[BOOK II] Chapter XLVII: Gods Among Us (2)

PREVIOUSLY

"Hmph, silence, scourge of the cosmos," Ivanka scoffed. "Before I erase you, tell me, How did you find him?'"

The Demon God cackled even louder. It was just too amusing for her. Then, she erupted with anger. Time, space, and everything within the time-frozen world trembled.

"You dare adopt such a tone in front of me after stealing him away from me?"

"Leave!" A thought, and her anger subsided. The time-frozen world returned to normal. This was just how strong [True Forms] were.

Ivanka forced her older sister's head to levitate, before calling for her chakrams, this time in their true energy forms as well.

"Ah, you're using my own weapons against me?"

"They stopped being your weapons when you stupidly gifted them to me." Ivanka's chakrams spun at a dangerously fast pace. Anything cut by this chakram would have a part of it's abilities or properties stolen. "My patience is nearing its end. Answer me, scourge."

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"So cruel," The Demon God giggled. For her, there was nothing but boredom in this world. From the moment she ate her way out of her mother's womb to the day she achieved the first of her many divinities, she has never been anything but bored.

As she grew more and more powerful to the point where she could see beyond sight, hear beyond ears and feel beyond sense, there was only a selected few in the myriad realms that could challenge her.

So, this conversation was something she had foreseen as well, but it was also something she had forcefully blocked out since she did not want to be spoiled the fun. After all, her only wish was to return back to the source with her beloved.

In that instant, the Demon God had thought of many ways and had carried out multiple conversations with her little sister but that was all in the alternate futures or was it past? Time worked differently for a being so non-linear as her.

She decided to come up with something new instead of the alternate conversations she had.

"I'm going to take him in a year," The Demon God cackled, and the world quaked in fear. "I'm going to raze this realm with all of my forces, declare war upon the heavenly principles and with my maiden, I will charge into the source to where we belong, once and for all."

Her words infuriated Ivanka. After all, to anyone who ascended to godhood, the Source was something akin to a mother and a father, from which everything was brought forth.

It was sacred. It was holy. It was not something where the likes of this. . .this scourge should even be allowed to speak of it's name!

"Enough!" Ivanka's true form called for the extinction of her enemy. And, the world obeyed, summoning forth the five elements before her.

Wood, Fire, Metal, Earth and Water, the fundamental elements of everything and a part of the Source, something that was granted to every world, was brought forth Ivanka's true form and she would have grimaced if her form had a face. Instead, her brightness flickered on and off like her life was about to be snuffed out as she tried to control a part of the Source.

"Heed my will!" With herculean effort, Ivanka forcefully tamed the five elements and with her will, the five elements spun around each other at inconceivable speeds before Ivanka saw the realization on the Demon God's face.

The Demon God knew what Ivanka was trying to do. It was something unexpected, and that was what she wanted but now even she felt a little bit of fear. Yes there were only a number of things that could even hope to touch Ivanka's skin, but the first and foremost thing that could even kill her true form was the very energy that belonged to her final resting place.

The Source. It was the beginning of everything, and also, the end of everything. Anything so much as doused in an inch of the source had enough strength to evaporate all of the Demon God's clones, and maybe even trace the damage back to her real body.

"[Sin Almigh-]"

"Yield!"

"Gahkg!"

Suddenly, spikes formed from beneath the Demon God's body, piercing through her skin like wet paper. She tried to simply reverse time to ignore the damage but when that didn't work, she tried to forcefully break free from the golden spikes but when she couldn't, she analyzed it with her special eyes.

"Y-You obtained the World's favour?!" From the uneducated eye, it might appear as if the spikes had nothing significant to notice other than their golden colour, but to the Demon God, she couldn't believe her accursed half-wit of a sister managed to obtain spikes created from the same material as the [Heaven's Dress], one of the 12 World Items.

ZOOM!

The Demon God slowly turned her head back to the wisp of authority in front of her. She didn't even need to use her special eyes to see that Ivanka was severely weakened with the way her radiance had basically been halved but she didn't care about that.

When her 'eyes' fell upon the mystic lance doused in the source's energy, zooming in and out of existence menacingly, the Demon God's fear changed into something else.

Intrigue. And with that, amusement.

So, the Demon God laughed out loud. "Wonderful, wonderful!" She could not move her body nor wield her powers due to the authority of the golden spikes, but she could still move her head and so, she did.

Throwing her head back in laughter, she laughed at how amusing it was. "Absolutely wonderful!"

But, Ivanka was not so amused. She was running dangerously low on her authority, and she would have to face her other annoying sister for breaching their contract so she mustered up her energy to transform her thoughts into the world's will.

"Be banished."

The mystic lance buzzed. It was then Ivanka realized how strong her scourge of a sister was.

Mind you, the Source was something that was infinitely strong to the point if it had a physical being, a million of the Demon God's true form couldn't do anything. While her makeshift lance doused in but a teardrop's worth of Source was significantly weaker than the original, it was still strong and fast enough to blitz a hundred high tier gods nine times over.

But, the Demon God had breached her contract just like her, and in that ministemal time period it took for the mystic lance to pierce her, she channeled her true form into the clone and threw her arm towards the sleeping Willow, marking her in her colors.

She even had enough time to stare at Ivanka with a large smile, before mouthing the words, "One year."

Then, the mystic lance struck the Demon God's clone, and it was extinct, along with all of the Demon God's nearly-infinite clones in the myriad realms.

Time was still. The Mystic Lance disappeared. And only a broken god, and her beloved human remained.

Before she disappeared from the fatigue, she gave the last of her energy to the boy, and intoned, "He who shall bear my protection for a thousand nights."

Similar to the Demon God's crest, her own crest appeared on Willow's left hand, and then that was that. She couldn't even utter a word since she felt her other sister, the one so stuck up on her throne above the myriad realms shift, no doubt coming to see her. So, before she disappeared, she willed the world to return to normal.

The curtains of a time-frozen world started to unveil, sweeping any remains of the battle of gods behind it's curtains. With a stir, the world began to wake up again.

Ivanka looked once more at the boy she had fallen in love with, and as she saw his eyes begin to flutter open, she couldn't help but be reminded of the first day she fell in love with him and how he thawed her frozen heart.

"Be well, my beloved."

And as the boy's eyes scrunched open, the goddess disappeared, leaving behind a moon in the night sky.