The battlefield had shifted far from the Hall of Judgnt.
Fragnts of shattered terrain floated in slow arcs through the pale-gold sky of the god realm, still vibrating from the last exchange. The watching gods had expected to see Drakon pressing the fight, forcing the intruder back through sheer endurance.
Instead—
Their eyes widened.
Zane hovered in the open air, one hand gripping the corpse of a chira-like humanoid by the horned lion skull. The body still leaked faint divine aura, but it was weak... fading. The creature’s jaw hung broken, its chest caved inward by a ragged hole where dark, corrupted energy continued to seep like smoke from a wound in reality.
Golden fur stained black.
Scales cracked.
White paw limp.
Bull-legs dangling lifelessly.
Drakon.
God of Beasts.
Dead.
Zane gave the body a brief glance, expression mildly unimpressed.
"For a god," he said casually, "he was quite ugly. But... unique power set. I’ll give him that."
He let the corpse drop. It fell in slow motion through the divine air below, leaving a thin trail of dark residue before vanishing into the distant cloud layer.
Across the sky, the remaining high gods froze.
Shock lasted only a mont.
Then it hardened into sothing colder.
Thalira’s eyes narrowed, her voice slipping into their minds in a tight, controlled thread.
I told you this was a possibility. If we don’t attack together, we will be killed. All of us.
A beat of silence.
All five of you—attack. I will prepare the Tree of Life. Distract him.
The others felt the weight of it. No more testing. No more asured probing. If Drakon could fall that quickly, then holding back was suicide.
Their auras surged.
Primordius burned brighter, flas licking upward from his shoulders as the temperature around him spiked. Glacira’s side of the sky dropped into killing frost, shards of ice forming silently in the air. Sylphara’s cloak snapped violently as pressure currents began to spiral. Veyra’s ocean-mana churned beneath the surface of space itself, while Korvath’s tallic fra locked into place with a heavy, resonant clang.
They spread out.
Encirclent.
Zane watched them move, purple eyes gleaming with faint amusent.
"...So it’s not one-on-one anymore, huh?" he said with a small smirk.
He rolled his shoulders once, dark mana flickering around him like heat distortion.
"Whatever. Bring it on."
Five divine auras ignited at once.
The sky of the god realm warped under the pressure as Primordius moved first, flas erupting from his body in a violent bloom. A tidal wave of incandescent fire rolled outward, turning the air into a furnace. At the sa mont, Glacira lifted a hand and the temperature collapsed—jagged glaciers ford in midair and shot forward like a storm of spears. Heat and frost collided around Zane, detonating into violent bursts of steam that cracked the clouds apart.
Sylphara vanished into wind. A cyclone ford behind Zane and compressed inward, trying to crush him between vacuum and pressure. Veyra followed imdiately, summoning a vertical ocean from nothing; a column of dense, crushing water fell like a celestial hamr. Beneath it all, Korvath slamd his gauntleted fists together and sent a forgewave through the ground of the realm itself—tallic plates of condensed divinity erupted upward, trying to cage Zane in a tightening lattice.
The five attacks overlapped perfectly.
Fire to blind.
Ice to pierce.
Wind to bind.
Ocean to crush.
Forge to seal.
From a distance it looked like a miniature star collapsing on itself.
Inside that chaos—
Zane moved.
He slipped between the first wave of flas without rushing, coat fluttering lightly as if he were walking through a breeze rather than a furnace. An ice spear passed his neck by a hair; he tilted his head and let it skim past, then tapped it once with two fingers. The spear reversed direction instantly and shot back, forcing Glacira to shatter it before it reached her.
The cyclone closed. He stepped forward instead of back. Wind collapsed around empty space as he was already sowhere else, appearing above the descending ocean column. He dropped through it, palm out, and the mass of water split around him in a perfect ring before detonating outward like a broken halo.
Korvath’s tallic lattice snapped shut where Zane had been.
Too late.
A flicker—Zane reappeared behind the forge god and drove a short punch into the construct instead of the god himself. The entire cage inverted, crushing inward on itself and exploding into molten fragnts that scattered across the sky.
Primordius roared and surged forward through the debris, fist wrapped in blazing divine fire. Zane leaned aside, the punch grazing past his coat. He caught Primordius by the wrist and redirected the montum downward; the fla god slamd through three floating landmasses below before stabilizing, leaving a molten trench behind him.
Glacira and Sylphara attacked together this ti. Ice crystals locked space in place while wind pressure collapsed inward, trying to pin Zane at the center. For a brief mont he stood there, surrounded by converging forces from every direction.
Then he moved once.
A single step.
The entire formation missed by centiters as he slid between vectors that should have been impossible to escape. His elbow flicked outward and struck the side of a wind current; the redirected pressure wave shot back and tore through the ice formation, shattering it into glittering fragnts that rained across the battlefield.
Explosions continued to ripple across the sky.
Fla pillars.
Tidal surges.
Shockwaves that echoed across the realm.
From the outside, it looked like the five high gods had completely surrounded him. Their attacks layered without pause, each one capable of erasing continents. Yet at the center of it all, Zane moved through the chaos like soone stretching after a long rest.
He ducked a trident of condensed water, spun past a burning arc of fla, stepped over a collapsing wind blade, and countered with small, efficient strikes that forced each god to reposition rather than overwhelm him.
Between exchanges, his gaze flicked briefly toward the distance.
Thalira hovered far back, hands raised, lips moving in a steady chant.
Mana gathered around her in slow, deliberate spirals.
So five are attacking... what about the scheming one?
He watched for half a second, then looked away.
Ah. Chanting sothing. Setting up a field or a big attack... probably a trump card to kill .
A faint smirk tugged at his mouth.
Not that they can actually do anything. Still... I’ll give them a chance.
Primordius and Veyra ca in together again, one from above, one from below. Zane twisted between them, grabbed Primordius’s shoulder, and used the motion to vault upward. A downward kick sent the fla god spinning while a backhand pulse dispersed the incoming ocean surge into harmless mist.
He landed lightly in midair, dusting imaginary ash from his sleeve as the five gods regrouped around him, their auras flaring brighter now. The sky trembled from the accumulated force of their attacks.
Zane rolled his neck once, expression brightening.
"...Finally," he said, almost cheerfully.
A pulse of dark mana rolled off him in slow waves.
"Now I can call this a proper warm-up."
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