Author's Notes:

Firstly, as always, I would like to thank all those who favorite, followed or reviewed my story. Your support is really appreciated and pushes me to try harder.

Secondly, this chapter tides up the battle against Leviathan, for once things went rather smoothly while writing, the chapter all but flowing together rather nicely, so I hope you all enjoy it!

Thirdly, happy Easter!

Lastly: I do not own "Campione!" or "Worm Serial".

\V/

Round Two

Despite the torrential rain relentlessly battering against her tense form, the fierce winds howling all around her as her hair wildly thrashed like vipers against her face, Anit refused to move from her spot atop a large two story building at the very edge of the barrier that was keeping the raging sea at bay.

Proximity had always helped her deal with the more complex type of wards, to feel the spell threads as they formed, allowing her to weave them into a far greater, and far more importantly for the current situation, far stronger whole than most mages could ever accomplish, and if this barrier was to have any hope of withstanding another attack like the one that had almost hit the city a bare few minutes ago, then there was no room for anything but her absolute best.

But even as she acted like a focal point for the entire barrier, gathering and directing the magical power of every single mage that were helping at the effort, swiftly weaving dozens of spell threads together in order to strength the barrier with every second that passed, she found she could do nothing to alter the fact most of her focused was centered at the young woman that was the reason the city was still standing despite that initial attack.

A young woman that was even now engaging a being no mortal should have ever been able to face in order to safeguard the city, dauntlessly charging against it with apparently no fear or hesitation.

Watching as Taylor dodged and weaved around the mystical barrage the primordial sea beast had called forth, repeatedly dodging strikes by a hairsbreadth with preternatural skill, all the while firing back that white lightning ice power against Leviathan and maneuvering in high speeds, into what for all intents and purposes looked like a deathly three dimensional maze, Anit firmly concluded that there were far worse masters to whom she may had ended up in service of.

Gaze fixed upon her liege as she dodge over a dozen attacks with such grace that the maneuver looked as if it was choreographed, with the Eighth Campione stopping attacks before they even began, as if she was an fearless jet pilot dancing around the anti air fire of an enemy stronghold as she advanced towards her target, Anit felt a small fierce smile slowly appearing upon her face.

That was her King, the relentless warrior that had slayed the Heretic God Khepri mere moments after learning about the existence of the supernatural side of the world, the fierce guardian that had twice now rushed to the aid of a town full of strangers at the mere possibility of said town being under threat, and that, even now, was battling one of said threats with all her being.

Even if she had managed to keep her calm for the most part, the truth was that being suddenly enlisted into the service of the newest of Pandora's children had deeply shaken her, not to mention setting most of her survival instincts into high drive, and not without good reason.

Nearly all sources of information agreed upon a few facts regarding Campione, chiefly amidst them being that they were, basically, walking natural disasters, with absolutely no compunctions upon doing whatever they wanted, and very little regard for the consequences of their actions.

One only had to look at what was happening in Japan ever since they had been 'graced' with a Campione to confirm the validity of said claims, what with several of their most precious cultural landmarks being 'accidentally' turned to so much ruble by the seventh Devil-King.

So Anit had been understandably worried upon suddenly finding herself under the service of one of said Devil-Kings with no prior warning, or chance to brace herself.

Or at least that had been the case at first.

Even though she had known Taylor for less than two days, the fact they had spent nearly all that time together meant she still had managed to gather the bare bones of the Eighth Campione's personality, and what little she had managed to glimpse showed someone that she actually may not mind to follow after all.

A fierce determination, as unbreakable and unyielding as the bones of the very earth; an unstoppable resolve, untiring and incessant as if the slow unavoidable encroach of an ice age, and a keen mind, as sharp and unrelenting as a peerless blade.

Which truth be told, all in all, summed up to quite the terrifying picture when backed with the powers of a God-slayer, if not for the fact it was all wrapped around a decent, if apparently slightly warped and distorted, moral compass and a fierce protectiveness for those she deemed under her care.

'Yeah, I could have done way worse in the master category than that.' She concluded with finality, thinking about some of the Council's elders, even as she expertly fixed the newest set of spells into the wards matrix, eyes ever tracking the clash that was happening between the sky and the sea.

