Silence, and then screams.

Gored on a trident that was her lover long ago, Yahweh squirmed in agony her powers couldn't stop for reasons that left her panicked. She tried to telekinetically pull the trident out of herself or teleport, but she couldn't do that either.

She telekinetically pulled herself off the three pronged spear and ran as far away as she could, her back against the barrier, her feet on the ground.

The wound wouldn't heal. All that Yahweh tried to do didn't work. Her powers weren't nullified, they still existed, but all her powers were being countered.

The gods in the audience were shrieking in panic, but their voices were drowned out by Yahweh's own screeching in horror at being powerless for the first time.

"I-I-I-I-I'm hurt! It won't fix! The wound's still there! I can't fix it! I can't do anything! My powers! My powers! I can do anything! My powers! What's going on! Help me! Help me! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!"

It was a scene that was never seen before. Yahweh in distress.

Lilith teleported over to the creator, unloading a storm of trident thrusts. Yahweh, pinned against the barrier, took every stab, each so fast she couldn't see even a blur. The creator became a bloody splotch on the invisible wall, which then turned to red fog, which soon enough became nothing, but the attacks didn't stop. The trident attacked the mind, soul, concept, and even that which is beyond concepts that defined Yahweh's being, erasing them all from existence, nonexistence, and all other frameworks of definition.

It wasn't enough, it needed to reach an even more fundamental place. The depths of Yahweh's being were far too deep to be destroyed so easily.

Each thrust could have killed any of the previous fighters with one touch, but Yahweh was on another level, even as her powers were being actively countered.

The reason they were being countered was because Lilith could use all of Yahweh's abilities. Lilith and Adam were created in Yahweh's image to worship her, and thus they possess all her base abilities. Normally, they would be at a far lower level, mere imitations. But, Lilith, unlike Yahweh, trained to become stronger. She mastered her powers to a level beyond even Yahweh's own. Any time Yahweh tried to use her powers, Lilith would counter them with her own.

The first woman began using all her powers that weren't preoccupied countering Yahweh to attack the creator with every conceivable method.

Lilith's best chance to defeat Yahweh was to kill her at the beginning of the fight, before she could unleash her true power.

The normal form of Yahweh is known as Da'at, the form that Lilith and Adam were made to emulate, but the creator had further forms, truer forms, and if they get unleashed their power would be far vaster and couldn't be countered so easily.

"Ohr Ein Sof!"

An expanding light, pure white in color, blasted Lilith into the other side of the barrier hard enough to break right through it, fly through the stadium's walls, throw her out of the planet's gravity, and send her out of the universe and beyond the edge of totality.

The light expanded and followed Lilith and flooded through all things.

This was Yahweh without her humanoid shell. The strongest light of creation, infinity beyond infinity, beyond infinity, repeating endlessly, yet even that description fails to grasp the smallest, most insignificant fraction of the true scope of this form of the creator.

The light did not harm anything other than its target, Lilith, who it shined on to try and destroy her on all levels.

This was when Satan's power came in.

Her original name, Lucifer, meant Light Bringer. It granted her the power to generate the same light of creation as Yahweh, but it was weaker, normally.

The trident emanated its light while Lilith funneled her power into the relic, amplifying it with the trained energy Lilith possessed that outshined Yahweh.

"Lucifer!"

The devil's light engulfed Yahweh, damaging the creator's transconceptual photonic form.

A scream came from Yahweh despite her lack of a throat in her current form. It was a combination of pain and fear. Never before had she even needed to use Ohr Ein Sof, and yet it was overpowered so simply. One of her own creations, or rather two, had pushed her for the first time, and it was terrifying.

Yahweh's photonic form receded as it was pushed back by Satan's shine until the god was a single blip of light that was infinitely small, its dimensions negatively infinite for both space and time, flickering.

This contraction was to Yahweh's benefit, as condensing her existence to the maximum was a step to activating one of her techniques.

"Tzimtzum!"

Now that Yahweh had concentrated herself as much as she could, she expanded again, an explosion of light repelling the light of Satan, dominating totality once more and immersing Lilith again.

Lilith felt the light try to white her out, wipe her away, the light trying to color over her and wipe away her status of being real, alive, existent.

But, Lilith was tough, tough enough that the light couldn't break her.

Pouring even more power into Satan, the relic was thrust forward and the devil's light became a laser that pierced through the unerring flash of the creator.

