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_While Heaven burns, ancient lusts for power reawaken: the empire is falling apart, but everyone still wants to be emperor. _

*Chapter 62 - The battle of Kemuel *

Killer and Alexis appeared first, their powerful black wings flapping once as they steadied their position. They had teleported to a point at some distance from Kemuel, so to have a chance of taking a closer look and perhaps put together some kind of plan of action. But for a moment, all they could do was look out towards Kemuel with horror, as the gigantic, miles-tall Sacred Tree burned, the town nestled on its branches falling apart as it was devoured by the mighty, ferocious flames, the suspended bridges connecting the various branches falling into the abyss as the fire consumed the ropes.

Angels dared the flames and the dark smoke to fly down into the streets to pick up as many Benevolents as they could, trying to save them: they did not have wings, and there was no way for them to escape the apocalypse on their own, being as they were hundreds of miles above the ground. However, the brave attempts of the angels were being frustrated by the fury of the Elements, as the flames roared and shot out towards them as if alive and cruelly aware, trying to burn the angels whole. Winds of tremendous violence fed the fire and slammed into the angels at the same time, blowing them back, almost cutting their wings right off as feathers were torn loose and the sharp gushes of cold air cut like blades into skin and flesh. Enormous shards of cruel ice, as sharp as blades and harder than steel, were flung around viciously by the roaring wind, in a sort of hurricane blizzard which tore the angels apart, sending broken bodies falling to the ground like bloody meteors, leaving behind streaks of blood across the sky.

The Holy Tree itself fought the angels back, even as mages tried to summon water to shut the fire: the immense tree groaned angrily, audibly, crying in pain and rage at the same time as it swung branches which had the size of skyscrapers through the air, swatting angels out of the sky like flies whenever they failed to get out of the way quickly enough, as sturdy green lianas stretched out like tentacles, seeking to bind angels and benevolents, seeking to strangle them, dragging them into the fire.

The whole jungle all around the Holy Tree was an inferno of fire, the flames engulfing the gigantic trees without destroying them, as the immense plants tore their roots out of the ground and moved, their heavy, slow steps echoing with all their weight as the trees turned into deadly, furious beasts, pursuing angels and strangling them, or stomping them into splatters of gore, slapping them away like flies, as arrows and swords and bullets only scratched the thick, ancient trunks.

Alexis looked down at the forest, her eyes seeing easily through fire, smoke and through the dome of branches and leaves, her energy-vision sixth sense allowing her to easily map out the presences of other monstrosities, as the jungle's animals mutated into far larger, deadly creatures which assaulted the angels in waves. Portals kept opening in the jungle around the Holy Tree, vomiting out regiments of Paladins sent by the Council, or perhaps by Typhon in person, the heavily armoured clones engaging battle with the trees and mutated animals but, unlike the angels, showing no interest at all in the shrieks of agony and despair coming from the burning town above.

The most impressive sight of all, however, was Gaia herself, the goddess having grown far taller than even the Holy Tree, her body keeping its slender beauty even as her features turned feral, furious, her eyes glowing with a murderous white light as she smashed world-shattering punches into an invisible wall of energy which repelled her blows, crackling with blue discharges of electricity with every fearsome impact, protecting the tree from her fury even as her control of Nature mutated the plant and even encased it in a mantle of fire. She was clad in armour made of enormous plates of dark stone streaked with rivers of burning magma, thick and yet form-fitting, shaped perfectly over her body. The heavy plates were held together by a layer of clear, cold water which acted like the most flexible and form-fitting of tactical vests, encasing her joints and her fingers to give her protection and the destructive power of the ocean, while doing nothing to obstacle her movements.

"Is she... trying to destroy the Holy Tree...?" Killer wondered, confused as to why she - or Shi, as he was the one in actual control of her body now - would want that.

"So it seems." Alexis agreed, before snorting: "Do not ask me why, though. There must be something we do not know."

Adrasthea, Alcana and Ira appeared a moment later, easily hovering nearby as they took their own look at the situation. They had decided to teleport to a position mid-way between Eaglenest and Kemuel, to avoid popping up in the very middle of the slaughter. They would make the final approach flying, or going on the ground if tactically advantageous.

A white, swirling portal opened an instant later, and Vesta and Manticora came out of it, taking position as Vesta pulled up on Killer's left side, saying easily: "Remember to include teleport in my gift pack when you finally decide to make a collar for me."

She was back to seriousness immediately, however, scanning the horizon as Gaia landed another smashing blow towards the Holy Tree, and enormous lightning bolts crackled up her arm as a translucent, indestructible dome of energy revealed itself for a moment, repealing her with a blast of force which traveled across the sky all the way up to Killer and the others, forcing them to flap their might wings to hold steady as they were blown backwards.

"Any idea about what is going on...?" Killer urgently asked as they all launched forwards, flapping their mighty wings to shoot towards the battle as quickly as they could fly. Vesta shook her head, replying: "Not really. The Holy Tree has always been one of the most celebrated and protected landmarks in Heaven, but Lord God has never explained exactly why the tree is so important. It is a secret he always kept to Himself."

"That barrier is no Metatron's magic, Lord Killer. Gaia in this moment could smash through the Metatron's most powerful magic without even noticing it... that barrier is a protection put up by Lord God himself. The magic protections put up by the Metatrons are already in tatters, but that shield still stands." Adrasthea added, and Killer nodded, quickly considering their options before muttering: "Right, I hope it can gain us enough time, then. Let's get the people of Kemuel out of that inferno, first of all." The god focused, closing his eyes and trying to seize into the energy of the benevolents and angels in the town to teleport them to safety... but as much as he tried, he realized with despair that something was forcing him back, making it impossible to reach them. His eyes snapped open, and he turned to Alexis with a pleading look... but the goddess turned to look at him with a shake of her head.

"I can't either. God's barrier might prevent the use of such power in the area of Kemuel. Probably to make it impossible for an assaulter to just teleport the defenders out of the way or something..." The femme fatale said, as they flew towards the Tree, their eyes following the shrieking meteors of Benevolents falling from the ruined town, burning like candles, as desperate angels did all they could to help, even as all of Nature fought them back with bitter hate. The only reason they weren't deafened by shrieks of agony was that the fury of nature was far louder, and its roar blotted out every other noise. They had to stay very close, and shout, just to barely hear each other, even at that distance.

"We will need to evacuate the town with more traditional methods." Killer muttered, making a grimace at the awareness that it was going to be a more complicated and slower affair. "I will try and tackle Gaia. You bring the people out of Kemuel. And Alexis, I need you to connect me and Gaia. I don't think we can hold her for too long, at this power level."

"It is far from her maximum, too." Vesta warned, looking at all of them with a serious expression. "I can assure you that she is still resisting Shi, and keeping much of her power locked. We have to stop him before he manages to take over her more completely... or we won't ever again have a chance to do it."

Killer repressed a shiver of mixed fear and lust as he heard that warning, wincing as Gaia lashed out another punch into the barrier, and the shockwave of the tremendous blow rammed into them like a train, forcing them back even as they flapped their wings with all of their strength to continue moving onwards...

Killer felt his lungs violently deflated, all air leaving his mouth as he groaned and felt his bones creaking, feathers torn off his dark wings, and he looked over his shoulder with a grunt of shock as the mountain rising out of the jungle loudly cracked, rocky cliffs tearing in half down the middle like they were made of brittle glass. The angels caught outside the barrier, carrying Benevolents in their arms and on their backs, were blown apart into splatters of blood and gore, as the walking trees and monsters and Paladins battling on the ground were similarly annihilated, blown into clouds of dust and bloody shreds of flesh as the ground itself was scorched and leveled, leaving behind a dead, burn-out plain of ashes and dust.

It made Killer shiver, the huge male amazed by the immense power in Gaia's hand, and by the awareness that it was just a small part of it still... and there was lust in him, as well as horror, as he realized how strong she was, how she could effortlessly reshape the universe. As Nature personified, she couldn't be rivaled in terms of elemental control, and she could warp whole planets into her weapons. She could bend the laws of the universe to fit her every whim... and the realization was mind-blowing. He could think of nothing they would be able to do if Gaia was to completely lose control. All of Heaven, from the ground to the sky, would have turned on them, intent on destroying them. There would have been no escape. It was a fearsome thought... and yet, also an arousing one. Killer almost wished, foolishly, to see Gaia losing control. He was fascinated by such immense power, excited by it. He was envious, he craved it... and part of his lust, his very physical desire, was actually due to the awareness that, within his reach, there was equal power. He was actually supposed to become even stronger, even thought it didn't felt possible to him, as he reasoned still very much like he was a mortal. Like he didn't have any immense power, so great that the gods had felt the need to Seal it away with seven different chains as soon as he was born.

He shut his eyes tightly for a moment, forcing that insane lust out of his mind, trying to clear his thoughts as he slammed his powerful, enormous wings to steady his course and regain speed. He opened his eyes a short moment later, and turned to the side to see how the others were doing: Alexis was unsurprisingly nearly unfazed by the massive shockwave. Like him, she had merely been smashed backwards, but without major damage. Ira also held up well, her new body of goddess giving her a strength and durability which closely rivaled Alexis's and Killer's... but he did not see Vesta and Manticora. He sensed their presence at the same time, though, and he gazed over his shoulder, to see Vesta flying in his wake. She gave him a reassuring nod, but she was panting a bit, winded by the massive impact... Vesta was a demi-goddess, not a full goddess, but she was an exceptionally sturdy and powerful one, and Killer knew well that she could take a lot of punishment and still strike back with game-ending force.

As the queen of Seraphims veered slightly to the side, she revealed Manticora, who flew all the way behind, the seraphim rubbing the back of her wrist over her muzzle, drying a streak of blood leaking from her nose. Manticora was also a demi-goddess, being the daughter of Typhon and Echidna, a demoness, but she wasn't quite as sturdy as Vesta. She was plenty strong, but among them she was currently the one exposed to the greatest danger. Her body was muscular and potent, but of all of them, she was undoubtedly the less resistant.

"Stay behind me!" Killer shouted, trying to keep a steady flight and extending his wings fully, to form a better shield in front of the two females. Manticora gave him the thumb up from the back, grinning a little and shaking her head slightly, her eyes glowing gamely, to signal that she was far from deterred, and he smiled a bit, loving her determination and courage, but nonetheless shouting: "Go right for the barrier, and into it. I need you to get the people out of Kemuel, quickly. I don't know how much longer we can keep that tree standing!" He did not say that he wanted her into the barrier so she would be more protected. That would sting her pride... but on the other hand, he had no doubts about her being aware of that additional, hidden reason for rushing into Kemuel.

As they flew closer to the centre of the apocalyptic fight, the heat became almost unbearable. The flames roared with deafening force from beneath as the forest was consumed by dark, supernatural fire, even as the air lashed against them like a thousand whips, all of them made of ice. It was a torturing, unbearable mix of extreme heat and extreme cold, which sucked the air out of lungs and made bodies shiver and tremble even as sweat rolled down copiously. Killer's breath instantly froze as it came out of his nose, and he found himself gaping in debt of air... he didn't technically need to breathe, but his mortal life was still too recent, too ingrained in his being, and he still struggled not to. It felt so unnatural, it disturbed him every time he tried. Now, though, he regretted not being able to better control his instincts, as every breath he took only brought pain and weakness, instead of life, and he scrambled to stop his lungs.

He closed his eyes for a moment, pushing out all the icy, stinging air from his chest, but he had little time to focus, his eyes snapping open again as he threw himself to the side just in time to avoid a massive beast which shot up from the burning forest, aiming for him.

Killer grunted as he had a flash of sharp, polished talons slashing at the air where his head had been a moment before, his hands going directly for the handles of the Azura blades, carried in an X over the larger Wyvern, resting on his back. He swung them hard upwards as he smoothly pulled them out of their sheaths, and he grinned as both blades met their target... before grunting as they met more resistance than expected, clanging loudly into some kind of terribly resistant metal, instead of flesh, sparkles falling down from above as the beast screeched angrily and flapped its huge wings, trying to soar higher, while simultaneously lunging down to peck his face right off.

Killer's eyes flashed angrily as he saw the enormous, armoured beak lashing down towards his face, seeing the thick, sharp mass of the enormous jaws and the thorns and talons jutting crudely out of the edges of them. A wall of energy crackled into being as the mutated, monstrous beast smashed its beak down, hitting twice, thrice in rapid succession, before the monster's tongue shot out, resembling a tentacle as but made of sharp, segmented blocks of silvery metal, and this too rammed into the barrier.

"I can do that too, you know...?" Killer growled, his enormous biceps bulging with power as his wrists rotated expertly, sinking both Azura blades through the wings of the beast, while the liger's jaws opened wide and his black-fleshed tongue shot forwards, lengthening and forming a tentacle with a thick, sharp conical end of solid, deadly metal-like bone.

The tentacle shot right into the open beak, piercing through the palate and across the skull, tearing out of the other side, sending fragments of silvery metal spraying all around as the beast let out a howl of agony, its wings chopped right off as the Azura blades completed their movement... and a moment later the body of the monstrosity began to fall to the ground as Killer's tongue retreated and the huge male moved past, climbing on top of the agonizing monster and stomping on its back, sending it falling even faster to crash into the burning forest below.

Killer realized only a moment too late that the wings, however, weren't falling. He wrapped his own body within his huge wings just in time to parry a hail of enormous metallic daggers and shrapnel as both wings exploded like mines, blasting their fragments all into him, black feathers torn off his wings as hundreds of burning slivers pierced into them.

He flapped his enormous wings, shooting higher into the sky and looking around himself as more and more of the metallic, mutated beasts shot up from the forest: every parrot and bird of what had been such a luscious, wonderful jungle had now turned into monsters, caged into feathers made of metal and sharper than razors. Four immediately shot towards him only to be impaled by spiked tentacles stretching out of his back, while he twisted around to let the fourth shot by, chopping the spike-tongue into half with a quick upper slash of one Azura blade, before neatly swinging it down and through the mutated beast's back, pulling the sharp blade down along the bird's spine and slicing it in half like a sheet of paper.

Several more dived towards him from above, spreading their wings and shooting out their metal feathers like they were arrows, forcing him to knock the shrapnel off with quick, precise swings of one Azura blade, while he charged energies into the other, swinging it in midair and sending a crescent shaped blade of golden, crackling energy shooting through the sky to tear the beasts apart.

He grunted in appreciation, finding that the two twin swords were very effective, and particularly useful for long range attacks: they were excellent channels for energy, and already he was in total control of them. Handling was excellent. The blocky, massive blades made them very heavy at the tip, but that was actually an advantage. Their unbalanced nature could be exploited to add power to even the laziest swing. The concept was similar to that of Wyvern, but his massive sword had a blade bigger than both Azuras combined. Wyvern was brutal force, while the Azuras were nimbler, making for a very good mix of effects.

He moved backwards with a grunt as now huge, glowing arrows charged with electricity shot up towards them, and he looked down to see the Paladins engaged in battle with the mutated animals and with the force of Nature itself, as the ground cracked and rattled under their feet, turning into magma, or into ice, melting dozens of clones into nothingness. The Paladins tried to fly away from the incandescent magma, but golems made of semi-molten rock jumped out of the red ocean of fire to seize them and drag them down to their deaths, while others were frozen into place, their legs encased in thick, almost indestructible icebergs, just so they could all be burned into ashes.

Even then, even as they were torn apart by the jungle and very earth turning against them, dozens of the Paladins apparently had decided that it was very worthwhile to fire against Killer, sending volleys of spear-sized arrows in his direction.

"Don't you have anything better to do...?" Killer grumbled, swatting arrows off the sky with the flat of the Azura blades, before swinging both downwards, channeling energy through them and sending two beams of blinding light cutting through the burning forest, tearing trees into halves like they were toothpicks, as the Paladins and monsters caught in the blasts were vaporized.

Making their way towards the Holy Tree continued to be a nightmare, however, as every single bird in the vast jungle seemed to have turned into a car-sized monstrosity, and they all charged against them with ferocious, suicidal determination. Far below, monkeys and panthers and rats and snakes and everything in between had also been warped and turned into gigantic, murderous beasts which were ravaging the formations of Paladins sent by the Council. Portals continued to flash open all around the many miles of circumference of the Holy Tree's trunk, and platoons and even whole regiments of the heavily armoured angels were vomited out of them... but as fearsome as the Paladins could be, the fury of the jungle was far worse. Particularly devastating were some rhinos which had been warped into truck-sized monstrosities covered in spikes and ragged metal blades, their already solid skin having mutated into an unholy mix of stone and primordial metal. They shrugged off the Paladin's arrows and javelins and bullets like they would shrug off flies, and their charge was almost unstoppable, as they gored dozens of angels charging headlong into their lines, tearing formations apart and crushing soldiers under their giant, heavy feet.

