GATE: the clash of the titans V2

by Qun Nguyn1

Mostly AUs. A Gate has opened in Tokyo by a Roman-esque Empire, familiar scenario with familiar faces but the people marched through the Gate is from a vastly more powerful magic world. The stage is set. Earth Alliance vs The Holy Empire. Science vs Magic. The power of the thousand sun vs The Beast of the Apocalypse. Let the clash of Titans begin. Let the worlds have War.

39. Chapter 41: Titanomachy

Chapter 41: Titanomachy

---

Larsen Ice Shelf, Antarctic, November 2029

Jack Hall, an American paleoclimatologist, stared into his microscope, trying not to let his freezing cold hands shake the equipment. Outside, the Antarctic wind shook the tiny mobile lab. He'd come far for these precious ice cores. The story they had to tell was urgent, maybe very urgent. And now at last he was looking back along the years , back past season after season, layer after layer of ice.

Back his eyes swept through time, past the middle ages and the Roman Empire, to the time before Egypt, when the ice got clean and pure and then - not.

There it was, the layer he was looking for , the year hell had ridden the winds of the world. The ice was thick, the layer was complex, full of particles, irregular. To his expert eye, it told the story of a monster that had marched through planet Earth back then, a storm beyond the widest limit of the imagination.

He'd read the fossil record, of course. He even knew the time of year the storm had taken place. It had happened in June. North polar temperatures were spiking to eighty degrees Fahrenheit.

The fossil record revealed that a herd of mammoths had been feeding placidly on daisies not far from a blooming apple tree when literally as they chewed their food, they had been frozen solid and the world around them transformed into a roaring arctic hell .

There was no ice in the Arctic deep enough or pure enough to confirm the fossil record. But this was the gold he needed. He looked up from his work and gazed out the frosted window of the lab. As far as he could see, the amazing, twisted, sweeping ice of the Antarctic shelf stretched, ice that had been attached to the continent for thousands of years.

Overhead, the deep blue Antarctic sky spoke eloquently of profound, absolute cold.

He laughed a little to himself. The truth was that it wasn't as cold as it should be.

Not nearly.

He saw his assistant Frank Wilson come down off the drill rig carrying an anate Window aluminum case he knew contained more ice cores. That was good. They needed to seg those critical cores from the same depth, because Jack's case had to be airtight.

Everybody from the White House on down was going to try to demolish it. They didn't want to hear what he had to say, he knew that. He was not a politician or a general. His job was to reveal what had happened in the past. It was up to them to act.

He stood up, watching the rig more closely. The drill was still running. But Frank -

"Hey Frank, what's going on ? "

Frank began opening the cores, preparing them for a clean transfer to the Cat's storage locker. "Jason's running it" .

Jason was a good kid, but he was also a grad student with next to no field experience. "Is that !"

At that moment there was a sort of shudder. It wasn't much, but it shouldn't have been there at all. What the hell was happening ?

Then there came a screaming sound from the drill. Jack could see that it was vate Windon turning free. A distant shout echoed.

"Oh shit ," Frank said as he burst out of the Cat, down the ladder and began to sprint across the ice.

What sounded like a ragged, endless volley of rifle shots shattered the profound Antarctic silence. Jack leaped up onto the drill rig.

"I didn't do anything." Jason screamed above the screeching of the drill and the explosive cracking sounds.

Behind them, Frank shut the drill down. As the bit whirred to silence, there was a crash just below the rig and what felt like an earthquake. Jack forced himself not to shout the furious curse that came to his lips. The damın ice had given way. This supposedly solid chunk of ice shelf had just - there was a damn hole under the rig the size of a car. He penned down into the blue ice.

Again the drill shifted, and Jason, in his terror, grabbed it. It swung towards the hole, a grad student attached.

"Let go of the drill !"

The kid's face peered back, eyes huge, skin as pale as the death that was clawing at him. Jack leaped forward, balancing on the edge of the rig itself, and gripped the kid's parka. As the drill fell away, he manhandled the scrabbling, terrified student up onto the stable part of the rig. But it didn't stay stable for long. An instant later, the three of them had to jump a four - foot gap just to get off the rig. It yawned below them, easily a couple of hundred feet deep, sudden death waiting inches from the least slip .

Now the rifle shots changed to deeper roars, crunching, and echoing booms. The whole damn shelf was disintegrating right under their feet. Jack watched as the rig started moving away from them, carrying Jack's ice cores with it. He lunged towards the edge.

Frank grabbed his shoulder. "Forget' em, Jack . It's too late. '

What was happening right here and now was a whole ice shelf unexpectedly disintegrating around a group of skilled scientists - told him that they were essential . He did what he had to do . He leaped across the widening crevasse to reach them.

"Jack, don't !"

Jack landed on the far side of the crevasse, stumbled, slipped, then regained his footing. He gathered cores as best he could . Some of them crumbled, but there was nothing he could do about that, not without proper carriers .

When he turned to jump back, he was shocked to see that the gap was widening fast. It was at least ten feet. And then he saw it, hundreds of feet below the dark, shadowy presence of the sea. He stared, almost hypnotized by the impossible, unbelievable sight. Nobody had tested the temperature of that water, but it must have been high, way too high, for years.

The ocean currents were already going haywire. What he was trying to warn the world about must already be well under way. He flung his cores to Frank. Even if it meant his life, those cores had to get back to the lab . If he couldn't publish the crucial paper, Frank could and would.

Jack saw that he had exactly one chance to escape. He unsheathed his narrow, socomoly pointed ice axe. He was a powerful man, he made damned sure of that, one and working as he did in some of the world's most dangerous places. He ed, reaching with all his might, and felt the axe drive into the face of the cliff pank and Jason's fear. He dangled there, feeling the axe begin to slip.

Then Frank had him, and he was coming up over the edge .

"You're out of your mind."

"I knew you'd catch me."

Frank shook his head, then both men smiled.

"What the hell is happening ?" Jason was not amused.

Frank dropped a fatherly hard dawn on his shoulder. "The whole goddamn ice shelf is breaking off, that's what's happened."

"We've got to get out of here !"

"That would be true."

---

Unity Space Station, Low Earth Orbit, October 2030

The new Unity Space Station smells like a whole lot of things, but not roses or clean sheets or new mown grass. You get used to it, though. Slowly. Yuri Andropov would remind himself, when the toilet overheated or the air cleaner went down, that the old ISS was a whole lot worse. But he wasn't thinking about creature comforts now. He was a professional observer, and he was observing something that was quite interesting. Looking down at the gigantic storm below, he worked the station's cameras .

"You want to see a storm," he said into his mike, ``this is a storm. "

From the nearby SpaceX Starship, which had just completed a docking maneuver with the space station, commander Robert Parker said "Most credible sight, Yuri."

Far below them, a WB-3D Hurricane Hunter from NOAA's Pacific Squadron moved towards the storm, looking no bigger than a gnat against its towering clouds. Superficially, the plane looked like a C-130 cargo craft, but the fat instrument cowling on its belly and its huge, churning props told a different story. Those instruments fed no fewer than 250 separate weather readings a second to the plane's array of onboard computers, and what they were saying right now was getting some extremely serious attention from the meteorologists hunched over their stations inside the plane.

"Is this normal?" a nervous rookie scientist asked as the plane seemed to leap and flounder across the sky.

"Once we dive in there's less bounce, more shake. Don't have any loose fillings, do you ?" Up front, Commander Michael Daniels stared steadily ahead. He was recording some very powerful gusts across the plane's wings, and he was thirty miles from the storm's perimeter. He'd been doing this for fifteen years, and this was not a usual pattern, not at all.

"Get Goddard on the horn, " he said to his first officer, his voice maintaining a calm he did not feel .

At NASA's Satellite Goddard Space Center, meteorologist Janet Tokada was also reading data output from the plane. But she had even more information. Thanks to NASA's ultra high - tech scatterometer instrument aboard Japan's Advanced Earth Observing satellite, she could measure wind speeds inside the storm, in areas the plane had not yet reached.

Commander Daniels' voice crackled in her ears. "Control , this is Recon One , do you read me ?"

"This is NASA Goddard, go ahead. We may lose you in a few moments. Do you have updated stats for us ? "

Janet glanced at her Science Officer. "Here's the TRMM data," he said, holding out a sheet. The estimated internal wind speeds leaped off the page at her.

"Recon One,'' she said quickly," we advise that you turn around immediately.

She listened...to static.

"Recon One do you read me?"

"What's the matter, Janet ? " her Science Officer asked.

"This thing is off the charts. It could rip the wings right off that plane."

Daniels continued to fly into the storm, and to listen to the static. The radio automatically searched frequencies , but they were over a thousand miles out in the south central Pacific over one of the most isolated areas on the planet, the vast stretch of empty water that spreads south of the Hawaiian islands .

"We've lost them, " he said . Tell the guys to release the dropsondes.

Measuring instruments dropped out of their containers as the plane entered the storm. This was the rookie's moment. It was his job to read and record their transmissions. He sat rigidly at his station, fighting the wild gyrations of the aircraft as he tried to call out his readings.

"Transmission is up and good. I am seeing wind speed at - at one ninety. That is one ninety! Hold on. That is one ninety - five."

Up front, Commander Daniels heard the unbelievable, fantastic numbers but could not react, he was too busy keeping the airplane running. He gripped his controls, struggling to read his vibrating instruments. Beside him, his skilled co pilot adjusted the bite of the props. They reduced airspeed, increasing the shake, rattle and roll but diminishing the threat to the airframe.

"Two hundred," came the young voice from behind, "two ten, two twenty, two thirty !"

"Two hundred and forty miles per hour!" This was a typhoon with wind speeds equivalent to that of a tornado. It was fantastic, unbelievable. But there was also no place to turn an airplane, not one that was so close to its design limits, and probably passed them when it came to crucial areas like wing roots. Commander Daniels flew on, largely because there was nothing else he dared to do.

The wings fluttered so wildly that the sound of creaking metal rose over the surging roar of the props. Commander Daniels thought helplessly of his people. If the aircraft disintegrated, they were all dead. Parachutes would be useless in this maelstrom.

"How far to the eyewall ?" he asked his co - pilot, his calm, decisive voice betraying nothing of his inner feelings.

"Eight niner clicks. "

Less than a minute. That would be a maybe. In back, they burst through the wall of the storm eye into a silence so deep that the rookie laughed with relief. "Wow, that was some ride!"

The others were silent. They all knew the same thing : this airplane had to make it out the other side or they were going to have a real bad day. "Let's hope this monster storm never makes landfall," one of them said quietly.

One could only imagine the absolute destruction and humanitarian disaster this storm could bring upon landing.

---

Sky over Khabarovsk Krai, Greater Russia. August 2030

Gliding in the skies high over the wilderness of the Russian Far East, Colopatironan, strained all his senses to seek out threats from the humans who crowded the ground below him. The effort interfered with his soavoring of the tastes of human air, the smells, so faint but still unmistakable, of human life. Savoring the senses was one of the great rewards of entering human space but it could not be allowed to interfere with the task before him.

This mission was crucial but extremely dangerous for it did not just take the Plagues seraph into human space but into one of the most heavily defended areas on earth. Colopatironan could feel just how heavy the defenses were here, his skin was itching madly from the strange instruments that humans used and he knew his presence had to be known to the humans.

They would be doing something about that very soon and all of Netherworld had seen the destruction humans and their weapons had wrought on Abigor and his fallen minions. Colopatironan's mission was a response to that stunning display. The consummation of the wrath of The Despoiler with the people of Earth who had defied His will.

For slung under him was the Bowl of Plagues and already its contents were trickling out over the ground below. Soon, it would become a loathsome and malignant sore on the people of Earth. Colopatironan was but one of twenty Plagues Seraph who were pouring the Bowl of Plagues.

Hand-picked by Abaddon himself they were striking the first substantial blow against the mutinous and recalcitrant humans who had become so saturated with pride they had even dared question the supremacy of The Despoiler.

And yet, his appointment for this mission was a puzzle to Colopatironan for he had always believed that he was not amongst those Abaddon considered his most trusted. Still, who was he, a lowly Plagues Seraph to question the ruler of Netherworld.

The Bowl was nearly empty now but Colopatironan sensed it was already too late. He concentrated his power upon his hearing and was rewarded by the sound of human aircraft, approaching fast.

Now, Plagues Seraph or not, Bowl of Plagues or not, he would have to fight to survive.