The laser stabbed into and burned the core of Yahweh's form of light.

Lilith didn't stop there. As the laser harmed the creator and kept them in place, the first woman flew across reality towards the core of the light.

The trident thrust into the core of the light, Lilith twisting it to do as much damage as possible.

Yahweh's light faded, returning again to a meager flicker that was speared on the central prong of the relic in Lilith's hands.

The light was dying, but before the end could come, the creator said, "Ein Sof!"

The light vanished, because the definition of light was removed from Yahweh. She was infinite light, and she changed into infinite potential.

This was the next, even deeper layer to the creator's being. They were now undefined. When something has a description, it is limited to what that description entails. A plant is limited to the rules that all plants must follow. An animal is limited to the rules that all animals must follow. It is the same for all beings, all things, and all concepts.

But, now Yahweh was without definition of any kind, and thus had no limitations. She could be anything, do anything. She was potential unlimited. She was everywhere yet nowhere. Existent, yet nonexistent. Everything, yet nothing.

Yahweh watched Lilith who once again stood in the center of the replica Eden under the ceiling of ice. The god felt hate so deep inside her she was unable to think of a way to deal with it, yet her sadness was far from fading, still longing for the days spent with Lucifer happily, the days now forever lost. The fear of death continued to permeate Yahweh. She still lacked the once ever present confidence that she could win, that she'd never die.

"This is fucking nuts!"

"Indeed! Fucking nuts!"

Anansi and Apollo, as well as most of the audience, were struggling to endure the series of events occurring before them. A being who appeared infallible in terms of power was being pushed back and brought to the brink of erasure again and again.

Though most of the onlookers couldn't detect Yahweh's presence, they assumed by Lilith's battle stance, that she likely wasn't maintaining it for fun. That aside, Lilith's continual success at making Yahweh look weak was unsettling to many, and exciting for others. Humanity was obviously happy about the current pace of the fight, but even a large portion of the divine audience was hoping this would be Yahweh's last day, that her tyranny would finally come to an end.

Gabriel was smiling, though he hid the bottom of his face under his hand, pretending to be horrified. He was arguably the most loyal, along with Michael, of all the archangel's, but that was just to avoid Yahweh's wrath. He actually hated the creator, and he wanted nothing more than for her to die. Unlike the unquestioning Michael, Gabriel manipulated Yahweh in ways to prevent her from causing too much death and destruction, but that was all he was capable of. The burden of secretly reigning in Yahweh would be lifted from his back if the deity met her end. It was a possibility he never thought possible, but seeing it become plausible in front of his eyes was an unexpected delight for Gabriel.

Adam was clutching his wife's back, hiding behind her. He was remembering just how scary Lilith's strength could be, yet he was seeing new levels of power from the first woman he had never seen previously. Eve was punching the air, hyped up by Lilith's performance.

Sin was in tears, she had been since before the fight began. She felt Astaroth hold her from behind, petting her head.

"Things are going really well. We just need to keep this up a bit more, and we've won." Astaroth spoke softly.

"But, there's no way to prove that they'll be able to deal with Yahweh at her absolute strongest. Yahweh could turn the tables and mom and Lilith will die." A prickly feeling climbed up Sin's body as the hair on the back of her neck stood on end.

"Thinking the worst won't help. It's out of our hands now, so we might as well stay hopeful."

"What's the point of being hopeful? If I hope for the best, and things go wrong, it's just gonna hurt more."

Astaroth knew she wasn't necessarily wrong, and that there wasn't anything she could say that would help Sin feel better. She felt helpless, similar to when Chemosh fought in round one. There was someone she cared for deeply that she wanted to help, but there was nothing she could do, reasonably or otherwise. It was a profound frustration.

Lilith, despite her low stance, ready to move at any time, kept a calm air about her.

"Yah-Yah," Lilith said. "I'm real underwhelmed right now. You've been like this wall for me and so many people, this thing looming over us, but the time to try and tear you down finally comes, and I've barely gotten a scratch. Meanwhile, you've gotten stabbed more times than Julius Caesar. Real underwhelming."

"You've proven you are capable of more than the rest of your kind, but that means nothing when it comes to me." Yahweh's voice came from everywhere, yet nowhere. "I still have yet to show the deepest truth of what I am."

"You have yet to see my depths. I am so strong and tough and cool and amazing." Lilith said in a mocking voice. "I'm the bestest ever. You're only kicking my ass because I'm letting you for reasons your feeble mind could never comprehend."