Worse than those, there were the trees. Mile-tall trees which, even burning furiously, wrapped in dark fire, walked forwards on immense, tentacle-like roots which stretched for miles in every direction. The Paladins brought forwards mages and heavy artillery, but there seemed to be no way at all to stop that sluggish but devastating offensive. Every branch and liana had turned into a deadly tentacle, slashing through the Paladins' ranks and tearing bodies apart, as other angels were caught, hauled into the air and hang, leaving hundreds of corpses dangling from every gigantic tree.

On the ground, things looked simply horrendous. Killer was astonished at the devastation he saw, and they had to be very careful, because thick, enormous liana kept shooting up into the sky as well, trying to drag them down to earth, to meet doom.

Thick, enormous tentacles made of multiple lianas wrapped together moved like snakes into the sky, forcing them to take evasive maneuvers, especially as each huge tendril was completely covered in steel-like thorns leaking with a dark, acid poison strong enough to melt the metal of armors, and dig deep into the flesh. Manticora swung her twin Khukri blades in, the two short daggers cutting into the sides of an enormous tentacle and slicing it neatly in half as her strong biceps flexed. The severed half of the tentacle writhed like an alive thing, before exploding in a hailstorm of smaller but still dangerous tendrils, while the bottom half, still attached to the tree down below, continued to grow, stretching higher up into the sky to follow her, as the wound in it opened like a mouth, the jaws made of spiked tendrils.

The zebra flapped her wings and shot upwards, away from the tentacles that tried to wrap around and tear into her legs, snarling as she stomped one heavy, armoured hoof onto the mouth of the monstrosity, sending it falling back with a whine of pain. She gritted her sharp teeth as falling, thorn-filled tendrils fell around her, wrapping around every bit of her body that they could reach, the poison biting into her flesh after melting her armor in several places even as she flexed her powerful musculature, snapping many of the tendrils, ripping them apart with the way her muscles bulged out.

She ignored the rest, flipping in midair as she sheathed the Khukris and pulled out her huge longbow in a single, smooth movement, her strong arm moving back as she pulled the strong chord, one arrow of pure energy appearing in position... and she let this shot forwards as the severed tentacle lunged towards her again.

The arrow smashed right down into the "mouth" of the thing, and it pierced deep down the tentacle's body, light shining bright through the lianas before the dart exploded in a massive blast, sending fragments hailing down all over the forest below. Manticora had already fired another four arrows in the same brief time, nailing tentacles together in pairs and grinning as they exploded into shreds, as she flapped her mighty wings to get to the barrier as quickly as she could.

More tentacles shot up at them from the forest, but Alcana flew forwards this time and spun with a roar, her heavy halberd in her hands, the thick blade chopping through monsters and tentacles and sending all falling to the ground in pieces. The goddess did not dare using her dragon fire, however. Normally, it would have been the most natural choice against such enemies, but the tentacles were often already on fire, and clearly not suffering because of it. Using any kind of elemental attack, indeed, was pretty much out of the question: they were up against Gaia, the true mistress of the elements, and any attempt to use fire was almost certainly going to backfire spectacularly. She Turned backwards as she sensed another wave of tentacles and monsters incoming, and she swung the heavy, enormous weapon backwards and upwards, the hooked blade tearing into the front of a mutated gorilla who had been turned into a drooling 30-foot tall boulder of impossible, grotesque muscles, its arms ending in saber-like talons made of rusty metal, its head deformed by jaws which had grown to thrice their original size, jutting with triple rows of curved fangs which bit even into the gorilla's own flesh, its cheeks torn apart and showing the cruel teeth.

It howled in fury, swinging its arms wildly towards Alcana, but the goddess only snorted in contempt as she used the pole of her halberd as an axis and swung her body up, stomping both feet right into its face, knocking dozens of poisoned fangs flying out with a splatter of blood and bone fragments.

She grinned as she let her body dance around the pole of the huge weapon, swinging around it and letting go of it to flip once in midair, landing back on top of it with both feet. Her stomp sent the halberd's blade ripping upwards, tearing the gorilla in half in a splatter of gore... and she seized the halberd in one hand, slashing out with the flat of the blade to knock both halves away from her before they exploded, firing shrapnel in every direction.

A dozen mutated, gigantic parrots came up next, screaming at her even as they carried up into the sky another monstrous monkey, their cruel talons biting deep into the shoulders of the fellow monstrosity. This other gorilla was somewhat smaller, but it had already been wounded by some kind of high caliber weapon which had actually only made it stronger, since each wound had horrendously mutated into an additional, huge mouth lined with sword-like fangs.

She made a grimace at this, throwing herself backwards with a single beat of her powerful wings, before holding out one hand as she said coldly: "Didn't they told you...? I'm the goddess of love. I know everything about heartaches." The gorilla only howled at her angrily, clawing at the air to try and grab her... before it froze with a gargle, looking down in shock as its chest burst open, its ribcage forced out to the opposite sides like it was the wrap of a candy, before the large, beating earth of the beast was torn out in a splatter of dark blood, the organ floating towards Alcana's hand, before she balled her fingers into a fist, and it imploded, falling to the ground far below as unrecognizable crimson pulp.

The beast gaped breathlessly for a few moments... but Alcana's eyes opened wide as ugly, fat pale maggots immediately developed inside the flesh and muscle of the monster, the vermin thrusting into the remaining organs, biting into nerves and dozens of them rushing up the dead body's throat, all the way up into the brain.

The corpse moved again, the gorilla leaping forwards with a roar of fury, even as the eyes remained fixed and empty, devoid of life. The cracked ribs, sticking out to the sides, lengthened and turned into fangs themselves, as the enormous wound stretching from groin to throat became an oversized mouth leaking with flesh-eating maggots.

Alcana did not retreat, even if she made a grimace of distaste, charging instead forwards and stomping on one enormous arm of the undead beast, hearing the bones cracking as her steel-soled boots bit cruelly into flesh and muscle. The zombie monster swung its other enormous arm up, trying to grab her and shove her into the ungodly chest-mouth, the rib-fangs snapping in anticipation, but the goddess windmilled her halberd in front of herself, and chopped both arms off, before flipping backwards, kicking both feet into the muscular body, sending it crashing backwards down the sky.

Mutated birds rushed to the rescue, as others assaulted Alcana, but Manticora shot up from below, winking to the goddess as she arched her back and then flexed powerfully, taking on a bodybuilder pose as she slammed her mighty firsts together. Her black and white mane, and the spikes down her tail, all turned into black steel darts, shooting outwards in a hail of death: the spikes tore through the gorilla, through tentacles and through birds, slamming all of them back and tearing them into shreds.

A moment later, as Manticora and Alcana turned back to back to fight back other monstrosities coming up from the burning forest, the undead gorilla tried once more to get to them, climbing up an enormous tentacle. It was oblivious even to the cruel thorns tearing into its flesh and filling him with poison. If anything, the maggots seemed to gorge even on the poison, using it to grow their host even larger, muscles bulging even thicker, even as dark, dead blood spurted out of the countless wounds.

"We can't kill Nature." Alcana snarled, turning to face the threat once more. "Nature has workarounds even for death. It can create, warp, mutate life. If we don't stop Gaia, this process will never end!"

The enormous gorilla, now more than forty foot tall, lunged against them with a roar, but Alcana did not need to do anything, as a gigantic bolt of energy cracked loudly down from above, smashing into the monster and tearing it to shreds, carrying the broken, bloody pieces of flesh and bone down to the ground beneath. The beam of force struck like a lightning bolt, but it exploded with far greater, devastating force, a blast of white light vaporizing giant trees and tentacles and countless mutated animals, as Adrasthea dived down from the sky, driving her spear down with a roar.

The beam of energy was like a solid, miles-long extension of the spear, and it drove deep into the earth, setting huge slaps of stone moving, shifting and cracking as the ground itself revolted under such power, the goddess' energies flooding under the surface of the Fourth Sky and then exploding upwards, annihilating entire formations of Paladins and the monsters they were battling against.

"Just hit them as hard as you can, and tear open a passage to the Holy Tree!" The goddess of strategy shouted, ripping her spear backwards only to spin on herself, huge round shield raised and glowing with energy, crackling with pure force which a moment later was focused into a massive beam which melted and dissolved everything it touched, clearing a vast swath of sky from tentacles and monstrosities.

Manticora and Alcana flew towards Adrasthea, following her and flying as quickly as they could, as already new waves of enemies charged from below to try and close the gap they had just opened... but Manticora started nailing them one by one with accurate, quick bow shots, while Adrasthea used her shield and spear to send blasts of energy tearing through the burning forest, turning the giant trees into nothing but fine ashes. Alcana's eyes glowed as she stretched her hands out towards the ground, and tendrils of energy stretched from her fingers, ending in spikes which crackled with focused force. They shot down into the forest, tearing through branches and roots, and wrapped around the bases of four of the largest walking trees. The dragoness grinned at that, pulling on the ropes twice to make sure they were solidly in place... and then she roared as she twisted the tendrils around her strong forearms for better holding on, and then dragged forwards as hard as she could.

Her muscles bulged with power, biceps pushing out in full definition as she dragged the immense trees backwards even as they struggled and tried to walk in the other direction... before she gave a snap pull, beating her wings to move backwards violently, and the four giant monstrosities fell down to the ground, crushing several other trees, Paladins and monsters. The thunder of their fall echoed across the fourth sky, followed by a concert of screams and crushing sounds as she dragged the immense trunks towards one of the largest cracks in the ground, where magma flowed, incandescent and lethal. Each tree was miles tall and hundreds of meters in diameter, with branches and roots stretching for miles: as they were dragged across the battlefield, they became unstoppable rollers, crushing into paste everyone who couldn't get out of the way. Paladins and monsters alike scrambled away from the unstoppable doom, but many couldn't get away, and the trunks soon were crimson with blood and gore. The fallen trees also smashed into others, sending more Walking Trees sprawling like pins, forming ungodly tangles of bodies, gore, roots, branches and colossal trunks.

Alcana grunted as the weight and resistance grew even further, but her snarl was also a grin, as she dragged on the ropes with all of her godlike strength... until the trees fell into the incandescent magma.

Even then, they refused to stop, even as they burned furiously, even as they were consumed, they still swung their enormous branches up, sending splatters of magma all around and sending burning tentacles shooting towards Alcana. Vesta shot down from above right at that moment, brandishing her sickleswords and slicing them in a cross cut which chopped the tentacles, before she made a shoving gesture towards the ground, and a blast of her immense force exploded downwards, smashing into the trees and forcing them to sink completely under the surface of the red sea of fire. "And stay down." The demi-goddess growled, rolling her powerful shoulders slowly, muscles bulging out for the effort, pearls of sweat running down over her strong body. A mutated bird of prey shot towards her with a screech of hate and rage, but the queen was unfazed, absently holding a hand out and catching the tongue-tentacle as it shot towards her cheek... and without a look, she snorted and dragged hard on the tentacle, pulling the steel-feathered eagle towards her... and as it swung by her foot, she stomped hard on it, cracking it in half like a piece of glass, her steel-sole boots and high heel sinking deep into even the metallic body of the creature, shattering it. Vesta then stretched her arms out, and shoved her palms towards each other, her lips cresting in a snarling grin as her psychic grip caught four gigantic trees and began to force them together, even as they swung furiously at the air and stomped their roots all over everything that moved around them, angrily squishing foes and friends alive. Their resistance made Vesta grunt, the backlash shoving her violently backwards for a moment... but she growled and thrust with even greater force, biceps bulging explosively as her force crackled across the sky with a thunder-like roar, and the warrior trees were rammed backwards, smashed violently together, branches cracking and falling to the ground like meteors, tearing craters in the ground. The trees all but began to fight each other, their enormous branches moving like titanic arms as they began to land furious hits on each other, not understanding what was actually happening... and Vesta cackled at this, even as she clawed at the air, gripping into the trunks even from the distance, before she began to tear outwards, with all her fearsome strength.

The trees first froze, then began to trash around in agony and panic, an otherworldly shriek of agony and terror coming from them: a surreal, blood chilling howling of wind through their huge branches, before the loud shattering of their trunks, of the stone-hard ancient wood, covered every other sound as enormous cracks opened from branches to roots. The trees were pulled apart down the middle, their trunks slowly tearing in half, before Vesta roared and gave a last, powerful pull, arching her back and throwing her arms outwards: the result was spectacular, as the trees all but exploded, torn in half down the middle and shattered into a hailstorm of slivers and fragments, many bigger than trucks, which rained down onto the battlefield below, tearing Paladins and monsters to shreds.

Ira looked at the explosion with interest, impressed once more by Vesta's formidable strength, which every time showed clearly why she was the Queen of the Seraphims... but the cobra grinned, more confident than ever before in her own immense power. Fresh from being elevated to godhood, Ira was thrilled by the fight, as it was the perfect chance to flex her muscles, which felt stronger than ever.

She turned her attention back to her own fight, almost with laziness, grinning in delight as blood and gore splattered her scales thickly, the goddess feeling dark, physical pleasure as the warmth of blood rolled slowly down the front of her muscular body, more of it pooling between her huge breasts. She looked up with a cold laughter as mindless, drooling monsters lunged at her from every direction, only to be ripped apart like in a meat grinder as they came close to her: the chains wrapped around her left arm almost had a will and a mind of their own, lengthening and twisting in the air around her, moving in a circle around her, putting her in the middle of a virtual sphere made up of lightning-fast chains made of heavy, razor-sharp links.

The chains sawed through metal, wood, flesh and bone with fearsome ease, twisting and wrapping around incoming monsters and tearing them into shreds of flesh and fragments of metal, sending splatters of blood bursting out all over Ira. The goddess let out a hot, soft pant of pleasure at the ease with which she tore her way through swarming monsters without needing to move a finger. Her eyes glowed emerald as she gazed down at a company of Paladins in tight shield-wall formation, and she bit her lower lip teasingly, lips crested in a grin as she teasingly suckled air in... and she closed her eyes with a growl of bliss as the whole company was annihilated, just like that: the heavy armors and shields and spears suddenly fell on the ground, dust bursting out in clouds from every hole between the heavy metal plates, as the bodies of the Paladins were sucked dry of all of their vital energy, drained down to puffs of ashes. The goddess briefly savored their energies in her mouth, but they hadn't much of a taste: they were all clones, filled of strength and computer-stored combat experience and tactical wisdom, but with little to no passion and sexual drive into them. That made them very poor food for her hungers... so she turned to one massive, mutated gorilla instead, licking her lips and sucking air into her mouth as her eyes sized the monstrosity up... and it collapsed away into a puff of dust as well. Its taste was better and richer than that of the almost two hundred Paladins combined, but still nothing special. The thrill at being able to so easily suck into husks so many enemies at once, though, gave her plenty of pleasure in itself... and whenever she needed an actual treat, she greedily inhaled air. It was icy, it hurt, but it did not matter one bit, as it came soaked with the glorious essence of Killer. The Passion could taste him on each and every breath, even though he was making his way towards Gaia, far ahead... even from such a distance, his taste and consistency was something she couldn't even describe, no matter how hard she might try. It was thick, rich, potent, overloaded with testosterone and sexual hunger and expertise. It was such a delicious, strong mix that she wondered if one day he'd be able to all but impregnate females with just that virile energy he radiated. "Break a few more Seals, and there's no telling how powerful you will be..." The goddess softly said, grinning in lustful amusement.

She looked down a moment later as a cloud of arrows shot up at her from below, her chains swinging around her to slap the darts away as her eyes narrowed, taking in the insolent Paladins who dared challenging her... and she smiled a moment later, licking her lips slowly as her eyes glowed bright emerald and she teased: "Come on, boys... you really don't want me mad. Indeed, I bet you want to serve me, like the good boys you are..."

The Paladins on the ground were too far to hear her... but nonetheless they froze in place, staring up at her for a moment... before they pulled the chords of their longbows again, but while turning backwards to aim at their comrades as they poured out of Portals to bring reinforcements. The newcomer Paladins reacted in an instant as the neural synapse computers in their brains processed what had happened... but even as they raised their huge shields and charged into melee, several of them were cut down by heavy darts fired right to the faces. Ira easily dominated the company of Paladins, and cackled as they pulled out their swords and maces and charged back against their comrades, engaging in a brutal, self-destructive fight... and she grinned widely as she expanded her domination to yet more Paladins, who suddenly turned against their mates, swinging swords and axes and cutting bodies to pieces.

Ira flew onwards, her attention now focusing on a gigantic tree which turned to face her, swinging branches the side of trains, all jutting with enormous thorns which leaked gallons of green, acid poison. She now saw that the trees actually had eyes, dozens of them, which had opened in every node of the ancient wood, giving the monster thousands of eyes to spy its far smaller enemies.

