The pterosaur circling at a safe distance caught Quetzalcoatl as she fell back.
Gilgash also descended onto the Vimana, clutching his bleeding abdon with one hand. He looked far from well, but was still alive.
As a Servant, his Spirit Core had not been damaged, and at Hakuno's request, he shifted into Spirit Form.
Once he confird they were both safe, Shiomi turned his eyes toward Tiamat.
The earlier assault had wiped out over half of the Laḫmu, leaving the sky abruptly clear.
The thick smoke dissipated, and a piercing cry rang out once more.
"AaaaaAaaaa————!"
Tiamat, who had been floating upright, crashed to the earth, now lying sprawled across the fractured ground.
One of the great horns that had emitted magical energy to keep her aloft had been struck dead-on by Quetzalcoatl with Marduk's Axe.
Though it hadn't been completely shattered, it was enough to rob Tiamat of her ability to fly.
"With this... we can at least stall Tiamat for a while, buy Uruk more ti..." Shiomi panted lightly.
His body, still unrecovered, was repeatedly breaking down from the toll of divine power. Facing Tiamat, he knew it more clearly than ever—sharing the sa category of Authority didn't an being her equal.
He'd recovered quickly before only because, though the wounds were fatal, they weren't uniquely destructive.
The fact that Tiamat was still able to move proved the difference.
He raised his wrist to contact Chaldea, intending to have Romani relay the situation to their allies in Uruk.
"Wait... Tiamat—!" Artoria's voice broke in, low and urgent, as she stared ahead.
Shiomi froze too. "The Chaos Tide... it's covered her whole body…"
Tiamat, who had clearly taken severe damage and seed immobilized, suddenly raised a towering wave of black mud several ters high.
The Chaos Tide, obeying the will of the Mother of Creation, surged up and wrapped around her.
"This is bad! Tiamat's Spirit Origin's Age of Gods regression just accelerated—it's already reached the Jurassic era!" Romani's frantic voice crackled through the wind. "The Spirit Origin expansion has stopped, the mana furnace is confird to be rebooting repeatedly, and the dragon transformation... is complete!"
By the end, Romani's voice was thick with dread.
"What you're facing now is—without a doubt—a god!"
"I can already tell… I don't even need to look," Shiomi muttered, cold sweat beading on his skin.
Maybe in the Chaldea control room, they could only track Tiamat's transformation through radar signals.
But here on the front line, Shiomi and the others could feel it directly—the pressure radiating from her was overwhelming.
They couldn't win. There was no defeating this.
Such was her presence.
And it wasn't just that. Now in her dragon form, Tiamat—still grounded—was growing wings.
As the Goddess of Earth, she was never ant to touch the sky. Yet here and now, she was rewriting the rules themselves.
Her trailing hair now surged upward, twisting and churning like it had rged into the storm clouds above.
Heaven above, earth below—none but I hold dominion.
That phrase—spoken by Shakyamuni upon his birth as he took seven steps in each direction—floated into Shiomi's mind.
No words could better describe the form of the Primordial Mother now rising between heaven and earth.
"We've co this far—there's no ti left to hesitate." Quetzalcoatl rolled her shoulders. "From here on, it's up to you."
"I'll—" Artoria rose as well.
"Nope. You need to protect your Master and the King of the Moon~." Quetzalcoatl gently stopped her.
"You're not saying…" Shiomi understood exactly what that ant.
...
"What are you waiting for?! She's coming!" Ishtar's voice rang out sharply.
The gates of the sky opened. Venus manifested and, as a pure concept, descended into her hand.
Tiamat, now fully returned to her dragon Spirit Origin, turned toward them. In the blink of an eye, she amassed an overwhelming amount of magical energy—and unleashed it in a blast.
A strike empowered by magical energy far surpassing that of any living being or Heroic Spirit on Earth.
"I don't have ti to worry about anything else!" Ishtar's golden eyes glead. "An Gal Ta Ki Gal Šè: Kindling of Venus that Shook the Mountains!"
At nearly the sa mont, Ishtar gritted her teeth and fired her most powerful Noble Phantasm. It collided head-on with Tiamat's beam of raw Mana.
But the instant they clashed, she was overwheld—bit by bit, she was pushed back.
"Even if you're my mother... I'm not letting you through!"
Her voice rang out, stubborn and fierce, though even she wasn't sure why she was pushing herself so hard.
...Maybe it was because she'd seen Ereshkigal step out of the underworld, living each day to the fullest above ground. If she let all that effort go to waste now—then all the suffering she endured while sealed would have been for nothing.
Having found her answer, Ishtar poured every ounce of strength into holding her Noble Phantasm steady.
"As another goddess linked to Venus—I can't just stand back and watch~!"
Quetzalcoatl surged forward at that mont, raising her right hand to summon the Piedra del Sol.
"The past is here. The present is here. The future is here! Co winds, co lightning! When the morning star shines... let all know the Sun's light reaches every corner of the Earth! Piedra del Sol!"
Using the enshrined monolith as a "gate," she drew on a portion of her divine origin—unleashing her authority as a god. What burst forth was a solar storm so fierce, it mirrored her divine might across the battlefield.
The stream of Mana Tiamat was unleashing faltered—interrupted by the storm—and Ishtar's Noble Phantasm was able to force it back.
But it still wasn't enough.
Quetzalcoatl: Second Noble Phantasm—unleashed.
She launched herself from the molten earth, flying straight into the sky above the clouds.
"Let show you the underworld of South Arica—the destructive force that wiped out countless lives! This body becos burning stone, a cot crashing into the earth! Xiuhcoatl: Fla, Burn the Gods Themselves!"
A blazing strike fell from the heavens, slamming directly into Tiamat's imnse body.
The sheer force of it pushed Quetzalcoatl's Spirit Origin past its limit—it began to collapse.
A blow wielded with the full power of a foreign god—one that did not belong to sopotamia.
Even the Primordial Mother, reborn in her dragon form, couldn't take it without consequence.
"Shiomi!" Hakuno Kishinami called from the Vimana.
"Quit stalling... GO!" Ishtar roared, burning through her final reserves of power.
"…Retreat. We can't let the goddesses' sacrifice be in vain!" Shiomi growled, clenching his teeth. "Uruk is the final battlefield!"
Artoria closed her eyes solemnly and gave them a silent salute. Then she tightened her grip on Shiomi, spurred the pterosaur, and retreated at full speed alongside the Vimana.
Behind them, beams of Noble Phantasm light converged on Tiamat—an explosion lit up the plains, devouring nearly a hundred kiloters of land and casting radiant light across the dark skies of sopotamia.
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