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_A new chapter is ready, and as always i hope it'll make for good reading. Enjoy, and as always, know that comments are very much welcome. _

There can be no real surprise. The enemy must be brought down with raw strength, in an attempt to...

Chapter 70 - Seize the initiative

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There was no way for them to enjoy the benefits of strategic surprise, as the enemy was well aware of the crucial importance of the Godblood mines. Surely, they expected to be assaulted there at some point. To make things worse, the mines were one of the best fortified places in Heaven, surrounded as they were by a series of important fortresses, with magic and other defences making up the inner layer. Launching an attack against the mines was an extremely dangerous proposition, but it was the only thing they could do to try and take the initiative, since they had no clue where Typhon and the Council were hiding and they ignored the location of the secret clone factories that kept producing Paladins by the regiment. They could either continue to fight back a never-ending succession of hordes of clones like in a bad videogame, or they could try and make a move that would put the enemy, for once, in the position of having to react. As a consequence, despite the great risks involved, it had been an easy choice.

There was a gap of sorts in the defences due to the fact that the Monasteries of the Sun and of the Moon were still held by their garrisons of Seraphims, even if both forts were under siege from the very first minute of the civil war. The two fortresses formed part of the ring of steel that protected the mines, and the Council had kept them under constant bombardment to try and drive the garrisons out. Now Killer was determined to bring decisive help to both forts, to break the siege and to drive on from there towards the mines.

The mines were a maze of tunnels in a range of monumental black-stone mountains that used to encircle the whole of the Seventh Heaven. Vesta once knew the internal setup, palm by palm, but now she could only make guesses, since things had undoubtedly dramatically changed. For one, the mountain range now had a different shape and feel, due to how the whole of Heaven had been warped and reshaped by the Cataclysm. And on top of that, the tunnels were bound to be much longer, deeper and much more numerous now, with how much Godblood was being extracted non-stop from the depths of the sacred grounds. Godblood was still the most resistant material that could be used to craft armors and forge weapons, and the requirement to arm and cover in heavy plates an endless succession of clones meant that more and more material had to be dug out. There was no telling how many more tunnels had been torn open into the mountains, and that had the potential to become a real nightmare if the Paladins retreated into the darkness and attempted to resist inside the mines, requiring a slow and dangerous clear up operation to take them out, one by one.

Killer grimaced at the thought, hoping that they could avoid such a scenario. He and Ira had crafted a daring plan to try and make that impossible by cutting the enemies out of the mines early on in the battle, but it was a big gamble and it still had him nervous. The idea was that Killer and Alexis would lead a vicious frontal charge on the ground, while Ira would lead her Legion of dragon knights in a daring flight over and past the enemy positions to land right in front of the entrances to the tunnels. The cobra had aptly described her role as that of the anvil, while Killer and Alexis would act as the hammer. The problem, of course, was that there was nothing really surprising in such an approach, and the enemy would likely be prepared to react. Unfortunately, there was literally no room for maneuver and no space for brilliant strategic inventions, as the nature of the target, nested in the side of a mountain range, made a frontal assault the only option available.

Killer pulled lightly on the reins, and Ruin blew thick clouds of smoke from his nostrils as he slowed down his pace, but only reluctantly so: the massive fire stallion was eager to charge into battle. He always was aggressive and restless, so much so that very few dared moving anywhere near his stable, and now that he was guided in an inspection in front of several divisions of battle ready Seraphims with dark wings, his shoulders and massive muscles flexed with barely restrained vigor and anticipation.

Killer lightly patted the powerful neck of the beast, reassuring him that the time was near, but at the same time he enforced his command with a firm squeeze, using his mighty legs to crush the horse's flanks. Ruin never challenged his supremacy, always obeying his every order, but a strong hand was nonetheless required to keep him in cheek. He preferred being reminded of the power of his owner rather than be shown affection. But that was, in part, also due to how badly he had been treated by his previous owner, Taranis: it was a fact that Ruin wasn't used to being shown respect and affection, and was only now learning to recognize those gestures. He was still somewhat suspicious when caressed or patted with gentleness, but when no one looked he occasionally bumped his head into Killer's chest and enjoyed a scratch behind the ears.

Killer, mercifully, kept that a closely guarded secret.

Wrath was a little bit more relaxed, but still ferocious and bloodthirsty enough to scare people away with just one look or one snort. Alexis, however, had effortlessly tamed him and she rode him with absolute mastery and with a great deal of pleasure.

The enormous stallion, mounted by the muscular goddess, walked just a step behind Ruin and to the right of him, as king and queen walked slowly up the ranks of the army assembled in the vast court of arms of Eaglenest. Rows upon rows of Seraphims in full armour and with their sextuple wings spread wide, the feathers black and yet glowing, like a starry night. Tall, muscular, buxom and clad in rather revealing armour sets; with collars clamped tightly around their throats, they were clearly more than just warriors, but it was their fighting skill that shined the most, as they stood to attention with spears, halberds and cleaver swords held easily up, like they weighted nothing, as enormous longbows waited to be employed, slung diagonally on their backs.

Each legion had its colors and standards held up high, proudly on display, and the commanding officer stood a few steps in front of the troops, fist closed and held against the heart. The Legio VI had a stylized lightning bolt as symbol, and Gaia as leader: the goddess of Nature smiled warmly as she saluted Killer and Alexis, clad in the Four Elements bent to her will and turned into armor, with Wind and Water forming a flexible, form-fitting layer of protection upon which sat heavy plates of dark stone and boiling hot magma.

The Legio X "Dracones" was admittedly the most impressive, although it was smaller in numbers, being composed of elite, hand-picked warriors that rode into battle on huge dragons clad in heavy Godblood armor. Each warrior in the formation had personally tamed her mount, and built with it a special, unique bond that made them fight like a single body. The "Dracones" were Heaven's version of super-heavy shock cavalry, and their charge from the sky could hit anywhere, anytime, with fearsome power and ferocity.

Ira, the leader, was mounted upon Veronika, her massive female dragon. Killer had already met the immense beast in the past, and gained her trust and respect, which was displayed when the dragon bowed her head deeply at his and Alexis's passage, while Ira proudly held up high the red standard with the symbol of the legion.

And then followed another Legion whose name was enough to strike fear into even the hardest demons. A Legion which had a story as ancient and as glorious as Heaven itself, having been one of the two original life guard formations for God. The Legio II "Praesidio Inferos" had been raised in the Night of Times as the Seraphim guard of Elelyon, under the command of God's Champion, Vesta. And Vesta continued to command her very own division, although few other "original guardians of Hell" still served in the ranks. Many of the Seraphims that had been in the division when it was first raised had fallen in combat over the Eons, covering themselves and their unit in glory. Only exceptional warriors were admitted into the "Praesidio Inferos".

The Legio I "Primigenia", which shared the same unmatched seniority, had originally been composed of Arkangels and had been led by Gabriel. The division had ceased to exist with the battle of the Wall, when Gabriel and his loyal guardians had fought to the very end and sacrificed their lives to obey Typhon's orders.

With the reorganization of the surviving forces of Heaven, Vesta had wanted to resurrect that glorious legacy, entrusting it into the hands of Adrasthea and of a solid legion of young but exceptionally gifted Seraphims. The Legio I had already left, along with the XXX division and several others, which Killer had sent out in a series of operations across Heaven, in the hope of luring enemy troops away from the Sacred Mines, or at least confusing the Council about what the plan was.

Perhaps we can still gain at least a tactical surprise, if we lead them to believe our forces are all committed in the usual tasks... maybe they are arrogant enough to assume that we would never attack the Mines with anything less than 100% of our fighting force.

For the new Legio I, that was the first battle, the first occasion to shine and keep true to the formidable reputation of the historic division.

For all of the legions out on the diversionary operations, the instruction had been the same, and very clear: if engaged, keep the contact light, so to stay always ready to use portals to rush to the Seventh Heaven to help as soon as summoned.

Killer led Ruin in a tight turn, so he directly faced the Legio II, his lips cresting in a little smile as Vesta sharply saluted and then strolled towards him, the natural sway of her hips hypnotic as the golden pieces of armor wrapped over her musculature only underlined her beauty and power even further. Her abs were proudly bare, her cleavage breathtaking as her enormous breasts seemed to want to push out of the chest plate, the high heels of her armored boots clacking lightly on the stone floor as she gave him a wink.

"Ready...?" Killer asked, and the queen shrugged a bit, pulling up one arm to gesture towards the disciplined troops behind her. "We are as ready as we can be. There really isn't much else we can invent: we can only rush forth and smash the door down. It'll be tough, and we are going to be terribly outnumbered... but it wouldn't be any fun if we weren't." The muscular goddess easily said, smirking a bit as she tilted her head to the side a little. "No matter how many they are, we have you. Besides, with all the power you pumped into me I feel like I can crush their fortresses like toys."

"You know well that you can..." Killer amusedly replied, smirking slightly as he looked down at her, resting one arm idly against Ruin's neck. "But I'm not allowing you to do that. We need to capture the fortresses, not destroy them. The more fortifications we capture in good state, the easier it will be to garrison the area and resist to enemy counterattacks."

Vesta rolled her eyes and huffed a bit at that, grumbling that he was a killjoy, but behind the antics was a complete understanding of the strategic problem at hand: they were planning to move into Hell as soon as possible, which meant that they would not be on hand to crush hordes of Paladins out of existence if the Seraphims and angels garrisoning the place were to end up in trouble. They had to ensure the legions could take up easily defensible and well protected positions, right from the start.

Killer had considered the option of crushing everything into dust and then rebuild the place as a Sanctuary, using his powers, but there were the usual risks to that approach. Besides, Killer did want the place to be defensible but not unassailable: if he turned the place into a Sanctuary, the enemy was likely to simply ignore the area, much as it needed the supply of Godblood. No, he wanted to let the Council think that the mines could be recaptured, so that they would send their armies to the assault. Killer and the others hoped to lure even Typhon himself out of his hiding place by using the mines as bait, even though they believed he would not be so easy to trick. At a minimum, Killer hoped to effectively capture much of the enemy forces' attention by forcing them to try and take back the mines. Every Paladin division sent against the mines meant one division less to track, intercept and destroy elsewhere across Heaven, making the job easier for Killer and his allies and giving them, for the first time, the power that comes from selecting the field of the battle.

Vesta was very well aware of what the aims of the operation were, since she had been a driving force and a key source of information for the plan. The detailed scheme of action had been crafted soon after Killer had returned from his visit to Katy. The only delay between his return and the session of strategy that had followed had been due to him taking some time to tell the story of Sylvia and Katy. He had let Alexis and the others know that Katy was his daughter, and he told them of the monstrous actions which had generated the cute little angel girl. Unsurprisingly, the girls had listened to that dark, horrendous story with hunger and interest more than with disgust and condemnation for his actions: his lusts had long become their lusts, and most of the females had been pretty enamored of power, brutality and blood already before meeting him. Even Diana was showily and rapidly developing a taste for blood and violence and Vicky had been particularly delighted by the story, much as she diligently kept her control and tried to hide the glowing flames of lust in her eyes.

They had not condemned him for what he had done, but only because it was superfluous to do so: he was well aware of the gravity of his crimes and had already inflicted a tough sentence upon himself. There was no need to add to that, for the moment. What Killer needed was their affection, their support, and their promise to look after Katy's well being. He got all of that and more. They had comforted him and reinforced his determination to pursue the path of righteousness.

Vesta had been particularly delighted to learn of Katy's talents, of her vast knowledge and of her infinite lust for wisdom, and she was looking forwards to meeting the little girl right after the battle... but Killer hadn't yet fully explained to the queen of Seraphims that she was going to have to change her ways and attire, at least for a little while, not to grind the wrong gears in Sylvia.

Knowing Vesta's character, he was all too aware that it was going to be awkward.

"Time to move out." Alexis announced, pulling lightly on the reins of Wrath. She was wearing a set of armor inspired by those used by the Seraphims, but built out of her own energies, solidified into golden metal plates and black leather belts. Her mighty abs were still bare, just like her biceps and thighs, but she had cruel gauntlets in place of her usual fingerless gloves and heavy, armoured boots made of overlapping metal plates with sharp angles and ridges, so that they doubled up as blades to add even more lethality to her kicks. A look at her powerful thighs, half covered by fishnet stockings, was enough to know that her blows were more than devastating. Killer had donned up his armor made of Fear itself, and he had to admit that it made him look even more imposing, especially while sitting on top of Ruin.

He nodded in agreement and prepared to lead the huge stallion into a tight turn, but then froze in place and frowned in confusion as Vesta squatted and looked thoughtfully under the horses' bellies. "What...? Problems with the saddles?"

Lemuel had forged two heavy, spending saddles of dark metal with golden, chiseled decorations. They doubled up as armor for the horses, and connected into a series of overlapping plates covering the back of the neck and the rear of the beasts. Each stallion also had a heavy, spiked chest-plate protecting the front and adding even more devastating weight to their charge. Considering that both horses were literally made of fire and condensed destruction, and that they had solid spikes pushing out of their joints and hooves, the two beasts were almost without vulnerable points. Their charge was going to be a true nightmare for every enemy army.

"No, no, they are perfect." Vesta immediately replied, idly waving a hand to dismiss his curious question, before she straightened and caressed the large heads of both stallions. "Just checking to satisfy a personal curiosity. I meant to do it earlier, but..."

"Did you just check their balls...?" Alexis amusedly snorted, arching an eyebrow as she looked down at the muscular seraphim, who could have easily passed for her sister due to the resemblances in their spectacular physiques. Vesta grinned widely, and that was enough of a confirmation. "They are almost as hung as you. Together with your horses, you carry more cock meat than there is in most countries."

Killer blinked in surprise and then looked flatly down at her, but the goddess was cheerfully unfazed, smirking as she added: "You know, before you were born people used to say 'he's hung like a horse'. You might be used to have more cock that your glorious steed, but normally it would definitely be the other way around."

Killer snorted laughter and traded a gaze with Alexis, the two lovers shaking their heads slightly, and then they spurred the two fiery stallions, turning them around and walking ahead of the legions. Alexis turned back to speak from over her shoulder, reminding the assembled army of the next step in the plan. "We will take down the Inhibitors as quickly as possible. Wait for the portals, we will open them for you."

Vesta, Gaia and Ira all nodded in silent agreement, watching with well dissimulated anxiousness as Alexis squared her shoulders, dropped her head forwards a little and focused, energy crackling around her in bolts as she used her psychic powers to contrast the combined force of Heaven's Metatrons. The all-controlling angels, loyal to the Council, still held immense power over Paradise, even though Killer's efforts and the Cataclysm had greatly diminished their number and their reach. Once, they had an easy and complete control over everyone and everything that moved within the confines of Heaven, but now their floating scrolls were more often than not empty or covered in scribbles that no one could understand, their omniscience destroyed forever. Their magic was still powerful, however, and a group of Metatrons was literally worth an army or two with the kind of power they could express. Strong teams of Metatrons had been assigned to the armies guarding the mines and keeping under siege the monasteries of the Sun and of the Moon. Far stronger than any battle mage, the Metatrons were tasked with tormenting the Seraphims that still defended the two ruined, devastated castles and, even more importantly, they were tasked with making teleporting and use of portals impossible in the whole area, to prevent the arrival of any reinforcement or relief force.

That was the first big problem Killer had to wrestle with in the execution of their plan: there was no way to open portals leading to the mountain range of the Mines. Typhon's armies had brought the Metatrons along to make sure that no one would be able to violate the siege. No portaling, no teleporting. Whoever wanted to go near to the fortresses under siege had to do so walking or flying across the beautiful but deadly desert that separated the Sixth and the Seventh Heavens. The desert, a veritable ocean of fine red sand toasted by the immense sun low on the horizon, was enchanting to see but unforgiving: any army attempting to cross it was in for terrible levels of attrition, especially since the Cataclysm had almost literally stretched the desert like a flexible cloth, expanding it by hundreds of miles.

Typhon was many things, but certainly not stupid: he had immediately deployed the Metatrons to seal the whole area, and had ordered the construction of "Inhibitors", which were, effectively, titanic parabolic dishes built of magic-resonant crystal. Installed on top of solid towers of crystal which protected and at the same time imprisoned the Metatrons, leaving them with nothing to do but focus their energies on the task at hand, the Inhibitors amplified and transmitted the magic of the Metatrons to form a vast safe area. The crystals were imbued with immense, ancient energy that the Metatrons could employ to further their abilities, so that the final combination made up a truly formidable force.

It had almost completely stopped even the spiritual connection that allowed the Seraphims to share their thoughts in real time, which meant that the garrisons under siege had lost even the ability to communicate. The situation was getting so dire that launching an offensive was simply imperative: had it not been to break the siege and assault the mines, it would have been to try and open a gap in the enemy lines to allow the exhausted garrisons to extract from the doomed castles and retreat.

It was impossible to open portals as long as the Metatron's focus lasted, and Killer had painfully discovered that even teleporting was out of the question; when he had tried, instead of smaterializing and traveling to his destination, he had crashed into a solid wall of energy and had been zapped by vicious discharges of electricity. When he had finally managed to step back and tear away from the barrier, he was smoldering and his hands were trembling uncontrollably. He had vomited and collapsed into the sofa of the dungeon, groaning in pain as his head viciously pounded, like his brain was jumping into the skull to try and break out.

Alexis, though, had experimented a war of minds against the Metatrons, and had demonstrated that she could effectively fight them back. She had tried a few times, pushing until she had begun to sense cracks forming... and then had retreated from the clash, simulating her own exhaustion. She did not want them to get too worried too soon, because that would have only led them to seek reinforcements.

She was confident that she could break a hole in their defences, and that was all Killer needed: he had moved extremely quickly from there, adapting the plan they had been trying to put together and giving it an immediate go ahead. They had to act immediately, before the enemy decided to beef up their defences even further.

Alexis couldn't tear open a breach vast and stable enough to allow the legions of Seraphims to pass though, but she was confident that she could force the Metatrons back enough to teleport on the battlefield, along with Killer. Alone, they would then charge straight into the enemy ranks, galloping towards the Inhibitors to tear them apart. Until they managed to accomplish that, getting reinforcements was out of the question.

It is so reckless and foolish that the enemy might be taken entirely by surprise. Maybe. Probably not.

Killer grinned and gently put his hand upon her powerful, exposed thigh, squeezing lightly into her spectacular musculature as Alexis inspired and then blew out her breath, tilting her head slightly from side to side and rolling her shoulders as she prepared for the fight, clearing her mind and flexing her muscles. The huge male caressed her leg lovingly, looking on with always renewed awe at how her bulky, massive muscles tensed and bulged, filled with power and yet so perfectly shaped that they only underlined even more her feminine beauty. She was unrivalled, and with the laziest of movements of her legs she could have him hard and drooling, saliva from the mouth and precum from down below.

"Be careful, my dear... getting hard inside the armour would be a big problem." The femme fatale teased with a hoarse, accomplice whisper, her hand gently seizing his and holding it in contact with her mighty thigh. Her other hand easily held the chain-reins of Wrath, and she took just a short moment to focus her energies, winking at him before dropping her head forwards a little, closing her eyes.

Complete silence fell upon the courtyard, as even the guards patrolling the walls of the fortress took a moment to stare at her, swallowing in amazement at the level of energy that she radiated, her power becoming more and more evident as she focused and began to push back against the combined might of the Metatrons. Wrath snorted nervously as bolts of energy crackled loudly around Alexis, but the goddess easily squeezed him into submission with her legs, her hand gripping into the reins with such force that the solid metal links began to crumple with a groan, her musculature bulging explosively as she leaned forwards slightly, her lips cresting up into a snarling grin as reality in front of her loudly cracked, ripples visible in the fabric of space and time as a breach began to appear in midair, letting them see dozens of Metatrons on the other side, all sitting in a circle, legs crossed and hands frantically working to write down magic runes on the scrolls that spiraled in orbits around their bodies.

Alexis's grin widened, even though her eyes remained closed, her psychic force focused right against the assembled Metatrons, her biceps bulging as she shattered the wall of reality, the strange breach in midair becoming larger as pieces, like shards of glass, fell down to the ground and dissolved. A solid fence of cracking energy still stood between her and the Metatrons, but the angels were squirming and shifting on the spot, groaning in pain as they shook their heads from side to side or threw them backwards with cries of pain, sweat rolling down their faces in rivulets as they began to tremble violently.

Killer smirked as Alexis let go of the reins and pulled her hand up to close it into a powerful fist that she began to slowly but steadily push forwards, her physical strength adding to her psychic power to make the fence's thick bars bend and warp inwards, until several simply burst apart into motes of energy which quickly dissolved.

Now they could hear the Metatrons' voices as well, although they were muffled as if by a great distance: the angels were chanting their spells, their voices growing louder but also turning shrill as they attempted to cast their magic faster and with greater energy, even though several of their scrolls were withering and falling apart into fragile shreds of semi-carbonized paper.

"You think you can stop me...?" Alexis taunted, licking her lips slowly as she arched her back with a growl, muscles bulging powerfully and energy crackling loudly around her as she shoved her hand forwards, Killer shivering in a mix of delight and fear as he clearly felt the tremendous shockwave of force exploding forth out of her. The Metatrons shuddered in their chant as they felt it too, and a moment later the fence was smashed into fragments, the long, thick bars exploding out of place and dissolving as the breach became large enough to let Killer and Alexis charge though.

