54 Take That!

It was a normal day for the realm of gods. There are still pious believers out there praying to them. They still have complete control of the world despite the rebellion staged by the wizard. It was a wonderful day.

But that day was destined to alter the course of history. Because on that day, every single one of them vanished from the face of the world.

***

The goddess of magic has dedicated herself to training. Every day, she immersed herself in constant practice to one day surpass the damnable Wizard. And as always, she hasn't received any prayers.

Today, she's at it again trying to achieve another breakthrough in magic. Her attempts on combining the 4 major elements, has ended in another failure with little to no results. But today she can sense it, with determination and hope that the Wizard hasn't achieved this breakthrough yet, she will, at long last, succeed.

After the countless failures, she is finally near the correct calculation to achieve the spell. A method to combine the 4 elements and create a new and powerful one is an unprecedented feat yet to be achieved.

Once she succeeds, she could finally picture herself surpassing the Wizard. She would then descend to the mortal realm and proclaim herself the true Goddess of Magic. Even if no one worships her, that would still establish herself as a bona fide God.

"Hihihihihi! Take that, you smelly Wizard!"

Instead of a respectable god that she's trying to portray, she acted more like a creepy old witch that was about to cast a curse on someone.

This is the defining moment. 4 balls of pure elemental mana. Each ball represents a single element. The plan is to combine them to create something new. But her problems stem from the fact that when 2 or more elements combine, it would cause a violent reaction rendering the process useless. Another problem is the opposing elements. When combining them, they would fiercely oppose each other and that would make the spell fail.

To solve this problem, the goddess referred to the spell created by the hateful Wizard. Even when trying to surpass him, she could feel the Wizard smiling behind her cheekily. But there's one problem, she can't understand a thing. Even with a book clearly explaining the spell, she can't comprehend a single word.

This is not to say that she's dumb but the method is created for humans. Note: humans only. A god is fundamentally different from humans. That's why…

*booooom*

"No!"

…the spell ended in complete and utter failure.

"Where did I go wrong?!" To say that the goddess is bordering insanity might be a correct statement. "After all my calculations, how could I possibly fail?! I did everything according to the book and I have improved upon the results of my previous experiments. But how could I possibly fail?!"

The goddess has barely enough dignity to keep herself from smashing everything in sight. Despite the near insanity, no one could blame the poor being. She has dedicated herself to improving her craft. Even if her competition is the progenitor of magic himself, she persevered. Deep inside, she felt that everything she's doing is useless.

"I don't want to do this anymore. How could I possibly compete with the true God of Magic? I'm just an imitation."

From insane to depressed, this is another all-time low for the so-called Goddess of magic. "I wanna sleep."

But as a prim and proper goddess, she needs to fix the room. Even when depressed, a goddess must first be presentable.

She has already accustomed herself to cleaning the messy room. When her experiments often go bad, this happens. She has numbed herself to this feeling. Maybe, she should have been the goddess of cleaning. Unfortunately, there's already a goddess like that.

Cleaning must be systematic. Starting from top to bottom. All spots must be cleaned, no crevices left unchecked and most importantly it must be purified at the end. A God thing, no need to worry.

The goddess is about to purify the place but a bright glimmer atop a bookshelf distracted her from doing so. Curious, she caught a glimpse of a familiar amulet. That amulet was given to her by one of the Chief Gods, the goddess of life.

But that moment was awkward since the Goddess of Life was running out of for gifts and decided to gift the strange amulet. The amulet was found by the goddess during one of her travels in the human world. She took interest in it and decided to keep it as a memento.

"I'm sorry about this." The Goddess of life looked apologetic. "Even if this amulet looks unassuming, this is one of my prized items. I don't know how it came to be but this amulet has stuck with me since the day I found it. I entrust my precious amulet to you." She proceeds to put the amulet on her neck. "I hope that this gift of mine will always remind you of us. Before we are gods, we are a family first."

Remembering that particular memory clicked something in her mind. "I get it," her eyes wide open in disbelief. "That's right. I am a god. I don't need the methods of those puny humans. I don't need calculations and whatnot. All I need is my instincts."

Once again, orbs of elemental mana manifest in front of her. Though instead of relying on the methods used by humans, she used her capabilities as a god. She made work of her inherent affinity to the energies to control the elements. The orbs slowly joined together as her mind replayed the smiled of each of her family. Their smiles of encouragement brought determination unto her.

And like clockwork, the 4 orbs formed together as a single entity. The previous attributes were all gone and were replaced by a new and much more powerful element. She did not notice a small part of the orb getting absorbed by the amulet.

When she opened her eyes, she felt refreshed. At last, her attempts are successful and she is now one step away from surpassing the Wizard.

"Take that, you old man!"

But this happiness was short-lived for the doom of the gods has arrived.

***

Somewhere away from the realm of Gods.

"Are you sure this is going to work?"

"I've planned for this day since the beginning. And that God creation manual is a welcome variable to all of my plans."

"But there are good gods out there. Is it right to exterminate all of them?"

"This world needs to advance. The gods are already an item of the past. And if we want to proceed they must be all gone. Humans don't need gods anymore."

"If you say it like that, sure. But will he succeed? We should've helped him. I don't think he can take on the whole pantheon all by himself."

"Haha. That guy doesn't need us. The Hero is the strongest being alive today. Some gods may prove troublesome but none of them will escape. I've already place a barrier preventing any chances of escape. We all should wait for his return."

"Have it your way, Wizard."

"Why don't we play games in the meantime?"

"I'll pass. I will wait for him here. Don't disturb me."