The temple on top of the pyramid looked a lot larger from within than outside.

Victor could have fit two copies of his manor in these golden halls, although the building had clearly degraded over time. A pillar holding the roof had collapsed, wall mosaics had eroded into incomprehensible gibberish, and a thick layer of dust covered the ground. It appeared no one had stepped in this place for eons.

Yet, the sealed evil of El Dorado had made its lair there, waiting on the other side of the hall.

The beast lurking in this hall was a terror to look at. A monstrously long, crimson worm with an armored exoskeleton covering its entire body, the entity had six clawed insect legs to support it and the tail of a scorpion. Six blue eyes circled its mouth, a lamprey-like abyss of golden teeth.

While already an unnatural mishmash of verminous animals, what terrified Victor the most was its size. It was even bigger than Vainqueur, reaching eighty feet in length from the tip of its tail to its mouth.

And yet, the group found it reading a book.

Victor blinked at the surreal sight of a giant abomination even bigger than Vainqueur lifting a book and flipping its pages through telekinesis, paying no attention to its visitors. The Vizier recognized the cover as “The Denial of Death, by Ernest Becker;” with a quick glance, he noticed a tower of volumes, folios, and treaties at the creature’s right, and a smaller pile of miscellaneous toys on the left. They looked a lot like...

“Wait, is that a Super Nintendo?” Allison recognized one of the items on the pile.

Her words echoed through the walls, making the creature peek from his book towards the disparate group crossing the temple’s threshold. “Yes?” the creature sounded like a horde of locusts painfully trying to imitate human words. “What do you want, mortals?”

“Are you the source of the Shiny-ing, wormling?” Vainqueur asked with haughtiness.

“Yes,” the creature replied, not bothered at all by the silly name. It looked a lot like paintings of…

…

Victor activated [Monster Insight], and started praying.

Sablar, God of Destruction

Deity (Insect/Divine)

There is absolutely nothing you can do to me. Go home.

I am the Worm who Eats the World, and I am too lazy to say more.