Thirty kilometers to the north, in his Su-35BM, Captain Yahiya Saifullovich Fatkullin was flying with his radar switched off but his infra-red tracking system was showing the Seraph of Plagues perfectly.

Far off to the south, another pair of Su-35s were illuminating the Plagues Seraph with their radars, decoying it away from Fatkullin's formation and diverting their victim's attention away from the vector of the true strike.

Maskirovka, always maskirovka, the lesson hammered into every Russian officer from their first day of training.

Deceive, misdirect, decoy.

Never do the obvious unless the obvious is so unlikely nobody would take it seriously.

It was a long, long way from Fatkullin's flight school in the Kurgan region of the Urals, just as his Su-35BM was a long, long way from the MiG-17UTI he had flown in the earliest days of his pilot training.

He glanced down, checking his speed. He was moving in, just under Mach one to minimize the warning given to his prey and to give his missiles the greatest possible kinetic boost. His infra-red tracking system was already feeding target information to his R-77M missiles, he would be firing them using that data and the missiles would only switch on their radar guidance systems when their computers told them the target was only in the no-escape zone.

It was a deadly tactic that the Indians had used well against the Americans and given their arrogant Eagle-drivers a lesson to think upon.

With a little luck, the Seraph would never know what it was that had killed it. Another lesson from his flight school, a grim one. A successful fighter pilot was an assassin, not a warrior. Another check on his display, the Plagues Seraph was marked using the data from the infra-red tracking systems, the other pair of Su-35s from their transponders.

Even as Fatkullin watched, the southernmost pair of Su-35s turned north and started to move in.

Time for the attack.

Colopatironan saw the two human aircraft accelerate and swing towards him.

This was bad, very bad.

In his excess of the sin of pride, the Army of Abigor had never bothered to learn much about humans and that was why he had died under their weapons.

Colopatironan would not make that mistake. He adjusted his vision for long range and darkness and saw the two aircraft streaking towards him.

Instinctively he knew that they were the source of the infernal itching in his skin and he acted according to his instincts. His lungs flexed, his voice drew upon all the powers of the Chorus and he emitted a blast of pure sound at the lead aircraft, sound so pure and above reproach that it flung the fighter from the sky.

Colopatironan watched it crumple in mid-air, saw it fall and the human who flew it eject from the great transparent house that rode upon its nose. He felt triumph swell within him at the sight of those who defied The Despoiler being driven from the skies they claimed as their own but he crushed it down. There was no time to exult over the fate of a fallen foe.

Lieutenant Viktor Matveevich Rakitin had known that, as the two most junior pilots in the flight of four Su-35s, he and Blue-861 would be the decoys. What he had not expected was for the Plagues Seraph they were hunting to respond to their feint so quickly.

The sonic blow that had struck Blue-861 had thrown it out of control and wrecked its internal structure, probably also caused both jet engines to flame out. The fringes of the same blow had caught his own aircraft, throwing him against his straps, but his faithful Blue-863 had stood the shock and kept flying.

He had a radar lock on the Plagues Seraph so he selected his R-77Ms and fired a pair of them at the target before heaving back on the stick, ramming his throttles forward and soaring skyward. That had put him well clear of the course of the two missiles and so out of danger when something had tumbled them and sent them plummeting from the sky.

It didn't matter though, Blue-861 and Blue-863 had done their job, the Plagues Seraph had spent the few seconds it had to react concentrating on them and in doing so, it had allowed Blue-860 and Blue-862 to get into perfect firing positions.

Colopatironan had blown the two missiles aimed at it out of the sky with the same casual ease he had used to wipe out the first aircraft. Now was the time to deal with its mate, and his eyes tracked the second aircraft as it swept skywards, accelerating fast.

He gave forth another blast of extremely powerful sound, reveling in its purity as he did so, but it was ineffective. It did not matter, the aircraft was running from battle and the skies were clear for his return home.

Then Colopatironan felt the burning agony as he was enveloped in explosions and he knew that he would not be going home again. Weakened and in agony, knowing he was dying, he tried one last shot against the humans who had out-fought him.

It was a perfect assassination, his flight instructors would have been proud.

The Plagues Seraph had never even realized the four missiles fired by the two Su-35s were inbound until they had slammed into his body and eviscerated him.

Fatkullin saw the Plagues Seraph writhing in mid-air, saw it turn and mouth at him. His faithful Blue-860 shook in ways that rattled his teeth and caused his sight to blur but the effects of four missile hits had weakened the Plagues Seraph so much that the wall he felt as if his aircraft had flown into was a comparatively fragile thing.

His continuously-computed impact point for his 30mm gun was on the Seraph, so Fatkullin squeezed the trigger and pumped a long burst into the still-moving body. Once his gun had had a burst-limiter but that had long been removed in recognition of the fact that Titans and Demons were so damned hard to kill. Now, the shells stitched a line across the target and the Plagues Seraph fell from the sky.

"Eagle Control. This is Blue-860. Target is negated, say again, target is negated. Blue-861 lost to an unknown weapon. Returning to base."

Air Crash Investigation Group, Wright-Paterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio, August 2030

"Well, look at that." It was more the level of bafflement in the speaker's voice that drew attention than the words themselves.

"What's the matter Rich?" Gail Claiborne looked up from the X-ray pictures of a wing spar she'd been studying.

"I've been listening to the contents of the cockpit voice recorder tapes from Blue-861." Doctor Rich Arden was using words loosely here. In this case, "listening to" meant hearing the words certainly, but also studying the oscilloscope readings and examining the various tracks the system had recorded. It was a much more complex subject than it sounded and outsiders only guessed at the wealth of information the tapes contained.

"Did the pilot say anything?"

"Apart from some fascinating obscenities as his plane disintegrated, not really. Russian's a good language for swearing. The really curious bit is elsewhere. Come and have a look."

Gail walked over to Arden's work area and pulled up a stool. "Show me maestro." Before getting into this line of work, Rich Arden had been the road manager for a heavy metal rock band and his stories of the escapades he and his group had got up to were legendary. They had also resulted in his nickname (and flight callsign) 'Maestro'.

"So, we have the cockpit flight recorder tapes and we play them. Nothing very interesting in the words so let's take them out." He manipulated the computer controls and the speech pattern of the pilot flying the ill-fated Blue-861 were removed. "Now, what we have left is the cockpit background noise."

"What's that?" Gail put her finger on a spike a split second before Blue-861 had fallen apart in mid-air.

"Now that's what I asked. There were two ways of looking at this, one was to start eliminating known sounds, air flow, engine noise, radar sound-effects and so on. The other was to get a cockpit take from a flying Su-35, eliminate speech from it and use that as a template. Fortunately the Russians sent us copies of the cockpit flight recorder tapes from Blue-863 as well and I eliminated the pilot's speech and got a clean trace of the cockpit noise. So I subtracted that trace from the message of Blue-861 and lookee here."

"Oh my." Gail was stunned. "Well, look at that."

"Now somebody else is going to say 'What's the matter Gail?' and I'll have to go through the whole thing again." Arden looked around catching one of the investigators with his mouth half open. The investigator in question promptly looked guilty and tried to hide behind his equipment. The rest of the room had been covertly listening, more in hopes of hearing a new heavy metal band story than anything else. "No? Well, we have something here that I don't think has ever been recorded before. Want to have a look?"

Arden's work area filled up as the investigators crowded around to look at the display. The green line left on it was remarkable. The baseline showed a small amount of grass, random noise that couldn't be predicted or ever quite eliminated but the spike that was left had, quite definitely never been seen before. It was a straight line, up and down.

"There's no sidebands, no resonance, no echoes, nothing." Gail's voice was awed. "It's a completely pure note."

"That's right. Every musical note there has ever been has been mixed up with all sorts of distortions. Look at them using this equipment and it's a ragged peak. It goes up in a jagged line, there's a plateau at the top that shows cyclic variations and it goes down in a jagged line. Then there's side-bands and resonances at different frequencies. Lots of them. All the energy transmitted in the note is spread across the area under that line, dispersed, weakened and generally dissipated. Even so, the sound's got a lot of punch, we broke things with it quite regularly."

"Like a theater manager's heart?"

"Those too, although most of them deserved it. Some of them never even read the contract, hence the no-green-jelly bean rule. Anyway, that's not the case here. The sound is one perfect pulse. Straight up, point, straight down. A perfectly pure note and all the energy is concentrated in that note. Talk about a slam, the energy here," he tapped the screen with a switchblade, "is incredible. This thing, its coherent sound. It's the sonic equivalent of a laser and I'd guess that it's just as destructive. It's got about as much resemblance to a musical note as a high-powered laser has to a flashlight."

"And the walls came tumbling down." Gail spoke almost dreamily.

"Sure. Sound travels faster, the denser the medium is. In air, this thing shook an Su-35 apart and tumbled the gyros on two missiles. What it would do if transmitted in water or rock, we can only guess. A lot of we-wish-that-hadn't-happened would be my guess."

"Write all this up." Doctor Peptuck, the team leader, spoke sharply.

"Write it up in as much detail as possible. The higher ups need to know about this as quickly as possible. If we can replicate this pure sonic weapon and put them on our nuclear submarines then the underwater war in Falmart will become much less dangerous." The doctor ordered.

---

Prisha Manor, Skavenblight, Azjania, Falmart

Rory Mercury grasped her boyfriend's hand the second she sat down beside him. She could hear the door closing behind her and knew Aleister would keep everyone out. It had been so long since she felt genuine terror. Her heart was still pounding from when Prisha's aide told her the news.

She had nearly lost him tonight.

Gingerly, Rory pushed a limp piece of hair out of Itami's face. His skin was pasty and his hand remained ice cold in her grip. Stupid Youji! How could she forgive herself if anything happened to him!? Rory should have been the one to rescue him, not the other way around, she was the Apostle of War afterall.

Pushing aside the thick blanket, Rory gazed at the bandages wrapped around Itami torso and legs. The physicians hadn't removed all the micro-inverted tissue yet, too preoccupied with keeping him from bleeding out to death on the operating table. Her heart ached with an unbearable feel of guilt, this was her fault, a human body couldn't contain the mighty soul of a demigoddess.

Itami shifted and Rory repositioned the blanket. He was too cold. His lovely brown eyes wearily opened before he closed them again. It seemed the anesthesia was finally beginning to wear off. His fingers curled around her petite hand and he blinked tiredly.

"Youji," she whispered. "It's time to wake up, my love."

Itami mumbled and opened his eyes slowly, squinting at her. He then glanced down at the heavily taped IV. Experimentally, he flexed his right hands. His fingers were swollen... but there wasn't any pain.

"Should I turn off the lights?"

"R — Rory? Thanks Kami-sama, you're okay!" Itami slurred.

"Idiot! You should take care of yourself first. Did you know you almost died?" Rory shrieked.

Rory then put on a vulnerable, worried expression and threw herself on the blanket on Itami's knee, her cheek pressed to his chest. "Idiot!" she mumbled.

Rory seemed upset, so Itami reached out his right hand to pat her small head. "Hey. Everything is alright. I'm still alive, aren't I ?" he rasped.

Rory reached out, but stopped short of touching him and bit her lip. She shifted closer to his face. "You don't need to do that Youji, we Apostles have sworn to protect the realm with our life. This is my duty!"

Smiling with pain, Itami kissed her gently in the forehead. "True, Rory. But as your boyfriend, it is my duty to save the woman I love. How can I call myself a man if I leave you to your fate?"

Her crimson eyes narrowed and, after a minute, she let out a small sigh. "You learned that cheesy line from a manga, didn't you?"

"Hey! It's a cool line. Okay!" Itami blushed.

They both laughed for a while before sharing a lip kiss again. It was sweet and bitter at the same time. They both know their love story was ephemeral but even they didn't expect it could potentially end so abruptly with the arrival of Pandemonium. Returning from the clutches of death, all they could do was cherish this peaceful moment.

"You must be hungry, let me get you something to eat."

Rory got off the bed, straightened her gothic lolita dress and went outside. In just three minutes, she came back with a tray of gourmet food. In it was some kind of norimaki-like food, a dried sheet of red seaweed stuffed with expensive cheese, spicy cooked squid, wyvern meat, pork cutlet, pepper, spicy turtle and artfully dribbled in vinaigrette.

Her lips curled up. "H-here. You're not feeling good, so I have no choice. I'll feed it to you, so say 'ah'."

