The night was bleak.

  Even the moon seemed to weep at the nightmare below.

  A village stood desolate and alone. A foul stench pervaded the air, lingering thick and heavy, mellowed only by the suffocating stillness. There was no sound—no animals, no insects, not even the faint scratch of a mouse in the dark.

  Even the orderly lines of ants halted at the threshold, refusing to cross into the forsaken settlement.

  But if you dared approach—

  If you dared to peer—

  You would witness a world of fear.

  Wretched worms filled every abode. Their long, segmented bodies writhed across floors slick with drying gore, savoring the juices left behind. They moved in grotesque synchronicity, a tide of slick flesh sliding through ruin, coated in fetid residue.

  They slithered across ichor and bone alike.

  Their sick determination trampled all obstacles—friend, foe, or wall. They latched on without hesitation, overwhelming resistance through sheer writhing mass. When blocked, they hurled themselves forward in careless compulsion, driven by instinct older than reason.

  Those that reached their source of devotion found their reward.

  By the lake lay decaying forms, bloated and ruptured, leeching revolting succor into the soil. The corpses twitched—not with life, but with intrusion. Beneath skin split and sagging, something shifted. Something fostered within, swelling in grotesque transformation.

  This unfortunate village had been chosen precisely for its isolation.

  Distance from neighboring settlements had been an important criterion for the horrid god who reaped its woeful souls. Itzcamazotz’s repugnant design had begun in earnest, and loathsome though he was, his power was dreadful to behold.

  He threaded corruption into flesh.

  With dexterous, divinity-laced claws, he wove puppets from muscle and bone. He reshaped sinew without restraint, altered marrow without mercy. Each mote of corruption he guided into place stirred a twisted satisfaction within him.

  Above, dark clouds gathered around the mountain peak he claimed as his domain.

  Within his cavern, a macabre ritual strained against the heavens themselves. Power pooled before him—warped, unstable, ready to be bent into dreadful purpose. The forming distortion churned like a living wound in reality, waiting for his contortion.

  He pulled.

  He cursed.

  He wrestled with the odious forces resisting his design.

  His grotesque body quaked under the backlash of repelled divinity, yet he did not relent. Claws carved sigils through blood-slick stone as he forced chaos into conformity.

  He shaped it.

  Compelled it.

  Brought it forth as monstrosity.

  Echoes of power lashed against the cavern walls. The awakening creation lacked discretion, surging wildly against its constraints. With a hiss of irritation and a sigh heavy with condemnation, Itzcamazotz tightened his control and dictated its direction.

  Two minds.

  Two rituals.

  One bloody. One gory.

  Both Itzcamazotz reveled in the swelling commotion of their labors.

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  They were enthralled by it.

  Overjoyed for the glory to come.

  The worms that multiplied below and the nascent, self-sufficient creation forming above would ensure boundless propagation. No longer would reliance bind him. No longer would fracture weaken him.

  What he forged now would feed itself.

  And from that endless cycle of corruption, dominion would bloom.

  -

  Camazotz watched as his worms steadily grew.

  Through each of them, he monitored the steady influx of corruption—measuring it, savoring it. Every infected host was a conduit, every pulse of agony a tribute. Their suffering filled him with indescribable euphoria. How he adored the whispers their souls emitted as he fed—pleas for mercy trembling between each metaphysical bite.

  He lingered on those sounds.

  His worms were superior to Itzcamazotz’s crude brood. Hardier. More adaptable. A refined strain he had cultivated in secrecy, kept apart from the lesser masses. A special breed that, once matured fully, would make him immensely proud.

  Camazotz clacked his mandibles in a rhythm of private satisfaction.

  His multifaceted eyes absorbed every writhing motion of his brood. He perceived them all simultaneously—their delicate bodies twisting within the skulls of their victims, burrowing through gray matter, rooting themselves deep. Each parasitic bloom reminded him of Mort.

  Of betrayal.

  Of interference.

  And of that lesser goddess Mort had somehow bound to himself.

  With her present, subduing the mortal would prove more troublesome—unless Camazotz intervened personally. That, however, was undesirable. Revealing himself fully would draw attention from other gods already stirring at the edges of his domain.

  No.

  Let Itzcamazotz handle the insignificant chosen.

  Camazotz had far greater matters to attend to.

  Already the monkey and the bird circled the region he had once used as shelter. They had burned everything—forest, huts, even the surrounding fields. An indiscriminate purge.

  Had he not guided his worms before that catastrophic cleansing, the entire village would have been annihilated prematurely. Too many of his brood would have perished alongside their precious nest and source of sustenance.

  Loss without gain irritated him.

  Suddenly, his neck snapped sideways.

  A particularly fat, sluggish turtle drifted too close along the lakebed. Its shell cracked between his mandibles with a wet crunch. His proboscis unfurled smoothly, piercing flesh with effortless precision. Even submerged at the bottom of the murky lake, motionless and concealed, Camazotz did not neglect to feed.

  The meat was bland.

  The life force thin.

  It barely dulled the gnawing void within him.

  His hunger was never truly physical. Nourishment drawn from corruption and suffering was the only sustenance that brought fleeting satisfaction. Even then, it was never enough.

  Never complete.

  Never satiating.

  And so Camazotz resumed his quiet guidance. Through whispers and instinctual compulsions, he nudged his living, infected horde toward greener—more densely populated—pastures.

  Where suffering would be richer.

  And his feast, far grander.

  ---

  Mort descended to stand among the villagers, watching as the last of the worms was purified in flame.

  The fire was already beginning to subside, no longer raging but steady—controlled. The cuauhxicalli statue had leveled the bowl in her hands, holding it upright and firm. At its center, the rose-colored blaze danced in calm equilibrium.

  The sacred flame drank deeply from the faith-saturated air.

  Everything claimed by the goddess was drawn inward—fear, grief, doubt—purified within the blaze and transmuted into rose-hued divinity. Polluted emotions were not discarded, but refined.

  Corruption found no refuge here.

  Any lingering intrusion was swallowed by the pyre the moment it surfaced, captured within a sacred cycle that would nourish the village indefinitely—so long as faith endured.

  Renata stepped out from Mort’s gem and came to stand beside him. Her long dress glimmering from the divinity coating it. Abundant divinity allowed Renata to add a bit more to her height.

  She reached out and grabbed hold of Mort's hand. Mesmerized by the sight of resplendent colors in the sky. Faith that pervaded the village air swirled and gathered. Then, it rained down permeating everything around.

  The thorned armor that had encased Mort dissolved into drifting petals, scattering gently among the villagers. The fragments floated like a quiet blessing, settling upon shoulders and hair alike.

  The people remained immersed in soft, rosy emotion. The terror of the earlier battle had already faded, washed clean by awe. The soft divinity covered them, easing their souls.

  Soon with the help of the calming rain, fervor bloomed.

  They felt only gratitude—devotion growing warmer with each breath. Many wept openly at the miracle before them. Mort had not merely saved them.

  He had claimed them.

  Every soul present now stood firmly within his faith.

  Todloc trembled with joy. Life had granted them a future. It had delivered Mort to their hour of need. The power flowing within the former priest bore testimony to that truth. It pulsed steady and warm—no longer fractured, no longer hollow.

  Mort did not hoard his divinity.

  He spread it.

  Small, budding blessings shimmered faintly upon each villager’s forehead, subtle marks of consecration. Nourished by the cuauhxicalli standing in tranquil contentment beside the lake, the blessings took root.

  They would grant protection.

  Strength.

  Perhaps even the possibility of something greater.

  For the first time, this village was no longer prey.

  It was becoming sacred ground.