Her idle musings were cut short as she felt a tidal wave of power suddenly permeating the entire area, the storm redoubling it's ferocity as Leviathan infused his might into the water all around them.

Eyes darting through the raging waves, she turned towards the Heretic God, the sea beast having climbed into the icy wall that was now enveloping the bay in a impressive burst of speed, several dozens orbs of water swiftly appearing around it before being launched towards Taylor's form.

She watched, mouth now desert dry, as Taylor darted and weaved around the new onslaught, even as the ongoing strike coming from the sea also redoubled its intensity.

But while before the young Campione had avoided Leviathan's assault with preternatural grace, now there was an undeniable feeling of urgency to her actions as she dodged dozens of attack by the second by the barest of margins.

Letting out a startled gasp she watched as Taylor jumped of her mount a split second before it was bisected in two by one of the incoming water beams, but even if she had managed to avoid said attack, she was now freefalling towards the raging sea.

She helplessly watched as another attack was swiftly hurled towards Taylor's helplessly falling form, her heart thrumming against her chest.

Letting out a shocked cry she watched as the water beam pierced the young woman straight through the chest, leaving a gaping hole behind.

Only to stop herself mid shout in sheer surprise, as the young Campione's body seemed to apparently suddenly dissolve into dust.

\V/

Gasping for air as she suddenly found herself standing upon the icy mass that constituted Alexandria's new impromptu wave breaker, almost nine hundred feet away from her previous position, Taylor valiantly fought back the slight dizzy feeling that she was currently experiencing, a feeling that she was regrettably somewhat familiar with.

Teleportation, the instant transfer of mass and energy from one point to another without traversing the physical space between them, an extremely useful power that was widely known due to its common occurrence in the genre of science fiction, and also an incredibly useful power to have at your side in any conflict, and an absolute pain in the neck to fight against.

She should know, she had personally been at both categories of said claim more than once.

But what most fiction, PRT reports, or even power analysis thesis never really bothered to add, was the simple fact that teleportation was downright disorienting if you weren't able to brace yourself for it beforehand.

Taylor had never really bothered to ask others what they felt upon experiencing it, but to her teleporting always felt extremely weird, and apparently teleporting under her own power didn't change that little fact.

For her it always felt as if she was freefalling through the air, a brief moment of total weightlessness, swiftly followed by a sudden shift of her internal sense of balance, all the while her body felt like it was filled with a sense of motion-but-not-motion and being subject to some kind of pressure, that reminded her of feeling like being underwater, from all sides, all happening simultaneously in the space of a single heartbeat.

Suffice to say that it wasn't a very pleasant feeling, even if she had eventually gotten used to it, key word being, eventually.

The fact that she had left behind a copy of herself that wasn't experiencing that particular onslaught of sensory input, while actually experience the quite novel feeling of having an eighteen inches hole carved right through her chest, really didn't help deal with the weirdness any better.

Shaking her head in order to refocus herself Taylor allowed the information of her newest power to permeate her mind, even as she used her Eternity's Sight to keep track of the Heretic God that was at the other side of the ice wall upon which she was currently standing, and making a pretty impressive work of appearing confused despite being a gargantuan sea serpent.

When faced with Leviathan's sudden increased onslaught, and her mount apparent inability to a sufficient speed in order to keep up with it, she had focused upon a single, very simple goal. To get away from it, and as such she had chosen a Mover power while using her Shards.

But what she had gotten was so much more than mere teleportation.

The ability to instantly move to anywhere in sight while leaving behind a fully functional corporeal copy of herself, while being able to freely control and directed said copy before it dissipated into ash, either due to taking a hit or reaching the twenty seconds time limit.

She recognized the power, for she had seen a variant of it back in her earlier days as a Cape, Lung's top lieutenant, Oni Lee's power.

A fierce predatory smile appearing on her face she got back to her feet, a plan already forming upon her mind.

The ability to leave behind copies of herself that were capable of doing anything she could do was downright useful, and while the line of sight thing had probably been a problem for the psychotic teleporter, for her that was hardly an issue.

After all, with her Eternity's Sight already activated, technically speaking everything inside an eight block radius all around her was inside her 'line of sight'.