Immediately, Alexis spurred Wrath forwards and Killer imitated her, taking the clue to launch Ruin into a gallop as they ran into the portal without hesitation, Killer grinning in dark amusement as they were treated to the sight of Metatrons recoiling violently from the blast, their scrolls bursting into flames and blood spraying out of their nostrils and ears as several collapsed into broken heaps.

Everything became darkness when Ruin galloped fearlessly into the breach, however, the great horse snorting steam from his nostrils as it gained again the lead. Killer looked around himself briefly, but there was nothing in sight other than Alexis and Wrath. It was just like a normal teleportation, just slower and more energy-consuming, as it felt like they were running through dense tar rather than simple darkness. Usually, the blackness was but a blink between disappearance and materialization at the destination, but this time it took a few moments before they were blinded by a great white light.

He felt no fear, however: he could feel the Metatrons trying to resist, yeah, but he trusted Alexis completely, and could feel her own immense energies pushing at the walls of the dark vortex, shoring them up even as they attempted to close and crush them into the nothingness.

Killer spurred Ruin again, charging straight into the blinding light... and then, as it had begun, it was over as he felt a tremendous wave of almost solid hot air pushing against him; the sun almost burned his skin, as violent as a hammer blow to the head and the breath caught in his throat as he almost fainted. The heat was truly unbearable... and after that, the second thing that he noticed was the noise, the distant thundering of gigantic pieces of artillery that sent shells as big as trucks flying at several times the speed of sound, producing deafening crackles, followed by blasts that rattled the ground and squeezed the air out of his lungs.

Ruin's heavy, spiked hooves found purchase in the hot red sand, and the massive stallion eagerly galloped on until Killer firmly worked on the reins, forcing him to a full stop just as they reached the top of an immense, wave-like dune. Alexis and Wrath pulled up right at their side, and Killer looked at her with affection as she panted lightly, droplets of sweat gleaming like pearls over her spectacular muscles and breathtaking cleavage. "How are you...? Was it hard...?"

Alexis snorted in entertainment and shook her head, replying with ease: "I'm fine. They put up a fair fight, but if they think they can play at my level, they are dreaming."

Killer grinned and nodded a bit at that, and then commented: "You look stunning. Even more than usual, I mean."

"You flatterer." The goddess replied, smirking as she added: "Don't overdo it, or I'll make you lick this sweat off me, since it looks so good."

"Like that was a problem." Killer cheerfully replied, tilting his head towards her and smirking as he ogled a pearly drop of sweat gleaming tantalizingly upon the curve of one prodigious breast. The goddess smiled widely and guided Wrath closer to Ruin before tilting her head up and to the side, out of the way, letting out a little sigh of bliss as Killer hungrily leaned down and kissed the top of her breast, greedily licking up the little droplet of sweat.

Killer continued to plant little, loving kisses up the glorious, full curve of her breast even as a gigantic rail gun fired in their direction. He had enough experience of artillery barrages to know just by the sound, and the crackle of the hypersonic shell rushing towards them, so fast that it literally tore the air apart, left him in no doubt. But he also knew that Alexis would have easily tackled the threat, and so took his time to lick his way to her throat, kissing it lightly.

"Those annoying assholes always feel they have to interfere..." The goddess idly commented, looking up with contempt as she easily caught the hypersonic dart in her psychic grip, stopping it dead and motionless in the middle of the sky before hurling it back towards the enemy. Killer grunted in agreement and slowly straightened, licking his lips before kissing hers lightly, their eyes sparking with predatory eagerness and complicity.

"We'll show them the error of their ways." Killer calmly remarked, as both gods looked towards the horizon, to size up the forces deployed by the council. The sight facing them was breathtaking, and it showed the immensity of the plans Typhon had crafted for taking over Heaven and, eventually, Hell as well. It really drove home the reality of the resources he was able to produce and deploy to pursue his aims, because the whole desert, as far as the eye could see was covered in troops, encampments, artillery positions densely populated with gigantic, tracked, self-propelled rail guns. Enormous pits had been dug in the sand to serve as secure storage for the artillery's ammunition, away from the camps of the troops, and the shells could be seen lined up in row upon row upon row.

The frontline stretched for miles and miles, from one end of the horizon to the other, following the profile of the cliffs and bleak headlands that marked the beginning of the mountain range. The cliffs of dark red stone emerged from the sand like the coast from an angry sea, massive and ever changing dunes of fine sand piling up against the vertical walls and forming deep and spiraling valleys. But the cliffs soon gave way to steep hills and then mountains mostly made of black stone, almost like obsidian. Many of the peaks had once been volcanoes, and some were actually still active, especially after the Cataclysm had sent magma rushing up towards the surface to search for any opening though which it could vent. Trees were virtually inexistent: as far as the eye could see, with very few exceptions, only thorny shrubbery clung stubbornly to the boiling hot rocks. The Sun and the Moon were both incredibly low on the horizon, and incredibly enormous, seeming to fill the sky as they glowed virtually in correspondence of the monasteries dedicated to them. It looked almost like stretching up one arm would suffice to poke the red, immense sun burning ferociously above them, and that easily explained the oppressive, unbelievable heat and the dry, cruel wind which seemed to burn the skin and flesh off their bones.

It was an inhospitable land, but was not without beauty: it was an incredibly fascinating sight... or at least it would have been in less dramatic circumstances.

Killer's eyes narrowed as he scanned the top of the red cliffs, and he rapidly identified one of the castles, on a distant headland out on the far western side: it was a powerful artillery fortress, erected on a solid, triangular block of stone which looked very much like the bow of a ship sailing into the desert. A long, narrow bridge connected the rear of the fortress with a narrow road that zigzagged up the steep flank of the mountain range, its many hairpin bends all in full sight of the fort's guns.

The fortress was badly damaged, its bastions scarred by a series of tremendous explosions which had also taken down some of the titanic railguns that armed the castle... but Killer counted at least four more that were still fully operational, with a fifth apparently undergoing emergency repair. He watched on in fascination and horror alike as a gigantic dart, as big as a railroad car, was hefted by two solid arms moving on rails in the basement of the gun. The shell was pushed forth into the square-looking barrel of the enormous cannon, which Killer estimated had to be over a mile in length, and then electricity flooded the rails on either side of the barrel, the crackling so loud and imposing that it made his ribcage vibrate even from that distance, before the gigantic projectile was hurled out of the gun and instantaneously accelerated to many, many times the speed of sound.

A series of enormous white clouds, shaped like shields, formed quickly, one after the other as the sheer velocity of the dart seemed to tear the very sky apart, while the whole cliff of solid, ancient rock visibly rattled and a ripple traveled through the desert, pushing the sand around and forming a huge wave that solidified into a semi-circular dune in the desert in front of the fortress.

But Killer's attention had already shifted towards a cliff of red stone right ahead of him, a rock covered in ruins: the Monastery of the Sun. The rail gun's dart hit its target so quickly that it almost looked like it hit before it was even fired. A translucent shield of blue energy crackled into sight for a moment, but the dart was only slightly slowed down as it impacted the barrier, soon tearing through it to smash into the cliff of red stone, tearing deep inside it, sending chunks of rock the size of football fields hurling into the sky and falling like meteors into the sand far below, vast cracks opening into the mountain as the dart nearly tore out of the other side... before it exploded in a colossal flash of dirty orange light.

Only then were they reached by the sounds, much slower: there was a deafening, indescribable ripping and exploding roar as the dart literally tore through the air and repeatedly smashed through the sound barrier, and almost literally in the same instant came the titanic clash of the projectile tearing through the magic barrier and through the mountain, and the colossal blast.

Killer swallowed a bit in front of that unimaginable firepower, trying in his mind to calculate a few numbers about the speed and the explosive power... but the numbers rapidly grew too high to bother. In many ways, those shells were more powerful than nukes: the explosion wasn't as devastating in itself, but their fearsome mass and speed gave them enough kinetic energy to tear through magic and through any kind of bunker, even through reinforced walls that would withstand a nuclear blast with little to no trouble.

And already the other guns of the fortress were taking their own turns, and to the east there was another artillery fort that was doing the same against the Monastery of the Moon, which was in exactly the same desperate conditions.

The monasteries were in ruin, their mighty bastions crumbled and turned into shapeless mountains of rubble, and only chunks of blackened walls remained of the barracks, of the abbey, of the cloisters and of the cathedral. The two castles had been completely destroyed, the constant artillery bombardment ravaging the ruins and throwing up blocks of stone and other wreckage, tossing it around like shrapnel and grinding everything into dust. Both monasteries had been equipped with their own heavy artillery, but all the guns had long been destroyed, inexorably silenced by the superior weight of the enemy barrages. It had been a brief but ferocious exchange which had begun as soon as the Civil War had started: the forts controlled by the Council's troops had immediately opened fire on the two Seraphim bases, and they hadn't ceased the bombardment since. The Seraphims had fought back to the last gun, but now even the last of their own rail guns was nothing more than a wreck, an unserviceable titanic tube of metal that looked almost like a snake tanning on top of the cliff, with how badly the barrel had been bent and twisted out of shape.

The divisions of Paladins completely surrounded the two fortresses under siege, which still stubbornly resisted mostly thanks to how wisely they had been positioned and built: both monasteries had been erected on top of tall cliffs of red stone, their walls half-carved into the mountain and half erected on top of it, so that even with their bastions in ruins, they remained nearly unassailable. The Seraphims were courageously using the ruins and the wreckage to form trenches, hideouts and protected positions from which they continued to fight, either shooting down the Paladins with accurate longbow fire or beating them back once they landed. Further down, in the Eons the Seraphims had dug a labyrinth of tunnels, many of which included openings on the external world which allowed the defenders to open fire from well hidden, hard to hit firing ports in the solid wall of stone.

That was why the monasteries hadn't fallen yet, and it was also the reason for the rail guns firing right into the mountain after having annihilated the fortress on top.

The Council's armies had built up siege fortifications in the two opposite directions, one barrier facing the fortresses to contain any sortie of the defenders and one line of defence facing outwards, towards the desert, to stop any army coming to break the siege. They had dug a deep and vast moat, and formed a solid embankment with the dirt they had removed. They had dug trenches on top of the embankment, and established positions equipped with large caliber machine guns, rocket launchers and missile emplacements.

They had even brought along thousands of gigantic sharp poles of steel, each topped by a mine, and they had stuck them into the ground, tip up, to form a wall of titanic, explosive spears that would tear apart or at least slow down any enemy charge.

They had brought even more artillery to pound the Seraphims with: rail guns only slightly smaller than those installed in the forts, mounted on titanic, triangular tracks and with little cockpits for the two-man crews.

And his eyes had no difficulties finding the couple of gigantic parabolic dishes, towering above two short, fat towers made of solid crystal. The Metatrons were hidden inside those two bunkers, and from there they could cast their magic, amplified and empowered, over the whole battlefield.

"They put up a hell of a show, haven't they...?" Alexis calmly asked, grinning as the shell she had slapped backwards crashed into the embankment and exploded, throwing up a huge mushroom cloud of dirt, sand, dust and gore as dozens of Paladins were caught in the impact and in the explosion. The Council's army was already making an about turn to face the desert and confront Killer and Alexis, and the enormous mobile rail guns were all turning around as quickly as they could, the drivers hurrying so much that they had zero care for their comrades down on the ground even as many were caught under the building-sized tracks and crushed into nothing but red stains.

The parabolic dishes on top of the crystal towers were also trailing slowly towards them, both crackling with energy, and the gigantic artillery pieces of the distant forts were also adjusting their aim.

"We can put up an even more impressive show." Killer gamely replied, grinning as Ruin stomped a hoof nervously into the ground, blowing steam out of his nostrils and flexing his massive musculature, making it clear that he craved to charge down the dune and into the enemy ranks. Alexis nodded in agreement and smirked as she pulled on the reins, Wrath rearing up and kicking his legs into the air with a loud neigh, as if to challenge the whole armada of Paladins, and Ruin needed no encouragement, also pulling up on his hind legs and throwing the equine version of a roar against the enemy. And then, just as the immense artillery pieces opened fire against them, Killer and Alexis ordered their stallions forwards, launching them into a charge and grinning as the two beasts hammered the sand with their hooves, muscles flexing as they built up all the speed they could.

Killer couldn't help but grin at how exhilarating it was to ride Ruin into battle: it was the first time he had the chance to do so, and the speed and power of the massive fire stallion was unbelievable, as the hooves thundered against the ground and sent up blasts of fire and dark metal shrapnel, leaving behind a trail of scorched, smoldering earth. He could feel the flanks of the horse heaving with the effort, and he could feel the stallion's eagerness in how the muscles flexed and bulged, in how the horse lunged and pushed forwards with each movement, ready to use his solid, potent front as a hammer to smash the enemy, to knock it flying in pieces.

Alexis led Wrath some distance away to the right, widening their front of assault, but the two stallions continued to need no spurring and no encouragement, glaring at each other and constantly trying to gain the lead, even as in front of them all hell seemed to break loose, as the Paladins opened fire with everything they had. Killer still remembered well what it was like to be on the wrong side of Ruin charging, and so could imagine quite easily what the enemies felt as they desperately pulled the triggers on their modified, massive machineguns, sending a hailstorm of bullets rushing forth, as other Paladins and angels and Arkangels faithful to the Council rushed onto the embankment, forming compact ranks and a wall of long, thick, deadly spears. Riflemen and archers fired from behind the wall of blades and shields, and mages took position along the front, beginning to chant incantations even as sweat rolled down their cheeks, their hands trembling as they stared at the gods charging forwards.

Killer gritted his fangs with a low growl as countless tracer rounds lit up the horizon rushing against him, almost blinding him as the bullets and darts seemed to form a solid wall. He flexed his muscles and leaned forwards over Ruin's neck, Wyvern drawn and pointed forwards, his body tensing as he prepared as best he could, while the ground around him seemed to simply disintegrate as bullets tore into the earth and kicked up huge clouds of dust, the whistling and crackling of the rounds shooting by filling his ears as he took comfort in the reassuring weight and bulk of his black armor... before grinning as he realized that most bullets couldn't get through Ruin's flames as the stallion's fire spread from his wild mane and from the ever-burning flames in the legs, to form a vortex of infernal heat all around them.

He also realized that it was far from normal to be able to see the bullets, to track them as they came, to see them melting through Ruin's fire, to see them crumpling uselessly against his armor and against his prodigious musculature when they managed to reach him... and once again he reprimanded himself for forgetting so easily that he was a god, and an extremely powerful one at that.

Bullets clanged loudly against his armor, bouncing off and shattering on impact, even the largest armor piercing calibers exploding into fragments when they struck into his bare arms, his musculature flexing and bulging with power, seemingly invulnerable... but a moment he winced as he felt his flesh sizzle and smelled his own skin burning, as powerful acid and poison tried to bite deep into his body. A well-aimed burst of rounds struck him across the chest and into one exposed, bare arm, knocking him backwards with a grunt as he was nearly shoved off the horse by the violence of the impacts, even as the bullets exploded into tiny slivers against his impenetrable form.

His armor smoldered, however, and he groaned in pain as something savagely tried to dissolve his very flesh, and he let go of the reins and shot his hand up to seize the next wave of bullets before they could hit him, catching them in midair like a bunch of gnats. He snarled as he closed his hand into a fist, crushing the large bullets into nothing but dust and tiny fragments, his lips cresting into a grimace as he saw, without any surprise, Unworld residue leaking out of his fist in thick streams. Somehow, the Council had managed to produce bullets that contained a small but deadly amount of Unworld residue, so that each hit was potentially a definitive, destructive one. Even a glancing blow could severely debilitate, if not kill, an enemy, as the Unworld substance would greedily consume any object or being it landed upon. That made for horrible news: Killer could take a lot of punishment and still crush the enemy underfoot, but the Seraphims and angels definitely couldn't cope with that kind of firepower.

We'll need to chase after all those machine guns too.

He turned to the side and found Alexis gazing at him, the goddess giving a small nod of agreement before she stood up on the stirrups and roared, shoving her hands up as her biceps bulged with power, her back arching as her psychic force exploded forth, a ripple of terrible energy traveling over the desert and smashing into the forest of sharp, mined poles ahead.

Killer grinned as he felt the enormous power of the goddess, a shiver running down his spine as the gigantic pikes, made of a metallic alloy far stronger than any mortal steel, trembled violently and then groaned loudly, letting out a lament like that of a living being as they were bent backwards like blades of grass. Thousands of pikes, each weighting hundreds of tons, were twisted into deadly, enormous hooks, the ground cracking and shifting as the titanic poles were torn up, uprooted like undesired flowers.

Alexis laughed darkly, her eyes burning with fearsome energy as her power pulsed over the desert, ripples of her force rattling the mountains and making the inhospitable emptiness of that burning hell suddenly look reassuring and welcoming, in comparison to her apocalyptic might.

The gigantic hooks floated up into the air, and even the mindless clones couldn't help but stare upwards in disbelief and terror as dust and sand rained down from above while the twisted pikes began to spin around in a vortex, in a gigantic tornado of steel and mines and debris.

Alexis shoved her hands forwards, grinning predatorily as she effortlessly hurled that tornado of millions of tons of sharp, deadly metal upon the assembled armies of the Council, laughing as the embankment was swooped up like a castle of sand, a large part of the deep moat ending up filled with dust and dirt and corpses and debris as the Paladins were knocked flying into the sky, caught by the vicious vortex and slammed around like toys, exploding into splatters of red mist whenever they were crushed between the poles or slammed against the large blocks of metal.

The immense hooks of metal spun like supernatural, titanic blades, chopping down the Paladins like blades of grass, crushing them into the ground, tearing swaths of death and destruction through the ranks of the armada, as countless corpses and body parts and weapons were caught into the vortex, making the storm even more devastating as a cloud of red mist obscured the horizon.

The mages attempted to resist, to fight back Alexis's tremendous power, but the goddess only laughed as she began to swing her hands into the air as if to conduct an orchestra, each of her movements sending a gigantic pike smashing into the earth like a meteor, crushing the mages and the troops escorting them into nothing but mush, blood and gore splattering in every direction as the enormous wrecks came down like hammers before floating back up high into the sky to crash down again the following moment. Reality itself rippled and trembled, nearly tearing apart as the vortex grew and grew and grew, pulverizing everything and everyone as Alexis laughed viciously, muscles bulging with power as her psychic force caught into some of the mobile railguns, crumpling the nearly mile-long barrels like they were nothing but straws, the gigantic triangular tracks shredded into bent and twisted plates that were thrown around like meteors.

Killer could barely believe the power of his beloved goddess. Every time she showed her tremendous might it was a surprise: a mix of delight and fear of her deadly abilities, and of the darkness that was part of her and that he had the task of controlling, of keeping on a leash together with his own. He watched as her force picked up two of the gigantic rail guns and spun them around wildly, the crews jumping out of the cockpits and falling to their deaths as the immense machines were bent and twisted like toys, like they were made of flexible, soft rubber, until the metal groaned desperately as it tore into shreds like nothing but cheap paper.

The parabolic dishes turned towards Alexis as quickly as they could, buzzing quietly as they adjusted their traverse and aimed straight at the vortex and, far beyond it, at the goddess who controlled it. The Metatrons did their very best to channel all of their force against hers, and their magic began to contrast the tornado, the winds slowing down and uncountable corpses and gigantic wrecks and debris raining down upon the battlefield, crashing into the Paladins that couldn't get out of the way quickly enough.

Alexis grunted as she was shoved backwards for a moment, but then smirked gamely and flexed, pushing forwards with her fearsome strength and wrestling back the Metatrons, the tornado replaced by two streams of force that pushed one against the other, grinding into dust everything that was caught in the middle. Even the gigantic rail guns were squished as flat as pancakes, the metal bending and twisting in impossible ways as the combined might of the Metatrons tried to oppose the tremendous power of the goddess, reality trembling violently as bolts of pure force crackled around Alexis's form. The goddess laughed darkly, standing up on the stirrups and controlling Wrath only with the might of her legs as she pushed against the enemy's magic, her tremendous power causing the parabolic dishes to begin rattling in the distance, cracks spreading through the ancient crystals as she suddenly balled one hand into a fist and lashed it hard forwards, the sky trembling violently as a massive blast echoed across the desert, the clashing vortexes expanding explosively as Alexis's wind shoved hard forwards, gaining ground as a short lived shriek tore through the sky, the voice seeming to come from a whole different place, like an echo traveling through a valley... and Killer's instinct told him that it was the last cry of agony of one of the Metatrons, and that the sick crunching sound that followed was that of a head bursting apart like an overripe fruit.

The goddess shoved her open hand forwards with vicious force, wrestling her invisible but very real enemy back, gaining ground and then suddenly flicking her wrist, shoving the two streams of force upwards and then, as the contact weakened, downwards, sending a new tornado of ruins, wreckage and energy smashing down upon the assembled divisions of Paladins, stomping them into red stains into the sand, crushing hundreds like they were nothing but bugs, as shreds of flesh and metallic wreckage exploded in every direction like shrapnel.

