322 Ragnarok.

Murs, France

Again

We sat on the vertices of a triangle carved out of the ground, with Yue and Quentin standing watch as we cast the spell.

The trenches carved into the soil pulsed, the coating made with a mixture of mercury-based paint and a myrhh-aloe vera-god blood salve glowed and burned before us as mammatus clouds swirled above us, arcs of lightning dancing in their cover.

"Is that supposed to happen?" Alice asked.

"No it's-"

Then suddenly, the world stilled, all noise vanished, and lightning struck around us like Zeus's bolt.

Like Zeus's-Shit!

A bolt of lightning slammed into my forcefield, shattering the ground around me with the sheer amount of force it transferred.

A presence pinged on my nanoswarm sensors.

A divine presence.

And another right behind it.

Huh, Hades brought back-up?

What, did he run up to Zeus and go all 'big bro, big bro, this bad human beat me up~' or something?

I chuckled.

Two gods, I could deal with them with my eyes closed.

"What's happening?" Quentin asked as Yue cast a ward around us on instinct.

"What happened..." I turned to face Julia, and sent her a death glare, ".... is Julia betrayed us. Isn't that right, Jules?

You sold us out. Just went to Reynard's daddy and bent over. You really like taking divine dick don't you bitch?"

"She did no such thing, elderling." Zeus walked over.

He was a caucasian man in a striped suit, light white beard and bushy mustache, with eyes that sparked with lightning.

"You expect me to believe that you, Zeus, serial rapist and god of cheating and fucking mortal women didn't have a taste of that fine ass?" I scoffed.

Lets end this quick and get out before-

But then something happened I did not expect.

My sensors didn't stop pinging.

Another presence. Then another. And another.

Horror seeped into me as my glasses projected a map, filled to the brim with the divine presences.

Fuck!

This didn't happen in the show.

The gods were nowhere close to this organized.

"I can explain-" Julia came forward but I froze her in place.

"Shutty!" With a snap of my fingers, I wiped away Julia's mouth like agent Smith in the matrix and swiped my hands across the field, putting everyone to sleep before teleporting them away to safety.

I had learnt from the debacle with the worms. I am not going to make the same mistake again.

I'm still pretty much fucked here, but at least now I don't have to watch Yue's back while I fight.

I can go all out now.

Not that I have any other choice. There's no running away from them, otherwise they'll go after the kids to lure me out.

I'm surprised they didn't already do that.

Sure, the house was protected by a ward, forcefield and a bevy of spare reality anchors I made from the flesh of Reynard and Persephone, but they wouldn't stand for long.

A couple of gods?

Sure. My wards would make swiss cheese of the fuckers.

But the entire greek pantheon?

The sheer amount of reality being pumped out here would short circuit any reality anchor I had in a matter of seconds.

There's no two ways about this. I'm fucked.

With the field set, I turned back to the gods who now dotted the entire field and smirked.

"The whole pantheon came over? Why, I am honoured!"

"You were very convincing." Zeus formed a spear of lightning in his hand as he quipped.

"Was I now? Not that you ever needed much convincing to fuck someone over. You couldn't even leave your own daughter alone, could you?"

Zeus's eyes flashed with rage as he sent the lightning bolt in his hand at me, sending the inertial correction mechanism in my forcefield whirring at full power.

"You just crossed the line mortal." He roared.

"Oh, so I crossed the line just now and all of you big bad gods were just here for a teatime chat before? My, why didn't you tell me? I would've prepared. My wife makes the best crumpets-"

"You seem awfully laid back for a man about to face eternal damnation." Clarion, goddess of melody cut in very rudely.

That arrogance, it was a characteristic trait of the gods.

"You guys seem awfully confident facing the first godslayer in millennia. Are you sure I am the one who should be worried?" I shot back.

"So you admit?" Hades asked, his face a mask of sorrow and barely contained rage, "You killed my wife."

"Cucky-says-what?"

"What?" He frowned, tilting his head in confusion as I broke out laughing.

Finally he realised and a coldness appeared in his eyes, his words seething with venom.

"I will enjoy torturing you for eternity."

"I'm afraid I can't say the same. I just don't have that much time to waste on y'all. You'll have to settle for being chopped up and used a fuel for my experiments." I shrugged.

"Dammit, what's with you?! All you had to do was bow down and beg for forgiveness! Take the punishment like a champ. Stop wasting everyone's time~" Clarion, the airhead whined.

I raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, is that how it works? Very well then!" I clapped, "All of you, bow down, beg for my forgiveness and I'll let you off with a light punishment. That sounds fair, doesn't it?"

"We have the numbers. 48 to one." Ares said, "In a battle, the numbers decide the match."

"Besides." Athena added arrogantly, "This will hardly be a battle."

"You're right." I nodded, "A battle would require both parties to be capable of putting up a fight.

Besides." I took the same tone as Athena, "This isn't a 48 against one. It's 12 against one, if that.

Once I gut Zeus over there, half of you will bail. Then, when I kill the another handful of Zeus's loyalists, all that'll be left of you will be the original twelve, give or take a couple." I said nonchalantly.

That sent a murmur through their lines and hesitation creeped in.

Just as planned.

After all, I need all the advantages I can get.

The slightest bit of hesitation on their part can save my life.

I smiled and took a sip of mega seed juice.

The world around me dissolved into logic and patterns, mathematical formulae and strange geometries, as the grand puzzle fit so clearly once again.

Confidence bloomed in my heart and the smile on my face widened into a calculated cocky grin.

Now for a final punch.

"Is it too late to make a 'you and what army' joke?" I asked, apporting the god-killing knife to my hand.

"Your arrogance will be your doom." Zeus prophecied.

"If you won't do it then let me." Ares rolled his eyes, impatient and rushed out in a blinding burst if speed, a shimmering bronze spear in hand.

I didn't bother to move however.

I waited and watched as the air around me grew heavy and magic condensed on my forcefield from his movement.

My forcefield flickered at first, then shattered like glass.

And I smiled.

He was finally in the optimal range of my reality anchor.

Gotcha!

In an instant, my pocket reality anchor switched at full power, negating all reality bending around me for a fraction of a second.

Ares swung at me, and missed, stumbling to the side, only realizing a moment too late what he had just stepped into.

I grinned evilly and with a swing of my dagger sliced off his spear arm.

Summarily, with the same smooth motion my other hand blurred, stabbing into his chest as he fell.

A gasp, a squelch and a flash of light.

I ripped out his divinity, in full view of everyone else, before popping it into my mouth like a candy.

"Mhmmm...delish~" I moaned, eyeing the rest of them with a predatory gaze.

I could see Clarion piss herself.

Even Zeus took a step back in fear and disgust.

Hehehehehehehahhahahaha!

Oh, I love psychological warfare.

Best way to fight the truly powerful creatures.

What's more terrifying to an immortal, nigh-omnipotent being, a top of the food chain predator, than someone one step higher?

Someone that can treat them like prey, like toys, playthings.

Like they treat everyone else.

But I wasn't satisfied yet.

I need to really drive the message home.

And I knew the perfect way to do that!

With my free hand I grabbed Ares's body, flinging it into the air as I grabbed his spear with another and thrust out, impaling him through, ass to mouth, keeping him alive and in pain, turning his immortality against him.

Stamping the spear into the ground, I stuck it into the fertile french soil like a macabre banner, guts hanging out of his mouth, bile leaking down the shaft from his ass, twitching, writhing in pain.

I turned to the other gods all around me, scanning the field as I licked my lips.

"Who's next?"

No one moved.

Not Zeus.

Not even Hades.

Why?

Because they were all trapped in my paralysis spell, frozen in place.

It wasn't going to last long.

I could already see Hecate working up a counter.

Unfortunately, her wards were strong.

The dagger couldn't break them in time.

And if I used the reality anchor to break them, that would break my paralysis spell, freeing everyone else.

A catch-22.

And even without her, it wouldn't take long for them to figure it out.

So I needed to use the time I had to thin out the competition. To instill them with such dread that they wouldn't dare try to fight me even once the spell broke.

Break their alpha, and the pack scatters.

So naturally, I head to the strongest one.

No, not Hades. I'll leave him for the last.

He was doing the same after all, waiting deliberately for me to get tired fighting the others.

I could see it from his stance, from the look in his eyes. He wasn't going to run. He wasn't afraid. Just playing it smart.

The man was hellbent on revenge.

I snickered at the stupid pun and scanned the field again, sending shivers down the minor gods' spine.

"No one? Then I'll start picking!"

I pushed off the ground with all my power, bursting out with a divine aura outstripping even Zeus as I appeared before him, hands digging into his guts, extracting his divinity for all to see.

And just like before, I swallowed it, slitting his throat.

