The battle above raged with a ferocity that defied reason. The once divine and golden sky had beco a violent theater of war. The air trembled with chaotic magic. Storms of power twisting and clashing in a lightshow that was more terrifying than beautiful.
Black mist poured endlessly from Clyde, coiling around his body like living shadow and fusing into every crackling bolt of lightning that sparked from his fingertips and blade.
His lightning had changed. Its no longer bright blue but deep cobalt streaked with obsidian mist. His eyes had turned pitch onyx, not dull black but luminous in their own dark way. Those eyes glowing with a strange and mysterious power.
Fujin the Wind God soared opposite him, surrounded by blades of air so sharp they scread as they moved. His body was enveloped in a brilliant cyclone of white and green energy. All of that was the elental magic howling with divine fury. Every flap of his mantle sent out cutting gales and his body shimred.
When their powers clashed, the sky cracked.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
...
Darkness and wind collided, folding the space around them with sonic booms and shockwaves. Magic detonations flashed like supernova but blackened and violent.
No mortal or even followers of the low rank could survive if they were in their proximity. A single step too close and they’d be vaporized instantly, wiped from existence by the sheer force of the battle.
The domain itself groaned even more beneath them. Marble paths split. Floating pillars shivered and the other buildings weree cracked and even falling. The balance of the domain was unraveling thread by thread.
However, Clyde remained calm.
The grin that once danced on his lips was gone and replaced by a sharp seriousness. His face didn’t show any fear only the quiet conviction of soone who refused to lose and didn’t think he would lose.
But he knew ti was slipping. This had already taken too long.
"Two Celestials have already dead by our hands," he thought. "The realm will notice and the others will move soon."
And he and Asqa despite their power were still incomplete not strong enough to face multiple of them at once.
Then Clyde felt a shift in energy. The aura of a Celestial were dimming below.
It wasn’t Asqa but soone else. It was definitely a Celestial that Asqa had wounded badly.
He pushed Fujin back with a thunderous wave of black mist laced with lightning, the force shaking the air like a cannon blast. The Wind God grunted while spiraling back briefly, and Clyde used the mont to look down through the chaotic magic.
Below — through the smoke and ruin — he saw Amaterasu’s radiant body flaring. She was moving to attack.
But Asqa wasn’t focused on her. She was charging toward a crater, toward a broken body that pulsed with fading energy.
That must be the wounded god.
And Clyde understood imdiately. They couldn’t let this chance slip.
Each kill mattered. Every dead Celestial weakened their enemyes. They had to press this.
Clyde locked eyes with Fujin who was already steadying himself again, wind spiraling at his back as he prepared to reengage.
But Clyde didn’t wait for him. He dove to the ground faster than a thunderbolt. His form streaked downward, tearing a path through cloud and chaos.
His black mist twisted behind him. Below, Amaterasu had already raised her hand again, light blooming around her palm.
A second solar flare built. This one stronger than before and ant to kill Asqa.
Fujin narrowed his eyes in confusion from above.
"Is he retreating?" he thought. But then it clicked.
No. Clyde wasn’t fleeing. He must be choosing his battlefield now when he saw opportunity.
Fujin snarled and diving after him. But Clyde’s corrupted aura let him cut faster through the air. The Wind God couldn’t catch him in ti.
Below, Asqa glanced up just as the sun goddess fired. A searing bolt of solar wrath shrieked down toward her. But she didn’t stop.
She didn’t created a shield. Because she heard his voice.
"I will cover you!"
She gave the smallest nod and kept charging without hesitation. Only trust for Clyde.
The flare was almost hit Asqa. Then Clyde arrived.
He spun midair, black lightning surging into his Elderglass sword. With a single slash he cut the air. The blade sent out a crescent wave of corrupted energy that collided with the solar flare mid-flight.
A cataclysmic explosion followed. The fire of the sun and darkness tearing into each other, spiraling upward in a vortex of gold and black.
The sky quaked from the force of it.
Asqa never looked back. She just keep running straight for Hachiman and ready to end him.
---
Amaterasu’s eyes widened in disbelief.