The Metatrons again challenged her, gigantic hands made of greenish energy shooting down from the sky and grabbing into the vortex of her own energy, dragging it upwards, away from the soldiers, the clawed fingers jerking and tugging as hard as they could to try and break down her merciless force, but the goddess gritted her fangs and rammed her heavy fist forwards again, sending another howl of anguish echoing over the desert. There was once more the sound of a skull shattering and bursting its content onto the floor, and Alexis turned her gaze towards the dark sky as she roared: "Metatron! Bring your fat arse out here and help your fucking mini-mes, or I'll turn them all into pulp!"

Killer was not sure if the fat, corrupted Chancellor of heaven had accepted her challenge, but the ground in front of Wrath suddenly changed into a dark, reflective plane as the sand melted into some kind of slippery, glass-like metal before vast cracks spread across the land with a thundering roar. Blocks of dark metal exploded upwards, turning into deadly pikes that lunged against Wrath and Alexis, but the goddess's ability to see the flow of energy and its future evolutions allowed her to guide Wrath with absolute precision, the titanic stallion of fire leaping over the first barrier of spikes and then smashing his hooves down into another as it shot up towards his chest.

The horse knocked the spike onto its side and used it as a floating base to kick up into another leap, neighing furiously as he flew over barrage of stone projectiles.

Dark chains whipped upwards like ferocious snakes, leaping out of the sand and shooting towards Alexis, but Killer steered Ruin to the side and charged into them, knocking one flying away and chopping another in half with a swing of Wyvern, snarling as he took position slightly ahead of the goddess, protecting her and catching another chain in his hand as it shot up from a dune. He experimentally dragged the chain back as hard as he could, not sure of what would happen, and he grinned when he felt psychic pain running through the metal links, a distant groan audible directly into his mind... before the chain exploded, projecting a hailstorm of shrapnel against his chest, making him grunt in annoyance more than pain, most of the metal pieces bouncing off his armor.

Of far greater concern were the monumental clouds of white vapor forming in the distance as the artillery forts fired their titanic artillery against them, the heavy darts tearing the sky apart visibly, but now yet audibly: the shells were so fast that their noise would have reached Killer's ears only long after they were blown into pieces along with the rest of him.

The huge male immediately turned his attention to the sky, time seeming to slow down drastically as his senses focused, his eyes showing him things that a mortal could never hope to see, and he pulled up his free hand, fingers clawing at the air as he tried hard to visualize the darts and to grab them without being able to actually touch them, just like Alexis, Vesta and Ira had tried to teach him. Another chain shot towards his chest, but he mowed it down with a swing of Wyvern, snorting in contempt... before he grinned stupidly as he took psychic hold of the rail gun shells, shoving his hand forwards to help himself direct his force against them, slowing them down to a full stop.

He tried to drag them down towards the Paladins assembled at the base of the mountain, pulling his hand back... but his focus faltered for a moment and his fingers twitched, and the gigantic projectiles exploded in midair, forming a colossal ball of dark orange fire, the shockwave seeming to rattle the entire mountain range as it blew the clouds away, forming a vast circular window on the clear blue sky beyond the dark, magic-heavy smoke and fog.

"Could have been worse..." He muttered, disappointed at not having accomplished what he had planned but at least encouraged by his progress, before he turned his attention on the artillery forts themselves: he did not want to destroy the guns if possible, but he sure did not want them to fire again against them, so he closed his eyes and sought the energy signatures of the soldiers operating those titanic artillery pieces... and when he found them, he closed his hand into a fist, his lips cresting into a snarling grin as he felt their anguish and agony from afar, able to hear their desperate shrieks and then the sick crunching of bones and the wet squish of organs being pulped as he crushed them, body and soul, out of existence.

He growled in dark pleasure, feeling truly powerful, truly godlike as he so easily annihilated his enemies, from hundreds of miles of distance, without them being even able to see him, without them having a chance to escape the fate he had chosen for them. He could torture, he could kill, he could destroy with just a thought, and that felt truly the prerogative of a god.

Before he could do anything else, however, a wall of dark fire erupted in front of Ruin, rising seemingly as high as the clouds before morphing into a monstrous serpent made of hellfire, the ferocious beast lunging against him, jaws open wide to display the full glory of poisonous fangs as big as oak trees. Killer reached for the reins, thinking about guiding Ruin into an evasive maneuver while he pulled up Wyvern and slashed the heavy blade in front of himself, sending a crescent of golden energy rushing into the snake.

It struck, but it seemed to cause no damage at all, going through the titanic beast of magic... and Killer's instinct told him to let Ruin do. The stallion charged straight against the enormous serpent, and the liger held on to his potent steed, grinning as they suddenly shot forwards even faster, taking the form of a bolt of fire and magma.

There was a loud crackle, a deafening impact echoing in Killer's ears as time seemed to freeze for a brief moment, and then Ruin tore through the serpent, the bolt of fire that they had become shooting through the monster from side to side.

Killer let out a deep breath of mixed exhilaration and relief as his body resumed his usual, very solid shape, and Ruin itself was back to normal as soon as his front hooves smashed into the ground, smoke and flames bursting from his nostrils as he galloped with furious eagerness against the wall of spears. The liger took a moment to turn and look over his shoulder instead, eyes widening as he saw that the immense serpent was still alive and was charging after them... before Wrath and Alexis shot through its body in an explosion of fire, the goddess elegantly twisting around to look back at the monster, one hand holding Blue Vixen and the other clenching upon a lightning bolt of pure energy, a sapphire spear that crackled and glowed with her power.

She threw it hard, aiming it between the serpent's eyes, and adjusting her throw at the last moment to account for the dodging movement that the monster hadn't even begun to think about: her sixth sense was mortally effective as always, and the beast was struck right in the skull, an immense blast of sapphire energy slamming the beast backwards like a toy as its head was shattered into a multitude of sparkles and motes of darkness that rapidly dissolved.

"Metatron is here, it seems. I did not think that fat asshole would accept my challenge... but boy, am I glad he did!" Alexis announced, grinning widely as she lead Wrath up to the side of Ruin, as now both she and Killer spurred their massive stallions on, to build up even greater speed.

They were rapidly approaching what remained of the moat, now mostly filled up with wreckage and corpses and dirt after the apocalypse caused by Alexis's attacks, and the embankment itself, that had towered over the moat only moments before, now was nowhere to be seen, blown away like it had never been erected at all. The sand was crimson, soaked with blood and covered in unrecognizable gore and wreckage, but the Council's armies were already trying to reorganize a defensive line as mindless clones wearing thick, heavy Godblood armor were rushed forwards to form a solid wall of shields and of enormous, long spears.

Behind the wall of pikes, a group of Paladins worked behind a massive, short-barreled cannon with a large belt of coke-can sized ammunition hanging from its side, and Killer's attention was drawn to the heavy weapon as it began to bark rhythmically, sending bursts of large grenades against him and Alexis. The grenades exploded in midair, right in front of Ruin, obscuring the air with clouds of dark smoke, shrapnel and Unworld residue that splattered all over the fiery stallion, causing it to neigh in pain and fury, while Killer hissed and bit his lower lip to repress a scream of anguish as the destructive fluid landed upon his face and arms, biting viciously into his flesh and into his very energies, his body working to absorb the deadly substance but struggling to do so while more and more grenades continued to explode all around him, splattering him from every direction.

Ruin missed a step in his galloping and nearly stumbled, blinded by the thick curtain of death closing down on them from every side, as more grenade launchers and machine guns opened fire from the trenches, Killer snarling in pain and rage as he tried to wipe the corrosive gunk out of his eyes, focusing his energies to surround himself with a translucent bubble. The solid barrier of energy took the full brunt of the following barrage, the dozens of explosions coming to Killer's ears as a muffled, distant sound as he seized into Ruin's neck and gritted his fangs, tensing and trying to ignore the agonizing pain in his body as he worked to absorb the deadly residue.

Ruin let out a snort that sounded like relief as Killer took the poison into himself, his body trembling violently and blood leaking out of his mouth as he fought to swallow back the vomit he felt rising. It took him a long, torturing moment of sheer agony to crush the poison into pure energy, absorbing it into his own, but when he managed to begin the process he felt immediate relief, his muscles flexing with their full, terrible power as the shivers vanished. He spurred Ruin onwards, charging through the darkness and glaring at it as it clung to the barrier around them, rapidly and implacably devouring it.

Killer could see nothing other than the darkness of the Unworld residue exploding against him from all sides, but his instincts were finely honed and he knew exactly where he was and where the enemy was... and his lips crested in a dark grin as he pumped his energies into Wyvern, cocking back the enormous sword as golden bolts of raw force crackled around the crimson blade.

He flicked his wrist and stabbed Wyvern down into the ground, the monstrous weapon tearing deep into the ground and chopping even the hardest stone like it was nothing but butter, the blade glowing as it discharged a tremendous shockwave of focused energy into the ground.

The whole desert and even the mountains in the distance seemed to jump, shuddering under the brunt of the god's tremendous power, cracks spreading across the land and magma erupting through the fissures, together with crackling bolts of electricity. The ripple traveled across the desert, rushing towards the distant horizon... and then, like water rippling around a stone falling into a lake, the wave of energy rushed back with indescribable violence, to erupt skywards in a colossal explosion that vaporized the grenade launcher and the entire armada of Paladins protecting it, throwing smoldering pieces of metal and shreds of bloody flesh in every direction, as entire lines of clones were simply erased out of existence, replaced by a boiling cauldron of magma.

Ruin and Killer charged out of the cloud of Unworld residue, the black goo failing on the ground and eating it away greedily, but without the constant barrage of new explosions, it was easy for the god to absorb the splatters, turning them into nothing but food. A confused, concussed Paladin survived to the explosion spread his legs and pulled up his damaged shield, stabbing his long spear forwards, but Killer seized the pole with ease and dragged the armored clone forwards, only to make it easier for Ruin to ram his massive, powerful chest into him. The Paladin was knocked backwards in a broken heap, plates of his armor torn loose and spinning through the air as the clone crashed to the ground over eighty feet away, bouncing up with a sick crunch and then ending up crushed into bloody past as the heavy hooves of the gigantic stallion came down onto him like unforgiving sentences.

Another Paladin rushed forth, handling a massive shotgun and blasting round after round against the charging god, only managing to gain Ruin's attention, the stallion all too eager to deviate slightly to the side to smash into him with all the brutal force of his mass and speed. More and more enemies climbed back up from the ground or advanced from the far end of the battlefield, swarming ahead of Ruin and on either side, working to perfect counter-cavalry tactics and trying to skewer horse and rider upon their massive spears, even as deadly shrapnel tore through their ranks from each impact of Ruin's hooves against the ground. Far from being deterred, Ruin actually loved their attempts to stop him, and he just put even more power into his galloping, using his massive chest as a bulldozer blade to tear through the Paladin's ranks like a scythe through wheat.

Killer turned to the side, looking for Alexis, and he was relieved to find her slashing Blue Vixen down on either side of Wrath's head and neck, each swing of her blade chopping through Paladins who tried to take her down, her other hand still raised and her muscles bulging and flexing with the effort as she continued to wrestle Metatron and his servants' magic.

A sea of shields, helmets and weapons separated them, but Killer immediately steered Ruin towards her, the stallion blowing steam out of his nostrils as it thundered its way into a narrow turn and eagerly slammed into a solid wall of shields, the blades of the spears bending out of shape against his solid musculature and their thick poles exploding into wooden slivers as the clones were slammed backwards, the whole first line collapsing against the rear ranks as Paladins flew like toys, crashing into their comrades.

Killer grunted as he was almost thrown off the saddle, but a swift movement was enough to correct the problem, the huge male standing on the stirrups and using the momentum to slash Wyvern through the armada of enemies with even greater force, chopping the legs off from under a couple of Paladins before several heads flew into bloody arches as she sword cut upwards, its spikes hooking into the flesh of another clone and throwing him up like a ragdoll, his chest torn apart and his guts strewn like streamers.

Alexis grinned in approval as she turned towards him, but then she pointed her finger at one of the two crystal towers, shouting: "You go after one, and I take the other!".

"Where is Metatron...?" Killer asked in response, but he already could imagine the answer, and only smirked as the femme fatale spurred Wrath towards the nearest parabolic dish, shouting: "He is mine. Have fun with the others!"

Killer watched her for a moment, grinning as she impaled a bulky, massive Paladin with Blue Vixen, lifting the corpse high into the air before it tore completely in half, the two heavy halves crashing down upon his comrades just as the fire stallion smashed through their ranks, sending dozens of them sprawling like pins, the horse trampling the bodies that littered the ground and shrapnel and bursts of hellfire erupting with each step, consuming flesh and armor and burning the poles of the long spears into nothing but ashes.

The huge male easily forced Ruin to turn in the other direction, and spurred him onwards, aiming for the point, hundreds of meters away, where the embankment still stood mostly intact, having survived the earlier devastation.

Arrows and bullets rained viciously down from the dug-outs on top of the barrier, and Killer charged straight into the barrage, a sphere of focused energy forming in his palm before he tossed it into the first trench, grinning as the explosion tore the machine gun position apart and sent up a large cloud of dust and gore.

A grenade launcher opened up from the following position, but this time Killer knew what to expect and so reacted immediately, making a shoving gesture with his free hand and sending a wall of energy slamming into the incoming shells. They bounced backwards and exploded over the ranks of the Paladins, showering a whole formation with Unworld residue that immediately and greedily consumed armor, weapons, flesh, bones, melting the clones down into a dark, smoldering slush and sending many more retreating from that apocalypse, the massive armored soldiers hiding under their large shields and moving in perfect formation, holding their spears aimed against Killer.

The god was undeterred, however, leading Ruin right into the centre of the army, the stallion lunging forwards with all his power and stomping down his hooves into two of the shield-bearers, crushing them as flat as pancakes, bending the solid shields like pretzels and sending bodies and pieces of metal flying in every direction as it galloped onwards, tearing through line after line, body-checking soldiers and warriors and sending them crashing dozens of feet away, while Killer added to the carnage with mighty, wide swaths of his great sword, chopping bodies down like wheat.

The god spurred Ruin towards the steep slope of the damaged, breached embankment, grinning as Ruin effortlessly charged uphill and then thundered onto the top of the barrier, using its head and neck to smash a Paladin clear off his feet, sending him crashing down into the moat.

He led Ruin right into the trench that ran all along the top of the embankment, and together they chopped down or crushed into pulp every enemy that was not quick and smart enough to climb out of the hole and flee down the flanks of the barrier.

Three angels were working to trail the grenade launcher in the new direction, but they were way too slow: Ruin was upon them in the space of a blink, kicking one in bloody halves and crushing the bulky weapon under one massive hoof as Killer chopped the other two angels down as they leapt out of the hole to try and flee.

Bullets bounced off Killer's armor and sizzled uselessly against the flames on Ruin's body as the enemies in the strongholds further down the line fired against them with all they had, and the god spurred Ruin onwards, charging straight down the course of the trench, running over every resistance.

And then, suddenly, Killer grunted in pain and surprise as sturdy ropes made of translucent green energy exploded all over his body, swarming over him like snakes and pulling his arms down against his sides, more ropes shooting up to clamp down on his throat as they began to forcefully drag him backwards, working to rip him off from the saddle. He flexed against his restraints and snapped several like they were weak strings, but the spell was powerful, creating even more ropes in response and binding him even more brutally, the ropes now squeezing viciously down on Ruin as well, constraining his mighty flanks hard enough to make the stallion's ribs creak. The horse neighed in fury and indignation and flexed his powerful muscles, struggling against the ropes that were now tying his legs together, making him stumble in his gallop, falling to the side to crash upon a ground of Paladins that charged forwards to hit him with their heavy, spiked shields.

Killer snarled in fury as the horde rushed forwards, led by a group of particularly enormous clones easily as tall as he was and armed with gigantic axes: swords and spears began to hack into his legs and into the flanks and limbs of Ruin even as the stallion somehow continued to drag himself forwards, kicking his legs as best he could despite the ropes clamping down on him, and punishing severely any Paladin that came into range of his deadly hooves.

Flames erupted from Ruin's body with the stallion's fury, driving back the Paladins for a moment, but the ropes were completely impervious to the fire, much to the horse's disbelief. Killer attempted to tear them loose with psychic force, but he couldn't match Alexis's focus and prowess, and was rather distracted by the grinning clones surrounding them from all sides. He threw himself to the side to avoid a spear stabbed hard forwards, and then jerked his body in the opposite direction, so that the axe falling down on him slammed hard into his solid armor rather than into his arm. Another gigantic Executioner swung down his deadly axe to decapitate him, but Killer blasted him backwards with a slap of psychic force, before snarling as he felt someone tugging viciously on Wyvern's blade, trying to tear the sword out of his grip. It wasn't a Paladin, but an Arkangel, one of those who still followed the Council's order... and Killer hesitated for a moment, repulsed by the idea of killing another actual angel. Clones were one thing, but the Arkangels had been and often still were honorable warriors, only misled in their blind obedience to the corrupted Senate and to the ruling prince.

The Arkangel, however, only angrily stabbed a short sword into Killer's gauntlet, trying to force the blade into the joints to chop his fingers off, glaring at him and barking: "Let the sword go, you traitor... you won't need it where you are going!"

That rapidly erased Killer's hesitation, filling him with rage instead as he let the angel pull the sword away... before using the little freedom of movement he still had to slam the palm of his hand on the pommel at the end of Wyvern's handle, sending the crimson blade piercing through the angel's chest, impaling him.

Blood splattered all over Killer as the Arkangel's head dropped down, blood leaking from under the integral mask of the helmet, which made it impossible to see the face and the expression of stupid, pained surprise on it.

The corpse fell slowly backwards, and Killer gripped into Wyvern's handle as best he could, holding on to the sword as the destroyed body of the angel slipped off and vanished out of sight, hidden by another Paladin charging forwards to stab a pike into the liger's leg, nailing it painfully to Ruin's flank. Killer hissed in pain but swiftly flicked his wrist, slashing Wyvern out with all the strength he could muster while the ropes restrained him with vicious, unbelievable force... and the Paladin's head flew a lazy arch through the air, the corpse falling slowly on its knees, then collapsing between Ruin's legs.

The massive stallion was almost completely motionless now, unable to stand as its legs were tied tightly together, but at the same time it could not fall because of the horde of enemies pressing against it from all sides at once, as the Executioners swung their axes down to chop his legs off, even as Killer worked as hard as he could, flexing and struggling against the ropes binding him while swinging Wyvern in ugly, rough slashes, trying to give force to his blows even as his arm was pulled painfully into his own side by the thick ropes of magic. He tried to use his tentacles, but they couldn't push out of his body while the ropes bit into his flesh and made his bones creak, his vision darkening rapidly much as he attempted to resist.

He saw the axes dropping, and he snarled in rage and frustration, wishing them to stop dead in their tracks... and a cold, icy aura blasted out of his form, freezing the very air around him and turning the dozens of enemies surrounding him into massive but brittle statues that he immediately shattered into millions of pieces by slashing Wyvern out to one side, then to the other.

More clones surged forwards immediately, having no fear and no common sense holding them back, but there was a fleeting moment in which Killer was able to see past the forest of spears and blades and over the helmets, to spot battle mages in the distance, their lips moving rapidly as they chanted their spells, their bodies trembling violently and glistening with sweat as they fought against his and Ruin's strength... and the liger grinned in merciless pleasure as he clenched his free hand into a fist, grabbing both mages into a deadly psychic grip, watching them shriek and squirm as they were hefted high into the air, blood leaking from their ears and nostrils as the pressure built up... and then, after a long, torturing moment of agony, their heads were crushed with twin splatters of blood and pulp.

The ropes did not vanish, and Killer had not expected them to, since it clearly was extremely high level magic, performed with the combined effort of many more mages and of the Metatrons... but at least there was a noticeable drop in the strength of the enchantment, enough for him to flex with a snarl, snapping dozens of the magic tendrils that imprisoned him.

He glared towards the parabolic dish in the distance, attempting to smash it into slivers with psychic force, but he recoiled with a grunt of pain, his head pounding viciously: he was not ready for that kind of direct confrontation with the most powerful mages and psychic of Heaven. He needed to get closer, and use his true talent: unmatched, unstoppable physical superiority. Magic and psychic power were formidable weapons against him... but he was extremely resistant and stubborn, and would charge through mostly anything. Once he was close enough to use his fists, there was no mage that could hope to survive for more than a few instants.

Killer and Ruin both flexed and struggled against the weakened ropes, and the stallion snorted in vengeful satisfaction when enough tendrils dissolved to let him use his legs again, the horse kicking backwards hard to send an Executioner flying, pieces of armor exploding in every direction as blood burst from the clone's chest, which was deformed inwards in a way that was painful to watch. Killer thrust his arms outwards and leaned into the ropes, flexing with a roar as he matched their magic with his physical power... and finally broke free of the topes, watching as they dissolved into motes of energy, his body greedily absorbing those before they could fall away to nothing, even as he steadied himself on the saddle and swung Wyvern out in a vicious windmill, chopping to bits the crowd of enemies around him and forcing the others back. Ruin leapt back up to his hooves, racking Paladins and sending them crashing dozens of feet away before stomping all over them, blood flying up in thick splatters as Killer guided him along the trenches, forcing the enemy to abandon the machine guns and grenade launchers, which the liger made sure to pulverize.