Ira spun to the side with a beat of her black wings, twisting over a branch as it lashed out at her, before she seized the handle of one of her katana swords, Vampira, and slashed this hard out, grinning as the long, deadly blade chopped cut the branch in half with surgical precision. The tree howled in outrage, but the goddess had already stomped down onto the stump and was charging up along it, swinging Vampira back and forth in quick, elegant strikes to cut the thorns flying out of her way.

Other branches smashed in, trying to squish her, but she leapt forwards, and the first only rammed into the stump, cracking it and making the tree howl in rage just as she did a handspring over another "arm" lashing out at her.

In bare moments she reached the trunk, and she grinned as she lowered her shoulder, charging right into it, smashing through solid hardwood like through paper as she propelled herself downwards with a mighty flap of her wings. The tree could only howl in agony, stumbling backwards as the goddess shot straight down through it, tearing like a bullet from top to bottom. The trunk cracked apart, a wide wound opening down the middle, until Ira roared as she shoved her hands outwards, and sent the two halves smashing down to the opposite sides, walking out of the wreckage at ground level and surveying her handiwork for a moment as the two miles-long parts of the broken tree collapsed down, smashing into the earth with a ground-shaking thunder.

Two Paladins charged at her immediately, raising enormous cleaver swords for the strike, but the goddess only winked at them, and sent them a kiss... grinning as they froze in place and then dissolved down into dust, their weapons and armor clanging loudly on the ground, empty and useless. The other Paladins nearby stepped backwards in shock, as if the distance could save them... but Ira only laughed, walking forwards calmly and holding her left hand up, the chains wrapped around the forearm snaking along her wrist and into her palm, forming two hook-blades that she easily began to swing, taking aim at the nearest giant walking tree, as the Paladins in the surroundings all fell to the ground in ashes. She threw the two hooks, grinning as the chains shot across the forest, lengthening as they went past the tree... and then she pulled back, twisting to the side, and the chains wrapped twice, thrice around the immense trunk, as the blades pierced deep into the hardwood.

"Let's see how strong I've become..." Ira mused, grinning and rolling her massive shoulders slowly, thrilled by the power she felt in her huge biceps as they bulged out like tires. She flapped her mighty wings once, shooting again up into the sky, before she dragged her left arm back and swung it upwards... and she closed her eyes with a growl of delight as the gigantic tree was ripped off the ground, the monstrosity even trying to slam its roots back down into the ground but failing to resist as it was lifted high into the air. It must have weighted close to a million tons, maybe more, with it being several miles tall, and with that immense tangle of thick, titanic roots... yet it felt like little more than a feather to the goddess, as she cackled and dragged the creature up, delighted by how obscenely easy it was for her "Very, very strong..." Ira purred, licking her lips lustfully as she swung her arm upwards, sending the tree rising high into the sky, her eyes glowing as she gazed down at the battle beneath, as monsters and Paladins scattered in panic, understanding what was about to happen... But for many of them, there was no way to get out of the way quickly enough as Ira leaned forwards and lashed the immense mace down towards the earth. The impact was fearsome, crushing three more trees and causing them to explode in a hail of slivers and fragments and branches, as hundreds, perhaps thousands of Paladins and monsters were crushed into tiny red stains on the ground, as the earth itself caved in, forming a deep, elongated crater.

Ira had already dragged the now cracked, ruined tree back up, however, and whip-lashed it down in another direction, rattling the world with the second, colossal impact, which was if possible even more devastating than the first. The tree used as mace shattered in the middle, exploding in a hail of heavy chunks and branches, and the goddess snorted in contempt as she sent her energy crackling down the chains, overheating them and turning into even deadlier blades which almost instantaneously cut through what was left of the trunk, chopping it in dozens of pieces before retreating to her wrist.

The cobra looked up as the earth continued to rattle, however, as rhythmical thunder claps echoed across the sky... and she smiled in amusement and admiration as she saw Alexis floating high above the battlefield, her mighty arms crossed on her chest, a grin on her face as her black-fleshed tentacles, stretching out of her back, swung around her like beasts of prey, using their mass and huge spikes of bone to tear into shreds every monster than lunged against her. Alexis dripped blood, her beautiful body caked in crimson, pieces of semi-liquid gore slowly streaking down the profile of her massive musculature. Her eyes glowed sapphire as she looked down at the battlefield, lording upon it... and Ira had to admire her power and style as she saw the source of the loud, deafening thunders: no less than ten of the giant warrior trees were being squeezed inside Alexis's psychic grip, the trunks cracking and splintering as her grip slowly became harder with each passing moment. The trees, in the meanwhile, were being used like ungodly, impossible pestles, Alexis lifting them effortlessly and then smashing them down, pile-driving other trees into the ground, grounding them into powder, squishing the doomed creatures on the ground out of existence, as she cleared the battlefield swath by swath, leaving behind a barren, desolate wasteland torn by the craters left by each blow of the pestles.

Ira licked her lips at that, before flying around the Holy Tree, past the area that Alexis was so effectively clearing, and past Alcana, Vesta and the others, as they too worked to clear up the area around their ultimate target. The cobra picked the last zone to clear, save of course for the vast region which lay between Gaia's feet: for how powerful she now was, Ira was aware that getting so close to the immense, ascended goddess of Nature was going to require a combined effort, and quite some luck. Gaia's power was immense, and she couldn't pick on her at this stage.

The cobra followed Alexis's example, and settled for a quick, effective solution, cursing her lust because of the time she had admittedly wasted, too enamored of her new power not to flex it, playing and messing around instead of getting things done. She lost no time this time around, flapping her huge wings and shooting down through the intricate "roof" of branches and vegetation, flying her way between the immense trunks and branches as she let her chains wrap around at least four of the titanic trees.

They tried to swath her out of the sky like the fly she was in comparison to their immense mass, but Ira was quick and agile, avoiding their blows with tight turns, shooting through a branch and another, before she aimed skywards and dragged her chains with her, roaring as she gave a powerful pull.

The trees were lifted off the ground in a group, the chains sawing into the hardwood as they were pulled and the noose was tightened, forcing the gigantic trunks together... and the goddess did not waste time wondering how many millions of tons she was so casually lifting and swinging around. The cobra began to spin on the spot, instead, grinning as she took the chains in both hands and windmilled the impromptu mace in a circle around herself. The result was spectacular, as she knocked over dozens of other trees, smashing their bulks into pieces, crushing much of the armada of mutated, monstrous animals in the process, as she started from up high, smashing the birds and the foliage out of the sky, before she dropped lower and smashed all the trees down, until she settled her feet back on earth, and swung her godlike mace one more time, what was left of the captive trees biting literally one hundred feet into the earth, ripping open a vast crater and annihilating every threat in the area.

Finally, Ira swung her arm downwards, and her chains tore through the remains of the trees, coming free and quickly shortening and retreating to her arm, wrapping tightly around it as she stretched her fingers idly for a moment.

She gazed over the wasteland she had created, finally devoid of enemies: it was not going to last long, as the Council, or more likely Typhon in person, were sending more and more Paladins in through portals, and, worse still, nature already was reclaiming the land, as wiggling roots already broke out of the cracks in the ground, arching up into the air like tentacles and sprouting huge, cruel thorns and ugly, metallic flowers which immediately turned towards her to fire large seeds which actually exploded like grenades, spraying shrapnel all around. Ira snorted at this, shooting into the sky and flying towards the barrier instead, her eyes scanning the once beautiful town of Kemuel, now a hellish scenario of fire, panic and devastation. At least, having cleared the area around the Holy Tree would gain them a little bit of time to try and evacuate the town... She gazed to the side, spotting Vesta and trading a nod with her as they flew right towards the barrier, and when she looked up, she saw Manticora passing through the wall of energy.

The barrier, built by God himself so many eons before, was a very powerful shield which made it impossible to everyone to teleport inside, or from inside to the outside. It also selectively repelled anyone it senses as hostile or dangerous... and that was why Gaia and the monsters couldn't get in. Gaia was ramming furious blows on the barrier to break in by force... while the monsters she had created had no hope to do so, and were burned down to ashes as soon as they touched the transparent wall of energy.

Unfortunately, even God's enchantment hadn't quite foreseen the situation they now where into: the mutated, monstrous enemies were burned as they tried to get in, true, but unfortunately the barrier had been thought to allow unimpeded access to the animals of the jungle, and that now proved to be a disaster for Kemuel, as the animals passed through and only afterwards mutated into monsters, before rampaging all over the town and its vulnerable citizens.

For a brief moment, she worried that the barrier would repel her, for her being a demonic goddess, for her having given up a lot of the restraint she had so rigidly observed in her time in Heaven. She closed her eyes with a wince as she threw herself against the barrier, instinctively dropping her shoulder as if to smash through a door... but she passed through without harm, welcomed inside as the defender she was.

She smiled softly, reminded of how wise and caring God had always been, and of how he had never looked down at her, never discriminated, never had a bad word for her origins and nature.

It took just another beat of her mighty wings to shoot all the way up to the first level of Kemuel: effectively, almost a village on its own right, built down the length of an immense, mile-long branch, and connected to the other blocks of the town by suspended bridges held up by thick ropes. It was truly a beautiful place on a normal day... but right now the huts and nice wooden houses were on fire, and screams of pain and terror came from every corner as Benevolents rushed down the street, seeking aid from a bunch of angels who looked uncertain about what to do: they had seen others flying out of the barrier just to be blasted into smithereens, and now they understandably did not want to follow their example.

Monsters charged down the street, rushing towards the benevolents and tearing apart everyone they managed to reach, so that the citizens were caught between the barrier and doom. A rock and a hard place. The few angels were trying to stand up to the tide of monstrosities, but with little success: they were badly outmatched, and Ira winced as her ears were reached by the shrieks of an angel caught in the enormous hands of a mutated, thirty-foot gorilla, the dumb beast peeling the angel's wings off like it was torturing a mere pigeon. The goddess immediately absorbed the gorilla's energies, and the monstrosity first froze in place, then twitched once before falling apart in a whiff of dust, the agonizing angel falling on the wooden planks of the street with a groan of pain and despair, his eyes wide as he looked obsessively from one wing to another, horrified by the sight of them laying in puddles of blood on the ground.

A moment later, he looked ahead in shock as a new group of fleeting Benevolents running away from other pursuing monsters charged right towards him, sending him scrambling backwards as best he could with his broken, pained body, shaking his head in denial... before he vanished from the spot, to reappear next to Ira's feet. He gaped in surprise, gazing up along her boots and then up her long, powerful legs... before realizing that he was surrounded by the crying benevolents that had almost trampled him to death.

"We'll get you all out of here, if you keep your cool for a moment." The cobra said, her voice loud and clear as she looked down at those she had just teleported to safety, her left hand held out and the chains wrapped around her forearm stretching forwards across the street, piercing into the chests of three of the huge monsters and then wrapped several times around their bodies, which were slowly ripping into pieces as the sharp chain links sunk into flesh and bone.

The Benevolents looked away from this, trembling hard in a mix of relief, shock and horror, and they screamed as they heard the sick, wet sound of the chains tightening their grip one last bit, before slashing free as they chopped the monsters apart, sending limbs falling down to the floor with loud splats.

"This way!" Ira called, charging forwards towards the running Benevolents. As soon as she sensed them, she teleported them to the square behind her, away from the danger, even as she leaned into an overhead cut with Vampira, slicing a greenish tentacle in half before blasting the pieces far away with a psychic slap.

Children and old men, whole families rushed past her, and she teleported them all the way back to the square, which also helped her move deeper into the burning town. She used both instinct and senses to detect the presence of benevolents hiding in the burning buildings, too afraid to even try and leave, and she teleported those away as well.

She charged down a narrow alley, grunting at the unbearable heat as the dark, supernatural fire raged over the town, sending pearls of sweat rolling down her scales, and as she leapt through an opening in the wall of flames, her eyes opened wide as her instinct screamed at her. The flames, far from being normal ones, lunged at her like conscious beings, eagerly encasing her in a burning inferno, almost physically dragging her towards the centre of the maelstrom as they tried to melt her eyes out of her sockets, consuming her solid scales. She let out a groan of agony, stumbling for a few steps as she struggled against the force dragging on her... before Adrasthea charged into the fire as well, holding her huge shield up and surrounded by other ones, smaller, which floated all around her, forming a phalanx of steel protecting her from all sides.

"Come in!" Adrasthea shouted over the roar of the fire, pushing her arm out and using the energy radiated by the shield to push the flames back, Ira scrambling into the phalanx with a wince, as the shields rearranged themselves to protect them both.

"Thanks." Ira said, pulling her breath and snuggling into the tight protected space, for a very brief moment touched by the thought that it was a bit awkward to almost be in Adrasthea's arms. Not that she would have minded... only the moment wasn't the most indicate.

"The fire will incinerate the people before we can bring them out, if we don't find a solution." Adrasthea muttered, as they floated backwards, almost deafened by the angry roaring of the dark fire washing in furious waves over the shields.

"Using water spells is out of the question, it would only turn against us anyway." Ira replied quickly, thinking about what could be done as she gazed out of a tiny opening between the overlapping shields of the phalanx. "We will have to keep the flames at a distance by means of pure energy. Constantly blast them back. And someone will have to stay back and form a safe perimeter in the square, where to group up the benevolents. Once they are all in the square, one of us can carry the whole square out, while the others keep up a barrier. Can't think of any alternative."

Adrasthea thought about it for a brief moment, and then nodded in agreement. "That is probably our only shot." She steered course, rushing back towards the square now, where the angels and benevolents were screaming as the fire savagely tried to get to them. As the shields shifted and she and Ira leapt out of the phalanx, they saw that Vesta and Manticora were already there, standing at the opposite ends of the square and using their magic and energies to hold up a barrier as tentacles and arms of dark fire smashed down blows towards the huge number of people curled powerlessly in the middle. Monsters lunged out of the fire constantly, as well, forcing the queen and the zebra to divert their attention to them, to cut them down to pieces... and as now mutated bugs were coming forwards as well, in entire swarms of oversized monstrosities, they were hard pressed.

"I'll take position here." Adrasthea immediately announced, as the floating shields of the phalanx spread out in a circle around the square, acting as repeaters for her energy, expanding her protective barrier into a solid dome. It made Vesta and Manticora sight in relief, the zebra's strong arms all but trembling a bit as her muscles spasmed a little due to the effort and to the vicious backstroke of each parried blow.

An enormous, hairy tarantula leapt out of the fire with a hiss, aiming immediately for the newcomers, Adrasthea catching sight of it and swinging out her heavy hybrid sword-spear, chopping the front legs off the body of the car-sized spider as it charged forwards. The monstrosity fell on its face, angrily snapping its pincers and drooling jaws as its rear legs still propelled it forwards. Its bulging, round back arched and shot out a thick rope of sticky, solid web, catching Adrasthea's spear and tugging hard at it... but the goddess charged the weapon with energy, and it vaporized the spider web before shooting like a lightning bolt right through the tarantula's swollen body.

The beast howled in agony, but even as it collapsed and its remaining legs curled up in death, it was no victory as a flood of smaller, younger spiders burst forth from the deflated belly, the beasts charging forth with hungry snaps of their jaws.

Manticora stepped forwards, driving a Kukri into the belly of one as it lunged towards Adrasthea while the goddess was forced focusing her energies upwards to repeal a vicious blow of a titan-sized arm of fire.

The zebra swung the short dagger out, sending the dying sniper tearing off the blade, smashing with a crunch into the floor, as the muscular female lashed out a turning kick, ramming her heavy, armored hoof into other spiders, sending well over a dozen crashing down in broken heaps, before stomping her foot back down, squishing another into paste. Dozens more still rushed forwards, however, and Ira slashed her chains into the wiggling mass of bodies and legs, Discipline and Lust both glowing with energy as they rammed into the ground like whips, cutting apart everything they touched and digging deep, smoldering scars into the thick wooden planks of the street.

It was from below, right from the wooden planks, that the next big problem came up, as suddenly there were screams from within the mass of benevolents huddled up in the middle of the square, and greenish tentacles sprouted up from the ancient hardwood, jutting with cruel thorns. As Ira and Manticora turned around, four citizens were brutally impaled, their eyes bulging in short-lived agony and shock as the tentacles tore through their bodies and out of their mouths, sprouts pushing out even of nostrils and ears as the vegetal arms grew quickly, the thorns cutting trenches in the flesh until the bodies of the victims were ripped literally into shreds.

The other benevolents scrambled with shrieks of terror, rushing away and even running out of the barrier even as Vesta and Adrasthea shouted for them to stay calm. In a moment, it was total chaos as more and more wooden planks suddenly became overgrown with ivy, which then quickly surged up into enormous, vicious tentacles covered in blade-like thorns.