Immediately appearing fifty feet away from Leviathan she swiftly unleashed an ice beam against the beast, only to immediately appear fifty feet behind the beast, unleashing a second attack even as the first barreled towards her target, only for two more copies of herself to appear above it, freefalling towards Leviathan while unleashing two more ice beams against it.

Watching from her new perch upon a large ice mound seven hundred feet away from the now enraged Heretic God, Taylor analyzed the result of her assault, the four beams hitting both the beast and the floating water orbs all around it, even as her four copies were immediately bisected by the sea serpent counterattack.

The one beam that had managed to bypass the creature's watery defense seemed to have been effective, the beast's scales and the flesh underneath them being cracked and burned by the frozen temperatures it had been subjected to.

The fact that the now furious looking sea beast had immediately summoned his water whips back and called forth a new barrage of water orbs only reinforced that notion.

Nodding in confirmation Taylor firmed her resolve. She still had little over seven minutes with her Blaster power, and less than six with her new Mover ability, and so she had to make them count.

Eight Taylor's appeared all around Leviathan, each at a cardinal direction, hands aglow with white light, ready to unleash their attacks.

Even as five of them were immediately crushed by the God's lightning fast water whips the other three unleashed their assault, all the while nine more appeared up above, falling towards their target, hard eyes locked at their prey, even as even more copies appeared with each moment that passed.

Water and ice battled for dominance amidst the stormy skies, dozens of her copies being felled with each moment that passed due to Leviathan's frenzied barraged, only for dozens more to take their place.

For every five beams she fired, only one seemed to be able to bypass the Sea God's protective watery tendrils, but slowly but surely the sheer weight of numbers was starting to tip the scales in her favor.

"Heed my words denizens of the forsaken depths! Obey my call creatures of the abyssal seas! Come forth to my aid, your master demands it!" Leviathan roared in fury, his rage permeating the very air all around them as its power surged forth, the pearl she was still carrying in her backpack glowing brighter than ever as if in answer.

Taylor watched as hundreds of monstrous beings swiftly emerged from the stormy seas, gigantic crab like creatures and monstrous serpents rising from the waves and rushing upwards the ice wall and towards her and her clones.

Her initial response was to try and re-summon her sand scarabs to fight back Leviathan's minions, only to immediately abandon the idea, knowing that the torrential rain and howling wind would slow down their formation too much for her to create a large enough fighting force to keep the sea creatures at bay.

Immediately making twelve of her copies appear at the edge of the wall instead, blasting away and keeping the incoming army at bay, while sending a new batch of clones to keep Leviathan at bay, Taylor used the small breathing room that had granted her to focus her Eternity's Sight at the glowing pearl in her hands.

Twice now the pearl had reacted to Leviathan activating an Authority, and while she sure as hell wasn't going to let the beast get it, she also wasn't going to keep carrying it around without learning what the hell it was attempting to do.

Blinking in surprise at what she was sensing she nearly forgot to send in a new wave of clones, focusing all the power of her sensing Authority at the oddity in her hands.

To her senses the pearl seemed to actually 'be' an Authority itself, bound into a physical form, as if a piece of a God's power imprisoned into the form of a jewel, a piece of a God's power that matched perfectly to Leviathan's own power.

'No wonder he wants this back.' She concluded even as she teleported over three hundred feet away from a gigantic crab that had gotten far too close for comfort, it's massive claw slamming into where she had been standing before being frozen solid by one of her clones. 'Somehow someone stole one of his Authorities.'

But her musings were immediately cut short, for upon returning her focus to the battle at hand, she realized the sea beast's intention for this latest attack, as Leviathan rushed forward with tremendous speed, not towards her or her clones, but towards the edge of the ice wall itself.

'Fuck!' She succinctly summarized, realizing the army she was now keeping at bay was nothing more than a distraction as the sea God attempted to return to his domain.

Even as nine Taylor's appeared in front of Leviathan's rushing form, her ice beams creating a wall in an attempt to keep it at bay, only for the Heretic God to barrel through it, his speed diminished but by no means stopped, all the while his water whips swatted away any of her clones that attempted to get close, she swiftly analyzed what she could do in the moments she still had.

She simply couldn't afford to allow Leviathan to return to the sea, for its speed while underwater could easily allow it to avoid her attacks long enough for her shards to run out.

Her Master of the Sands Authority would be of no use, there being simply not nearly enough time for her to create a sand minion large enough to even attempt to restrain the gargantuan sea serpent.