"C'mon, say 'ah'." Rory said teasingly.

Itami gingerly bit into the roll of delicacy. It was divine. The savor, the texture and the balance of sweetness, sourness, saltiness, bitterness, and savoriness were out of this world. That and the fact that Rory was the one feeding him made Itami feel like royalty.

Perhaps joining the JSDF and being his clan's pawn in the struggle for the domination of Japan wouldn't be such a bad idea after all.

Thanks Dad!

"So, is everything okay, Rory? Do you feel any tightness in your chest or dizziness?"

"Everything is fine, Youji. You can check if you want!" Rory said in a teasing tone as she opened the top of her dress revealing her black lace bra and witnessed his face turning red. Youji always has very cute reactions.

"It's not fair, Rory-sama!" Itami hissed.

Rory busted out laughing but then she felt something rising up beneath the blanket.

"Uh oh," Rory teased and pushed Itami's bulge. "Looks like someone's got a boner."

With a flushed face, Itami said. "It's because of you!"

Smile seductively, Rory pulled Itami pants down and out sprang his penis, fully erect with all eight or so inches of raw phallic meat becoming harder than steel. It was sticking up like a stalagmite and pulsating angrily with desire now that Rory's actions had revved the man's engine.

Rory was looking back at it with hunger in her eyes and little heart shape appearing from within each pupils. The nubile girl promptly pulled herself off of his face completely with a trickle of saliva dripping from off of her tongue. Itami was left breathless and Rory was breathing hotly now that she was slowly sliding down his waist to where his cock stood erecting just above her thirsty eyes.

"So strong in terms of rigidity and so full of life as well. I'm going to very much enjoy taking this in every way possible.~" Rory whispered seductively in that soft, minty voice and wrapped her lips around the bulbous glans of his cock, swallowing the head into her warm and slimy mouth as she was about to suck him off.

*Schlup!*

"Mmmhmmm! *Youji!*" Rory mouthed while mewling happily, once her lips started wrapping even more of his dick into her thirsty gullet. Rory wrapped her soft fingers around the middle of his cock and started pumping. Itami could feel his cock gingerly getting stroked by the girl's dainty yet strong fingers, sucking the upper third of his cock with gusto at a deliberately slow pace until she started moving even faster. Rory engulfed his cock in her mouth, coiling her soft tongue around it and soaking it in spittle.

*Schlupp..schlupp...schlupp...schlupp..schlupp...schlupp..schlupp!*

Rory mewled loudly again, keeping her face rising and falling between his lap with nose prodding against his naked groin amidst this dick-sucking frenzy. Itami could feel every inch of her slick, slimy little mouth swallowing him up and making him enjoy the experience greatly as he held a hand behind her head, pushing himself deeper as she went along. The slick slurping noises suddenly became a little louder as Rory picked up the pace, languishing her tongue all over the underside of Itami's dick like it was her life goal.

"Mhmmph! Mmhmmhmm...! *Itami!*" She let out in a muffled voice, peering up at him with eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. She was keeping her lips sealed tightly around his cock, pumping her jaw over and over again to his scrotum as she started taking him deep. For Itami, it felt as though he was fucking a pussy raw all over again and it was driving him crazy.

Rory Mercury was one talented cocksucker indeed.

Rory hand held the base of his manhood as her mouth pulled out and said, "Are you turned on yet, dear?"

"Y-yes?" Itami asked. His hand lowered from Rory's shoulder to her chest, groping her breast as he pulled her for a kiss. She gave into his demand and happily made out with him. Her tongue was sucked inside his mouth at their hungry kiss, while her hand coiled around his cock giving him a handjob.

Itami's hand lowered to the hem of Rory's top and pulled it over her skin, fingers poking the underside of her chest and kneading her soft breast. He traced around her areola and pinched her nipple. Rory moaned through the kiss while Itami whimpered with arousal and felt his cock rising up with strength from inside Rory's hand, it was as if it was begging her to let him fuck her right now.

Rory said nothing at first and simply smirked at the man-in-question before lowering herself down to where her lips started wrapping around the bulbous head of his cock. Rory brought her hands around the hilt this time around and grabbed it firmly before suddenly plunging her head waist-deep with Itami's cock sliding down her gullet wholesale!

*Schlop!*

Itami then held the back of her head and pushed Rory deeper as he thrust this cock inside her mouth, his tip touching her throat. She gagged for a moment before regaining control, and continuing her fellatio. Her teeth brushed his cock, making him groan.

"Hnggghhh! Rory...!" He let out and felt the entire slimy passage of her throat sheathe his dick from the tip down to the very last inch where her nose prodded his groin. It was as if he was bottoming out of her pussy already, only it was in the form of Rory's tight little mouth gobbling him up.

Itami held onto the sides of her face and felt her soft hands grabbing onto the sides of his pelvis with one of them feeling up his abs while she began to hungrily deepthroat his length like there was no tomorrow.

Rory slowly drew back to where the bulbous tip was about to leave her lips, but then she pushed herself all the way back into his groin, keeping her tongue rolling all over the underside as she got started fucking her mouth on his cock.

"Mhmhpp..mhmpp..mhmmp...mhmmp...mhmmp...mhmmpp...mhmpp...mhmpp! *Schlupp! Pop!* Youji! Do you like this? I certainly hope so.~" She let out while having a dreamy smile on her face and resumed sucking off his cock with rampant slams of her face smashing directly into his pelvis with unrelenting vigor.

God! the tightening of her throat was sublime!

"Mngghhh! Y-yes I do! Uuuhhh...! K-keep going, Rory, but as soon as you feel me beginning to stiffen up with ejaculation in mind, stop. I want every ounce of sperm to go into the face instead.~" Itami growled and saw Rory nod her legs obediently before closing her eyes and frenziedly rolling her face down between his eyes, sucking him off with only Itami's pleasure foremost in mind.

He looked at Rory's face, rolling and thumping against his groin as she swallowed him while struggling not to choke or gag on his outrageously large cock.

"To think she, out of all people in this world, has had a crush on me."

He resolved and felt Rory's face continued bumping him into the stomach repeatedly with her mouth sucking up every inch of Itami's cock.

For minutes this had gone by until he felt his balls beginning to quiver with pressure, so he tapped Rory's head and signaled her to remove her face from his cock and she did so ever so slowly with a smile.

*Schluuuuup...pop!*

"Ahh...I'm glad you enjoyed it, Youji. Truly, it makes me happy to see that you cherish my body.~" She breathed out happily and saw him pointing at spot on the floor.

Rory understood immediately and got up, hastily undoing the rest of her priestess outfit before feeling it spill onto the floor with only panties covering up her pussy.

Rory was naked everywhere else and wearing a cute pair of frilly dark red undergarments over her petite body, but of course, she pulled them down and revealed to Itami the erected pink pair of nipples aching for his touch. Her titties were as amazing as the rest of her, two perfect globes of soft flesh marking her as all woman.

Rory was growing bold, and she reached her hands down, placing them on either side of her lips. Slowly, she pulled them apart, spreading the delicate folds of her flower, letting Itami look deep within her. Itami was overjoyed to find that Rory's inner folds were glistening wet with arousal.

Rory was getting almost as horny as Itami was. Itami managed to pry his eyes away from Rory's glistening slit for a second to look at her face. Rory was no longer blushing. She was smiling a wide smile, her embarrassment replaced with excitement.

With a smile, Rory kneeled, sitting her plump butt naked on her heels and spreading her milky thighs. She then bent her back inwards at the waist, accentuating her hips and lewd curves.

Furthermore, Rory puffed her petite chest out by pushing it forward and inhaling just a bit; her white boobs were obscured by her silky hair, but she still found the round mounds delineated themselves a bit too apparently.

Rory then held her hands together on the ground between her thighs; doing so made her arms push her petite boobs licentiously together. Rory looked perfect in her little puppy pose-

Itami gripped Rory's scalp, brushed his thumb over her chin and jerked off his cock right in front of her face.

"Ghnngghhhh! Here...it comes! Aagghhh!~"

Itami's body tensed up as he groaned, he pulled back a bit, allowed some range to be put between them when his throbbing cock exploded all over Rory's face in a thick eruption of heavily virile ejaculation.

"Aagghhh!"

The most powerful, mind numbingly wonderful orgasm any man has ever experienced. Huge globs of pent up cum shot from his spasming cock, spraying all over Rory's bare breasts.

*Sppllt...spllt..spllt...spllt..spllt..splltt!*

Rory simply opened her mouths to catch the waves of semen coming out from his cock, many hit her faces and tits as she lapped up any she catch. Her soft skin was streaked with white, her pink nipples coated with the stuff.

Thick ropes of his sperm keep spewed forth, splattering onto the cheeks as well as spilling onto the outstretched tongue Rory held out to collect the splendor coming from her lover cock!

Itami just kept spurting his spermatic fluid all over the girl's face, making a mess covering her lips with plenty of the white stuff cascading down her forehead and cheeks. Itami own moans of joy were joined by Rory's. She loved having her lover cum all over her tits.

Oh God's! the scene was so erotic!

Rory wiped her face clean of his semen with her fingers. She then pressed her delicate fingertips to her alluring lips, inserted her fingertips and soaked it with her saliva. Her dainty tongue cleaned it up of whatever remains from Itami's semen.

Noting there was some semen left on Itami's cock, Rory crawled on fours to his leg, made sure his eyes saw hers, and sucked his cock. Her tongue cleaned him of any remaining semen or fluid. Wetness leaked from Rory birth canal. Even more obvious on Itami pelvis where Rory orally cleaned her lover cock. It was while Itami hands were outstretched, the left one exploring Rory's wet pussy and the right one wrapping on her white mounds and kneaded it that Rory lightly bit his manhood.

That was the trigger that made him cum inside her mouth again, burying himself deep in her throat as he squeezed Rory's breast and pinched her red hard clitoris a little too hard.

Rory moaned from the carnal pleasure while licking Itami semen clean.

By the time she was done cleaning him up, there wasn't a speck of semen in sight, other than the one in her tongue. She swallowed it and sobbed. "Glad that's over with."

Rory suddently grabbed Itami ass and shoved him back inside until her lips and nose were pressed into his. She looked up at him lustily, squirming and jiggling her petite white ass as if she was waiting for him to give her something.

"Suddenly it dawned on me. My girl friend was a filthy freak! I gave her a mischievous grin, knowing exactly what she wanted me to give her."

I closed my eyes and relaxed for a moment. My cock was still hard so this wasn't going to be easy. Rory waited patiently, never looking away from me. She would've waited as long as it took to receive what she wanted from me.

I could finally feel my piss starting to build up. "You ready Rory?" She nodded excitedly, forgetting that my cock was still balls deep in her mouth. It took me a second to regain concentration, but I managed it. Then, I finally started to piss in the girl's welcoming mouth. It was a slight dribble at first but then grew into a steady but light stream, and I gladly filled her waiting mouth with my golden liquid.

It splashed on her tongue and the back of her throat, but she never hesitated, never faltered. She swallowed every drop like a champion. When I finally finished peeing after what felt like an eternity, Rory let my softening penis escape from her jaws. She stood up on her toes and kissed, forcing a mouthful of my own piss into my mouth. I accepted it happily, lapping at it and drinking it as she offered it to me.

"Did you like how I made you feel good?"

"Uh-huh," was all I could manage.

"Did you like the way I drank your cum and piss?"

"Fuck yes," I said as I took two handfuls of her plentiful ass and squeezed tightly.

"So what now?" Itami leaned back on the bed.

"Nothing." The irresistible Apsotle of War replies succinctly, "You will take a rest until you fully recover. I will take care of everything."

Sensing something odd from Rory, like she was hiding something from him, Itami asked. "Where is Lady Prisha? I want to thank her for everything she has done for us."

Hesitating for a few seconds, Rory finally replied. "That heretic is being held in custody awaiting trial for her blasphemy."

"What did she do to you, Rory?"

Behind that mask of eccentric otaku, Itami could be quite perceptive sometimes. Living in one of the most powerful families in Japan would sharpen your social awareness. There are no permanent friends or enemies, only temporary partners and rivals.

Rory reached out and her fingers curled around his hand. "Nothing I can't handle, my love. I can fight my own battle."

If Rory didn't want to tell him, then what had happened there would have terrible implications for both of them if leaked out. So the best thing to do is not mention it ever again. If you want to live a long life, sometimes you need to turn a blind eye.