One of these whip-lashed into Vesta's back, making the queen stumble forwards with a snarl of pain, but the demi-goddess held her guard up, pumping more of her energy into the barrier, her hands stretched out towards the sky as a giant gout of dark fire rammed into the wall of energy from the outside.

The tentacle behind her moved to strike again, but she blasted it into pieces with a psychic glare over her shoulder... before grunting in pain as several more pushed up from right beneath her feet, snaking their way up her legs and squeezing into her thighs and abdomen, the steel-like thorns biting into her flesh and pumping acidic poison into her flesh.

Adrasthea was assaulted in the same way, the goddess snarling in agony as one thick tentacle wrapped around her neck, the poison pumping out of the thorns filling her throat and coming up all the way into her mouth, burning ferociously at her insides, consuming her tongue, as more dragged her backwards even as she flexed her musculature and pushed in the opposite direction, breaking several of the thorny ropes into shreds.

Even so, Vesta had the care of kicking her leg out as some crazed, panicking benevolents ran past her, heading out of the barrier: they tripped over her leg and fell over, screaming in fear and confusion as a tentacle shot towards them... but Vesta stomped hard on it, nailing it to the floor as her high heel pierced through it.

Ira charged in a second later, a couple of quick swings of Vampira chopping the tentacles off Vesta, while Manticora sliced those going after Adrasthea. Ira continued to chop down tentacles, but by now the whole of the ground under their feet was turning into an inferno of thorns and poison, and the only thing to do was to lift them all off the surface. The goddess lifted the other warriors and all of the benevolents off the ground, and then formed a solid platform of energy in midair: as they settled on this, fire and tentacles and monsters tried to shoot inside, but were burned to ashes or repelled with violent force.

"Go, Ira. Get the other people before they are all killed. Alcana is already scouting the east area of town. Get everyone here. We shall hold the fort, in the meanwhile." Vesta ordered, and Ira nodded quickly as they traded a look: Vesta was bloodied and tired, but she had lots of energies, and no intention to let go.

"I'll make sure to be quick." Ira promised, before running straight out of the barrier... and her lungs almost collapsed right away, making her grunt breathlessly in pain as the fire and pressure of the air immediately assaulted her. It was an inferno, and it was only getting worse with each moment that passed, as more and more creatures were mutated into monsters, and as the dark, supernatural fire expanded, its roar deafening as it enveloped entire streets, forming into conscious, cruel snakes of flames which bit and smashed into the barrier with all their force, lured towards the life they intended to eradicate.

She had to radiate pure energy around herself, holding up a transparent shield around herself as the dark fire washed past like water, ramming into her protection in waves, trying to break inside. She ran down the street as quickly as she could, gritting her fangs as she focused all her senses, trying to pick up any sign of life into the burning buildings. Unfortunately, it was very hard to locate the benevolents, and it was getting steadily more complex as nature raged even worse around her: it was difficult to pick up any sign of their weak, unimpressive life signs while surrounded by the fearsome energy of the inferno, and with the signatures of all the monsters drowning out everything else.

She leapt past the empty, abandoned houses, hopping easily above one city block to land in the street on the other side, and again she listened out for life... and she found some, at the second floor of a furiously burning house. She smashed through the wall with ease, looking around herself and trying to spot anything past the flames... and she saw a mother holding two children in her arms, the female rabbit curled in a corner of her house, on her knees, terrified out of her mind. The young children cried, hugging her and burying their faces into her belly and chest as the flames got closer and closer to their backs. Ira immediately teleported them to safety, charging across the room and through the wall, the wood exploding outwards in splinters as she ran into the following house, and right through it, smashing through walls like they weren't even there. Whenever she found survivors, she teleported them back to the square... until she felt a weird life signature from a tree house, and she leapt up into this to check: she grunted in surprise, very glad to have controlled, because she found that what she had sensed was actually a wasp nest where the wasps were mutating into enormous metallic monstrosities. They swarmed over her, buzzing angrily and slashing their huge stingers against her body, viciously sinking their poisonous spikes into her flesh as they knocked her back out of the tree. The goddess fell on the street with a grunt of pain, but immediately went into a backwards somersault, donkey-kicking her feet out into the swarm and grinning as she felt several of the giant bugs shattering like glass, before she landed back on her feet and punched a large monster-wasp into pieces which splattered and clanged over sixty feet away. The other wasps flew angrily around her, hundreds of them flooding in all over the burning city block as other groups were drawn to the fight, and Ira winced in surprise as they began to fire their arm-sized stingers in her direction, each spent dart of poison immediately replaced by another as the wasp's bodies clenched rhythmically.

She leapt backwards out of the way, dozens of darts piercing through the ground and flooding it with acid poison, the goddess making a grimace as more and more of the stingers rained down on her from every direction, cutting gashes in her body, ripping scales and piercing into her powerful musculature even as she knocked dozens out of the sky with lightning-fast swings of her katanas.

They had no real energy that she could eat away, nothing sexual about them... and she couldn't dominate them either, as they seemed devoid of any actual mind. They just swarmed over everything, angrily, using their absurd number to overwhelm everything. She charged right through them, ramming into them like a train, and they were squished under her boots, they were smashed to bits by her powerful musculature, they shattered as they crashed into her hard abs, and every slash of her swords brought dozens down in pieces... but they were so many that they continued swarming all over her. The goddess snarled in pain and fury as they chewed at her body and stung her again and again and again, their poison burning in her veins even as she slaughtered them by the thousands... but she kept moving, seeking out the last few survivors in hiding. The swarms followed her even as she leapt up towards the higher levels of Kemuel, as she scouted city block after city block... until she jumped towards the last large platform, and the swarm formed a black serpent of metallic bodies huddled close together as they shot after her almost like a single being.

Ira spun on herself with a roar of rage and frustration, and she threw her arms out, arching her back as she focused her energy in a single, massive blast, grinning viciously as the wasps and hornets and all other mutated bugs were slammed back by the blow, thousands vanishing into nothing but vapor as she others were slammed back down all the way to the ground, and squished into pulp by the fearsome pressure, as the land itself cracked and rattled violently, breaking into tectonic plates that drifted apart, only held together by the uncountable miles of roots of the Holy Tree.

Ira panted hard, as the many wounds on her body sizzled as her organism worked to neutralize the poison and regenerate... and she grinned, despite the pain, once more amazed by the level of power that Killer had gifted her with, as she began to understand more of her godhood.

She turned back to the last block of Kemuel left to scout, and she made a slapping gesture towards the platform beneath, her force parting the sea of dark fire below and opening a wide clear area for her to settle down. The place was unrecognizable, laying in ruins and consumed by fire... but she nonetheless recognized it immediately as the quiet place where she and Killer had truly become friends. Where she had told him her story, shared with him her secrets.

She grimaced in pain and horror at the state in which the place now versed, swallowing thickly as she caught a glimpse of the Throne of God, the throne-shaped mountain in the distance, far away out of the barrier surrounding the Holy Tree. Once, it had been a glorious, beautiful natural monument to God's creation, towering above the largest and most luscious of jungles... but now it looked sad and ominous, the mountain torn apart by cracks and looming darkly over what had been turned into nothing but a wasteland of death, fire and ashes. Gone was the green, the beautiful. The only trees left were walking monstrosities moving over snake-like roots which ground Paladins into mush as they moved over to the barrier, to ram into it like battering rams, even if it was a suicide, even though they were burned into ashes after a few impacts.

Then the whole Holy Tree rattled violently, and Ira stumbled backwards with a grunt as the barrier fizzled and for a moment glowed crimson as luminescent cracks spread down its surface. Ira was deafened by the thunderous boom of Gaia's last blow on the barrier, her eyes widening as, outside, one of Gaia's feet came down, crushing four giant trees like they were blades of grass, her leg blotting out the sight of the Throne in the distance, and casting its shadow over Ira and Kemuel.

"Stop her, Killer..." Ira murmured, before turning away from the fearsome sight and running towards the empty holes which had once been the small but colorful showcases of the shops and activities overlooking the quiet terrace. It had been one of Heaven's most wonderful places... and now it was hell.

Charred, unrecognizable corpses lay on the ground everywhere, still burning like torches: the bodies of all those who hadn't been able to get away in time, and of several angels who had tried to help. The latter could only be recognized by the sad remains of wings.

Ira walked past the corpses, looking down into each ruined building... before snorting as two gigantic gorilla-monsters charged out of one, swinging their oversized, muscular arms at her. She steadied, taking on an easy ready position as the first barreled against her, and she caught both of her fists in her hands, grinning up at it as the monster gaped in shock. She squeezed on the massive fists, laughing as the bones loudly shattered, before she effortlessly lifted the giant beast up over her head. It kicked and trashed wildly, but Ira ignored it entirely as the second beast came up: she just made a suckling noise, teasingly, and inhaled the vital energy of the second monster. Her body regenerated a little faster as she absorbed that force... while the monster itself stumbled forwards with a groan, and then fell away in a puff of dust.

She shifted her attention back to the other monster, and pulled hard in the opposite directions, until the flesh tore and the muscles snapped, the gorilla starting to fall down as its arms were torn off like they were made of paper. As it fell down, Ira spun on the spot and smashed a turning kick into the monster, nearly breaking its body in two and sending the corpse splattering heavily on the other side of the square.

She tossed the bleeding arms off with a snort... then saw the remains of the little ice cream shop where she and Killer had spent time during their meeting. She walked quickly towards this, pained at the sight of it burned down and wrecked, but as she bent down to squeeze into the door, she sensed weak signs of life, and rushed inside with her heart racing with new hope.

The room was filled with ruins, as the roof had collapsed, and a large, massive wooden beam had landed straight in the middle of the little shop. It had been a beautiful little place, built inside a crevice of the Holy Tree's very bark... but the structure had now collapsed entirely, and a heavy cloud of dust lingered in the room. At least, the fire hadn't quite gotten inside, and that was the only reason why the old ice-cream man was still alive. She could feel his life force quite clearly, despite it being so weak, and she went right for the huge beam, gripping into it and effortlessly pulling it up. The ancient ferret, still wearing his white overall, smiled weakly from the floor, trying to say something but failing. Tears rolled slowly down his cheeks, even as a light of hope and gratitude shone in his eyes as Ira went down to a knee and carefully picked him up. The old ferret looked even smaller than usual, and his wrinkles deeper and larger. He hissed in pain at being moved, as he had one leg badly wounded and bleeding abundantly... but Ira wrapped her hand over the wound, and his flesh sealed, the bone repairing itself as the old man stared at her in quiet disbelief, resting back in her strong arms and looking like a child, with how tall the goddess was.

"You... look absolutely splendid... Ira." The ferret said, his voice weak and trembling, but his smile widening. "I'm so happy for it. I know no one else more deserving of some happiness and serenity than you."

Ira blushed a bit at that, smiling back softly. Ice cream had for centuries been the sole treat she allowed herself, and she had always gone to the same shop for getting it... she had never told the ferret about her past, but they had talked a little, quite often... and despite her silences and half answers, he had evidently understood her suffering and sadness quite well. He had always a kind word to offer, and Ira felt all the more thankful for having found him still alive.

"Think you can hold on real strong to my back...? We are leaving." Ira asked, looking down at him with concern. She could teleport him, but for some reason she couldn't quite say, she decided to keep a close eye on him instead. He nodded quietly, and she lifted him easily onto her broad, powerful shoulders. He was a bit embarrassed as he basically sat on the back of her neck, feet resting over the chorded, steel-hard muscles of her shoulders as he hugged her broad cobra hood from behind, before gripping hesitantly into the thick root of her proud horns.

He quickly realized, with relief, that she did not find it awkward at all, and his weight was clearly insignificant for her, as she ducked out of the door again, and flapped her mighty wings once, shooting away from the ruined square, as arms and tongues of dark fire angrily tried to seize her, only to be blasted backwards by the sheer force she radiated.

Alexis winced as yet another enormous lightning bolt rushed down from the sky, aiming towards her like a godly spear of electricity. She stomped her way up the body of the metallic, mutated gryphon assaulting her, piercing its skull with her high heel before leaping into the air and flipping backwards, kicking the monster far away from her before it could explode. The bolt of electricity hit her at the same time, but the goddess snarled as she rammed her punch right into the lightning. There was an enormous blast of energy as her monstrous strength met the overcharged bolt of electricity, and the monsters rushing towards her from all sides were annihilated by the force of the explosion, as electricity crackled into the sky in every direction, deflected by her monstrous strength.

She gritted her fangs in pain as the tremendous discharge of electricity ran along her nervous system, burning her flesh and causing spasm in her massive musculature... but her fingers still squeezed on the enormous bolt, and somehow literally gripped into it, crushing it, forcing it away from her, her bicep bulging explosively as she aimed it away from her and then made a throwing gesture, sending the bolt crackling down towards a monster-tree. The discharge hit the tree straight in the middle of the vast foliage dome, instantaneously burning it whole into ashes, before the bolt ran down the trunk and into the ground, crackling angrily in every direction and fulminating everyone it touched, as the tree itself cracked down the middle and fell apart, brutally sliced in half.

The battle around Kemuel was a real nightmare. Shi thankfully hadn't managed to get completely hold of Gaia and of her tremendous power, but what he could control was already more than enough to turn the Fourth Sky into an inferno. The assaults came from every direction, constantly, as the forest burned, completely engulfed in dark fire, but alive and hostile at the same time. The fire only made the gigantic walking trees angrier and deadlier, as it did not consume them, but greedily devoured everything else it touched. Every animal of the immense, luscious jungle, from the smallest insect to the proud gryphons, had been mutated into a bloodthirsty, ferocious creature, with bodies armored in dark metal and with their internal organs turned into biological bombs. Touching the ground was asking for death, as it would either try to swallow you whole, or swarm you over with tentacle-like roots sprouting with enormous, poisonous thorns, or burn you down with an eruption of magma, or impale you on spikes of sharp stone and crystal. The sky was just as hostile, however, as wind and ice, thunder and hail unleashed a constant hammering over everything that moved.

And then there were the stupid armies of the Council, the Paladins assaulting both the monstrous animals, Killer and the others, and Gaia's feet, even though they had absolutely no hope of even getting her attention, as she war so far above their possibilities that they were just dust to be crushed under her toes as she moved.

In all of this, Alexis and Killer had the worst possible job, as they had to fight a two-pronged battle: outside, they fought against the jungle, the weather, the monsters, the paladins, and Gaia herself. Inside, they had to keep an inflexible focus on their own consciousness, to effectively be in two places at once. Well, Killer at least.

The huge male was fighting back Gaia, trying to keep her away from the Holy Tree, and at the same time he was inside her body, inside her mind, to find and eradicate Shi from within her. To make things worse, he had to avoid hurting Gaia in a lethal way... Although this was honestly proving less problematic than feared, since the immense goddess, while far from being at her apex, was already almost invulnerable, shrugging off even the worst hits like they had no importance at all, the four elements giving her almost impassable protection and her regeneration healing any wound in literally the space of a blink.

It was scary... and Alexis shivered at the thought that, if they couldn't eradicate Shi from within her, they would have had to try and kill her before she maxed out. I don't know if we could pull it off, even with her at this power level...

Alexis's role was almost as complex as Killer's. She had to fight on the outside, to help him and keep his back covered as much as possible, while keeping her internal focus on him and Gaia absolutely unshaken. She was not venturing into Gaia's mind, at least not yet... that was the emergency plan. But she was channeling Killer into Gaia's mind: the huge male had greater sheer, brutal power than Alexis, but the goddess had an absolute lead in psychic abilities, and she was the only one in the whole universe which could make their desperate attempt possible, by linking Gaia's and Killer's minds, and keeping them connected.

They had not had the luxury of much time and chances to try out their idea. They had tested it only once, using Torques as target, and it had worked: they had to be content with that.

Inserting Killer into Gaia's mind hadn't been as complex as she feared it might be. The first attempts to find an opening had failed, as Nature's mind was well protected against any psychic meddling, and Shi had probably been working to fortify it even further... but after some careful probing, Alexis had the surprise of finding what felt like a door, which opened in welcome when she pushed against it. She suspected that what remained of Gaia's consciousness had been able to willingly open that breach... and Alexis had immediately shoved the door wide open, and secured it as best she could, before channeling Killer inside.

She had only a very mild perception of what was now going on in Gaia's mind... all she knew was that she could feel Killer's presence, and the flow of his thoughts and actions passing through the channel she laboriously kept open.

She could not afford to lose her concentration. Losing her focus would mean allowing the "door" to snap closed, or allowing the channel to suddenly shatter... and if that happened, Killer's consciousness would have been trapped outside of his body and lost forever. A fate worse than death.

