater Circle home. She possessed power over the skeins of fate, able to read the marks upon the vagaries of chance that a being’s actions made. Azal could raise empires simply for the purpose of amusement, and in fact, had done so frequently in her territory.

  The Sea of Specters, the eleventh circle of Hell, was filled with veils of elementary suffused mist and fog. Those banks of obscuring vapor were filled with a thousand branching paths. Once anyone not possessing some sort of connection to the element of Fate stepped foot within, there was no way out, save for by chance.

  In any case, Ashokan and the Hegemon knew little about the worlds beyond their own, save for the all too real presence of their superiors. Both had advanced to the next Tier, and had made some inroads. However, while that would have been enough to deal with the Jonathan that the Stillborn Hegemon knew, something had happened to the man since the merging of the circles. He was far more powerful than ever before, easily as strong, if not stronger than the Duke of Cessation himself, despite being of a lower level and Tier. In fact, if he could reach Tier 5, he had a shot at defeating Ashokan as well.

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  ”I still don’t understand,” Ashokan rumbled, his craggy face shifting in unease. “Where did he get all that might from? It doesn’t make sense.”

  The Hegemon shrugged, the motion odd considering his weathered, undead body. “Speculating isn’t going to do anything for us. We need to continue our personal development, or else the end will come for us both.”

  ”I suppose we’ve tied our fates together, for the most part. We initiated this grand remaking of the Hells, after all. The others aren’t just going to shield us from the consequences.”

  With one last glance at the orb, the Circle Lords left the room, and headed off to level in the wastes of Cessation. The hordes of undead that packed the realm had gone through somewhat of a meat grinder, resulting in a few Tier 5 monsters that stood head and shoulders above the rest. More importantly, there were a few invaders from neighboring lands, ranging from Tier 6 to one Tier 8.That last once, luckily, had no interest in conquest, or death. It was more like a walking mountain than a living being, an elemental that craved the sweet succor of the Earth’s very soul.

  The creature wandered, planting itself wherever the ambient power waxed the most. Then, once it had been drained, it moved on.

  Currently, it was circling the outskirts of Cessation, slowly making its way towards the center, where the land had been steeped in powerful mana for billions of years. However, none of that was of much concern to the two Circle Lords that lorded over Cessation, and its neighbor, the Labyrinth. They had freedom of movement now, the ability to leave their domains and progress in the rest of the newly unified realm.