FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Merry Christmas to my faithful readers. My gift to you for these holidays is a new chapter of Legend. It took longer than i expected to write this particular chapter out, but then again, it also ended up being quite a lot longer than i thought it would. What matters is that you enjoy it. I hope it provides entertainment and keeps you hooked into the story.

_A new god has risen, and the old ones face an uncertain future. Some have chosen Disciplehood; some have chosen hate and war. And they will do all they can to ensure that the new god falls. _

*Chapter 66 - Wrath of the judge *

---

Killer had followed Alexis's teasing advice, and he had taken position in his new, glorious throne. Predictably, it had been the start of a new, long round of sex, violence and lustful abandon: and he had found out just how quickly his beloved girls could recover and come back for more. Other countless hours had passed... but thankfully, one of the many benefits of the new Sanctuary was a different flow of time: nothing too extreme, but it meant that inside the fortress they had some three days for every day that passed outside. It thankfully meant, at least in theory, that there was still a little bit of time before Taranis would come for the duel. On the other hand, the situation had evolved quickly since the challenge had been launched, and Killer wouldn't have been surprised in the slightest to see Taranis coming earlier... or later, whichever would best fit his needs and plans.

Killer knew he should have spent his precious time training and preparing for that tremendous clash, instead of indulging in sex... but even Ira had been unable to resist the temptation, and he had pushed the worries to the side in favor of satisfying his hungers. He had not quite anticipated, however, how immense those hungers would have proven, as he had bathed in juices and blood for days, his cocks and tentacles always buried in a hole or another. Eventually, the dark orgy had moved down into the new dungeons and that had brought forth a further massacre, as he and Alexis gave the new prisoners their unforgettable welcome. The prisoners coming from Retribution were real monsters, who had spat on each chance of redemption they had been given in the years: assassins, rapists, fallen angels who had revolted against god and attempted to take over Heaven, leaving in their wake a trail of death and destruction... the most dangerous of them, those who had been frozen into solid crystal, foolishly thought that the new cages and the new jailers would not be able to hold them, but they were quickly shown how wrong they were. The cages were thrown open as Killer walked in the dark, immense room... and within minutes, the enormous columns were splattered with blood and gore, as Killer and Alexis crushed them like insects, tearing them apart, raping them brutally, gigantic tentacles swarming over them and ripping them into pieces as they thrust up holes way too tight for them.

And Killer and Alexis weren't alone... Ira, Vesta, Gaia, Manticora, Alcana, Adrasthea, had all followed their master down into the darkness of the dungeon. Even sweet Diana had accompanied him, even though she kept mostly out of what followed, only sitting at his side and enjoying his presence, his strength, his touch, his kisses, his sex, without her hands ripping into bloody, devastated bodies. Vesta, on the contrary, had revealed a surprising hunger and ferocity as she took monsters that had been her enemies thousands of years earlier and maimed them, her spectacular body soon dripping with their blood as she indulged in dark desires that she had had to keep hidden and suppressed for Eons. She had taken one of the fallen angels and forced him to worship her body, his tongue working up her muscular form as she wrapped her mighty legs around him... and piece by piece, she had crushed him into bloody pulp, taking first his feet, then his legs, then his thighs, then his torso, his chest, his head between her muscular thighs and effortlessly squishing each part like an overripe fruit. She had smeared the crimson pulp all over her mighty body, before kneeling under a corrupt female angel that Killer and Alexis were split-roasting. Vesta had bathed in the blood dripping from the devastated body of the creature, before clawing into her damaged, stretched-out belly and ripping her abdomen open like she was peeling the wrapping from a candy. She had greedily buried her muzzle up into the crushed, maimed ropes of guts and squished organs, nuzzling into Killer's and Alexis's immense shafts as they rammed powerfully in from the opposite sides. She had licked, sucked, kissed the two colossal cocks while they destroyed the body of the prisoner and her hands had contributed to the butchering, ripping pieces out as she laughed and flexed, her demonic tongue wrapping around her master's and mistress's immense shafts and crushing the victim's intestines into them, adding to the delight of the two gods. And that had been just the beginning...

It had been dark, it had been merciless, it had been delightful, as Killer let himself go and shut his worries away, not caring about it being cruel, being expression of his vices, being abuse of his power... none of those prisoners could be considered innocent and vulnerable in any way and he felt that he could go all out on them. They deserved the punishment... and while he couldn't claim the moral standing for judging them, due to his own long and terrible list of sins, he sure had the means to make them pay, to make them suffer. Strength, not moral, would make him judge and executioner. It was wrong and right at once: darkness punishing and purifying darkness. And Killer for once decided that he was satisfied with that: they were monsters, and punishing them was right. He put his torturing doubts and his quest for virtue aside, and only cared about satisfying his urges, worrying only of his pleasure and of his release for the moment.

To further ease his conscience - or perhaps to increase his fun, or most likely for both reasons - he gave them a fair chance to fight back, opening the cages and letting them out free. No chains, no restraints... just him standing between them and the stairs leading out of the dungeon, the immense gates left defiantly open.

Most had tried to escape, and failed. Some didn't even dare trying, instead trying to hide in the dark corners of their cages. Torques was one of the prisoners who did not leave his cell: he was all too aware that running out would only mean rushing into a force that would crush him like an insect. And several other prisoners had reached the same conclusion after seeing Killer destroy Retribution like it was nothing but a castle of cards, banishing them in this new, supernatural prison that was a temple and a playground to his immense power.

The escape attempt had been terminated very quickly, Killer tearing his way through the thick crowd of prisoners like a scythe cutting through grass. Those who hadn't left the cells cowered in their corners as the desperate shrieking and screaming and crying echoed from one end of the dungeon to the other, accompanied by the sick sounds of bodies being squashed into bloody pudding and by Killer's loud, snarling laughter. A sound that pierced into their minds and scarred them forever, filling their heads with nightmares and terror and despair. Within minutes, Killer had ripped them apart and was splattered head to toe in their blood, breathing hard and flexing his enormous musculature as he walked over a dark stone floor that was now crimson, sticky with blood and covered in unrecognizable gore and pulped innards strewn all around. But even death and destruction were only a part of their torture, of their punishment: while imprisoned in his sanctuary, they were entirely in Killer's hands. Death was no great force, in the dungeon: Killer needed a mere thought to get death to bow and bring his victims back to life. He gave them new bodies, and left them their full memory, so that their eyes bulged in shock and horror as they looked down at the floor and up the walls, and on the god's massive, powerful body, seeing their blood and the poor, crushed remains of their earlier forms and remembering every single instant of their demise and painful resurrection.

That was when they truly realized that they were nothing more than toys, and that they were going to live a tremendous eternity, wishing for the mercy of death - the permanent, irreversible one - every other day.

Killer and Alexis and the others had enjoyed long, powerful, savage sex, while literally wrapped in the coils of intestines ripped out of the monsters that had once been god's worst enemies. Killer had crushed them, savagely ripped them apart, used his claws and his tremendous strength to shatter them, their pieces scattered on the floor and on top of the dark stone altar, Alexis and Vesta and Ira eating one fallen angel alive, chewing his raw flesh and organs into bloody pulp in the intervals between a blissful scream and another, the goddesses voicing their ecstasy and calling his name as Killer pounded them with savage force.

The great generals of the ancient revolt against god were reduced to simple meals and toys, crushed underfoot, torn apart, battered and destroyed without the god and goddesses paying real attention. They were almost forgotten, used as a mere contour, as added thrill as the huge male and his females gorged in their blood and gore, Killer growling as he slammed himself deep to the hilt into his girls, again and again and again, grinding down into them, territorially, predatorily, his gigantic shafts sending blood and nectar bursting out in thick eruptions as he pounded the goddesses to exhaustion, leaving them tired, sore, bruised, bleeding, stretched viciously out and, above all, delighted. They grinned gamely, they looked at him with adoration, they fed him pieces of the doomed prisoners and gave him their everything, their souls seeming to sing in bliss at being with him and their bodies burning with pleasure, with need, and with a thousand delicious, sinful emotions.

Finally, they had sat down near the altar, panting hard and basking in the delightful aftermath while blood, juices and thick, potent cum leaked from the thick stone table, the floor covered in crimson footprints, in crushed, maimed body parts, in gore, all drenched over by Killer's cum. Vesta had picked up one corpse and squeezed it into liquid, sending the bloody offering flowing down a trough in the floor that reached all the way to a vast, circular pool in the very center of the cross-shaped main chamber of the dungeon.

The floor in the whole dungeon had an almost imperceptible tilt to it, and the heavy, enormous stone tiles were slightly spaced out, deliberately leaving passages among them that the blood that was shed here would run through, reaching the visible troughs that from each cardinal point would led the crimson fluids right into the immense pool.

A fait haze of heat was always visible above the wide funnels, kept hot so that the blood would not coagulate as it streamed to the centre of the dark cathedral. The massive, simple altar faced the pool, straddling the large trough. On top of the heavy stone altar, simple in design but massive and glorious in its sheer, godly proportions, heavy chains ending in manacles were available, and long chains ending in meat hooks came down all the way from the arched roof, thousands of feet above. The immensity of the room was astonishing. It was miles long and just as monstrously high... yet it could quickly look somewhat small when Killer and Alexis and the other goddesses let their tremendous power manifest itself with greater, more glorious sizes. It would take little for Killer's head to brush the ceiling if he just so wanted... but then again, one mere thought would be enough for him to bend reality here and provide greater spaces still. If outside his power was fearsome, within the sanctuary it was monstrous. He was supreme and absolute in his domain, and reality quaked at his mere thought, ready to bend to his will. His will was the only law.

His pocket dimension was virtually limitless with his power backing it... and within it, his power knew no boundary. He could have easily expanded the dimension and created a whole new world for himself, and they could have spent eternity in it... But of course, Killer did not want to turn his back to the world he knew and loved. His sanctuary was only going to be a safe base for him and his lovers and allies, a stronghold from which they would continue the fight.

They had "cleaned" themselves up by bathing in the warm lake of blood, and then they had walked through more of the dungeon. Killer knew it relatively well, as he had been the one to create that vast underground kingdom, but visiting the actual places was a new experience even for him. He was perhaps the most amazed of all when he looked at the immensity of what he had accomplished, as they walked past circular columns of reddish stone that had the size of towers, reaching seemingly to the sky and boosting such diameters that it took minutes to walk around one. They sustained tall, gothic arches that were barely visible, lost in the darkness so high above their heads... and the walls on either side of the triple-naïve, gothic temple were dotted with an endless succession of cells and cages, large and small. Chains, meat hooks, manacles hand from the walls and from the columns, ready to hold yet more fresh, vulnerable meat, and the only light came from sinister eternal flames burning in braziers and on top of massive torches, their dancing, crimson light the only comfort in the prevalent darkness.

Most of the cells were still empty, even after jailing all the prisoners that had once filled Retribution, but they weren't going to stay that way for long: they were immense, powerful, insatiable predators, so they needed vast stocks and a constant supply of fresh meat. The beginning, though, had been pretty good... the pool of blood was almost full, and a large part of the central naïve was splattered with gore and juices and sperm, the stones caked in blood and ichors, the floor covered in unrecognizable morsels of shattered flesh and pulverized bones. In good time, the whole dungeon was going to take on that gruesome, dark look ... and already parts of it had been decorated with the skulls, bones, and bodies of their countless prey, and the implements with which they had been bound, tortured, or ensnared by. Already broken skeletons were piled here and there with careless artistry against pillars and walls, small mountains of bones and pieces already tall around the altar, skulls staring at the dark master with empty sockets.

Sobbing, broken prisoners hang from meat hooks pierced through their limbs and chests, their devastated bodies dangling slowly at the end of blood-speckled chains hung from the ceiling and the walls. Other chains held up narrow, cruel cages; in some of them, broken victims were still trapped, ripped apart and left to either die or recuperate to the point where they could once more be useable playthings, even as their insides dangled through the metal bars and their bodies trembled, often missing limbs and crushed into featurelessness by such ferocity that no amount of supernatural regeneration was able to remedy. The preys were all angels, demons and corrupted creatures of great supernatural power... but they might as well have been mortals: it made no difference. Whatever they might have been before, now they were all powerless, doomed toys. Their power level varied wildly between one and another... but in comparison to Killer, they were all zeroes, equally hopeless in front of his perfect ten.

Walking around the dungeon they had seen how the main chamber, however immense, was only a small part of the dark, underground kingdom, as further tunnels and terrible torture rooms stretched deeper still into the mountain. There was even an immense arena, erected on top of a pillar of stone surrounded by a lake of magma, with a single, narrow steel bridge leading to the battleground.

They had spent hours visiting the place and thinking about how to organize it, and about how much dark, cruel pleasure they were going to draw from those deep chambers... before making their way back to the immense, temple-like main room, walking towards the only gates leading out.

His victims crawled out of his way, screamed, begged, and cried as he approached and walked past them, giving only a few here and there looks, and not for their sounds: he had long grown used to the screaming, the ranting, the sobbing, long learned to enjoy it at the right times and ignore it otherwise. But the sight of their bodies still drew him in: once-beautiful females splattered with blood and covered in rips and tears, a fallen angel here hiding her face and moaning weakly, bleeding from a ragged hole in her chest where a breast should be, a wolf over here who had her arms chained above her head, half-dangling from a gigantic column, her lower limbs ripped entirely off and her sex nothing but a gaping, bloody hole from which a thick, huge cascade of his sperm continued to gush slowly and ponderously down to the floor.

The liger growled hungrily at this, but then he continued forwards, not wanting to fall again prey to his lusts as he felt his girthy, godlike member twitch a bit as it pendulumed back and forth between his legs with his movements, slapping heavily into his thighs. Pleasure and hunger whispered their way through his body, pulsing in his muscles, burning along his nerves and making him feel truly powerful as he looked down at broken, bloody prisoners who hurriedly crawled into the nearer cage and cell and closed themselves inside, hiding in the darkness and looking at him in terror, praying that he would not take new interest in them... and the gigantic male barely noticed as he stepped on a prisoner, almost crushing him underfoot as he screamed in agony, his back cracking loudly as broken ribs ground against the floor and his limbs spasmed wildly against the stone tiles.

Killer merely gave him a glance, just as he barely looked at a victim hanging from a single arm from the ceiling, shoving her beaten, bludgeoned body aside as she rasped weakly and swung back and forth like a grisly ornament. His steps were heavy, majestic, carrying the weight of his power and not just that of his massive, muscular body. Each step seemed to rattle the whole immense dungeon, energy crackling around his toes as he crushed bones and skulls into dust and left deep footprints in the hard stone like he was walking on a soft, sandy beach. The high heels of the boots of Alexis, Ira, Vesta, Gaia, Alcana, Adrasthea, the mighty hooves of Manticora and even the bare paws of Diana added their own obscene might, each step sending a ripple of power across the dungeon, sending uncontrollable shivers in the prisoners who curled up in the distant corners, trying desperately to make themselves invisible as the god and his Disciples walked past.

It was a long and exciting, delightful walk back towards the gates, each step a statement of power and domination that had all the prisoners insane with fear as Alexis and Vesta and the others grinned in delight and greedily breathed of the thick, potent smell that already filled the place. The air of the dungeon was so thick that they could almost chew on it, tasting blood and juices, gore and cum. There was no hope, just despair. There was little oxygen, but there was the smell of male. Everywhere, so thick and potent that the air felt heavy and almost solid. It was powerful, bitter, addictive, intoxicating. Fearsome for its strength and virility. Brutal, for how it overwhelms the senses, for how it raped noses and minds. It brought tears to the eyes.

Every breath there was thick with the Master's maleness, a taste that spoke of power, of fertility, of virility, beyond mortal's understanding. It made females drip with juices and shiver with fear and anticipation, hot nectar streaking down the powerful legs of the goddesses as they walked around and behind their master and lover. It made dicks shrivel and shrink up in fear and humiliation, shrinking testicles down to grape size, leaving the prisoners looking like newborns... and already before, they had been looking like babies in comparison with Killer's gigantic flaccid cock. It was cause of much amusement for the goddesses, and of burning humiliation for the male prisoners who were constantly treated with the sight of the huge male enjoying the devotion of the enchanting, beautiful goddesses. It was very clear that males wouldn't last much in the dungeon, unless Killer wished for them not to change. Left to drown in the dungeon's scent, the males were overwhelmed quickly by the presence of the Master, way too powerful, and way too crushing. It was going to literally turn males into females over time.

Alexis grinned as she saw one fallen angel staring at her, her hand stroking slowly down Killer's titanic shaft, and she smirked cruelly as she gazed at the prisoner's desperately erect, desolately shrunken dick. She only needed to flex her thigh lightly, showing off the power of her musculature, to have the prisoner shivering and releasing, the bloodied angel staining himself with a tiny jet of watery, useless cum. Killer and the goddesses laughed as they walked past, enjoying every step they moved across that decadent room of blood and gore and pleasure and pain together, moving past more victims, more bodies, more piles of bones and splatters of gore that adorned the walls, as chains tinkled like music to the ears of the liger and crying and moaning prey tried to hide in the darkness.

When Killer and Alexis and the others walked towards the gates to leave the dungeon, they didn't bother with making sure to send every prisoner back into a cell: they were not going anywhere anyway, shattered and destroyed and insane with terror and pain as they were.

They looked up as they approached the only way out, their eyes attracted by the vast balcony far above, that gave a perfect view over the vast dungeon: columns of splendid marble sustained elegant arches, forming a beautiful porch... and beyond they could guess a vast and comfortable room, luminous and luxurious, arranged around a massive throne that faced towards the dungeon.

Down below, there were two identical, majestic double-doors leading out, one to the left and one to the right, at the two extremities of the miles-long wall. Immense gates of solidified darkness barred both ways out, protecting the monumental stairs climbing out of the main chamber and up to the above level.

Their lock would only ever react to the touch and will of Killer, Alexis or one of the Disciples... but Killer didn't even bother locking the immense gates: he merely pushed them open, his enormous muscles flexing with power as he held the vast and tremendously heavy fence wide open for his Disciples to pass through... and then he stepped forwards and simply let go, watching with a smirk as the two doors swung slowly closed. Their tremendous weight alone was more than enough to ensure that no unauthorized person would have ever been able to get past them.

It was deliberate teasing and mocking of his prisoners, who found themselves so close to escaping and yet so terribly, irremediably far away from it, simply because not even working all together would they have the strength necessary to budge even a single one of the immense, supernatural doors.

They had climbed the vast, monumental staircase, following it in its gentle, ample curve, and had finally emerged onto a beautiful floor of marble, turning a corner to walk down a long corridor. Wooden doors, finely chiseled, opened on either side, each leading into a comfortable little apartment. They were destined to Killer's priestesses and Praetorians, his elite guards and servants. Several rooms were already in use: those that had been the priestesses of Adrasthea's temple were now his and constituted the first nucleus of what was to certainly become a much greater group, considering that many Seraphims and angels had already begged to be selected for the role.

The long corridor eventually lead them to the throne room they had observed from far below: walking under a tall, elegant archway they emerged into an immense, luxurious chamber, with two rows of tall columns running down the middle, forming a vast naïve. As they walked inside, to their right the room ended with the huge, open balcony looking out over the dungeon, while to the left there were two series of archways leading to other spaces. Right in front of them, on the opposite side of the room, there was another corridor identical to the one they had just walked, which lead to the other staircase. One of the apartments on that side had ended up becoming the new home of Samael, who had kept faith to his promise of continuing serving as jailer. His presence ensured that the dungeon would be safe and protected in each and every moment. The archways to the left led to another long corridor flanked by larger and more personal apartments: those were the Disciple's personal quarters, and each room reflected the owner's personality. Vesta had been delighted, for example, by the vast wooden library that made up much of her apartment, and even more pleased by the huge gym, surrounded by a vast collection of armor sets and weaponry.

The corridor also led to the monumental staircase of marble that climbed up to the above-ground castle. Someone visiting the castle would have hardly guessed the existence of that vast underground kingdom of darkness, as the staircase that was the only way in or out was hidden under the floor. Beautiful black and white marble formed an immense drawing in the floor, depicting a feral, demonic lion half-curled up, as if locked in bitter struggle with an inner enemy... and the lion had two wings: one black and demonic and the other white and angelic. Only Killer, Alexis or the Disciples and some of the higher priestesses would be able to get the lion figure to move, descending like an elevator to bring them down to the top of the staircase or back up to the ground level.

And if that wasn't enough, the figure in the floor was only accessible through a golden, monumental gate that protected it from close examination from unauthorized people. Beyond that gate was another prison, the ordinary detainment facility for Eaglenest. The cells on the two sides of the temple-like room were destined to those who had not committed crimes ferocious enough to be immediately earmarked for torture and death, but at the same time had given Killer good reasons to put under special observation. That prison, still relatively human and comfortable, was their limbo: if they behaved, developed a sincere understanding of their errors and showed that they were ready to make up for them, they could expect to be given back their freedom after a congruous period of punishment. If they failed to make good use of that last chance of redemption, though, they would be thrown down into the dungeon, to be used and abused in whatever way Killer and Alexis would choose.

It was a sort of purgatory, sitting right above a merciless, violent inferno that was constantly hungry, eager to swallow more and more and more victims.

Upon climbing out of the dungeon after their long, bloody, vicious orgy, Killer and the others had stopped in the vast throne chamber. The temple-like room was a vast and comfortable living space, with an immense, square-sized bed placed right behind the throne and covered in huge, soft cushions. A little further down the naïve there were enormous sofas arranged around a long table of chiseled hardwood and completed by large, soft red cushions and armchairs. On the wall, between the two sets of archways leading out, there was an immense flat screen television that could also be used to display multiple windows with the live feed images coming from cameras placed in the arena, in the torture chambers and all over the dungeon. An enormous fireplace took up a fair amount of the far wall, and the tall flames in it spread a welcoming warmth in the whole room, casting a dancing light over the comfortable sofas and bed. On the balcony, on the contrary, there were several large, monolithic blocks of dark, cold stone complete with chains and manacles and meat hooks, in case Killer wanted some quick, bloody entertainment. It made for a stark but glorious contrast: in the dungeon, the power of the dark god truly was the only thing that mattered. Lives would be consumed and annihilated without hesitation just to entertain him. It was a place of extremes.

The dungeon was still new, but it already contained more than just doomed prisoners held against their will: it was already filling up with eager victims, masochists who craved for Killer's heavy, forceful hand and found their delight in being brutally used and abused. They wore their scars with true pride, and came crawling to his feet for more, all too happy to live in the dungeon and asking for nothing more than a chance to serve him, to offer their bodies to his strength and his dark hungers.

Killer's spectacular display of power in the skies of Heaven had left a deep impression in the whole of paradise and no doubt in Hell as well. Even after he had sized down and vanished from sight, fear and excitement had remained sky high. The fighting had still not restarted: demons and paladins and angels alike were still terrified at the idea of reforming into armies, scared that it would only mean becoming targets for the gigantic male. Vesta had defined the tense, fearful stasis that had suddenly spread over Heaven "peace through fucking-giganormously superior firepower", and it was a very effective way to describe it. No side was eager to regroup, and that meant the war was temporarily over.

Entire towns had been abandoned in a hurry as many civilians followed the same train of thought and concluded that they were safer if scattered all over Heaven. Surely Killer would not be interested in a single family, or even a single person... surely he'd want his toe to stamp out crowded towns first?

Killer could taste the delicious terror and awe in the air... but while the fear burned in every heart after his monstrous display of power, the other feelings varied. Some dreaded his ascension and wished him defeated and dead, as he was a mortal threat to ancient balances of power, to the interests of nobles and rich families of Heaven, to the authority of the Senate and to the very structure of the world and Planes of Existence. Many were having nightmares about him taking over the Mortal Plane, the Heavenly Plane and the Hellish Plane. Too many people had lots to lose if he gained that kind of power. But others were overjoyed, instead. Temples to celebrate him were being erected across Heaven and Hell, and more and more people firmly associated him with the Amon-Ra, the savior of the prophecy. And so, while entire towns, including the capital Caernarvon, emptied as Council sympathizer fled from his wrath, from the campaign of conquest that many thought imminent, other towns became crowded as angels and benevolents and even demons reunited around altars erected in his name. He could feel their prayers and worship, seemingly feeding into his vast ocean of energy... and it was admittedly a delightful and reinvigorating feeling, even though it was getting harder to keep the voices in his head muffled enough not to be an annoyance.

New refugees were arriving at the doors of Eaglenest all the time now that Killer's immense footprint in the tundra had replaced the army of paladins that had been keeping the fortress under siege. Entire families were exploiting the moment of lull in the fighting for leaving their endangered homes and moving towards safer places, and that meant that who still trusted the Council migrated towards the Seventh Sky, while those who felt the only hope rested on Killer's shoulders moved down to Eaglenest.

Killer was very glad to have built entire towns around the sanctuary, because the space had been used up amazingly quickly: the monastery had already been full of refugees before, and they were still being redistributed in the new towns and buildings when new and large groups had begun to arrive.

The towns were quickly filling up and becoming cheerful and full of life: war seemed finally distant, and the ominous mass of the castle towering high above, with its immense throne-temple, was actually a welcome sight as it signaled safety and protection.

The monastery itself was now immense. The fortress was stronger than ever, its bastions topped by colossal pieces of advanced artillery, and the Seraphims had now ample living quarters, gyms and training spaces. There was now, for the first time ever, excess space that was already being put to good use: William was working on finding angels with the right physical structure and abilities to become warriors worthy of the XXX Legion, which needed to be rebuilt after suffering heavy losses. With angels defecting en masse from the divisions still controlled by the Council, there was thankfully a quite large number of trained soldiers from which to choose.

The Legion Thirty was not a normal division of the Heavenly army, though... it had originally been made up exclusively by massive, powerful tigers from Kesteven and Kendrew, the mortal homeland of Killer. They had been the most fearsome elite military force in the mortal world, serving under Killer when he was general... and in the afterlife they had been just as effective and feared. Getting inside the Legion required abilities and strength out of the ordinary, and a lot of training. Most angels hadn't the kind of strength required to lift the massive, wall-like shields and the long, massive spears that allowed the Legion to be so unassailable when deployed in formation on the field. The few that measured up still needed a lot of hard training, and William had started right away, trying to make the best possible use of the very little time they had. The newcomers were no doubt going to have to learn a lot directly on the battlefield, but William would make sure to pass on all he possibly could, whenever they had a moment available.