Killer put special attention in spotting mages, to break them into splatters of gore, while fighting back their efforts to stop him: when they were in sight of the crystal tower, a wall of fire erupted in front of Ruin, but Killer charged fearlessly through, the flames only massaging him warmly as his elemental control easily crushed the spell into nothing but broken runes. As Ruin leapt out of the other side of the wall of fire, the flames exploded outwards in a shockwave, rolling over the embankment and the camps, burning the tents into nothing but ashes and melting fresh away like butter, consuming Paladins until nothing was left but empty, smoldering armor sets.

Some equally mislead mage sent a wall of ice pikes exploding out of the ground, the tall and sharp blocks of steel-hard ice trying to impale Ruin from beneath only to suddenly became motionless as Killer grinned and flicked his wrist, taking possession of them all... and when Ruin rumbled past, the liger moved as if to throw something up over his shoulder, sending the ice spikes arching into the sky to plummet like meteors back down, smashing the ground with a vengeance and freezing everything they touched, shattering the suddenly brittle Paladins into fragments as they turned the battlefield into a wasteland of craters, covered by a cruel, icy mist that penetrated into the bones.

Killer pulled on the reins and guided Ruin into a tight turn when they came up in line with the crystal tower, and the stallion blew flames out of his nostrils as it climbed out of the trench, bad-temperedly body-checking an angel and sending him crashing down below, at the base of the embankment while Killer grinned darkly, tossing a crescent-shaped blade of golden energy down the length of the trench ahead. The blade shot through the curves and turns of the trench, chopping the embankment itself apart as it sent Paladins collapsing into broken heaps, cutting their bodies into piece with terrible, surgical accuracy.

Meanwhile, Ruin snorted nervously as he planted his massive hooves in the dirt and sand of the steep flank of the embankment, sliding down it until he could hammer solid ground again, to charge towards the tower, with its gigantic parabolic dish on top.

There were arkangels there, but many were wise enough to run out of the way, while others were crushed into fearful submission by the power of Fear, radiating powerfully out of Killer's armor: there were angels that, driven by the nightmares and dark visions suddenly filling their heads, turned around and started hacking paladins to bits, and that turned the line of spears and shields that had formed to face Killer into a disorderly mess of bodies that fought, struggled or just rushed out of the way. Ruin plowed through with no effort, smashing through the ranks as Killer stood on the stirrups and landed blows on either side of the horse, tearing the gap wider. A battle mage charged forth and cocked back his hand, a javelin made of crackling lightning appearing in it, but when he threw it against the liger, Wyvern rapidly swung up to slap the spear out of the way, and it happened again with the second javelin, and with the third. The mage broke down in terror and turned his back to flee, but it was way too late as Ruin came thundering forwards, the shrapnel coming from his hooves cutting into the back of the mage's legs and sending him down on his knees with a howl of agony... before Wyvern pierced through his back and out of his chest, Killer easily lifting the broken mage off the ground before sending the corpse crashing far away to the side when he forcefully swung Wyvern out to chop the legs off from under a couple of Paladins.

The way for the crystal tower was open, but the closer he got to the parabolic dish, the harder it became to breathe, to keep his eyes open, to listen to his senses: a tremendous force pounded inside his head, a humming sound filling his ears with such violence to make his bones vibrate and his ribcage contract and expand in a way that had him on the verge of vomiting. Ruin could feel it too, as psychic energy rolled over them in waves, trying to crush their brains into pulp and so powerful that the liger could feel the waves pushing against his chest, almost blowing Ruin backwards and him off the saddle. He gritted his fangs and swallowed, making a grimace at the bad taste in his throat as he shook his head in frustration, trying to clear his senses a little... but he only coughed instead, the breath knocked out of his lungs by a new, vicious shockwave of force that hit him even harder as he got closer.

And then, even though he was virtually deaf, something in him felt the incoming danger and screamed at him, the liger holding tightly on to the reins and squeezing Ruin's flanks, bracing as he turned to the side just in time to catch the glimpse of something gray moving at amazing speed, before the unknown object slammed into the stallion's side and stabbed something deeply into Ruin's body, sending boiling-hot blood spraying thickly out.

Killer snarled in pain as something pierced through his own leg as well, but he tried to guide Ruin around as some great, enormous force from below pushed upwards to lift the stallion off the ground and throw him onto his side. Killer swung Wyvern over Ruin's head and stabbed it down towards the gray mass, but a massive, mutated arm shot up, completely made of some sort of silvery metallic alloy and jutting with spikes and thorns and blades as it pushed back against the crimson blade.

And suddenly Killer sensed something else coming from the other side, so he spurred Ruin onwards, giving the stallion a mental command while stomping his combat boot on the silvery creature, sending it crashing backwards just as Ruin shot forwards and seemed to melt, along with Killer, into a vortex of pure fire.

A massive, powerful black shape shot through the fire and landed near the gray beast, snarling angrily at having missed, before Ruin and Killer reemerged in another burst of fire and magma, seeming to explode out of the ground as they made a narrow turn and charged at the two monsters.

And that was when Killer realized that he already knew the two beasts, but that they had changed beyond belief. The awareness hit him as soon as he saw the bloodied horns of the gray one, and was confirmed when he guessed the bull features in both heads, although they were hard to spot under the scar tissue and the splotches of metal covering and deforming the skulls. Both bulls had clearly been subjected to a scary series of surgeries and experimentations that had left crisscrossing scars almost everywhere. Both had had their eyes removed, and they now had a band of dark metal in their place, merged with their ugly-looking flesh by means of fire and ugly but effective stitches made of metallic string. They had multiple pairs of horns, some shattered, other sharpened into real weapons, some horns unpaired and sticking out of their skull seemingly at random. They had four wings, like Arkangels, but all four had been badly damaged, clipped short and stubby and merged into metallic, blade-like feathers that had small, ducted jet engines on either side. Their muscular, massive upper bodies were still recognizable in general shape, but they had largely mutated as well, and the arms had grown grotesquely long, at least two times longer than normal and bulging with huge, impossible muscle, making them look deformed. Metal had replaced their flesh and the supernatural alloy also covered their skin with ugly, uneven and ragged scales, fragments, pieces and chunks that made them look like statues that had only been rough-hewed and then never finished and refined. Killer's eyes narrowed as he caught hints of mutations, as the metallic skin seemed to ripple with each breath the beasts took, their roughly shaped bodies seeming to distort and morph under his gaze whenever the bulls made a slight movement.

Their chests and arms and backs were covered in thick, ugly scars resulting from surgeries that had been done with very little care for the exterior of their bodies, and the largest of all scars ran all along their waistline, where their torso connected with a thick, colossal snake body that extended for easily two hundred feet behind them. They were gigantic now, probably over three hundred feet from the tip of the spiked snake tail to the top of the deformed skull, and Killer couldn't help but wonder what kind of hellish treatment they had experienced to change in such a dramatic way.

Blackie and Whitey, the two angels that had been with Rogue on the fateful day of Killer's arrival in Heaven, hadn't been the most handsome of creatures back then, but now they were hideous, abominations created through an unholy mixture of magic and science. The four wings suggested that they had become Arkangels before undergoing the mutation, and that made it all even more disgusting: they had contaminated and warped and destroyed the nobility associated with being such high-rank warriors of the guard of God.

Killer led Ruin against them, holding Wyvern up like a spear, but his gaze darted from side to side, his senses trying to break through the torturing, painful wail of psychic energy pounding in his head, the huge male doing his best to detect the presence of Rogue. If Dumb and Dumber are here, Dumbest ought to be here as well...

Deimos seemed to have no effect on the mutated beasts, and that sounded another alarm bell in Killer's mind, telling him that they had probably been implanted with the Spirit system and were now as cold as computers programmed to kill and destroy. Fear was not going to drive them off the battlefield... and indeed they eagerly lunged against him, their heavy snake coils digging deep trenches into the sand as they shot forwards like venomous serpents.

Blackie dived towards Ruin and slashed down both of his mutated, oversized hands, his thick fingers turning into long, flexible talons that resembled scythes, and Killer grunted in shock at the speed of their movements, standing up on the stirrups and swinging Wyvern hard upwards into the massive blades, gritting his fangs as sparkles flew from the clash and the monster bore down with all its mass and strength to crush him.

Killer flicked his wrist and tried to pull Wyvern back to turn the hack into a stab, but his eyes widened as the bull's talons mutated and turned into some sort of sinister, deadly scissors that caught the crimson blade of his sword in a mortal grip.

Whitey slithered to the side, then rose high into the sky, pushed up by his long snake body, his cruel jaws opening as he vomited a beam of greenish energy, like a laser that Killer narrowly dodged by throwing himself backwards, bending his spine to lean against Ruin's, his hands continuing to wrestle Wyvern out of Blackie's grip.

The black monster let out a barking, growling laughter as it leaned down with all its power, his arms snapping loudly, the bones rearranging so that he could thrust his elbows down against Killer, guillotine blades pushing out of his joints, and the liger pumped energy into the Azura blades on either side of Wyvern, super-heating them with his force until they glowed golden, crackling with energy as they chopped the beast's talons like blades of grass. As soon as Wyvern tore free, Killer flicked his wrist and turned the edge of the sword upwards, slamming it into the guillotine and knocking it back with a grunt, the two blades recoiling viciously in the opposite directions. Killer spurred Ruin onwards, and the stallion practically leapt forwards as it picked up even more speed, tilting to the side as it found a path around Blackie's massive snake body.

Killer straightened as soon as he got out from under the threatening blade, gritting his fangs as he saw the enormous arms of the beast already mutating into yet another shape, as Blackie let out a roar of fury and slammed down a hand that had turned into a spiked mace.

Killer spun Wyvern to point it against the serpent's side and stabbed the blade deep into the metallic body, gritting his fangs as the sword recoiled on impact, shaking him almost off the saddle even as he pushed down with all his strength and spurred Ruin onwards, running along the gigantic coil and dragging his sword along cutting open an horrendous wound that rapidly grew dozens of feet long.

The monster let out an angry wail and spun on itself, its coils moving so rapidly that Killer grunted and hurriedly ordered Ruin into a turn to the side, the stallion hissing in fury as metallic spikes and blades and ragged scales tore into his side. The creature slashed down arms that had mutated into gigantic axes, and Ruin had to leap to avoid the first as it cut down like a titanic guillotine... before the other came down ahead, and Killer commanded an abrupt stop, gritting his teeth and making a grimace as Ruin planted his hooves into the ground and almost dropped his romp down as well, rumbling to a stop just as the immense blade slammed into the ground ahead of them.

"Go, go, go!" Killer incited, more to himself than to Ruin as he guided the massive stallion in a tight turn, charging down the gallery of steel as rapidly as they could, the liger turning to gaze over his shoulder to survey Blackie, who predictably leaned forwards to breathe down his ray of death and destruction.

Whitey pulled up at the other hand of the death trap, grinning savagely before leaning down to breathe his own fire, and Killer cursed under his breath before steering Ruin towards the wall of steel to the left: the massive horse understood the plan immediately, without the need for a single word, leaving the ground as he leapt against the vertical wall and smashed his hooves into it, propelling himself in the other direction, finding purchase against the other blade and from there leaping out of the trap, over the top of the two blades, just as flames of dark magic flooded the narrow corridor and exploded upwards in a mighty blast.

The two monstrous bulls were extremely fast, thanks to their powerful, immense snake bodies and to the reactor engines in their devastated angel wings, and that made Killer twice as thankful for being mounted on Ruin, as he took a brief instant to savor the delightful sensation of power and freedom that came from sailing through thin air on the back of the beast, feeling its flanks heaving with each breath, with the physical effort of it all.

Whitey reacted fastest, and like a snake lunged forwards to blast its venomous ray of greenish death towards Killer, the beam cutting through the sky and then clashing against a shield of solid energy that the liger shoved forwards into the blast. The force of the beam was such that Killer almost toppled off Ruin, his muscles bulging as he leaned into the assault and made sure to lock his combat boots into the stirrups, before snarling as he stabbed Wyvern hard into the clashing flows of energy and channeled his force through the blade.

Arrow-shaped blasts of golden energy shot through the green flames and pierced deep into Whitey's throat, sending the bull recoiling with a howl of agony and fury, his giant fist lashing out ferociously only to be struck hard by Killer's blade, Wyvern piercing deep enough to nearly chop off three of the massive fingers. However, liquid metal poured out of the wound and sealed it quickly, erasing it completely under Killer's eyes, before the liger snarled as the instinct screamed at him, and he ducked as low as he could, narrowly avoiding the curved, cruel blade that suddenly swung out of the monster's wrist.

Ruin flexed his muscles to prepare to the impact against the ground, and Killer stood up on the stirrups as they fell, his eyes searching for a weak spot to hit... and finally focusing on Blackie's tail, the immense snake body half-coiled up beneath them as the monster spun around to chase after them.

Killer spurred Ruin and directed him towards the monster's tail while pushing energy into the palm of his hand, forming a crackling javelin that he firmly gripped and weighted, taking aim before hurling it right into the snake body, nailing it to the ground and causing the black bull to let out a howl of rage and pain... before his body rippled and mutated, the tail splitting neatly around the javelin into two sharp tendrils ending in vicious harpoon tips, and both whiplashed against the liger.

Killer grunted in surprise but reacted quickly, clenching his hand into a fist and causing the spear to explode, the blast ripping one of the tails into fragments of metal, while the other clanged loudly against Wyvern's blade, then rapidly twisted around the sword, wrapping it into its coils and stabbing the harpoon down against Killer's head. The liger dodged the assault and snarled as he fought to retain control over Wyvern, another blade of energy rapidly forming into his other hand before he slashed this upwards, chopping the serpent's tail and then hurling the spear to nail the stump to the ground again.

Ruin exploited the chance and leapt upon Blackie's massive body, his hooves tearing deep wounds even into the solid metal as he galloped up along the back of the beast, charging up the bull's spine as Killer cocked back Wyvern, ready to strike.

The monster wailed in outrage and twisted around furiously on the spot, trying to shake the assaulters off, but Ruin only snorted in contempt, riding the flexing, shaking, curving body and tearing a smoldering path of hoof-shaped wounds all along the bull's spine, even as the dark metal rippled and morphed, sprouting with clawed hands that slashed and gripped into the horse's belly and legs.

Steely, cruel talons reached up to grab Killer's legs, dragging on them to unsaddle him, and he stomped his dark-metal boot upon one, grinning at the sick sound of bones shattering, before he spun Wyvern like a paddle, mowing down the deadly arms on either side of Ruin. Blackie roared in rage and suddenly turned backwards, his head pivoting on his neck and his jaws opening to vomit a beam of flames directly down between his shoulder blades.

Killer winced as the hellish magic fire rushed down towards them, and he immediately leapt off Ruin's back, sailing high into the air and swinging Wyvern out to send a blade of golden energy shooting right into the bull's forehead, smashing the monster back with a wail of pain, while Ruin dissolved into a burst of flames, becoming pure fire and shooting under Blackie's chin, knocking the beast down into the ground.

Killer landed in a crouch between the monster's wings and he took the chance to immediately chop them off with a swing of Wyvern, before turning to the side as he caught the glimpse of another shadow rushing forwards at tremendous speed. He had barely enough time to turn around and use the wide flat of Wyvern as a shield before the huge creature rammed into him, throwing him off Blackie's shoulders.

Killer landed with a grunt, skidding backwards even as he dug his boots in, tearing open deep trenches in the ground as he screeched to a stop, the massive attacker following him and swinging a massive, two-headed halberd that smashed into Wyvern with the brutal force of a mace, knocking him a step backwards even as he leaned forwards into the blow.

The newcomer was a wolf, or at least he had been one before undergoing much the same horrendous sequence of surgeries and experimentations that had been carried on the bulls. It looked like a crazy scientist had cheerfully played his sick games on Rogue's body, cutting and sewing wildly. The wolf was easily forty feet tall now, sexless yet emanating masculine presence because of his muscular, powerful form, but his beauty and humanity were gone, destroyed under a thick cover of ugly chunks of metal and nanomachines which seemed to ripple as they combined and recombined constantly, his eyes replaced by mechanical orbs that glowed with blue magic, a terrible mix of technology and arcane power. He had four wings, sign that he had become an Arkangel before the abominable change, but the white, splendid feathers were gone, replaced instead by what looked like flexible tubes made of metallic nanomachines. He now had a heavy, massive crocodile tail and his feet had been replaced by triangular hooves of dark metal. His jaws had grown massive, deforming his face with the size of his new fangs, but the Arkangel only smirked contently as he held the large pole of his halberd, looking down at Killer with an expression of insane glee at the thought of destroying him.

"I remembered you as an ugly bastard, but you've gotten a hell of a lot uglier." The liger spat, making a grimace as he looked at the scars messily covering the front of the wolf's body, as layers of metallic skin folded casually over the profile of his musculature, making him look grotesquely shaped.

"Beauty will come later... what matters right now is power. Power to crush you out of existence. And I now have all of that and more!" Rogue barked, his voice somewhat squeaky and coming out at a higher pitch than Killer would have expected from such a massive body... and the liger grinned and tilted his head to the side, taunting: "Cutting your balls off is supposed to give you power...? Or just that nice little voice...?"

Rogue snarled in horrendous fury at that, shoving out the palm of one hand and blasting Killer off his feet with a tremendous wave of pure force, sending him crashing into what was left of the embankment, the liger snarling as wreckage and corpses and sand and stone collapsed on top of him, but he still leapt back up to his feet, throwing his arms out with a roar and blasting a shockwave of his own force all around him, vaporizing the mindless Paladins that were already charging against him and blowing the embankment off like it was nothing but a sand castle.

Rogue was unfazed by the blast, however, and Blackie and Whitey both pulled up at his sides, the three beasts glaring down at Killer with hate as the mutated wolf growled: "I had to sacrifice a lot to become what I now am... but it was all worth it. Lord Typhon has given us power beyond the imaginable: you are not the only one who can create Disciples, you know...?"

Killer made a grimace at that, trying to measure the energy levels that radiated out of the three monsters... but knowing full well that, being mutant beings powered by technology as well as by their godly essence, any measure he could make would still be wildly inaccurate.

"What Typhon couldn't give, science provided. We now have the power of gods, infused into bodies which have had all their vulnerabilities removed, replaced by redundant machinery and self-repairing nanomachines. We can adapt. We can endure. And we will destroy you." Rogue cackled, eyeing Killer with a different kind of cruel hunger now, and then he added: "We will undergo further modifications once we are done with you... I will be given beauty commensurate to my new power. I'll peel your skin off and then I'll use it to make me a new set of underwear... I'll have your scalp too, and I'll order your mane sewn on my head... yes, that would look good on me, wouldn't it...? And, above all, I'll take your beloved balls and your famous dick for myself... how does that sound...?"

"It makes sense to throw away your little dick and dream big... but I've no intention to share mine, sorry. I could give away half of it and still be thrice the size of mostly everyone else... I'm a greedy bastard." Killer teased, his massive body flexing and his muscles bulging with power as he adjusted his grip on Wyvern's handle and carefully slid one foot forwards, taking an easy ready position, his smirk not extending to the eyes, which glowed a cold sapphire instead as they looked for openings and potential weak spots.

Rogue made a grimace of distaste and pure hate, raising his massive halberd as the two snake-bulls lunged forwards with matching roars, vomiting their acid, poisonous magic towards Killer as the liger sprinted forwards. He easily dodged the beam coming from Blackie, who was visibly slower now that his wings and jet engines were gone, and he immediately decided to focus on bringing him down, especially after spotting the rippling and morphing of nanomachines already piling up on the monster's back to rebuild new wings, aiding his regeneration. Killer raised his arm as Whitey unleashed another vicious vortex of dark energy against him, and a glowing shield of energy rapidly formed, floating inches away from the interlocking plates of black armor covering his wrist and forearm. The greenish flames smashed into the shield with ferocious force, battering against it as Killer cursed and half-turned to shove back with his monstrous physical power until he managed to slap his shield upwards, deflecting the jet of ruinous magic fire towards the sky, where it exploded in motes of energy that fell to the ground like feathers.

Blackie charged forwards, sliding at amazing speed over his serpent coils, and Killer forced himself to slow down his assault a little as he saw the metallic body rippling and warping, until the torso of a bull pushed out of the ragged metal scales, swinging out a cleaver that slammed into Wyvern in an explosion of sparkles. Killer slid forwards and allowed Wyvern to be tilted backwards, slamming not the blade but the pommel into the chest of the parasitic creature, knocking it backwards to crash into the larger snake body. It bounced back, stunned, and its head slammed hard into the metal as Killer drove the handle of Wyvern up to strike under the bull's chin, sending fragments of metal flying in every direction as the parasitic figure staggered and failed to react as Wyvern slashed upwards in a savage diagonal cut that chopped the figure in half and tore deep into the much larger snake body of the monster.

The parasitic bull shattered like a piece of glass and the larger bull-snake was literally lifted several feet off the ground as Killer struck with all his tremendous strength, the crimson blade of Wyvern digging deep enough to reveal a stunning structure of machinery, of actuators, whirring engines and a forest of tubes that throbbed and pulsed as they fed fuel and magic into many, many power cores that apparently formed a second spine running all along the beast's body.

Killer immediately tore Wyvern out of the wound and simultaneously pumped his energies into the palm of his other hand, forming a large sphere of focused force that he hurled into the body of the monster, snarling as it crashed into some sort of safety net made of winds of magic that blurred into sight to protect the machinery beyond.