"I'm gonna fucking kill you, bitch."

"You'll try."

The absolute potential of Yahweh, undiluted by explanations that limit it, assaulted Lilith. Formless power attacked everything that was Lilith, the first woman grunting. Even though she was prepared for it, the sheer magnitude of the pure potential was staggering.

Without definition, there was no way to block the attack, for defenses, even conceptual ones, follow logic and rules and stop other things bound by logic and rules. An offensive that technically couldn't even be defined as an offensive and that didn't come from anywhere, everywhere, or nowhere was beyond the purview of any defense that wasn't also definitionless.

The fact that Lilith was able to not instantly die from an attack that literally had no limits was possibly the most amazing accomplishment any human had achieved in the tournament so far.

And Lilith was going to do far more than just endure.

If the problem was that Yahweh lacked definition, then giving her definition would be the obvious solution.

An ability Lilith created and practiced to perfection was one that let her create definitions and apply them to targets, even ones that are supposed to be beyond definition. It was made to be a counter to Ein Sof.

"Wretched!"

Yahweh felt herself get defined, to be limited by meaning. That meaning, given to her by Lilith, was that she was the weakest being to ever exist, one that lacked any special powers or any kind of consciousness and was so weak that it wouldn't be able to withstand the effort required for the act of existing and would be erased.

If she could think, Yahweh would ponder the supreme discomfort that came with standing near the top of the hierarchy of existence only to fall to the absolute bottom, but she couldn't, because she no longer possessed a mind.

She was getting erased, the weight of existence too much for such a weak entity.

Ein Sof was gone, but there was still more to Yahweh. There was still one more layer, one final, purest form.

"Ayin."

Yahweh abandoned Ein Sof and entered a new state that completely transcended the very framework of her previous one. The true form of Yahweh was nothing, nothing beyond nothing itself. An abstract, logic transcending form that is absolute potential greater than the definitionless potential of Ein Sof. Ein Sof had no definition, but Ayin could be described best as having negative definition, less than no meaning. It is negative infinite definition and negative infinite limitation. Even if one tried to enforce meaning on Yahweh now, the anti-meaning of Ayin would negate it. This is the ultimate form of Yahweh, one so great that comparing it to Ein Sof is like comparing Ein Sof to something that is fictional, something that can't even be called real in comparison.

The weight of Yahweh's new power came down on Lilith. Satan may not have been confident in her victory, but Lilith had been. She was certain she could defeat Yahweh, even after being told of what the creator's full power was like. But, upon actually feeling it, her confidence began to dwindle for the first time.

Lilith also learned the fear of death.

Lilith had never actually died. She was never cursed with the short lifespans other humans had for their original sin, for she had never committed it. She spent all of human history in hiding, being careful to avoid Yahweh's notice, training all the while. She was far from Death's shadow, but now she knew it. The feel of death tracing a nail up her spine was horrifying.

It was thanks to Lilith's swift responses that she had managed to counter everything Yahweh had thrown at her so far, but now her fear threatened to stall her and she had less time than ever to react before she would die.

She had only felt the initial touch of Ayin Yahweh's power, and she was already a bloody mess, every aspect of herself sitting at the borderline between continued existence and the end.

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Lilith, newly crafted from Yahweh's light as simulacrums of her image, like statues in her honor, looked up at their creator as she explained to them the meaning of their existence after having left them to their own devices for their first few years of being.

"So, I made you two to worship me all the time and do whatever I say. I think that's fair, considering you wouldn't exist if it weren't for me. So, you two okay with that? I don't know why I'm asking, the answer is that it doesn't matter what you're okay with, cause what I say, goes."

"Yes, master!" Adam bowed his head in fearful reverence.

"Sorry, I'm not doing it." Lilith looked annoyed more than anything.

Adam jumped while Yahweh was almost charmed by Lilith's audacity.

"Care to explain why?"

"Just cause you made me doesn't mean I'm your slave. Now that I'm here, I'm my own person. I'm not wasting my life praising you twenty four seven."

"You do realize I can kill you in an instant."

"Fucking do it, bitch."

"I like you, in a certain, special way. You remind me of me, and also someone I…used to love. Whatever. You gotta do what I say."

"Not happening."

"I will send you to Treachery if you don't do it."

"Don't care."

"You think you can play chicken with me?"