But she also didn't know if she could truly afford to use her last remaining shard to restrain the beast, for while the combination of her ice beam with her clones had proven themselves quite effective, as the numerous wounds all around it's scaly hide could easily attest, she didn't know if it would be enough to finish the creature off.

Watching Leviathan crush another hastily erected ice wall, all the while swiftly dodging another five ice beams and quickly approaching the edge, Taylor resigned herself that she simply had no choice.

She couldn't allow it to reach open water once again, and her Shard's of Infinity was the only power she had left. After all, it wasn't like she could simply grab a new power and use it against her foe just like that.

'Unless…' She trailed off, a crazy idea suddenly hitting her like a lightning bolt, her hands darting towards her small backpack, unceremoniously ripping it open and grabbing the fiercely glowing coconut sized pearl that resided within.

She had a mere moment to see if this crazy idea could actually work, but even as she re-focused her Sight into the glowing blue marble, her instincts nearly sang to her in agreement with what she was now planning to do, insisting that it would work.

After all, her Authorities were nothing else but powers that she had stolen from Heretic Gods.

Bringing her right fist against the pearl she was holding in her other hand with all of her now quite considerable strength, she crushed the priceless gem into smithereens, her supernatural sight allowing her to see the energy trapped within that had been awakened by the proximity of its original owner.

She needed an extra Authority. The pearl contained an Authority. And she personally knew quite a bit about stealing.

Grasping at the now freed power before it could rush back to its master she intoned the words she could hear being whispered within her mind, a near manic grin firm upon her face.

"Come to me, oh, abyssal creature! Arise from your slumber, oh, serpent of the forsaken seas! In the name of your master, awaken and unleash your fury upon all in your path!"

She roared in defiance, the ocean roaring in kind as a massive wave surged forth, barreling at Leviathan just as the beast leaped past the edge of the wall, the force of the impact blasting it back into the ice.

"You insignificant worm! How dare you, how dare you defile what's rightfully mine!" The primordial beast of the seas roared in absolute fury, water exploding all around it, a literal tidal wave appearing out of nowhere, crushing everything around it before being unleashed into all directions in the form of hundreds of water beams.

Teleporting her body twelve hundred feet up into the air in order to avoid the attack, Taylor watched as everything even remotely near the beast, from her clones to Leviathan's army, was swiftly wiped from existence by the barrage.

With the exception of the being she had just summoned with her newly stolen power, the water beams doing very little against its own watery body.

A large, thirty feet long, sea serpent made almost entirely out of water rushed forth, tackling Leviathan's far larger form without a hint of fear, the larger sea serpent thrashing around in an attempt to smash its smaller watery counterpart.

Reappearing back at ground level, all the while dozens of her clones appeared all around the two thrashing serpents, bombarding them with impunity, ice shards exploding all around them, Taylor weighted her options.

She had less than two minutes left for her ice shard, and a little less than that for her clone one. And while the sea serpent she had called was helping in keeping Leviathan busy, she could see it would be a matter of time before the Heretic God destroyed it.

It would seem that she would have to use her last shard and get a new power after all, for despite how well her two active shards synergized, or that her ice power actually seemed to seriously hurt the beast, her ice beams simply lacked the raw power to truly finish it off.

'Or perhaps not exactly a new power.' She thought while pondering a new idea, her smile growing to truly predatory proportions. After all her current powers were working just fine, they just needed a little more oomph.

"From the void I claim you! From the ether I beseech you! Come to me fragments of creation! Grant me thy blessings in my hour of need; invest me with thy might; empower me with thy graces; for I'm the agent of thy will!"

The moment the words left her mouth she selected a level ten shard and swiftly moved towards the category she needed, a power category that was both lauded and envied back on her world for what it could do.

Creating a dozen more copies all around the thrashing sea serpents in order to slow them down, she waited to see what her Authority would offer her in regards to Trump powers, her eyes looking forward to one of the three holy grails of the category.

Her already large predatory smile grew a few molars more as the very first power offered held exactly what she desired, a power-set that people would literally kill to have in their teams back on Earth-bet due to its uses, power enhancement.