The immense explosion that followed sent Blackie and Killer skidding backwards in different directions, the liger gritting his fangs and cursing under his breath as a literal flood of microscopic nanomachines erupted out of the damaged serpent and rushed against him. He planted his boots into the ground and spun to transform the momentum of the explosion in added energy for his slash as he slammed Wyvern into the dark, shapeless jet of nanomachines, pulverizing thousands of the tiny metallic systems with the force of the impact and frying many more with the energy cursing through the blade... but thousands more exploded in every direction like droplets of water, quickly regrouping thanks to a magnetic field and forming blades and daggers that spun in midair and shot back against him.

Killer quickly walked a few steps back, gaining some room to maneuver as he quickly slashed Wyvern back and forth to smash the blades off course, snarling a curse as he saw - and felt - nanomachines landing over his black armor and deploying tiny but powerful metallic hook-leg to connect with the plates. They discharged an amazingly powerful pulse of dark energy into him, and he gargled as his heart literally missed a beat, his muscles trembling and losing their strength for a moment before he shut his eyes and gathered himself, taking back control even as the machines blasted out another pulse, and another, and Killer could feel Deimos screaming in some remote, deep pit within him as the armor, that contained his vital essence, began to crack and crumble away.

Blackie's tremendous wound was already sealing, his body rippling as the nanomachines quickly multiplied and worked together to repair the damaged power cores, while magic rebuilt the outer layer of muscle and metal, the monstrosity already charging forwards again, his arms morphed into two titanic gatling guns that opened up with a rumbling roar, vomiting endless streams of heavy caliber shells that tore the ground ahead of Killer into shreds, throwing up a curtain of dust, smoke and death. The liger threw himself off to the side, wincing as the very earth seemed to explode under his feet, metallic slivers and splatters of Unworld reside and aggressive nanomachines ramming into him after each explosion, even as he clawed at a particularly large chunk of machines clinging to his chest, ripping it off and crushing it into nothing but dust.

Blackie adjusted his aim, tearing canyons into the desert with the hailstorm of shells that he pumped out, the two guns spewing out so many rounds that it looked like they were firing lasers, constant beams of death, and Killer groaned in pain as Unworld residue and nanomachines tore into his flesh, digging holes in his biceps while other micro-devices, taking the shape of mechanic centipedes, worked to sneak into his armor at the joints, making it hard to focus, joining the pounding psychic pain in his mind to make him blind and deaf. Instinct still told him what to do as Whitey and Rogue assaulted him from behind, the liger leaping up over a wild swing of Rogue's halberd and spinning as he stomped down hard on the massive weapon, forcing the head of it to sink deep into the sand, the wolf stumbling forwards with a grunt as he failed to let go of the pole. The wolf growled angrily and lashed out a massive fist, but Killer had already twisted his foot on top of the halberd and spun around, slashing Wyvern with ferocious force and chopping the wolf's legs off from under his body. The monster had barely enough time to feel the pain as his legs flopped to the ground and his torso crashed several feet away, before Killer's foot came down on his head, stomping with tremendous force and pumping a discharge of pure energy into the ground, grinning viciously as bolts of crackling energy tore through the desert and whip-lashed skywards, frying the nanomachines clinging to his armor and flesh while the sands shifted with a tsunami wave, the stone floor also shattering and bursting upwards in pieces and spikes, throwing Blackie out of balance.

Immediately, Killer leapt against him, dropping his shoulder and putting all his strength into the blow as he tackled the monster down, sending it crashing into the crystal tower, tearing through the solid wall and half-collapsing into the enormous parabolic dish. The bull howled in agony as psychic force and pure magic essence crackled and thundered in a massive discharge that fired into his body, rapidly turning the metal into a soft, malleable pulp as its whole form trembled out of control, smoldering and spasming.

Killer coughed blood and fell to his knees, trembling violently and struggling not to vomit as the terrible energy cursed through his system, making his form spasm so violently that he thought his muscles would tear and his flesh would come loose from the bones, his head pulsing and pounding and blood leaking from his ears as countless voices shrieked and shouted and roared and cried at once in his brain. He struggled to hold on to Wyvern's handle, leaning on his other hand not to collapse face-first into the body of the bull-snake monster... and only then he realized, in some distant corner of his confused, agonizing mind, that he was falling, sliding down the long body of the serpent, his body covered in gashes and wounds as spikes and blades of metal tore into him on the way down. He also saw Whitey rushing forwards, arms turned into hideous bundles of spiked tentacles that shot through the air towards him, and so he winced and pulled Wyvern back, wondering stupidly at how heavy the sword suddenly felt, groaning a curse as he stabbed the mighty weapon hard into the serpent, doing his best to also dig the segmented talons of his combat boots through the metallic scales.

Wyvern tore through metal and flesh, nanomachines and magic just like it all was butter, and Killer continued to fall for dozens of feet before finally finding purchase, wincing in agony at the sudden, violent stop but forcing himself to tense up and then leap up towards one of the Gatling-arms of the beast as both of the titanic weapons continued to vomit fire skywards, while the arms spasmed and shook out of control.

Whitey's thorny tentacles whip-lashed down against Killer, striking him between the shoulders and making him groan in agony as pieces of his armor crumbled away, Deimos hissing in pain while the liger fell off the sky, surrounded by other tentacles that rushed against him from every direction... before Whitey let out a wail of pain and outrage as Ruin emerged out of the ground in a great explosion of fire and magma, shooting like a meteor against the gray bull and smashing into his chest hard enough to slam him backwards... before its chest caved in and his back burst apart in a burst of blood, nanomachines and fragments of metal as Ruin tore through and galloped past.

Killer muttered words of thanks under his breath as he caught a glimpse of Ruin's action, and he snatched one of the tentacles as they writhed and retreated in a contraction caused by pain and shock. He rode the tentacle for a moment and then threw himself higher into the air once more, gritting his fangs and tensing, preparing himself as best he could before he finally landed on the wrist of the monster, near the massive revolving barrels. Once again he was savagely hit by the tremendous combination of magic and psychic assaults, but he nonetheless stabbed Wyvern hard down through the beast's wrist, his other hand clawing into the arm of the bull and his biceps bulging explosively as he arched his back and pulled the limp, spasming limb upwards, aiming the gun at Whitey and grinning viciously as the torrent of grenades found its target, tearing apart metal, flesh, nanomachines, machinery.

Killer trembled and coughed up blood as the psychic assault against him became even more intense, but he continued to direct the fire of the massive gatling gun, snarling as Whitey's body rebuilt itself almost faster than he could inflict damage, even though the Unworld residue filling the shells was poisoning the wounds and melting an ungodly number of nanomachines into a pulp, even as many others were flung in every direction, only for them to seek each other out to join into thick, shapeless chunks that either rushed back to help repair damage or turned into daggers and javelins that shot against Killer.

The liger snarled in pain and rage as the dark blades rammed into him again and again, knocking him backwards and tearing through his arms, breaking chunks off his armor and adding to his agony, but he continued to drive the massive gun, pulling up his free hand to shove his palm towards the beast, gripping into its damaged body with a psychic hold... and he roared as he shoved the margins of the horrendous wound apart, until the body of Whitey tore completely in half down the middle, as metallic flesh and muscles collapsed in two ugly piles on either side revealing the prodigious mechanical snake hidden inside, made of countless nuclear power cores that glowed sinisterly, pumping energy into the myriad of engines and actuators giving the beast its fearsome power.

Killer spied the internal structure, amazed at discovering that every bit of machinery, mixed with strange, oversized organs, were contained within a flexible protective cage made of interlocking, heavily armored blocks of dark metal. Runes glowed all over the cage, the spells forming a web of magic chains that even the heavy caliber grenades were failing to damage, especially since nanomachines constantly poured over the damaged areas to seal any breach.

Killer growled in frustration and rage at that, trying to think of a way to interrupt the regeneration, but his eyes widened in alarm as Blackie shuddered angrily under him and tried to push out of the parabolic dish, the Gatling guns ceasing to fire and then simply vanishing as the metal liquefied and morphed form. The liger cursed under his breath and tore Wyvern out of the beast's arm, but before he could leap off, his combat boots sunk into incandescent molten metal, locking him in place while the arm of the bull split into dozens of powerful, thick tentacles which sprouted with cruel blades and spikes as they lengthened and stretched out all around Killer, forming a spinning, deadly cage that left him no room for escape as it began to clamp down on him, the blades twisting faster and faster, turning the trap into a meat grinder.

Killer slashed Wyvern up into the twisting mass of blades and spikes, but his arms vibrated painfully with the strength of the recoil as sparkles flew from the clash, the metallic tentacles refusing to give and only bearing down on him with greater force, a groan of agony coming from him as the blades pushing up from below began to tear through the thick armor of his combat boots, cutting into his flesh and sending his blood spraying thickly out of the cracks in the black metal. Quickly, he conjured a platform of golden energy and slammed his feet down into this, the barrier protecting him from the meat grinder and giving him a base from which to push upwards with even greater strength, as he did his best to turn the wall of energy into a sphere all around him.

A blast of black lightning smashed into his back with tremendous violence, sending him stumbling forwards with a grunt of pain, which became a hiss of agony as he was pushed into the twisting blades, the spikes nosily grinding his armor into fine chippings, as the sound of barking laughter came from outside, followed by another blast of darkness that hit him right in the arms, making him tremble as blood exploded in his eyes and Wyvern almost slipped from his grip.

"That was a good display, Lord Killer... the kind of power one expects from the new God of War, and more. But if you thought it would stop me, you are deluded." Rogue announced, cheerfully cackling as he floated outside the spinning, twisting meat-grinder and almost playfully shot javelins of crackling darkness into Killer's body. "We have been built specifically to take you down... we've been given beyond godlike power, and self-regenerating structures that can tank all the damage you can cause, and more. No matter how hard you might strike... we will take it without blinking. And then we will tear you apart."

The wolf smirked, flexing his bulky muscles as he gathered dark magic in his hand, pumping it into the rapidly growing shape of a spear that crackled with vicious magic, before he pushed this hard forwards, laughing as he aimed the tip at the center of Killer's back. The liger couldn't see it, but he could feel the tremendous amount of focused energy as it was shoved forwards through the twisting mass of tentacles and blades, and he threw himself to the side as best he could, feeling the weapon hissing past his hip and tearing a gash through the armor and directly into the flesh of his side. Blackie redoubled its efforts as well, the tentacles moving faster still as they suddenly clamped down harder, and Killer grunted as his vital space was reduced even more, the blades grinding the damaged energy wall apart and finally finding his armor, his muscles, his flesh, making him roar in agony as they crudely minced every part of his body they bit into.

Killer slammed Wyvern hard forwards, leaning into the flat of the blade with his other hand and pushing as hard as he could, gritting his fangs as he put all his strength in the shove, muscles bulging and veins pumping as he dueled against the combined might of ancient magic and modern technology, hearing actuators and engines whirring and roaring into top gear as the nuclear cores hidden inside the monster overheated to produce yet more energy. Blackie grunted in shock, seizing his fist of tentacles with his other hand and bearing down with all its power as Whitey rushed forth to add his own might... and yet the confines of the meat grinder shifted and rippled as the tentacles bulged outwards and some tore apart or slipped loose... until clouds of steam and smoke erupted out of the bull's mouths and ears as they were both slammed backwards by a force that completely overwhelmed even their combined effort, Killer roaring as he threw his arms out and let a massive shockwave of pure energy explode out of his form, blasting the enormous monsters away.

The liger panted harshly, his chest heaving and bleeding from several ugly wounds showing were his armor had cracked and shattered, his arms covered with his blood but his biceps bulging explosively, his massive form radiating tremendous physical power as he floated in midair, surrounded by chunks of metallic tentacles that rapidly burned and melted away to nothing while he growled: "We will see if you are really that good."

Rogue only smirked, his head completely repaired and his legs rebuilt, leaving no sign at all of the devastating damage Killer had caused only moments before, the mutant Arkangel spinning his heavy halberd once and then pointing a hand towards Blackie, gripping into the bull with a psychic hold and dragging him forwards, tearing him free of the parabolic dish. The bull collapsed to the ground, trembling violently still crackling with the fearsome amount of magic cursing through his system, but the horrendous wounds and devastations in his form were already smoothing out, vanishing from sight, as even his arms quickly regenerated.

"Put us to the test!" Rogue eagerly replied, before flapping his metallic wings to shoot forwards like a meteor, lashing out with a wild, potent swing of his halberd and grinning when Killer pushed Wyvern up, tilting it to parry the blow with the large triangular spikes at the base, using them to trap the halberd's edge. The liger swung Wyvern hard, jerking the halberd along, and Rogue allowed himself to spin violently along with his weapon, before pushing his legs upwards and scissoring them open as he used the halberd's pole as a base to turn around in a 360 kick. Killer ducked under his heavy hooves of dark metal, twisting Wyvern in his grip to snag the halberd out of his hands as seized him by the ankle with his other hand, roaring as he turned around to throw him towards the ground far below, before gargling in pain as the Arkangel's wings split into a horde of flexible, segmented metal tubes all ending in sharp conical tips which shot down into his body.

Killer slashed Wyvern upwards into the twisting mass of tubes, chopping dozens into pieces, but others wrapped cruelly around his throat, the sharp tips piercing into his neck and sending blood spurting up while other tubes bit deep into his arms, his legs, his chest, his back... and the liger let out a growl of pain and horror as he felt nanomachines being pumped through the tubes and inside his body.

Killer gritted his fangs and shoved his hand towards Rogue, blasting him backwards with a furious shockwave of psychic energy and pushing in the opposite direction with all his strength, using Wyvern and his free hand to cut, chop, claw and rip the tubes away from his body, hissing in pain as blood spilled from the deep, large holes, nanomachines mixed with his life fluids as he felt them crawling inside his system, working to damage him from within.

Immediately, Blackie lunged forwards, swinging wildly with arms that had turned into immense scythe blades, and Killer gathered himself to leap above the first, before two of his tentacles pushed out of his back and shot across the sky to wrap around the arm of the monster, so that he could heft himself high up, flipping backwards to land in a crouch on the flat of the other scythe.

He felt his knees weak, almost giving away under his weight, and he vomited a thick gout of blood and nanomachines, but he still found the strength to turn around and charge towards the bull's face, leaping off the edge of the scythe and gripping Wyvern's handle with both hands to drive the blade down into the monster's forehead, pushing it down almost to the hilt, right between the bull's eyes.

But the former angel seemed completely unfazed by the blow, his muzzle instead rippling like water and beginning to mutate as liquid metal shot upwards around Killer, and the liger roared and flooded Wyvern with all the energy he could summon. It exploded downwards like a gigantic lightning bolt, tearing through the beast with such violence that its head exploded in a splatter of gore and molten metal, before its whole body burst apart, revealing the internal machinery as the monstrosity writhed and wailed in agony, trashing violently and trying to unsaddle Killer as the liger tore Wyvern out of the power core he had pierced and slashed the heavy blade through three more, gritting his fangs as electricity flooded out of the damaged machinery and painfully crackled in and over his body, while the magic runes on the metallic structure glowed brightly and the chains of magic protecting the cores snapped up like whips, slamming into him with ferocious force.

Nanomachines flowed towards him in torrents, rushing out of the spaces between the segmented, interlocking elements of the serpent-like armored body, and Killer snarled as they formed long blades and pikes that lunged at him, stabbing into his flesh, until he managed to focus his energies to cover himself in flames, in white-hot fire that melted the micro machines into a stinking black slush.

He charged down Blackie's spine, dragging Wyvern along to chop in half the power cores and the dark metal structure, his flames spreading all over the metallic body of the beast, but the regeneration of the system was horrendously quick... and when he reached the middle of the beast's serpentine form, Rogue dived against him with a yell of inarticulate fury, the Arkangel spinning his heavy halberd above his head and charging it with dark force before swinging it against Killer, smashing him in the chest.

Dark energy blasted over the liger's frame, making him snarl in agony even as he dragged Wyvern upwards, slashing it through as many power cores as he could before the blade clanged against the wolf's halberd, knocking it backwards... and then Killer coughed up blood as the bolts of dark energy suddenly slid backwards over his form, cutting into his armor and flesh like scalpels until they joined together into a pulsing sphere in front of his chest, detonating in a fiery explosion that sent him crashing backwards into the damaged power cores, the super-dense nuclear reactors exploding against his spine and zapping him with lightning, leaving him breathless and helpless to do anything but rising Wyvern in front of his face as Rogue slammed his halberd down again, the impact slamming him deeper into the incandescent broken nuclear cores, before the wolf's metal tubes snaked down and viciously stabbed into his flesh, nailing him to the overheating metal beneath.

"You put up a great show... it is a pleasure to see your prowess. And it is so funny to see it all proving useless!" Rogue taunted, grinning viciously as he hovered above Killer, held aloft by the tentacle-like metal tubes as he smashed the heavy halberd down again and again, his strikes crude and basic but tremendously powerful, making Killer's arms tremble as the liger struggled to fight back even as energy from the nuclear cores blasted into him in devastating pulses, breaking the back of his armor into black dust and small fragments. "What do you think, you usurper...? This is the power of the Righteous servants of god! The power of the true Heaven! Inexorable, unstoppable purity which will erase your existence and punish you for your sins!"

Rogue cackled, wearing a snarling grin on his features as Wyvern and his halberd clashed again, the wolf cocking back his other hand and balling it into a fist, ramming this into Killer's chest, making him grunt and spit out a gout of blood as the armor cracked and his ribs creaked and bent inwards, before the liger seized the wolf's fist as it lashed down again.

Killer snarled and squeezed on the Arkangel's hand with all his strength, his lips cresting upwards in a grin as bones loudly cracked and crumbled, before he shoved forwards with a roar and forced the wolf to hit himself with his own bleeding, ruined hand. "You are an idiot, Rogue, you are siding with the true usurper, and you've even allowed him to ruin your body and destroy your purity. How can you believe his lies?"

Rogue's lips twitched with rage, and the mutated Arkangel howled in fury, pushing down with all his strength, headbutting Killer ferociously... only to bounce back with a cry of pain, blood exploding from his forehead and nose as the liger slammed his own head forwards, leaping out of the wrecked nuclear cores as black-fleshed, massive tentacles of his own pushed him up, piercing through the power cores and snaking down along the machinery inside the metallic structure of Blackie.

Killer flexed his massive musculature, snarling as energy crackled over his form while he grabbed the metallic tubes stuck into his flesh, tearing them out and crumpling them like paper in his grip even as he swung Wyvern out in an upwards hook, catching Rogue between the legs and throwing him upwards like a ragdoll, as blood, nanomachines and pieces of metal flew in every direction.

The liger shot forwards after Rogue, muscles bulging with power and his height increasingly slightly as his form radiated with pure power, his black-fleshed tentacles wrapping around Blackie's power cores and crushing several of them into crumpled metallic wreckage, while other appendages flexed and thrust powerfully against the metallic structure of the beast, flattening machinery and motors and actuators and forcing the solid metal beams to bend outwards and deform, several of them soon tearing in half. An enormous black fleshed tentacle tore a large, glowing power core out of the beast's body and hurled it against Rogue, striking him in the chest before the core exploded in a massive ball of orange fire, a wave of heat so intense to feel almost steel-solid expanding to crush and burn Paladins and angels and mages on the ground into nothing but vapor, the ripple traveling through the sky and blowing away the clouds and the dunes of the desert, rattling the crystal tower and cracking its walls.

Blackie's metallic structure groaned desperately, the tentacles forcing it apart and sending pieces and fragments exploding in every direction as the beast writhed and wailed in agony, but Whitey charged forwards and swung an enormous arm down, the limb morphing into a colossal blade that cut through Killer's tentacles, chopping them with a splatter of blood and a hiss of pain from the liger, who turned back just in time to see Whitey swinging his other arm against him.

The liger flipped backwards and out of the way, diving down towards the ground far below and gathering energy in his palm, hurling it down in the shape of a gigantic spear that he aimed at the gigantic parabolic dish, determined to destroy the source of the psychic interference that still tore his brain apart and that prevented Vesta and the others from coming onto the battlefield.

Amazingly, Whitey charged after the spear and lunged in front of it, letting out a wail of agony and horror as the crackling javelin pierced deep into its snake body and exploded with fearsome force, brutally slamming the monster into the crystal tower as much of its upper body was annihilated, revealing smoldering wreckage inside.

"Why...? Why did he do that...?" Killer muttered, looking down at the bull with horror, thinking of the suicidal move it had just made... before Rogue leapt against him, smoldering and missing his metallic flesh and skin, his body a solid mass of dark metal and compactly packed machinery, but all his power unchanged and undiminished as the nanomachines quickly worked to repair the damage.

"Confused, Amon-Ra...?" Rogue taunted, grinning sharkishly with his metallic fangs as he charged forwards, using his heavy halberd like a mace and smashing it as hard as he could into Wyvern's blade, knocking the sword out wide as Killer grunted and lost his balance with the tremendous force of the impact. "That is the dedication and loyalty of the righteous soul: no sacrifice is too great!"

