The shadows came r dowunnel with every bit of the force that the water once had; Tenebroum gloried in them, at least at first. It let the tide of darkness wash across and rejuves threadbare form.

  The leading edge of that tide were the shadow creatures that Krulm’venor had called the silent. They had been down in the dark so long they had fotten what the st soul they’d eveen was. So, instead of wearing the shapes of others, they were nothing but ragged and indistinct outlihat didn’t save them from being devoured by Tenebroum’s hungry maw as it siphohem up oer the other.

  They were nothing but fish, and they were devreedily by the Lich as they tried to sast him. The souls were thin. There was identity left to them and little in the way of essence, but little was more than zero, and eae added to its dwindling reserves.

  As the Lich grew in power, it absorbed more souls at a faster pace than before. It was a vicious cycle. Tenebroum got stronger, whi turn made it get stronger faster. It had experiehis before, at several points in its history. When it had devoured Siddrim and the All-Father were some of the highest points of its existence, but when it ed Rahkin, and it had tasted thousands of lives within hours, as well as when it had devoured the silent shadows of Ghen’tal, it had experienced a simir rush.

  This was almost as much essence as those had been, and there was no sign of stopping. Instead, the shadows that were ing out of the bowls of the earth, where the All-Father had imprisohem, were slowly getting rger and more well-defined. Most of them bore the faint shape of men, though without enough detail to say anything about the age they came from.

  There were other animals, too, including some like horses that could only be found on the surface, that hi some things that didn’t make sense. How would these shadows reach the surface as long as the sun, the moon, or the stars were always shining, it wondered.

  The Lich had no answers, though, aher did the souls that it feasted on. In its new figuration, it felt like it could ge forever on this flow, and so far, at least, it showed no signs of abating. It ossible it might peter out at any moment, but the Dwarves seemed to think it was a limitless reservoir of evil, and they recoiled at what it had dohey could not escape it, though; no one could. All it would take to stop this tide, theoretically, would be a single dle, but the Lich would never light one. Instead, it would feast.

  For the few hours, the size of the creatures that emerged from the depths began to increase in size. Tenebroum found the dark tuo the absolute void that they were traveling from on the far side of the dwarven armory, past the fortifications and the locked doors that had been burst asunder by this eide.

  Now, there were ord ogres, as well as bulls and even rger creatures for which the Lich had no names. What had started as a school of flickering, formless fish had bee an army stampeding toward its waiting maw. It was at this point that Tenebroum finally had the ao one question that had been nagging at it as it bathed in the urained flows of essenbsp;

  Why haven’t they devoured each other? It had been asking itself for as long as it had beeing, but it had to see a creature of signifit enough size to ahat.

  It finally became clear when it saw the shade of a troll devour the shade of a man just before Tenebroum devoured them both. As it ate the man, it fissioned apart, releasing several smaller ghosts of the things it had devoured retly. These were, in turn, devoured by nearby orcs. It was a ibalistic food that no one derived any sustenance from as they looked for scraps of life.

  Indeed, for anyone else, there would be no essence here at all. It was only because Tenebroum was so attuo the darkness and had such a rigid form that it could devour and tain so many dead souls that would have simply leached the soul out of a living thing.

  Tenebroum wasn’t alive, though, not in any sehat mattered. It was a nexus of death and darkness. Its powers over disease and decay had atrophied with the loss of the Worm’s touch, but that was, for the moment, irrelevant. Right now, all it needed was its mastery of magid darkness.

  At least, that’s all the Lich thought it hat was until the first truly mammoth creature found its way out of the byrinth that had tai for so long. At first, the Lich thought that it was the ghost of a whale swimming through the inky bess. That wasn’t right, though. A whale didn't have a jaw that could unhinge or a hinged carapabsp;

  Whatever it was, it was the first creature that tried to devour Tenebroum rather thaher way around. It had no ce of succeeding, of course. It spread its toothy maw wide even as it approached the Lich’s event horizon and began to uhe most it could do was offer the very slightest resistao what happened before Tenebroum tur into raw essence, like everything that had e before it.

  It was the first rge creature, but it wasn’t the st. Tenebroum knew nothing about the nature of animals and how they might be reted to each other or what might exist on far-off tis, but as the parade of shadows tinued into its waiting maw, they only grew rger and stranger.