Volunteers, including even benevolents, were anyway being put to good use. The Seraphims kept the most promising women to put them in the training pipeline to join their ranks, and the remaining volunteers were grouped up into training companies after being assessed for their abilities, so that the courses could be organized to make best use of the little time available. The deserters, who were already trained, were quickly reassigned to fill the holes in the ranks of existing regiments, which were being merged and restructured. It was pointless to keep understrength regiments around.

Already there was a growing mystique around the collared Seraphims. They were called the "Dark Wings", and were looked at with admiration, envy and awe. They had already formed up into a special division, and it was just as well, because they hadn't just a fancy collar and dark wings: Killer's power coursed through them, giving them much greater strength, higher durability, sharper senses and entirely new abilities, backed by extensive power that made traditional magic redundant. There was no doubt about the Dark Wings becoming more numerous in the future: the other Seraphims were eager to move that big step... and that included the garrisons of the Moon and Sun monasteries in the Seventh Heaven, which were still holding their fortresses. They did not want to lose such powerful strongholds, and they were going to hold them for as long as possible. No doubt, the paladins would soon be sent back against the two castles, to put both under siege. But they were going to pay a big price for it, since both fortresses were solid and the lull in the fight was being exploited to further reinforce the defences.

The sanctuary also made an enormous difference to the treatment of the casualties. Inside the castle, even the worst wounds now healed up smoothly. Desperate cases, which outside of the sanctuary would inexorably end in death, were solved almost with ease. Indeed, Killer could have healed everyone pretty much instantaneously, but he did not want to go too far. That however would mean flooding them all with his energies, and he did not want to be seen as someone who'd offer salvation from pain in exchange for a lasting bound. He let the energies in the air just help the natural healing, purifying and regenerating. Diana and the other healers were so able to easily and quickly put the wounded and mutilated angels back on their feet, their bodies and even minds fully restored from even the worst damage.

Even Vicky was progressing incredibly rapidly, her body regenerating and her pain soothed... but she was still contaminated by Unworld Residue that prevented some parts of her, notably her eyes, from reforming. That was still going to require a direct intervention from Killer, and he was only waiting for her to wake up: he did not want to do anything without her consent. He had visited her and he had been immensely relieved by her serene expression and by her evidently improved shape: she was sleeping serenely now, without the torment of pain and the agony of the Unworld Residue trying to eat even deeper inside her head. Her energies were rebuilding and her body was regenerated and beautiful, her skin showing no sign of the tremendous wounds that had covered her. Diana had confirmed the improvement, and said that Vicky would soon wake up and be conscious and Killer was waiting for that moment, to let her choose what her future would be like.

Diana then had guided him on a tour of the vast, new hospital that occupied one of the new wings of the castle. She was beaming with joy at the extent of the facility and at the abundance of tools and meds and machinery. The hospital that he had created was a jewel, complete with everything they could ever possibly need... and with his energies soothing pain and regenerating flesh and souls, the clinical centre was going to make an enormous difference: they could now heal anyone, from pretty much any disease or wound. If a casualty reached the hospital while still alive, even just barely, it could be expected to fully recover. Even death could be reversed, provided that the soul was not destroyed alongside the body, or stolen away by the Reapers and brought down to Hell.

Unfortunately, the Reapers were hungrier than ever, and very alert. They had sided almost exclusively with Hell, and they made sure that any soul leaving its physical body would not wander for long before being dragged down to the Underworld by hooked chains.

It really was amazing, how much he had been able to accomplish. Eaglenest was now a formidable, unassailable base that could protect millions of civilians, save countless lives and that offered the facilities needed to train and equip new troops. He had not been able to warp Time enough to balance the enormous advantage that Hell enjoyed over them, but at least they could enjoy a little margin of advantage over the rest of Heaven. It would no doubt prove useful in countless ways.

He knew he should have been using the little but significant time margin he had obtained by warping the flow of time within the Sanctuary to train and prepare for the clash against the god of war. But the awareness was not enough to get him to act: he preferred to spend some time with Alexis and his disciples and lovers. Ira had scolded his laziness and called him a reckless adventurer... but she had done so with a smile of affection and appreciation. She loved him also for that sort of arrogance that was part of his being and that became visible whenever he was challenged, and she did not want him to change.

There was probably no real way for him to train enough to ever be ready for the clash ahead, anyway... the god of war was a formidable foe and was many Eons old. Killer had been a young mortal, and his permanence in heaven accounted only to a few centuries: there really was no comparing in terms of knowledge and experience. For all his talent and skills and knowledge of war, he still was nothing but a child compared to the master of war. A couple of days of extra training, however hard and demanding it could have been with the likes of Ira and Vesta and Adrasthea and Alexis planning it and making it happen, were not going to change that fact.

And so he and Alexis and the others had gone back down into the dungeon, seeking some close, private contact, a fair distance away from the world, curled together over the sofas and cushions, facing the enormous fireplace where large trunks of wood burned and crackled quietly.

Killer, anyway, wasn't an idiot. His pride was great, but not enough to make him blind to the risks and difficulties: he knew that he was going to charge straight into a massive trap, and he was worried by the monstrous kind of allies that Taranis could call in his aid. He could not hope to have a chance to prepare for the powers he was going to face, but there was enough time to at least gather precious information and build up a basic knowledge of the enemies he was likely going to face. Alexis and the others had fought Taranis and Seth at the Holy Tree, and both gods had had to reveal much of their power and potential in the fight, so that Alexis was able to provide him with exhaustive information.

Alcana, being the mother of the 3 other main threats on the list, had been able to provide some information and some suggestions, even if only piecemeal ones: the truth was that hers and Taranis's "sons" had never spent much time with the family, and even less time with their mother, so that she couldn't say to know them well.

The nameless dragon was a fearsome creature, a monster that had grown to such fantastic proportions that he was said to eat planets whole. Alcana had last seen him when he was an 8-miles tall abomination with wings that seemed to fill the sky. His growth had been unstoppable and his hunger even more so: initially, he had been locked inside a vast network of underground caves, deep beneath the Fifth Heaven... but the dragon's growth had continued, and he had outgrown his prison. His escape had caused tremendous, untold destruction: he had smashed his way out through the ground, swatting entire regions aside like they were model sets. He had pushed out through the crust of Heaven, pulverizing mountains and rivers and lakes and hills, changing the face of the Fifth Sky forever.

That was the real reason why Retribution had been surrounded by a hostile, apocalyptic ocean of exposed magma flowing through canyons and cliffs: that was all what was left of what had once been a green and happy land. It had been crumbled, ground into dust, the very crust of the planet annihilated to leave the mantle of magma exposed.

It had been a cataclysm surpassed only by the near destruction of Heaven due to the Holy Tree becoming a Black Hole... and it hadn't become something worse just because Taranis had stepped in and forced, or perhaps just convinced, his son to fly away. The dragon had smashed its way through the wall between dimensions, and he had never been seen again.

"I'm not sure if the dragon listens to Taranis or not." Alcana admitted, shaking her head slowly as she stared at the flames crackling in the gigantic fireplace. She was sitting comfortably on one of the sofas, Killer and Alexis sharing a large chaise-longue throne and Ira and Vesta sharing a huge, floppy red cushion nearby. They were mostly naked, and they leisurely, tenderly played with each other, satisfied with just the contact, the closeness, the warmth and the teasing for the moment, as Killer rested his head on Alexis's prodigious breasts, the goddess playing idly with the long bangs of his mane while her other hand stroked over his powerful abs, purposefully sliding down to give a squeeze to his gigantic black shaft every now and then. Diana had left a few hours earlier: she would have loved to stay, but she also felt the call of duty as head of the Healers... indeed, now, as goddess of Healing in Killer's name. She was hard at work in the hospital, taking care of the casualties as they pieced back together angels that, before Eaglenest was blessed by Killer's energies, would inexorably bring to a painful death.

Ira had only been in the room from a few hours, having traded place with Manticora: the zebra had left and walked back up to the surface, to take her turn at training the new Seraphim recruits and running the operations in the castle. Vesta had had her turn before: the whole castle was vibrant with activity and there was a constant stream of reports coming in from every corner of Heaven as the small reconnaissance teams worked to map out the new shape of Paradise and to keep track of any and every movement of the enemy. Or better, of the enemies, since Paladins and other Council-controlled troops were kept under surveillance just as tight and attentive, now. They were officially at war... and if already before Vesta had worked to keep track of the Council's actions, now it was imperative to do so with extreme accuracy.

Killer sighed quietly, closing his eyes for a moment and listening to the distant screams coming from the dungeon, the cries reaching them through the open archways leading to the balcony. It was a delightful and relaxing music to his ears, but it did not quite manage to clear his mind from all the thoughts and worries crowding it. He focused his attention on Alcana as she continued telling of her monstrous son: "He has never been seen again around here... but we've all been reached by terrible stories about him eating planets whole, which tells us that his growth has reached truly astonishing levels. At least one solar system has been completely annihilated by him, and the few stories that came from that poor area of space are religious texts about the apocalypse coming in the form of enormous paws and a hungry, immense tongue." The goddess of love explained, nervously toying with the ring that Taranis had once put on her finger, looking down at it with contempt. "If Taranis controls him, we have to assume that he'll throw the dragon against you at some point... I have no idea if it has developed additional special abilities over the Eons, but you can expect him to be able to breathe an acid, thick fog that will trap you like glue and at the same time attempt to burn you down to ashes. He could also spit dark hellfire, blizzards of ice and ferocious winds and a dark fog that will make you temporarily blind and deaf. He could do that already when very young, and it can only have gotten worse over the years."

"Reassuring." Vesta idly observed, before grinning a bit as she crossed her powerful arms on her chest, repressing a little shiver as Ira teasingly dragged her demonic tongue over one of her nipples, flicking it lightly. "And the planet-eater there is probably the less dangerous of the bunch... he's mostly about raw, brute power and size, and that is also your forte." She added, looking invertedly up to Killer, confident and relaxed. "After your little show, I'm not that worried. You could probably match the dragon pound for pound, if you only unleashed yourself more."

The huge male made a bit of a grimace and turned slightly to the side, ignoring the implied tease and he turned his attention back to Alcana instead, as the goddess added: "We didn't even give him a name, because he really was a feral creature, crudely bent on satisfying his primal urges and nothing more. He wasn't the brightest, and probably he hasn't developed much under that point of view. He'll probably give in quickly to rage... it'll make him terribly dangerous as he charges madly at everything that moves, stomping everything into bits, but on the other side it means he won't be using any real tactic and even less any kind of strategy. He is a weapon of mass destruction, not a tool that can be employed with any kind of smartness."

"I'm just about as sophisticated as he is... we should get along just fine." Killer playfully observed, smiling confidently as he ran one hand slowly down Alexis's spectacular thigh, feeling her warmth and the power in her musculature as she flexed lightly at his touch. The goddess grinned a bit to herself and pulled one leg up, slowly distending it, showing off for him, knowing all too well how much he adored her long, powerful legs... and she pushed her hand down until her fingers curled in the thick hair at the base of his gigantic cock, lazily playing with the bangs. He grunted in approval, letting out a hot breath as his eyes ran the length of her mighty, beautiful leg before Alcana muttered: "Even if the sons of me and Taranis do not show up... which, I'm afraid, is unlikely... we'll have to track them down and put a leash on them anyway, sooner rather than lather: their birth has unleashed suffering and apocalypse over the universe. They might have been a necessary manifestation of evil, at the beginning, but they are now rampaging indiscriminately, spreading more and more misery across the universe. I fear they are being used by their father for a war of conquest which has no equals in history... I've heard terrible stories, Killer, terrible, of worlds swallowed by pain, suffering and darkness because of them. They are exploiting the chaos in this world, using it as a smokescreen to hide their actions in other, nearby worlds." The goddess of love paused, dropping her head in her hands and rubbing at her eyes tiredly, wiping away some tears as the others stared at her with affection and sorrow, pained by her suffering. Gaia wrapped one arm around her shoulders and squeezed her gently into her side, and Alcana looked up at Killer with a small, apologetic smile. "I can't do it alone, so I'm afraid I must ask for your help, master... I need your help for bringing back some balance: their evil is out of control. I can't let the dragon eat entire worlds just because it is hungry. I can't let Deimos crush entire worlds into the desperate darkness of terror. I can't let Erra mutate and corrupt and infect entire worlds, leaving them as rotten, decayed chests of sickness."

"I will help you, Alcana... we all will. We will get things right, whatever it takes." Killer reassuringly promised, before smiling warmly as he beckoned for her and Gaia to come closer. "Stay with us, Alcana... close. In contact. I love you, you are my Disciple and you are part of the family. Your sons unfortunately are all daggers in your heart... but it is not your fault. You are a victim of Taranis and of a cruel fate. But together, we will remove those daggers and heal the wounds."

He opened his arms in welcome as Gaia gently lead the goddess of Love towards a soft red cushion at Killer's side, the two females sitting down in it and Killer hugging them to his side. The dragoness trembled a bit, but closed her eyes with a sigh of relief, smiling slightly as she pushed her shoulders up into his arm, seeking the comfort of contact, of affection. That simple, loving contact, in the moment in which she had to ask for help, in the moment of need, was more precious than any power, any treasure, any kingdom. Its warmth steadied her breath and gave her new courage, as did Gaia's silent, generous affection and friendship.

Killer squeezed her tightly against his side, kissing her lips gently, and his eyes closed for a moment as a repressed a shiver of his own as he clearly felt her sorrow and self-loathing and shame. She had chosen to sit on the sofa, at a distance, because she felt responsible for the atrocities her sons had caused. Those sons that had been her dream of a loving family, only to become nightmares that tormented her every night. Taranis will pay for this, too.

They did not know much about what was happening out in space: they had been too busy trying to sort out Heaven to really notice the weird and alarming signals. But it was clear that Taranis had been expanding his domain over multiple distant worlds. Other planets had simply been wiped out of existence. Taranis had been making good use of the absence of God: without Elelyon around he had little to fear, especially with the war keeping Killer and the other divinities, included Typhon himself, busy and distracted.

His plan of conquest had begun in far-away worlds, so that no one would know what was happening... and progressively, he had been moving closer, capturing and conquering worlds nearer and nearer. Inexorably, stories had begun to arrive: most still knew nothing about it, but not Alcana. The goddess was always listening, looking out for any hint of her sons' and husband's activities, and every bit of news she had heard crushed her deeper down into a dark sea of sorrow and remorse.

The worlds that were not entirely destroyed, in fact, ended up being no more than gigantic temples to Taranis. Gigantic toys for his entertainment. Gigantic sources of worship and energy that made him stronger.

Taranis's temple was the battlefield, and that was what the worlds he conquered became: supernatural battlefields where hordes of insane, blood-crazed warriors and monsters battled from dawn to sunset. The dead resurrected during the night, only so that the slaughter could resume at full scale with the new dawn. Erra had turned entire worlds into lazarettos where hope had no place. Where everything was suffering and decay and death, as sickness followed sickness.

And Deimos had turned other worlds into kingdoms of fear, where every living being was tormented by nightmares and lost in his worst terrors, living in an illusion made of pain and suffering: old friends would rip the eyes out of each other's face believing to be wrestling with some kind of mortal enemy. Fathers would turn against daughters, sons against mothers. Entire civilizations ripped themselves apart, literally, using stones and sticks and knives and hammers and everything they managed to get their hands on as they were blinded and confused by visions of fear.

They only had the faintest idea of what had been going on in the background, for years and years... but every little, gruesome detail that emerged made the picture even more disgusting, and it already was stuff of nightmares.

Killer nuzzled Alcana reassuringly, looking down at her with affection before calmly explaining: "The dragon is scary, but worries me the least: he is a beast of immense physical and magic power, but can be fought back. I'm not scared by what I can understand and fight with my fists and my sword... what worries me is the Unkillables. I'm not sure how I will deal with them... I have no idea how much damage Erra could cause to me and I have no idea how to stop Deimos from driving me insane."

A moment of silence followed, as they all mused inwardly about that very problem. Deimos was the personification of fear and panic, a divine presence that had little physical power of its own but that could drive enemies insane with terror. He had seen his effect on Sikanjal, and he was horrified by the thought that Deimos could interfere in the incoming battle. Clashing with the god of war was more than complex enough without the spiritual manifestation of fear filling your mind with false but excruciating images, causing disorientation, loss of situational awareness and, potentially, a complete mental breakdown which would be inexorably followed by a merciless physical death as well.

And to make it all worse, Erra was a potential enemy as well: far more physically capable than Deimos, yet equally impossible to kill, at least in a definitive way, he was the personification of decay, disease, sickness. His birth had unleashed the plague of illness upon the world, and he was able to cause horrendous damage to his enemies, infecting them with the worst kind of known and unknown illness, causing them to rot while still alive. "I need your help, Alcana... I hate to ask, and I so wish I could lead you to think of happy things instead... but we have to get things right first, and I will need to know something about those monsters. I need an idea, a suggestion... anything that can give me a chance of success." Killer said, squeezing her gently against his chest as he looked down with a prayer and an apology in his eyes.

Alcana closed her eyes with a shiver, but she nodded firmly, determined to do her part to the very end... and she cleared her voice a bit before explaining: "I think Erra will have a hard time with you... most pathologies and maladies will bounce off you like mortal bullets. But Erra's corruptive and damaging capabilities are immense and mostly unknown, so there can be no doubt that he'll be able to hurt you. You'll need to incapacitate him quickly. He won't stay dead, no matter what... but every time you defeat him, you'll develop a new level of resistance to his abilities." Alcana paused, thoughtful and searching for any useful suggestion to give, looking up at him quietly... before she threw her ring on the table, snorting in frustration and despairing rage. "I'm sorry that I can't provide more and better information... but really, no one knows how Erra's powers work, and in how many ways they can manifest themselves."

Vesta sat up a bit on the huge red cushion, looking towards Alcana with understanding, quietly moving a long bang of golden hair out of her sapphire eyes as she supportively said: "Don't worry, Alcana... we understand. I've been studying maladies and illness for Eons, and there is an infinite number of forms they can take. I think we can all appreciate the difficulties of trying to define and describe Erra... I certainly do, at least. But I think you gave us key information there: just like an immune system can shore up its defences against an illness it has been exposed to in a non-lethal way, it is possible to become impervious to Erra's action?"

"Defeat him enough times, and you'll grow impervious to his abilities." Alcana confirmed, nodding confidently. "Erra infected me many times when he was young: terrible maladies that at times brought me close to death... but I survived, and never again did the same illness manage to hurt me."

"He wasn't actually attempting to kill you, though..." Ira quietly objected, tilting her head slightly to the side as she musingly looked to Alcana. The goddess of love sighed, looking at the ceiling and seeming to struggle to find the right words to say it, until she muttered: "Yes and no. He never did engage me in a direct battle, no. But I'm pretty sure he used me as a guinea pig, and did so with much commitment and effort, testing his abilities on me to discover which of his manifestations would kill a god. The fact that I'm his mother has never had any kind of relevance to him. He doesn't care about sentiments... he only wants to spread misery and sorrow, and whenever he contaminates someone, it is because he is trying to kill." She sniffed a bit, trying to hide a tear with a quick swipe of her hand, but she was handling herself with the greatest imaginable control and dignity, leaving Killer swallowing in admiration. "But having to endure his assaults and his experiments while simultaneously fighting back Taranis... it is going to be a whole different story from anything I've experienced." Alcana muttered, bumping her forehead into his thick, powerful chest. "Please, master... you must accept our help. We can't let you face all those dangers at once, on your own."

"His attacks will not be hampered by any armor or barrier... and we have to consider the worst possible scenario: Taranis, Erra, Deimos and perhaps the dragon as well, all working together against you." Gaia quietly said, looking at him with concern as she agreed with Alcana's pledge. "Please, master, you must allow us to follow you from afar. We will intervene only if they attack you all together... but we must be present. If Taranis acts disloyally, you have every right to be aided as well."

"No, Gaia." Killer softly replied, looking at her with affection even as he shook his head slightly. "I will go alone, like I promised to do. I gave my word... and if I broke it, I wouldn't feel myself worthy of calling you my Disciples anymore. I must assume that Taranis will not keep his own word... it would be stupid not to plan for the possibility, considering the events. But, really, even this feels like I'm being somewhat cowardly. Tradition calls for me to trust my rival's bona fide. Not trusting is already a breach of the code."

Gaia bowed her head respectfully, even as her lips trembled slightly, words stopping right at the edge as she looked at him with eyes which glowed with love and admiration, but tainted by worry.

"That's bullshit." Vesta exclaimed, shrugging and flailing her arms a bit. "You know that he is not going to follow the rules. You shouldn't risk your life charging into a trap just to prove your value and your honor. We already know and recognize both. Our duty as Disciples is to protect and serve you... you should allow us to follow you, at a distance."

The goddess tried to add something else, but the only sound that came out of her lips, suddenly sealed together by an invisible force, was a chocking gargle as her new collar glowed with energy and heat, squeezing into her neck with a vice-like grip that burned like fire. It lasted for a long moment as Killer looked down at her with affection... before the collar ceased to glow, and Vesta flopped down onto the cushion, hands reaching for her throat as she shouted: "Asshole! What are you gonna do next, slap me?"

"Oh, no, you'd enjoy that way too much." Killer easily replied, smiling lovingly down at her... and Vesta opened one eye to gaze back up at him, snorting in amused frustration. "Asshole." She reasserted, straightening with a smirk. "The throat squeeze was promising. I hoped you would follow up on that:"

"Then it wouldn't be a punishment, but a treat." The huge male replied, looking entertained. Vesta had a bit of a submissive, masochistic taste about her, and she actually quite liked when Killer's strong hand didn't just pull on her leash, but hit her as well... so she often voluntarily teased him into slapping, throttling and hitting her. Killer indulged her desire quite regularly... but he did not let her stealthily rule the agenda. He denied her just as often... and he knew that being denied gave her another kind of sweet shiver: the pleasure of having him firmly in charge and in control. She craved for his domination. It was a taste that the others, including Alexis, also had developed, but in them it wasn't quite as evident as with Vesta.

"I will not ask you not to go, or to bring us along... I know you would say no." Ira calmly said, smiling softly as she looked up at him, moving on all fours to reach his leg, hugging it and resting her chin over his thigh. "But as mentor, I must make sure you do not walk to the fight flailing and improvising everything. Erra, we can't do much about... but you are extremely tough and resistant and with few vulnerabilities: I don't expect him to have a easy life finding a disease that can affect you. He will, eventually... but hopefully he'll only have a finite and small number of pathologies to use. It will be a matter of enduring and resisting, for you... and that gives me hope, because enduring is what you do best."

The cobra paused, stroking one hand down his leg and pushing forwards to nuzzle lightly at his enormous, flaccid cock, breathing hungrily of his mighty, delicious scent. "Hit Erra hard, if he shows up. Hit him first. Hit him at every chance: you will not be able to endure and defeat the sickness he'll spread into your body if you leave him free of focusing and pumping corruption into your flesh. Your regeneration is exceptional, but will never be enough if the sickness spreads and you simultaneously have to fight back Taranis, Seth, Deimos and an armada of their mindless, blood-crazed minions. Smash the physical manifestation of Erra without mercy: you can't kill him definitively, but whenever you incapacitate him, you'll gain a chance to defeat whatever illness he put into you, before it saps all your energies."

"Absorb energy from everything around you: it'll help you to keep going. If they use minions against you, it will be almost more of a benefit than a hindrance: feed on them. Absorb their souls, predate their energies... Don't hesitate: Taranis's slaves are mindless, bloodthirsty living weapons beyond salvation. They no longer resemble the persons they used to be: strike without remorse." Adrasthea added, and Alcana nodded in agreement, both goddesses gazing towards him with worry, but at the same time with full confidence in his abilities and determination.

"Make good use of the Imprisonment Crystal as well." Ira reminded, pointing a finger towards the handle of the new Wyvern-Azura, with the glowing crystal in full evidence, the beautiful jewel whispering as always with the voices of the doomed souls it contained. "You must make sure not to run out of energy. Whatever it takes, make sure to have reserves: the sickness spread by Erra will consume your energies at an amazing rate, and even you will be drained down pretty quickly if you're not very careful."

"I will... I guess it will be the perfect chance for trying out the crystal's powers." Killer quietly replied, brushing one finger down the front of the glowing gemstone, feeling it almost shivering under his touch as the souls trapped inside writhed and tried to float away from him, visible as ghastly white shadows moving slowly inside the sapphire jewel.

Alcana looked at him with a mix of love and disbelief, shaking her head slowly in front of his stubborn determination: she loved his courage and his strict adherence to his word... but at the same time, she cursed his stubborn sense of honor and his prideful nature, that lead him to accept absurd risks with little more than a shrug. "We don't want to lose you, Killer... we cannot lose you: we would not survive." Alcana said, hugging him tightly and pushing her face into his chest. "Please... if you don't let us come, do at least draw from our energies when you need to: as Disciples, our energy is yours. Take as much of it as you need to. We will give all of us to help you."

"I know... and that's what gives me strength and courage and a reason for which to fight. We are a fucked-up family... but a wonderful, close family nonetheless. One I'd make every sacrifice for." Killer softly replied, smiling at them all. They gazed back at him with love, and he drank of that hot, delicious affection and support... before he finally admitted: "It is Deimos that worries me the most, sincerely." The huge male made a bit of a grimace at that, thinking of what a terrible kind of enemy Deimos was. He did not need to explain that he feared to lose not just the situational awareness during the fight, but his sanity as well: he expected to have his brain crammed full of visions of despair and horror. Deimos would use his worst fears against him, and would alter his senses and perceptions to drown him into his nightmares. Killer feared what he would see and experience, and he was horrified by the awareness that he was going to be assaulted by visions of Alexis's betrayal, of visions of her cuckolding him, torturing him, killing him. He expected to be tormented with images of death of his loved ones, with humiliation and failure, with decay of his body and of his consciousness.

Deimos was the enemy on the list that he feared the most: a wise person once said that we should only be afraid of fear itself... and Killer thought it was an excellent recommendation. He was going to face Fear itself. An unkillable, mind-destroying entity of immense power. How would he deal with it...?

Deimos was another reason why he would not accept to be accompanied into the fight by anyone: he was horrified by the thought of ending up blindly assaulting his loved ones while made crazy by the nightmares. He had to keep them out of the battle. He had to keep them safe.