I let him fall free as the light left his eyes and relished in the taste of lightning, consuming the authority of the sky.

My devouring power flared and my divine aura grew even more powerful as I started pointing at the gods around me.

"Eenie meeny miny....."

I stopped on Clarion and appeared before her, my face inches from hers, an eerie grin sowing terror into her very soul.

"Moe."

I could smell the piss from here as I ripped out her divinity, before slicing her from groin to skull.

Her two parts slid against each other as they spread out under their own weight, pulling her body apart.

I flicked my dagger and looked around.

Some 40 gods left.

And Hecate just broke the spell.

"Trapping me with such an elementary spell was a foolish mistake. I will make sure ypu live to regret it." She snarled.

Shit.

Well, atleast now I don't have to worry about the spell falling apart.

I immediately teleported behind her, but she was expecting me.

She smiled at me with condescension.

"Petty tricks."

She pinched her fingers, imitating my spell, and froze me in place.

"How do you like the taste of your ow-"

I activated the reality anchor midway through her sentence.

The spell fell apart, her power scattered and I jammed the dagger through her eyes.

I swallowed her divinity and scanned the field again to see that the gods' had really thinned out.

Almost half of them had chosen to bail out.

"21 left." I announced with a relish.

Heh.

My plan worked.

I cast the paralysis spell again.

"The same trick won't work on us twice." A voice said from above.

I looked up to see a blonde man with a burning halo behind him descending from the sky on a chariot pulled by flaming horses.

Helios, god of the sun.

The next instant, I was burning, turned to ash under his power.

He puffed up, turning to the other gods with pride.

"There. It wasn't so difficu-"

"It doesn't need to." I said, as he did a double take, just in time to see me reformed.

Not giving him time to react, because they were so bloody human in their reactions, rusty, lazy from years without opposition, I teleported to his chariot, activating the anchor for a fraction on a second again, as I tore a hole through his chest, and slurped up his divinity from the tip of my knife like a kebab.

Another five gods ran away.

"15 left." I said, and finally, Athena moved.

No, not to fight.

She ran.

But not fast enough.

"Where do you think you're going?" I asked, activating my reality anchor in a flash as I appeared behind her.

I stabbed my dagger through the back of her neck and watched it poke out the front as I stole her divinity with my other hand.

My eyes flitting across the battlefield as I picked out my next target, when suddenly one of them appeared behind me, grabbing me in a bear hug, crushing my spine.

"Hercules."

I went to activated my reality anchor but found that it had vanished.

"Looking for this?" Hermes appeared beside me with a smug grin, reality anchor in hand.

"Why, yes, I was!" I connected to it activating it remotely with my power as I struggled to get out from Hercules' grip as my spine healed and broke over and over again.

"Even with that you won't overpower me.

My strength may be divine in nature but my wrestling experience is not." Hercules gloated.

"That's the thing, Herc." I coughed, choking on my own spinal fluid, spurting from my mouth, "I don't need to overpower you. I never did." Strings of glowing blue burst out from my body, slicing him and Hermes into bite sized bits as Hercules fell apart like a bad puzzle.

My subdermal nanofiber mesh!

"Magic isn't the only tool in my arsenal." I said, stabbing the two to death as I turned my hunched broken and battered body to the face the final god left on the battlefield.

Unfortunately, my reality anchor was bust, sliced up by the nanofibers along with Hermes.

Now I just need to buy some time to regenerate.

Immediately, I channeled my divine power to reform my body, when-

"Well done." Hades slow clapped as he appeared before me, plucking the dagger from my hand like taking candy from a child.

"I'll take that." He said coldly, "And you."

He reached out with his hand, a strong aura of death coiled around it.

No. No, NO!

My nen burst forth, flaring out into the open as a pack of UNO cards fluttered out from my pocket.

A card, one of the numbers, broke out from the swarm as I forced my way past the rules I set on my ability to get the result I wanted.

My nen drained at an alarming rate and the surface of the card flickered, shifting, shaking and transforming into a skip card.

"Halt!" I ordered with a voice that echoed across the land, shaking the fabric of reality itself as my eyes bled out, and my hair turned white.

Hades's eyes went wide as he stabbed down with the dagger, straight into my head when, as if heeding my command, the card slammed into him, draining all of my nen, turning him into a statue.

I smiled and felt my muscles slacken.

My willpower gave way, I fell to the floor, and the darkness took me into it's cold, comfortable embrace.

__________________

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