Itami held her hand tightly, glanced around, and whispered. "If you need anything, I know some guys who can arrange a way out."

A little bit surprised by the offer of treason, Rory chuckled weakly. "It's very nice of you, but this is my home and they're family. Don't worry, my love. I will return!" She assured him.

"Promise me you'll be careful out there."

"I will be back."

Rory then gracefully reached over her head, removing her black ribbon in an elegant motion, letting her silky ebony hair fall loose, partially covering her delicate face. Rory Mercury is a being of breathtaking majesty and her perfectly unblemished lengthy hair is a powerful weapon in her arsenal of majestic-ness. If Rory did a hair flip now, Itami was sure he would have a heart attack.

She then gave her ribbon to him. "Here, keep it for me."

His heart pounded painfully in his chest, and Itami licked his parched lips. Itami had heard of a tradition in the steppe that a woman would leave a small token like hair or ornament to her beloved before going far, so that he would always remember her. This had to be something similar. The only thing he could do now was wish her luck. "I'll wait for you here. Show them, show the world what you can do, Rory!"

A smug grin slowly bloomed on her face. Rory then walked away with the fire of determination burning fiercely in her eyes. This was a battle she couldn't lose no matter what. For her honor as the chief warrior of Emroy and as a woman in love.

Outside the Manor

"Are you ready, Big Sis Rory?" Aleister Cromwell asked weakly.

The young apostle cared for her deeply and he was showing it all over his face. Silently, Aleister scolded himself for not being able to do anything about the situation and how his failure had led to this moment.

With a kind smile, Rory put her hand on Aleister's shoulder."It's not your fault, young Aleister. You have tried your best."

"But — "

Put a finger on his lips. "We can't live in the past, young Aleister."

"Sika-sama power is beyond logic, you must be careful, Rory." Mabel Fornm, her former apprentice, said dully. Her face was perfectly impassive, carved like a porcelain doll — inhuman.

Despite the impassive tone and their long time animosity, Rory knew Mabel was worry for her. She was one of the first to beg for Rory's life. "I will— Don't worry, your grand-instructor won't die that easily."

"Are you ready, young Rory?" Sika Madu asked the young apostle gently. He didn't like this anymore than she was but his duty to the orthodox church must come first. They couldn't rule over billions of believers if they didn't set an example.

"Yes, M'lord." She answered dutifully.

"Then let's get started — Samsara of Paradise." Sika raised his hand as he called out that name.

As if pricked by a thousand needles, Rory felt a terrifying chill come up her spine. The sensation was similar to when Rory first saw Pandemonium. It was a survival instinct screaming to keep herself alive.

At that moment, the earth trembled as a huge spire emerged from behind Sika.

With an inorganic surface resembling glass, the branches and cluster of leaves spread out to the open sky. From a vertical slit in the trunk, an apparition resembling a girl was seen,

That's right; it's appearance-resembled an enormous tree that pierced the heavens.

Moreover, it wasn't just that.

"What.!?"

Rory sharpened her gaze as she narrowed her dry throat.

Not just Rory, Aleister and the other apostle were all equally shocked.

But it was impossible for them to not be surprised. After all, a huge tree had suddenly appeared behind Sika. At the center, the roots of the tree began to stretch, changing the surrounding scenery in the process.

The landscape, even the sky began to transform.

! ? This is

Faced against this unknown phenomenon, Rory looked around her surroundings with the utmost vigilance.

A monochrome world of black and white, the ground as neatly divided into block- like steps as if having been precisely divided up by grid paper; even the jet-black sky casted an ominous gaze upon the ground. The amount of detail of the world was compressed to the limit, truly a minimalist scene. A tremendous feeling of incongruity as if the outer layers of the world had been scrapped away.

High viscosity sweat covered her back. Her dry throat felt sore and painful. The intense palpitations coming from her heart would not yield as tremors spread to the rest of her body.

Although the other apostles tried to look around with a fearless expression, they couldn't completely hide their amazement. From behind the other, Rory raised her voice.

"What the hell is this thing?"

"Illusion is it not?"

"A Personal Reality? But on this scale-

As Mabel raised a question, Sika soon responded back to answer it.

"This is my personal reality — Samsara of Paradise. Utilizing the full power of 'Path Dimension' bestowed to me by Lord Darwin, I was able to project my inner world onto reality. The created world is completely cut off from normal reality. In this realm, the laws of reality are for me to manipulate and I can draw energy from from every being here. So, Young Rory, if you want to win this battle, I advise you to fight with all you have." Sika said sincerely.

Camp Hell-One, Hellgate, Falmart, October 2030

"I am pleased to report that this year's conscription has been a success, by the end of the year the United States Army will have twenty four newly created divisions and a new corps headquarters is now operational. We believe that the British Army will soon be able to contribute another eight full divisions to the First Army Front. With our allies in Canada contributing three divisions more, Australia three divisions and New Zealanders putting in another full division, we'll be up to 33 divisions, organized as five whole new Corps.

"We're expanding our marines to create three whole new divisions as well, bringing us up to 36 divisions. That's a whole new Field Army and with the twenty American Armies already in the First Army Front, we believe we can hold our heads up high. Then of course, there's all the troops we're holding back for home defense, I'd say we have nearly 35 million people under arms at the moment. Proud moment for us all, I can tell you.

"May I ask who will be commanding the Commonwealth Army?"

"Yes indeed. We've appointed Sir Mike Jackson to take on the job, he's the most experienced senior officer we have who is still fit and healthy enough to take on such an arduous job. He's used to serving with and under our allies, so I doubt we have much to worry about. I'm more worried about our equipment problems, we've still got units armed with M-47 heavy rifles but at least new aircraft are coming off the production lines to replace the old ones and the sixteen Type 47 destroyers canceled by the government have been reinstated."

"Thank you for your time Admiral." The television reporter turned to face the camera and resumed "That was Admiral of the Fleet Lord West who kindly agreed to share his insights into the British contribution to the Human Expeditionary Army. Back to you Greta."

"Thank you Brian. Now, recapping our main news stories again, Hurricane Ike continues to batter the Houston area although it is now moving off to the North East. Meteorologists are puzzled at the way the storm seemed to pause over the Houston/Galveston region for several hours. However, Chairman Kayvan Bechir of No-Pats has offered work teams to help with rescue and repair efforts. He said that the real enemy of the human race is climate change, not the Empire or the Demons..."

"I don't think we need to hear any more of that environmentalism nonsense," Tommy used the remote to flip the channel over to the CBS network. He was just in time to catch a fanfare of music..

"And now, CBS is proud to present the first in our new series of our late-evening current affairs debating programs hosted by Tyuwaru 'You can't lie to a Siren' Sharmanaska." The music swelled up and the familiar figure of Tyuwaru appeared at the back. She was wearing her usual white robe but in deference to CBS decency standards she had a red evening gown on under it.

She took her seat beside the coffee table and her yellow eyes swept over the crows, her pupils contracting under the spotlights. The applause from the audience was enthusiastic if slightly restrained.

"My guest tonight is Michael Vick." She paused as a string of hisses went around the theater. "As you all know, he was arrested and sent to prison for his part in a dog fighting ring. He has been released on temporary liberty for tonight's show. Hello, Michael, thank you for coming."

"Why hello Tyuwaru. May I say…"

"No. We will ask the questions. Firstly, Michael, can you give us any good reason why we should not throw you into a ring full of rabid pit-bulls?

A thunderous burst of cheering echoed around the theater, the audience was beginning to warm to Tyuwaru and the show's promoters relaxed. Selling this concept to the network bosses had been a hard deal to make. Still, Tyuwaru was turning out to be a hit.

In many ways, they thought it was a pity they couldn't throw Michael Vick into a ring full of rabid pit-bulls, it would make excellent television. And their new chat-show host was just the person who could organize it.

Back in his office, Tommy thumbed the remote control switch again. This time, he missed the program and hit an advertisement break instead. A picture of an office in New York with an urgent package while the manager berated a delivery organizer for not getting the package to Japan on time.

Then, mid-tirade, he stopped as a black ellipse formed on his desk and a hand came out to tale the box. As it disappeared into the ellipse, the screen split to show a desk in Tokyo, with another ellipse forming there. The hand emerged with the package in it and deposited its cargo in front of the recipient.

The voice-over was a seductive contralto. "Anywhere, any time, use the Hermes Express Delivery Service. We go through hell to get your deliveries through on time. Exclusive on Starlink + with just $8.99 per month."

Tommy hastily changed the channel again. "Well, at least Musk has found a non-destructive way to use the talent of those naga things."

Ensconced in an armchair, Colonel Kuribayashi nodded. "That's free market capitalism for you! Not even Hell can stop them from making money." Then her attention was caught by another advertisement just starting. The voice-over was a dramatic baritone.

"Yes, you can take it with you! You've worked hard for your wealth, a life-time's effort and sacrifice. Why should your children waste the products of your thrift and industry while you live here." The scene cut to one of the refugee camps in the Phelan Plain. The huts were neat, clean and comfortable but small and there were a lot of them cramped together. That was inevitable of course, with Earth's normal death toll and the humans being rescued from the pit, demand for housing far exceeded supply.

"Let your children stand on their own two feet, that's what you did wasn't it? Right, of course you did, now you can do it again. In partnership with the Government of the Ascendency of Zen, the Euryale Real Estate Company is proud to offer these beautiful plots of land along the banks of the Askaris River in the Elysium Fields.

"Yes, you too can live in the Elysium Fields, once the chosen homes of the gods and now the scene of an exciting new after-life community development. Chose one of three types of Villa. We have the Augustus, our top of the line atrium-style villa with four bedrooms and all modern conveniences. Then we have the Tiberius for the young-at-heart, slightly smaller but with great recreation and playtime facilities. And for those looking for a little more economy, we have the Nero, just perfect for the smaller family. All our villas have metal-lined walls and dust-filters so your living relatives can come and stay. If you want them to of course. And remember, property ownership brings citizenship in the Ascendency of Zen. So call us today on 1-800-EUR-YALE and get set up for the after-life of your dreams."

"Isn't that the Euryale who was somehow involved with the attacks on Earth and Falmart?"

"It was, but she and Consul Charles got together and set this up. He got a huge land grant from her and that's his new empire."

"Can he do that, Kuribayashi ?"

"Who, Charles? Sure he can. He's even been recognized as an independent state in the Netherworld, by the Security Council of course. From the Army's point of view, he's set up a nice little well run state that's keeping order and not causing trouble. He's even building roads. Straight ones of course."

"Are they currently fighting for those territories ? How can they sell land that they don't own?"

"It's Charles' trick, he needs money and weapons to fund his war, so he promises investors big profits if they support his regime. He is basically selling them future profits. This is as much of a scam as our inflated stock market is."

Tommy Kennedy shook his head. "And I thought we'd won this war."

Samsara of Paradise

Sitting proudly on his Wahre Welt throne, Sika Madu pointed his 'Key of Heaven' towards the ground and said; "Let's do a little warm-up, shall we?" then he casted the mighty spell.

"Wiederbelebung - Revivification"

At that moment, the earth trembled as a huge pillar of light emerged from the ground. From the pillar of light, a black silhouette resembling a man was seen.

"What.!?"

Rory sharpened her gaze at the black silhouette before her eyes wide opened in shock.

"Schwarzer Krieg." — The Dragon King of the West and Emroy's most powerful Apostle in history.

"Well, this is a rare sight."

Rory stated, slowly walking up to Schwarzer Krieg, who was sitting on a block of rock. The dragon King was in his human form, a sight she'd never seen before. Then again, Rory didn't usually speak with the dead. Especially someone who died more than 20,000 years ago.

"So you are the one to amuse me?"

Rory waved her right hand in a dismissive manner. "I don't know about amusing. But ultimately, I will have to kill you again."

Schwarzer Krieg chuckled in a cold tone. His sharp eyes staring at Rory unblinking. "If you truly are an Apostle of Emroy then I must test your skills."

"It would be my honor!" Rory replied with indifference.

Boom!

The ground crumbled in an instant. And Rory found herself flying backwards like a bullet. It had occurred in an instant, much faster than even the experienced eye could track. But Schwarzer Krieg had flashed in front of Rory, slammed his open palm on Rory's chest.

"Vernichtung."