"Remember: fear is a state of mind." Ira soothingly said, like she had so often repeated during the training sessions she had put him through. "You cannot eliminate fear, nor should you: fear is an ally, it is a key component of our survival instinct. Fear will prevent you from doing stupid things, if controlled. Fear will prevent you from slipping and giving in to your own darkness and destructive hungers." She paused, putting especial emphasis on the last passage as her emerald eyes locked with his, the cobra reading easily into his thoughts and seeing that one great fear he had was to lose control under Deimos's torture, and let his darkness explode out in an apocalyptic spree of annihilation. "As every state of mind, fear can be controlled. Discipline and concentration will let you ascertain the truth from the illusion. Fear can't be defeated... but it can be dominated."

"You have a small advantage... you are expecting Deimos's intervention. It will not come as a total surprise, if he does show up." Alcana quietly observed, sighing as she rested back in the sofa, stroking the soft velvet and dragging her finger in idle circles as she gathered her thoughts, looking at him with affection and concern. "It won't make a definitive difference... but it'll make you somewhat less vulnerable. He's able to sink you into a false reality that feels so true that resisting remains a challenge, but at least you know that, if something weird suddenly happens, it might be him entering the fight."

"Don't let him screw your mind up." Alexis said, dropping her head down against his as she hugged him tightly, his head resting on her large, prodigious breasts, his back pressing into her strong, beautiful front, her heat filling him with joy and serenity as she squeezed him between her legs and kissed his forehead lovingly. "Remember our promises. Remember our love and dedication. Remember these moments... if Deimos shows us betraying you, you must recognize the falsity. No matter how realistic, no matter how it might hurt... it'll always be false. None of us would ever betray you." She kissed his cheek, nuzzling him lovingly, and then whispered in his ear: "And especially not me. I love you, and only you."

Killer smiled at her with love, turning so that their mouths could meet in a slow, sloppy, delicious kiss as his hands stroked adoringly down her long, muscular legs, squeezing into her world-shattering thighs as his heavy, enormous shaft gave a warm, arrogant throb, bouncing majestically.

Vesta and Ira stood up from the cushion and climbed onto the chaise-longue next, sensually leaning down over him, hugging him by the sides, their huge breasts pushing in his chest as they kissed lightly at his throat... and Gaia and Alcana and Adrasthea followed, the goddesses huddling together over his massive chest as he hugged them all as best he could.

"I will remember." The huge male softly promised, looking down into their eyes and smiling with affection. "But you must be patient and merciful with me... If my confidence will waiver, it will not because I don't love and trust you, but because I don't trust myself. It amazes me, day after day, that you bless me with your love and your support and give me your everything, like this. It is far more than I deserve."

"It is not." Gaia amusedly countered, and Alexis nodded with a smile before licking his cheek playfully, adding: "But you will keep questioning your worth... and that is part of why we love you. Even with all you do for us, you are always striving to do more and better. What more could we ever ask for...?"

"Plenty, I think... but I'm so glad you don't." Killer gently replied, kissing her lips and savoring her taste as she slowly slipped around his side, to lay down on his chest, the other girls making room for her. He hugged Alexis close, and he leaned back into the chaise-longue, smiling softly as Gaia pulled a blanket over them all, their bodies grinding together as they curled up in a giant, warm embrace.

It was delightful and it filled Killer with joy and with motivation. This was what he would fight for: he would face any battle for them, and for the chance and the right to return to them with his head held high and his honor intact.

He grinned a bit as he felt hands gripping into his enormous flaccid cock, fingers tracing down its astounding length and squeezing into its tremendous girth even as the girls looked at him with innocent smiles, before Alexis pushed nose to nose with him, seductively, with an assertive smile that left him in no doubt about who owned the hand that squeezed into his virile flesh. She quietly silenced them, and closed her eyes with a smirk, listening to the screams and cries and whines coming from the dungeon, savoring the anguish that came from the cells and the cages... and Killer let her guide him, his eyes closing as well, his senses focusing on the distant voices. Cries of despair, screams of anguish, the bitter muttering of envy, maniac laughter, even shouts of worship from prisoners who had literally gone insane, broken into a state of suicidal admiration of his tremendous power. Many were shrieking his name, begging for his attention, hoping to get him to put an end to their shameful misery. It was cruel and sick that he enjoyed their despair so much, that he took such pleasure from their praying for lasting, oblivious death. But he did not care: he had selected carefully who his toys would be, and they deserved no mercy. Down in the dungeon, there was no worrying: there was only the delight of listening to their cries.

His eyes slowly opened, and his gaze was mirrored by Alexis's own, sapphire burning into sapphire as they grinned and licked their lips hungrily, before he gave a grunt of excitement as he felt her slipping two fingers into his cumslit, easily sinking them down to the knuckle, lovingly teasing the inside of his godlike shaft. "Listen, my god, my king, my master..." Alexis breathed, kissing his thick chest as she slowly twisted her fingers inside his monstrous cock, her other hand stroking down one massive arm. "Listen to the lamentations of your enemies... and to the soft whispers of your queen."

He growled lightly, resting back in the seat and enjoying the moment, feeling her fingers moving teasingly inside his enormous member, as other hands stroked and pumped slowly down his immense length as Alexis nuzzled him and whispered words of love in his ear, her hot breath caressing his skin, the cries of his enemies making it all sweeter. He grunted as Alexis stroked the tip of his enormous cock with her ring finger, moving it in slow, gentle circles over the sensitive flesh, before he hissed in delight as she pushed it against his cumslit, carefully pushing it in alongside her index and middle finger, keeping her rings on. She grinned widely as she pushed her fingers in, feeling the vast hole easily stretching enough to let her heavy gold ring slid in, the gigantic cock seeming to suck her digits in as it gave a hungry, powerful throb, and warm masculine fluids surged up, soaking her fingers and leaking out of the large slit with plentiful abundance.

"There can be no doubt that you'll rise to any challenge and crush your enemies... boy, I can triple-finger your cumslit when you are still flaccid... how can anyone ever hope to compare?" Alexis passionately teased, winking at him as she twisted her fingers inside his cock, making him growl in delight, his eyes burning with lust as she slowly pulled her fingers out and brought them to her lips. She watched him in the eyes as she opened her mouth and stretched her tongue out to catch the thick, dangling ropes of virile fluids, murring in bliss at the potent taste, before she suckled each drenched finger clean, one by one, with deliberate slowness, showing him how she greedily craved him. She made it slow and deliciously debauched, savoring the thick pre like rich nectar, knowing all too well that, beneath the blanket, Ira and Vesta were already teasing him, each female using two fingers as his enormous member swelled and grew majestically.

"What got into you, all of a sudden...?" Killer amusingly asked, easily seizing both Vesta's and Ira's heads in his hands, grinning as they eagerly pushed up into his palms like kittens. "What's with all this digging for cum in my cumslit...?"

"It is fucking hot!" Vesta ecstatically replied, as she gyrated her fingers inside the vast hole, grinding against Ira's own working fingers. "Takes the breath away to see fingers just vanishing inside... this is not something other boys can get, you know."

"And you always reward the digging with generosity...." Ira breathed, smiling hungrily as she felt more of the thick precum leaking out all over her hand, streaking down her arm.

"Such a mighty, giant cumslit deserves its very own share of worship." Alexis concluded, grinning widely as she pushed her index back inside, her finger squeezed between those of Ira and Vesta as the three females worked together to tease him. "And we see you appreciate it."

"Can't disagree with that..." The huge male replied, grinning widely as he threw his head back with a growl of bliss, feeling the five fingers moving in concert as Gaia and Adrasthea and Alcana slipped under the blanket, their tongues taking turns at sloppily slurping up the thick flood of hot precum that leaked steadily out.

"You always know how to cheer me up." The huge male said after a brief moment, and the girls smiled back softly, before laughing as Vesta licked her lips and cheerfully observed: "It is not that complex."

He snorted in entertainment as he playfully squeezed into her skull, rattling her back and forth, but then he sighed a bit and looked thoughtfully at the burning wood in the fireplace, his voice taking on a serious tone. "I just... feel confused at times, and lost." He finally admitted, dropping his head back and staring at the ceiling for a long moment as he wrapped one arm around Alexis's shoulders, squeezing her closer. "We just went to sleep one night, seeking some rest from the developing crisis on the Mortal Plane... and we ended up in Heaven, caught into an even bigger mess. And now, as if all that wasn't enough, the front of war is expanding to include other worlds, other planets entirely. It... almost makes me wonder if I've not just lost my mind, if this is just a trick an illusion."

"You know it isn't..." Vesta quietly replied, shaking her head slowly. "But I can understand... or at least, imagine what it must be like for you. You've had a lot to learn, and you have had to radically change your vision of the world, getting to know things you used not to believe at all."

"Things have developed much faster than we expected." Ira added, looking at him with a soft smile as she stroked his thick, powerful chest. "When I was told I was going to instruct you, we believed we would have two thousand years to prepare you in Heaven. We did not imagine that Heaven would implode like it did. We did not see clearly just how corrupt the Council was, nor did we imagine how serious Taranis's plans of conquest would turn out to be. We thought the war would stall for a far longer period, and that the Mortal Plane would have been relatively safe for quite some time."

"The original plan was that your two thousand years in Heaven would be followed by as many in Hell, during another mortal night... but clearly, things have changed so much that nothing of that plan is workable anymore." Vesta explained, making a grimace as she thought of just how much the plans had had to change. "We are going to move to Hell within days now, not millennia... and it won't be for training, but right away for messing up Hell's forces from within their home base. Times have been compressed far beyond what I thought possible... and what is worse is that we can expect massive escalation on the mortal plane too, literally any time. In fact, I'm surprised it isn't happening yet. " The queen of Seraphims paused and cupped his cheek in one hand, rubbing at his muzzle slowly as she smiled with affection, looking at him with quiet wonder as she added: "You've plenty of reasons for being confused and worried... but the truth is that you've adjusted faster than we thought possible. You've learned a lot, in such a short time. And you've grown so much stronger... You have done much, Killer... Against all odds, you've overcome everything that this war has thrown at you. You have changed for the better, renewing your choice of doing what is right, even when it seems impossible. You've brought hope in the hearts of so many, and given freedom and relief to me, to Gaia, to Alcana, to Ira... to all of us. You've saved us all from our own monsters, and I now feel more confident than ever that you can save everyone else as well."

Ira nodded in agreement, touching her collar lightly and gazing up at him with a smile, before she grinned as she pointed a finger and stated firmly: "Mind you, this does not mean you shouldn't continue studying and training... but it is true, you know...? Much as I bash on you for being so damn lazy at times, you've actually excelled. You've achieved great results, in far less time than we thought it would take. You've proven yourself stronger than we ever imagined, and you've changed the shape of the world in so many ways now... It never was part of the plan that we would become your Disciples... but that is what happened, and I couldn't be happier."

"Thanks, you all..." Killer quietly replied, smiling slightly as he let their words and their affection soothe his worries, before he looked down at Gaia as he played leisurely with her watery hair, the goddess gazing back up at him, evidently expecting his questions. "But tell me: do you think God has left to go fight back Taranis's plans... or there is something greater still laying beyond, something that we still do not recognize?"

Gaia did not reply immediately, instead taking a deep breath and studying him, before she smiled warmly as she traded soft gazes with the other girls, shaking her head in amused frustration. "Master, you are smarter than you give yourself credit for. You are asking for our opinion, but you already know the answer, don't you...? And we can just say that we reached the same conclusion."

He made a grimace at that, pushing out the air through his fangs and shutting his eyes for a moment before turning his attention to Adrasthea: "So, you are convinced that God left to protect the Anchors...?"

He had been thinking of it ever since he had discussed of the weird obelisk with Vesta: from her explanation, it was all too clear that the whole universe had to be disseminated with similar anchors, meant to keep the very fabric of reality from expanding uncontrollably, in destructive ripples. The destruction of the single obelisk hidden inside the Holy Tree had almost annihilated Heaven whole: the idea that someone wanted to destroy all of the Anchors had fearsome implications.

"We absolutely have to assume so: I think the clues all go in that direction." Adrasthea quietly replied, before adding: "It is also unlikely that Taranis is searching for Anchors: he does not seem to be involved in the plan. He is just working to spread his empire, conquering every world ruled by a divinity who can't withstand his assault. Erra, Deimos and the dragon are helping him... and together, they can quite easily defeat the known gods in the solar systems near to ours: they all used to look to Elelyon for protection and leadership, and now that God is away, they are vulnerable."

"The only planets destroyed are those that Taranis has thrown to Erra, Deimos and the dragon... they do not seem to have searched for Anchors at all. My guess is that Taranis just... tossed those worlds into their fangs, like he was throwing tender morsels to the hounds. It's their pay for their dirty work in his favor: they do not act out of love for their father, that's for sure." Alcana intervened, and Killer listened with attention, nodding slightly: he did not like the implications of what he was hearing, but he could only agree with their conclusions, that matched the reasoning he had done on his own.

"Taranis kept the other planets for himself, and turned them entirely into temples. His kind of temple." Alcana spat, making a grimace as she thought of those civilizations erased and turned into crazed mobs of bloodthirsty warriors locked in a neverending war in which death was never permanent, but just part of the torture. "They are like fuel cells now, each feeding him with immense amounts of energy, minute after minute. He does not want them destroyed, no... on the contrary, he wants even more worlds turned into battlefields, so he can grow stronger still."

"When he'll be ready, when his power has grown enough to give him an unquestioned superiority, he will come back here and impose his rule. The relatively low profile he kept here is due to him not wanting to be on your and Typhon's and Thanathos's bad sides at once, especially with the fear of Elelyon possibly returning home without announcing himself... He does not feel ready yet for such a clash." Adrasthea added, piecing her thoughts together as she curled up against Killer's side, idly stroking his huge arm. "He is trying to build up his power while applying the ever effective 'divide et impera' strategy."

"Yeah, and he did that pretty damn well." Killer muttered, making a grimace as he spat: "Our struggle against Typhon and the Council; Hell's forces rampaging through Heaven and the Mortal plane... they give him the chance to conquer planets while everyone is busy elsewhere. And with the way his powers work, our battles are only making him stronger. This is a golden age for the god of war, and it will get even sweeter for him when Hell and Typhon make their next moves. All he has ever done since I've arrived in Heaven is pushing to accelerate the start of the war between me and Typhon." Killer turned his head to the side with a snarl, closing his eyes as he muttered a curse under his breath. "I've been stupid. And blind. I should have realized it long ago."

"It wouldn't have made any real difference, lover. Too many divinities are using this war as a cover up for greater plans, as a chance to climb to greater, to ultimate power: Typhon has his agenda of conquest. Taranis has his. Thanathos undoubtedly is pursuing his own plans: can you believe that he 'lost control' of the Reapers...?" Alexis paused to snort sarcastically, shrugging a bit and shaking her head briskly as she growled: "I can't. The Reapers drag all souls down to Hell because Thanathos wants so. I'm not sure why, but I'm convinced that when Thanathos says he no longer controls the Reapers, he lies. He has his own plan, of that I'm certain."

Killer nodded silently, biting his lip lightly and silently agreeing with her sentiments, before he prayed: "Please, go on. I feel we are getting closer to understanding what we are struggling against."

"The RA and Sikanjal sit somewhere in the middle of the mess. The New World Order Army, which sounds like a joke now that we have far worse enemies to deal with, remains on the list of the problems as well, and we have yet to understand how it is connected to the RA, though the figure of Vera.

The list of our enemies is long. But a real problem is that not even our enemies themselves know what is happening: at times they collaborate, at times they play into each other's hand unknowingly, at times they clash... but I'm convinced that somewhere, someone is laughing at us all as he watches the events go in a way that suits his own, much greater plans. I'm convinced that someone, somehow, is nudging gods and mortals into pursuing their different plans, to exploit the chaos and get to the Anchors.

Until we find that occult mastermind, our chances to genuinely affect the events are close to zero: even understanding Taranis's plans earlier, what could have we done? We would have made things harder for him, perhaps, but the civil war would have started nonetheless, and soon or later things would have evolved in the same direction.

The only thing that's clear is that we must stop Taranis before his plan succeeds... even if I fear that in so doing we will be paving another stretch of the road for our unseen mastermind." Alexis remarked, squeezing him gently against her warm, delicious body. "There is no alternative, though: if we don't stop Taranis, the mastermind might lose, but we lose as well. If we let Typhon win, it is the same story. We can only keep going, and face them all, one by one."

"I'm afraid you are right, my love... As always." Killer lovingly replied, nuzzling Alexis with affection and then turning slightly to kiss her neck, letting her delightful scent fill his senses. "But couldn't Thanathos be the Mastermind...? We know so little of him, where he hides most of the time, what he does, what are his targets."

"It is possible... but unlikely." Alexis calmly replied, straightening up a bit and pushing back so she could look him in the eye. "He probably is pretty close to the Mastermind... but there are things he does not know, I suspect. For example, I'm convinced that he almost screwed up the plans when he hurled that spear through you while you were absorbing the Black Hole: you could have been not just killed, but completely erased. And I think this would screw the plans of our enemy pretty horribly."

"You think they need... me?" Killer curiously asked, before giving a little sound of realization as he muttered: "My ability to absorb even the Unworld and turn it into energy and power, I bet."

"I think the Mastermind wants you alive. Or, at least, he wants a piece of you from which to learn the secret of your abilities." Alexis confirmed, nodding wisely before holding up two fingers as she added: "The way I see it, the Mastermind is either exceptionally powerful... or surprisingly weak, at least at the moment. He is using gods and mortals like pawns, so you'd think it must be immensely strong, to play with us all like that. But, surprising as it might be, I rather think that the mastermind is actually weak in power, and only exceptionally astute and reckless."

"If it was already so strong... why would it follow such an intricate plan, right...?" Adrasthea mused, arching an eyebrow as she looked to Alexis for a confirmation... and the queen nodded in agreement, snapping her fingers and pointing at her: "Exactly."

"Thanathos is exceptionally powerful and dangerous. More so than Taranis. But on his own, even he isn't powerful enough to act on his own. Nobody in the universe can afford to declare war on everyone else at once, and hope to win. The age of Light and Darkness is long gone: today, no single entity possesses such crushing advantage over the others." Ira reasoned, her finger tracing idle circles on the vast flat of Wyvern's blade as she put her thoughts together. "That advantage now has to be built up, if it is even possible. Typhon is using technology and magic; so is Sikanjal. Taranis can exploit the unique way in which his powers work, and take indirect advantage even from the efforts of the others. But you, Killer... you probably have inside you the real key to unlimited power."

"The efforts of Typhon, Taranis, Thanathos and the others are in open contrast with each other. They do not want to share a great power: each of them wants ALL the power. But I like Alexis's hypothesis about an occult mastermind: there are a few hints pointing to it being true. Taranis, as we know, has extended his fog of war over some areas of the Mortal Plane, and that can't be casual. Typhon has evident access to the most advanced mortal technology." Adrasthea mused, before nodding widely as she added: "Granted, we can't quite say where Sikanjal fits in the picture, nor we understand Thanathos's actions yet... but the RA is connected with Typhon and Taranis, at the very least. Probably Sikanjal too, since mortal technology is part of her power. I'd say the RA is betting on at least three horses in this race."

"Again, exactly." Alexis remarked, before she crossed her mighty arms on her chest as she dropped the key question: "But there is more: what if the RA was supporting all the players at once, taking advantage of their separate plans? What if the RA was taking advantage of our very own actions...?"

"The Mastermind would love it if we did the dirty work for it, killing the other players before any of them could achieve the ultimate victory." Killer muttered, realizing with awe the extent of what Alexis was implying.

"Especially if the Mastermind was currently weak. Weaker than any of the players." Alexis concluded, her lips curling in a little smirk as her thoughts were reflected by theirs. She took no real joy in it, though, due to the horrible implications of those thoughts. For once, she would have preferred to have her hypothesis dismantled. "And the worst part is that we can't just pull out of this sick game. We are into it right to the end, like it or not, even if we know that someone is taking advantage of every single thing we do. "

"So, the Mastermind is hoping to destroy all the Anchors, directly or indirectly... and he thinks he can use my abilities to absorb all the energy that would suddenly be released." Killer mumbled, making a grimace as he was assaulted by the sheer immensity of the power involved in such an apocalyptic plan. All the energy of the universe, all the Original powers of Light and Darkness, the energy of every star, of every living being, of every planet and asteroid and black hole. Power that went beyond any description, any dream, any possibility of even imagining it.

"That's the idea." Vesta confirmed, sitting up a bit on the chaise and squeezing gently into his huge bicep as she urgently remarked: "But we have to assume that the Mastermind's plan is now also Sikanjal's plan: she knows your ability, and she already wanted it for herself. She wanted to turn the Unworld whole into an energy snack... but now she probably has her eyes on the Anchors too. She can't have missed what happened at the Holy Tree, after all."

Killer sighed, closing his eyes and rubbing at them tiredly as he made a grimace, amazed by how complex and how inexorably fucked up things were. He saw no real way out of the problem, no alterative strategy they could try and use. Of course, they needed to discover more about the RA, but how...? He had to squeeze Taranis for information, and hope that he fog of war covering vast areas of the mortal plane was not just a ruse, but a cloak hiding the answers. He needed to get under that cloak at the first chance.

"At least, if I really am the only holder and guardian of that key ability, they will need to come at me at some point. I have no intention of letting them gain access to... to whatever it is that rests inside of me." Killer grumbled, looking moodily down at his own hands and trying to ignore the voice in his mind that was already urging him to seek and unlock that special ability, to develop it and to use it to do himself what the Mastermind desired. It would mean becoming truly and absolutely invincible, the greatest power ever to exist, an unstoppable, invulnerable, omnipotent juggernaut who would literally make the other gods look like dust. He shook his head briskly, chasing away the fantasies and hungers and temptations already flooding his mind as he muttered: "I will destroy myself rather than allow any of them to acquire such power."

"In no circumstances you should think about that." Alexis quickly reprimanded, squeezing him tightly into her embrace, clawing into his flesh a bit as she gazed into his eyes with a prayer and an order at the same time. "Never, never, never... you hear me? Don't you dare leaving me... leaving us."

"Alexis... I certainly don't want to do that, but..." The huge male softly replied, before she silenced him, one finger pressed against his lips as she stated firmly: "No buts, lover. I want you to promise. I don't care what might happen: whatever it will be, we will face it together. But you must never think about throwing your life away."

The huge male looked up at him softly, filled with love and affection for her, and he swallowed a bit as the other girls, the other loves of his life, his family, slowly pushed their own fingers over his lips, gazing down at him with a prayer in their eyes. They had promised him so much, and always delivered. They had given their everything to him, and reaffirmed their promises again and again... and he realized with a shiver that this was the moment in which he had to make a big promise back to them. They deserved this and so much more, and he just couldn't refuse.

"I will always return to you. Always. That's my promise." The huge male solemnly announced, smiling softly as he planted a gentle kiss against each finger, wrapping his arms around the females to squeeze them all in a tight hug, as best he could.

"And you'll better stick to your word on this one... If you put your ass in the fire to keep the word given to Taranis but break the promise made to us, I'm so gonna kick you in the balls." Vesta warned, grinning widely as she pushed nose to nose with him, kissing his lips lightly while lovingly fondling his heavy, enormous balls. Killer smiled at her words, and nodded to reaffirm his vow... before he grinned and seized the tigress by the neck, crushing her throat as he slowly pushed her down towards his hard, immense black shaft, grinding her muzzle against the thick flesh as he softly but commandingly said: "But now you've awakened the beast, you must cater to its hunger..."

Vesta grinned happily at that, beaming as she wrapped her hands around his immense girth, her fingers unable to meet around his enormous thickness as she pumped the black tower of cock, dragging her long, forked tongue up the side of the goliath shaft, right up to the head, taking a moment to slowly slurp under the thick ridge of his glans, licking in slow circles up the fat, massive head until she pressed her lips to the edges of his cumslit, her eyes burning with lust.

"That's a good girl." Killer teasingly approved, taking her hair in his hand and using it to control and dominate her movements, the huge male grinning with a hiss of pleasure as Vesta rolled her tongue quickly against the edges of his vast cumslit, slurping at his hole and mixing her drool with his thick precum, rivulets of the slobber streaking slowly down his godlike length. He grunted in bliss, his massive muscles flexing and bulging as Vesta pushed her long, demonic tongue down into the large hole, teasing the insides of his shaft as the flexible, dexterous appendage twisted and rolled against the inner walls of his urethra, pushing deeper and deeper, while the goddess's eyes glowed with need and ecstasy of her own, watching up at him with adoration.

Alexis licked her lips in approval and gently wrapped her own hands around the immense girth of the male, squeezing firmly into the steel-hard flesh so that his inner walls ground all the better against Vesta's wet, warm tongue, the two goddesses pumping his gigantic cock eagerly and teasing the thick, rope-like veins bulging on the goliath shaft. Ira was all too glad to join in, adding her own hands and dragging her long tongue over his massive medial ring, planting loving kisses up his enormous cum channel, drooling all over the throbbing, criss-crossing network of veins... and in a moment Killer was growling in bliss as all of the girls piled up on him, his hands gripping tightly into Alexis's and Ira's buttocks as the two goddesses took position on either side of his gargantuan cock, and he licked his lips hungrily as their eyes burned with love and lust, fixed on him.

Alcana nibbled teasingly at the thick ridge of his cockhead, pushing her breasts against the enormous shaft as her hands moved in concert with the others', but when she slowly pulled back, she closed her eyes and mumbled: "I hate to ruin the moment, but... I want you to be well prepared. You'll have to put up with me babbling a bit more."

"Please, Alcana... do tell." Killer said, smiling at her with affection as he offered her his arm, pulling her to his side. "Getting ready is what I should actually be doing... but... you know. I'm just bad at being responsible. Fortunately, I have you to bring me back to sense."

"Yeah, well... we clearly aren't that good either." Alexis observed, letting out a small cough of embarrassment... before she just grinned widely and shrugged, winking at him with complicity as she nuzzled the enormous shaft, rubbing her cheek against it. "But hey. This is not the first battle we prepare like this... it has always worked."

"And Lord Killer will make it work again." Alcana confidently said, smiling as she gazed up into his eyes. "But it is important that you never forget that Taranis is a special kind of foe. Just 'hitting' and 'wounding' won't do: pain will not deter him. Wounds that are not decisively incapacitating will only make him more dangerous, giving him energy instead of depriving him of it. They will make him even more aggressive and exalted. Fighting will not tire him, but instead make him stronger, so you have to be quick and decisive. Don't hold back, Killer. Strike as hard as you can, because the longer the fight drags on, the more dangerous Taranis will become."

