"The Worm" is mentioned throughout the Books of Sorrow. Within Fundament, the planetary gas giant that the three Krill sisters were born on, there resided a heart of Darkness, and within that were nestled "The Worm gods". Akka, Eir, Ur, Yul, and Xol. These beings, as we Guardians are chosen as surrogates for the Light, the Worms are representatives of the Darkness. They are not the Darkness itself, but they had been gifted its power. The "Honest" worm is mentioned earlier on in the narrative. This was an offspring of one of the gods, who was sent to the surface in order to lure creatures down to the centre, in order for the gods to attain their freedom. The Leviathan, an immensely powerful creature of the Light, had sealed them within the planet in the hopes that they would never wreak havoc upon the universe again. Once the three Krill sisters had been successfully lured to the core, the Worm gods struck a deal with them - abandon the Sky (Light) for the Deep (Darkness), ingest the Worm larvae given to them (the children of the Worm gods) and the sisters would become powerful beyond their wildest imaginations. Aurash (Oryx), Sathona (Savathun), and Xi Ro (Xivu Arath) ate the young of the Worm gods, and used this newly acquired power to conquer Fundament. In the process of killing millions, they became more powerful to the point where they could tear holes in reality. They used this ability to set the gods free. - Now, how the Worms work that are inside the Hive: When the sisters accepted the bargain, they were provided with "Worms" for their whole race. They brought these larvae back to their people and insisted that they consume them. In that instance, they went from being the Krill to the Hive (not exactly as we know them today, but definitely closer). Each Hive has a "Worm" fed to them when they are born. This Worm then grows inside of them, granting them access to the Darkness that the Worms are connected to. The stronger the Worm inside of a Hive, the more powerful that Hive becomes. The way that the Worms become stronger? Their host Hive has to kill. A lot. The more a Worm grows, the hungrier it gets. If a Hive can't keep feeding their Worm, the Worm starts devouring the host. That's why Oryx has a massive hole in his chest in the King's Fall raid. - Where are the Worm gods now? We don't know for certain. We do know that they followed the Hive for many, many years. Akka was killed by Oryx so that he could acquire the power to "take", and then a piece lf its body was used to make the Dreadnaught. The others? Three possibilities. 1. The Moon (highly unlikely). 2. Chillin' in space (possible). 3. Caged up by Xivu Arath (highly likely). The reason why it's not 100% with the third option is that we know that Xivu Arath [i]intended[/i] to cage them, but we do not know as to whether or not she was successful. We shall see when Xivu Arath, the Knight god kills us all in a sequel. She's going to be both terrifying and awesome - it'll be great. - Sorry if I went a bit overboard with the answer. Hope it helped!

Wow, insanely informative. Props to you for being able to dissect all that, I wish all this story was in the actual gameplay instead of just grimoire. It also makes sense how we as little guardians were able to defeat oryx. Don't get me wrong, guardians are great but oryx is a whole new level of badass.

If you want, I can explain how exactly Oryx was defeated in his entirety, but quick warning - it'll be another spiel. I can kind of understand why they didn't include this content in the game; it's super hardcore sci-fi, as I'm sure you noticed when you tried reading it. The concepts are... very out-there. I'm kinda just glad that they put as much into The Taken King as they did. As a lore fanatic, it was amazing - the hold X/[] to scan segments, the different locations that appear in lore, the detailed quests, even the fact that Oryx actually shows signs of erosion. Loved it. Destiny 2 is going to be amazing! (Hahaha, sorry - went off on a tangent...)

How was oryx defeated? The "worm" in him seems to be fighting him, allowing for brief moments of vulnerability. But still, touch of malice can only do so much against a close to God.

Could you explain how we killed him.

Sure! So, as I explained before, the power of the Worm grows stronger and hungrier the more that it is fed by death. This posed a large problem for Oryx - his Worm was growing at a rate that he couldn't possibly keep up with. In order to combat this, he created the "tithe" system. This was essentially a pyramid system in which the lowest life form offers part of their kill essence up the pyramid towards the strongest. The Thrall would kill something, hold onto enough "death" to satiate their Worm and help it grow, then offer the rest of that energy to the Acolytes. The Acolytes would do the same, then deliver their tithe to the Wizards and Knights. At this point, the Wizards and Knights would follow suit, and offer the rest to the "Ascended" Hive. Yellow bar "named" Hive bosses are usually Ascended. They are the Hive that have moved past the point of normalcy through the extended consumption of "death". Next in the pyramid, and the most important part of this explanation, is Oryx's "Court". All of the bosses in the Court of Oryx, Warpriest, Golgoroth, Ir Halak, Ir Anuk, and Crota, were all part of this level in the pyramid that connects Oryx to the rest of the Hive. With all of these offerings moving up the pyramid; from Thrall, to Acolytes, to Knights/Wizards, to the Ascended, to the Court, to Oryx - Oryx didn't have to constantly kill to stay alive. His Worm was satiated by the millions upon millions of tithes that were delivered through this system. We ruined everything when we wiped out his Court. First, we killed his son, Crota. We then wiped out all of the bosses in the Court of Oryx. Warpriest and Golgoroth soon followed. Finally, we killed his two daughters; Ir Halak and Ir Anuk. Without this link in the pyramid, Oryx's Worm was starving. Quickly. Believe it or not, but lore theorists believe that we didn't even have to kill Oryx - the Worm would've killed him. If you've played the King's Fall raid all the way through, you'll notice that Oryx's chest is ripped open. That wound wasn't from when he teleported himself deeper into his Throne World in the "Regicide" mission (as some make the mistake of assuming), that's from where he's being eaten alive. In the raid, we detonate Light that has become corrupted after it was consumed by Ogres. Ogres are Thrall that are twisted by Hive arcana, so it's assumed that after they've consumed it, it becomes polluted through how corrupted the creatures are. By exposing Oryx's Worm in his chest to this "poisoned" offering, we damage the Worm, which is Oryx's power. Once we kill the Worm in his chest, Oryx can no longer survive as it was entirely the source of his power. It was like ripping out his batteries. So in conclusion, we killed the bosses that were giving Oryx the energy that his Worm needed. This lead to the Worm turning on its host, which in turn, weakened Oryx substantially - he was already dying by the time we got to him. The hole that the Worm had left exposed in Oryx's chest allowed us to kill the Worm. Without the Worm to sustain his power, Oryx could not be sustained; died, and now floats toward Saturn as a giant husk. [spoiler]Fun fact: we believe that part of Oryx's Worm was saved by the Guardian and placed inside the Touch of Malice exotic.[/spoiler] Really sorry for how long this turned out, but I hope it helped you make sense of his death.

If part of oryx's worm was stored in touch of malice, wouldn't it grow every time you get a kill, until it devours the gun, and probably becoming a massive worm. Or is the amount of health you lose each shot for firing past 1 enough to feed it but also make it grow at a manageable rate?

The only thing I understand, from the forums at least, is that after Crota die it was a substantial loss to the hive which weakened oryx's power. Then as we go through the raid and kill the warpriest, gorlgoroth, and the sisters, we put him in his weakest state and by some miracle we were able to defeat him. I think it's great how much depth and thought was put into the storyline, and I definitely get how this would drastically alter a game story line- a whole lot of cutscenes and holding X to scan text. I know the game was written in it's entirety at once, and we were given it as expansions, I too am curious where destiny 2 will pick back up with this new story.