Creating three dozens of copies spread all around Leviathan, even as the beast finally managed to throw away her watery sea serpent, twenty upon the ice, the rest high into the air, she directed her new power towards her ice shard, strengthening it far beyond its original threshold.

Thirty six pairs of arms simultaneously pointed towards Leviathan enraged form, each of them being covered into a nearly blinding amount of white light for but a single moment, before launching it forward.

The next moment the world turned white.

Blinking back the white spots that were dancing around her vision she waited for it to return, only to realize after another moment that there was nothing wrong with her vision.

Mouth opening up slightly she took in her surroundings, her pure white, completely frozen surroundings.

There was nothing but ice all around her, the previously wildly thrashing sea locked into place by the frozen grasp of a glacial age, the torrential rain turned into placidly falling snow.

And her imposing enemy, the gargantuan sea monster that had so fiercely opposed her, replaced by a hundred feet long gigantic ice sculpture.

Peering at the frozen Heretic God with her Eternity's Sight Taylor confirmed that the creature had truly been frozen solid all the way through, not a spark of its former power still remaining.

As if to confirm that particular realization cracks started to swiftly spread alongside the statue, its massive weight now too much for its icy form to contain, the sound of cracking ice filling up the utter silence that had permeated the area.

Watching as her former enemy slowly crumbled into frozen dust, her look of incredulity being swiftly replaced with a massive grin, Taylor remembered one of PHO's more popular, and often repeated lines, which was surprisingly fitting for the situation at hand.

"She is freaking bullshit twelve I tell you." She happily mumbled, grin firm into place.

\V/

Taylor's Authorities:

Eternity's Sight; Golden Hero; Shards of Infinity. (Scion)

Master of the Sands (Khepri)

Ocean's Shroud (Leviathan)

"Rise, oh, crushing tides! Roar, oh, raging waves! Protect me with your mighty mantle; embrace me with your ever shifting cloak! For the surging seas are mine to command!"

An Authority that enshrouds Taylor in a swiftly moving, self replenishing, mantle of water, that floats around her body. It grants its user perfect control over the water that is generated, allowing Taylor to freely manipulate it however she sees fit, while also automatically surging forth to block any incoming attacks against her as long as there is still water in the shroud.

The continuous self replenishing nature of the shroud also means that the longer the Authority remains active, the stronger it becomes, since more water shall be available to control.

While activated the Authority also enables it's wielder to breath underwater.

Terror of the Depths (Leviathan)

"Come to me, oh, abyssal creature! Arise from your slumber, oh, serpent of the forsaken seas! In the name of your master, awaken and unleash your fury upon all in your path!"

By supercharging her Ocean's Shroud, Taylor can summon a thirty feet long Sea Serpent Divine Beast made out of water to fight in her name.

The summoned beast possess great physical strength and is capable of moving extremely fast, but its greatest power lay in its resilience, since its water body swiftly regenerates from any damage taken, the only way to slay it being to destroy the coconut sized pearl that constitutes the serpent's core.

Upon being used this Authority locks down Taylor's Ocean's Shroud Authority for twenty four hours, but should the serpent be slayed in battle through the destruction of its core she will be unable to re-summon the beast for a week.

\V/

Author's Notes:

And that wraps the battle against Leviathan, hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did.

A little explanation regarding the pearl to those who aren't Campione fans.

In the Campione universe it's possible to bond a magical spell into a physical form for later use, though the process appears to be extremely complicated with extremely few being able to do so, the container of such spell being called a Grimoire.

A Grimoire is an artifact that contains magical power and knowledge, the most ancient of which are infused with the power and wisdom of the Gods themselves. Unlike how they are commonly depicted, however, a Grimoire does not need to be a book. In fact, as the first of them predate books, many Grimoire have forms very different from what is commonly imagined.

For instance Godou managed to defeat Verethragna by using a Grimoire in the form of a stone tablet containing an Authority belonging to Prometheus in order to steal one of the Persian God of Victory's Authorities and use it back against him.

And so the Ocean's Orb in my story was in fact a Grimoire containing an Authority that had been stolen from Leviathan.

The three Holy Grails of Trump powers is actually a personal opinion of mine and include: Power Nullification, Power Granting and Power Enhancement. Which in my opinion are the most 'broken', and awesome, of Trump powers in Worm.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter, please review before leaving.