Killer nodded, taking note of every detail and trying to elaborate each and every implication... but there really was no way to really plan ahead. Each battle was a history in itself, the course of which was determined by the decisions made second after second... and even trying to imagine what it would be like to deal at once with Taranis, with Seth, with Deimos, with Erra, perhaps even with the gigantic dragon that could literally swallow planets whole, it just felt impossible.

"Don't allow Taranis to feed on fighting around him: if he brings you on one of his planet-temples, take merciless advantage of the crowd of mindless, battling beasts that you'll find on them. Don't hesitate, because he won't: You'll need their energy... and if you don't take it, Taranis will." Alcana warned, looking for his reaction: they were both aware that those 'beasts' had once been normal people, living normal lives. A vast majority of them had never committed any crime, any atrocity: they were just innocent victims, turned into warriors condemned to a death-less existence of endless fighting, just so they could fuel the god of war's powers. They deserved to be saved, not destroyed and used as fuel... but Killer was not going to have a choice. There was no way he could win the battle ahead without depriving Taranis of energies and without keeping his own supply very high. Besides, the beasts were going to attack him en masse. And worse, there was no telling if there actually was a way to save them and give their sanity back to them. Hesitation was a luxury that Killer could not afford... but it was a horrible awareness, with disgusting implications, and she could see in his eyes that he would hold back from hitting the crowds in a lethal way, for as long as he could manage. It filled her with warmth, with new affection for him and with new admiration for his determination, for his unwavering commitment to doing what was right... but it also burdened her with worry, because his mercy risked making things even more dangerous and desperate for him.

"And I need Taranis alive..." Killer muttered, making a grimace at the thought. The god of war was the only evident trail they could follow to try and learn something about the RA and its plans... he could not afford to lose that trail. He could think of perhaps two more paths to pursue, but they were not going to be any easier, passing as they did through Typhon and Sikanjal. He needed every bit of information he could gather. "We truly are in a sea of trouble, aren't we...?"

"You don't know how true it is." A well known voice urgently remarked, and Killer looked up towards the archways leading outside of the throne room to see Manticora walking inside, her muscular body fully clad in her heavy battle armour, her Khukri blades hanging from her hips and her massive longbow strapped to her back. The zebra pulled her helmet off and announced: "The Middle Sea is a frigging inferno right now... Anubis is assaulting Orion and causing all the monsters in the frigging ocean to angrily lash out at everything that moves. The garrison urgently needs help: they are reporting that Anubis goes far past what they can handle."

"Anubis used to be pretty weak, for a god. Has he got a suicidal wish?" Adrasthea wondered, as they all leapt to their feet and scrambled to dress up and pick up their weapons, Killer shouldering Wyvern-Azura in one swift, easy movement.

"I'd say he's not that bad anymore. Don't ask me how, but he's gotten far bigger, far stronger and far nastier all of a sudden." Manticora urgently replied, making a grimace of disgust as she explained: "He wears some kind of incredibly bulky armor... I have no idea what it is. It looks like it contains continents whole, and deserts, and buildings. It is bulky, ugly and apparently unpractical. But all the same, it seems to make him invulnerable and enhance all his abilities."

"What the crap can that be...?" Vesta wondered, stepping forwards quickly and picking up her sickleswords while her battle armor arranged itself on her body, the heavy plates moving on their own, easily guided by her godly energies. "There has never been a set of armor with such properties. Is it an exoskeleton with Soulstones, like Sikanjal's...?"

"No, it has no mechanical part, no evident mortal technology nor any visible Soulstone or other power generator of sort." Manticora reaffirmed, snorting in frustration as she tried to find the words to describe it, failing. "It is not something that has ever been seen before: I have no idea how it works: you'll have to judge by yourselves."

Killer made a grimace as a listened, trying to imagine what they would find. He couldn't quite imagine what Anubis had done, but he had no doubts that the situation was every bit as serious as Manticora implied: she was a courageous, skilled and expert warrior and commander. What she said, they believed. He cursed the jackal god under his breath, hating him for his timing: a major battle right before facing Taranis was the very last thing he needed.

The only hesitation he allowed himself, however, was a moment to wait for his enormous member to become flaccid enough to let him struggle into his pants. They were ready very quickly, picking up their weapons and trading a nod before teleporting away, Alexis going first so that her "energy vision" would give them a perfect, instantaneous situational awareness right on the moment when they appeared at her side. Manticora rushed forwards and took position at Killer's side, touching his arm so that he could teleport her too, since she still did not have that kind of power. She had used a portal to reach them in Eaglenest, but there was no way to open a vortex to or from the dungeon, and making her way back to the surface would have consumed precious time.

As they vanished from the spot, they all clearly felt the impulse of energy of the barriers locking automatically into place: It was a defensive system he had put up the moment he had created the dungeon.

Killer's arrogant domination of the prisoners wasn't founded on stupidity: he hadn't locked the gates out of the main chamber, but on the other hand he had made sure to create a powerful system of energy barriers that made the whole dungeon complex impenetrable when he and all his Disciples and lovers were away. He took no chances with security: he wasn't stupid, and he did not want anyone breaking his way out... or, worse, anyone breaking in to set all the prisoners loose. Sikanjal was a threat he had to constantly keep in mind and account in each and every plan.

All other thoughts had to be shoved aside when he reappeared in midair, in the sky above the Middle Sea: he had barely enough time to open his eyes and he winced as he saw one massive trireme vessel, not unlike the one that had brought him to Heaven so many years before, hurling through the sky like a missile, rushing towards him at absurd speed.

Alexis was a few meters ahead, however, and her eyes glowed a burning sapphire as she idly pulled one hand up, holding her palm out towards the ship: it stopped in midair, floating to a stop as the angels and benevolents still bracing for dear life to the parapets and mainmast continued to shriek in blind terror.

The goddess made an idle shooing gesture, and the ship floated away to the left, before flying docilely towards the coast, where it landed gently, with just a quiet thud as its keel settled in the sand.

Putting it down in the sea below, indeed, would have been very much a sentence of death, as the Middle Sea was literally boiling, the non-waters rising in enormous waves and circling in deadly vortexes as the monsters that inhabited that weird and mysterious border dimension between Heaven and Hell all seemed to be raging and lunging after everything that moved.

The next thing he knew, though, was that a gigantic tentacle swung through the sky towards them, and he stared at the vast, car-sized scales, several feet thick and as black as the night, with a blade-like ridge in the middle, that gave the appendage an impenetrable protection that doubled up as a weapon to crush and maim.

Spear-sized arrows of dark and golden energy smashed into the tentacle but bounced off harmlessly, before the colossal tendril smashed into a translucent shield that it just couldn't break through as Alexis pushed one palm out towards it.

The miles-long tentacle distended fully as it ground down against Alexis's barrier, and it unfolded its coil to hurl another bunch of ships towards them, but before Killer could even think about dodging, the goddess had pulled up her other hand and caught two ships and the broken halves of a third into her psychic grip, while Ira and Vesta charged forth with a mighty flap of their angelwings, flying right against the remaining two vessels and catching them by the keel, stopping them like they were softballs, and not triremes weighting thousands of tons.

While Ira and Vesta lifted the ships above their heads like they were toys, teleporting away from the fight to drop them in a safe place to save the terrified crews, Alcana made her own move, diving like a comet before swinging back up from beneath the edge of Alexis's barrier: the dragoness shot forwards with a mighty slap of her vast wings, pulling her heavy halberd up on her shoulder as energy flooded the blade and expanded it, forming a long crescent of crimson, divine fire.

She roared as she spun on the spot and hacked the gigantic weapon down in the crevice between two scales, grinning widely as the blade sunk in deep... but such was the size of the tentacle, that it still made for little more than a flesh wound. She let her energies flow into the weapon, expanding the blade as she dragged the heavy pole, her wings flapping powerfully as she flew in a circle around the immense appendage... and finally the blade ripped free with a gush of dark, almost black blood as the tentacle split and its extremity fell off, crashing into the sea far below with the violence of a meteor, while the lower half retreated and writhed in pain.

With that monstrosity out of the way, Killer could finally see Orion. The island had changed a lot from his last visit, and the change had been for the worst: the port had literally slipped under the waves, a fair part of the town also sunk into the ocean, while most of the remaining streets were clogged by mountains of ruins and debris which were all what was left of the buildings. The monorail bridge connecting the island to the shore was gone, pulverized and sunk by the cataclysm, and the isolated towers that once stuck out of the non-waters of the Middle Sea were all gone with the exception of Betelgeuse, out in the distance.

Most of the town was a pile of ruins, and he could even see the wrecks of ships and boats that the huge waves of the Cataclysm had smashed into the town, all the way against the cliff over which the fortress stood.

The fortress itself, that had looked so mighty and imposing when he had arrived in Heaven, now looked derelict and defeated, one of its three towers reduced to a broken stump, the other looking like it would soon collapse... and even the main, the largest tower, the one topped by the arena where he had once fought, had a scary, large crack going down the middle, nearly breaking the bastion in half.

Dozens of tents, large and small, and many more makeshift shelters, as simple as large tarpaulins pulled over between the wrecks of two ships, dotted the land around the base of the cliff, but already he could see crushed tents, burning shelters and people running, seeking a refuge from the violent attacks of the ocean's monsters and Anubis.

Manticora, as expected, had not exaggerated at all: the titan towering over the island had little to share with the Anubis that Killer had once fought. The jackal god was miles and miles tall, and completely enclosed inside a thick, massive armor set that was bulky and incredibly thick. It was shaped roughly into the form of thick muscle, but not with any kind of precision, so that in the end it looked more like a deep-diving suit of the old times. Only the helm was detailed and truly well shaped, reproducing fairly well the handsome lines of the god's head and face, and even his tall ears. The expression in the god's eyes could not be seen, as they only glowed with golden light through thick windows in the helmet's mask.

At first gaze, Killer thought the eyes of the mask were made of some kind of armored glass or transparent ceramic, but he quickly realized that there were made of water, instead. He seemed to be wearing rivers and seas, compressed to form a flexible and impenetrable layer of protection that also guarded the junctures between the thick, heavy plates of the body armor.

And again, Manticora's words were confirmed as he realized that the pale red of the armor plates came from cliffs of dark stone and vast dunes of reddish desert sand. He frowned and tried to look for the details, but it wasn't easy: the armor plates externally looked almost made of opaque glass, inside of which he could make out deserts of red sand, cliffs and small oasis. In some points it looked like there were buildings in sight as well... he thought he even spotted a vast temple, flanked by pyramids, and he found himself muttering: "What the fuck is that thing...?"

The massive armor had no tail, but in its place were the roots of a bundle of tentacles like the one Alcana had just chopped: they were enormous, stretching for miles in every direction inside the Middle Sea and even into the air, and they held the god up into the air, his feet suspended hundreds of meters above the waves. He easily held up an enormous golden battle staff, which terminated in a heavy mace jutting with ragged blades and spikes. Dark energy extended from the mace in a long crescent, forming the blade of a scythe that crackled constantly with malicious energy... and his sole presence seemed to be accelerating the decay of the already damaged fortress, as winds of dark force battered the cracked towers and sent enormous blocks of stone flying like specks of dust. The angels of the garrison were desperately trying to at least gain his attention as the few ships left in one piece attempted to leave, loaded to the brim with terrified civilians, but the fire of the tower-mounted artillery pieces did not have any effect on the armored god: the massive shells just crashed into the thick, mysterious armor, piercing with ease the glass-like surface and then all but vanishing without causing any damage.

Anubis only loomed over the island, grinning under the mask as he let his sole presence spread panic and destruction, as the humble tents and shelters were blown into pieces and the once mighty towers wobbled and trembled. The benevolents had nowhere left to run, trapped by the angry sea on top of an island that felt smaller than ever with the jackal god looming above. Some ships were still trying to leave the coast, but most people did not want to even try, after seeing the previous flotilla in part annihilated by the monsters of the Middle Sea, in part sunk by the sheer ferocity of the angry sea and in part crushed within the coils of Anubis's tentacles, or thrown by them into the sky.

Seraphims, including Dark Wings wearing Killer's collar, flew in orbits around the malicious jackal, searching for a weak spot in the armor and firing their powerful, heavy arrows, but it all seemed entirely futile, as no amount of energy was ever enough to cause any damage. It was power far beyond what Anubis had once enjoyed, and the jackal seemed content with just hovering there, showing off, humiliating them by making all their attempts entirely fruitless.

The arrival of Killer and the others, however, was clearly what the jackal had been waiting for, as his attention immediately turned to them, a toothy grin spreading on the mask of his helmet as he spread his enormous arms in welcome, booming: "Lord Killer, so nice of you to come. I knew that stomping out a town would get you out of your Sanctuary... and I hear that there is a special someone related to you in this very town."

What...? Killer frowned, thinking rapidly of where all his friends and lovers were, and no one, for all he knew, was in Orion. Of course, a lot of innocent people were down on the island, on the other hand... including those kids that had cheered him and ran in circles around his legs when he had first arrived in Heaven. Hell, even the sweet little girl that back then had been so kind and welcoming... she could have been down there, in one of the tents. Or she could have already perished, in the Cataclysm, or she could have gone down with any of the many ships sunk, or she could be buried under any of the many collapsed buildings... it hurt him to core to think of such possibilities, yet he knew all too well that many kids, women and men had no doubt ended their days in the non-waters of the Middle Sea, or under mountains of ruins. He had no idea what might have happened to that little girl and her friends. The victims had been numerous, that was certain... telling himself any different would have only been lying.

"I have no idea what you are talking about, dog." Killer coldly replied, his deep voice sounding no less powerful and menacing, even though he hadn't sized up at all.

"Oh, really...?" The jackal taunted, grinning viciously as he swung the pole of his mace-scythe onto his shoulder, cocking it back and preparing to lash out a fearsome end blow, cackling: "Then you won't mind if I erase this piece of dirt they call island."

Anubis swung the enormous mace without hesitation, Killer rushing ahead just as rapidly, closing the distances to try and spot all the survivors on the island, or at least trying to feel all of their energy signatures. Alexis understood what he was trying to do and focused her sixth sense on the vast camps of tents and shelters, her eyes glowing with power as she took psychic grip of every soul she detected, teleporting them towards Eaglenest. At the same time, the goddess pushed her hands forwards, making a gripping gesture with one and shoving with the other... and Anubis snarled as his mace smashed into an invisible but unbreakable shield, bouncing back with tremendous violence, the pole almost breaking his fingers as it threatened to burst out of his grip, before he struggled against a gigantic, invisible hand that seized his weapon and dragged it backwards, away from Orion.

The jackal roared in rage, turning towards Alexis and sending his tentacles lunging for her, each immense appendage ending in a deadly, sharp triangular tip greater than a whole trireme.

Alexis flapped her enormous wings, propelling herself backwards and out of the way of the first vicious stab, while Ira lashed out with her arm, sending her supercharged chains whipping through the sky, each ending in a hooked blade. They shot past a couple of tentacles, and the cobra grinned as she snapped her arm back, causing the chains to curve backwards, swinging around the immense appendages and wrapping around them several times as the blades clashed into the armored scales, sparkles exploding from the impact until the hooks found purchase in the crevices.

The goddess roared as she gripped into the chains and pulled back with all her monstrous strength, tearing the tentacles away from Alexis. The ligeress let the shield drop and let go of Anubis's scythe, instead turning her attention to the tentacles, her eyes burning sapphire as she slashed her arm out and a blade of golden energy chopped the chained tentacles in half like they were blades of grass. At the same time, Alexis dodged another warship-sized spike, flying above its vicious stab and then dropping down on it, stomping both feet into its body and sending it crashing down into the sea far below as fragments of the scales exploded like shrapnel all around her.

The slivers absurdly stopped in midair almost in the same instant, however, the jackal smirking as he took hold of them and sent them exploding back towards Alexis, pelting her from every direction... but Alexis saw it coming almost twelve seconds before it happened, ghost images playing in her mind as her sixth sense read the flows of energy to tell her the immediate future.

Anubis blinked in shock, floating backwards as he gazed from side to side, searching her... before he hissed in rage more than pain as he felt the bite of Blue Vixen, Alexis's sword, into another of his tentacles. The ligeress ran down the length of the appendage, her muscular legs ramming world-breaking stomps into the tentacle as she devoured a three miles run in mere seconds, dragging her sword behind her as its blade pierced deep into the tendril, cutting scales and flesh with the same fearsome ease.

The tentacle split in half down the middle as Alexis leapt off it and towards another, but she was immediately assaulted by new ghost images and she flipped in midair, turning to face downwards as the two halves shot up at her like hungry jaws, clamping closed around her as the wound instantaneously sealed itself.

"You thought it would be that easy...? You are wrong! The old Anubis is no more: now I'm the one in charge!" The jackal god cackled, laughing as his eyes turned dark, black smoke seeming to float out of them as he took the pole of his enormous weapons back in his hands and turned to look down at Orion, while winds of malicious energy began to blow violently around him, slapping the Seraphims away like they were flies.

Ira grunted in surprise, gaping a bit as she saw Alexis vanishing inside the reformed tentacle... and she snarled as she sent her energies burning down the length of her chains, turning the sharp, blade-like links into deadly, superheated and electrified weapons that melted and cut their way through the thick scales as she wrestled against the tentacles she had bound.

She wanted to chop them into pieces and move over to help Alexis... but she snarled in shock instead as Anubis emerged in front of her, his torso morphing out of one of the enormous scales of the tentacle, seemingly made of a goo that she couldn't really identify. The jackal grinned in her face, his muzzle dripping drops and ropes of the semi-liquid stuff but his fangs looking all too solid, just as did his arms as they morphed into two massive cleaver blades than he immediately slashed down against her. "I'm stronger than ever... no, I'm invincible... and you will only be my first toys!" The clone teased, laughing maniacally as it reached for the cobra. Ira kicked off of the tentacle and used her wings to move backwards out of the way, as the whole tentacle suddenly became made of the same rubbery, semi-liquid stuff and her chains slipped through it without causing any damage. The Anubis clone grinned toothily as it leapt out of the tentacle, his legs forming from what was initially just a shapeless mass of dark mush, but Ira lunged between the cleaver blades and smashed her powerful fist in his face. It exploded, torn off his shoulders as much of his upper body simply disintegrated... but what was left of him burst forth and splashed against her body, quickly going from liquid to a strong, tough rubber that wrapped around her limbs and tried to constrain her.

The massive goo-tentacle morphed into an elongated whip jutting with deadly spikes, and it began to slash viciously through the sky as Vesta and the others fought to get closer: the spikes widened, and large holes opened on the tips, turning them into cannons that fired thick gouts of the dark goo, each quickly taking the shape of Anubis.

The sky filled with clones, and all laughed as they lunged against the goddesses, their assault continuing undaunted even as Vesta cut to bits everything that came close to her and Gaia's eyes glowed, her arms spread wide as she conjured a wall of dark flames, guiding it in the way of the groups of clones, burning them into a dark smog that made them grimace with its stink, that assaulted their eyes with such ferocity to almost make them blind.

Gaia floated higher into the sky with a snarl, flying out of the venomous cloud as clear, cold winds began to spiral around her form, blowing the smog away, and Vesta and Manticora rushed forwards into the thick of the fight, the zebra keeping slightly behind the goddess, giving support fire with her deadly longbow while Vesta tore her sicklesword across clone after clone.

Ira roared in fury as the rubber bands compressed her ribcage, more and more goo splattering over her as Anubis tried to encase her in a dark sarcophagus, her enormous musculature bulging as she struggled against the god's force... before she hissed in ferocious rage as the goo stabbed into her body from every direction, hundreds of spikes and blades springing out of the rubber-like substance and tearing into her flesh. She gritted her fangs in pain, but her lips nonetheless crested into a grin as she felt the blades colliding with her reinforced bones, unable to cause any damage, bouncing back or shattering as they rammed into the thickly armored "box" that contained her strange, enhanced organs. Her hiss of pain turned into one of almost pleasure as her eyes glowed a deep, burning emerald and she flexed, her musculature bulging explosively and crushing the blades and spikes into nothing but mush, forcing it back out of her body as she quickly regenerated, her wounds vanishing... before hellfire surged out of her form, the goddess cackling as she let the flames warm her powerful form while they consumed the goo into nothing but dark smoke. "You might be different, but we have changed too..." The cobra amusedly said, rolling her shoulders slowly as she floated forwards, her hand shooting up to grab the handle of Arctica and drawing the long, elegant blade just as the next Anubis clone lunged at her, the katana slicing through its chest and breathing a cruel, freezing mist onto it, turning the two halves into solid blocks of ice that immediately exploded into slivers as the goddess lashed down a kick through them. The tiny pieces of ice melted away to nothingness around her, too quickly dissolved by her energy for the goo to attempt to pool back together and attack again... and she grinned as she savored her new power, only laughing as another clone stabbed an enormous cleaver sword forwards, her fingers wrapping on the edge of the blade. Blood sprayed up from the wound and the sword bit deep down to her bones, but she barely hissed in annoyance at that, instead flexing her massive bicep as she bent the blade into a U like it was made of wet paper, while almost idly stabbing Arctica right through the clone's forehead, freezing it solid before dragging it against the muscular, powerful front of her body, laughing as it disintegrated.

She again turned to the tentacle that had swallowed Alexis, but she stopped almost immediately, a smirk spreading on her lips as she felt the energies of the goddess, immense and burning hot, coming from inside the appendage. She immediately knew that Alexis was okay... and so she turned towards the base of the tentacles instead, eagerly charging forwards into the flood of clones, ignoring their hits as she focused some of her energies on hardening her scales... and in a moment she became almost invulnerable to their weapons, the blades shattering as they slammed into her abs as smashed down Anubis after Anubis, her body surrounded by a mixed aura, half made of boiling how fire of passion and lust and half made by cold, icy discipline. She became unstoppable, freezing and melting the goo so that every punch and slash of Arctica snuffed dozens of the dark figures. Her collar glowed with her energies and with Killer's power, her ecstasy fueling the huge male's own stamina and strength as she thanked him over and over for the immense power he had gifted her.

Gaia grinned widely as she saw Ira using ice to such great effect, and her eyes flashed as the winds around her suddenly became so cold that reality itself seemed to freeze to a stop, a deadly mist surrounding her before she sent the cold hurricane smashing into the horde of clones, turning them into statues of ice by the dozens, before blasting them into snow with a mere thought, sending a shockwave of pure power slapping into them even as she flew forwards, flexing her new, powerful muscles and grinning as she began to lash out punches and kicks that tore clone after clone apart. Physical strength... she had always had lots of it, but now she had so much more... and she had muscle now, bulky, perfect, potent. She had never really felt strong when she was lithe and slender and small. She loved her new body, it was an ancient dream come true.

And Vesta, delighted in finding out the extent of the power boost she herself had received, seemed to fully understand Gaia's pleasure and hunger and bloodlust, as the queen of Seraphims stuck close to her and swung her deadly sickleswords down through another frozen clone, breaking it into shards that melted away to nothing just by being so near to the two goddesses. The two females traded a grin, their eyes flashing... and in a moment, their personal, friendly challenge was set, as they leapt from clone to clone, Gaia laughing as she rammed her fist through chests like they were made of paper, cracking the iced-over goo into tiny particles; as she slapped heads off, as she lashed out a roundhouse kick that broke six clones in half like they were toys. Vesta was no less savage, grinning widely as she used her mighty wings to shoot forwards like a comet, dropping her shoulder as she smashed into clone after clone, ramming through them with unstoppable force, a cold tail of mist marking her passage and the end of so many copies of Anubis, as she used her fists to pulverize heads and entire bodies, her sickleswords cutting through the ranks of the enemy like scythes through crop.

Below them, Adrasthea and Alcana were collaborating to reach the enormous roots of the tentacles stretching out of Anubis's back: the goddess of strategy opened the way, holding up her massive shield and using it to project her burning energy forwards, a hurricane of incandescent force shooting forwards as a vast beam of destruction. It melted the clones into foul smoke, and forced many others to scatter and take wide turns on the flanks... but the goddess's other hand held her hybrid spear-sword weapon, its elongated, twin-edge blade crackling with electricity as she stabbed a clone through the head before twisting her wrist, swinging the long weapon out like it was a sword and chopping two more down into pieces as they charged against her.

Alcana, following slightly behind, protected the other side and the rear, her heavy halberd slapping two clones flying backwards into three others, sending them crashing out of the sky, before they flipped and lunged again towards her, roaring and spitting acid and venomous fog. The dragoness opened her jaws with a snarl of her own, a sphere of white fire forming in her maws before beams of super-focused draconic flames shot out of it, ramming into the clones like javelins. On impact, the vast, incandescent darts splattered over the clone's bodies, covering them entirely in a merciless inferno of supernatural heat... and they were melted away, unable to even produce their smog. The two goddesses tore a path through the thick enemy ranks, halberd chopping bodies into pieces and slapping others away like dolls and the hybrid spear finely slicing the Anubis copies, electricity consuming the fragments until they lost coherence and rained into the ocean like drops of dirty water.

As the battle raged on, Killer had exploited the brief opening to land on Orion, his feet crushing rubble and stones and ruins as he dropped from the sky, his eyes gazing quickly from side to side, spotting kids and mothers and casualties hiding as well as they could under the tents or behind damaged walls, even inside one of the shattered, overturned ships. They had weak energy signatures and weak voices, their prayers and their very living essence hard to detect from far away, drowned out as they were by far greater sources of power all around the island, from Anubis to the goddesses to the monsters of the Middle Sea. Now, though, he was able to see or detect more of them, and he quickly teleported each survivor away from the doomed wasteland that Orion had become.

He ran through the miserable city of tents, focusing his senses to catch each and every sign of life, his feet leaving deep crater-prints in the rubble as he moved with monstrous, supernatural speed, the ground rattling as the wind he created ripped the tents and shelters apart, before stone walls began exploding into dust and pebbles as he charged through the walls of the few buildings left standing, trying to make sure he located everyone.

There was no time to be gentle, and many terrified faces looked up from dark corners, shrieking as the gigantic male smashed his way in and out of homes and buildings, women and men cowering and crawling away from that behemoth before vanishing from the spot as he teleported them all away. Someone will take care of you at Eaglenest... sorry, but there really is no time for courtesy.

_ _

"How is it like, Killer, to be the ant...? Because that's what you look like from up here!" Anubis boomed, the jackal cackling as his gigantic tentacles pushed him higher into the sky and allowed him to get closer to the island. The liger snarled as he darted a look up towards the gigantic god filling the sky, and Anubis lashed out a brutal kick, his colossal foot slamming into the first of the three towers of the fortress, making it explode in a vast cloud of dust as fragments and heavy blocks of stone were sent hurling like hailstorm towards Killer. The foot of the jackal tore through the first tower like it wasn't even there, hitting the second and with the same ease smashing through to pulverize the third as well, annihilating the whole fortress in one easy swoop.