The girl hadn't had the time to dodge or block. She received the full brunt of the attack, being sent rocketing backwards. The dragon King didn't attempt to follow up, but just stood there, staring at the palm of his right hand with an expressionless mask.

A long distance away, far away, that Schwarzer Krieg looked like an insect, Rory finally crash landed on both feet.

Rory looked around. This area wasn't just lifeless, it was absorbing her mana at an alarming rate and transferring her energy to Schwarzer Krieg. She doubted a sage would be able to gather natural energy in this place. This was cheating. But what did one expect in the personal reality of the Supreme Sorcerer?

Still, that blow was ridiculous. Schwarzer Krieg had come at Rory with every intention to kill her. A normal mage. No, even an Apostle considered to be powerful in the standards of the young ones would have been crushed. Left dead or sinking towards the dead.

She smiled and spat out blood.

Schwarzer Krieg's physical strength surpassed hers. This was not surprising. The dragon king was 10,000 years old when he died and has been fighting powerful opponents for years. He had no experience in a battle to the death in his time. The prospect did make him feel a little excited but not so much that he would start grinning like a mad man.

Schwarzer Krieg knew he landed a clean hit, and yet, that little girl didn't even fall before getting up. He hadn't held back. Not even a little.

This battle was going to be worth it after all.

Schwarzer Krieg grinned. He could enjoy himself. When was the last time he ever felt excited about fighting anyone?

Without looking for a response, he vanished, leaving only chunks of earth flying in his wake. A second later, he appeared right behind Rory in mid-air, his body twisting along the wind. His right foot was aimed at the back of Rory's head, with the intention of either bursting it open or severing it from the shoulder.

"Ausrottung."

Rory reacted swiftly by falling forward, while flipping to be able to face the Dragon King. However, while she was upside down, her body tensed as Schwarzer Krieg released a Dragon's Roar. The powerful magic blast came at her head. Rory quickly folded her hands across her face while bringing her knees across chest. Before she could even blink, the spell hit her.

Boom!

A massive explosion ruptured, completely enveloping her petite body while destroying everything around her creating a massive crater.

Schwarzer Krieg didn't wait for the explosion to clear, he dived in to attack Rory again, unbothered by the destructive force of his magic. Since Rory couldn't see him, she couldn't counterattack.

Rory was still upside down when Schwarzer Krieg dived into the explosion. Her hands and knee positioning helped her avoid a fatal blow as the Dragon King punched toward her gut. The punch slammed into her knees, sending her flying backward, out of the explosion, with Schwarzer Krieg following right behind.

While in mid-air, Rory narrowed her eyes behind for a second before flipping. She crash landed on the ground, while still folding her hands across her chest. Within seconds, Schwarzer Krieg was in front of her. The former apostle breathed out another powerful Dragon's Roar at point blank.

The mighty Roar seemingly hit Rory head on, erupting into a huge explosion that even forced Schwarzer Krieg to leap into the air to avoid getting caught within his own explosion. While he was still in retreat, his eyes narrowed to his right hand: Rory flashed into existence. Her upper clothing burnt off, but there was no single bruise, burnt or cut on her body.

The girl held her hands together, fingers folded into a triangle, a black magic circle in front of her.

"Skoteiní Astrapí."

A black beam of death rushed through the dragon king. Its speed was far faster than Schwarzer Krieg could even finish a thought. To his relief, the beam zipped just pass him, on the right side of his chest.

He felt an intense heat off it.

In fact, even though it went past him in the blink of an eye, the blast burnt his clothing and left burn marks on his chest. But what caught his attention the most was the explosion on the other side. He hadn't even finished trying to figure out what had happened when a huge explosion occurred a distance away.

The mountain that had once sat there was gone within seconds.

"Ah, I missed." Rory said with a grin on her lips.

Schwarzer Krieg was still rooted in mid-air, not even moving an inch. If that had hit him dead on, he would have been severely wounded in his current form. Slowly, he turned to Rory and then matched the girl's grin – hers was a little sinister.

"I will take the pleasure in ripping you apart. And I will do it slowly."

"I just felt a chill down my spine." Rory said that, yet with a degree of indifference.

"Why don't you use your full power? I can't afford to hold back now that I have seen that you're capable of not only dealing with my attacks but also damaging me."

"I am using my full power."

Schwarzer Krieg frowned with disappointment. "And your Titan form?"

"Well, I'm not at full power when in Titan form. It limits my other magic. Titan form gives me more in terms of defence. It is preferable when facing multiple opponents. But right now in this form, I can use my Dragon Slaying Magic and other magic without any restrictions."

Rory held out her right hand, and then continued. "In this form, I can do things li-"

"..?"

Rory could see what had happened. Schwarzer Krieg had displayed an even greater speed to attack her using 'Flash Step'. The dragon king then cut off her outstretched hand around the elbow, using the high-level attack spell 'Drachenklinge'. However, Rory had been a little surprised by the speed that she couldn't move to avoid the next attack.

Schwarzer Krieg followed this by droving his left hand, which was wrapped with magical energy to form an energy blade, straight into her gut. Rory didn't even flinch when the hand blade pierced through, leaving a gaping hole, blood gushing out. She quickly jumped away, all battered and landed on the ground with a deep frown on her face.

In response, Schwarzer Krieg took to the air as he transformed into his colossal form.

Healing in an instance, Rory responded while holding up her right hand.

The space just above Schwarzer Krieg seemed to rip apart, revealing a black hole that gave off a creepy feeling. Within seconds, a monstrous black ball shot out of the hole.

"Dunkle Kugel."

Schwarzer Krieg dared to say it was just as big as he was. He had no time to consider it as it slammed into his back. It was heavy. So heavy that even he couldn't carry it. This was condensed energy. Even if it was this big – it was condensed. The force of the magic sent him pummelling to the ground. He crashed with his wings spread out, the ball squashing him under its weight.

And then, it exploded.

Knowing that an explosion was going to occur, Rory had already flown into the air to avoid getting caught within it as Schwarzer Krieg was near her.

The explosion caused a large mushroom cloud of debris to rise. The mushroom cloud reached high up into the air. There was no sign of the Dragon King. Not until the explosion started to settle.

There was a massive crater where Schwarzer Krieg laid. It was so big that Schwarzer Krieg appeared small within it. But the Dragon King raised its wings, and then let out an ear shattering roar that sent chills down Rory's spine.

Schwarzer Krieg didn't appear to have suffered any damage. That had to be strange. No one was supposed to escape from that ball of void energy without damage. They were at the top of a monotone mountain and it had now vanished, replaced by a huge crater.

If not for the fact that Dragon Slayers can absorb magic, Rory would have stood there, baffled and unable to explain what just happened. And then would have decided to take Itami's advice and tuck her tail and then flee.

Instead, she smiled and raised her right hand.

Schwarzer Krieg stared at Rory.

If he hadn't absorbed the void energy of that blast, it would have been disastrous for him. He would have been hurt more than he was at the moment. But the little hurt had earned him all that magic boost. He could not underestimate the threat Rory posed to his very life.

But to feel threatened made his heart race with excitement. He felt a wave of emotion rushing through his nerves. He wanted nothing more than to take into the air and then rip the girl apart. He just thought of doing it slowly, pulling the hand until it broke off and then moving to the other one.

It didn't matter that Rory had now transformed into a Titan. Her appearance is just as imposing as his. Schwarzer Krieg was going to clip those wings.

Before he could take off into the air, Rory charged down. Their heads clashed, resulting in the ground exploding under the force created by the collision.

Arrogance!

Schwarzer Krieg thought.

Rory was looking down on him.

His response to this perceived arrogance was brutally landing a left hook on the girl's chest.

The punch caused them to be separated and he didn't waste time before opening his mouth while gathering up magic. He didn't gather much magic as Titan Rory was right in front of him and he didn't want to give her a chance to escape. He was still able to release a powerful Dragon Roar that collided with Rory head on, sending her flying backwards.

Titan Rory recovered from the blow without any injuries.

She quickly switched from her titan form into that of a human. There was no time wasted as she suddenly vanished.

Schwarzer Krieg by now had already taken to her domain. He didn't have to look far as Rory appeared above him. But before he could turn around in his large form, the girl transformed into a monstrous beast and then landed on his back.

The claws clawed on his dark wings, sending him crashing into the ground. He hadn't even crashed to the ground when the beast releases a blast of energy from its mouth. The second the powerful energy hit his back, he felt the weight of the beast off him. Schwarzer Krieg couldn't absorb it because he realized it was not magic but utral powerful sound.

Rory switched back to her human form, and landed on a boulder, watching as Schwarzer Krieg crashed into the ground before being enveloped by a gigantic column of ice several kilometers wide.

"Hammer of the Ice God"

Knowing that it would not be enough, Rory held out her right hand to prepare for another attack, but she then blinked with surprise as she felt a sudden flash of movement.

Schwarzer Krieg was in front of her, bleeding through the mouth, in his human form, and crucially, Rory's outstretched hand had been severed from her shoulder.

Drachenklinge?

In response, she jumped away to create some distance, but before she could go far, Schwarzer Krieg was in her face. The Dragon King hit her on the gut with Vernichtung, his hand pierced through her torso before he released a bast of magic directly to her face.

Rory felt as if her entire body wanted to explode. The important question was how Schwarzer Krieg had been able to get away from that explosion but she couldn't ask him that. Not while she was trying to keep her mouth closed so she doesn't spill out her own guts.

Rory crashed through several boulders before skidding through the ground and then came to a halt. She was fully aware that Schwarzer Krieg was charging at her in his Dragon form. And as a result, she raised her left hand, not minding the gaping hole on her stomach or the blood gushing out.

Suddenly, Schwarzer Krieg saw his movements slow down before completely freezing. His eyes narrowed down, a large magic circle was on the ground. The time wasn't moving. His eyes stared back at Rory. Was it time magic? It was so powerful that he couldn't do anything. Had time stopped? No, it hadn't, it was just moving so slowly. And even as he tried to muster the magic, everything physical was moving slowly aside from his thoughts.

"Slow Zone."

"No, this isn't time magic; it's more like a space thing. To think I would have to rely on such tactics! How shameful." Rory spoke with indifference. "I'd wanted to just crush you on just purely power alone. But you are more trouble than I expected. While I can regenerate from the wounds you just inflicted, recovering from a lost hand is another factor that requires a deal of magic. In any case, I changed the nature of space, making it harder to move by setting a new speed limit. It is like moving in water is slower than moving in vacuum. It would be impossible to hit you while you are moving that fast. Thus, you'll have less than a second between the time I undo that seal and the magic I'm going to release hits you."

After saying that, a doppelganger appeared in a puff of smoke. It was holding its hands together while Rory summoned her Gottestöter sword. She settled on one knee and pointed it at Schwarzer Krieg.

"Alles in Asche Verwandeln."

The sword released its dragon slaying magic in the blink of an eye. The moment it was released, it had already hit Schwarzer Krieg. But there was no explosion around the dragon. The blast hit the dragon across the upper side of his body, turning his left wing and hand into ashes. The blast only stopped upon colliding into the mountain behind.

Rory fell into one knee, her injuries and the release of the magic taking a toll on her. It was beyond human to function with such a hole through her gut. But there has been no time to focus on trying to heal herself when she had to focus on releasing that spell. Well, at least she'd managed to handle th-

Her thoughts came to a halt, when she sensed movement in front of her. Schwarzer Krieg's foot hit her square in the face — Ausrottung. The surprise attack sent her flying backwards. While still airborne, Schwarzer Krieg crashed onto her body, sending her plummeting into the ground in a loud boom. Worse, the dragon king landed atop of her.

"This has been fun, but we must end this." Said the Dragon with a left shoulder that was cleaned off his body. It wasn't just his arm, but part of his shoulder was missing, yet he wasn't bleeding.

Rory didn't respond as she was counting the seconds. She snapped her fingers.

"Umgekehrte Zeit."

Schwarzer Krieg felt it. While everything else around him remained the same, his body was moving on its own while his mind simply watched. Everything went backwards in the blink of an eye. The moment he appeared above Rory. And then, everything just stopped and time seemed to flow normally.

Events just repeated. He slammed into Rory and they crashed into the ground. However, the second they crashed, six black blades stabbed him. He quickly jumped away from Rory and landed a distance away.

Schwarzer Krieg stared at the blades that restricted his magic. And the time was moving slowly. Yet not much of his thoughts. It was his body movements being restrained. He felt he could crush this magic, but the damn swords stopped him from using his magic.