She turned to look out towards Killer as he fought back against Gaia's terrible power, the male standing on top of the Holy Tree's barrier and pushing back against the possessed goddess's blows. Alexis's eyes glowed as she used her psychic power to create a solid shield of force above his back, just as three more lightning bolts smashed down from the sky, aiming for him. She recoiled with a grunt from the tremendous explosion that followed as they smashed into the shield, but at least Killer could focus all his strength and attention on Gaia: he needed all of it, as the goddess of Nature furiously swung her fists down towards him, in a double-handed hammer blow. She heard Killer's scream of pain all the way from her position, but he was as stubborn and tough as always, falling to his knees but managing to push back the hands of Gaia, even though they were thousands of times his size.

She made a shoving gesture, using her psychic force to grip into Gaia's fist and help Killer in shoving back, grunting as daggers of ice, thrown around by the vicious, deadly wind, cut gashes in her body, before she flexed and used her energy to harden her skin up like an armor, the large shards of rock-solid ice crumbling as they hit her, the shrapnel coming from every direction.

A white portal suddenly swung open in midair, right behind Killer, and Paladins rushed out of the passage, charging with their spears and huge swords, right towards his back, catching Alexis's attention as she gritted her fangs and turning to this. "You cowards..." snarled, her eyes glowing sapphire as she seized into the portal with her fearsome psychic force, crushing it until it closed completely: as it did so, a Paladin who had been walking out of it collapsed and fell like a stone towards the ground in a broken, bloody heap as the rear half of his body was sliced away neatly, trapped on the other side. The Paladins who had already passed through charged towards Killer's back, but Alexis grinned as she already saw the ghost images of what would only physically happen a few seconds later... as the first two Paladins approached from the sides, Killer suddenly swung the long Azura blades downwards and backwards under his armpits, the blades piercing right through each Paladin, before the huge male used the handles of the two swords as axis to do a forward somersault, kicking his feet up into the face of the third Paladin in line, sending him crashing in a broken heap against the Holy Tree's barrier... and here, the clone soldier of the Council was vaporized by a discharge of energy, while the Azura blades, pushed down by Killer's weight, swung upwards and sliced the other two warriors in half like pieces of paper before coming free in a splatter of blood and gore.

In that moment, a gigantic blade of molten, incandescent yet very solid primordial metal pushed out of Gaia's wrist, and she stabbed this down towards Killer and the Holy Tree.

The male had to leap against the sword, using a flap of his huge wings to throw himself out of the path of the blade before charging into the flat of it, ramming his shoulder into the metal with all the force he could muster, even as magma and electricity blasted him with ferocious force.

Gaia grunted as her arm was knocked outwards and she missed the Holy Tree, only nicking the barrier, which glowed crimson at the impact, but as Killer continued to push, more Paladins and tentacles assaulted him from behind. Alexis protected him from the distance, taking psychic hold of the Paladins and crushing them like empty cans, their heavy armors caving inwards as blood and gore spurted out of every hole as they were squished as flat as pancakes, before she made a dragging gesture, pulling backwards, and the thorny tentacles suddenly whiplashed backwards, slamming into Paladins and monsters and squashing them against the Holy Barrier, which did the rest, obliterating them all on contact.

Gaia launched another attack, and Killer leapt onto her hand to try and deviate her blow again as the barrier started to show its cracks and fault zones, but the magma in her rocky gauntlets erupted in a massive explosion which slammed the male back, his body crashing onto the sea-like juncture in Gaia's armor at the height of her wrist.

Alexis flew forwards with a grimace of concern, eyes fixed on the dark water as it began to form enormous waves which slammed into Killer over and over again, preventing him from surfacing... but she was relieved as Kemuel, the god of Light, appeared in the sky nearby, and slammed his golden hammer into the angry sea. The waves parted for a brief second, a vortex forming and opening a clear path that Killer immediately exploited to get out... before both males pushed against Gaia's fearsome power as she slapped them away with the flat of her blade.

In the same moment, a portal opened behind her as well, but her sixth sense had warned her many seconds before it actually happened. As a burly, massive Paladin chief in blocky, thick armor pulled up behind her and swung a heavy cleaver sword towards her neck, she just grinned and pulled up one arm, stretching her index finger out: the blade smashed against this and dented, her single finger stopping all his might, leaving the Paladin shell-shocked for a moment as he dumbly pushed the blade against her superior strength. She turned around with a wide grin, her other fingers wrapping on the blade and snapping it off the handle like it was nothing but a toy... and she flipped this so that the sharp tip was aimed at the Paladin's face. She swung her leg out in a turning kick, smashing the blade right through the warrior's helmet and head, sending it falling towards the ground like a meteor, leaving behind a streak of blood. The other Paladins rushing out of the portal immediately formed a shield-wall, moving shoulder to shoulder and forming a compact front of spears and circular shields in front of the goddess. Their effort was completely useless, anyway, as Alexis only hungrily opened her jaws and stretched her long, demonic tongue out, sucking their virility and their very vital force out of their bodies, draining them until their skeletons and skin disintegrated into puffs of dust. "You make for puny meals, boys..." Alexis teased, grinning as the portal swirled quickly, beginning to close on her face, but she had other plans: she flicked her finger to the side, and the portal was torn open again, with such brutal force that it actually exploded with a noise of shattering glass, opening a wide dimensional breach. She gazed into this, seeing a whole different area of Heaven, one that she didn't recognize and couldn't locate... but what mattered the most was that she was faced by a huge square, over which whole new regiments of Paladins were forming up, ready to move through portals.

She ignored the arrows fired at her from the assembled troops, as she easily blasted these to smithereens before they could touch her, and she instead looked in to see that it was actually some kind of massive cave. It was all underground, hidden somewhere in the depths of Heaven: the secret weapons programme of the Council. Or, more realistically, of Typhon.

"Keep the hell out of this fight, puppets!" Alexis roared, thrusting a hand out and blasting out a ferocious hurricane of energy which smashed into an assembled regiment as a portal opened in front of it: the Paladins formed a phalanx with their shields, but they were nonetheless torn apart, their pieces hurled into their comrades elsewhere on the square as the whole regiment was crushed into the ground, leaving a massive, long smear of blood and gore across the square. She turned as Paladins charged towards her, covered by waves of arrows shot by archers further back, and she easily absorbed those, grinning predatorily as she used their energy to speed up the healing of her wounds... before her eyes widened as she saw the ghost images of what was about to happen.

She flapped her mighty wings once, propelling herself high into the sky and turning backwards just as a massive javelin hissed through the air where she was a moment before. She snarled as the fire chariot of the god of war rushed towards her, Taranis balancing another spear over his shoulder as Seth snapped the reins to incite the muscular, enormous fire stallions to gallop faster.

Her rage doubled as she looked down at the broken portal, seeing it quickly closing itself... and she closed her eyes with a snarl of fury. It would have been very useful to destroy the whole cave. She was pretty sure the clones factories had to be there somewhere, and destroying them, or at least locating them, would have been a major step forwards.

"You idiot..." The goddess muttered, lashing out a kick as the spear shot right for her. She knocked it out of its trajectory, and sent if flipping right into her hand, her bicep bulging as she hurled it back as hard as she could, leaning into the throw, even as the spear furiously zapped her with electricity to try and force her hands off.

Taranis grunted in surprise as she managed to use his weapon against him, but he quickly raised Aegis, his indestructible shield, and the heavy spear shattered on impact, the god only stumbling backwards slightly.

"You continue to be a nuisance, Alexis. You were about to destroy a most valuable part of Heaven's power." The god of war boomed, his voice coming with the force of thunder from under his heavy helmet. "How dare you go again and again against the Laws of Heaven, and the word of the Council?"

Alexis snorted with contempt and rage at that, gritting her fangs as she held up her guard. Taranis was clearly not going to be of any help... the best he could be expected to do was trying to destroy Gaia, instead of forcing Shi to leave her body. Alexis had a key role in the battle, as she had to channel Killer's consciousness and power inside Gaia's being, to allow him to try and eradicate Shi... and she also had to keep Killer's back covered, and help him in the outside fight as much as possible. She was finding it very hard to keep her focus as monsters and abominations and lightning and eruptions assaulted them from all sides, in a never ending succession, and having to fight back the god of war himself was only going to make it worse.

"The council is just Typhon's puppet at this point... either you are too stupid to see that Typhon will soon take over Heaven, or you side with him." Alexis coldly replied, gazing towards Taranis's eyes and trying to read into his mind. His thick armor was an excellent screen, though, even against psychic powers, and there was a curtain of darkness there that she did not manage to penetrate. "You aren't the brightest, I get that... but are you really that stupid?"

Taranis snarled in rage at her words, his gauntlets groaning as he squeezed hard on the handle of his shield and on the pole of the spear he picked out of the holster in the side of the chariot. "Don't challenge me, woman." The god barked, before turning to look over his shoulder, towards Gaia, following Killer's movements as the liger tried to keep Nature's blows away from the cracked barrier. "What are you idiots doing, anyway...? Doesn't look like your husband is actually trying to take Gaia down. Are you still wasting time dreaming of 'saving' her while Heaven is destroyed...?"

"We will save her. It doesn't matter what you think of it." Alexis firmly replied, her eyes narrowing as her mind already crowded up with the ghost images of what was about to happen.

Taranis made a grimace of distaste at her words, shaking his head briskly before hissing: "If you persist in this heresy, I shall kill her myself!" He paused, gnashing his fangs together before barking: "Don't you idiots realize in what a risk you are putting Heaven, the world, and us all...? Don't you fucking see how powerful Gaia already is...? If Shi takes over completely, and masters her full power, it's game over for all of us!"

"We are not going to kill one friend. One of the family." Alexis replied coldly. "If you helped us, instead of being an obstacle, we could save her that much easier. But you don't want her to live... no. This is a fantastic chance to kill her and get applauded for it, instead of punished. And you believe you can take over Nature yourself if you kill her, isn't that so...? If you managed to do that, nobody could stop you... no Council, no Typhon, no Killer and Alexis, no nothing."

Taranis recoiled a bit at that, looking surprised... before Alexis's eyes narrowed as she coldly remarked: "Don't try to deny it... I read minds. Even yours."

The god of war was silent for a moment, looking around himself slightly, as if to check if the Council, or Typhon himself were coming to stop him... but nothing happened, and he grinned coldly. "Surprised that you can read my mind... that's a great feat: normally, nobody can pierce past my helmet. But thankfully, your dear husband has messed Typhon up enough that he won't be able to do much for a while, still... and the Council and the Metatrons are too weakened, at this point. Once, they would have heard each and every word spoken in Heaven, and we would have been surrounded by Metatrons and Arkangels and Seraphims and Paladins already. But now... now they are almost deaf." The god of war grinned in perverse, cruel glee, leaning forwards and hissing: "So it is just us. I don't care how much you value your "friend" Gaia. I bet that the right term would be fuck-toy, considering your husband's nature... curious that you don't mind sharing him with so many other cunts..."

"You understand nothing about us... And either way, there's a hell of a lot of Killer to share. You should ask your own wife, she can tell you." Alexis teasingly replied, grinning. Taranis ignored her, even if his lip and eye twitched in an ugly way as he barked: "Either way, Gaia has to die."

Seth needed no further instruction, immediately snapping the reins to send the fire stallions into a gallop, the enormous chariot charging towards Alexis as the jackal god pulled out his cruel whip, and slashed it towards her with a maniac grin of bloodlust. Alexis threw herself to the side, avoiding the enormous hooves of the muscular horses as they hit the sky with all the thunderous force of artillery fire, sending gouts of flames and metallic shrapnel blasting out in every direction. She snarled as she flapped her huge wings once, then wrapped them tight along her sides, twisting on herself to avoid the largest slivers, before spreading them again and banking to the right as Seth's whip slashed down, crackling loudly with electricity that rained down in bolts all the way to earth.

Alexis flew a barrel roll and flew right under the horses and the chariot, grinning as she easily avoided the spinning blades on the underside of the heavy vehicle: she knew they were there, having seen them early by sensing their energy. The stallions dived violently down, stomping their hooves towards her, but she was already gone, shooting upwards into the sky on the other side of the chariot. She grunted in surprise as Taranis flashed out of sight for the briefest instant, before reappearing right in front of her, stabbing his spear towards her chest. Her wings beat once, and she leapt onto the large blade of the spear, balancing on top of it as she drew Blue Vixen out from over her back, aiming it down at the god's head in the same swift, elegant movement. She pulled the golden trigger in the handle, and the heavy caliber machine gun inside the sword immediately spewed out a burst of rounds - but Taranis threw his head back and opened his mouth, revealing a circular black hole lined with rows and rows of sharp, thin and curved fangs. The god of war swallowed the bullets with a murr of delight, before he stabbed his spear upwards, the pole suddenly engulfed in a hurricane of black ghosts, bullets and incandescent shrapnel.

Alexis leapt away from this with a grunt of shock, using the wide blade of Blue Vixen as a shield as the howling black ghosts swarmed over her, carrying thousands of voices of rage and despair with them as they crashed into her with their load of death, blasting shrapnel into her arms and legs as countless cruel jaws bit into her flesh.

She snarled in agony, clawing at the black, foggy shapes swarming all over her body, crushing them out of existence, using her own energy to reinforce her skin, to blow them back and burn them into smoke... before her eyes bulged as the enormous spear shot out of the fog, unannounced by her sixth sense. Her hand shot up in front of her chest, seizing into the long, sword-like blade of the spear, stopping it a mere inch away from her sumptuous breast. She groaned in pain as the spear trashed in her grip, the blade maiming her fingers and sending her own blood splattering in her face, but she nonetheless squeezed, until the metal crumpled like paper in her grip, then literally melted from the pressure.

She pushed through the remaining ghosts, her powerful musculature bulging explosively as the dark fog enveloped her, the spirits wrapping around her like ropes, and biting into her with hook-like fangs. She pushed against them with her monstrous strength, and they finally tore apart, falling away as dark motes of energy which vanished entirely after a last shriek.

Alexis knocked another spear wide off with a quick slash of Blue Vixen, avoiding another one by twisting her body to the side before she used the flat of her sword to swath two more out of the way, even though her eyes and her senses scanned the sky to find the massive chariot. It seemed to have entirely vanished... before she snarled in pain and fury as Seth's whip smashed across her back, cutting a deep gash in her powerful musculature before cruel spikes jutted out of thick whip, biting their way into her flesh.

She gritted her fans as electricity surged across the whip, blasting into her body and making her back arch violently, almost snapping her spine as she felt all her body burning and spasming out of control as the spikes lengthened and pierced deeper into her form.

She flexed her muscles with a growl, the solid chords of her power crushing down on the intruder spikes and snuffing several ones out, just as huge arrows were shot at her from every direction. The chariot was nowhere to be seen, but it was circling around her, and she could feel it as well as guess it. Her eyes glowed with fury and power as she ground the giant darts to a halt before they could touch her, crumpling them in her psychic grip. The whip buried in her back answered by blasting another, and even worse discharge of nerve-burning energy into her form.

In the same moment, the chariot partially reappeared, as it turned sharply for her, charging right at her. The stallions were in full gallop, and they moved so fast that all that could be seen was a vortex of fire and blast ghosts, a meteor streaking across the sky and aiming straight for her, as blades of fire spun viciously fast on either side, sticking out of the hubs of the wheels. Alexis arched her back with a roar, trying to ignore the electricity burning across her nervous system even as smoke washed out of her mouth and nostrils, and her muscles bulged explosively, forcing the spikes outwards or crushing them as flat as pancakes, until the whip snapped free of her flesh. She reached back with a hand, gripping the segmented, metallic body of the weapon, and she dragged on this with all her strength, even as the whip, like an alive thing, crawled onto her arm and wrapped viciously into it, burying its spikes into her flesh.

At the other end of the weapon, Seth grunted in shock at the sheer power of Alexis, as he was dragged forwards like a doll, his chest ramming into the parapet of the chariot hard enough that his armor dented and his ribs cracked, his face ramming painfully into the edge. He tried to hold on to his weapon, but he screamed in pain as his fingers snapped like twigs, his hand sliced apart and bursting forth with a splatter of blood as the metallic handle was torn away from him.

Taranis looked at this with shock for a brief moment, right as the stallions neighed and stomped their enormous hooves towards Alexis. The goddess leapt to the side and out of the way, however, twisting her way around the deadly spinning blades as she tore the spikes out of her arm and flipped the whip, grasping it by the handle, grinning at the sight and feel of blood.

Taranis hurled his spear a moment too late because of the distraction, and as it shot out of the vortex of fire, Alexis was ready, slashing out the newly conquered whip, so that its long body wrapped several times around the spear... and with a roar, she dragged the segmented whip to the side, sending the spear turning backwards to stab right into Taranis's shoulder.

The god of war was knocked backwards, almost falling off the chariot, before electricity crackled down the whip and into his armor, Alexis grinning predatorily as she fed her energy into the weapon, until it glowed a bright, blinding white.