Killer leapt past one enormous boulder that crashed in front of him, grunting as he landed and ducked under another, ignoring the smaller fragments and rocks as they bounced off him without effect, before he lashed out his arm into a huge chunk of tower that came down over his head, shattering it into dust.

Anubis laughed, holding his enormous mace-scythe by the pole as his tentacles slithered onto land, crushing the coastline under their immense mass, pushing more of the beaches and of the ruined town under the waves as the ground cracked and shifted, the cliff breaking apart in several areas as the Jackal loomed right above. "Run, little kitty, run...!" The dog god teased, before stomping down with both of his enormous bare feet, cackling as their mass caused the air to blow into a real tornado, slapping tents and ruins away.

Killer snarled and glared up at the jackal, his talons digging trenches into the rubble as he was blown backwards by the wind... but as the gigantic paws rushed down and darkness fell over him, his lips curved up in a grin as his hand reached for Wyvern's handle.

He drew out the gigantic sword and swung it tip up, bracing as he thrust upwards with both hands seizing the long main handle, and the blade glowed with merciless hunger, crackling with his energies as he stabbed it up into the dog's centre pad.

The sole of the jackal did not seem covered by armor... but as it rushed down, Killer gritted his fangs as he understood his senses had betrayed him: the armor was there, immensely thick but almost invisible, made as it was by a transparent layer of clear waters, energy and... open air...? What the fuck is this armor...?

Killer did not try to teleport away or retreat, instead leaping up to meet the falling foot, roaring as he stabbed Wyvern upwards, his muscles bulging explosively as he pushed with all his strength.

The blade slammed into the armor, screeching against it as it failed to pierce through, sparkles and thunderbolts of energy flying from the clash: Killer had enough time to snarl in a mix of rage and disappointment as his newly empowered weapon failed the first great test, before Wyvern silenced him by slicing through the outer layer of the armor, cutting deep into it. He shoved hard up, and the blade sunk inside, right to hilt: it was easy, but ultimately futile, as the actual flesh of Anubis was still far away. He tried to morph the sword to grow the blade's length, but it proved impossible, and as he tried to pump energy into the Azura swords to fire it out against the Jackal's sole, a mysterious force inside the armor drained it all away.

Before he could do anything else, he gritted his fangs and prepared for impact, his feet ramming into the ground and his spine creaking painfully as Anubis's stomp hit home, the enormous mass of his paws crushing the whole northern part of the island, flattening the cliff and cracking the stone into gravel as Orion fractured and most of the island sunk deep under the non-water of the Middle Sea.

Anubis snarled in disbelieving rage as he felt one of his feet held up, repealed, while the other effortlessly crushed the resistance of the island, turning its volcanic stone base into nothing but dust. Killer winced in pain as his spine painfully bent, but he pushed up with all his force, and resisted even as the ground under his feet exploded into gravel and dust, while the island around him almost entirely vanished. The non-waters of the Middle Sea flooded the crater, crashing down on his back with a deafening roar, and he was pervaded by an uncontrollable cold: it had nothing to do with ice, which he could easily control. It was some kind of spiritual coldness, a freezing grip on his soul and on his living essence that left him breathless, his mouth opening and closing as a white, icy mist left his nostrils, his eyes going wide with shock.

In a moment, the non-water completely covered him, and he fell into the most complete darkness, his eyes completely useless and his senses dramatically depleted as well. It was like being encased in thick jelly, each movement slowed down and made much more difficult and energy consuming, and the gigantic foot above him continued to thrust down mercilessly as Anubis stomped down again and again, with all his power.

Killer snarled in fury, the water around him boiling as energy pumped in his veins, muscles bulging explosively as he shoved up against the enormous foot, the liger floating upwards through the thick non-water as golden flames of raw, brutal power burst out of his form, vaporizing the jelly surrounding him and forming a breathing space of clean air, a shaft that he exploited to thrust with renewed ferocity.

Anubis's grin died down, his lips cresting in a snarl of hate and disbelief as his foot was irremediably forced back up and out of the waters, no matter how much force he applied... and the jackal barked his outrage as Killer rammed his shoulder into his sole and sent him stumbling backwards, his tentacles slipping as he nearly fell on his ass.

Before he could steady himself, blinding golden light burst out like a dawn from the base of the enormous black tentacles stretching out of his back. Killer grinned, knowing what was about to happen and only eager to enjoy the show as Alexis smashed her way out from one of the gigantic appendages. She flew out with a flap of her huge wings, spun in the air with elegance and threw a large, sun-like sphere of concentrated energy into the tangle of tentacles: it burst on impact, producing a devastating explosion that ripped the tendrils into shreds, their miles-long bodies writhing in agony as they fell into the ocean while black goo leaked from the destroyed base. Anubis suddenly fell towards the ground, grunting in shock more than pain, and before he could react Alexis lashed out a turning kick in the base of his spine, slamming the dog back towards Killer.

Alexis looked tiny in comparison to the miles-tall titan, yet her kick carried a monstrous force, slamming the jackal down into the sea... and Killer grinned as he leapt up into the sky, cocking back Wyvern and loving the new weight of the massive weapon, loving how it readily drank of his energies like it was a natural extension of his arm, before he stomped down on the muzzle of the jackal's mask and charged towards one of the eyes.

The liger roared as he swung Wyvern forwards and stabbed it right through the eye of the mask, finally able to see Anubis's own eye behind, and his muscles bulged explosively as the thick armor tried to repeal the heavy sword, before finally cracking as the crimson blade pierced deep.

But Anubis grinned widely, then laughed loudly as he easily caught himself, stopping his fall and floating easily above the waves before whole new tentacles quickly reformed out of his back, whip-lashing ferociously against Alexis, forcing the goddess to retreat with a snort of distaste.

"Such vigor and such skill, as always..." Anubis teased, his eye glowing from behind the transparent armor, as the waters and winds composing it formed a vortex around Wyvern, crushing the blade motionless, trapping it inexorably as Killer tried to rip it back out. "But as I said before, I'm not the same Anubis you knew in the past... I've reached a whole new level, and you just don't worry me anymore."

The jackal straightened, floating higher up into the sky and grinning widely as the goddesses charged towards him: he swung one hand out, and an array of dark daggers made of crackling energy appeared in front of his chest, each gigantic sword shooting like a missile towards one of the girls.

Killer snarled, unable to watch out for them as Anubis cackled and continued to blast daggers across the sky, and the liger cocked back one heavy fist, flames of golden energy bursting between his fingers before he smashed his blow against the thick armor, looking right down into Anubis's eye.

There was a blinding, deafening explosion as Killer's energy blasted against the transparent armor, and the liger threw himself backwards as soon as he felt the crushing hold on Wyvern loosening somewhat. His biceps bulged explosively as he tore the sword back and leapt away, tossing a sphere of focused energy against Anubis's muzzle as he flew backwards with a mighty flap of his wings.

Before the sphere could strike, however, the surface of the armor-mask rippled and a dark monstrosity leapt out, devouring the projectile of energy and swallowing it down with a hungry snarl... before the drooling, gooey jaws of the beast opened again and a burning beam of corruption exploded back towards Killer.

The liger pushed out one hand and formed a large wall of energy, using it as a shield as the dark smog washed over him, slamming him backwards... before he gritted his fangs as the shield cracked, and solid blades of corruption broke through, shooting into his chest and sinking deep into his flesh.

Blood exploded out of his wounds, as the corruption sprouted with hooks that caught deep within his body, making him growl in agony as he stumbled backwards... before the black monstrosity rammed through the damaged shield and snapped its jaws at him.

Killer flew backwards with a wince of pain and a flap of his wings, twisting under the beast's chin and stabbing Wyvern upwards, pushing the thick blades into the top of the monster's mouth, through its skull and out of the other side.

The beast faltered for a brief moment, but then began to shake its head from side to side, trying to rip free from Wyvern's bite... and Killer snarled in surprise as the monster's chest split down the middle, becoming an enormous mouth lined with rips as pointed as spears and cruel, ragged fangs of bone. The beast arched its back, using its hind paws to claw at Killer's legs, pushing its belly-turned-mouth towards the liger; Killer reacted out of instinct, shoving his hand forwards and blasting a hurricane of fire into the horrid mouth, snarling as the explosion ripped the beast into tatters of dark goo.

The liger flexed his musculature, pushing out the cruel blades sticking out of his chest, gripping the more stubborn ones and ripping them out of his flesh, even as he coughed up a thick gout of dark blood before hissing in pain as his flesh began to fight back the infection and regenerate. He was given no respite, as more dark beasts leapt towards him. Wyvern flashed with energy as he used the Azuras to fire crescent-shaped blades of golden force into the first wave, chopping the monsters into shreds before slapping another back with the flat of his massive sword.

Killer looked upwards in time to see another wolf-like creature leaping towards his head, jaws open wide, and he drove Wyvern through its chest, swinging the sword hard upwards to throw the monster away, hurling it through the sky as it was torn in halves. Another beast immediately took its place, but a salvo of spear-sized arrows crashed into it, blowing it backwards like a toy as Manticora nocked a new group of darts into her longbow...

And Killer exploited the opening, charging directly at Anubis as Gaia flew nearby and sent an icy, cruel wind crashing into the jackal's chest, encasing Anubis's torso in shiny ice. The liger grinned, slamming his heavy sword into the armor, made brittle by the ice, and the impact sent fragments exploding in every direction, a cold mist surrounding him.

He narrowed his eyes, trying to see through the icy cloud... and he gaped slightly as he saw that only the ice had shattered: the armor was unfazed.

He saw Alexis assaulting from the opposite direction, moving with the speed of lightning as she slashed Blue Vixen hard into Anubis's body, the blade glowing with her power as she sought a weak spot in the armor, striking the shoulder joint, the spine, the lower back, the groin... but the armor seemed simply unassailable, only sprouting with new dark monstrosities that swarmed against them.

"It is so cute and so funny to see you tiny bugs trying so hard..." Anubis cackled, looking down at them with a wide grin. "I will love every moment of your demise. I'll make it extra slow and extra humiliating!" The jackal laughed loudly, then threw his arms out as he flexed, arching his back with a roar as he let his energies surge through his form until they exploded outwards in a pulse-wave of fearsome power.

Killer, Alexis and all the others were hit by the solid wall of dark energy and slapped out of the sky, crushed down towards the Middle Sea as their vision was clouded over by dark fog. Killer fought to regain control, to slow his fall, but the dark fog clamped down hard on his wings and body, making each movement as slow as if he was trying to swim inside concrete... and he let out a cry of pain as he smashed hard into a wrecked building on the island of Orion, crashing through three walls before sinking deep into the solid ground. Alexis crashed not far away, and both lovers panted for a moment as the dust settled, before both began to push back up to their feet, flexing against the dark smog binding them until they managed to break free.

"Any ideas...?" Killer muttered, slashing his arm out to crumble the large pieces of ruins covering him into nothing but dust and gravel as he sat up with a wince of pain. Even more than the pain, the humiliation and frustration were becoming unbearable, as they were beaten back by an enemy that, normally, was absolutely inferior to their possibilities. Whatever the armor covering Anubis was, it was giving him an immense power boost and opening up abilities that the jackal was not supposed to possess.

Alexis snarled through gritted fangs as she leapt to her feet, flexing her massive musculature as her body regenerated and worked to heal the wounds as quickly as it could. Just like for him, though, if not in an even worse way, pain came also from her wounded pride. She could not believe what was happening... and she wanted to make sure it would not last. "We are flailing around stupidly, approaching the problem from the wrong angle. We will not be able to take him down like this... we must first either rip him out of that armor, or get inside it ourselves."

"How, though...?" Killer urged, before they snorted in frustration as Anubis's cackle deafened them from above, the jackal quickly moving towards them, carried by the tangle of his immense tentacles.

"I'm not done with you two, bugs...! How does it feel, huh...? How does it feel to be the hopeless ones...?" Anubis teased, laughing loudly as his eyes glared down at the ligers.

Killer and Alexis traded a gaze and a tiny nod, and immediately leapt high into the sky, shooting off to the opposite directions: Anubis only grinned, though, shaking his head slowly before his head seemed to shift slightly to the side as a second one appeared, along with a second pair of arms that pushed out of his back, brandishing two enormous war axes.

"Splitting up won't help you, not even if you multiply yourselves...!" The jackal cackled, as one head turned towards Killer and one followed Alexis's own movements. The god swung his enormous scythe up towards Alexis, seeming to rip the sky itself apart as crackling dark energy trailed behind the blade, and the goddess grunted in pain as thunderbolts of that obscure force crashed into her, slamming her out of course.

Her muscles spasmed as she coughed out a gout of blood, all the air violently forced out of her lungs as her nerves burned agonizingly and her vision faded and became uncertain. She felt herself dragged through the air and immediately knew that she was rushing towards the scythe. Alexis slashed Blue Vixen blindly out in front of her, as even the ghost images in her mind became blurred and confused by the pain and the electroshock, but her lips still crested in a little smirk as her blade made contact with the scythe.

The impact was fearsome, and she grunted breathlessly as an explosion of energy blasted her backwards, but she pushed back with all her strength, snarling as her muscles bulged explosively.

Anubis grunted in shock as he stumbled backwards, the enormous scythe knocked back with such violence that the pole nearly smashed in his face, and the ropes of dark energy wrapped around Alexis exploded into weak motes. The jackal used the tentacles coming out of his spine to spring against Alexis as she broke loose of the chains, and he swung the giant battleaxe against her.

The goddess, however, took full advantage of her agility, ducking under the first slash and then dodging to the side as the dog god roared in frustration and swung the enormous weapon back. She flew right into the flat of the gigantic blade, stomping her feet into it and knocking his arm out wide as she charged up along the blade, her steel-soled boots ripping gauges in the axe as she threw a small but highly charged sphere of energy right at his face.

Anubis leaned forwards with a snarl, opening his jaws and biting down ferociously on the sphere, breaking it into motes of energy, while the flat of his axe rippled like water, and Alexis felt her feet sinking inside the weapon. Before she could do anything, she had sunk down to the waist and the dark metal had solidified again, leaving her trapped and hissing in pain as the metal tried to tear right through her torso... before an Anubis made of liquid metal pushed out of the blade, standing right before her and wearing a cruel grin as it lashed down a copy of the giant scythe-mace.

"Quit the bullshit, bitch...!" Alexis growled, catching the spiked head of the heavy mace in her hand as it swung down towards her head: the metallic Anubis looked stupidly down to see the metal crumpled like paper in her grip before she lifted him high up into the air. He abandoned the mace-scythe, dropping down towards her face as his limbs became deadly conical spikes of dark metal, but the goddess's eyes burned sapphire as she blasted him into droplets of liquid with a blast of her psychic force.

Her musculature bulged explosively as she gritted her fangs in a snarling grin and walked forwards, the metal of the axe groaning and bending before loudly cracking, snapping apart while overheating at the same time, becoming red-hot, then bright white as it melted around her, the goddess running through the blade of the axe like it wasn't even there.

More metallic clones surged from the flat of the blade to assault her, but Alexis charged through their ranks with unstoppable force: the first that leapt at her was first chopped in half by a slash of Blue Vixen and then slapped back into his comrades with a hard blow of the flat of the sapphire sword. Three clones were sprawled like pins, but others surged up all around her, and arms pushed out of the axe to seize her ankles, to claw into her calves, to grab her legs and restrain her.

They didn't even manage to slow her down, several arms torn asunder as she continued to run forwards, tearing through their resistance with sheer power, her speed building up instead of dropping. Blue Vixen growled as she squeezed the trigger in the handle and sent out a long burst of supercharged rounds that rammed into the chest of another clone, knocking it backwards before all the bullets exploded and broke the metallic creature down into splatters of white-hot molten steel.

The droplets shot against her, splattering over her body and trying to encase her in a metallic prison, but her energy burned so intensely to consume the drops and make every attempt of solidification impossible. A clone charged forwards, his arms turned into massive cleaver blades that he swung wildly at her, but Alexis brought Blue Vixen up in a hook that caught the two blades into the spikes of hers, trapping both arms and forcing them wide out to the side: the clone had enough time to gape in shock before the goddess's other hand balled in a fist and smashed into its head, causing it to explode in a splatter of molten metal, before another clone stabbed a huge spear towards her. She twisted in midair, turning sideways to dodge the long weapon, slamming her palm up into the pole and knocking it off the fake Anubis's hands, catching it herself. She spun the spear easily, turning its sharp blade against the clones themselves as she thrust the weapon through three of them, before laughing as she spun on the spot and swung the spear and the impaled clones in a windmill, knocking over a whole group of other anubites.

It all happened within instants: more and more clones swarmed against her to try and take her down, and she cut through their ranks like a scythe, not even slowed down: two clones assaulted her from behind, but she spun Blue Vixen under her armpit and stabbed it backwards through one, while ramming her elbow into the head of the other, knocking the clone on his knees, dazed. He had no time to react, his head caught between her thighs... and with a flex, she crushed him into pulp before one of her legs lashed up in a hook kick that tore through the waist of two more, breaking them literally in halves.

As she reached the edge of the axe, tentacles lined with cruel blades and spikes of golden steel stretched out of her musculature back, slashing into the crowd of clones and sending dozens down into a mist of molten metal and broken body parts, as the tentacles impaled, crushed, and ground enemies into liquid as their long, powerful bodies twisted together.

The "real" Anubis snarled as she leapt right towards one of the two heads, his eyes glowing with fury as he snapped his fangs at her, his colossal jaws almost taking her in before his tongue morphed into a gigantic black snake that lunged at her and vomited a thick gout of acid poison. Alexis, however, folded her wings and let herself fall out of the sky, dodging the assault before spreading her large wings again and swinging up towards Anubis's chin.

Before he knew what had happened, Anubis recoiled backwards with a howl of fury as Alexis kicked his muzzle up, his head snapping back so violently that his neck nearly broke. The goddess snarled in disappointment as she saw that there was no vulnerable juncture in the armor: even as his throat was now displayed in front of her, a thick coating of flexible armor, made of water and air, connected the armor to the thick helmet, leaving not a single inch of flesh uncovered. Still, such junctures were probably the less well protected areas, and she gritted her fangs as she pointed the palm of her hand down at his neck, blasting an endless succession of spheres of energy right into his throat. They exploded in enormous blasts, first cracking the outer layer of energy, then smashing through and exploding into the weird ocean apparently contained within the strange armor, setting immense waves in motion, displacing entire seas as explosion followed explosion... But she snarled in increasing frustration, realizing that none of her blows had any effect, his actual flesh remaining distant and well protected.

"You couldn't believe my words, huh...?" Anubis cackled, straightening and looking at her with a cruel grin even as she continued to blast the mask of his helmet with tremendous amounts of force, the explosions sending ripples through the sky. "It is all useless! You cannot stop me! You can't even hurt me, no matter how hard you try!"

Alexis snarled, trying once more to locate a possible weak spot, while Killer wrestled against Anubis's other arm, Wyvern clashing against the battleaxe with a roar of thunder... before the axe broke out of the jackal's grip, and Killer leapt up to kick into the flat of the gigantic weapon, sending it spinning murderously towards the dog's head.

Before it could strike, however, the axe burst apart into a cloud of black smoke and washed back towards Killer, morphing into a hail of dark-metal shrapnel. The liger used the wide flat of Wyvern as a shield, cutting his way through the cloud and roaring as the gigantic scythe came down next, his blade meeting Anubis's own with an explosion of contrasting energy, blasting him backwards.

The dark shrapnel changed shape once more, turning into a gigantic maw that snapped towards Killer, closing terrible fangs over him. The liger grunted in surprise, looking up over his shoulder and spinning around to blast a sphere of energy into the giant teeth, crumbling several of them with the explosion that followed only for having to duck under another swing of the scythe a moment later. Anubis's free hand snapped upwards, trying to catch Killer in midair, but the liger spun to the side and swung out Wyvern, stabbing the blade into the thick gauntlet protecting the dog's hand and dragging the sword upwards to cut a line over all of the jackal's fingers.

But it was once more useless, as the armor once more protected the canine god and even regenerated instantaneously when Wyvern ripped free. Killer gritted his fangs in disbelief and frustration, but his eyes immediately went searching for a possible weak spot: his attention was caught by the joint in the armor at the height of the armpit. Since Alexis had already tried with the neck, so there was no point going for Anubis's other head... and probably he was not going to find a hole in the armpit, either. But he had to at least try.

He took the chance as Anubis grinned and attacked again, one arm cocked back to swing the scythe and the other ramming a newly-formed battleaxe in his direction: the liger shot forwards with a mighty flap of his wings, wincing as he pulled up to avoid the sharp edge of the axe and then throwing himself to the side to slid down along the scythe's pole.

Metallic tentacles, made of segmented, sharp elements of armor, pushed out of the pole and shot after him, angrily whipping at the air and tearing into his wings, making him hiss in pain as he pushed on regardless, spinning around the pole to avoid the flat of the axe as it rammed into the scythe as Anubis tried to squish him between the two weapons.

An armada of Anubis-clones appeared before him, but Killer vanished from the spot and reappeared past them, gaining precious seconds as he pumped his energy into Wyvern, the blade glowing a dark crimson as solid force pushed out to lengthen the sword as he seized the handle with both hands and drove it forwards with a roar, stabbing it like a spear right into the armpit.

From there, piercing the armor would give him a clean shot for the vital organs, so he pushed forwards with all of his strength, snarling and leaning forwards as the armor resisted, energy crackling from the point of contact, as thunderbolts of dark force stretched across the sky to hit him. Killer winced in pain as the dark energy cursed through his system, burning along his nerves and shutting off his senses, filling his mind with nothing but pain... but still he pushed, and his trembling lips crested in a grin as the sword began to sink through the translucent armor, even as a tremendous force pushed back against Wyvern, trying to force it back out. Killer pushed forwards with all his power, muscles bulging explosively and seeming to be about to rip through his own skin as he roared, feeling the sword sinking deeper, gaining speed as he broke the initial resistance, even as blood leaked from his eyes and nostrils, smoke coming from his mouth as dark energy continued to curse through him with a vengeance.

Anubis slammed his arm down, trying to crush Killer like a fly, but his heavily armored arm clashed into a solid shield of energy instead, as Alexis held out her palms, eyes flashing with fury and power.

"Your efforts are cute, but really useless." Anubis loftily reminded, grinning from both faces as he calmly held his hand up, the axe morphing into a dagger with a dark, crackling blade supercharged with electricity as he aimed this at Killer, showing no hurry at all, while two of his enormous tentacles arched angrily up into the sky, whip-lashing against Alexis from both sides.

The goddess slid backwards with a flap of her wings, shooting between the two tentacles and grinning as they missed, her eyes flashing with power as invisible, gigantic hands gripped the two appendages and tied them brutally together, squeezing them hard. With those out of the way for the moment, she pointed her hand at what remained of the island of Orion, and the gigantic plate of stone shuddered violently before rising into the sky, ripped out of the sea by a fearsome force.

Anubis turned to stare at this in surprise... and Alexis made a throwing gesture, snarling as she sent the island shooting into the sky, right towards the jackal's face. The canine god stumbled backwards in surprise, held aloft by his tentacles as he forgot about Killer and swung his scythe-mace out instead, smashing the colossal hammer head into the island and breaking it into gravel.

Killer took that window of opportunity to shove the sword deep down, right to the hilt, grinning as the translucent armor took on a dark color, as if turning into a stormy sky torn by lightning and flashes of energy... but his smirk died down and turned into a growl as he realized with horror that he still wasn't causing any real damage.

"You can't do a thing... but I appreciate your stubbornness! Seeing you trying so hard and only getting humiliated by your failures is even sweeter than I thought it would be..." Anubis teased, grinning toothily before arching his back and flexing, spreading his arms wide. "Try all you want. Put me to the test... and fail again and again."

Killer snarled in fury at being taunted like that, the humiliation hurting him worse than even the dark energy cursing through his system... before he let out a groan of agony as a massive explosion of wind and vicious, icy water rushed out of the translucent armor, slamming into him with brutal force, tearing deep gashes into the front of his body as the blast slapped him away like a toy.

The wind brutally savaged his wings as the non-water hitting him washed around in a tornado that trapped him in a nightmarish world of pain. He lost awareness of his position, even though he could tell he was falling, fast, rushing down the sky like a meteor...

And moments later he arched his back with a howl of agony as he smashed into something hard, rubble collapsing all over him and burying him under a mountain of boulders and massive blocks of stone, while flashes of light exploded in his vision. He grunted, pushing against all the ruins covering him, wincing as what was left of the tower he had just struck groaned loudly under him, and then collapsed, sinking into the Middle Sea.

He splashed into the non-waters of the terrible sea with a grimace of pain, vomiting a bloody paste as the obscure substance filled his wounds and multiplied his misery, the supernatural cold biting deep into his body and making it almost impossible to move, as the sinking rubble pushed him down into the darkest depths.

He almost lost consciousness, his eyes slipping closed... but they snapped open with a wince of horror and disgust as he felt movements in the water around him, guessing the presence of a swarm of the gigantic flesh-eating worms that made up much of the population of the inhospitable sea. He rushed towards the surface, even if every movement was a torture, and finally managed to flap his wings, even if the wounds in them made him hiss in pain. He leapt out of the water and flew a short distance up, dropping to a crouch on a section of thick stone wall still standing out of the sea.

A rapid look around made it clear that he had just smashed Betelgeuse into bits... but he had no time to worry about the damage caused, his eyes instead looking out in the distance, towards Anubis, as he muttered: "How do we take him down...?"

Alexis emerged from the waters of the Middle Sea with a roar of rage, floating into the sky and holding out a hand, eyes glowing with power and fury as a gigantic flesh-eating worm floated out of the ocean, howling in agony as it was squeezed brutally by the invisible hand holding it.

"Crawl far away from me, next time." The goddess venomously hissed, before she made a tearing gesture and the monstrosity opened its circular mouth wide, howling out in anguish as its body was torn apart, broken into halves that Alexis tossed away with a snort of contempt, while gore and blood painted the non-water crimson for a few moments, before being consumed out of existence.

"Any idea...?" Killer asked as Alexis landed right beside him, her eyes coldly fixed on the jackal in the distance.