How did she even hope to continue with this kind of damage anyway?

"Curious thing, isn't it? The magic doesn't effectively stop you but it just slows you down. The bigger problem is that while it's active, I can't really attack you. I can, but my attack would not reach you." She snapped her fingers, releasing the space-time magic.

"I was expecting a bigger battle than this. You disappoint me."

Rory shrugged. With Lord Sika yet to enter this battle, I cannot take any risk." She smiled. "Cheer, you won't effectively die. Your power will now be mine."

The moment those words left Rory's lips, Schwarzer Krieg felt his body being broken up. And with that, a mild black explosion occurred. When it cleared, there was just one sword remaining.

From afar, Sika Madu clapped his hand congratulating her victory. "Let's see how you deal with this," in this dimension Sika could control the samsara as he pleased. "— Wiederbelebung - Revivification."

'Ah...Shit…' Rory trailed off, turning her attention toward the red dragon in front of her. She saw a huge fist, blasting air waves as it moved toward her. She quickly folded her hands across her chest, and then wryly smiled wondering just what this kind of defense would do against a fist that was much bigger than her entire body.

Rory wasn't able to answer her own thoughts before the fist collided with her body. The shockwave coursed through her body upon the hit, sending her rocketing to the ground like a bullet.

Boom.

Rory slammed into what looked like a building, completely shattering it before becoming buried on the ground. She was unharmed, as debris picked up, chunks of rock flying to the sides.

'You are going to get killed because you tend to get careless at times, Rory.' Sika said sarcastically.

Rory stared up, a Dragon's Roar. She could try to take it on without complaints, but when did she willingly give free gifts?

Besides, she wanted to show complete domination. Then again, if it didn't hurt her, she was still dominating. Allowing the opponent to waste energy throwing in punches was one way to get them to become confident, and then sucker punching them. Killing hope in battle was one way to break a man, or in this case, a dragon.

Without getting up from the ground, Rory summoned her sword, pointed it toward the dragon hovering above her. She waited until it released its Roar, watched it move toward her without getting up.

'Pierce through the right eye.' She commanded, releasing a thick black energy, in the same thickness as her sword. The blast short through in blinding speed, cutting through the dragon's Roar without stopping the massive energy from reaching her. It just cut through.

Boom!

The blast caused a shockwave to tear through the debris, blasting them away. The Roar formed a large dome after hitting the ground, seemingly swallowing Rory after a direct hit. When the explosion cleared, there was no sign of Rory within the large crater that had been formed by the blast.

Rory appeared above the dragon she was fighting with, her hands held together. She lifted them above her hand, and blue flames ignited, creating a huge flame sword that was almost the size of one of the dragon's wings.

"Drachenschwert."

Rory slammed the magic across the back of the dragon. There was a resounding boom when the magic slammed into the back of the dragon. Its wings spread out wide as it was sent crashing to the ground. Its crash to the ground created tremors, but it quickly flapped its wings, rising up to the ground once more.

Rory looked to her right while floating in midair. A large roar of intense heat that seemed ready to swallow Rory was moving toward her. The Fire Dragon. She glanced down, the other dragon was charging toward her. The other three were dancing above the sky, looking like they were ready to attack.

A doppelganger appeared in a puff of smoke, and moved below her to face the incoming Dragon while she raised her right hand, its palm facing the incoming flames. The doppelganger held hands together, as its belly ballooned before releasing an impossibly huge blast of blue flames, charging it straight toward the incoming Dragon.

"Emroy Style: Great Fireball Technique."

Seeing the attack, the Dragon released its own Dragon's Roar.

The two attacks collided, creating a huge explosion up in the sky.

"Alles ins Unbekannte verzerren." Rory issued a command, with her outstretched hand.

Rory blinked when nothing formed in front of her. The intense flames slammed into her, creating a huge explosion in the sky. The flames were so intense that when they collided with her, the shock from the hit released bursts of intense heat that were felt below. Within the flames, Rory was surrounded by her own magic. She grabbed her sword, and swiped it across the flames. The simple flick of her sword ripped open a portal in space, swallowing all the flames within a minute.

"Take this, Bitch!"

The Fire Dragon hit her with a punch encased in crimson flames. Rory felt the hit as it slammed on the side of her body. The sudden hit caused Rory to lose her grip on her sword. She felt something jolt through her entire body as she was sent rocketing through the air, with so much speed that she could not control her body. The dragon had released a lot of strength when hitting her.

Rory would have been sent crashing miles away from the area but another Dragon swung the back of its hand, batting her to the ground. Rory crashed with her head first, getting buried while chunks of earth caused havoc within the air. After a moment, she flipped to her back, unharmed and stared at the dragons.

'I forgot I cannot issue those commands while not in physical possession of my sword. This is why I dislike this magic,' Rory said, while getting up. She frowned, looking at her right shoulder. It looked a little twisted. That should not even be happening, but then again, she received two hits from two dragons. Rory put it back into position and held out her right hand.

A second later, she was holding onto her sword.

"You are truly strong for a mage. This is what you can call a perfect Drachentöter state," a dragon said, hovering above her.

Rory looked up to the dragon from the crater she stood on. It was the dragon she had attacked earlier. "I didn't hear a cry, so I thought my attack missed," she said. The dragon had its right eye closed. Her magic must have done as intended – piercing through its right eye.

"It is an interesting magic you use. Dark magic it would seem," the Fire Dragon said, charging toward her in speed, slightly above the ground. There was nothing but chaos around it as the force it created while moving blasted everything away.

Rory turned around to face the fire dragon. The moment she did, it released a huge Roar. The intense flames burnt everything on their path, charging toward her. Rory responded by doing a quick jump to avoid the flames. The flames left nothing standing in their wake. There was but a clear path as the Fire Dragon stopped its attack and jumped up into the air.

"You complimented me earlier, I'm grateful to say thank you. But it is unnecessary. And you are quite right, this is Drachentöter, it is full of capabilities. You can see from the armor. My body is just as difficult to cut or break as that of a dragon. It is unthinkable that a normal dragon could manage to wound me in this state," Rory said calmly before disappearing in a flash.

She appeared just below the dragon's belly, hands clapped together. "So then, should I reduce your numbers? This is one of my most deadly attack in this state, if you survive it, I will admit defeat."

"Drachenhunde..."

Twelve snake-like dragons formed in front of her, dark blue with pure black eyes, breathing in hot air. The dragons moved like snakes, quickly wrapping themselves around the ancient dragons. It quickly tried to move up by flapping its wings, but the dragons didn't let up.

Rory created a distance with her and the dragons, while holding her hands together. The dragons were struggling. The flame dragons snapped, they would reattach again and continue to wrap around the dragon.

"Hmm?" Rory looked up and glanced down. Two dragon roars coming her way. "Oi, isn't this a bit of an overkill?" She exclaimed, though not panicked. If she let go of her hands, she would lose control of the dragons, and it would stop her spell, which she didn't want to do. She could not start something and not fish it.

What to do? What to do?

There was no way she was going to receive those hits without putting up any defense and remain unscathed. It was one of those reasons Rory truly hated this magic. She really needed to find ways to mitigate its effect on her ability to hold any other magic. Or otherwise, she'd find herself lacking when the situation called for it.

Rory closed her eyes. Dodging was the best thing to do. Teleportation to close distance was easy enough.

Before the roars could hit her, Rory disappeared in a flash. The dragons didn't see this. They only watched as their abilities collided in midair, causing a massive explosion that sent shockwaves through the air. The massive explosion stood above the landscape, as if the moon had suddenly lowered and was ready to drop down on them.

Rory appeared above the Fire Dragon, her hands still held together, a doppelganger behind her as well.

"Dragon's Roar!"

Both Rory and the doppelganger released massive flames, rapidly rotating with intense heat. The two combined, creating a large force that slammed into the back of the dragon like a tornado. The large force of nature sent the dragon crashing into the ground.

Boom!

Its massive frame crashed within seconds, creating a shockwave that was felt around the region. Despite its massive size, the dragon was fully encased within Rory's attack, rising up like a dome. There was not even a flicker of crimson flames visible before the attack started dispersing. The Fire Dragon was lying in a huge crater, its flames burning slowly.

Not letting the opportunity slip away, Rory unleashed.

"Frozen Cosmos"

An Ice-based spell that creates an area of absolute zero temperatures (−273.15 °C) At such extreme temperatures, events which do not normally occur in nature begin to happen, such as breakdowns on atomic level and superconductivity. For an Ice Mage, lowering temperature may seem to be a simple enough operation, but to so completely bypass the Laws of Thermodynamics like this spell does, requires an incredible amount of magical ability.

The crater was frozen instantly, the fire dragon wrapped and immobile in huge columns and spikes of ice before crumbling to pieces.

Turning to the dragons caught within her twelve dragons, Rory smiled. "Earlier I had used my most powerful magical attack. This ability is one of my most powerful dragon slaying spells. Those dragons contained what humans call gas, right now, it is filling up inside of you… I'm going to cause it to combust.. from the inside… the question is, can you survive?" She asked.

"This is a little suicidal, but I must see if it works."

Her eyes glowed

"Ignite." Rory snapped her fingers.

The dragons started ballooning, its belly becoming huge. Every part of their body seemed to expand.

Boom!

The explosion tore them apart. If not for the intense flames released from the dragons when they exploded, the guts spilled from the dragon, its legs, wings would have ended up being blasted throughout the area. But the 12 dragons created an intense heat that caused even those below the ground to start sweating due to its intensity.

Rory allowed herself to drop to the ground, her Drachentöter disappearing.

"Tsk…Suicidal magic," Rory shook her head. 'It displeases me that I have not found a better way to use this spell without sacrificing my form."

XXXXXXXXXXX

Far away from the battlefield, the 11 apostles witnessed everything using their magic screen that allowed them to see everything from bird's-eye view while having what looked like a tea party.

"Rory is doing quite well, isn't she?" exclaimed Aradia Wicca as she sipped some honey tea.

"Yeah, but why does she need to dismember them like that," Giselle Jizeru complained. She loves dragons, so seeing her favorite creatures killed so brutally was heartbreaking. Giselle broke the scone before dipping it in jam and putting the whole thing in her mouth.

"Hey, Aleister. You fought Pandemonium with her, right? So in your opinion who is stronger Rory or Pandemonium?" Asked Bologna Succuba as she pulled him to her side with her tail.

Aleister replied while trying to break free from Bologna. "They're about the same in terms of mana levels; No, Rory probably has a bit more but what sets her apart is her spell efficiency ratio. Pandemonium is extremely wasteful in his spell while Rory never uses more mana than needed."

"Her body seems to be quite stable, with no signs of demonfication, tissue mutation or cells deterioration. I guess Prisha is quite a genius." Thrain Furguson commented.

"Or she just has luck, we can't be sure unless we push her mind and body to the absolute limit." Urd Vanitask countered.

The apostle of war had great responsibilities especially in these difficult times, they couldn't risk any chance that she might turn rogue in the middle of battle. In wartime like this, Rory's ascension to godhood might be considered a good thing but using Pandemonium's core to do it; a fucking demon core; was unacceptable. If this news leaked out, the Church's reputation would go to the toilet. So they needed to be absolutely sure before sending her to do anything.

"Do you think she can win this battle?" Proteus Hotenson curiously asked.

"Against Sika ? — Hard to say. Both of them are ridiculously powerful. At the moment, their mana level and skills are probably about the same but this is his dimension so Rory is at a clear disadvantage. Not as bad as the rest of us as she is a goddess but at a disadvantage nevertheless. Normally he will just rewrite your status to near zero but lucky for Rory, her divine authority prevent that from happening. Both of them are fighting smart, Rory tries to conserve as much mana as possible while Sika tries to wear down his opponent while stealing her energy. I would say she probably won in a thousand year with proper training, but as of right now I will bet on Sika." Mortar Mobkis gave his honest assessment.

"I wonder how long this battle will last?" Mabel Fornm remembered some of the battle of this nature could last of days.

XXXXXXXXXXX

"Well done, Rory Mercury! I guess it's my turn." Sika calmly stated as he stood up from the throne.

Rory just shrugged carelessly and slowly stood up before jumping away from the boulder to give herself some room.

Sika darted toward at tremendous speed.