Rogue grabbed the pole of the halberd with both hands and stabbed it hard forwards, using the spear-tip to aim for Killer's chest, but the liger swiftly threw himself backwards and then lunged forth to pierce Wyvern through the wolf's chest, the blade tearing out of his back and crackling with terrible energy as the wolf gaped for an instant, blood and oil and other fluids leaking out of his jaws as he gargled in pain... until he gritted his fangs into a snarling grin and slid himself down the blade, letting go of the halberd and impaling himself to the hilt on Wyvern, just so he could lash out his massive fists into Killer's chest and muzzle, nanomachines rushing over his metallic hands to further armor them, forming heavy, oversized metallic gauntlets shaped like feral wolves heads with their jaws open wide and lined with cruel fangs.

Killer recoiled with a roar of pain as the two heavy gauntlets smashed into his face, his bones loudly cracking as he vomited blood over the wolf's chest, and the Arkangel cackled as he continued to land vicious blow after vicious blow, busting muscles, breaking bone, mincing flesh even as Killer twisted his large blade into the beast's stomach and tore upwards, the Arkangel barely seeming to notice the devastation as the sword ripped wide and cruel paths inside his body.

"I think I can tell you..." Rogue whispered, in a horribly teasing and relaxed tone, like the wounds in his form weren't even there. "Their dedication wasn't actually so strong... but you saw them. They never were very talkative or very smart. They weren't useful for their cunning... so, we figured we could afford to erase their minds." He explained, grinning widely as he looked down at Blackie and Whitey. "Now they can be trusted to follow each and every order, and see it through no matter what it takes."

"You... abominable... monsters!" Killer roared, splitting a gout of blood and fragments of bone into the wolf's face as he leaned forwards as hard as he could, forcing much of even the thick, heavy and large handle of Wyvern into the wolf's body before he forced the blade upwards, slicing the Arkangel in half down the middle and then swinging the sword hard outwards, chopping his head entirely off.

But as the devastated body fell off Wyvern, it still found the strength and determination to strike at Killer's knees and down his legs, before the wolf-head gauntlets snapped cruelly closed on the liger's feet, biting into his flesh and making him snarl in pain and shock, turning backwards to stare as the enormous body of the Arkangel, even without head, swiftly flipped under him and kicked into his spine with both feet, sending him falling ruinously out of the sky, like a meteor.

Killer spun once, groaning in pain and letting out a growl of agony and frustration at the noise, confusion and sufferance in his brain as the Metatrons continued to hammer him with their psychic force, trying to crush his head into nothing but pulp. Physical pain only made it worse, as his concentration inexorably broke down and allowed the pulsing waves to smash unopposed into the inside of his skull. He fought hard to stay awake, his senses almost leaving him as his eyes stared at the ground without really seeing it, his brain seeming to take ages to realize that he was going to crash face-first into a solid, flat expanse of red stone that had been revealed when the dunes of sand had been blown away by the earlier nuclear explosion. The very rocks were still smoldering, and the intensity of the earlier blast had turned the shadows of Paladins and angels on the ground into black silhouettes forever printed onto the surface of the stone. Those dark stains were all what remained of thousands of clones, Arkangels, mages and angels, and Killer would have no doubt been impressed by the enormity of what had just happened, wasn't for the mind-numbing pain.

The liger hissed and gritted his fangs, shutting his eyes for a moment as he forced himself to flip over, preparing for an hard landing on his wounded feet, before he winced as Rogue cackled and summoned a wall of dark crystal in front of him, flicking his wrists to cause deadly, enormous spikes to sprout and jut out of the solid barrier. Killer tried to summon the energy for a projectile, but immediately realized that he wouldn't have enough time... before his lips crested into a slight smile as magma erupted from the ground and fire viciously exploded towards the sky, revealing Ruin as it galloped straight into the back of the wall, lunging into it with all his force and smashing it into a cascade of fragments and slivers.

Killer landed on the saddle, hissing at the pain in his feet as he balanced upon the running horse before he turned around and sat down, catching the reins and straightening, snorting his breath out as he took a rapid look at himself, surveying his deep wounds as they slowly sealed and regenerated, while his black armor pieced itself back together even as Deimos whined and howled in agony somewhere deep within the liger.

A massive arrow of silvery, crackling holy energy shot in front of his face, and another struck him in the side, almost unsaddling him and making him snarl in agony before the bolt exploded, tearing the liger's hip apart, while bullets and other javelins and darts were hurled against him in a barrage. Killer turned to the side with a growl of fury and disbelief, amazed at the sight of two Arkangels aiming enormous longbows against him even as their bodies bled from countless horrible wounds, their armor tattered by the earlier explosion, while Paladin clones rushed out of underground bunkers and trenches, firing heavy rifles and machine guns and forming new lines around the crystal tower. "Get out of the way, fools!" Killer roared, slashing his powerful arm out with a growl of fury, slapping the Arkangels into the ground and then throwing them high into the sky as he swung his arm upwards, beginning to hammer the two warriors hard into the rocky ground, again and again and again, his energy blasting out of him with such tremendous force to knock the Paladins backwards, tearing them into shreds of metal and flesh.

"Surrender to the harsh reality, usurper! The Righteous force of Heaven will inexorably pursue you and pummel you until you stop moving!" Rogue announced, laughing loudly as he dropped down from the sky and smashed like a meteor right in front of Ruin, the stallion rearing up on his hind legs and snorting nervously at the sudden intrusion. The Arkangel was already fully healed and regenerated, his head back in place and his body showing no sign of weakness at all, and Killer cursed under his breath, rapidly trying to think of what he could do to inflict lasting damage, before grunting as the wolf charged forwards and rammed his shoulder into Ruin's belly, smashing the massive stallion crashing backwards with a neigh of agony. The liger slid off the saddle and down to the ground before Ruin dissolved in a flash of heat and flames, Wyvern slashing out in a rising cut that caught Rogue in the armpit, chopping his left arm off only for the wolf to grin manically as he ran forwards, his other hand mutating as the fingers were replaced by terrible, flexible talons that seized into the crimson sword and slammed it back against Killer. The liger grunted as the sword was forced out to the side, leaving his chest exposed, and before he could do anything to react Rogue pulled up a rapidly regenerating arm... that ended not in one hand but in a huge, short-barreled cannon. It blasted a huge beam of silvery holy magic right into Killer's chest, and the liger gagged hard, eyes bulging as the impact slammed him backwards before the beam simply exploded, sending him crashing limply into the ground as the armor covering his upper body shattered into fragments and his muscles and flesh were consumed, leaving a bloody chasm in his form and revealing ribs and bone plates that protectively caged his organs.

Rogue laughed, shaking his head in amusement as he walked forwards, throwing his arms out and announcing: "See? False gods cannot hope to stand up to the servants of Truth! Truth might take a hit or two... but eventually, it stomps out the lies."

"That is probably true..." Killer spat, before snorting as he pushed himself up, slowly straightening out of the crater even as blood leaked out from inside his ribcage, his chest heaving majestically with his rough breaths as he steadied himself and his flesh and muscle visibly regenerated to heal the terrible wounds. "We all hope in the victory of Truth, even though at times it feels like it will never happen."

Rogue snarled in cold, brutal fury, his breath hissing out between his fangs as he glared at the liger, barking: "Don't you dare, you heretic scum!"

But Killer inexorably stood up, stepping forwards with coldly glowing eyes, his regeneration visibly becoming faster as he added: "Today, Truth will win one battle. You will go down, Rogue. I will not allow your madness to poison the world any further."

"You are dreaming, false savior. One of us is wounded and bleeding all over, and it isn't, and it will never be, me." The wolf confidently countered, grinning widely as he took an easy ready position, facing the advancing liger.

Killer lunged forwards with a roar, slamming Wyvern down against the wolf who predictably only cackled and rose one metallic arm, easily blocking the assault and simply ignoring the way the blade bit deep into his limb, the splatter of blood rushing out leaving him unfazed... before Rogue frowned in confusion as Killer grinned widely and flicked something hidden into the handle of the great sword.

One of the Azura blades was ejected with an audible click and shot forwards, and Killer slammed the palm of his free hand into the pommel of its handle, sending the long cleaver piercing right into the Arkangel's mouth, ripping through his head and sticking out of the back of his skull.

Rogue let out a snarl of rage and surprise, but he seemed not to feel pain at all, instead lashing out his fist to punch right into Killer's already wounded chest, cracking the bone plates and ribs and sending gore and blood splattering thickly out. The liger bit his lower lip to suffocate down a howl of agony, instead wrestling Wyvern downwards until it cut right through the wolf's arm, and then he sent the other Azura blade shooting forwards as well, slamming it down through the Arkangel's chest with enough force to crush him into the ground, quickly nailing him to the stone with the two swords impaled through his body.

Killer flipped Wyvern to aim its large, cruel tip down, and he began to pile-drive the great sword into Rogue, again and again, blood and nanomachines gushing up in thick splatters as he tore and slashed and ripped and pierced, trying to mince the Arkangel's body into nothing but tiny shreds... only to hear Rogue cackling as he shook his head in amusement and mocking.

"You can't kill me! You are just a weakling before me, incapable to hurt me in any meaningful way!" The wolf chanted, laughing loudly even as Killer snarled and seized the Azura blade pierced through his throat, slashing it upwards and downwards, cutting his head in half down the vertical before chopping it right off the neck... but even that proved useless, and the liger slotted the two Azuras back into Wyvern's handle, using the heavy sword almost as a mace to crush the shreds into even smaller chunks of broken machinery and metallic matter.

Nanomachines, however, continued to flood out of the slurry of body parts, looking like tiny, sinister spiders that crawled over the ground and rapidly worked to reconnect the pieces... until Rogue's foot lashed up with brutal force, slamming into the black metal plate protecting Killer's groin, cracking it and sending the liger stumbling backwards with a hiss of pain, that became a roar of agony as a raging torrent of nanomachines exploded against him, blasting him into the air and sending him crashing bonelessly hundreds of feet away.

Killer groaned, spitting a vicious curse under his breath as he slammed his fist into the ground, rattling the earth with his rage and his strength, that now felt useless... before he opened his eyes to glare down at the nanomachines swarming over him, cursing their very existence. He needed a way to stop them for good... and as he slapped at his own sore, bloodied body to crush them like mosquitoes or to at least push them off, he suddenly had an idea.

He focused his aura, and tried to dominate them like he would dominate living beings, his eyes glowing a bright and icy sapphire... and a grin spread on his muzzle as hundreds of the tiny machines turned against their own kind, tearing out of the structures that attempted to form and assaulting the other spiders, connecting to them as if to bite, and eagerly spreading their corruption to more and more "bugs".

He was pretty sure he couldn't hope to use that exact same method against nanomachines inside Rogue's body, due to the protection the Arkangel's fanatical and mostly-machine mind would give them and due to how many new nanomachines he constantly produced to repair any and every damage sustained... but he now had a pretty good idea of what he could do to contrast the monster.

He pushed up to his feet, spitting out a thick gout of blood and vomit and other fluids he did not want to investigate about, and he shouldered Wyvern as Rogue approached with quick strides, already fully healed once more, an awful grin on his face that made the liger mutter: "Grin until you can, you bastard..."

Behind Rogue came the two massive bull-serpents, both badly damaged but rapidly regenerating, the nanomachines working to rebuild the devastated power cores, and Killer shifted position, rising his guard as his eyes narrowed and followed the rapid movements of the two enormous beasts that ran on their vast coils to assault from the two flanks.

Killer tensed and pulled Wyvern up, preparing to parry their blows, but Whitey and Blackie did not try to hit him this time, instead beginning to run around him in a circle, their long snake bodies rearing up as they twisted faster and faster, their bodies forming a DNA-like spiral around him, and the liger frowned, unsure of what the point was but not liking it, rushing towards the edge of the spiral and trying to break out... only to find a solid wall of crackling energy against which even Wyvern bounced back with a thunderous explosion of malicious force.

The liger snarled as he was slammed backwards violently, his feet digging trenches into the ground as he tried to grind to a stop, before he cursed under his breath and looked down at his arms with alarm as he felt an increasingly powerful force dragging him towards the centre of the spiral and up into the air, his feet leaving the ground even as he tried hard to steady himself. The enormous serpent-monsters spun around him faster and faster with every passing second, their bodies drawing nearer to his as energy viciously crackled between them, electricity zapping in and over Killer's body as the liger struggled against the invisible force clamping down on his form, his arms painfully crushed against his hips as his breath hissed out between his gritted fangs.

"You are annoyingly resistant, I will admit..." Rogue coldly said, flying up to stand at eye level with Killer, grinning down at the liger through the wall of energy of the rapidly spinning prison. "But we came in prepared. You see..." The wolf grinned in cruel, insane glee as he leaned closed to the wall of the prison, as Killer snarled and struggled but was inexorably crushed inside an even tighter space, the bodies of the monsters now almost grinding into his form as they spun around it at incredible speed, barely visible in the form of confused blurs. "... as I said, these two dumb brutes were never much use brain-wise. But the reason why we had their personalities erased is more easily explained: they would have never accepted being turned into super-bombs, otherwise."

Killer snarled in fury and horror at the wolf's words, his eyes darting upwards to study the damaged serpent-monsters, time seeming to slow down around him as his senses scanned the two machines... and sure enough, horribly, their multiple nuclear-power cores were overheating rapidly, glowing as they accelerated the nuclear reaction to produce more and more and more power. Rogue followed his gaze and laughed cheerfully, clapping his hands together once and exclaiming: "Exactly! Isn't it impressive...? Each power core produces several megatons of power once in overload, and between them, the brothers have several dozen cores. I think they have... around 60 different cores each. But there might be more." Rogue cackled, and threw his arms out with a wide grin as Killer arched his back and flexed, roaring as he pushed as hard as he could against his prison as the heat inside it continued to grow, becoming unbearable as the nuclear cores began to glow a bright white. "Our bull friends always had a very powerful bond tying them together... they are brothers, and they were also lovers, much as they tried to keep their perversion a secret. Such a bond that can be turned into an incredibly powerful magic, one that even you won't be able to break, usurper. That made them a perfect vector for the ultimate bomb... the one that will destroy you. And you get to see the power growing and piling up ahead of the explosion, growing exponentially until it can no longer be contained! Count down the seconds, usurper, and pray. Beg for forgiveness while you stare at Death walking towards you."

Rogue smirked in cruel glee, his hands glowing white as he channeled the powers of the Metatrons to open a wide, enormous portal, and Killer threw himself forwards with a roar, flexing powerfully and dropping his shoulder to ram into the bodies and magic holding him prisoner as the snake-bulls wrapped tightly around him, the heat inside the cores beginning to melt their own metallic structure and burning Killer's flesh, overwhelming even his dominance of fire.

The prison writhed and flexed as Killer desperately pushed forwards, but it did not give, and Rogue cackled loudly before the liger was blinded by a bright white light... and then everything became dark, Killer blinking and gasping as the little air left in his lungs was violently forced out of his mouth, a new kind of pressure sending jolts of pain in his form as he found himself lost in deep space, surrounded by distant, unknown stars.

"Come on...!" Killer roared, forcing his arms outwards as hard as he could, trying to break free of his prison, trying to force out of his mind the horrendous awareness that he was strapped to a colossal bomb far more powerful than the whole nuclear arsenals of the world summed together. But there seemed to be no way to gain more than a few inches of breathing space, his eyes bulging as he stared at the nearest power cores, his fangs gritted as the super-compact reactor melted in front of him, leaking thick droplets of hyper-heated liquefied metal onto his chest, making him howl in agony as his flesh smoldered and burned away.

And then, while his mind filled with images of Alexis, of Mriya, of Anubis, of Vesta, Gaia and all his loved ones, the cores reached the limit and tore through it, initiating the colossal explosion, the nuclear reaction feeding itself and growing more and more violent.

Killer was deafened, blinded, and overwhelmed with pain and with the feeling of tremendous, indescribable heat that rapidly consumed every inch of his form, but his brain continued to work, and he did the only thing he could, curling up on himself but opening the gates to the raging ocean of his own power, countering the nuclear furnace with his godlike, fearsome might, his height rapidly increasing, his muscles bulging explosively as he roared and threw his arms out, unleashing a ripple of power that traveled through space like a tsunami wave, ramming into planets millions of miles away and cracking them like they were nothing more than clods of dirt, the stars seeming to tremble like the flame of candles in the wind as reality trembled and warped around the immense god.

Killer slapped three planets into nothing but clouds of dust as he flexed his fingers, not even noticing the puny worlds around him as his growth continued, his immense musculature dwarfing multiple stars and casting them into murderous darkness, the liger snickering darkly as his eyes glowed a cold, solid sapphire and the nuclear explosion that was supposed to kill him was actually devoured, absorbed into him to add to his ocean, the energy flooding in beginning to heal and regenerate his wounds, rebuilding his flesh and repairing his bones instead of charring them into ashes.

The liger's roar turned into a grunt of annoyance as a heavy, massive chain of glowing energy faded into view, wrapped tightly over his chest and abs, and with loops biting into his arms and crushing on his biceps, constraining him, clamping down on his growth even as he snarled and flexed, hands clenching into fists and muscles bulging explosively, making the thick links of the chain groan and creak as several began to stretch out and tear.

The god chuckled darkly, feeling his power surpassing that of the ancient gods that had Sealed him at birth, the liger grinning predatorily as he gazed down at the chain and then flexed his arm, bending it to touch his chest with his fist, and the loops wrapped around his bicep exploded into fragments that rapidly dissolved, his height and mass increasing even further as he prepared to shatter the chain whole, snorting in contempt of the puny force opposing his own. Just another little flex, it was all it would take...

But he closed his eyes instead, pushing air out of his nostrils in a long, loud woosh as he calmed down, as he forced the lusts and the rage and the excitement back, imposing to himself to shrink down instead, closing his eyes to escape the temptation and delight that came from seeing how he dwarfed the planets and the stars around him. The chain faded out of sight, badly damaged but not yet broken, as his height rapidly reduced, until he was back at his normal dimensions, floating idly in deep space, his eyes open and staring at the clouds of dust and spinning asteroids that were all what remained of planets he had touched and annihilated in his growth.

He didn't even know how many worlds he had destroyed, and now there was no telling which pieces belonged to which lost world... and he just hoped that all of them had been devoid of life. For sure, now he couldn't feel any energy signature, but no one could have survived the apocalypse he had just caused. He hadn't felt anything earlier, either, but he was aware, in a mix of horror and cruel delight, that the energy signature of mortal beings, even billions of them, would have failed to arouse his attention while he so enormously dwarfed them.

He flexed one hand slowly, staring at his fingers for a brief instant, repressing a shiver of delight at the thought of his own power. Absurdly, even though he had just brushed multiple planets into dust without even noticing it, his mind dwelled mostly upon how he had just survived an enormous nuclear holocaust. He had been raised as a mortal, he had always thought himself a mortal, and he had been the general and the leader of his homeland and then of his empire, and for all his life he had thought of nuclear weapons with reverential fear and awe. Nuclear arsenals were the greatest power mortals mastered and comprehended. They were built up and maintained because their very existence and the thought of the destruction they could cause helped prevent war, and put a hard, never-to-exceed limit to the initiatives of each state. Yet, I've just absorbed a whole nuclear holocaust... just like that...

He closed his eyes and shook his head slowly, repressing a shiver of mixed, confused feelings about what he had just done, and then he sighed, trying to take his share of peace from the uncaring silence and emptiness of space, before thinking about teleporting back to the battlefield.

For a moment, he worried that he would not be able to reach the desert, thinking that the crystal towers were still standing... but when the barrier stood up to his efforts, he found it was far weaker than it had been before. Alexis had probably taken out several more Metatrons, or just forced them to spend all their juice. Besides, he had just almost shattered his sixth and penultimate seal, and the power still pulsing in his veins was more than enough to smash through the barrier like a train through a sheet of paper.

He vanished from the spot, thinking of his enemy and tracking his energy signature, and he reappeared almost in the same instant right in front of Rogue, the wolf gaping stupidly and stumbling backwards with a cry of disbelief and confusion at the sight of Killer completely healed and regenerated, his armor rebuilt to the last piece and resplendent in his mix of black and silver and gold, the liger grinning predatorily and taunting: "Where do you think you are going...?"

"How...?" The wolf barked, snarling furiously as he backstepped away from the liger, before roaring in rage and frustration as he threw his arms out and huge, curved blades sprung out of his wrists, the beat hissing: "It doesn't matter, at the end of the day... I will kill you myself. I should have known that those two idiots would have failed me again. How did they screw it up...?"

"They didn't. They exploded into vapor exactly like you wanted them to, you traitorous bastard... is that the way you "righteous" treat your friends?" Killer coldly replied, glaring at the wolf with disgust and hate. But Rogue spared no thought for the bull brothers, instead gritting his fangs furiously before barking: "Then how can you be here...? What trickery allowed you to escape?"

"No tricks. I stood in the center of the explosion. It didn't kill me. I absorbed it." Killer idly replied, a smirk spreading on his face as the Arkangel gaped in shock and disbelief and denial, growling as he shook his head violently. "Lies! Nothing but lies come from you, usurper. What you say is impossible, it can't have happened." The monster stomped forwards with a yell of rage, swinging both arms down against Killer but only cutting into the ground as the liger slid forwards and stabbed Wyvern up through the Arkangel's abs.

The wolf only snarled in fury, pulling up one heavy, massive hoof to slam it down as hard as he could, attempting to crush Killer under its monstrous weight, barking: "Just stay still and die, liar... your puny blows can't damage me, no matter how many times you try."