Seth pulled on the reins with a snarl, throwing the stallions in a tight turn and then launching them in a gallop once more, charging right at Alexis as the chariot again vanished into an indistinct vortex of fire, which also kept him and Taranis hidden from Alexis's precognitive senses.

Taranis took the chance to seize the spear pierced through his shoulder, grinning widely as he jerked this out of his flesh, deliberately twisting it on the way out, his long tongue lolling out as his eyes turned black, the god drooling hungrily. He snapped the spear like a twig, cackling as he seized into the whip instead, his enormous bicep bulging as he dragged on this. "Dear Alexis... pain and suffering will only make me stronger... the mayhem of war is my paradise..." He howled, laughing as the chariot charged towards the goddess, the four massive horses opening their mouths to blast torrents of dark fire in her direction.

"Am I supposed to be scared...?" Alexis gamely replied, grinning as she felt him pulling on the whip, her own arm flexing and muscles bulging with her tremendous strength as she opposed him. As the chariot thundered towards her, she threw herself to the side, pulling the chain-whip until it tensed, and launching herself right amidst the massive stallions. She closed her eyes as she moved through the wall of fire, and grinned as she felt the whip bite into the legs of the first couple of supernatural horses, the beasts neighing in agony and shock as they tripped and collapsed on their front, the chariot nearly flipping over, only saved by the other two, larger and stronger horses slamming their hooves down to screech to a halt. Taranis pulled on the chain with all his strength, but he still stumbled forwards with a grunt, eyes wide in disbelief as Alexis dragged him forth, before she vanished under the chariot. She used the whip to swing all the way under the vehicle, flipping up behind it.

Taranis turned back to face her, raising Aegis as she lashed out with Blue Vixen: the heavy sword rammed into the shield with brutal strength, the recoil making the god of war grunt, before the Gorgon's eyes in the centre of the shield glowed brightly as Alexis's gaze touched them for the briefest of instants.

Alexis winced as she realized her mistake, closing her eyes immediately but already feeling her arms and legs stiffening and becoming heavier, her skin beginning to turn into marble... and she grunted as Taranis dragged hard on the whip, even as it was still wrapped all over the chariot and around the legs of two of the four horses. The fire beasts neighed desperately as electricity blasted their bodies, sending the flames they were made of exploding outwards in bursts as they lost their consistency, their legs maimed and then finally cut off... while Alexis was dragged forwards, hissing in pain as she felt her fingers turning into stone and cracking around the whip's handle, her index cracking in half and falling off, making her scream.

The goddess focused her energies on her own body, changing the stone back to flesh to counter the effect of the terrible weapon... before she flexed her mighty musculature, huge biceps bulging explosively and cracking the superficial layer of stone into nothing but dust.

She howled in pain as she broke out of the enchantment, but large parts of her skin went with the stone, leaving her flesh and muscles painfully exposed, in both arms and legs and partially even on her strong abdomen.

Her regeneration was already working, but the agony was intense, and her mind link with Killer and Gaia was almost destroyed. Blood leaked from her nose and a crimson tear rolled down her cheek as her mind pulsed with the pain and with the shock of too many things happening at once.

In the same instant, Taranis cackled, sure of his victory, and he lashed out with the heavy, massive shield, Aegis's edge suddenly sprouting with curved blades which began to move, forming a mortal chainsaw.

Alexis's precognitive senses kicked in, adding to the pain and confusion in her mind, but showing her the ghost image of what was about to happen, seconds before it did... and she snarled, swinging Blue Vixen up so that the blades of Aegis caught between the curved spikes of her sapphire blade. Sparkles flew from the contact and the sword rattled violently in her grip, but her lips crested into a growling grin as she stuck the chainsaw-blade, then used her monstrous strength to almost rip the shield out of Taranis's grip, the god stumbling as the shield swung out and forced Seth to duck before it could decapitate him.

The narrow confines of the chariot now were a disadvantage for the two gods, as Alexis continued to hold onto the whip, her spectacular force allowing her to single-handedly hold the deadly vehicle motionless while engaging in tug-o-war with the god of war himself. Dead in the water, the chariot wasn't scary anymore, and Seth actually found himself dropping to the floor, squeezed in the corner. The jackal snarled in rage at this, reaching for the heavy, massive spiked mace at his belt and drawing this out, electricity immediately crackling all over the heavy head of the weapon as he leapt towards Alexis's legs as she grappled with Taranis.

He swung this hard against her knee, but Alexis was faster than lightning, and always a step ahead: Seth grunted in shock as her muscular leg suddenly vanished, the mace swinging through thin air... before she stomped her foot back down, right on his head, crushing his face into the floor of the chariot, the goddess twisting her boot over his skull, the bone loudly cracking as his vision faded into a crimson mist.

Seth swung the mace upwards against her leg, but his ears only filled with Alexis's laughter as she easily pulled her foot up at each swing, before stomping down again on his head, his helmet crumpled and his face turned into a broken pulp as his skull caved inwards.

Seth gargled in agony, blood rushing out of his nose and mouth and one of his eyes burst into paste, before his back arched as four tentacles made of joined up blades torn their way out of his back, lunging towards Alexis.

The goddess leapt backwards to avoid them, even as Taranis dragged on the whip once more to try and pull her into the spikes: she grinned widely, easily resisting his efforts before she gave a yank of her own, her bicep bulging explosively as Taranis slammed back into the parapet of the chariot, which nearly flipped upside down, forcing him to let go of the whip.

Alexis laughed as she snapped the whip once, with a deep, angry boom of thunder: electricity continued to crackle all over the 50 feet long weapon, lightning bolts angrily zapping up her arm as the weapon still jerked and trashed in her grip, trying to break free to float back to its owner. "You might want to try a 2 on 1... pull as a couple. I will even let you call out your friends for extra muscle." Alexis teased, grinning widely as she ignored the electricity crackling all over her arm... before she snorted as she flexed her arm and pumped her own energy into the weapon. Seth's blue electricity was snuffed out of existence, and the whip ceased to resist her... before thickening, growing larger, triple-pointed segments instead of links as it grew heavier and deadlier, finally bursting with a mix of dark flames and crackling golden energy.

Seth looked at this with shock, his eyes bulging as Alexis conquered his weapon and warped it into one more suited to her own power... and then he snarled in fury, pulling out an enormous revolver with a long, thick square barrel, aiming this at Alexis and firing a couple of rounds with movements so rapid that it looked like he had only pulled the trigger once. "Give me back my whip, bitch!"

There was no ghost image warning her this time, the attack somewhat immune to her sixth sense... and her eyes bulged as she tried to dodge, but found that time was somehow slowing down for her, her movement feeling heavy and hopeless like swimming inside solid granite.

She saw Taranis throwing a massive spear towards her, which turned into a conical tornado of raging black spirits of war as soon as the pole left his hand, and she redoubled her efforts to break free, but to no avail, only managing to turn to the side slightly, holding her powerful arm up as defence.

She howled in agony as the enormous bullets smashed into her shoulder and into her bicep, tearing deep inside her flesh before both exploded, leaking Unworld residue all over the devastating wounds.

An instant later she was hit by the spear, the black tornado washing over her like a raging tsunami of swords and shrapnel, before time resumed its normal flow, and she was slammed out of the sky.

She crashed onto the ground, smashing in like a meteor, sinking deep into the ground near the edge of the Holy Tree's barrier, blood covering her as the black ghosts continued to angrily swarm all over her, biting into her flesh, cutting deep gashes in her body, and crushing her further down into the ground as magma began to surge from beneath.

The magma did not worry her. She had more than enough control over fire to consider a lake of magma a warm bath, but thorny tentacles were wrapping around her from the depths of the underground, and the howling dark spirits were pinning her down and cutting her apart, piece by piece...

She looked into the sky, snarling in fury as she saw Seth dispatching the wounded fire stallions with two rounds from his massive revolver, the corpses dissolving into motes of fire and light... before her eyes narrowed as the chariot charged towards Gaia and Killer, looking no less menacing and fast even though only two beasts were left pulling it.

The war chariot turned into a meteor of fire shooting across the sky, and Taranis's black darts shot out of the fire, aiming for Gaia and Killer... while Seth, with vengeful delight, swung his mace down almost playfully, again and again, sending enormous blue bolts of electricity crashing down from the Heavens into her.

Alexis could imagine the little bastard cackling cheerfully... and it made her mad.

She roared as another bolt of electricity rushed down towards her, and she arched her back, dragging her arms up even as ghosts and thorny tentacles did all they could to restrain her. Her biceps bulged explosively, almost threatening to burst out of her skin, and she managed to tear free, almost sitting up on the ground and shoving her hands up into the lightning, using the flat of Blue Vixen as a shield.

She grinned as she deflected the worst of the bolt, sending crackling discharges of deadly energy washing down around her, zapping the black ghosts into harmless smoke and incinerating the thorny tentacles as she growled and pushed up to her feet... before she pulled back one hand, balled it into a fist, and smashed this up into the lightning, grinning predatorily as it exploded into sparse, harmless motes of energy that quickly vanished away.

She grimaced at the pain in her body, flexing her hand as her finger regenerated, and all the other wounds tried to heal up The Unworld residue in the bullets that had smashed in her arms was meant to constantly sap away at her energies, and consume rapidly her very existence... but like Killer, Alexis somehow was resistant to the Unworld essence: her body was actually breaking the residue down into useful energy, actually. It was painful like hell, and until all the residue was done, her arm couldn't properly regenerate, but in the end, instead of being destroyed and absorbed by the dark, hungry essence, she would absorb it.

She lost no time waiting for it to happen, though, stretching out her free hand so that the whip, which had fallen nearby, floated into her grip before she beat her mighty wings to shot high into the sky, rushing behind the fire chariot.

As she caught up, she could see past the fire, gritting her fangs as Seth turned back and drew up his revolver once more. She immediately dived below the chariot's path, and she put all her energies into achieving even greater speed as she caught sight of Killer, the huge male wrestling back Gaia even though four of Taranis's spears were pierced into his back, with dark spirits swarming over his body and cutting savagely into his flesh.

The war chariot was aiming straight for Killer, the wheel-blades extended and Taranis leaning forwards, a gigantic black cleaver in his hand, cocked back and ready to strike.

Alexis flew forwards, almost overtaking the chariot... before she shouted: "Killer!"

The huge male needed no more information. Without the need to look over his shoulder, he first slammed Wyvern as hard as he could into Gaia's far larger blade, knocking it backwards for a moment, before he spun on the spot and let his wings fold. He fell towards the ground, right as the chariot charged through the air he had occupied a moment before... and he grinned as he beat his wings and shot upwards, slashing Wyvern upwards.

The enormous crimson blade cut through the reigns of fire, severing the pole and smashing the yokes holding the last two fire stallions. The horses galloped free, leaping forwards with greater speed and force than ever as they were freed of the weight of the chariot, and they quickly ran away even as Seth cursed and howled orders at them. The chariot continued to move forwards carried by its accumulated momentum, but it quickly began to lose altitude... before Alexis's back rippled, and massive black-fleshed tentacles jutting with bone-metal spikes surged out of her powerful musculature, stretching through the air to wrap over the vehicle before Seth and Taranis could leap out.

She grinned as her tentacles twisted and then whip-lashed, throwing the chariot down towards the wasteland far below, sending it crashing like a meteor into the ground as she dived after it, eyes glowing with power and bloodlust as the vehicle disintegrated on impact, tearing a deep crater in the earth as the two gods were hurled in opposite directions.

She banked to the left, going for Seth as the jackal crashed hard into the ground, bouncing once in a cloud of dust before backflipping to land on his feet. Alexis left him little time to do much of anything, however, as she shot right at him: the canine god ducked, letting her fly above his head, but he grunted in pain as she caught his head between her muscular thighs, his already broken skull cracking loudly as she squeezed... before Alexis grinned, planting her hands on the ground and doing a handspring, dragging Seth up into the air with her legs and throwing him like a missile, sending him crashing into a barren cliff as she easily landed on her feet.

Seth roared in pain as he smashed back-first into the stone, the cliff cracking loudly as he sunk deep into the mountain, which crumbled and collapsed over him, burying the god under a massive pile of boulders and heavy chunks. Alexis charged after him, fully aware of the fact that it would take far more than that to put a god out of commission... and she only snorted contemptuously as the mountain of stones exploded in a giant blast of fire and blue electricity bolt as Seth jumped up to his feet. He howled in fury as he thrust his arms into the air, electricity crackling around them as the giant boulders floated up in his psychic grip, before he sent them shooting towards Alexis, guiding them in swarms as he moved his arms like the director of an orchestra.

The goddess leapt over the first, then twisted to her body sideways as two more shot by her, brushing her front and her back before crashing into the ground, before she easily sidestepped a trio of boulders which rammed straight down of the sky.

"How do you do that...?" Seth snarled, gritting his fangs in frustration as he guided waves of giant blocks of stone, only to see her easily moving to avoid the blow, until he held his arms out as if to embrace the remaining meteors as they floated into the sky, before he shoved downwards, sending them all crashing down towards Alexis, like a solid spiked dome of stone.

Alexis's tentacles burst from her back once more, the thick appendages whip-lashing into the falling boulders and ramming into them with enough force to send many exploding into gravel, while others were slapped away like tennis balls, one tentacle curling around a dozen of the massive meteors and swinging out, throwing them towards Seth.

The god winced in shock and leapt backwards as the heavy stones crashed down all around him, pushing out his palm to blast the last two into dust with a discharge of lighting... before he landed on his feet and drew up his revolver - Alexis was faster, drawing Blue Vixen and pulling the trigger, sending a single bullet right into Seth's fingers, his hand exploding in a splatter of blood and gore and the heavy gun falling to the ground with a clang as the jackal howled in agony.

"You can surprise me only once..." Alexis softly said, walking towards the jackal with a grin on her lips. The god now shivered visibly, holding his bloody wrist, his right hand almost entirely destroyed: he stared at her with fear in his eyes, stumbling backwards... before he dropped to the ground and went for the enormous revolver. The whip that had been his own snapped loudly, and the long, segmented body slashed down into the gun, sending it flying away as Seth's arm only gripped into the dirt, before Alexis dragged the whip back with another slash, and the spiked Godblood segments pierced into the front of Seth's body, tearing him off the ground and into the air before his chest was slashed brutally open, blood flying in splatters all around. He flew off the cruel whip only as the spikes cut their way out of his body, ripping his chest and abdomen completely apart, exposing his ribs and organs as he spun on itself with a howl of pain and crashed forty feet further away.

Alexis picked up the heavy revolver, gazing over the massive weapon for a moment, before she snorted and squeezed on the thick, square barrel, crumpling it like it was made of wet paper, crushing the gun into a small ball of wrecked metal, unfazed even as the bullets still inside exploded and leaked Unworld darkness over her hand. She threw the ball away with contempt, lashing out again with the whip, crushing Seth into the ground as this new blow cut a ferocious gash in his back.

Even so, the god pushed quickly onto his feet, his intestines spilling out of his torn abdomen only to act like tentacles, growing wicked bone spikes as they pushed him back up and formed a spiked wall which closed the wound in his belly and chest, allowing his regeneration to work without his organs being exposed in the meanwhile. "How dare you, bitch... how dare you stand in our way..." The canine barked, drool flying from his jaws as his fangs grew larger, almost grotesque as his head, still semi-destroyed from her earlier stomping and squeezing, changed: his muzzle lengthened and became massive, his mouth turning into a black hole of despair, lined with rows upon rows of cruel teeth, his tongue splitting into four spike-tentacles as his already massive musculature expanded and grew, the beast becoming bulky and grotesque as his arms lengthened until his hands brushed the ground even as he stood. His short black fur stiffened, then turned into a coat of cold, silvery steel, while his eyes glowed crimson as he roared: "How dare you challenge the Masters of War?"

Alexis only made a grimace as Seth released his Ascended, ultimate form, bringing out his true look and, more importantly, his real power. The god stomped his way forwards as his paws turned into heavy, massive metal spikes, the last pieces of his armor and clothing falling in tatters on the ground as his skin and fur turned into steel and his wounds healed up completely, a new sets of ribs pushing outwards and wrapping over the front of his body as a cage-armor, while his back sprouted with a whole ridge of bone spikes that jutted down even his tail as this lengthened and became reptilian in appearance, ending in another cruel mouth with grotesque, massive fangs. The hungry jaws of war, able to devour thousands and thousands of soldiers and civilians at every battle... jaws which were never sated, never tired, and which could and would have gladly chewed the whole of existence into bloody mush.

"Get out of my way, before I decide to eat you like an appetizer..." Seth growled, his body growing in mass and size with each step he took: he more than doubled his height with the very first step, towering well over forty foot tall... but with the second step he more than doubled again, to over one hundred, which became over four hundred with the following movement, the god cackling and his drool falling to the ground in puddles, the acid liquid sizzling with how incandescent it was, reeking of death and decay.