This was an unfortunate event but Sika could as well enjoy himself with an apostle/goddess who has proved herself to be capable, much more capable than anyone else in this generation.

Rory didn't wait for Sika to get to her, she too darted toward the famous apostle. The two collided in midair, elbows clashing for raw physical dominance. As they landed, the ground was crushed under the immense power being released.

"Oh?" Sika grinned. "Your physical strength is impressive…"

"Nothing, yet." Rory responded, pushing Sika away with "Greater Air Palm". She then held out her right hand, pointing her index finger towards Sika's throat.

Sika saw the movement with his Mystic Eyes and twisted anti-clockwise, while lifting up his right leg. Rory released a dimensional blade that would have pierced through the Apostle's throat, but Sika was already twisting when the spell spread out.

Sika returned with a high kick, aimed at Rory's left shoulder. The girl jumped back to avoid the high kick.

The second Rory touched the ground, Sika was already upon her, twisting in mid-air just above her. A right foot cleaved through the air, traveling at tremendous speed towards her forehead. Rory held out both her hands, crossing them as she attempted to block the kick.

The kick connected with her defense, the raw strength behind it forced her to skid backwards slightly.

When she stopped, Sika crash landed in front of her, thrusting his knee towards her gut. Rory reacted to this by driving her left fist towards the knee. There was a huge shockwave when her punch connected with his knee.

"Dimensional Blade!"

Sika saw the index finger pointed towards his chest. He did a 90 degree twist, in a flash, giving Rory his back, while simultaneously, hurling his right fist back at Rory's face.

Rory caught the arm, holding it tightly before pulling the older apostle. She spun around twice, tossing Sika Madu into the air. Sika was quick to regain his balance as he flipped several times and faced the girl, while still being carried by the momentum. He held a single hand seal, seeing that Rory was rushing toward him.

Sika attempted to say something, but was slightly shocked when he couldn't speak. "She crushed my throat to stop me from using magic, smart girl!"

Sika then pierced his own throat with two of his fingers. "I bestow upon myself — Voice!"

He then manifested a giant sacred bow above him and fired its "Fire Magic: Sacred Destruction Arrows!"

The sacred bow released a barrage of fire arrows while he still in mid-air. The flame arrows combined into one unstoppable heap, rushing towards the incoming target. Sika could only blink when the girl snapped her fingers and the flame arrows just dispersed into thin air.

His Mystic Eyes spun overtime when he saw something. Within a second, he was right in front of Rory, and then thrust a powerful punch on the girl's gut, sending her crashing down.

Boom!

Rory crashed on the ground with his back but quickly stood up to avoid being hastily attacked while he laid down. There was no attack coming from the paterfamilias. Sika was standing atop of a boulder, staring down at her.

"To completely dispel the flame in my arrows…You are rather skilled in manipulating space. To be able to manipulate your mana to release that burst of mana, it is impressive. And you have managed to do it without the help of a holy tool."

Rory stood up, and looked up at the elder man. "Well, practice makes things perfect…"

Though not completely perfect in this regard. Master Emroy had warned her about being left exposed every time she used that ability.

But, it was a handy spell and not everyone was that fast.

"Speaking of practice, since you seem to be moving well, you do well for me to test my spells. I didn't get many chances to try out many spells these days." Sika said, while doing hand seals.

"It is rather unpleasant being used as a test subject." Rory grinned. "But oh well, if you are going to test your spells, I can do so as well. There are some spells that I have acquired since ascending to godhood." Rory held her hands together.

"Aushöhlung!"

The moment she said that, Rory disappeared into thin air like the wind. Suddenly, Sika was hit by an invisible giant hand that sent him flying backwards like a bullet.

"..?"

Before he could comprehend what had just happened, Sika was hit by an invisible giant foot, sending him crashing to the ground, shattering it on impact and creating a cloud of debris. Not only that, the ground suddenly turned into lava sinking him deep into the earth. After a moment, he flipped to his back, unharmed, and stared at the air.

"She fuses herself with all of surroundings , even the air and the ground to control it!" Sika grinned. "Not bad, a technique like this will be nearly impossible to defeat. But..." He raised his hand. "This is my personal dimension; Spatial crushed — Räumliche Verknalltheit!"

"Oh ... shit!"

In less than a second, the space around the apostle fractured like glass forcing Rory to return to her corporeal form and fall to the ground. Her body was horribly disfigured with ribs protruding from her chest and her pelvis broken into pieces piercing her uterus.

"Fuck! it hurts!"

Maybe this wasn't my brightest ideal! After all, he was the master of this dimension. I needed to be more careful next time.

"There is no reason to complain." Sika said as he held both his hands.

"Weltwaldentstehung — World Forest Emergence."

Rory felt the ground tremble as she sensed massive mana from below the ground. A gigantic forest began to emerge from the ground, bursting up wildly moving towards her. It was indeed the emergence of a deepest forest.

If Rory did not move, she would only get struck. The forest was dense and the trees were thick. Rory sensed a tremendous amount of life force from within the forest.

She thought about it for a moment, wondering if she should use a space or fire spell. But seeing as he needed a distraction, she decided to go with the pinnacle of fire incantation.

"Efreet Release: Great Fire Annihilation!"

Rory released a sea of blue flames from her mouth. The intense flames rushed out, moving into the forest. when they were within it, they exploded into a huge column of intense flames that started burning the forest.

"Hmm?" Sika was on alert when Rory appeared behind him, holding out a red sword. The girl didn't get closer to him, but rather, swung her sword in a downward motion. The Mystic Eyes caught the sight of a dimensional blade extending to an incredible length, moving towards him.

He quickly jumped, flashing to the side to avoid the strike. His eyes narrowed when the sword cut through the mountain, separating it in half.

"Aren't you taking this a little easy?" Rory whispered, after suddenly appearing behind Sika while the apostle was still in mid-air.

When Sika spun around to face the girl, a brutal palm slammed his chest; "Thousand Mile Heavenly Hand"; Sika felt the air escape him for a moment, as he coughed up, flying backwards.

Sika crashed to the ground on one knee, and massaged his chest for a moment before standing as saw Rory twisting in the air, her right hand held a massive Absolute Annihilation Sphere.

It was an immense power young Rory was holding.

What would she do with it?

The answer came when the girl hurled the sphere towards him, and it cut through the air in a flash.

As Sika twisted around to face the spell, his movement suddently stopped.

Slow Zone!?

Not bad; but not enough!

Sika irises and pupils split in two; he activated the Eyes of Lord — Allmacht to nutify the effect of Slow Zone; he then held out both his hands to counter the attack. When the spell finally reached him, he started absorbing it. The Annihilation Sphere was completely absorbed, leaving nothing of its existence but the huge amount of energy he felt within.

"Allmacht, huh?"

Rory looked down for a moment before she held up her right hand."Schallatomklinge." She lazily waved her right hand towards Sika.

It was invisible and remarkably thin, less than a nanometer wide, but Sika saw it through the visual prowess of Allmacht. The invisible sonic blade stretched from Rory, almost in the blink of an eye and it was already upon him.

It had moved so fast, that he only had the time to hold out his right hand to try to absorb it. But he was slightly surprised–although it didn't show on his face–when he failed to absorb it.

He shifted his body slightly and watched as the blade grazed his right shoulder. The blade had managed to damage his shoulder armor plate, despite only touching it ever so slightly.

Sika was a little surprised, but didn't have time to focus on the power of the spell Rory had just used as the girl crashed and landed in front of him.

The ground shattered under the weight of the power she carried. Sika could now completely feel the presence of the artificial goddess. He figured it almost impossible to keep at it while battling. A portion of his Titan materialized as Rory drove a right fist toward his chest.

"Crushing Fist of Majestic Lightning!"

Sika felt the shock when the punch collided with his Titan. It didn't break through, but still managed to have him sliding backwards slightly. The ebony haired girl didn't stop there; she threw a left punch, slamming straight into the ribs of his Titan.

"Purgatory Abyss Fist!"

Pushing him even further back but before Rory threw a third punch, she took a single step forward, channeling mana through her muscles before striking the ultimate blow directly to the chest.

"Extreme Fa Jin."

The final strike was done so quickly that it could not be seen with the naked eye. The punch pierced the Titan's chest with the preposterous force of an atomic bomb, forcing Sika to jump away.

Rory didn't want to give the apostle a moment to rest so she attacked immediately.

"White Star Push."

Rory heard those words upon arriving just inches from Sika. The spell slammed into her with the gravitational force of a million G, equal to the surface gravity of white dwarf Sirius B, sending her flying away from the apostle.

Rory cursed slightly as she flipped several times before landing on one knee. "Tsk — !"

"That technique you used earlier, it was ultra focused pure sound, wasn't it?" Sika asked, while slowly moving towards his petite opponent.

"Indeed." Rory said. "The Allmacht gives you the ability to absorb mana, so if I throw any mana based spell while you are expecting it, you'll only absorb it…And thus I decided to throw something that is pure."

"You're able to refine and focus sound to that level even if you're not an apostle of music? That's impressive," Sika complimented the girl.

"I don't think I have also come across a being who has been able to achieve such power. Prisha has created a true masterpiece, perhaps you could challenge my position."

Rory smiled.

This was her usual attitude when facing opponents she saw as weak. One was never enough to even entertain her. And here she was, at the receiving end of this justice from the chief apostle.

Rory laughed after a few moments.

"I must admit, my pride as a Transcendence has been wounded a little by those words. Perhaps I should go a little crazy. My respect for your strength keeps me restrained." Rory said as she stood up.

"You should have done so earlier, but do it now if you can." Sika said before vanishing from sight with a blade in his hand.

Rory jumped into the sky when she felt the apostle approaching. She then took out a bladed sword made from her own blood. She and Shika began clashing in earnest.

In the sky, countless flashes of light came from the clash of two blades. Rory uses the opening from Sika's last attack to counterattack. Shika quickly evaded and countered Rory's attack before she could release her next one.

When Sika finally stabbed her, Rory moved back before swiping her blood at him, who repealed it with his forearm.

"Is that all you got?"

"You blocked it with your arm, I see."

At that moment Sika left arm fell to his side.

Noting Sika's arm had been forfeited, Rory revealed. "It isn't flesh that this blade cut, but 'atman' or the self-existent essence of an individual. The atman of your arm has been cut in two resulting in its physical strength and abilities being halved."

Without showing any concern, Sika attacked her with his right arm.

Rory skillfully dodged those sword slashes and mocked Sika." Your attacks have gotten slower too." She then slashed him vertically, which sent him crashing into the ground.

"Now you only have half your strength."

"What an interesting power you have here!" Sika finally spoke but in a tone too relaxed for the situation.

"But unfortunately for you," confidence dripped from his voice as mana erupted from the earth and gathered around him. "My Allmacht can easily restore the power you took from me." — A large burst of blue mana came out of Sika forming a pillar that kissed the sky. The pillar of mana lasted for a few moments before it disappeared.

"Let me say this only once. No one can take from me what is mine, not even this formidable power of yours, Rory Mercury!" Sika Madu proudly declared before disappearing from view.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Rory twisted around as she sensed the chief apostle. The moment she did so, a brutal force slammed into her chest. She felt sharp pain run through her, oxygen escaping her lungs for a second before the force sent her flying like a bullet.

While still airborne, she was pummeled to the ground by another invisible force.

Boom!

Rory was sent crashing to the ground. A large crater formed where she crashed. The Transcendence was quick to get up, and had already summoned her sword. She held it with both hands and twisted it from the crater.

"Emperor's Rotating Cutter!" an invisible dimensional blade extended from her blade, its length increased into a distance of more than 30 kilometers and as Rory twisted around, it cut everything it touched in half.

When Rory stopped, she released her sword and put it away before searching for her opponent. The apostle was standing some distance away from her, armor plating around his waist had been cut, along with his clothing a bit.

It was a clean cut.

"You replaced yourself with those things."

Rory said of the invisible shadow that had hit her just a moment ago.

"There hasn't been anything that I have not been able to cut through with that ability. I see you'd also have been bisected…It would have made for a great thing to see, but a disappointing end to you."

Sika only laughed. This was what he was talking about. He needed the girl to be able to use such to be able to make this exciting.

"If you were fighting against the Five Sword Kings, who would win?" Sika asked Rory.

Rory didn't need to think about it: she had already examined the scenario a couple of times. The outcome remained the same unless by some miserable chance she was outwitted, or something unexpected occurred and someone decided to interfere.