"No... I have no idea what that goddamn armor is. Manticora was right... there are whole continents inside that armor. He seems to be wearing a planet... and I fear the whole planet acts as a sort of power cell, feeding him energy at an amazing rate." Alexis muttered, before they looked up as Ira and Vesta dropped down from the sky, landing nearby. The cobra snarled as she lashed Arctica out to the side, sending blood and thick gore sliding off the blade, while Vesta seemed only pleased by the thick rivulets of dark blood that caked her fingers as they rolled down the blades and the handles of her twin sickleswords. A few hundred feet away, a Cetus monstrosity fell apart, breaking down into ice-encased pieces that sunk under the dark waves: it was all what was left of their latest opponent.

"Glad to hear I'm not the only one who had that feeling." The cobra muttered, before Vesta gazed towards the god in the distance, studying Anubis as he swung his scythe out to battle back Gaia, who was assaulting him with the onslaught of ten tornados of wind, ice and raging waters, until she observed: "If it wasn't impossible, I'd have to say Anubis somehow broke the Great Laws and turned his sanctuary world into a wearable set of armor."

"Bravo!" Anubis's voice suddenly exclaimed, and they turned backwards with a snarl to see a perfect clone of the god, standing on top of a tilted, ruined column sticking out of the mountain of rubble. The jackal slowly clapped, grinning widely as he teased: "I knew that, eventually, you'd understand... you have always been smart, I'll give you that much." The canine bowed slightly to Vesta, but when he looked up his fangs were gritted and his eyes cold as he barked: "But of course, I also knew you would not believe your own eyes. How could that poor Anubis moron ever do such a thing, huh...? I know that's what you think. But, my dear, Anubis did it. I did what everyone thought impossible: I'm wearing my own sanctuary!"

Killer and Ira traded a quick, uncertain gaze, while Vesta made a weird grimace, made up half by disbelief, in part by curiosity and in part by worry. A god's powers were immensely enhanced when within the confines of a sanctuary: on their home turf, divinities could bend the laws of reality much more violently, accomplishing feats that would be well beyond their power level in the outside world. Obviously, the idea of wearing one's sanctuary was as old as the first gods themselves, but every attempt had resulted in failure. It was understood to be one of the few Great Laws that no god was strong enough to break or bend: no work of magic had ever succeeded, and no one had ever had the sheer, immense power needed to make it feasible.

It was really hard to accept the fact that Anubis, of all people, could have accomplished such a feat. Harder still to imagine how he might have done it. Crucially, it was even harder to figure out how to defeat him, now that he could fight them any and everywhere, without ever renouncing to the enormous advantage of staying within his sanctuary.

"Speechless...?" Anubis-clone mocked, grinning widely as a copy of his mace-scythe appeared in his hands, the canine flexing his toned body and cracking his neck gamely. "You have good reasons to be... you won't be able to do anything to me, now... I, on the other hand..." He let his phrase unfinished, letting the threat be implied as he shot forwards with such speed and force that the column under his feet exploded into fragments, a cloud of dust and rubble forming behind him as the shockwave blew the remains of the tower into the sky.

Alexis pushed her hand out, blasting a solid wall of energy against Anubis, but the god vanished from the spot, and the goddess snarled before leaping off the damaged wall, just in time to avoid the clone as he literally pushed out of the stone blocks, swinging his scythe up towards her chest.

Blue Vixen swung up into the way, the two blades clashing in a spray of sparkles, thunderbolts of energy crackling around the two weapons as Alexis snarled and pushed her blade towards Anubis's face, her muscles bulging as she lined the machinegun in the handle with his features. She pulled the trigger and the heavy weapon growled, blasting out a hail of large-caliber, supercharged bullets, but Anubis only grinned as his head literally split in halves down the middle, letting the bullets hiss through without damage.

Alexis snarled in fury and seized one half of the jackal's head, ripping it out towards the side as she used Blue Vixen to force the scythe in the opposite direction. Killer pulled up from behind, slashing Wyvern down through Anubis and cutting him easily in half... but the two halves morphed into fully functioning clones, the canines laughing in stereo as they stood back to back, facing Killer and Alexis at once.

Blades and mace heads clanged and crackled with energy as Wyvern and Blue Vixen sought ways past the clones defences, and Anubis split down further, two more copies popping up to confront Vesta and Ira as the sky was torn apart by flashes, explosions of energy, impacts that sent shockwaves exploding out with enough violence to compress the waters of the Middle Sea to form deep, temporary craters, while the poor remains of Betelgeuse were blasted into powder.

Killer grunted as he used the large flat of Wyvern as a shield, parrying the impact of Anubis's mace and charging against it, ramming into the clone and slapping him down towards the Middle Sea. However, the body of the clone morphed and six tentacles stretched out of the sides, whip-lashing through the air to wrap around Wyvern. Killer grunted in pain and disgust as one of the tentacles wrapped around his neck, crushing his throat while the others worked to try and rip Wyvern out of his hands. His free hand reached up to grip into the tentacles, ripping them away from him, before he snarled in pain as the body of the clone smashed into him like a meteor.

The clone lost consistency, becoming a dark goo that tried to flow around Wyvern to encase him completely... but Killer roared as he let his energies explode violently out of him, ripping the copy of Anubis into shreds.

He looked at the floating pieces, knowing all too well that they would soon recompose themselves, but he exploited the moment to stab Wyvern through the back of another close as Alexis kicked it towards him, the lovers trading a grin as she completed the job with a powerful swing of Blue Vixen, slicing the enemy into tatters.

All their efforts were nullified, however, as the remains of the two clones quickly converged into a single spot, morphing rapidly into a new creature, an ugly dragon-like creature with the head that, while reptilian in shape, still clearly had Anubis's features. It roared against them, its eyes burning with power and with cruel hunger as it reared up and spread arms that were massive and bulging with muscle, ending in flexible, long talons as sharp as swords. An enormous shockwave of force exploded from the dragon, together with a black fog as dense as glue, and even Alexis, despite her sixth sense, couldn't react: the shockwave smashed into them like a moving, solid wall, while the poisonous fog engulfed them and seemed to physically try and crush their eyes into the sockets, pain exploding in their heads as blood rolled down their cheeks.

Killer crashed backwards bonelessly, howling in pain as he felt like his eyes would burst out of the back of his head, while invisible yet so heavy hammers seemed to smash down over every bone in his form as dark energy lashed into him. He crashed into the Middle Sea with such violence to bounce off the top of one wave, his spine arching painfully as he hissed in agony... but the vicious, soul-grating coldness of the non-water served as a stimulus, urging him to react. He used his energy to harden up his body, forming almost a visible armor of golden plates fitting snugly over his bulky, massive musculature, while he slammed one hand into another wave and used the momentum to flip backwards, landing on his feet upon a shield of solid energy that he used like a surf table, riding the top of another tall, angry wave.

Alexis caught herself in midair, growling as she flexed her eyes burned with power and rage, her psychic force dispelling the dark fog as she blasted the incoming dragon with fearsome discharges of force, blowing the creature back with each blow, smashing pieces off its body... But the creature kept charging forwards, sporting a wide, vicious grin.

And from beneath, from the depths of the Middle Sea, emerged an immense black tentacle that whip-lashed upwards, smashing into Killer and Alexis both, sending them falling like meteors towards the coast, as the main, gigantic body of Anubis moved over, carried aloft by the tangle of world-crushing tentacles pushing out of his back.

Killer crashed into the ruins of the Wall, smashing through a thick section of wall before managing to catch himself, landing in a crouch and skidding to a halt several dozen feet further away, his feet tearing trenches into the blackened, corrupt ground that had once been covered in such wonderful meadows.

Another gigantic tentacle stretched up through the sky, reaching up all the way to the clouds and casting its murderous shadow upon him... and the liger flapped his mighty wings as he leapt to the side, narrowly avoiding the gargantuan appendage as it slammed down over the earth, hitting with tremendous force and pulverizing a vast stretch of the once-mighty Wall, squishing the ruins of a tall bastion into powder as the tentacle tore a deep, vast scar into the crust of the planet.

Killer growled in fury in front of that display of power, snarling as the ground rattled under his feet, cracking apart as Anubis slid forwards upon his immense tentacles, drawing nearer by the moment. The liger leapt to the top of a ruined bastion, scarred by the battle fought what already felt like an eternity before... and Alexis landed nearby just a moment later, followed by Ira and Vesta, all of them bloodied and battered but far from defeated.

"I 'm in no hurry, Killer: I have the luxury of time. You can't do anything against me... and I can hurt you again and again, until eventually you'll stay down for good!" Anubis roared, cackling as he ignored Gaia, Manticora, Alcana and Adrasthea, letting his armada of clones deal with them...

"So, it is clearly true that he is wearing his sanctuary." Vesta urgently remarked, gazing into Alexis's eyes as she continued: "But whatever the method he found and used, he does not have the power it would take. He does not, we all know that. So, he must have found some kind of extremely powerful external source of energy."

Alexis nodded in agreement, before they were forced to scatter in different directions as the obscure dragon-like beast caught up to them and charged in their direction. Tentacles burst out along its spine as it missed and his claws ripped deep trenches in the blackened wasteland, the monster snarling as it turned around quickly, glaring at Alexis as its tentacles shot through the air, pursuing Killer and the others.

Killer growled as a dozen tentacles, ending in conical spikes as sharp as razors, stabbed towards him, forcing him to duck under two and sliding between three more, before he swung Wyvern out to chop four more into halves, while his free hand gripped another couple, crushing the solid, strong appendages into pulp. The Azura blades glowed a brilliant golden as they soaked in his energy, before shooting out deadly razors of solid light that chopped the tentacles into bits.

Ira leapt into the air, on the opposite side of the beast, and she swung her arm out, sending her deadly chains whiplashing through the sky to cut into the bodies of a thick group of tentacles: the chains spun rapidly, wrapping tightly around the appendages and biting deep into the hardened goo, melting it down like it was ice. The cobra grinned widely, flying backwards and tearing her arm back as hard as she could... and the thick group of tentacles was torn apart, the severed appendages falling to the ground and trashing as if in agony, while the draconic beat stumbled and nearly fell into its side. The dragon turned to vomit a hurricane of hellish flames towards Ira, but the cobra flipped elegantly above the inferno and stomped down hard on its neck instead, grinning predatorily at the satisfying, loud crack that resounded, before she stabbed Arctica and Vampira into the sides of the long neck and sliced its throat open, one blade freezing the goo and making it brittle and the other working to suck out energy from the monstrous creature.

The dragon kicked and jumped and tried to get her off its back, but Ira resisted, crushing its sides viciously between her powerful thighs... until she felt a shifting flow of energy beneath her, and she kicked off the beast and into the air just as cruel spikes and blades of bone jutted out of the monster.

The dragon twisted around, a second neck pushing out of its shoulders, the new head shooting towards Ira with a roar, but Vesta leapt upon this, her boots smashing their way through the skull as she used her sickleswords as hooks, catching the necks and dragging them backwards until her blades sliced right through, decapitating the beast.

The dragon's body continued to move, however, as the stumps of the necks merged together and morphed into a massive, muscular torso, with powerful arms and an Anubis head, turning the monstrosity into a centaur-like hybrid of dragon and jackal. The monster roared and swung up an enormous mace, slashing it against Vesta and snarling as the queen caught the head of the enormous hammer in her hands, grunting as she was pushed backwards but still managed to stop the weapon dead in its tracks... before the taur grunted in shock as Alexis charged into its back, wrapping one powerful arm around the thick tail and going into a slide under its body, stabbing Blue Vixen up into its belly.

Alexis grinned ferociously as her sword ripped the lower body of the taur open, almost slicing the beast in half as she slid out between the front legs of the creature, slashing Blue Vixen in a horizontal cut that chopped both muscular limbs, causing the monster to topple ruinously forwards... but as she rolled out of the way, dragging the dragon's tail with her, she flipped the whole gigantic creature over, sending it crashing ruinously upon its back.

Alexis kicked up to her feet, turning around slowly and smirking as she ripped the tail off with a snarl, tossing the gigantic appendage upon the trashing pile of ruined dragon just before Killer blasted an enormous sphere of energy into it from above. The explosion that followed erased the dragon almost entirely, sending splatters of dark goo falling an amazing distance away, all around.

"We've only gained a few seconds." Vesta urgently remarked, making a grimace as the main body of Anubis, the miles-tall titan, quickly approached their position, carried by a tangle of gigantic black tentacles that ground everything beneath them into nothing but powder. "We need to find a way to stop him, and quickly."

"Anubis must have some kind of external energy source inside the armor: he can't have done all this using his own force alone. Far stronger gods have failed miserably... There must be some kind of thing helping him." Ira quickly added, her eyes roving over the gigantic god, searching for a weak spot, for a sign, for any hint of vulnerability or of a part that they could damage and take off... But it was a desperate try. She had already assaulted him from multiple directions, as had the others, and there seemed to be no weak spot at all. "Alexis, we need you to find the source of all that energy. You are the only one who can do it."

"If only it was that easy..." Alexis snorted, making a grimace as her eyes narrowed, all her focus centered on the immense figure of Anubis, her sixth sense scanning its monstrous energy signature: it was colossal, and all their attacks hadn't inflicted any kind of lasting depletion on it. She once more looked for any anomaly, any localized peak of power, but she shook her head in frustration, finding nothing.

"We need to hit the bastard. Hard. We must damage him, and when he regenerates I'll hopefully be able to detect the source of the flow of energy." Alexis announced, and Ira and Vesta nodded firmly, their eyes promising their assistance.

"We'll cover you two." Ira said, looking towards Killer and Alexis and jerking her head towards the approaching jackal. "We'll keep the clones and all the other crap off your backs."

Killer and Alexis had only enough time to nod before the remains of the destroyed dragon-beast converged violently towards a spot in midair, all the goo compressing together and forming a dense sphere before exploding in a gigantic blast of dark energy. Killer found himself flung backwards across the ruined Meadows, the front of his body bleeding abundantly from deep, brutal gashes all over his abs and chest... and he hissed in pain as he flipped once before using his wings to brake to a stop, hovering in the air and looking down at a new, vast crater that smoldered and crackled with electricity. He spotted Alexis, hovering a short distance away from him, and he saw Ira and Vesta taking position ahead of her, while Gaia and the others were ripping their way through a horde of clones and dark monstrosities to come to their aid.

"No matter what you do, you are going to lose... and I will destroy this whole pathetic, false Heaven. I will build a new one, and my reign will last forever!" Anubis boomed, grinning widely as he rolled forwards upon his colossal tentacles, the immense snakes of dark, armored flesh rolling over the ruins of the Wall and the remaining bastions like they were anthill, crushing them out of existence without any effort.

The jackal rammed his enormous mace down upon them, but Ira shot up into the sky fearlessly, charging right into the spiked head of the war hammer as her size increased rapidly, her musculature bulging with power as she roared, eyes burning emerald while her height quickly surpassed the six hundred feet mark. The goddess glowed with energy as she pushed her hands up, grunting as she caught the brutal mace and slowed the blow down to an abrupt stop, causing Anubis to snarl in fury as he attempted to drive the heavy weapon down into the earth.

The cobra resisted, however, pushing the mace out to the side, her eyes burning with power even as Anubis savagely blasted the front of her body with a thunderbolt of dark energy.

The jackal roared in fury and frustration, his massive tentacles lurching forwards and lashing angrily down against Vesta, Killer and Alexis as the three rushed up towards the god's main body: Killer grunted as he folded his wings close to his body to shoot between two of the enormous tentacles, making a grimace as the whole world around him became a tornado of black, of dark metal appendages that moved like the blades of a grinder, trying to crush and rip them apart like food, as the surface of each tentacle jutted with cruel spikes and rusted blades and ugly pieces of metal.

Killer flew as quickly as he could, beating his huge wings to shoot past a first tentacle, then diving under another, his eyes fixed on the small breaches available in the wall of black and death... but it soon became evident that he was making no progress in that way, unable to gain altitude as he was constantly forded to dive closer to the ground... or better, to the clouds of dust and boulders and gravel and ruins that raged like a storm far beneath, as Anubis mercilessly ground the landscape into dust.

Killer let out a pulse of pure power as two tentacles rushed in from the opposite sides, threatening to squish him. They bounced back against the solid walls of his energy, and he used Wyvern to cut his way through another appendage, slicing it in halves in the process. He grunted as four more tentacles whiplashed against him with a vengeance, crushing him in the middle of their coils, the blades and spikes ripping into his flesh... but he flexed with all his power, the rage fueling his strength even further as he slammed the tentacles back away from him and then spun around, dropping Wyvern in a vicious cut as energy shone down the Azura blades, lengthening them and making them incandescent and unstoppable. He cut through the tentacles like through butter, grinning as the severed appendages fell away with what sounded like a whine of agony, and he flew right up towards Anubis's legs.

Alexis smashed her way through another tangle of enormous appendages, her eyes glowing with power and fury as she ripped them to shreds, crushing the remains into black goo that fell from her vicious psychic grip... but as they flew higher up, countless snarling faces pushed out of the remaining tentacles and even from the stumps of those they had destroyed: uncountable Anubis features turned towards them, snarling and then opening their jaws wide as dark energy concentrated into their maws, before they all began firing a terrible bombardment against the two ligers.

The two lovers used their own energies to form shields that they shoved into the bombardment, snarling as the force of the explosions coming one after the other caused the shields to crack, their arms to spasm painfully, their bodies to fall back towards the earth. Every meter was a struggle... and Anubis cackled from above as new closes and beasts formed out of the goo leaking from the severed tentacles.

Killer glared as two massive, bulky clones fell towards his shield, brandishing enormous, oversized fists made of flexible steel talons. The sheer amount of muscle and mass on the bodies of those clones made them look deformed, and their heads had no features, only enormous maws lined with multiple rows of deadly fangs. He cocked back Wyvern, reassured by her new weight and mass and by how it soaked into his energies, glowing with them... and he stabbed the massive sword through the first clone, before whipping the sword backwards until the blade cut out of the beast's back and sent the monster falling like a meteor towards the ground. He dropped his shoulder and slammed the transparent shield of energy into the second clone, slapping him back... and Alexis vaporized the beast with a blast of her force.

More and more monstrosities leapt against them, but Vesta charged up with a flap of her wings and her sickleswords tore a clone into bits, the female wrestling back the horde and sending a rain of goo to the wasteland far below... Killer and Alexis rushed past.

They passed by Ira, the massive goddess squishing a couple of clones between her hands, just like they were flies, while brandishing her deadly chains, using them like whips to slash clear a vast area of sky.

Alexis grinned as another clone was slammed back by a huge arrow coming from Manticora's bow, and Killer caught sight of Gaia, the goddess giving him a wink as she sent wind and waters crashing into the horde like a massive hurricane, washing away the monsters.

Alcana and Adrasthea flew in to either side of the ligers, the first hacking clones into shreds with her massive halberd and the second ramming into them with her large shield, using beams of energy to cut a path and using her spear with unbelievable, deadly skill.

Anubis saw them coming up, and stomped one foot in their direction, snarling in contempt... before howling in pain and outrage as Adrasthea, Killer and Alexis hit in unison, smashing the sole of his foot with a combined wave of attacks.

Alexis surveyed the energy signature of the god with great attention, gritting her fangs and frantically searching for a sign of some kind... but no visible flow of energy was needed for the jackal's armor to repair and regenerate itself from the damage. "We need to hit harder!"

"Go for the balls, if he has any." Killer muttered, and Alexis grinned, letting out a snort of entertainment.

"Does not sound like a bad idea."

The two lovers flew up past Anubis's leg as he kicked angrily towards them, and they spun around, pushing back to back as they shoved their shields of energy out in the opposite directions, grunting as a furious tangle of spiked tentacles shoved out of the jackal's thighs, slamming into them from every direction.

Killer grunted, his arms trembling as the tentacles rammed into the shield, ripping and tearing and whipping savagely against him, and Alexis bumped into his back as she struggled in the same way against the onslaught... before the male shouted: "Now!"

Alexis shot away from him with a mighty flap of her wings, and immediately flipped backwards, pushing the shield up to cover Killer from above, her fangs gritted as Anubis's tentacles slammed into the barrier, again and again, furiously trying to stab into her body but bouncing back in a hail of sparkles and crackling of energy. Killer exploited the cover she gave him and dropped his own shield, pumping all his energies into Wyvern instead, his height doubling as his muscles bulged with power and vigor, the already massive sword growing to match his new proportions and then becoming even longer as crimson energy formed a long, deadly sword that he stabbed forth into Anubis's groin.

The jackal snarled in outrage and fury, lashing down with a gigantic hand to slap him off like an annoying fly... but Alexis snarled and blasted a wall of force against his fingers, slamming them back.

Anubis withdrew his hand with a snarl of rage more than pain, glaring down at them as dark lightning crackled around his form while he hissed: "Try all you want... you are just gnats. You might be difficult to catch... but you'll go squish soon, nonetheless."

Killer pushed down with all his force, ripping Wyvern down in a straight line, slicing the groin of the jackal in half as the weird armor rippled and cracked, pulsing with dark power... and he gritted his fangs, taking it as a signal that he could indeed finally hit the flesh. He dropped his shoulder and charged forwards, even as his limbs spasmed and he coughed up a splatter of blood, its taste filling his mouth as he directed his energies into the sword, extending the blade and firing bolts of golden fire from the Azuras.

There was a massive, distant explosion somewhere deep past the planetary-armor, and Killer grinned widely as he felt the ripple of the shockwave traveling through Wyvern, only redoubling his effort... until Anubis howled in pain and shock, kicking at the air as the tentacles carrying him flexed and arched, pulling him back.

Killer only continued to push, however, grinning in savage satisfaction as he finally heard the jackal howl in pain... before Anubis let out a roar of fury, and his armor became jet-black as negative energy surged from the depths. It exploded outwards a moment later, and Killer and Alexis and the others were blasted away like bugs, their bodies spasming in agony as dark electricity burned through them.

Killer formed a small wall of energy in the sky, slamming his feet into it and pushing against the tremendous shockwave, his eyes narrowing as he panted breathlessly, trying to ignore the pain coming from the deep wounds all over the front of his body. The liger saw with horror that the damage to Anubis's groin was already gone, the flesh and the armor both entirely regenerated... and as he turned to the side to trade a gaze with Alexis, she shook her head in frustration. "Nothing. We have to hurt him worse. I saw no change in his energy signature."

Killer only nodded, taking a quick look at Anubis as the jackal pushed forth towards them before saying simply: "Chest."

Alexis nodded, knowing instantaneously what he needed and wanted... and they charged forwards fearlessly, even as blades of dark energy slammed into them from every direction, ripping bloody gashes all over their bodies, as the daggers sunk into their flesh before exploding, maiming Killer's chest and Alexis's arms... but none of the two flinched or backed out. Alexis roared fearlessly, her eyes glowing a deep, cold sapphire as she focused her psychic force into her hands, pointing them at the jackal's chest and grinning predatorily as she blasted wave after wave of force right into Anubis.

The outer layer of the armor exploded into fragments like it was made of glass, and the tremendous impacts slammed the gigantic god back, again, and again, and again as the atmosphere contained in the thick, bulky armor was ripped apart and turned into a vortex, a brutal typhoon that ground the continent visible below into a ruined wasteland, cracking the mountains and the cliffs and razing towns and villages to the ground as every boulder, every ruin, every tree and every rock were caught into the fearsome tornado.

Anubis snarled, trying to push back against that immense force that was gradually ripping deeper and deeper into the armor, towards his flesh... but before he could react, he grunted in pain and surprise as Ira's chains wrapped around the giant tentacles supporting him, constricting them together in a bundle that Killer chopped with a single, powerful slash of Wyvern, the blade of the sword becoming miles long as crimson energy solidified to expand the steel.

Anubis fell towards the sea, but immediately halted his fall, floating in midair with a snarl of fury... before his eyes bulged in shock as Killer dived right through the tornado on his chest.

A moment later, Anubis threw his head back with a howl of anguish, clawing at his own chest, trying to rip Killer out, as the liger shoved Wyvern deep into exposed flesh.

Alexis closed her eyes for a brief moment, steadying herself and trying to focus entirely on her sixth sense, praying to detect some kind of flow... but nothing seemed to change.

Come on... come on...

Anubis's armor glowed darkly, beginning to push back against Alexis's force and Killer's assault, the thick "plate" beginning to recompose itself as the male liger was slowly but inexorably blown backwards... and finally, as Anubis's regeneration kicked in to seal his heart, almost split in half by Wyvern, Alexis caught the sign she needed. She could see it, a clear flow of energy being drawn from some kind of source... and then she located the source itself, a small... something... something alive... buried deep inside the armor.

Alexis shouted clearly: "Between the shoulder blades, on his back!"

"Allow me, Alexis." Gaia said, flying up at her side, the muscular snow leopardess grinning with a revenge as she pushed her palms out, one arm wrapped in blue lightning and one cracking with crimson energy before two roaring beams, one of electrically-supercharged water and one of raging hellfire, fired from her hands to smash into the already damaged chest of the jackal.

"No! You won't dare...!" Anubis howled, his eyes fixed on Alexis now, as he clawed at the sky in the hope to catch her, while a new horde of monstrosities pushed out of the armor to charge at her.

"Oh, yes, I will." Alexis snarled, pushing her palms up towards the sky. The blasts of energy against Anubis's chest ended, but their place was taken by Gaia's own furious assault. Adrasthea and Alcana added their own force to the blast, while Manticora took position behind the three goddesses, bloody and badly wounded but no less determined than them as she nocked giant arrow after giant arrow, shooting every clone and monstrosity that came close to them.

Alexis made a slam dunk gesture as she sent her energy striking right down between Anubis's shoulder blades, crushing the jackal between two murderous forces that drilled through his armor and forced him into a prison of pain and misery.

Anubis looked up over his shoulder to see Vesta and Ira diving down towards his back, and his voice took on a somewhat pleading, whining tone as he shouted: "No, no, you can't...!"

But Vesta was undeterred, grinning widely as she hacked her sickleswords right into the lower edge of the damaged armor, right where Alexis's blasts of psychic energy were shattering it. The queen of Seraphims had no hesitations, using all her strength to drag her swords down, using them as hooks to break a larger hole in the armor... And Ira pulled up right behind her, whip-lashing her chains down into the edges of the cracked armor, the cobra roaring as she flexed her massive muscles and tore hard outwards.

The thick, supernatural armor shattered, enormous fragments of it falling down into the Middle Sea and exploding into motes of dark energy, and a small, tiny piece of gore, of unrecognizable flesh, unnaturally brilliant and charged with such a load of power and energy to send shivers running down their spines.

"It can't be..." Vesta muttered, shaking her head slowly in disbelief. "Light...? A... one piece... one shred of Light's body...?"

