Imp to Demon King: A Journey of Conquest Chapter 527: The Last Dawn 14

Ra felt Hathor’s death like a blade through his heart. The goddess had died far below in the machinery room, but her divine essence called out to him across the distance as it fled her broken body. His beloved wife, the mother of gods, was gone.

The sun god’s falcon head tilted skyward as a keening wail escaped his beak. Golden tears stread down his feathered face, each drop hissing against the bark’s deck. His solar disk flared erratically, casting wild shadows across the remaining gods.

"Hathor," he whispered, her na carrying millennia of love and loss. "My heart... my light..."

Osiris placed a green-skinned hand on his brother’s shoulder. The god of death’s eyes were hard as granite, his jaw set with grim determination. "Brother, we cannot delay any longer. The demons grow stronger with each kill, and the construct feeds on our fallen."

Isis materialised beside them, her wings spread wide as divine power crackled between her fingers. The remaining gods—Horus, Anubis, Ptah, and a handful of others—ford a defensive circle around their lord. Their combined authority made the air itself shimr with heat.

"How many more will we lose to hesitation?" Isis said, her voice carrying the weight of prophecy. "Four gods already lie dead in our own vessel’s bowels," she continued, her voice rising with each word. "Thoth, our wisdom incarnate, butchered like cattle. Khnum, who shaped humanity itself from clay, beheaded by demon steel. Mafdet, our protector against chaos, burned alive by serpentine fire. And now Hathor—" Her voice cracked, divine composure finally breaking. "How many more nas will we add to this litany of sha before we act with the fury our station demands? Each mont we hesitate, they grow bolder, stronger, more confident in their blasphemy. The ti for restraint died with our first fallen brother."

Ra’s grief transford like molten tal poured into a new mold. His solar disk blazed with nuclear intensity as he rose to his full height, wings spreading until they blocked out the sky. When he spoke, his voice shattered the air itself.

"NO MORE DELAYS! NO MORE RESTRAINT!" The sun god’s cry split the heavens, sending shock waves across the desert that turned sand dunes into glass valleys. "I WILL BURN THEM ALL TO LESS THAN ASH!"

Divine fire erupted from every feather on his body. The temperature around the bark spiked so high that the tal deck began to glow red-hot. Even the other gods stepped back from their lord’s terrible radiance.

"The equation is simple," Osiris snarled, his death-lord authority making the words carry like a funeral dirge. "A pantheon against a construct. The demons are pests—afterthoughts to be crushed once we destroy their stone champion. Their souls would weigh heavy on my scales, enslaved for eternity."

Below them, Monunt One stood like a colossus, its four arms spread wide as it prepared for divine assault. The construct’s core blazed with absorbed essence from the dead gods, and atop its shoulders, sothing impossible was happening. Sand and stone were flowing upward, beginning to form the suggestion of a face. Two depressions marked where eyes would be, and a ridge of hardened sand created the bridge of a nose.

Ra raised his hands, solar fire gathering between his palms like a miniature star. The other gods followed suit—Horus with his sky-cutting talons, Anubis with his death-bringing crook, Ptah with his creation-hamr. Divine power filled the air until breathing beca like inhaling liquid fire.

They were ready to unleash devastation that would crack the realm’s foundation.

But Luna and Garduck had other plans.

The bark’s machinery room exploded outward as two figures burst through the tal hull. Luna’s erald flas stread behind her like a cot’s tail, her serpentine fire forming wings that carried her upward. Garduck followed, his massive sword gleaming with the golden ichor of three dead gods.

"FOR ADAM!" Luna’s shriek cut through the divine thunder like a blade through silk.

"FOR ADAM!" Garduck’s roar followed, deep and primal as an earthquake.

They struck at the gods’ backs with perfect coordination. Luna’s serpents’ fangs raked toward Ra’s exposed neck. Garduck’s blade, moving with the speed of his Hecatonchires heritage, thrust toward the sun god’s heart.

Osiris moved without thinking. The god of death threw himself between the demons and his brother, his green-skinned body taking both attacks ant for Ra. Luna’s fire singed his chest, tearing through divine flesh like paper. Garduck’s massive sword punched through his back, the blade erging from his stomach in a fountain of dark ichor.

"OSIRIS!" Ra’s scream shattered windows across three kingdoms.

The god of death collapsed into his brother’s arms, divine blood pooling beneath them. His eyes, usually hard as judgnt itself, were growing dim. Each breath sent more ichor bubbling from his lips.

"Brother, I was wrong," Osiris whispered, his voice barely audible over the sound of his own blood dripping onto the deck. "Kill... them... first... before... the construct..."

Ra’s sanity cracked like ice in sumr heat. The sun god’s eyes blazed white-hot as grief and rage fused into sothing beyond divine fury. Solar flares erupted from his body, each one hot enough to lt mountains. The air around him distorted like heat mirages as his power transcended mortal understanding.

The bark’s deck began to buckle and warp. The remaining gods backed away as their lord’s radiance grew painful even to their eyes. Below them, the desert sand was lting and reforming as sheets of black glass that reflected Ra’s terrible light.

"I WILL KILL YOU FIRST!" Ra scread, his voice carrying enough force to level cities. His right fist began to blaze like a miniature sun, gathering power that made the air itself burn. "YOU DARE TOUCH MY BROTHER? I WILL ERASE YOU FROM EXISTENCE!"

The attack built like stellar fusion—a concentrated ball of solar fury that could vaporise gods to subatomic particles. Ra drew his arm back, muscles bulging with power that could crack realms. The punch moved forward with the inevitability of a falling star.

Luna and Garduck had nowhere to run. The attack filled their vision like the birth of a new sun.