"No one who saw this face of War has ever survived to tell the tale." Taranis's voice announced, booming louder than thunder, and the ground rattled under her feet as something enormous took a step. Alexis coldly looked over her shoulder, taking in the sight of Taranis, easily a thousand and more feet tall now, his feet turned into giant, heavy hooves which compressed everything down into dust. Each hoof was covered in long, thin spikes of rusty metal, and countless corpses were impaled on these, the dead soldiers of a million wars, their bodies still moving and their hands frantically grapping at the air, eager to take old of any living being to drag it to its death onto the spikes. The legs of the titan had bent forwards, and the knee pads had turned into two grotesque mouths lined with saber-like fangs, with a single spike-tentacle tongue lolling out hungrily in the middle. The muscular, massive legs were protected by thousands of shields of any shape and size, worn as scales, each overlapping the other. Undead corpses could be guessed beneath each, their claw-like hands gashing angrily at the air and some still brandishing ancient but still deadly blades and spears and modern firearms. The lion head which had adorned Taranis's armor at the height of the chest now had turned into another ominous mouth, which had undead corpses instead of lips: torsos of ancient dead warriors now had the sole purpose of grabbing other pour souls to throw down into the life-destroying jaws.

Four additional arms had pushed out of Taranis's back, giving him six gauntleted, powerful hands which could handle weapons and hand out destruction and grief at incredible rate... and Alexis spotted Aegis, far from forgotten. It had grown, but not quite enough to be used like a traditional shield... now, instead, it was worn over the back of the god's hand, Medusa's eyes glowing with their deadly magic from the center of it.

Taranis's head had grown out of proportion as his jaws had grown and sprouted with additional rows of curved spikes and fangs, his mouth a forever gaping black hole ready to swallow all life, and now he had massive hors, two pairs, both of which aimed forwards, curving towards the front of his face, both protecting his cheeks from enemy assaults and giving him an additional weapon to gore enemies with, his hair now a tall Mohawk of raging hellfire. "Submit, Alexis... I might still show you mercy. Help me bring Gaia down, and I'll know you are worth keeping around..."

"You have grown taller, but clearly your brain didn't grow at all." Alexis replied, glaring from one god to the other. "Two versus one, and you guys need to Ascend to stand up to me... you think I should be the scared one...?"

"Don't be silly..." Taranis laughed, flexing his massive musculature, his height increasing even further as his craving for destruction flooded the wasteland, a dark mist rolling over the battlefield and leaving all the Paladins and monsters drooling mindlessly, completely consumed by the wish to maim and kill and wreck havoc, forgetting any distinction of friend and foe and just assaulting everyone in sight. "This is not my full Ascension... no one ever saw my full form and size. I've never needed to show it off: my enemies have always been crushed into mush much before that. And you will be no different."

Seth, on the other hand, snorted angrily, his spiked foot ravaging the ground as the beast furiously shifted on the spot... and it gave Alexis the near certainty that Seth was fully Ascended, and angry and nervous for having been forced to take such a step. No doubt he could grow a hell of a lot bigger still, but in any other way, that was his ultimate form, his very best. His energy signature had grown exponentially, and so had Taranis's already far greater one, and this even made it harder for her sixth sense to read the changes in their energy levels to predict their following movements, reducing the effectiveness of her precognition.

"Killing you will be a real delight!" Seth barked, grinning viciously as his mace appeared in his hands, now topping a massive dark steel pole, the mace's head now bigger than a bus and jutting with enormous electrified conical spikes. The jackal cackled as he swung the huge weapon, stomping forwards towards Alexis, who had to flap her wings hard to throw herself out of the gigantic shadow of the weapon.

It smashed into the earth with the power of an asteroid, throwing up a gigantic explosion of dirt and sand and crumbled stones, the impact rattling the whole Fourth Sky before lightning bolts blasted forth from each spike, the discharges going up into huge explosions of blue, crackling energy.

Alexis grunted in pain she was caught in the middle of the tempest, wincing as electricity surged all over the wasteland, burning Paladins and monsters alike into nothing but fine powder. She struggled to stay airborne, as the enormous shockwave slammed her backwards and the bolts smashed into her wings and body, her nervous system burning and smoke coming out in a puff from her mouth as she nearly collapsed.

"How do you like this, bitch...?" Seth shouted, grinning predatorily as he caught sight of her and swung his mace once more, the monstrous divinity channeling his energies through the mace and blasting her hard, sending her crashing into the ground. The mace smashed savagely down a moment later, but Alexis managed to get away even as she coughed up a gout of blood. "Run, run, little butterfly...! I will squish you, you can't get lucky forever!"

The jackal groaned in bliss as he his fearsome energy burned monsters and Paladins into ashes. He cackled as the swings of his mace crushed dozens of them into nothing but liquid. The Paladins and the mutated animals, turned crazy with bloodlust, now grouped up around Seth's feet, the warriors smashing axes and swords and halberds into the jackal's ankle and toes, only to see their weapons shattering on impact. Seth could feel them moving around his feet, could barely guess their efforts in the attempt of hurting him, their assault tickling him at most... before he laughed as he moved a step and felt dozens of them burst apart like sacs of meat as his spike-paw rammed into them like a train. He crushed them, trampled them like dust, blood covering his feet and legs, the splatters almost reaching the knees as he absorbed their doomed souls. They surged up in the shape of dark ghosts, looking like trails of smoke as they climbed up Seth's and Taranis's arms, howling as they pooled obediently into the gods' hands, before the masters of war pushed their palms out and sent the angry spirits against Alexis.

The goddess leapt back to her feet, jumping out of the crater she had made into the solid ground as thorny roots already tried to push out and wrap around her limbs, and she slashed out the whip with a snarl, blasting her energy down into it as the segmented weapon cut a swath through the flock of ghosts. Bolts of golden energy exploded from the whip and shot from ghost to ghost, burning the spirits down to smoke which quickly dissolved... before Alexis's eyes glowed sapphire as she looked at the remaining ones.

A collective shudder went through the swarm as her domination washed over them, and after a moment the ghost's eyes glowed blue as they howled and turned back against their former masters.

"Impossible...!" Seth muttered, stepping back as he pushed his hand out, trying to take back control, to no avail. He swung his mace into the swarm, but the ghosts scattered and flew all around him, diving against him and shooting through his body, biting and clawing and bringing with them shrapnel and pain from one hundred wars.

Alexis had no time to appreciate the results, as crazed Paladins and monsters rushed towards her from all over the battlefield, throwing high shouts of hunger and ferocity as drool fell from their jaws. She leapt high over the first few in line, a heavily armoured Paladin charging at her with an halberd, stabbing this deep into the ground as she flipped in midair and stomped her foot on his head. Alexis spun around on his skull, crushing him into the ground and lashing out with the massive, heavy whip, sending limbs and splatters of blood flying up as the deadly tail of steel cut through bodies like through butter, her other hand aiming Blue Vixen at the horde and squeezing on the trigger to send bursts of massive projectiles tearing holes even through the armor of the Paladins. She grinned as the clone-angel beneath her collapsed, the goddess shifting her weight so that his head burst with a wet, sick crack, a splatter of gore spreading in the dirt as she shifted her foot and stomped on the butt of the halberd's pole, The heavy weapon flipped up in the air, and she leaned forwards into a slash of Blue Vixen, seemingly dancing as she brought her powerful leg up and kicked backwards, sending the halberd spinning and shooting like a missile into the assaulting monsters behind her.

She grinned predatorily as the sapphire blade of Blue Vixen chopped the gorilla monstrosity in front of her in two halves, separated down the middle in a splatter of blood and intestines, as she dragged the whip back, making it snap in the air, just above the ground, chopping the legs off from under the monsters, four of them falling on their faces with screams of agony as several others were sent crashing backwards into their comrades, sending them sprawling like pins.

Taranis walked forwards with a growl, merely holding one hand out, and the ghosts assaulting Seth were dragged into his palm, howling in agony and despair before the god balled his hand into a fist and snuffed them all out of existence, snarling impatiently as he gave the jackal a glare.

Seth bowed his head in shame and submission, bleeding from the countless wounds on his body, before he turned to the side to snarl down at Alexis, pushing his hands out and snarled: "Now I don't even need the gun to freeze you, bitch!"

Alexis looked up with a snarl at this threat, already feeling her movements beginning to become sluggish as she was trapped in some kind of invisible, solid prison as a whole row of darts of dark energy appeared in front of Seth's hands, ready to be thrown, while Taranis lifted one immense hoof and moved it over towards her, casting her into complete darkness as blood and gore rained thickly down from the underside of the god's foot.

Alexis growled as she struggled against the invisible restraints which slowed her in time and space, her musculature bulging explosively as she forced one arm up, even as an unfathomable force opposed her movement, before she pointed her hand at Seth and formed a wall of her energy as a shield. The jackal recoiled with a grunt, blood bursting from his jaws as he was slammed backwards, his feet tearing deep canyons into the wasteland even as he roared and fired his bolts against the shield, rattling it with a series of enormous explosions.

Alexis coughed harshly, vomiting blood as her own share of recoil hit, smashing her backwards with brutal force... but she then spat out and grinned as her movements returned to almost normal fluidity. She beat her wings powerfully, shooting backwards, away from Taranis's immense hoof, and she roared as she swung her arms upwards, biceps bulging as if she was shoving up an enormous weight.

The ground in front of her exploded, magma blasting up in waves as a gigantic crack opened over a front of several miles, before a gigantic, thick plate of stone swung up, flipping over.

Taranis grunted in surprise as the ground beneath his feet suddenly exploded upwards, shifting and flipping over, throwing him down into the magma below as he fell on his back with a snarl, his arms going up instinctively as the stone plate fell onto him, shoving him deeper into the incandescent depths.

"I'll tear you apart, bitch!" Seth howled, his eyes bulging with fury as he saw Taranis vanishing under the flipped-over ground, and he charged forwards, as steely tentacles ending in conical, cruel spikes pushed out of his mouth, shooting after Alexis as he kicked her barrier once, twice, thrice, cackling as it finally fell apart.

Seth tried to slow down time again, but he missed as Alexis spotted a slight tremble in the fabric of reality, a shift of energy that she was able to avoid with a beat of her wings... and the jackal swung his massive mace against her instead. Alexis slid Blue Vixen back in its sheath on her back as she snapped the long whip with the other hand, before she seized both hands of the long, segmented weapon, flying right towards the immense mace. She grinned as she banked hard to the side at the very last moment, the gigantic spikes missing her by mere inches as she flew up along the side of the weapon, throwing the coil of the whip over the head of it.

The chain-weapon caught the mace like a noose, catching into the spikes, and Alexis grinned as the whip tensed and she was dragged backwards by the mass of the gigantic weapon. She threw all her weight and power into pulling in the opposite direction, biceps bulging explosively, and she licked her lips as she once more overpowered the canine god, the mace dragged backwards until it smashed right into Seth's face, making him owl in agony and fury as his face was brutally smashed into pulp.

Alexis flew behind his head and dragged hard on the whip, pushing the steel spikes even deeper into his devastated skull... but then she grunted as the god clawed madly at the mace and caught into the whip, dragging her hard forwards, sending her hurling violently towards the ground.

She beat her wings to stabilize her flight, but Seth caught sight of her and sent out a wave of energy which again slowed time for Alexis, the god cackling maniacally as she was caught and suddenly blocked in midair, and he rammed his giant fist into her, sending her crashing like a meteor into the ground, before a spear appeared in his other hand, and he held this high up towards the sky as blue bolts of lightning surged into the pole, flooding it with energy which crackled violently all around it.

Alexis stared upwards at this, as Seth licked his lips with the ominous tentacles, before they shoot down towards her. She jumped up to her feet, panting and wincing at the pain from her many wounds, her regeneration struggling to keep up, but she found the energies to dodge the first tentacle, which slammed into the ground, cracking a large boulder like it was a biscuit. She chopped the tip off another with a clean swing of Blue Vixen, swatting the third away with the flat of the blade, before pulling the trigger as she framed it in the sight for a brief instant, enough to send bullets tearing into it until large shreds fell off...

but then her senses screamed at her and she beat her wings to shoot into the sky, just as the ground beneath her exploded in a hail of fragments and in a wave of magma.

Taranis's gigantic hand pushed up from underground, and she cursed as she saw the glint of Medusa's eyes in the corner of her vision. Her wings immediately began to turn into stone, just as the immense fingers of the god closed on her from all sides... and as she shoved her arms and legs out to resist, to push back against his hand, the last of Seth's tentacles viciously stabbed into her wings once, twice, thrice in rapid succession, before it ripped its way back out of her maimed flesh and aimed straight at her head.

Alexis grunted in pain as her arms and legs were savagely squeezed, compressed as she pushed back with al her might, and she bent forwards, arching her back as her tentacles stretched out from between the roots of her wings. They had no sexual shape this time, ending instead in long jaws filled with cruel fangs, the muscular bodies jutting with spikes all over, and they shot out all around her: one went for Seth's tentacle, wrapping around it, biting into it and squeezing it in its coils until it exploded in a bloody splatter of gore. The others smashed into Taranis's fingers, whip-lashing into them, pushing outwards with tremendous force... until Alexis managed to fly out of the god's grip with one mighty beat of her wings.

Seth howled in pain and fury as the stumpy remains of his tentacles slowly regenerated, writhing and trashing around and sending blood raining down on earth as the jackal drove his spear down with a snarl of rage.

In the same moment, Taranis's other five arms punched their way out of the ground, the immense god laughing as he smashed his way through the stone and ground, magma flowing down his body without bothering him in the slightest as a cruel cleaver sword appeared in one of his hands, the god slashing this up towards Alexis.

The goddess was caught in the middle, gritting his fangs with a grunt as the edge of the immense cleaver rushed towards her back from below and the enormous, pyramid-like tip of Seth's spear crashed down from above.

Her tentacles all arched into the air and shot downwards, the beast-like appendages biting into the edge of the colossal cleaver and pushing against it as hard as they could, while she shoved her arms up and caught the tip of the spear in her hands, even as electricity crackled with deafening force all around her, flooding into her body and making her scream in pain and rage.

"This is the end, bug...!" Seth cackled, gripping into the pole of the spear with both hands and pile-driving it down as hard as he could, while Taranis caught the blade of the cleaver with another hand, thrusting it upwards from both ends while he laughed and smashed enormous punches into Alexis's back, while a long, deadly katana appeared in another hand, ready to chop her in half.

"You've put up a valiant fight, Alexis... but in the end, you get squished like the bug you are." Taranis hissed, leaning down to glare at the far smaller female.

Alexis's lip twitched at the insult, her deadly fangs gritted in a snarl as her eyes glowed pure sapphire... and her voice came out in a growl as she spat: "Let me show you who the bug is..."

She hadn't wanted to grow to match them, because she feared it would destroy her focus, risking to cut the link with Killer and leaving his consciousness trapped and lost inside Gaia. Growing took a lot of energies and quite some concentration, at the beginning... it wasn't a free lunch. Plus she knew all too well the kind of lust that gripped her when she allowed more of her power and size to surface, and that wouldn't help either... But she was left with no other choice.

Her body flexed, back arching violently as her musculature bulged with power, her energy blasting out of her in bolts which shot up Seth's spear and made the jackal snarl in pain... before she began to grow, quickly, unstoppably, as she let out a groan laced with lust, with the bliss her own power gave her.

"Didn't they tell you...? I can grow too." Alexis teased, dropping her head backwards to look teasingly up into Taranis's eyes as her size quickly approached his.

He slashed his katana towards her neck, but her tentacles grew with her, and more of them pushed out of her powerful back, ramming into Taranis and smashing him backwards, lifting him high into the air as the beasts ferociously bit into his arms, into his hands, into his legs. The god grappled with the massive tentacles, slashed his blades into them, but they kept coming, and they smashed him back into the ground... and Alexis shifted her attention back to Seth as the jackal's spear, once looming immense above her, now looked less and less of a threat, as she wrapped a hand right behind the sharp tip, and pushed it away from her growing chest, a mocking grin on her lips.

Seth gaped in shock at this, mouthing silent words, before he was slammed backwards like a ragdoll as she kicked both feet into his chest, his armor cracking and large metal plates tearing off his muscle, exposing his very flesh. Alexis stood up tall, looming over the jackal as she tilted her head to the side and cracked her neck, squeezing the spear in her hand until the pole all but exploded in a hail of fragments, the tip falling to the ground... before it stopped in midair as Alexis grinned and took psychic hold of it.

Seth saw it just as the blade shot towards him, and he held his hands up, a large round shield appearing in his grip. The blade smashed into this hard enough to dent it even as it exploded into fragments, and Seth stumbled backwards with a grunt of shock and real fear. He gazed up over the edge of the shield, seeing Alexis walking forwards, and he snarled as he channeled all his energies into the shield, using it to radiate time-slowing force in her direction.