Killer did not hesitate, exploiting the moment and the opening as he swung Wyvern, aiming it tip down and diving towards that small but incredibly potent source of energy. He grinned widely as he heard Anubis howling, and he savored victory and revenge as Wyvern tore through the piece of flesh. It resisted, it blasted him with holy energy that burned like hell, but it could not stop him as he ground it into liquid... and before he knew it, he smashed through the small, fleshy remain and right into the world-turned-armor, the sky around him rippling as he passed through the wall between the dimensions.

It was immediately clear that he had moved into a whole different world. He had smashed his way into the planet that Anubis had reshaped into a set of armor, and there was a transparent wall of energy separating him from Vesta, Ira and the others outside. He did not know for sure whether Anubis had wanted him to get inside, or if he had genuinely broken through... he could only hope it was the second option, and even then, it had still lead him on the home turf of his enemy.

Killer straightened and took a look around himself, huffing out a little at the oppressive, harsh heat. His toes sank into soft sand while a hot, enormous sun seemed to burn his skin with how intensely it radiated from its position, low on the horizon. He could see pyramids in the distance, and a vast temple with a forest of enormous columns arranged in orderly rows, like soldiers on attention... and not far from him stood one of many obelisks jutting proudly towards the sky.

Killer calmly leaned Wyvern on his shoulder, walking in the direction of the temple and staying alert, his senses focusing on the world around him to catch any sign of Anubis's arrival. His attention was caught by a second obelisk, which had shattered around the middle: the top half had fallen down into the sand, sinking deep within a dune. And on closer inspection, the other obelisk was also cracked and damaged... and as he got closer, he saw further monuments laying in ruins, included an enormous statue of Anubis, of which only the legs up to the knees still stood.

"The armor worked well, but it looks like our blows were not without consequences..." The liger mumbled, passing by the pieces of the statue and not resisting the temptation to stomp the head into dust as he walked past.

He climbed to the top of one tall dune, and stopped briefly on the edge as a village revealed itself on the other side: it was a small town of simple buildings of red-brown stone, not taller than two or three floors at most, all huddled together around a small square with a large well in the middle. Of course, water was a primary concern in a world mostly covered by desert. A series of canals brought water to a stretch of land past the village, making it fertile, and every square foot available had been brilliantly exploited for cultivations. However, the village was not in good shape: the battle had sent shockwaves and blasts raging through it as well, and every building was cracked and damaged, and a few homes had collapsed entirely.

He spotted a few small children in the street, along with mothers and fathers busy working to try and repair the worst of the damage... but as soon as they spotted him, they all rushed towards the doors of their houses and sealed themselves inside.

They showed no panic, but their disappearance was so quick that he was left in no doubt about how worried the families were... and he could not blame them. They were mortals caught in the middle of a battle far greater than them. They probably had only the faintest idea of what their god had done to their world... perhaps they weren't at all aware that they had been literally worn as living shields.

Killer steered clear of the village, not wanting to bring further misery on them, which would have been unavoidable had Anubis attacked him... and he instead took a curious look at the few faces who stared at him from behind half-closed windows. Everyone in the town, and probably in the whole planet, had clearly been created in Anubis's image: they were all jackals. Thankfully, Anubis didn't put his ugly face on all of them, at least...

He saw a couple of young women looking at him from a window, and he smirked a little, pleased to notice that they were actually were attractive: toned and slender, with firm breasts clad in simple white cloth, their tall ears decorated by several rings and piercings. He also saw a male, spying nervously from an half-open door... he was quite small, not taller than 5 feet, and very lean in build. He only wore a simple white loincloth, which left most of his body uncovered... and he looked quite frail. It made Killer suspect that Anubis deliberately drained the males on his world to keep them weak and unimpressive compared to him.

He did not investigate the matter, though, instead looking up at the sky. He could barely guess the world beyond, outside of the armor... and he had no idea how hard it would be to get back to it, which made him nervous. The last thing he wanted was to become a prisoner within Anubis's armor.

"Come on, Anubis... I'm sure you know that I'm here. Doesn't it piss you off that I invaded your little sanctuary...?" Killer finally shouted, calling loudly for the god's attention... and the liger smiled a bit, closing his eyes with a snort as, predictably, the jackal appeared out of a whiff of wind, standing behind him.

"Verily... it pisses me off a lot." Anubis venomously hissed, his fingers gripping the pole of his scythe so firmly that his fingers became pale for lack of blood. "And it pisses me off even more than you damaged my armor... now it is becoming unstable."

"Really...?" Killer serenely wondered, looking up at the sky and smiling as he saw that, yes, there were ripples of energy running across the armor plates, and there were flashes of light in the distance as the world began to shift. "It seems to be losing coherence... but that is not surprising. Without the energy of Light, you can't hold this great masquerade together, huh...?"

Anubis glared at him with hate, gritting his fangs as he cocked up the heavy mace-scythe... but the jackal hesitated in charging forwards, swallowing a bit before barking: "I did what the gods thought impossible... I did it myself. I found a piece of Light's body, after searching far and wide across the vast universe. I managed to cage it and bring it to my planet. I crafted magic and rituals that nobody before had ever imagined, to harness the power within that small fragment... and I found a way to use that awesome energy to increase my power even further, and make myself invincible. I did it myself!"

"Yeah, and it's impressive... but you could do it only by using the strength of Light. Not yours. You didn't actually get stronger: you just stole someone else's energies." Killer calmly replied, making Anubis snarl with rage, the jackal stomping forwards and swinging his mace.

Killer ducked under the blow and dropped his shoulder, slamming into Anubis and grinning as he felt his deadly spike-bones piercing deep into the jackal's flesh, blood spraying into his face and mane. Anubis hissed in pain, dropping the heavy mace as his fingers turned into cruel talons instead, the god slamming these savagely into Killer's back. The liger growled in rage and pain, slamming his arm out to send the jackal flying off his spikes, and he leapt after him, slashing Wyvern hard into his adversary, cutting the legs off the dog's body.

Anubis howled in pain... but a second later, it became laughter instead, the dog's eyes glowing as he grinned down at Killer before exploding in his face, the blast knocking the liger back and sending him crashing into a cliff of red stone.

"You are still within my sanctuary, Lord Killer... here, my powers are immensely amplified." Anubis's voice announced, seeming to come from a thousand mouths at once, from every direction... and in fact, countless copies of Anubis appeared all around him, laughing as they walked closer, their scythes at the ready. Clawed hands ripped out of the stone and seized his limbs, tearing deep into his flesh and dragging him down, holding him in place as the armada of Anubis closed in and dozens of enormous spiked maces were raised above him, ready to hammer him into a pulp.

"I'm not the weak Anubis you once defeated... here, I'm a thousand times stronger." Anubis shouted, cackling as the maces swung down towards Killer's face.

But Killer only grinned widely, his eyes glowing an icy sapphire as he looked up to the uncountable Anubis faces bearing down on him. "Unfortunately for you, Anubis... I'm not the strong Killer that once defeated you. No... I'm far, far stronger than that."

The maces hit home, hard... but the enormous heads of dark metal shattered into fragments, crumbling like brittle glass as they impacted against Killer's muzzle, against his teasing grin, against his enormous musculature.

Anubis whimpered in terror and disbelief, shaking his head as more and more of his copies charged forwards to slam down their own maces, and the blades of their scythes, against the massive liger. The result was invariably a miserable failure, as the weapons bounced back and shattered into fine dust, unable to even tickle the enormous male... And Killer smiled slightly, patronizingly up at them, before he flexed his body, letting his eyes slip closed for a moment as his size slowly began to increase. The armada of Anubis took a slow, trembling step backwards as Killer's muscles bulged powerfully outwards, his pants tearing and shredding into pieces, letting his massive member flop loosely free, huge, heavy testicles swinging ponderously as they pulsed and grew larger and larger moment by moment along with the rest of his frame. Killer licked his lips slowly as his muscles bulged powerfully, his body radiating fearsome physical power as the stone crumbled into gravel under his back, his arms effortlessly breaking loose from the hold of the clawed hands sticking out of the ground: the steel talons melted away to nothingness, while the hands withered and dried into husks, falling apart into puffs of bone dust.

Killer slowly stood up, his height easily tripled, his massive body standing easily more than sixty feet tall as he grinned and looked down over the cowering and panicking crowd of jackals, seeing the terror in Anubis's eyes, seeing his limbs trembling, his disbelief mounting, his fear biting into his heart, his rage making him tremble in fury and envy. And all of it useless, as the liger slowly, easily raised one foot, spreading his mighty toes teasingly as the jackals looked up, frozen by terror and awe... and then he stomped savagely down, cracks ripping through the stone and ripples traveling through the desert, the world shaking with the power of the simple step as dozens of Anubis clones were reduced to nothing but pulp that the liger slowly, calmly twisted his heel down into. Killer's body flexed and pulsed with power as his gargantuan, godlike member throbbed slowly, flaccid but glorious in its spectacular proportions as it cast a humiliating shadow upon the gods assembled beneath. Killer licked his lips hungrily again as he straightened and grinned widely, lazily arching his back and rolling his shoulders as he felt the power thrumming through his veins, muscles bulging larger, eyes glowing as his skin threatened to rip from the raw energy pulsing through him, growling eagerly as he looked down over the masses below.

There was one god on the planet, that was clear... but it wasn't Anubis.

"Without the stolen energies of Light, I'm afraid that you are just a gnat begging to be crushed, Anubis..." Killer teased, licking his lips as he savored his revenge for earlier, looking down while his musculature continued to increase for a moment more than his height, thickening his powerful form, adding even more to his already behemotic frame. "But do put me to the test... don't take just my word for it...!"

Anubis trembled violently, swallowing thickly as piss ran down his leg, staining his loincloth, before the jackal pointed his finger towards Killer and shouted: "You... you can't do a thing here. This... this is my sanctuary. I'm everywhere, you can't hide from me."

"Hiding...?" Killer amusedly snorted, leisurely stroking his immense black shaft as he calmly stepped forwards, crushing another mass of insignificant clones, grinning down at the terrified survivors as he slowly flexed his toes downward, crushing and bursting bodies beneath him while playing mercilessly with those that were left barely alive, trapped under the slight curve of his massive talons, or under the curve of his toes. He savored their helpless, weakening wiggling, crushing their hopes under his massive digits. They might have been manifestations of a god... but under the toes of this god, they were just toys, unable to move, unable to breathe, screaming out in terror the last air in their lungs, crying in despair beneath that invincible pressure that wasn't yet quite enough to kill them, but more than enough to keep them pinned.

It was just a moment of torture and humiliation, though: a short lived scream before his foot finally bore down enough to squish them into paste against the stone that crumbled under his foot, their blood and innards splattering up between his toes.

Killer laughed, taking slow, deliberate steps into the thick of the crowd, leisurely scraping his feet against the ground between a step and another, crushing countless and turning the red stone beneath into dust as he teased: "I'm walking all over you, doormat... come on, show me what you've got."

Anubis snarled in fear and humiliation and disbelief, his copies crowding around Killer's massive toes hitting them with their maces, with their talons, with their scythes... but Killer only laughed, racking them into pieces with mere flicks of his toes. The jackal then looked around himself in despair, searching for an idea, until he grinned viciously as he slapped his hands together, causing cliffs of ancient stone to explode towards Killer, crushing the invader in the middle.

Anubis cackled, his eyes glowing with glee as he effortlessly moved the cliffs and the mountains, sending them smashing into Killer, burying the liger under a deluge of solid stone and dirt and rubble, before the jackal pushed his hands towards the sky, and a tidal wave of magma surged to cover the funerary pile of stones. In a moment, the magma cooled down and solidified, taking the shape of a gargantuan obelisk... and Anubis grinned widely as he stared at the hard, lucid surface of the dark brimstone, before roaring: "This whole planet is a weapon in my hands...! This is MY sanctuary!"

"It really is nowhere near enough." Killer's voice amusedly replied, and Anubis stared in horror and awe as the massive obelisk cracked and burst into fragments, shattering like glass as Killer walked through the stone like through thin air, his enormous form towering even more godlike than before, his muscles bulging with obscene power and his height more than two times greater.

Anubis gaped in shock, trembling hard even as tried hard to focus, concentrating his energies as he multiplied himself again and again, producing copies of himself which morphed into monstrosities bulging with massive, grotesque muscles and advancing on all fours, their hands replaced by terrible, flexible talons. Killer patiently waited, smiling patronizingly at the jackal as he savored his own power, barely resisting the temptation to let himself grow even bigger as he flexed slightly, out of sheer, eager vigor.

Finally, the horde of clones charged against him, swarming all over him from every direction, and Killer eagerly rushed forwards, laughing as he lashed out a punch across the cloud of angry flies. Dozens burst apart into splatters of blood, squished against his fingers and knuckles like gnats against the windscreen of a truck, the liger grinning viciously as his arm cut a swath across the sky, destroying hundreds. He caught the clones in handfuls, laughing as dozens burst into tiny splatters of crimson between his fingers, before he pushed the thick groups into his masculine, enormous chest, crushing them into liquid and smearing their gore over his spectacular abs.

He filled his hands with copies of Anubis, catching them in midair like they were nothing but toys, and he then seized his own immense black shaft, crushing the jackals into the solid, potent flesh of his godlike member, smearing gore and crimson fluids down the enormous length, before he swung his semi-hard, colossal shaft into the swarm, slapping them out of the sky like they were flies, licking his lips at the feeling of their weak bodies bursting apart against his monstrous cock.

"Come on, keep it up! Multiply yourself by ten, by one hundred, by one thousand... it'll only amuse me more!"

Anubis, hidden by the enormous army of his copies, frantically sought a better weapon, until he spotted the enormous statues depicting him, and the tall, sharply-pointed obelisks in the distance. He pointed his hands towards those, and the enormous sculptures rippled before slowly breaking free of their bases, stepping heavily forwards. They rushed against Killer, their steps booming like thunder, while tentacles of black goo pushed the obelisks into the sky, before stabbing them savagely down against Killer.

The liger gripped into the tentacles with his powerful hands, ripping the appendages out of the ground and sending the obelisks falling down to earth, where they shattered on impact. Meanwhile, his attention had already moved to the statues, and he kicked the first into gravel before slamming his fist into the face of a second, pulverizing its upper half.

In barely a moment, the army of statues became just another mountain of rubble, and Killer pushed his arm up, grinning as several massive, black-fleshed tentacles pushed out of his limb, arching up majestically into the air and twisting savagely back and forth as cruel spikes of bones jutted out along their strong bodies. The tentacles slammed forwards into the crowd of Anubises, ripping through the stone bodies of the statues like butter, their length growing violently as they twisted and ground eagerly, mercilessly seeking out life to annihilate. The carnage that followed was fearsome, as the jackals struck by the massive tentacles were all but liquefied, turned into a warm crimson rain and into splatters of liquid gore. Warriors were cut into shreds of flesh, sliced into ribbons, impaled by the massive spikes and thorns of bone, caught between the blades and left to shriek their agony until all life was crushed out of them, as they were all ripped apart like tender morsels, or crushed into the earth and ground into nothing but a fine red mist. The six tentacles twisted and ground together, darting back and forth, smashing and tearing and whip-lashing to completely annihilate the horde of clones, grinding gods out of existence like a grinder would mince tender meat. The tentacles lengthened and shot across the desert to smash into the front of the vast temple in the distance, tearing through the solid, fortified façade before whiplashing from side to side as they invaded the vast colonnade, brushing the tower-sized pillars aside and sending them crumbling into pebbles before they all suddenly rammed forwards into the main temple, smashing through the thick stone walls and filling the dark holy rooms inside. The tentacles mercilessly whiplashed outwards, ramming into the walls and tearing through, causing the sides of the temple to explode outwards in a hail of fragments and pebbles, before the enormous appendages arched upwards and tore through the roof, pulverizing it.

The vast temple attempted to collapse on itself, reduced to nothing but rubble and dust, but the tentacles did not allow that: they continued to twist and grind until only sand was left, a cloud of dust which slowly settled down while the tentacles retreated calmly, twisting gently around Killer's arm as the liger grinned and surveyed his victory. In bare moments, Anubis's temple had been completely annihilated.

The jackal trembled in shock at the sight, shaking his head in disbelief... before vanishing from the spot as Killer looked down at him. The liger snorted in amusement as the dog teleported away, and merely announced: "There is not a single place where you'll be able to hide from me here, Anubis..." Killer paused, and then he threw his head back and let his voice boom out in a roar that rattled the heavens and the lands. Across the planet, all the obelisks and temples and statues of Anubis that hadn't already been destroyed suddenly filled with cracks and then burst apart, collapsing into small hills of sand, as a ripple of new and different energy traveled from one pole to the other, and something loudly shattered.

"This is no longer your sanctuary, Anubis. I'm afraid this world has a very clear idea of who of us is the strongest..." Killer remarked, before grinning as he felt the distant energies of Anubis, and immediately teleported towards them. The jackal was hiding behind a tall rocky cliff in the middle of the desert, but Killer appeared right in front of him, grinning down at his tiny form, casting the dog in his shadow.

"And clearly, that isn't you."

The jackal shrieked in surprise and fear, immediately trying to teleport away once more... but his eyes went wide as he felt like he had crashed into a wall, stumbling backwards as an invisible but insurmountable force prevented him from leaving.

He tried again, panicking as Killer leaned down over him, and again he failed, falling to his knees and pushing his hands up to blast small spheres of focused dark energy, snarling: "Stay back! Don't you touching me!"

Killer ignored the spheres, letting them hit him only to be greedily absorbed by his body, his energies swallowing Anubis's ones like so much as snacks, before he caught the jackal in his hand, lifting him effortlessly up off the ground.

Anubis tried to break free of his grasp, but his struggling was useless, as Killer's massive digits proved unmovable... and the jackal was left to cry and shriek in despair, punching and kicking uselessly at the liger's fingers. Killer thought for a moment about a suitable end to their clash... and then he smirked as he said: "You had fun, before, when we had no clue how to take you down... Now, it is my turn to have fun."

The liger crushed Anubis between his hands, grinning at the satisfying crunching and cracking of the dog's bones, forcing the disgraced god into the shape of a ball, before he began to dribble, using Anubis like a basketball, sending him crashing like a meteor alternatively into the ground and into his palm.

And then, finally, after a long few moments of that humiliating beating, Killer took Anubis back in his hand and went for a powerful slam dunk, throwing the jackal down with fearsome strength.

Anubis shrieked in a mixture of agony, terror and sheer disbelief, before falling silent at the tremendous impact with the ground, blood exploding from his mouth and nostrils as he bounced back up into the sky... only to be hit by a tremendous kick from Killer, which sent him flying straight against the outer layer of the armor.

Outside, Alexis looked up several seconds before it happened, a grin spreading on her muzzle as she leapt onto the head of the massive goo-dragon she was fighting, stabbing Blue Vixen down in its skull and pulling the trigger to send burst after burst of massive armor-piercing rounds tearing through the insides of the creature. Normal bullets would have achieved nothing, but hers were supercharged with her energies, and they exploded with enormous force after piercing deep into the target: the blasts tore the dragon apart, sending splatters of black goo bursting out in a wide radius as much of the dark substance was burned away by her force. She knew the goo would try to gather together and take a new shape, but her eyes stayed locked on Anubis's chest in the distance, as ghost images played in her mind...

And surely, a few moments later a tiny Anubis was blasted out of the enormous one, as the thick, supernatural armor cracked like glass: the titanic body ground to an awkward stop, and the light in the mask's eyes went out as a ripple traveled from head to toe.

Alexis frowned at that, and then made a grimace as new ghost images played in her head, while the lakes and seas contained within the damaged armor began to cascade out of the wound in the chest, flooding the world far below.

Anubis flew down to earth like a meteor, crashing into the coast with fearsome force... and Killer followed, resuming his normal sizes and clad in new pants that appeared out of solidified energy. The liger had Wyvern balanced upon one shoulder as he flew through the dust and the smoke and the debris kicked up by the impact, diving towards the centre of the new, enormous crater. The jackal was there, his face looking up but reduced to a mask of blood and maimed meat as he used his last forces to pull up one arm, releasing a blast of dark magic against the huge liger. Killer ignored the weak attack, the dark energy hitting his chest but ending up absorbed greedily into his powerful musculature as he swung Wyvern and stabbed it point-down through the god's chest, pinning him to the ground.

Anubis's back arched violently and he spasmed hard, coughing loudly and vomiting blood and dark gore as his eyes bulged almost out of his sockets... before he flopped backwards onto the ground, breathing weakly, as Killer's energies flowed out of the sword and zapped viciously through his form, burning his nerves into a molten inferno of pain and misery.

"It's over." Killer coldly stated, settling one heavy foot on the jackal's throat... and Anubis could only gurgle weakly, blood bursting out of his nostrils as he stared at the sky with faded eyes. He looked at his world-armour, unable to believe that Killer had somehow defeated him despite his masterpiece giving him such otherworldly power... and suddenly a grin spread over his lips even as his body was rattled by agony and by the life that quickly leaked out of him. Anubis burst in a coughing, gargling laughter, nodding weakly before exclaiming with broken voice: "It is... it's really over... for everyone."

Killer felt a shiver running down his spine, his eyes widening as he turned back to look at the immense armor... and he gaped as he realized that, with no gods left inside and with the energies of Light gone, the enormous set of supernatural armor plates was morphing back into a planet. Growing. Expanding. Regaining its full gravitational force. All while in contact with Heaven.

"I will still... destroy... t-this world... after all...!" Anubis cackled between wrecking coughs, laughing maniacally before he shouted: "You fail! You fail! You big arrogant bastard, you still fail!"

Killer had eyes only for the armor, which was now quickly morphing, losing its shape and expanding at a fearsome rate, filling the sky above them and growing further as an ominous darkness was cast over the whole of Heaven. The effect of the gravity pull was already becoming brutal: Anubis's planet wasn't massive, but still had far more mass than the false-planet that Heaven was, since Paradise did not have a solid core. Boulders and ruins and wrecks and corpses floated off the ground and were lifted into the sky, Anubis's own body agonizingly sliding up along Wyvern's blade as gravity dragged him upwards, and Killer felt his feet losing contact with the ground as well.

Looking upwards, he could only see the desert and the seas of the jackal's world as it regained its shape and size, and he was petrified by the horror as the ground began to tremble violently, soon shattering into islands and plates, each block of stone rising into the air as Heaven was pulled apart.

He had no idea what, if anything, he could do... and fear mixed with fury as Anubis continued to laugh his rasping laughter, shouting at him that he had failed, that Heaven was screwed, that he was nothing but a glorified failure.

"Shut up!" Killer venomously snarled, seizing the handle of Wyvern and twisting the sword within Anubis's body, making mincemeat of most of his torso as the enormous blade made a full, slow spin, while the liger's heavy foot stomped down on the jackal's muzzle, shattering it into bits of bone and pulped meat. A gargle of agony came from Anubis, who otherwise fell silent but for rasping, desperate breathing.

The pull of gravity became stronger and stronger, and it was a struggle for Alexis and the others to fly towards him. Every attempt to close the distances was complicated by the vicious pull dragging them upwards into the sky. And Killer realized with horror that he could see the planet above rushing closer: it soon would collide with Heaven in an apocalyptic clash.

"What do we do about that...?" Vesta urgently asked as soon as she managed to fly close to Killer, her wings sore and painfully bent upwards by the gravity pull, her finger pointing at the planet above them.

"Size up, lover." Alexis urged, looking at him firmly as she pulled up at his side. He gazed back at her with a hint of hesitation, but the goddess pre-empted him: "No worries. No hesitations. You have to overcome them, if you want to control your power. You are hiding from your potential, not trying to master it, lover... but that won't be enough to put things right." She paused and looked at Vesta, at Ira, at Gaia, at all the others before shaking her head briskly: "I don't think any of us is quite ready for heavy lifting of this scale... but with what you did at Retribution... I'm sure you can pull it off, if you push yourself some more. And you will, won't you...?" She gazed at him pointedly, urging him on with firm determination: her words were tough and almost harsh... definitely not words she'd normally use with him. But they did not have much time, and she knew that the right words would have him springing into action without further doubt. It pained her to push him like that, as she knew all too well what worried him, and how painful it was... but she also knew that he expected nothing less from her. Sincere love means having to say even hurtful things, when the moment calls for it. "I did not marry a coward. Cowards can be excused when they are too weak to have a chance... But you do have the power: don't let fear of it make you a coward, because that would be ten times worse."

"We are not going anywhere." Ira reassuringly added, squeezing his corded shoulder gently. "We're in it with you, to the end and beyond. We will be right at your side, if you need us."

He nodded with a warm smile full of affection, before gazing lovingly at each one of them as they nodded their promise, smiling at him with affection as he said softly: "Don't let me lose the right path, my guardians."

"We won't." Vesta and the others promised, before Alexis squeezed his shoulder gently as she grinned gamely, jerking her head in the direction of the growing planet. "You push Anubis's planet back, and I will make sure to keep Heaven steady... until we don't put enough distance between the two, they'll keep dragging each other around. The problem won't be fixed by action on only one of the two." Alexis wisely observed, and Killer nodded in agreement, easily visualizing the problem in his mind. "Steadying Heaven, I can do with ease." Alexis added, grinning in amusement as she slowly flexed her fingers, muscles bulging explosively as pure power burned in the air around her, crackling around her arm.

Killer swallowed at the intensity of the power she radiated, suspecting that she could actually easily do so much more... but he did not call her bluff, instead smiling as she added: "Together, I'm sure we can do it easily."

"With your help, there's nothing I can't do." Killer lovingly remarked, smiling at her as he floated backwards, away from them... and energy began to loudly crackle around his muscular, massive form, his eyes glowing a cold, beautiful, deadly sapphire as his mane floated in bangs, almost as if was made of living tendrils, his muscles bulging explosively even as he took the most leisure of flexes, arching his back as he savored the flood of power pumping in his veins as soon as he began to open the gates within him.

He looked at the planet as it continued to expand, reforming quickly and gaining more and more mass as the chest of the armor was torn open and splayed like a sheet of paper, expanding quickly and resuming the shape of a vast continent, takings its original places as part of the resurrecting world. It was a humbling sight, and something that he wouldn't have been able to even imagine, in a past phase of his life that still felt like yesterday. In fairness, warping a whole world and surrounding pocket dimension into an armor was something that even the gods had never before thought possible: it was one of the Big Nos, the few things that were supposed to be impossible, even for a god boosted by being inside his Sanctuary.

