Ug’gut’s wicked smile was wide and displayed every pearly sharp tooth in stark detail. How could she not feel exultation? Her enemy was strong, and his hatred for her burned with
a physical heat that rolled over her in waves. It was positively sublime.
Orithrim no longer hid behind boasts and glories long faded. He was present, towering over the land like the mountain of his namesake. His weapon of choice, an ancient blood soaked tree trunk
with a massive tangle of roots serving as its wicked head. The knotted oak cudgel was so steeped in soul energy and Stelae that the fabric of existence groaned as it flashed through a series of complicated feints, chops, and
smashes. The deity of giantkin wielded the thirty ton monstrosity like a dancer’s baton.
Ug’gut’s skin tingled, and she felt the Struggler’s Instinct flare up for the first time in so very long. She might be hurt. She might be squashed into a fine paste at any
second! She was finally just a mere goblin once more, facing down near certain death at the hands of a powerful giant. And just like back then, when the mortal Ug’gut bared her fangs at death, she opened her mouth and
a scream of happiness built into a wild cackling that gave even the rampaging Orithrim pause.
Orithrim’s moment of hesitation lasted less than the blink of an eye. For beings of their caliber, it was an eternity. Ug'gut, seizing that heartbeat of doubt, launched herself forward,
laughing maniacally into the jaws of annihilation.
The ancient tree’s root-bound head crashed down like divine judgment itself, obliterating the earth beneath it into a molten spray of stone and superheated dust. Ug’gut twisted
aside at the very last instant, a streak of brilliant jade-green lightning dancing over the giant’s weapon as it narrowly missed pulverizing her diminutive form.
She ran up the length of the colossal cudgel as if it were no more than a simple bridge, delight etched plainly on her face as she closed the gap to Orithrim’s enormous body.
The giant king snarled and released his weapon, his suddenly free hand lashing out in a backhanded strike powerful enough to swat a mountain from its roots. Ug’gut caught the blow squarely,
arms crossed defensively as the thunderous impact exploded across the battlefield, sending shockwaves rolling outward. She was hurled violently backward, her limbs singing with pain. Yet even within that searing agony, her
smile only widened.
"More, Orithrim! Show me more!" she bellowed with childlike glee, skidding to a halt atop a mound of broken giant bodies. "Don’t hold back. Don’t you dare disappoint
me!"
Orithrim’s voice roared back, echoing like the grinding of tectonic plates. "You’re nothing more than an insane pest, rue the day you awakened this sleeping giant!"
The colossal god threw his hand out wide, calling his weapon back to him. With a deep, resonating boom, the tree wrenched free from its crater, hurtling back toward its master and leaving
devastation in its wake. Orithrim spun in place, catching the handle mid-flight and swinging the thirty-ton bludgeon upward in a fluid, lethal arc.
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"Annihilation!"
Ug’gut met him head-on, her tiny fist aglow with a rapidly intensifying jade energy. They collided in midair—the meeting of goblin fist and ancient cudgel erupting into a storm
of radiant sparks and blinding flashes of power. Reality itself seemed to distort at their clash, the primordial energy woven through both warriors reacting violently.
The weapon splintered, ancient bark and enchanted wood exploding outward, each shard crackling with Stelae-charged energy.
The backlash grievously wounded both combatants. Ug’gut’s left eye was little more than jelly, and she had been pierced through by the oaken shrapnel in a dozen places. She chuckled
and staggered to her feet before spitting a blob of thick blood and a molar onto the smoking stone of the crater floor. Her regeneration was sluggish, the wounds corrupted by her enemy’s killing intent. Yet Ug’gut
was the first to find her feet.
“Not yet.” She growled at the slowly rising silhouette in the dust and smoke. Her wounds slowly became edged in green light, and began to close. “Not yet!” She roared
and a concussive boom echoed out as she launched herself at her enemy with redoubled fury.
Orithrim’s one remaining eye widened in utter disbelief. He had killed her. She was dead. She HAD to be dead! Nothing in any world could have challenged his ultimate blow and lived. What
would it take!? Then she was there, her presence filling the sky and looming over him.
It was then, in that instant of utter despair that it happened. His connection to Kutris was cleanly severed. The man he had betrayed his god for had fully abandoned him in his moment of greatest
need. It felt like a blade of ice dragging up his spine, leaving nothing but an aching numbness in its wake.
Ug’gut’s lightning fast flight was unimpeded. Her eyes were wild with a lust for battle that exceeded anything Orithrim could ever begin to comprehend. A thought struck him then.
" was the one that was small." His voice was barely a whisper.
He finally realized it, in that moment before his doom. All those centuries wasted seething with envy as the little obnoxious goblin was favored over HIM by Polemios. Orithrim was the god of
the greatest of all races and SHE was given the territory nearest the Heart Tree. The sense of injustice had festered in his heart, and he had been all too willing to accept the bait dangled before him by the Betrayer. And
what had it gained him? In the absence of the Worm’s whispers he could clearly see his life over the past centuries, and it made the gorge rise in his throat.
He knew now his folly. Polemios had seen what Orithrim, in his hubris never could. Ug’gut truly was the ideal that every warrior aspired to. If he could be given one more chance, he would
call himself her disciple and throw himself at her little feet...
The blow rang like a tolling bell, resonating through every bone and tendon in the giant king's massive body. Orithrim staggered back, pain and grief etched across his features as he clutched
his cracked breastbone.
"I see you now, great priestess..." He rasped, the rage and arrogance in his voice transforming to respect. He closed his eye and willed the internal hemorrhaging to slow long enough
to make his final thoughts known, though the goblin’s killing intent was making that all but futile. He felt fully helpless, so mired in pain and the vacuum left by the severance of his Soulbrand.
"Never forget." Ug'gut retorted with savage joy. "Ug’gut is the strongest!"
Her laughter was like thunder as she threw her head back, droplets of blood flying from her copper colored mane.
The centuries of listless existence flew away in the afterglow of her victory. This was worship—the purest, most sublime devotion to her god Polemios, expressed through every aching
muscle and drop of spilled blood. And in Orithrim, she finally had found a rare treat: an opponent worthy enough to fully express her faith.
“Now then, finish it.” Orithrim’s voice was steady and he looked at her with steel in his intact right eye.
“Ug’gut has no obligation to put down an injured rabbit.” She scoffed. “Swear your TRUE undying fealty to Polemios, repent for your foolishness, and go die on your
own time.” She turned her back to him and began to swagger into the still settling dust.
Then, abruptly, everything froze. Something terrible was happening. All of Bl?dgard grew as still as a cowering fawn.
A new presence - an abominable corrupted aura, was coming. It was moving many times faster than sound could travel. The aura reeked of the Worm, and yet not - the Cataclysm, and yet not -
a great predator and a stinking reef… Before Ug’gut could even discern the identity of the abomination, it landed on the horizon. A flash preceded a mushroom shaped cloud blooming in the sky. Then came the deafening
blastwave. Ug’gut sighed. A goblin’s work was never done.