"No. Unlike you, I mean what I say."

"You sassy bitch."

"Says the sassy bitch."

Adam was having a panic attack from anxiously watching Lilith spit venom at a genuine omnipotent deity. At the rate things were going, he was gonna have a heart attack.

"Kill me, bitch. Send me to Hell. I fucking dare you. I'd prefer it t'o serving you, that's for fucking sure. Or, are you just gonna mind control me? Not that'd prove anything, since you didn't actually get me to serve you, you'd just be puppeteering my body. In the end, there's nothing you could do that'd make me serve you."

"What if I send Adam to Hell? I could do that if you refuse to cooperate."

Lilith's mind shot into overdrive. She couldn't hesitate in her answer, if she did it would show the creator that she had taken control of the conversation, that Lilith actually cared for Adam. She didn't want Adam to go to Hell, but she refused to become Yahweh's slave. She needed to predict how Yahweh would react to every possible answer she could give, and hope that the deity wouldn't just read her mind to find out the truth for sure.

"Do it, he's annoying." Terse. Simple. Dismissive. It was Lilith's best option for making Yahweh think she didn't care about Adam.

"So cold, but that's also so very like me. You have quite the charming personality."

Lilith inwardly sighed with relief. "Please don't compare me to you."

"I like you, but I definitely can't let you get away with this kinda thing, so you're kicked out of Eden. Let's see how you like living in a reality that doesn't cater to your every whim."

"Oh, the torture." Lilith swiveled on her heel and began her exit from the paradise. "See ya, Adam."

"L-Whu, I, whu, uh, Lilith!" Adam was shocked in so many different ways.

Yahweh started making Eve while Lilith left Eden, finding a wasteland right outside of it.

The first woman banged her fists into each other.

"Time to start training. I'll overthrow her, no matter how long it takes."

She couldn't hesitate. The barrier of her nascent fear had to be torn down.

She plowed through her fear and used her next counter.

"The Dragon!"

Satan's true power unsealed, releasing a strength that can only be maintained for so long before both Satan and Lilith are burned away in its draconic fires.

The trident grew scales, turning in an amorphous mass that began fusing with Lilith's body. White hair turned to sanguine red flames that were more like billowing energy than a natural blaze. A cape of the same substance coming from the first woman's back while her body gained dark red scales. Her pupils became reptilian slits and her teeth sharpened into carnivorous fangs. Clawed hands wore more of the flaming energy like gloves as a tail, long and thin sprouted from Lilith's lower spine.

Lilith had become a draconian empress, the mightiest of dragons in a humanoid silhouette.

The power of Ayin kept hitting the reborn Lilith, but she couldn't even feel it. The definitionless power couldn't even make her scales quiver.

"What? What the fuck is this?" Yahweh felt cold, as if she had blood, and that blood was freezing in dread.

The new Lilith retaliated.

"Dragon's Breath!"

From her throat came a red energy that fired in all directions like the light of creation earlier. It was a force that embodied the power of The Dragon.

It was a secret power Satan had been training for generations, built specifically to overcome Yahweh, even the nigh pinnacle of existence that was Ayin. The devil theorized and planned, but found that there was nothing she could attain that could stand up to Ayin, for it had no weakness.

Then, the simplest answer came to the devil. If there was no antithesis to Ayin, then she simply had to create one.

Satan's name meant 'the adversary,' for she was deemed by Yahweh as the ultimate evil, a holder of ideals antithetical to the structure of reality as it was. This ideology was sublimated by the European conception of dragons. They were the final, greatest opponents of many a hero, and so they symbolized many an evil. They were the nemeses of their heroic counterparts, standing for all that was wrong in opposition in whatever ways the heroes were good.

Satan was Yahweh's dragon, and so she created a power to fill that role that no other had yet to fill.

The power was one that adjusted itself to its target, becoming whatever would be the perfect counter to the selected individual. If the opponent used fire, it would become a water based ability for example. Even in the case of that which has no fault like Ayin, it will become a paradoxical force that rejects that perfection to still be the absolute counter.

The red energy attacked Yahweh, hurting her on a level she had never felt before. She had no deeper aspect to her, she had reached the bottom of the well. She had nowhere to run.

Yahweh screamed and cried like a child as she felt a kind of suffering that no other being had ever known. She tried to push back the red power, but nothing affected it.

For the first time Yahweh was truly and utterly helpless.