Anubis, of all people, had engineered a way to shatter that Law, and rise above it... although, of course, it had taken him the great luck of finding a fragment of the original body of Light.

_A single fragment... and it granted Anubis the power to do the impossible..._Killer swallowed thickly, amazed by the thought and terrified by the implications: it honestly was a true luck that Anubis, of all enemies, had found such a gigantic "battery" of reality-making power. Had Taranis or Thanathos or Typhon accessed such a source of energy, the implications would have been unimaginably worse.

Killer looked at the planet, amazed by how massive it was and trying to imagine how many billions and billions of tons of stone and magma and seas and mountains made up a planet. A. Frigging. Planet.

He knew he could destroy a planet: he had easily annihilated Sobek's own world in the past. But now this world was his. He had conquered it and the people on it. He did not want to annihilate it and kill them all. They did not deserve such a cruel fate. They had served Anubis, yes... but they had done so in memory of the noble judge of souls he had been before being corrupted by Sobek, by the craving for power, by the tantalizing chance of exploiting the chaos to rise to far higher thrones.

But to keep the planet in one piece meant moving it to a new orbit, and the thought of pushing it away, to a safe distance, while it and Heaven attracted each other towards a destructive embrace, felt like an insane fantasy. A delirium of lust for power. How could such an immense feat even be possible...?

"Perhaps we should have kept the piece of Light... that would have solved the problem..." Killer muttered, making a grimace at the thought... but somewhere deep inside his mind, Black Killer snorted dismissively, and Killer could see his cold, arrogant grin in his mind as the gigantic, black-furred male loftily teased: "It would have made for a tasty morsel, yes... but what you really need to do is to stop being a pussy. We do not need that little snack. We can have far, far more as soon as you stop being a crybaby."

"Shut up." Killer snarled, shutting his eyes and lashing inwardly against the image of the glowing crimson eyes and gleaming fangs... before the liger gritted his teeth and his eyes bulged open as the anger worked to unleash more energy, and quicker, making his body grown faster, his size increasing spectacularly as enormous muscles bulged and expanded, growing even larger and stronger.

It took bare moments for the combined force of gravity of the two planets to mean nothing to his enormous strength, his lips cresting in a smirk as he experienced once more the wonderful feeling that came from the impossible rapidly turning possible, then easy, then effortless, then puny. Killer looked at the planet again, this time with amusement: it no longer looked impressive or massive. It looked like a toy, something that he could effortlessly control... and he knew there were temples and towns on its surface. He knew his chest, his powerful abs, his immense black shaft, were filling the sky of those standing on the planet. So many lives and histories made up that world... and yet nothing of it mattered one bit. The collective efforts of entire civilizations, of billions and billions of persons over the millennia, their summed strength, their pooled hopes, their common prayers added up to a mere, hopeless zero in front of his perfect ten. And that was when his conquest of what had been Anubis's world became truly complete.

He turned his back to the planet, dropping beneath it, giving it a look from over his shoulder and grinning as he spread his enormous arms and bowed forwards slightly, licking his lips as a translucent barrier of energy wrapped around the world before he let the planet settle over his shoulders. The weight was next to insignificant and he balanced it easily on his shoulders, his head leaning against the barrier that served the sole purpose of sparing the surface of the world from annihilation via direct contact with his enormous, powerful musculature as he floated backwards, pushing the planet backwards, away from Heaven and towards a safer spot of space. There was a delicious thrill of omnipotence in the awareness that, without that barrier, a single strand of hair of his mane would have torn canyons across the face of the planet, annihilating towns, flattening mountains, turning plains into deep abysses without him even noticing.

But an even greater shiver of pleasure and lust came from admiring Alexis as she grew before his eyes, beautiful and omnipotent, her eyes glowing a bright sapphire as her golden hair floated slowly around her head, taking on a glow that made the sun and the stars look pale and weak. She flexed lazily as she matched his growth, her spectacular musculature bulging with power as ripples of her force traveled through the vast expanse of space, reality quivering around them.

Alexis grinned widely as she turned towards him, turning her back to Heaven and letting her prodigious legs cross slightly, her powerful thighs dwarfing Paradise, making him wish for a moment to see the planet crushed into dust between her huge muscles.

The goddess, naked and glorious, licked her lips slowly as she looked over his immense body, admiring the size of his muscles and their incalculable power as he thrust the planet away with such fearsome ease... before she smirked in loving challenge as she lazily distended one hand, pushing her palm gently towards Heaven, single-handedly holding it in place and pushing it back into its original spot of space even as the planet tried to follow the other world.

"I lied." Alexis cheerfully admitted, grinning amusedly as she let the fingers of her hand fold, only her index pushing against Heaven and moving it back with equal ease. "Moving planets around is a party trick at this point... but you knew it, didn't you?"

Killer licked his lips at her casual show of omnipotence, growling hungrily as he looked over her naked, beautiful form, his eyes caressing every inch of her spectacular body. "I... imagined it." He admitted after a moment.

"But you were scared to admit how strong you have become." Alexis stated, shaking her head slowly as she gazed at him with affection and, at the same time, with a firm reprimand. "You must not allow your power to scare you, lover. Respect it, and don't let it rule your mind... but never fear it."

"Power corrupts, my love..." Killer warned, lowering his gaze to look down at Heaven, biting his lips slowly as he shut his eyes to chase away the many terrible images of abuse that were already filling his fantasy. Having such power over the tiny ones far below did not justify abusing them and destroying them just to give him pleasure and entertainment.

"Those that do not have it get corrupted even worse, dreaming of it." Alexis replied, matter-of-factly, and the huge male swallowed, his cheeks burning as shame stung him painfully. She was, of course, right... and every word that followed hit home like a slap, even as she delivered them with a calm, relaxed, loving voice. "It is not your power that decides if you are a saint or a monster. It is what you do with it. And that boils down to choices. It is not by denying or trying to hide your power that you will solve the war and your inner conflict. You have to embrace your power, and choose your path."

Killer nodded silently, lowering his gaze in shame... and Alexis floated forwards, hugging him gently as he almost absently pushed Anubis's planet away, like it was a mere too large and too colorful basketball. "Mind you, choosing isn't easy and sticking to the choice made is harder still. I shouldn't even be lecturing you, since I took a different, easier path, putting my destiny and my choice in your hands." Alexis softly explained, kissing his cheek lovingly as she put her hands on his chest, leaning in close. Far smaller than them, but large enough to be clearly seen, were Vesta, Alcana, Ira, Adrasthea and the others, floating near him within bubbles of atmosphere.

"We all took the easy path." Ira said, and her voice sounded clear to Killer's ears despite the size difference and the distances. "We did not make a final choice: we handed you the responsibility to choose for all of us."

"But we are not going to be complete bitches." Vesta reassured, her voice reaching the huge male just as clearly. "We are your guardians and disciples. We will aid you in any and every way, right to the end of times: first of all, we will make sure that whatever choice you make, you make it with full convincement."

"Your wish is to do the Right thing and walk a path of light. We accept that, and we will forever make sure that you stick to your vow, which is also our vow. We will not allow the weakness of a moment to change your plans. If you slip, we'll be there to help you back on the right path." Gaia solemnly promised, before Alcana continued: "The choice is yours. We will be the guardians of it. We will protect it from enemy aggression and from your own temptation if and when it will drag you towards the dark."

"Only if you ever were to consciously decide to change your path, would we allow it." Adrasthea affirmed, and all the goddesses nodded as Manticora completed: "If, one day, you will decide that it is time for conquest, time to have the whole Creation cowering in your shadow, we will follow you without hesitation into the darkness, and make your shadow all the darker and even more imposing. But it'll only happen if you take a real decision: a momentary slip will not count."

Alexis smiled and nodded in agreement, whispering gently: "This is our vow. And we shall never break it. So, never hesitate. Achieve your full potential... if you trust us and you make a choice in which you believe, you have nothing to fear."

"And if I were to choose darkness...?" Killer quietly enquired, and he was delighted and horrified at once by seeing that none of the goddesses showed any disappointment or any disagreement. Not even Vesta, not even the queen of the Seraphims, showed any hint of hesitation or second thought.

"In your name, we'd snuff the stars out like candles." Alexis readily replied, grinning predatorily. It sent a shiver down his spine, as he knew that it was the pure truth. And gods, did it promise to be delightful...! The thought of setting his goddesses loose upon the universe and watch them annihilate world after world was exhilarating. The thoughts of conquering, of destroying, of dominating, of obliterating everything and everyone, were darkly delicious and incredibly tempting. His enormous musculature flexed and bulged with power and anticipation as his colossal black shaft gave a hungry, mighty throb. His back arched slightly as adrenaline pumped in his veins and he contemplated his options: the evil side of things had undeniable allure. Why should they care about a bunch of bugs that they could have effortlessly crushed under one toe? Why should they fight to protect the lives and homes and rights of beings so weak and inferior, so often ungrateful and disrespectful, when they could fight to conquer the whole universe and rule and dominate and abuse of it all instead...? Why should he hide his power and fear it, when he could embrace it and his dark hungers and enjoy it all, turning the whole creation in a toy for his and his goddesses' amusement...?

It would be so much easier...

But then he thought of the little kitty girl at Orion. He thought of Diana. He thought of all the tears he had already caused in the past. He thought of the smiles of the people he had helped. And he looked down at Heaven again, thinking of all the people in Eaglenest, how they counted on him for having a chance of survival, a chance for building a new and better world in the future.

And he closed his eyes, taking a deep, long breath before gazing right into Alexis's own sapphire eyes, her expression expectant and confident. Whatever his choice, she was going to back him with all her love, her loyalty and her power.

"We shall do not what's easy, not what is pleasant... but what is Right." He finally announced, and the goddesses smiled warmly before Alexis nodded and sealed the deal: "And so it'll be."

Killer slowly turned around, his determination seeming to fuel his strength even further as reality rippled violently around him, looking like it would tear apart as if overwhelmed by his presence as he gazed at what had once been Anubis's planet and pushed it into a safe, distant orbit with his mere thought. The huge male looked thoughtful as he observed the planet spinning peacefully in the depths of space, parked in a safe stretch of emptiness where its gravity did not enter in conflict with any other body... and then he mused calmly: "We shouldn't leave this planet out here, though... at least, not right now. Now that it is mine, if we leave it here it'll become a target for all sort of assaults. And we are more than busy enough in Heaven without adding extra worlds to the list." He slowly, majestically distended his muscular arm, energy crackling in thunderbolts around his enormous bicep and his fingers as reality trembled and warped around his limb. He traded a gaze with Alexis, grinning in playful challenge as he thought back to how she had overdone him, showcasing her immense power. Now was his turn, and the goddess licked her lips, repressing a warm shiver as she ignored the ghost images in her head: she wanted to fully enjoy it as it happened.

"Besides, this planet remains a spoil of war... The victor has every right to show it off." The gigantic god added, before smirking as he let his energies wash over the planet, flame-like motes of force wrapping and coiling around the world like a snake of apocalyptic proportions. The goddesses stared in silence, admiring the spectacle as the serpent squeezed harder and harder, and the planet quickly shrunk down in size, becoming smaller and smaller while floating docilely back towards Killer's hand.

With his worries put aside, the gigantic male radiated monstrous power and fearsome physical strength. With his mind focused on the task at hand, his force was free to truly manifest itself, and the result was astonishing as he lazily compressed a whole world down to a miniature, apparently without any effort at all. The visual effect was made even more exhilarating by the fact that his body was continuing to grow immensely in size, his enormous muscles dwarfing the planet in an even more humiliating way as it became smaller and smaller while his glory continued to surge.

It took a mere moment, and an entire world, along with everyone living on its surface, was shrunk down to the size of a small, colorful candy that docilely floated towards Killer's immense index finger, caught by its gravity field and forced into a slow orbit around the god's immense claw. The liger grinned widely down at the minuscule world as he slowly rose his hand in front of his face, his eyes glowing with lust and power as he gazed at the tiny world's surface, his eyes able to make out the people even though they were smaller than dust particle now, compared to his immensity. Not a single one of them was standing: they were all groveling before him, begging and praying and crying for mercy from their invincible conqueror.

How easy it would be...

His gigantic cock gave another hungry throb full of hunger and vigor, causing the goddesses to grin widely at the sight: the immensity of his flaccid shaft dwarfed the planet into insignificance, and that lazy throb alone carried more power than the people on the shrunken world could dream of. It was truly a majestic sight... and for the tiny, powerless mortals, a vision so humbling that it ensured their submission and their fear to the very end of times.

"Taranis has arrived." Alexis calmly announced, without even needing to turn to look down at Heaven. She could feel his energies clearly, and see him in her mind with full clarity. "He's going for Anubis."

"Yes..." Killer calmly replied, idly watching the planet as it slowly turned around his claw, his senses now sharp enough that he could easily feel the god of war's presence, even from such a distance. "We'll better head back and make sure that the dog does not pass on his secrets."

Alexis nodded in agreement, easily imagining what Taranis probably wanted, and they all quickly teleported back towards the coast of the Middle Sea, sizing down in the process.

When they reappeared back on solid ground, Killer was still holding his index finger extended, as the planet continued to circle slowly around his claw. His attention, however, was all aimed at the crater at the bottom of which Anubis still lay.

Taranis's new war chariot was parked nearby, and the two remaining fire stallions were slamming the heart nervously with their heavy, fiery hooves, rattling the ground and sending dark hellfire spreading around them. Seth glared at him from on top of the chariot, but did not move to attack, even as Killer walked calmly towards the crater, followed by Alexis and the other females.

From the crater came insane, gargling laughter, as a breathless, terrified Anubis screamed: "Did you see what he just did...? Did you see...?" The jackal shrieked the same thing over and over, his voice broken by violent coughing as he vomited blood and ichors, his body trembling violently as the life slowly and painfully abandoned him. His hands gripped into the sides of Wyvern, trying to push the gigantic sword out of his torso, but all he obtained was a discharge of energy which burned his flesh and ripped his nerves apart, slamming him backwards into the earth before he could even just budge the godly weapon.

"Shut up, idiot...!" Taranis hissed, the god of war straddling the dying divinity and bent over him, his eyes flashing with fury and disbelief as he snarled: "How could you, of all people, realize the dream of so many gods, where everyone always failed...? A weak, miserable idiot like you...!"

Anubis looked up at Taranis in confusion, before his eyes bulged again as he stared at the sky and shrieked: "Did you see...? Did you see? He... took my planet away, shrunk it out of existence... like... just like... just like that..."

"That's because you are a weak idiot that managed to lose even while wearing your own sanctuary as armor." Taranis spat, looking disgusted as he clenched one hand into a fist, tempted to just punch the agonizing, insane god out of existence. But he craved to know what the secret was... oh, he would use such a power so much better. He would use it to rise above all else.

"Tell me, Anubis... how did you create that armor?" The god of war asked, for what was probably the tenth time already. He tried to sound more accommodating and supportive, even as his smile came out as nothing more than a grimace... but the jackal only punched and slapped and clawed desperately at the gigantic sword pinning him to the ground. Taranis made a grimace at that, before leaning down and trying to sound reassuring as he said: "You want me to tear the sword out...? I can help you... I can make the pain stop, if you tell me how you created your armor."

The jackal only clawed frantically at the blade of Wyvern, shaking his head erratically, and Taranis snarled as he gripped the handle of Wyvern, gritting his fangs as the sword angrily blasted him with energy, trying to repeal him... but the god's lips curled in a snarling grin as he let the pain fuel his rage, his bloodlust, his power. Even as his hand was burned and consumed, the heavy gauntlet melting away and revealing first his charred flesh, then his bones as the meat was entirely consumed, he pulled upwards without hesitation, slowly tearing the heavy sword out of the ground and out of Anubis's destroyed body. "Tell me, Anubis... and the pain will end!"

Wyvern glowed a murderous crimson color as it crackled with golden and dark thunderbolts of energy, reacting as if equipped with a mind of its own: the sword blasted more and more energy into Taranis's arm, until the god recoiled with a snarl, letting go of the incandescent handle as the bones of his hand smoldered, the armor covering his arm white hot and crackling with electricity as holes opened in several places as the dark alloy melted into jelly and fell away.

Taranis snarled in rage, looking down at Anubis with pure hate, unable to believe that the jackal could have accomplished such an unprecedented feat. He would have never thought it possible. He had always regarded Anubis like a low tier divinity, too weak to ever matter... and now the dog knew a secret that could turn a god into a true ruler of worlds. Taranis tried once more to read into Anubis's mind, but after only a few moments he ceased his attempts: the jackal's mind was too badly damaged to be navigated. Anubis was suffering not just from the wounds in his body, but from near-insanity induced by the physical shocks and by the disbelieving awe in front of Killer's power and size.

"Anubis, you must tell me your secret... with it, I will be able to help you... I will strike Killer down and that will be your revenge. Don't you want him crushed out of existence for what he did to you...?" The god of war urged, seizing the jackal by the shoulders and rattling him unceremoniously. "Tell me how to turn a sanctuary into armor, and I'll bring you the head of Killer on a plate."

"Killer...!" Anubis shrieked, trashing violently and then coughing up a thick gout of blood and dark gore. "You... did you see what he did...? He... and Alexis, too...! They... played with my planet... just... just like that..."

Taranis snarled in frustration at that, gripping Wyvern's handle again, this time with both hands, working to drag it out of the earth and free the jackal, even as the heavy weapon again fought him back, becoming incandescent and blasting him with tremendous discharges of Killer's energies.

"You will not get any answer from him. His mind is broken... and it'll take time for it to work again. If it ever will. It seems we were a bit too much for his mind to comprehend." Killer finally announced, grinning as he stopped a few steps behind the two, crossing his muscular arms on his chest, keeping his index finger lazily outstretched as the captive planet continued to slowly orbit around it. "And that is my sword, by the way. As she is making pretty clear, she does not like to be touched by strangers. "

"Like I could ever care..." Taranis spat, making a grimace of distaste as he finally ripped Wyvern free, swinging it tip-up as Anubis let out a breathless, gasping shriek of anguish. The god of war held the heavy sword up high, studying it for a long moment even as thunderbolts of brutal force ran through his body, making his muscles spasm violently under the armor. "You improved your weapon... but nothing has changed. War bows only before me." The gigantic divinity snorted in contempt as he gave Wyvern another careful look, before he finally tossed the heavy weapon towards Killer, who easily caught it in midair, shouldering the blade. Wyvern glowed contently for a moment, pacified now that she was back in her master's hand, and she drank of Killer's presence and force, recharging itself fully.

"You were the one to challenge me. If War will bow to a new master, it'll be because of your stupidity." Killer calmly replied, before making a beckoning motion in the direction of Anubis, lifting the broken, bloody heap of jackal into a psychic grip. "And this dog here is my prisoner, if you don't mind."

Taranis snarled as he watched the dog float high into the air, and for a moment it looked like he would step in to grab the agonizing jackal. There was a moment of tension as Seth tensed and leaned forwards, almost taking on a ready position as the giant fire stallions nervously slammed their hooves and snorted hellfire from their nostrils... but on the other side, Killer did not show any hesitation and Alexis cracked her knuckles slowly, grinning gamely, while Ira, Vesta, Gaia and the others crossed their arms on their chests, their eyes glowing with cold, steely determination as they glared at the massive god.

Taranis stood taller than them all, his enormous form casting them all in his shadow... but even the god of war had no desire to charge headlong into a brawl with Killer being backed by so many and so powerful goddesses.

So nothing happened and Killer gave a small nod before clenching his fist, a ripple of energy traveling through the air as he teleported Anubis right into a cell in Eaglenest. Hidden deep inside the sanctuary, Anubis was now in the only place in the universe out of Taranis's reach.

"Hide him away, put him as deep as you want inside your sanctuary... I don't need his armor to beat you. I will kill you and take away your sanctuary and your bitches and your everything. Even your precious 'prisoner' and his secrets." The god of war coldly hissed, his eyes narrowing as he glared at Killer with ferocious hate.

The liger, however, calmly stretched his arms out and urged: "Come at me, then, Taranis. We can settle this, here and now. My Disciples won't interfere..." The liger looked at Taranis flatly before darting a gaze in Seth's direction, silently making clear that he did not expect the same kindness from his rival.

The god of war made a grimace of distaste at that, but did not deny the implicit accusation, instead turning his back to Killer and walking back to his chariot, climbing easily on it. "I think the time has come, Killer. Follow me, if you dare."

"What, you don't like it here...? The scenery does not suit you...?" Alexis mockingly called out as Seth pulled on the reins and guided the gigantic fire stallions in a wide turn, the chariot advancing towards a large black portal that Taranis opened with an easy gesture of his hand. The god of war turned to glare at her from over his shoulder, his eyes glowing murderously as he venomously muttered: "We could fight here... but Heaven would be burnt down to cinders in the process."

"Like you ever cared... Save me the bullshit, I don't even need to read your mind to know the truth." The goddess coldly replied, but Taranis ignored her comment and crossed his mighty arms, looking straight ahead as Seth guided the chariot into the portal. They were gone a moment later, leaving behind only a ripple in the dark energy that, like a dancing veil, kept the destination of the portal hidden and mysterious. Killer looked at this for a long moment, trying to look out for any hint of what he would find on the other side... but the portal had nothing to say to him, only swirling emotionlessly and waiting for him to walk through.

"Well, I guess this confirms I'm headed for one of his sanctuary-planets." The liger finally said, letting out a snort of somewhat irritated acceptation. "Well, if I had any doubt left about him being a dishonest asshole, now that doubt is gone."

"He fears your strength, and he does not want to take chances. He will do all he can to make sure the field is not level." Gaia quietly said, looking at the portal with attention, walking slowly around it and biting her lower lip slightly as she used her knowledge of magic and of the gods themselves to try and detect any immediate threat. "The portal, at least, does not seem to hide any curse or magic trap... but on the other hand, it won't let anyone through other than you, Lord Killer."

"That's okay. I don't want you to follow." Killer calmly replied, before smiling warmly as he saw Gaia opening her mouth to object, gently silencing her. "And we've already discussed of it. I will not change my mind. You will head back to Eaglenest and make sure to throw Anubis into a cell... and I will reach you there... once I'm done."

Gaia gazed at him silently, looking concerned yet confident, frustrated yet happy of him. She shook her head slowly, but a smile crested her lips before she urged: "Be careful then, stubborn bastard. We'll be waiting for your return."

"I have every intention to come back, Gaia." Killer reassured, smiling at them with love before turning towards Alexis, the goddess tilting her head to the side and grinning slightly, a look of amused expectation on her features. He held up his hand, distending his index finger and smirking as he looked down at the tiny planet floating powerlessly around his digit, before he amusedly said: "It's been ages since I last gifted you something nice... so... I think you should take this."

He offered his hand to her, and Alexis gently took it in hers, pulling it up to her lips and kissing his knuckled gently, a soft smile on her features as she whispered: "Thank you, lover... you turn every moment we spend together into the best of gifts, but... I'm surely not going to turn down such a precious little present."

Alexis carefully pushed her own index near his, their claws grinding together lightly as they traded a grin of amusement as they savored the complete supremacy of their power over the fate of that whole world that powerlessly orbited around their claws. The goddess licked her lips slowly, murring in entertainment at the sheer attention and caution it took not to destroy that whole planet with just a wrong movement of her finger. That was the extent of her power... an idle, absent movement of her index, and one entire world could have ceased to exist without her even noticing.

She carefully pulled her finger back away from his as soon as the planet visibly altered its course, beginning to circle around her claw, while Killer swiftly but prudently moved his thick finger away, before the minuscule world could be caught against in the gravitational field of his digit.

Alexis laughed in entertainment as she watched the planet move around in circle, slave to her presence and will... and her lips crested in a grin as she announced: "I know the perfect place for this little jewel..."

Killer grunted in delight as she pushed her right foot forwards, her powerful muscles bulging and her calves swelling against the dark laces of her boots, making them groan audibly. She slid her hand sensually down her almighty thigh muscles, holding her index up just enough to not smear the planet over her body, before she flicked her index with a smirk, throwing the world away. The planet fell down along her long, beautiful, powerful leg, before her psychic grip caught it and pushed it towards the high heel of her boot.

"That's where the little bugs should stay..." Alexis said, grinning widely as the planet began to orbit slowly around her high heel, which replaced the sun in the sky of the minuscule mortals. The shank of her boot, etched with the writing "I own you", replaced their sky, reminding everyone on the planet, assuming that anyone needed to be told, who was in charge. It was a bit harsh and admittedly humiliating for the tiny beings on the planet... but, on the other hand, it guaranteed safety and security for their world. Wrapped inside a solid, transparent barrier of energy and located right at Alexis's heel, they were arguably in the safest place in the universe: anyone wanting to assault the planet would have had to take on Alexis first...

And very few, if any, would dare trying.

"That's pretty mean... and damn awesome." Killer commented, grinning widely before licking his lips slowly. Oh, yes... it was a delicious decoration for her boot. It seemed just so right, with how strong her glorious legs were, with how muscular and potent her thigh, with how astonishing her calves... down there, a puny planet, dwarfed by her musculature, by her beauty, by the magnificence of her long, strong leg, by the sheer omnipotence of her leg... It was delightful, and it felt only right that those mortals would offer their home world to underline her superiority with their existence. "That's why I adore you, my love... you always know what's best."

"I know..." Alexis teasingly replied, winking at him and idly flexing her leg for him, showing off the perfection of her strength as she looked down at her new little jewel.

"Holy fuck, that's some hot stuff...!" Vesta exclaimed, the queen wearing a smirk of amusement and delight as she bent deeply to admire Alexis's heel, her massive muscles flexing eagerly as she licked her lips, before she pouted some as she gazed up at Killer and whined: "When do I get a planet-toy of my own...?"

Killer laughed of her teasing, shaking his head slowly before answering: "We'll see, huh...?" He smirked as Vesta grumbled 'but I want it now...', ruffling her hair before she straightened and kissed him, wrapping her arms around his neck and squeezing tightly.

"Kick his ass. His and that of everyone else he brings along." Vesta recommended, and he nodded with a smile before hugging Alexis, kissing her for a few long moments... and then Ira, and Gaia, and Alcana, Adrasthea, Manticora... He took his time, kissing them all, to carry with him their taste and their perfume, their warmth and their love. He was going to need all of it, to stand up to Fear itself, to the god of war, to an assortment of horrors and enemies with no equal.

But finally, he could not keep Taranis waiting any longer. He saluted his beloved one last time, and then walked towards the portal and right into it, without further hesitations.

He had no idea what he would find on the other side, but for sure it was going to be nasty.

But I will return. I promise.