The Fourth Netherworld lay within the mountain range that stretched across all of Mictlan.
Though the underground hollows were narrow, they were unbelievably long. Even at high speed, circling the whole place would take half a day.
For humans, however, it was already an enormous space.
It was not cramped at all for a human-sized body, making high-mobility combat easy to carry out.
Camazotz, whose body was far larger, could only fight mainly through defense and counterattacks.
Their strength was evenly matched. No little trick would be enough to change the course of the battle. Only direct, overwhelming power could decide victory.
"You lost your kingdom, lost your people, and in the end even lost yourself. Is that really the outco you wanted? Is that why you've wandered Mictlan for 6.6 million years, king of Ka'an?"
Shiomi's voice echoed across the battlefield, pressing the question again and again.
"I already told you. The one standing before you is nothing more than a weakling who had to sacrifice everything in order to defeat ORT."
Camazotz defended against the rain of spears flying toward him as he answered Shiomi.
"There is no point in wasting any more words. You should understand that."
"There is a point," Shiomi replied calmly. "ORT is an enemy we are bound to face sooner or later. If it awakens again, then how am I supposed to defeat it? That is a question I am still thinking about even now, and one I still cannot answer."
Camazotz fell silent, continuing only to defend and counterattack.
At this point, Shiomi's intent was already perfectly clear.
He did not know how to defeat a fully awakened ORT.
That was why he wanted to find the answer in this battle, by learning it from Camazotz.
Because he did not want to repeat the sa mistake.
Because no matter what, he did not want to sacrifice the people important to him.
If soone truly had to be sacrificed, then he alone would be enough.
No. Only we.
Morgan quietly corrected Shiomi's thinking in her heart.
"And you dare challenge while clinging to such childish confusion."
Camazotz's rebuttal was icy.
"Salvation, absolution, rcy, sacrifice... even if you cling to such things, they will change nothing."
A sound wave powerful enough to shake the soul echoed through the Netherworld, amplifying again and again through reverberation. Even the Unity God's Spirit Origin began to shake with it, no longer able to maintain its forr stability.
"Co! Show all your power! You still haven't played your trump card, have you? The very trump card that once shook even Mictlan!"
Camazotz's assault beca even fiercer.
The attacks unleashed by the four spears were no longer enough to threaten him. Even when their Noble Phantasms' True Nas were released, they were still all focused, single-point breakthrough Noble Phantasms and could not inflict a fatal wound.
The result was obvious.
This man longed for blood. He longed for battle in its purest form.
But that was not what Shiomi needed.
Even if they staked everything and defeated Camazotz, they would gain nothing from it. Nothing would change.
"That power was not born for slaughter. It was born from my husband's wish to protect everything."
Morgan spoke in Shiomi's place, rejecting Camazotz's words.
"There is no aning in winning like this."
"If you want the final answer, then co and take it yourself!"
The skeletal warriors summoned by Camazotz crawled over the mountain path and crouched behind the rocks.
So raised spears.
Others drew their bows to the limit.
Though each of them possessed only the strength of low-rank Servants, gathered together they were still enough to threaten the enemy before them.
"Stand down!"
Morgan swept out a hand and rebuked them in a low voice.
The skeletal warriors' attacks instantly lost both direction and force, plunging down into the abyss of the Third Netherworld.
"My wife!"
Shiomi suddenly warned her.
Camazotz had summoned countless bats, and an extrely dangerous concentration of magical energy was gathering in his claws.
A Noble Phantasm.
"So it's finally co to this," Shiomi said.
"In any case, we strike back first."
Morgan raised a hand, preparing to activate her Noble Phantasm.
"No." Shiomi disagreed. "Camazotz seeks battle and blood not because he is cruel, but because he has forgotten why he beca this strong, why he still wanders Mictlan even now, and why he wants to beco the last god."
"My husband ans...?"
"If you clash with him using your Noble Phantasm, Yayauhqui is dood to disappear," Shiomi said quietly. "Since he wants us to reveal our trump card, then let's satisfy him."
"But isn't that the sa thing?" Morgan said, sounding helpless.
"You've personally used [Earth Mother's Feast] once before, my wife. So you should know what kind of power it is."
Shiomi smiled as he told her that.
"No. You will understand."
"And what if I'm too slow to understand?"
Morgan lightly teased him, then landed on a high rock and looked down at Camazotz.
"So you've finally decided to get serious! Then let see it!"
Camazotz's voice brimd with rising battle lust.
"If you want the answer, then take this full-powered strike! Appear, Great Scythe of Xibalba!"
Under Camazotz's magical energy, countless bats transford into a massive scythe over ten ters long.
With a single swing, it could cut through Morgan together with the rocky ground beneath her feet.
"The seven evil winds that tear apart chaos, the sundering blood rain that split heaven and earth. The trajectories of the stars are shaped by the gods, yet the fate of man should be decided by man alone. From this day on, humanity shall follow this bitter journey so that they may reach the stars. Therefore, great mother of creation, our mother, progenitor of all things, please bear witness!"
Morgan quietly chanted the incantation. Her voice gradually rose, clear as moonlight, echoing through the Third Netherworld.
Even the skeletal warriors, who had been about to continue fighting on instinct, involuntarily fell still at that mont.
The ti had co.
[Lost Sun Xibalba]!
Camazotz finished gathering his magical energy first, and his Noble Phantasm ca down with the power to split mountains, shatter stone, and sever all things.
It tore through the space of Yayauhqui itself.
In the very next instant, it would cut down the Unity God standing in the path of its swing.
"[Earth Mother's Feast] [Nammu Duranki]."
Morgan and Shiomi spoke the True Na of the Noble Phantasm at the exact sa ti.
Before the enormous execution scythe could cut through the body of Unity God Morgan, it began to collapse out of control.
The death-bats that ford the scythe turned to dust within the light and scattered away.
"Ah... that is..."
It was not that the attack had failed to connect.
Nor was it that its power had been lacking.
Rather, in this Netherworld saturated with the concept of death, the power of life surged forth like a flood, spilling out and spreading across all of Yayauhqui.
Even a god of death could not hold back that flood.
Even a god of death could not disperse it.
All things revived. Life burst forth again.
Camazotz could only stand there in stunned silence.
He had forgotten why he had once decided to seize this authority.
What lay before his eyes was the long-cherished wish he could never, ever fulfill.
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