She watched as Clyde’s corrupted black slash clashed with her solar flare and neutralized it. Not just stopped it but warped it and twisted it into a vortex of writhing light and darkness. That should have been impossible. Her divine light was ant to burn through all impurity and shadow.
Butt he still stood strong. His silhouette rising through the smoke.
"You wretched thing..." Amaterasu whispered with trembling voice.
Fury replaced her regal calm. Her golden hair flared like wildfire. The solar crown above her head pulsed brighter and her eyes glead with scorching rage. Her composure shattered like glass.
She gritted her teeth and scread.
BOOM!
Another solar flare burst from her hands,then another, and another.
One after another, searing bolts of Celestial sun fire erupted toward Clyde, each hotter and brighter than the last, turning the domain into a furnace. Her wrath ignited the sky and her domain began to glow with white-hot, brilliant, and rciless rage.
Clyde was engulfed in light.
His long coat caught fire. The fabric hissing as it blackened and crumbled. The mist that clung to him began to thin and evaporating in the scorching heat. Even his aura trembled. His body and lightning faltering montarily.
For the first ti in this battle he felt worry.
He clenched his jaw. "So this is the Sun Goddess at her limit," he thought. "Alright, then."
Then he reached deeper in the power inside him. He called to the thing that whispered inside him, the ancient and unknowable force. And the Ancientt One darkness answered imdiately.
His heart thundered and with it, the black mist returned.
But this ti it was denser and thicker than before. So dark it seed to consu the light around it.
It poured from his body, his eyes, his mouth, like he had beco a vessel for so ancient abyss. His burnt coat looks as if its regenerated with shadowed energy. His lightning returned and beco stronger and screaming with a sharp sound.
Clyde raised his Elderglass sword and unleashed a group of black-and-blue lightning slashes.
They t Amaterasu’s flares head-on and pushed them back. The hot light faltered. So of her flares were shattered mid-air, turned into wild explosions of gold and white fire. Others were bent off-course and hitting the ground.
Clyde floated there with terrifying calm. He was pushing back.
---
Below...
As the sky not far from her burned and cracked, Asqa arrived at the edge of the crater. She ignored the heat which also attacking her and focusing on her target.
Hachiman lay there. The once-proud God of War now broken. His armor in tatters, his blood sared across his face. His body twitched weakly as he tried to crawl away, dragging himself like a dying beast.
His eyes widened when he saw her eyes that shines like black fire. Her expression was serious.
Without rcy or pause she raised one hand holding her wand.
Ten concentrated bolts of fire ford in a perfect circle behind her. They hovered only a second then they struck.
SYUT!
SYUT!
SYUT!
Each bolt pierced his chest, stomach, shoulder, neck, and the last two shot clean through his skull. The God of War spasd then fell still.
A breathless silence followed. Then, a surge of golden-red energy exploded from his corpse and flowed into Asqa. She absorbed it through her skin, her breath, then entering her core.
She staggered slightly, then stood straighter. Her aura flared brighter. The death of a god was no small thing. She didn’t look at the crumbling corpse again.
Her eyes turned upward toward Clyde and Amaterasu.
---
Fujin cut through the burning sky. He had nearly reached the height of the battle again, just seconds away, when the scene ca into full view.
What he saw made his stomach twist.
Through the smoke and shuddering flashes Clyde and Amaterasu were still locked in combat. They were matching each other.
Amaterasu’s flares of solar power capable of vaporizing legions were eting resistance.
Clyde’s corrupted lightning and black mist slashes didn’t fade under the sun. They fought it.
Fujin’s eyes widened.
"This power... he’s holding her back," he muttered with disbelief. "He’s not supposed to be able to do this."
But it was happening. He had seen this before in the video recording where Clyde clashed with the Archangel Gabriel and god Hades.
And now here he doing it again. Fighting the Sun Goddess.
Fujin gritted his teeth, wind howling around him. "I have to stop him now. Before he—"
Then he felt his divine connection breaking. Hachiman is dead. Fujin froze midair.
The bond between Celestials just vanished. His breath caught.
"Hachiman...?"
And then he saw a flash of black coming to him.
A woman streaking upward from the ground. Her speed was terrifying.Her aura shimred, enhanced now by the magic energy stolen from the God of War and she was focused entirely on him as her next target.
---
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