Killer snorted and side-stepped, narrowly avoiding the ground-shaking stomp as he tore Wyvern out towards the wolf's hip, and then sliced downwards through his smooth, sexless crotch, blood and nanomachines falling down in a thick splatter as the sword tore free, before Killer spun the weapon around and chopped the legs off from under Rogue, sending his upper body crashing into the sand.

Immediately, the wings of the wolf split into a myriad of sharply-pointed metal tubes that shot upwards against Killer, but the liger had already spun around and his hand seized one of the tangles of tentacles, while Wyvern stabbed down through the other and pierced through Rogue from side to side, nailing him to the ground.

"It is all useless, you fool!" Rogue roared, his head turning around fully as he vomited a stream of black fire and parasitic nanomachines up at the liger, but Killer only snarled and tilted to the side, muscles bulging as he stomped his foot down on the wolf's back and jerked backwards hard on the tubes making up the wing, until they tore off with a groan of metallic pain. The wolf's body rippled like water at that, morphing into a shapeless and almost-liquid mass of shifting nanomachines that effortlessly slid away from around Wyvern and surged upwards in a vicious explosion, forcing Killer to leap backwards and out of the way... but his lips crested into a grin as he smashed his heavy fist into the mass of nanomachines, having waited for exactly that moment.

The voice of Rogue came from somewhere within the shapeless mass of micro-devices, laughing of Killer's stupidity as the tiny spider-like systems began to eagerly swarm all over the liger's arm, planting their metallic legs into his flesh and blasting electricity into him, but the liger only snorted steam out of his nostrils, ignoring the pain and the spasms of his body as he begun to pump corruption and darkness into the mass of devices.

Rogue's laughter died down into a gargle of shock and pain, the mass of nanomachines beginning to solidify back into his metallic body as his eyes bulged in disbelief and confusion, the Arkangel staring down at Killer's fist buried deep into his chest and then vomiting blood as thorny tentacles of darkness sprouted out of the wound and swarmed all over his form, while others visibly grew inside him, grinding against his ribs from the inside and deforming his chest outwards, before more of the poisonous appendages burst out of his mouth, then tore out of his nostrils and ears. "W-what... did... you...?"

Rogue gurgled and his eyes bulged in a silent scream of agony, thick black fluid leaking out of his mouth as tentacles tore through his body, bursting outwards and tearing the advanced machinery apart, suffocating mechanisms and power cores as they continued to grow and expand, even as the nanomachines worked as hard as they could to chop the tentacles and consume them.

"You can use your nanomachines to build, morph and regenerate everything about you, so I can't damage you badly enough, fast enough with normal means. But what happens if I give your nanomachines an opponent just as persistent, mutating, regenerating and corruptive...?" Killer teasingly replied, grinning predatorily as the black goo began to fry the nanomachines into sizzling, smoldering wrecks, while hundreds and then thousands of other micro devices were corrupted and turned against their own kind, the tentacles spreading more and more even as Rogue's system attempted to resist, turning several appendages into sapless, dead branches that fell to the ground in ashes.

Rogue's eyes widened in terror at the realization of what was happening, the wolf feeling his forces waning rapidly as Killer cocked back his other hand and slowly, majestically clenched it into a fist, the Arkangel shaking his head in denial in front of it as it shot forwards, slamming into his face with brutal, merciless force, crushing the metallic skull inwards and sending blood and burned-out nanomachines exploding in every direction while Killer's fist moved back to strike hard in the middle of his chest instead, smashing a deep, vast hole in it, as the liger began to pummel the wolf again and again and again.

Rogue stared at the liger from a single, damaged eye, the other side of his head completely destroyed and caved in, the wolf gargling in agony and unable to do anything as his strength was quickly and viciously sapped away, until he realized with horror that he was rapidly shrinking. Earlier, Killer couldn't have punched him in the face without jumping up... earlier, he had towered upon the liger. But now he was staring upwards at the god, and the cold sapphire eyes of the liger looked farther and farther away with every passing moment, until the mountain-like chest of the powerful god filled the wolf's vision, Killer's muscles looking enormous and truly godlike as they filled the sky above him, and the god's fist caused more and more devastating damage with each blow as it grew bigger and heavier in comparison to his no-longer regenerating body. "Truth wins, as you said..." Killer coldly announced, grinning viciously. "Goodbye, arsehole."

And within one moment, Rogue found himself staring upwards at Killer's combat boot as it rose above him, looking titanic and scary, caked with blood and gore as it was, its sole cruelly spiked and the long talons looking deadly, wrapped in sharp, finally segmented metal plates... before it rushed down from the heavens, like the supreme judgment it was, and crushed what remained of the Arkangel into nothing but a splatter of blood and dark slush, Killer snorting in contempt as he twisted his foot slowly on the spot, grinding even the remains out of existence, as the last few nanomachines on his arm fried and exploded.

Killer closed his eyes for a moment, sighing and rolling his shoulders slowly, flexing his massive musculature and feeling the responses of his body as pain flashed up in several areas, while others burned painfully as wounds healed and regenerated. He seized the handle of Wyvern and easily pulled the sword out of the ground, ignoring the bullets bouncing off him as Paladins all around the battlefield took position and fired with everything they had.

He only rubbed a hand over his forehead instead, growling in frustrated anger at the pain pulsating in his mind, his eyes glaring at the crystal tower as he shouldered Wyvern and walked towards the fortress. Ruin appeared in a flash of fire and magma at his side, and he charged forwards into the line of Paladins forming around the tower, smashing the heavily armored angels back into the walls of the fortress, while others were trampled and crushed, as the stallion kicked and headbutted and smashed the enemies down.

Killer idly swung his arm out, blasting a wave of energy into the Paladins firing at him, smashing them flying like pins as bodies were cut into pieces and blasted away like toys, and then he walked over the crumpled corpses deformed by the deep imprints of Ruin's hooves, reaching the wall of the crystal tower and cocking back his fist, punching an enormous breach into the fortress, revealing a circle of twenty Metatrons desperately chanting their spells, their scrolls floating around them and their eyes closed even as they shuddered hard at the noise of his invasion; even as enormous blocks of crystal exploded into the room and collapsed down on top of four of them, crushing the angels into nothing but splatters of blood and gore.

"You guys have seriously annoyed me..." Killer coldly said, stomping his way into the room even as the powerful ministers of Heaven desperately attempted to force him back with a focused barrage of psychic force, doing their best to stay focused even as they shifted nervously in their seats, twitching and trembling and very clearly dreaming of running away, to safety... but there could be no safety. Metatron, the Chancellor of Heaven and their master, had built the tower around them as a prison. There was no door leading in or out... only the breach that Killer had smashed through the walls with his brutal, monstrous strength.

But the only way to the breach was through him, and there was no way in Hell for them to succeed.

Killer took his time, enjoying his vengeance for all the pain they had put him through as he walked up to angel after angel, slamming his foot down on their heads to crush them face-first into the ground, pinning them as he seized their wings and tore them off, like they were made of paper, dismissively tossing the pieces away and laughing darkly as he finished them, simply crushing some like they were pigeons; gripping others by the shoulders and ripping them apart down the middle; seizing the head of another and tearing skull and spine out; until the room was crimson with blood and gore. Finally, he walked out with a sigh of satisfaction, and he blasted the parabolic dish into pieces with a small ball of focused energy.

The relief was immediate, the pressure on his brain easing greatly, his senses no longer tortured by screams and flashes and sheer agony.

It had been harder than expected, but now, as he swung Wyvern up to leisurely shoulder it, he grinned as he looked over the troops assembling against him, licking his lips and flexing his enormous musculature, walking calmly against them as their weapons bounced uselessly off him, laughing at the sight of angels running away in terror, charging into the unforgiving desert to get away from him.

Only the clones, governed by the cold, unemotional computer installed into their spines, were stupid enough to stand in his way.

Alexis snarled in frustration and pain at the intensity of the psychic waves pummeling her brain, her head filled with agony and a streak of blood leaking out of the corner of her mouth as she clashed against the might of the Chancellor of Heaven in person, supported by his ministers, named after him.

That the Chancellor himself had come out of hiding to fight her back was the demonstration of how terrible her powers were, as Metatron was by far the strongest mage and psychic that Heaven had ever had in its ranks. Rivaling the mental abilities of God himself, Metatron had been the Chancellor of Heaven since the night of times, using his formidable mind to keep every corner of Paradise, Hell and the Mortal Plane under constant surveillance. His floating scrolls had always been filled with news of the present, histories of the past and accurate visions of the future, and he had been able to look into each and every mind, to read each and every soul.

Over the Eons, as the task had grown more and more demanding with the multiplication of the mortals and of the supernatural beings, he had surrounded himself with a vast cohort of carefully selected minds that he had trained into his subordinate ministers. He used them to boost his own power, linking their minds to his own to form a collective brain with enormous, incredible power and reach in all three of the dimensions: Heaven, Hell and the Mortal Plane. He had also delegated to his ministers a lot of the minor tasks, to ease his burden and give himself the possibility to train, to develop his abilities even further, to grow them greater.

For Eons, hiding from Metatron's eyes had been simply unthinkable, and no one would have ever dared challenging his tremendous psychic power. He had never been particularly gifted in terms of physical strength, but he had developed his mental power to such levels that getting close to him was out of the question. But Killer and Alexis had changed that, rapidly, since well before they were summoned into Heaven. Their power had grown rapidly and steadily, far above the possibilities of control of the ministers, and soon enough had broken out of Metatron's control. His scrolls no longer could track the actions of the two gods, and the minds of the two ligers resisted to even his most savage aggressions. The Cataclysm had only speeded up the disaggregation of Metatron's power: Heaven had violently and suddenly changed, and the connection his mind enjoyed with the Three Dimensions had been mostly severed, leaving the scrolls empty or filled with scribbles and signs that no one could understand.

And with Alexis's psychic power growing faster and faster, the reach of Metatron was quickly eroding, leaving him staring at a future in which the muscular goddess could have crushed him into pulp with a mere thought, like she could already do with his ministers. He needed to stop her before she could get any stronger.

From Alexis's point of view, having Metatron coming out of hiding to close the distance and challenge her directly was an excellent development. The Chancellor remained one of the most powerful weapons in Typhon's hands, and a Heaven-wide problem to deal with. The chance to destroy the Chancellor was precious... but came with a big downside. She and Killer had hoped to take down the parabolic dishes very quickly, in order to let Vesta and the others step in to completely secure the area, swiftly and efficiently, but now that was unthinkable.

She looked off in the distance, snarling at the sight of two gigantic serpent-like monstrosities battling against Killer, and she also clearly felt the energies of her old acquaintance, Rogue... energies that were infinitely greater than they had ever been before, and much, much different. The wolf clearly was a far greater threat than he had been at the first meeting... and the femme fatale snorted irritably, cursing under her breath at the thought that she should have just crushed him like a bug the first time.

Alexis charged straight at the crystal tower, Wrath neighing in confusion and rage as the very air around them vibrated and burned with the psychic force coming from the parabolic dish, making it feel like they were moving through solid concrete. Wrath's muscles bulged with the effort, the stallion galloping forwards and plowing through the ranks of Paladins and Arkangels, sending them flying in broken heads, raking dozens backwards into their comrades before crushing them under his hooves, each step thundering like an explosion and sending shrapnel blasting off in every direction, tearing through armors and bodies.

Alexis's mind was focused on Metatron and his ministers, the army around her unworthy of her attention, as she idly chopped enemies into pieces as they came close to her legs, swinging Blue Vixen out without even needing to look, slashing it according to the visions of the future given to her by her sixth sense.

Bullets and grenades fired against her were caught into an invisible but powerful grip, floating uselessly in midair around her before being hurled back into the ranks of the Paladins, tearing flesh to shreds and exploding in splatters of deadly Unworld residue, tearing large holes in the lines that she then widened with contempt, almost with boredom at how her tremendous force allowed her to crush hundreds of Paladins at once, with a lazy flick of her wrist.

Bodies were caught in her psychic hold and dragged skywards before exploding in splatters of crimson fluids and gore, torn in half like sheets of paper or crumpled into broken heaps, or pulled apart in frightening explosions of innards as soon as she moved her hand, her power snuffing out a thousand clones like they were nothing but candles in the wind, before she grinned viciously and shoved one hand hard forwards, huge muscles bulging as she sent a solid wall of energy crashing into the solid wall of shields and spears ahead of Wrath, blasting hundreds of enemies backwards like they were nothing but dolls, slapping across the battlefield until they ruinously crashed into the base of the crystal tower, their armors crumpling with a loud, sinister groan of metal and their voices coming out in a loud, echoing collective howl as they were submerged by their comrades, a huge pile of bodies forming before Alexis laughed and shoved her hand forwards a little further, crushing them all like overripe fruits, pressing their bodies against the thick wall of the tower until the crystal itself cracked and exploded violently inwards in a hailstorm of slivers and fragments.

Alexis spurred Wrath towards the breach, and the stallion shot forwards, hooves thundering over the ground, the corpses and the still-alive clones attempting to stop it, until they reached the edge of the vast hole in the wall and Alexis worked the reins and her legs to steer Wrath towards the side. The stallion turned around with a snort and charged in the new direction, chasing after confused and terrified angels and against clone Paladins that continued to sacrifice themselves uncaringly, doing all they could to stop the assault.

The goddess, however, elegantly pulled up her leg over the back of the massive horse and then slid down its flank, landing on her feet and walking into the breach, eyes narrowing slightly as fragments of crystal loudly cracked and crumbled under her boots. It was dark inside, especially in comparison to the intense and hot light that burned the desert's sand on the outside, but her eyes adapted pretty much instantaneously... and when the floor suddenly vanished from under her feet, she only smirked tauntingly, standing on a platform of solid energy that formed with perfect timing.

She gazed down at the abyss that had opened under her, idly studying the darkness far below, trying to decide where the portal eventually led, to what kind of deadly, hostile dimension... and as she walked onwards, platforms of energy took shape under her boots. "Nice trick, Metatron, but not very useful against me. I bet it is great for starting parties, though."

The Chancellor sat in the middle of the circular room, in a comfortable throne with a large backrest that completely encased his enormous mass, rising a couple of feet above his three heads. Alexis stared with contempt at the angel, eyeing the absurd circumference of his waist, his belly swollen almost beyond belief with how incredibly fat he was. She had never met Metatron before, but she had been shown some photos and Killer had told a very eloquent story about the meeting he had with him... and Alexis could now tell that he had not exaggerated at all.

She almost laughed as she spotted the tiny wings on the fat angel's back, shaking her head slowly at how incredibly out of proportion they were, and she suspected his legs were in much the same condition, but there was no telling for sure, since his throne was part of a floating, metallic structure that hid him from the waist down and that resembled a cartoony spaceship of sorts.

The floating pod offered protection and, Alexis figured, mobility, and her eyes were immediately drawn to a series of large "medallions" of dark metal, each with a glowing power core in the centre, which floated in the air around the throne. She could sense energy radiating from each, and she was sure that, together, they held up a spherical barrier all around the pod.

Further out, all around the room, floated the ministers, the other metatrons: they floated high up into the air, spaced out in a circle that orbited slowly around the Chancellor's pod, and they seemed to all be unconscious, their eyes open wide but glowing with white, dull light and their mouths gaping in silent screams. They were surrounded by columns of blue light stretching from the ground to the roof, and Alexis immediately knew that the Chancellor was controlling them all and using their energies, to the last drop, to further his own power.

The goddess tightened her grip on Blue Vixen's handle, her index brushing the golden trigger of the machine gun built inside the heavy weapon, and she darted a gaze downwards at the abyss under her feet, the starless darkness beneath beginning to spin at increasing speed, generating a powerful slipstream that already tugged her body with surprising force.

Metatron looked at her coldly, his silvery masks all looking hostile and furious, even though one of them was etched with a smiling mouth. His voice dripped with icy venom as he commented: "Oh, yes... your surprising ability to read the flow of energies and see its future directions in your mind well in advance. An ability almost as impressive as your arrogance." The chancellor shifted in his throne a bit, and Alexis perceived a sharkish grin in his tone as he added: "But I wouldn't put too much faith in it, if I was in you."

She gritted her fangs and prepared for the assault, but then blinked with a grunt of shock as the ghost images in her mind suddenly rippled and multiplied, filling her brain with pain and confusion as she was shown dozens of possible futures. She hesitated for an instant, trying to understand which was the correct one and finally choosing to pull Blue Vixen up in front of her chest, right before the floating ministers slowly turned around to face her, energy glowing brightly in their mouths before it rushed forwards in beams of roaring flames.

She leaned into the blasts, pushing back with her tremendous strength as the fire slammed violently into Blue Vixen and then washed, over and beneath the blade, the muscular femme fatale cursing under her breath before slashing her sword out in a wide cut, tearing through the fire... before growling in surprise and rage as the platform under her feet, even though it was made of her own energies, shattered into dagger-like fragments which shot upwards. She snarled as she fell through the hole and into the dark pit, feeling its force dragging her hungrily downwards even as her wings burst out of her back, flapping powerfully to bring her higher up, away from the threat, even as two of the blades pierced deep into her legs. She hissed in pain and shock, outraged at being hurt by her own energy, before the daggers simply exploded, tearing apart her flesh and the mighty musculature of her thigh, blood splattering out around her as the Chancellor laughed and clapped his hands lightly, exclaiming: "You see... energies in Heaven are within my remit. I can play even with yours."

Alexis glared at the fat angel and flew higher up into the tower, her enormous dark wings spreading wide as she tore out of the grip of the vortex beneath, her eyes shutting and a groan of pain escaping from her lips as her mind filled even more with confused ghosts of energies, forcing her to try and find a way to shut down her sixth sense, her muscles bulging as she flexed and aimed Blue Vixen down at the Chancellor, blasting a burst of armor-piercing bullets against his faces. Unsurprisingly, the bullets crashed loudly into a translucent barrier of energy held up by the floating medallions, and the Chancellor shook his heads slowly, snickering as the vortex beneath them exploded upwards in a hurricane of dark flames that rushed upwards along the walls of the tower, slamming into Alexis. The goddess cursed under her breath and flapped her mighty wings, shooting up higher into the air even as the flames, as dense and heavy as magma, clung to her and dragged her down, burning into her flesh and at the same time bearing down with tremendous force on her bones, before she closed her eyes and morphed the magma into water, sending it crashing down in a tsunami waves over the Chancellor's throne, the goddess grinning and clenching her hand into a fist, turning the new sea into solid ice, droplets and splatters becoming deadly spikes and blades that shot down from the sky into the ministers and towards Metatron himself.

The ministers were pelted by the icy projectiles, the spikes tearing through their bodies and ripping vast holes into their flesh, but it seemed to have no effect as the puppet-like bodies floated higher up into the air, splitting formation as some slid behind Alexis, while some more suddenly let out silent roars that warped their features, their arms swelling with huge, grotesque musculature as their hands turned into flexible, long talons that they slashed against the goddess, leaping against her.

The goddess fired Blue Vixen's gun into the first beast that approached, the huge bullets sending up splatters of gore and blood as they maimed the chest, the face, the torso of the minister, breaking him down into pulp and blowing the beast backwards... but not stopping it, as the monster launched himself forwards again. The femme fatale cursed under her breath, ducking out of instinct as another mutated minister came charging at her from behind, and she stabbed Blue Vixen upwards with a snarl, piercing the blue blade through the minister's torso and then spinning to hurl the body down, the metatron splitting in half like a doll and tearing free of the blade before crashing into another minister, sending both crashing down into one of the floating medallions around the Chancellor.

Alexis's mind filled with ghosts of future assaults coming from every direction, only adding to the pain that threatened to split her skull in half and only making it harder for her to decide her next move, making her curse under her breath as she spun around and lashed out a hook kick into another minister, roaring as her boot tore through flesh and bone, breaking the floating body in half and sending the pieces splattering against the walls. A beam of dark energy smashed into her back a moment later, blood flying out of her jaws as the dense, magma-like essence tore into her wings, and the solid ice below exploded upwards in a hailstorm of spikes and daggers, while two more ministers flew towards her from either side, blasting her with other beams of energy even as she chopped the head off another and caught one by the skull, crushing its head in her hand like an overripe fruit.

The Chancellor's throne floated higher up into the tower, the three-headed angel relaxing in his seat and grinning behind the silvery masks, watching as Alexis fought back the constant assaults of the ghoul-like ministers, his hands rising over the edge of the "spaceship" pod and pushing his palms out towards her, firing waves of powerful magic forwards through a portal. A minister floated silently behind Alexis, his mouth opening absurdly, sinisterly wide, and Metatron's magic washed out in a vicious vortex that slammed into her back, knocking her hard forwards as she snarled in surprise and pain.

Another minister flew in front of her and stabbed his long, cruel talons against her chest and face, but the goddess elegantly flipped in midair and seized the ghoul by the shoulders, swinging her legs up in a handspring and launching herself towards the Chancellor. She slammed her boots down into the two ministers she had knocked against Metatron's barrier earlier, crushing them down into the medallion and stabbing Blue Vixen down through their bodies and though the piece of machinery beneath.