Alexis gritted her fangs angrily at this, dropping her shoulder and ramming into the wall of energy with her monstrous physical power, muttering: "I'm so sick of this crap of yours, dog..."

Seth winced in disbelief as he recoiled violently backwards, the female's muscles bulging and wrestling him back even as he did all he could to pump more and more energy against her, his arms trembling for the effort, his fingers starting to lose the grip on the shield., and Alexis grinned and shoved forwards even harder, until the waves of energy fell apart into weak, powerless motes of darkness as she tore her way through and her fingers seized into the shield.

Seth threw himself forwards, trying to ram into her as electrified spikes surged out from the front of the shield, but it was like he was trying to push a mountain. Well, had he been a mortal, of course. He could have easily shoved a mountain, actually... but Alexis was unstoppable, and she only laughed as he bounced back with a grunt of pain, before she easily slammed the edge of his shield right into his jaws, cracking the bone and sending a hail of broken teeth exploding out in a splatter of blood and cartilage.

She then ripped the shield out of his grip, the thick metal crumpling like paper under her fingers as she tossed it away with a snort of contempt.

Seth leapt backwards, stepping away from her as his eyes bulged in shock and confusion and fear, but Alexis had already snapped the whip out, and as he looked up, the long weapon tore into his neck, making him gargle as it wrapped tightly around his throat, slicing deep into his flesh. The goddess pulled her arm back, snapping the whip backwards and dragging Seth back towards her, her free hand seizing him by the long ears and forcing him to bow down before her, just to slam her knee into his already destroyed face.

Seth howled in agony as his face caved in, his skull broken and deformed, blood raining down from what was once his face, clawing at Alexis's hand with desperate rage as he swung his tail against her, the massive appendage sprouting with metal spikes and gnawing hungrily at the air with the giant, ominous mouth at the tip.

Alexis however saw this coming, the ghost image passing in her vision well before the actual tail moved, and she merely stomped her foot down onto it, crushing the appendage into the ground and twisting her steel-soled boot down into it, grinning as blood spilled out of the squished, maimed flesh, before she dragged her foot back, and steadied Seth at the same time, still holding him by the head. His tail tensed, then it creaked sickly, the god trashing and fighting to get out of her deadly grip as the appendage began to tear... before it came apart with a splatter of blood, the severed tail falling to the ground and bouncing and writhing in its death throes.

Seth struggled even harder against her, roaring in fury and frustration, his body glowing and crackling with energy as he grew larger, his form expanding and his muscles bulging bulkier and stronger, but Alexis only licked her lips, eyes glowing sapphire as she easily matched his rate, so that for all his efforts, Seth didn't gain an inch on her, and his muscles, even bulging bulkier, couldn't keep up with hers, her already monstrous strength augmenting at a far superior rate. "Bet you felt big and bad, before... and you sure have been enjoying your rides on War's chariot... but now it's time to learn your place." Alexis coldly said, her hand moving down to Seth's neck and seizing into it, squeezing on his throat as she lifted him high up, looking into what remained of one of his eyes. He was probably 12.000 feet tall after all the growing, but Alexis held him up without effort, the goddess having grown well over twice as much, towering over him... and the jackal now looked simply terrified.

Alexis's instinct screamed at her, however, and she turned back immediately, pulling back her tentacles. Taranis was getting back to his feet and cackling as he grew at a fearsome, astonishing rate, and Alexis winched in pain as the god of war caught a couple of her tentacles and chopped them in half with a clean swing of his heavy, enormous cleaver. The two tentacles had managed to pierce into his body, badly chewing into his flesh, and they did not manage to retreat in time, half of them remaining stuck within Taranis's chest. The god only cackled, looking down at the terrible wounds with a maniac laughter, seizing into the two pieces and ripping them violently out of his chest: the jaws of the two tentacle-beasts had still been solidly closed on his guts, deep within him, and long ropes of his intestines were ripped out behind them... but the god only hissed in sick, insane delight, throwing the tentacles away and then clawing into his wounds, ripping the flesh from his ribs as he continued to grow, looking down to Alexis with cruel glee.

The ropes of his intestine moved like tentacles, and he even deliberately bit into one, his features twitching at the pain, but the god murring in delight as it only seemed to spur him to grow even further, even faster as his body became miles tall, until he matched Gaia's immensity.

Taranis laughed loudly, flexing his immense form, stretching out his six arms as he boomed: "As I said, Alexis, I love suffering... the pain of others, my own... all of it is delicious. All of it fuels me. It only makes me stronger and hungrier. The chaos and suffering of war feeds me... and that's why you have no hope of standing up to me."

Alexis dropped Seth with a snarl, and as the jackal crashed on all fours on the ground, she spun around to face Taranis. Seth realized only a moment too late what was happening: as the goddess spun, she caught him between her mighty, muscular legs, and he found himself suddenly clenched brutally between her powerful thighs. He let out a shriek of agony, but it turned out being a silent gape as all air was squeezed out of his lungs, his abdomen caving in as his ribs snapped like twigs.

She twisted her thighs-hold a little, and it was enough to rip him in half like a biscuit, blood splattering her legs as his body tore into two halves roughly at waist height: his legs fell to the ground in a useless heap of bloody meat, while he trashed in agony on the ground, crawling away from her using his arms, until he managed to open a portal, and rushed out through this, vanishing from the field.

Alexis had other things to mind, instead, as the now titanic Taranis stomped his foot onto the wasteland plain and broke the earth, cracks spreading in every direction as tectonic plates shifted and turned into blades and spikes of stone, jutting up into the sky. She leapt from one to another, getting out of the way, before gritting her fangs as an immense hurricane of dark ghosts and ancient swords, spears, maces and axes of all sorts crashed right into her. She was trapped in the immense vortex, drawing out Blue Vixen and using it to deflect the blades raining against her like meteors, groaning in agony as the ghosts clawed into her from all sides, smashing through the barriers of energy she tried to form, and dragging her further towards the centre of the tornado. There was no calm eye in there, but a glowing, sinister crimson light which promised nothing but merciless destruction.

She tried to fly towards the edge of the hurricane instead, but the vortex was tremendously powerful, and she couldn't even really spread her wings, which were pelted and torn apart by the shrapnel, as ghosts clawed into them. She couldn't even see or sense where the edge of the tempest was, as the dark spirits swarmed her so tickly that she couldn't see past their darkness.

She grunted in pain as her head almost exploded, the pain and fatigue making it harder and harder for her to keep her focus and keep open the channel between minds. She could feel, and see it in her mind, as a tube that was being squeezed closed... and she swallowed in agony and fear at the thought of failure. She glared around herself, seeking a way out, but her senses continued to be overwhelmed, and she hissed in pain as an axe smashed into her thigh, the blade sinking into her strong muscle almost all the way to the pole... before she roared in frustration and just blasted out a beam of her energy, burning through the wall of swarming ghosts and weapons, until she saw a glimpse of the apocalyptic red sky of the devastated Fourth Heaven. She rushed immediately in that direction, flying as quickly as she could... only to be caught by a tremendous wind as she emerged outside, the force of it throwing her hard towards the Throne.

She crashed into the mountain with fearsome force, cracking the backrest in half as she sunk deep into the hard granite... and she looked up in rage and shock as Taranis shoved the hurricane after her.

The tornado smashed into the Throne with ferocious force, blasting the solid granite into gravel, erasing the shape of the mountain, consuming the whole rocky cliffs... but Alexis managed to get away, smashing her way through the mountain and flying out of the back of it, shooting up into the sky, away from the tempest and into the clouds, panting hard and desperately needing to put her concentration back together...

But here, even assuming Taranis couldn't see her right away, she had to shield herself from the lightning bolts that the hostile Nature fired against her from all directions.

Focus... focus...

She visualized the mind channel, and put her efforts into pushing it wide open again, even as blood leaked from her nose and eyes. She growled angrily, seizing the axe buried in her thigh and ripping it out of her flesh, snarling as she crushed it into a shapeless ball of metal, and she took a few deep breaths, trying to stabilize.

"Lady Alexis, my dear... I should have known that Killer couldn't possibly be doing it on his own..."

Alexis's eyes opened wide as Shi's voice echoed in her mind, and she grunted as she felt his hands interfering with the mind channel, the monster trying to squeeze the tube shut, forcing her into a deadly wrestling of minds.

Shi's grinning face flashed in her vision, coming and going from her brain, and she winced in pain.

Taranis, meanwhile, had evidently spotted her, as the titan was charging in her direction, cackling and lashing out with the immense weapons in his hands, slapping away the clouds and getting nearer by the second.

"Your lover is giving me trouble here... but it's my fault, isn't it...? I shouldn't have tried to fight him back here. I should have sought to shut down the channel, all along. It was so obvious that it had to be you... silly me." Shi exclaimed, teasing her with cruel glee. _"But I shall remedy right away... between me and Taranis, I'm pretty sure we can kill your focus... and you, as well." _

Alexis cursed under her breath, closing her eyes for a moment before turning towards Gaia, as the goddess shifted her attention on her as well, raising one hand and pointing her palm. An immense beam of raging water, charged with electricity and carried by a vortex of razor-sharp winds, shot towards Alexis, firing through the clouds and icing them over, turning them into solid floating icebergs which then exploded into deadly shrapnel and oversized spikes, all aiming for her.

From the other side, Taranis closed in, all six his arms swinging titanic-sized weapons... and Alexis quickly chose to go for the god of war, beating her mighty wings to dive under the swing of one cruel mace, before she twisted on herself to shot between two swords, the edge of each moving mere inches away from her body. The katana swung down towards her next, and she lashed out with the heavy whip, sending it wrapping around the blade, before she used the chain-weapon to drag herself up above the sword, jackknifing over it and flying past.

A wall of tentacle-spikes shot out of the ominous mouth on Taranis's chest, and thousands of the cruel appendages stabbed across the sky to impale her, the goddess gritting her fangs as she held Blue Vixen out ahead of her and pumped her energy through the large blade.

Golden light erupted from it, forming a large circular shield in front of her... before the shield grew into a massive conical spear, stretching forwards into a long, deadly weapon. Alexis charged forwards with this, like an oversized jousting spear, and she stabbed her way through the wall of tentacles, the dark appendages burning into ashes as they were smacked by the solid, crackling energy.

Taranis turned around with a snarl, ready to strike again as he vomited a new army of dark ghosts... but Gaia's vortex of winds, fire and water and ice slammed into him as it tried to snake its way past him to follow Alexis.

Taranis stumbled with a roar of pain as the winds cut into him like a meat grinder, the fire consuming his flesh as the water shot right through him like a laser, while the ice shards pelted him like shrapnel... but he steadied himself and bit his lip with an expression of crazed bliss, the pain adding to his hunger and strength as the wounds regenerated at fearsome rate... and he immediately focused on chasing after Alexis, laughing as he sent thousands of balls of focused darkness hailing down from the sky. They exploded in massive blasts of energy whenever they touched something, and Alexis was forced to put up a barrier of her own, grunting in pain as she recoiled under the succession of explosions, as the gritted her fangs and felt her concentration slipping, as Shi's laughter filled her mind.

A moment later, the turned back to look over her shoulder, staring at the ground far below as it simply exploded, enormous slabs of stone floating over a surge of magma... before the liquid fire erupted in a column which fired towards her, slamming slabs of stone the size of regions towards her. Alexis spun on herself immediately, swinging out Blue Vixen and sending a blade of energy slamming into the first slab, crumbling it into a cloud of dirt and dust. The column of magma was sliced in half as well... but the fire began to spin on itself and reformed a single, immense body, and even a snake head, which hissed at her, displaying fangs as big as ships.

Taranis came from the other side, laughing darkly as he swung down an immense cleaver which burned with black fire... and Alexis found herself pushing a hand out in either direction, shutting her eyes as she formed a sphere of energy around herself as a barrier, and then sent it exploding outwards, slamming into the fire serpent and into the god's cleaver, slamming both backwards.

In the distance, Gaia snarled and made a cutting gesture with one hand, sending blades of lighting shooting down from the sky to pierce deep into the earth, even chopping one of Taranis's arms off as the blades slashed into Alexis's barrier, cracking it...

Alexis panted, short of breath and with searing pain in her head as she was put to the test by so much happening at once... She gritted her fangs as the snake lunged forwards again, biting at her barrier, and its fangs partially piercing inside, while Taranis straightened and just stretched his destroyed arm out, a new hand forming from the shredded flesh and a new, gigantic sword appearing in his grip.

She gazed towards Gaia, her chest heaving and sweat rolling down over her body and into her eyes... but she smiled slightly, seeing Killer sized up and wrestling the goddess back, slamming her into the Holy Tree's barrier and fighting to keep her down.

It gave her some relief as the blades of lighting ceased their assault, but the snake lunged forwards once more.

Alexis took one deep breath, steadying herself... and then, at the last moment, she turned her barrier into psychic hands, gripping the enormous serpent right behind the head, and also seizing into Taranis's cleaver. She let out a roar, flexing her enormous musculature and calling on all of her strength as she slid backwards out of the way, and slammed the snake forwards, while shoving Taranis's cleaver out of the way.

The god of war gargled as the serpent of magma shot right into his chest, biting into him with brutal force, ripping into his body and sending magma burning his flesh, as the two titans clashed in a self-destructive battle. The god was pushed back even as he stabbed all of his weapons through the snake's body, the monstrosity seeming unfazed as it continued to chew its way deeper inside Taranis... but after a moment, the god clawed into the creature, and ripped it apart into splatters of magma, snarling in rage.

As he charged for another assault, however, Alexis grinned as she finally saw good news on the horizon: beyond the barrier of the Holy Tree, Ira was slashing out with her divine chains, cutting through an immense branch of the tree like it was made of nothing but butter. On top of the branch, over what remained of the platform that had once supported one whole block of the city of Kemuel, Alexis could see a huge crowd of Benevolents and angels. They were protected by a barrier held up by Manticora and Adrasthea, while Alcana and Vesta were outside the shield, fighting back the hordes of monsters still assaulting them all.

Ira had sized up considerably, and Alexis could see her eyes and horns glowing, even from the distance, as the cobra flew under the falling branch and took it over her shoulders, holding up with ease what was the equivalent of a whole town and the very ground over which it had been built. She flew out of the barrier, carrying that immense burden like it was a feather, as Vesta and Alcana slaughtered the monsters who tried to assail her, and Manticora and Adrasthea held the barrier up as the dark, godlike fire hungrily hammered over them, determined not to let them get away.

But they did get away, instead. As soon as they were clear out of the Holy Tree's shield, Ira teleported them all away, to safety.

Alexis knew that they would be back in just a moment... and she grinned, relieved at the thought of finally getting some help. She only had to resist a little longer, and keep the mind channel wide open...

Shi seemed to understand it as well, as she could hear his roar of rage in her mind, and she could feel him desperately wrestling her for control over the mind channel, trying to put his all into the clash to exploit the last big chance.

But she only smirked, closing her eyes and shoving him back with brutal force. Fuck off, bitch. I'm not letting you do that.

Gaia fought Killer back and swung one arm towards Alexis, turning a vast part of the wasteland that the Fourth Sky had become into a raging ocean, the dark waters rising in columns on both sides of Alexis and ramming into her with destructive force, battering her barrier... And Taranis leapt forwards with a snarl of delighted hunger, his six arms driving in the assault.

The swords and mace of the gigantic god swung down towards Alexis... but the goddess did nothing, already sensing the incoming energies...

And Adrasthea appeared in front of her, surrounded by enormous, heavy shields which floated in midair, moving on their own to repeal Taranis's attacks, each impact booming louder than thunder as the goddess of strategy fenced back her brutal, crude counterpart. Taranis was the personification of the worst side of war, of the pure massacre and devastation and madness. Adrasthea was the personification of strategy, of cunning, of the art of winning battles through maneuvers, not through bloody attrition.

Vesta, Alcana, Manticora and Ira appeared next, the cobra grinning gamely as she floated in the air, eyes glowing emerald and her chains arching in the air around her, eager to unleash destruction. The demoness-turned-goddess made a shoving gesture, and forced the columns of water far apart from each other... before she growled and swung her hands down, and the water was crushed back down to earth, with enough violence to form enormous depressions into the sea... which became dry zones for a moment as the ground further beneath revolted under such power, enormous craters tearing into the stone as the water was pushed out to the sides, forming tall waves which then crashed back in.

"Took you long enough." Alexis teased, smiling and feeling enormous relief, as she could now put greater attention on the mental struggle, having the help of the others in the physical clash.

"We are sorry, Mistress." Ira replied calmly, bowing her head a bit before the goddess, before turning and looking up into Taranis's eyes with a gamely grin. "We will make up for our delay."