  These were animals that had little in on with anything that it had ever seen. The only real parallel was the behemoths it had glimpsed beyond the stars. Eventually, after barge-sized slugs with razor spines and hydra worms with a thousand mouths, that became Tenebroum’s only real clusion. These things must have been down there for so long that they predated the sun and the stars themselves.

  It wasn’t sure what to make of that. It had never given thought to the idea that perma darkness might have existed before it had brought it to the world for a brief time.

  Soon enough, the parade of monstrosities was beginning to provide a real challeo the Lich. It was strohan it had ever been. It was radiating so much cold from the ption of so many shadows that the once boiling water was now freezing into pbsp;

  her ior anything else could stop the tide of darkness, though. All Tenebroum could do was e, less it spill over. It was only after days, or perhaps weeks of feasting that it finally found what it was that this herd of grotesques was stampeding away from. Until that moment, Tenebroum had thought that they were simply seeking to escape from their prison, but when the first giant crawled forth from a shattered gateway that was muall for it to ever fit through. Still, the thing fit through all the same.

  In fact, o was in the cavern, the Lich’s soul had grown to almost entirely occupied, the whole thing ed, being rger than it ever should have been as the fifty-limbed and hundred-headed monstrosity rose and stretched, reveling in its full height after what must have been a very long impriso.

  Tenebroum was again surprised whehing started to speak. It spoke no nguage that the Lich or any of its souls uood, a, somehow, the meaning came through. “You have quehe fires of creation,” it said in dozens of voices. “I thank you, paltry shade, but the only reward I offer you is a quick death.”

  The Lich had no fear of the threat, and the battle was soon joined as the giant fought against the maelstrom of frozen souls with no clear advao either party. Is this some dark god from an age past? It wondered as it thrashed and gnawed. Will it have some terrible trick to py on me like the worm?

  Tenebroum bahat doubt as soon as it appeared. Just because it had beeed in a single fight did not mean all dark gods it entered might have some secret advantage over it. The Lich had sin more than one god already; this was just an opportunity to add another oo its list.

  Surely this soul will be valuable too, it decided. It will have ao questions I have not yet thought of.

  Tenebroum fought back with all its strength. A week ago, or perhaps even a day ago, it might not have beealized enough to face this impossible monster, but if it could attack with fifty arms and legs, then Tenebroum could attack with 100. It o, too.

  Soon, the problem wasn’t the creature it was fag but the avanche of other monstrosities that traveled in its wake. Every minute spent wrestling with an ageless titan was another where it was being gnawed on by a thousand varieties of unnamed beasts.

  That was when Tenebroum withdrew. Not because it was afraid or even because it was losing. What it was engaged in at this moment was very clearly a stalemate that it would eventually win. However, time was not on its side. Just because this thing was the rgest creature to e from the bowels of the earth didn’t mean that it was the rgest thing that would e from them. It would be irouble if two of these nightmare giants appeared.

  So Tenebroum disengaged and moved swiftly back up its borehole to its ir, which was its true pce of power; it left only id enemies in its wake as the tide of monstrosities gave chase. All of these monstrosities were as incorporeal as it was, so her the blockages nor the ice troubled them at all. Instead, it became a mad rush to the surface, though that took several minutes. While the Lich returned, it made a series ent orders to its minions, who extinguished all the fires and hts in the main chambers but lit them ahat the Lich didn’t want these creatures to wander off to.

  They would be entering its sanctum. That much had to happen, but it would not allow them to go ahat would represent a real invenience or dahat would be uable.

  By the time Tenebroum returo the uemple, the stage was set, and the ir was thrumming with power. It was here that it showed off all of the efforts that had goo rebuilding aructuring the edifi the wake of its near death.

  Miles away from its ring, it had only a fra of the power that it had here and now at its heart. The outer ring that taihe eighty-eight golden skulls that were its new phyctery throbbed with so much power that bck lightning arced between the nodes, reying its thoughts instantaneously.

  The Lich had more essehan it had ever thought possible now. It spun like a whirlpool, creating a singurity of power where it now stood, ready for anything. As the dark titan crawled out of the hole that led into the depths, Tenebroum was ready for it. Before, the two of them had been a near match, but now the Lich would rip it to blood shreds after it finished yanking off its prehensile limbs o a time.