She snarled as she tore the blade through their bodies, tearing them and the medallion in half even as electricity crackled up her arms and cursed through her system, burning her nerves and causing her muscles to spasm violently... until a blast of tremendous force slammed her backwards, sending her crashing into the crystal wall of the tower, sinking into the hard stone and sending cracks spreading in every direction.

She snarled in pain and rage, slamming her fist into the wall and rattling the whole fortress with her strength as she tore out of the crater, eyes glowing a cold sapphire as a minister charged down against her only to be torn into shreds by her psychic force. The Chancellor, however, only smacked his lips and taunted: "Come on, Lady Alexis... you cannot possibly think it will be so easy to get through my defences."

"I cannot possibly accept the fact that you think you can fight while sitting, fat lard." The muscular female spat, gritting her fangs as a floating metatron turned slowly around and acted as a portal, vomiting against her the full might of the Chancellor's magic, forcing her to shove her palm out, a shield of solid sapphire energy forming in front of her.

"Oh, but I can..." The Chancellor replied, his voice betraying his irritation at her insult. "You are very proud of your body, of all that strength... but I will shatter your pride along with your body. I will show you that my superior brain can crush you without me even needing to stand up."

"You wouldn't be able to stand up even if your life depended on it." Alexis mocked, arching her back and flexing her massive muscles as she thrust her shield against the Chancellor's magic, flames of devastating focused magic roaring past the edges of her defence, before the angel's eyes burned with fury and the wall behind her simply exploded, breaking down into enormous, sharply-edged prisms that spread around her and then rushed towards the centre, attempting to crush the goddess in the middle. Alexis grunted in surprise but immediately sent her power exploding outwards in a shockwave, pushing back the enormous boulders for a moment, gaining time for her powerful tentacles to push out of her muscular back. The black-fleshed appendages slammed into the boulders and shoved them away before wrapping tightly around each enormous stone, lifting them like feathers and hurling them violently against the remaining ministers, crushing four against the Chancellor's barrier and two more against the wall, squishing their mindless bodies into nothing but pulp before the boulders dissolved into bright dust as Metatron glared at them with a growl of rage.

His eyes glowed as he moved his glare over to Alexis, and the crystal dust shot through the room at impossible, monstrous speed, each tiny fragment becoming a meteor able to tear through any armor, and Alexis snarled as she raised her shield in front of herself, gritting her fangs as the dust blew right through her energies and smashed into her body with ferocious force, turning into millions of tiny but terribly sharp needles that pierced into her, shooting through her armor like it wasn't there and making her snarl in pain and frustration.

"You cannot win, you whore... I'm Heaven! I'm God's eyes and hands. I always have been, I always will be!" The Chancellor shrieked, and Alexis snarled in distaste at his shrill voice, arching her back and flexing her mighty musculature to drive the needles out of her flesh, gripping handfuls of the stingers and throwing them into a minister as he came charging at her with his blade-hands... before she gritted her fangs as Metatron snickered and made a swirling gesture with one fat hand, his stubby finger tracing the outline of a sad face in midair. Immediately, she felt her rage waning, turning into a form of self-defeatist sadness, a moody sloth that didn't came from her mind but that she struggled to counter, her muscles still bulging but suddenly feeling unwilling to generate their usual, fearsome power. A resigned, irritated torpor descended upon her, and her senses lost their sharpness even as she glared at the remaining ministers as they flew up like ghosts, swarming around her and opening their jaws wide to vomit beams of Metatron's magic into her. Dodging and parrying the assaults became harder by the second, and when three ministers attacked from three different directions she was caught in the middle, a roar of agony coming from her lips as burning magic rampaged over her body, the three vortexes crushing her in the middle and burning through her wings.

"Feeling sad and doomed, milady...? Yes, that's how you should feel... because this is where you die, and there is nothing you can do about it." The Chancellor cheerfully taunted, grinning sharkishly as he hit her with a solid wave of psychic power, smashing her back-first into the wall of the tower before all the ministers remaining lined up in front of her like a platoon of execution, their mouths opening wide and glowing with the Chancellor's magic.

Alexis looked up with glazed eyes, her brain trying to tell her how dangerous that sight was but her body seeming not to respond... before she caught sight of the fat monster cackling in his throne, and her eyes shut as a snarl grew out of her throat, the goddess trembling in fury at the thought of such a corrupt, disgusting creature putting her in such difficulty.

Energy crackled violently over her form, muscles bulging powerfully as she kicked out of the crater in the crystal and roared, as raw energy radiated out of her with the intensity of an explosion, the blast shattering the tower around them like it was made of glass, sending uncountable slivers and fragments exploding outwards like shrapnel. Alexis's wings flapped powerfully, pushing her backwards through the sky as she threw her arms out, catching hold of the shrapnel and stopping it motionless before hurling it all in the opposite direction, pelting the line of ministers and tearing their bodies to shreds, sending blood and gore splattering thickly down upon the Chancellor's pod.

"Impossible!" Metatron barked, his voice full of outrage as Alexis now directed streams of crystal blades into the floating medallions orbiting around the throne pod, shattering two of them and sending electricity bursting out of the wrecked devices, as the others re-arranged around the pod. "You can't do that!"

"Stop me, bitch." Alexis countered, thrusting her free hand skywards to catch in a psychic grip the falling parabolic dish, the immense structure floating absurdly in midair before it was bent inwards and snapped in half like a biscuit, the two pieces then shooting down from the sky like meteors, smashing into the barrier around the Chancellor's throne with a violent, tremendous impact that sent the pod crashing into the ground far below.

The ground seemed to explode into vapor when the crackling barrier of energy touched the surface of the earth, blowing a deep crater into the stone... but then the floating pod crashed into land as well, and the Chancellor grunted in shock and pain as he was bounced off the seat and almost thrown out of the pod. Metatron clawed into the metallic pod like a terrified rat, trying to steady himself as the pod rolled over, and he let out a shriek of horror at the sight of the immense pieces of crystal of the parabolic dish rushing down from the sky, burying him under a mountain of rubble.

Alexis immediately conjured a sphere of focused energy into her palm and hurled it down into the pile of ruins before the dust cloud could even settle, watching as it collided with the shattered antenna and exploded, the blast sending a shockwave traveling across the entire desert as an immense, smoldering crater was ripped open into the stone floor.

The goddess, however, could still feel the Chancellor's energies, intact and threatening, and her mind continued to pound with pain as Metatron probed and intruded into her brain... and as the smoke cleared, in fact, she saw that the explosion had failed to break through the shield, leaving the pod dented and damaged but Metatron alive and furious as he gripped the edge of the machine, holding on to it as he growled and focused all his energies against Alexis, striking furiously against her mind.

"Before I'm done with you, you will worship me, and then you will beg me for the mercy of death, whore!" The fat angel shrieked, but there was a broken note in his tone now, as his bulky, flaccid arms trembled violently, sweat rolling down his belly in thick streaks as he was pushed backwards into the throne, pain exploding in his skull as his brain seemed to burn with the effort of wrestling against her own psychic might. Alexis cursed under her breath and stumbled backwards, seizing her face in one hand and gritting her fangs at the agony that threatened to shatter her head in half, but her eyes glowed with icy, murderous sapphire light between her fingers as she glared at her enemy, muscles flexing powerfully as she pushed back against his force with her own, hissing: "You are dreaming, fat lard. Your awakening will be harsh."

Reality rippled violently around them, almost tearing as their tremendous psychic waves visibly clashed, two beams of translucent force pulsing and slamming into each other, pushing in the opposite directions in a duel of raw power that made the sky ripple like water and the ground beneath crack and rattle as if in fear.

A bloody, devastated minister, barely recognizable with how badly his body had been shredded by the shrapnel from earlier, charged into her back, wrapping his bloody stump of legs around her waist and viciously stabbing his flexible, saber-like talons into her hips, screeching angrily in her ears as he bit down into her neck, and Alexis hissed in agony, arching her back with a cry of pain before four massive tentacles stretched out of her muscular back, lined with terrible bone thorns and blades and blowing their way through the metatron's torso, the beast gargling weakly as it was lifted away from her and then torn into tiny splatters of flesh and displaced limbs when the dark-fleshed appendages whip-lashed in the opposite directions.

She cursed herself for forgetting that she couldn't count on her usual precognition to track incoming threats, and her fangs gritted in fury as she looked down at the terrible wounds in her hips, the deep gashes torn in her spectacular abs as the blood streaked down her legs, while more of the precious fluid of life spurted out of her torn neck even as her wounds began to seal up and regenerate. She lashed out with her tentacles, hammering the Chancellor's bubble with their tremendous mass and strength, but the barrier resisted even as thunderbolts of electricity crackled out across the sky with each impact.

She snarled at the sight of nanomachines swarming out of two openings on top of the Chancellor's pod, the tiny devices locking together in clusters to form new medallions like the ones she had destroyed. In moments, a new power core was completed and it immediately floated upwards to take place in the protective orbit around the throne, restoring the defences that she had compromised... and Metatron cackled as he felt her rage and frustration, taunting: "You will never be able to hit me, bitch! My defences are impenetrable and self-regenerating. No matter how hard you try, you will always fail!"

Metatron laughed, but his cheerful tone cracked when Alexis shoved her hand forwards and added her monstrous physical power to her psychic skills, suddenly overwhelming his mind and causing blood to explode out of his nostrils and ears, leaking out of his mouth together with a string of drool as he was crushed down in his seat, his temples pounding with enough violence to turn his cackle into a shriek of agony.

"Don't challenge me, wimp!" The muscular goddess roared, advancing slowly even as Metatron attempted to push back, to resist, even though her tremendous psychic force now hammered directly against the barrier surrounding him, the medallions rattling and violently and exploding into smoldering wrecks at such rate that even the nanomachines struggled to replace the losses. She dropped down from the sky, her damaged wings closing and then vanishing in a flash of flames as she walked forwards slowly, gritting her fangs as her biceps bulged explosively, her sheer power slowly but steadily overwhelming the Chancellor even as the pod around the fat angel rapidly repaired itself and floated quietly upwards again, hovering a few feet above the ground.

The goddess aimed both hands at the pod, holding up Blue Vixen with one and firing short bursts of armor piercing rounds into the medallions... but when the magazine emptied and she ejected it, letting it fall to the ground while a new, full one appeared in its place, built out of her energies, she made a grimace of frustration, watching as the bullets were caught into the twisting maelstrom of psychic force and to spin lazily and uselessly in midair until they were crushed literally out of existence.

A bleeding, broken minister crawled up from where it was laying semi-buried under the hot sand, and it lunged against Alexis with arms that had turned into deadly, cruel spikes, but the goddess this time reacted on instinct, swinging Blue Vixen out in its direction and squeezing the trigger to blast a long burst of armor-piercing rounds into the beast, the impacts going from forehead to groin and almost sawing him in half, sending pieces of maimed flesh splattering wetly into the dune beneath.

Confused ghosts of energy moved in every direction in her mind, adding to the pain instead of being an advantage like they usually were, but she still had her other senses and especially her battle instinct to fall back on, and all those told her that the ministers, even if ripped into shreds, were still a threat. Unfortunately, their corpses were scattered all around, often hidden under dust and sand, and it was hard to tell from which direction the next assault would come... before she growled and glared downwards as she perceived a shift in the ground beneath her foot, and a broken, leg-less minister with a single, warped arm tore out of the sand and lunged against her leg. She reacted with the speed of lightning, pulling up her foot and stomping it hard down on the metatron's head, crushing it back down into the ground and squishing him like a gnat, even as she twisted to turn back and slash Blue Vixen in a hard cut behind her shoulders, sending another bloody minister falling in pieces into the sand.

"They'll keep coming back, Alexis... again and again... they'll bring my attacks to you until they take you down... no matter how long it takes. They feel no fear, no hunger, and no fatigue. They need no organs to live, so no damage will stop them for more than a moment. They are empty shells, tools for me to use!" The Chancellor announced, his voice trembling with the effort of fighting back the goddess as she continued to walk closer to the pod, the ground cracking under her boots as her spectacular musculature flexed and bulged, radiating an aura of fearsome, unstoppable physical power.

"That only means that tearing you apart will send them all down as well." Alexis coldly replied, grinning predatorily as she made a gripping gesture with her hand and clawed into the translucent barrier around the pod, squeezing into it and crushing the medallions inwards, several of them glowing and overheating as smoke billowed up from their overworked cores. Metatron shrieked in horror and agony, and blood burst out of the eyes of the silvery masks covering his three faces, his ugly rolls of fat trembling and heaving with his broken, rough breathing as he collapsed back in his throne, his psychic force recoiling back against him as she compressed it down all the way inside of the barrier. "How does it feel, fat lard...?" The goddess taunted, grinning as she crushed the Chancellor's bubble in a psychic grip of monstrous force, making the medallions explode into fragments even as nanomachines flooded out of the pod to constantly repair the damage. "For the first time, your fabled mind is trapped into a bubble a little larger than your belly. You are not Heaven, not anymore... you are just a goldfish in a small, cracked glass pot."

Metatron trembled in fury and horror in front of that truth, unable to come up with a reply as his stubby fingers reached up in disbelief to the cheeks of the cracked silver masks, covered in his blood as it leaked from his nostrils, ears, even from his eyes, his heads pounding with terrible agony while the scrolls orbiting around him caught fire and fell away in ashes.

"But I still live... and your mind isn't strong enough to hurt me... you cannot touch me... and I, instead, can!" Metatron barked, shoving his hands forwards as winds of magic spiraled around him and down his limbs, a portal opening in front of him and vortexes of energy and magic shooting through this.

Alexis gritted her fangs and shifted into a ready position, knowing what to expect but not quite how to counter it, as the horribly devastated corpses of the ministers rose up from the sand and blasted the Chancellor's tremendous force against her, from every direction at once.

A massive, solid tidal wave of green fire and energy crashed into her and slammed her flying across the battlefield to crash into the ruins of one of the enormous rail guns, the goddess vomiting blood as she collided with the gigantic tracks, feeling the metal biting deep into her flesh even as it bent and deformed, feeling her spine threatening to snap into pieces as waves of greenish energy and magic flame washed over her with tremendous savagery, coming from every direction and melting the wreckage behind her like it was made of butter.

Through the flames covering her, she saw the confused, vague outlines of the ministers pursuing her, vomiting all of the Chancellor's power against her as the flames began to consume her flesh and her muscle, pinning her to the ground with their tremendous force, like impetuous waters flooding out of a breach in a dam...

And then, through the searing agony, she saw the outline of a minister leaning down over her, his mouth gaping absurdly wide as it vomited green fire directly over her face, and she had a flash, a fleeting vision of the portal that the Chancellor was using to attack without leaving his safe bubble...

Alexis snarled as she tore one arm up, trembling and howling in pain at the effort it took as the vortex of magic pushed it down hard, trying to pin it to the ground once more, her bicep bulging explosively even as her flesh burned away, her fingers reduced almost to bare bones as she clenched her fist and then lashed out with a roar, knocking the minister's remaining teeth out of his mouth... but instead of coming out of the back of the skull in a shower of blood, her fist tore through the center of the maelstrom of magic and passed the portal, emerging inside the Chancellor's pod and finding his face.

Alexis grinned predatorily despite the agony in her body as she felt the light silvery mask exploding into tiny fragments as her fist tore through and smashed Metatron's middle face into a bloody pulp, sinking deep into his head until the skull exploded in a wet, sick splatter of brain matter. Her fingers gripped into the fat angel's spine, the vertebrae cracking loudly and breaking like biscuits as she squeezed, dragging her hand back hard and smirking in satisfaction as she heard the other two faces of the Chancellor crashing hard into the metallic edge of the pod, the masks breaking into pieces as blood sprayed up thickly, soaking her mighty arm. Metatron howled in agony and reached up to grip uselessly into her wrist, clawing and scratching and tugging, trying to force her to let him go, but his stubby fingers could nothing against her hard muscles, and as his focus shattered, the vortexes of energy died away to nothing and the broken corpses of the ministers fell to the ground, lifeless and useless. The goddess placed Blue Vixen back upon her back and grinned as she flexed her fingers, before balling her hand into a fist as she dragged Metatron forwards with the other... before her eyes narrowed with interest as the portal began to swirl closed as well, threatening to chop her hand off... but the goddess dragged on the bloodied spine and lifted the fat angel clear off his throne, dragging him into the portal even as he tried to resist, hands gripping into the edge of the pod and pushing backwards, feet bracing against the floor... but it only gained him broken bones, his limbs snapping like twigs as the muscular goddess pulled him down into the small portal.

"No... no, stop... don't do it...!" The Chancellor panicked, his hands waving frantically and widening the portal's opening as he was forcefully dragged through, but not quickly enough as Alexis tore him out of the vortex with a roar of predatory triumph that drowned the angel's blood-chilling howl of despair.

The edges of the vortex were like the sharpest and most unforgiving of all blades, and his enormously fat body couldn't hope to fit the small hole, even as he worked to enlarge it: everything that couldn't squeeze through was brutally torn and ripped off him, so that when he popped out of the portal, hanging from a mostly-detached spine in Alexis's gloved hand, the Chancellor looked like a bloody cork of flesh, most of his belly shredded off his form and laying in a pool of blood and gore inside the pod, along with his broken, small legs.

He had managed to save his fat, bulky arms and the remaining two heads, while his torso was just a cylindrical mass of bloody flesh, and organs. The central head was splattered on the back rest of the throne and smeared on Alexis's fist and powerful forearm as she held him up by the broken, bloody spine by now mostly uprooted out of his neck.

Alexis cracked her neck slowly, grinning down at the agonizing Chancellor as she leisurely rolled her mighty, massive shoulders, muscles flexing and bulging with power as her flesh rapidly regenerated, her beautiful features already mostly back to normal as her eyes glowed sapphire with dark satisfaction, watching down at the two faces of Metatron, both broken and leaking blood in thick streaks. The eyes were almost invisible, hidden at the bottom of tiny pits between grotesquely fat cheeks and features, only made more swollen and uglier by the deep wound caused by the impact with the pod's edge.

"So, bitch... what were you saying about worship, and about begging for the mercy of death...?" Alexis softly said, before lowering her bloodied fist in front of the Chancellor's lips. "You see that red crap all over my fist...? That's your precious, "unmatched" mind... and now you are going to lick it all off my knuckles."

The Chancellor whined and mumbled some unintelligible protest, but meeting Alexis's gaze was enough to cause such explosions of agony in his mind that he humbly, miserably began to lap slowly at her fist, cleaning it from the blood and the gore. His blood. His gore. He tried not to think about it too much, but it was no use, and he only tried to ignore the taste, the metallic and torturing flavor of the stuff he had to swallow... and then feel falling out of his torn, devastated body to splatter on the ground down below.

Alexis laughed darkly, pressing her powerful fist against the broken face of the Chancellor in a silent order, and he worshipfully kissed her knuckles, one by one... before whimpering: "T-thank you... goddess..."

The femme fatale tilted her head to the side and grinned in entertainment, completely ignoring the Paladins gathering all around her and the fire of their heavy weapons, the bullets crushed by her tremendous energy long before they could even touch her powerful body. She slowly pulled up the dangling piece of meat that Metatron now was, holding it up by the spine and balling her other hand into a fist, ignoring her cries and his prayers for mercy to slam home a tremendous punch instead, sending a thick splatter of blood arching through the air before striking again, and again, and again, deflating the bloodied wreck of the Chancellor's body and tearing it into smaller pieces before smashing his other two faces completely into pulp, using him as a punching ball until the spine finally snapped and the maimed piece of meat flew through the air to crash many dozens of feet away, landing with a loud, dull thud and a groan of miserable agony. "P-please... make it end... make... make it... stop..."

Alexis walked up to the shattered piece of fat and meat and calmly announced: "No death for you, fat lard. I'm sealing you in a dark pit. Who knows, you might still be useful for something... entertainment, if nothing else."

The goddess grinned, and before the Chancellor could howl his horror, his body dissolved as it was teleported into a dark cage somewhere deep within Killer's dungeon back in Eaglenest.

In the same time, swirling portals of white light opened behind her, and another opened in the distance, where Killer had finished destroying the other tower.

Seraphims charged out of the portals in compact, disciplined formations, led by the respective commanders: Vesta ran out of the portal with a cackle, sickleswords drawn and ready as she smashed into a line of Paladins and sent them sprawling like pins, one sicklesword hooking the top edge of a shield and tearing it out of the way so she could decapitate the Paladin with an easy slash of her other weapon, before she swung both swords out and struck from the low upwards, catching two Paladins, one in the groin and the other in the thigh, lifting them both clear off their feet and throwing them up like toys, the armored behemoths crashing down like meteors over their own comrades.

Vesta moved past Alexis's side as both charged into the thick of the enemy lines, and the queen of Seraphims teasingly protested: "What took you so long...? You two almost left none for us!"

A bit further off to the left, Ira and her dragon knights smashed into the Paladin lines like hurricanes, sending shields and bodies and spears flying into the air in pieces, before blasts of fire from the dragons melted many more into black slush. But the cobra goddess lost no time there, pulling on the reins and guiding Veronika into the sky, followed by the other dragon knights as they flew towards the mountains, rushing to the entrance to the Sacred Mines, as planned.

Alexis watched them go, and she charged in the same direction, cursing the time that they had lost because of Metatron and even the little time she had taken to have her little vengeance on him.

_I hope it is not too late. Who knows what other nasty surprises Typhon might have prepared in the tunnels... _