"Do you need to ask?"

"Maybe not. I will create five doppelgangers with the kind of power each of the Five Sword Kings wields. If you win against them, then you will have earned my respect."

The Apostle jumped onto a boulder to stand at a fair distance where he could observe Rory dancing with his doppelgangers.

Rory was silent for a couple of moments before laughing. It was a bit of a mad laugh. After a couple of moments, he stopped and stared into the sky. "I shall dance to your tune, but only to heal my wounded pride."

Sika folded his hands across his chest, staring at the girl blankly. "Defeat them then."

Magia Erebea was still active and it would be active for as long as there was a bit of mana within this environment. There was little damage to her mana reserves. Rory could afford to let loose on these doppelgangers. They were doppelgangers, so he didn't have to worry about anything. She could do whatever he wanted. She could even use this as a practice run for when the real Sika does decide to take her seriously.

Rory did a couple of hand seals before slamming both hands to the ground. "Earth Magic: Emerging Splinters!"

Rory poured large amounts of mana into the ground. Within seconds, the ground started to shake, and then hundreds of large, thin earth splinters started to sprout from the ground. This caused the five doppelgangers to jump around to avoid getting hit by the magic.

When the hundreds of splinters had formed, the battle ground had turned into a maize where Rory's form was hidden.

Even she could now no longer see the doppelgangers who were hidden within the bundles of rocks.

"It would have looked nice if there were hundreds of enemies standing before me." Rory commented, imagining enemies screaming and crying while being mowed by the rocks.

With Sika

From where he stood, Sika could see everything. The rocks only stood about 60 meter high. His Allmacht could see mana in all of those rocks that Rory had formed. It was obvious that she was going to use those rocks for some sort of attack.

Well, as long as it was doppelgangers, there was no need to be overly cautious and move away from here. He was also curious about what the girl was going to do to even consider directing his doppelgangers to move out of the area.

"What are you planning?"

Back with Rory.

Rory's eyes narrowed when she sensed a sharp increase of mana. The rocks behind her burst as they were being cut by a dark flame sword of a Titan. The blade moved towards her back quickly forcing Rory to jump up to avoid being hit by the sword.

While jumping up, Rory felt a huge spike of mana from her left. Her eyes moved there and she saw another doppelganger using a complete version of the Titan with four hands. The movement was far quicker than what Rory expected as the complete Titan towered up before swinging a blade with its right hand.

Rory could only fold both hands, reinforcing it with space magic to try to block the power.

Boom!

A powerful shockwave tore through some of the rocks below Rory when the blade connected with her. The force of the strike sent her flying away like a bullet. Rory cursed silently when she crashed through a large boulder, bursting through it before hitting another one. She flipped several times before landing on the ground.

Without even resting, she took off in a blur.

Rory flashed atop one of the earth splinters she'd formed, surveying the area. Only two doppelgangers were using a complete Titan and the other three were hidden. But she could still detect their location; they were hiding by the rocks, waiting for something. The two stood out because the Titan towered above all boulders within the battlefield.

Rory clasped his hands. "Gott Wald: Hidden Massacre!"

Spatial spikes burst from the rocks she'd formed like broken glass. There were hundreds of thousands of them that burst out simultaneously into all directions from all sides of the rocks. Two of the doppelgangers hiding by the rocks were unfortunate enough to get caught.

On one of the doppelgangers, the spatial spikes pierced through the neck from behind, three more through the chest and another on the left knee. The other one was caught around its waist while the third jumped up. The two that were caught crumbled down to death.

There was no time to admire the work of her spell or even imagine blood gushing out of doppelgangers who would have been caught by her spell . Rory was forced to jump into the air once more when a Titan flashed its blade. Rory felt the wind hit her when the sword went past her from below.

Rory didn't want to get one of those hits once more.

While still airborne, another doppelganger of Sika lunged below her, while activating a portion of its Titan with just the upper body and only right hand formed. Simultaneously, another flashed above her, encased in an imperfect Titan, flashing a blade in a downward strike.

It was a punch from below, and a sword from above. There was no way she was going to escape without getting hurt if she got hit.

The two attacks collided, creating a powerful shockwave in midair but there was no sign of Rory.

The girl landed a distance away, landing atop of a rock. Before she could even try to breathe, two large blue swords from the left and right crashed into her. There was a resounding boom that occurred when the swords collided. The rocks burst, turning into dust as debris flew into the air.

When the debris cleared, Rory was in a crater, breathing heavily, mouth leaking blood. She was on one knee. After a moment, she stood up and looked around. There were still three complete Titans towering around her.

They were just huge humanoid things that were proving to be too tough for her.

Rory slapped her hands together, activating her wind cloak. Along with Adamas Mode, it had to give her enough destructive physical force to do what she wanted.

Boom!

One of the Titan stumbled back after being hit with a thunderous punch in the forehead by Rory. The Transcendence launched another punch once more, with all her might, and this time, when it connected, the Titan crashed before falling flat on its back.

Rory summoned her sword.

Rory held it with both her hands, and stretched it using wind before lunging down.

She crashed land on the Titan head, her sword piercing through the crashed area before piercing through the doppelganger.

Seconds later, the Titan started dispersing.

Rory ducked under a flashing swing of a Titan sword. The swing picked up the debris around her as it blew just above her. It cut through the rocks on its way after missing its target. Rory straightened up before twisting around.

"Wind God: Great Slashing Tornado."

A mega tornado started forming, rising high to even towering both the Titans. The tornado produced supersonic winds that violently pulled everything within its range into it. Even Sika was forced to jump away to avoid being sucked into the tornado.

Without warning, the mega tornado started sweeping through the ground quickly towards the Titan in front of it. The Titan tried to swing its swords towards the tornado but before it could do so, the vicious winds were upon it. It became engulfed by the supersonic winds, and slowly started being rotated around at twice the speed of sound.

After a couple of moments, it was flung on its side, towards the other Titan. They collided in a heap before falling over to the ground.

Rory suddenly appeared above the two fallen opponents, while holding both her hands together. There was a pillar of mana that surrounded her before electric currents started forming around her body.

"Fury of the Thunder God."

It all occurred in an instant. There was a loud explosion below Rory, encasing her opponents. There was a titanic bolt of lightning that lingered for a couple of moments, it was so powerful that the atmosphere around became superheated plasma.

When everything died down, there was nothing that remained.

A heavily breathing Rory, paralyzed by the powerful spell she had released, crash landed within the large crater her spell had created.

A second later, there was a sickening sound of bones breaking.

Rory stopped breathing when he received two hits on the sides of both her rib cage. Rory felt immense pain shoot through her entire body, weakening her. Her knees trembled, her hands felt dead for a moment as she coughed up large amounts of blood.

Everything seemed to be in slow motion as her hands involuntarily wrapped around her chest, trying to contain whatever they felt was endangered. Unable to balance herself, Rory started falling on his face.

The attack had been sudden. She couln't see it. But that wasn't Sika but rather his two invisible shadows. Had it not been for Adamas Mode, she would have been squashed. Manipulating mana even at this stage took out everything in her.

It left her drained, without energy to do anything but the sole focus on trying not to let the chance slip.

Multiple mana chains burst from the ground. The shadows tried jumping away but there were five going after each and they moved incredibly fast. Both shadows were caught as Rory hit the ground with her face.

The shadows tried to flee from Rory but the chains held firm.

"Fury of the Thunder God…" She managed to stammer out. Electric currents shot through the mana chains, hitting the shadows dead on.

XXXXXXXXXXX

After a moment, Rory retracted her mana chains and flipped around to lie on her back.

"I thought you'd give me a moment to compose myself…" She called out to Sika who she could sense walking up to her.

"You succeeded in defeating the doppelgangers. Rather splendidly at that." Sika said with a shrug. "Besides, I was a little embarrassed that you took less time than what I had thought you would."

Rory smiled.

"I guess that sounds like you." Rory said, working on healing herself as she could feel that Sika didn't intend on rushing toward her to inflict more damage.

Sika knew Rory was healing but he didn't care for it. It wasn't like it was going to make any difference in this battle.

Sika was silent for a couple of moments before speaking. "You have healed enough. We don't need to continue to have this t-"

He immediately formed the rib cage part of his Titan. The Transcendence flashed in front of him, and then slammed a right punch straight into the Titan

It didn't budge.

Sika reacted by forming two bone hands from his Titan and attempted to slam a fist from above the girl, but Rory jumped away to avoid it.

While airborne, Rory cloaked herself in mana and once more vanished in a blur. It was all too quick for even the eyes of Sika to follow. The apostle found himself flying backwards along with his heavily cracked Titan.

His eyes flashed above as he sensed something. Rory flashed above him, holding a huge ball of mana. She slammed the spell into him, sending him crash landing in a loud boom creating a crater upon landing.

The Titan was shattered by the impact and the spell but Sika was unharmed.

He dusted himself as he stood up. He found Rory standing a short distance away. That was no doubt the power of a god.

Shika did a couple of hand seals and then held both his hands around his mouth.

"Death-"

Before he could finish talking, Rory was upon him. The girl slammed a powerful punch forward with his left fist. And it shook him. He followed this with a red annihilation sphere, slamming it on his chest. The spell sent him flying backwards in a cloud of flames.

Rory was fast.

Ridiculously fast.

It reminded him of a certain spell that his instructor once used in those old days. But this was extremely quick. At first sight, it was difficult to track down. But, he was getting around it.

He flipped several times before landing on one knee. He checked his chest plate, it was broken and his upper clothing was burnt up a bit. He removed the plate along with the rest of his armor and stood while stretching his stiff muscles.

"Absolute Annihilation Sphere!" Rory was above the apostle, dropping the small yet powerful spell towards his temple.

"White Star Push."

Boom!

Sika released a powerful force that slammed into Rory, sending her flying away. The force disrupted her spell, causing it to set off. Rory flashed away from the explosion to avoid getting hurt. She landed down on one knee, breathing heavily.

Rory jumped into the air, looking around for her opponent. This was proving to be as difficult as she'd imagined. But she was honestly having a bit of fun. Sika was as strong as history had said–if perhaps not with a bit of an understatement.

Her thoughts were cut short when Sika suddenly appeared in front of her while he was still floating in mid-air. Rory held up both her hands, folding them across her face when she sensed an incoming attack.

Sika's flying right foot crashed into her hands, creating a loud boom, as she was sent crashing into the ground. Rory crashed down on both feet, in a kneeling position, while looking up at the elder apostle–who was flying down, right foot stuck out with an attempt to stomp on her.

Rory did not move, she just placed her right hand on the ground and waited for the right moment. When Sika was certain to hit her, she channeled mana into the ground and forced a large spatial spike to shoot from the ground.

The spatial spike shot out and pierced through Sika from behind, but the apostle suddenly turned into water.

Sika appeared behind Rory, his right foot up in the air, cutting through the atmosphere as it sped toward the girl's back. As Rory tried to twist around while standing, she was not able to move fast enough as Sika's kick connected with her left shoulder. The force sent her crashing into the spike she'd created. Rory burst through it, before flipping twice and then landed on the ground with a complete halt.

Seeing Sika dash toward her, Rory closed her eyes and held out her right hand while holding a single hand seal with her left. She then suddenly swiped her right hand through the air.

"Wind God: Ice Tornado!"

"Hmm?"

Sika narrowed his eyes as he felt the air become thick. He was suddenly surrounded by rotating arctic winds. He hid his face by folding his arms across it. The freezing winds had enough strength to force him into an uncontrolled spin. The twist was quick and did not hurl him anywhere. When everything stopped, he was a little disoriented, failing to stand fully with his head spinning lightly.

"Gravity Strike!"

Enhanced with mana, Rory thrust a powerful drive straight on Sika's chest. There was a crunch sound when the punch connected with the man's chest. Sika spat out some blood before sent him rocketing backward. His body crashed into a boulder, hard, shattering it under the force but was able to land on both feet. He skidded backward slightly before coming to a halt.

He wiped the blood off his mouth and stared at it before grinning madly. He laughed.

"You are getting me excited." Sika said with a grin on his lips. "Blood…This is what it means to fight. It is a pity that it cannot be a battle to the death since you are a precious apostle. Well no matter, it doesn't matter. I can't help but enjoy this."

Rory breathed in for a moment and stared at Sika before speaking.

"Well, I cannot deny that this is starting to become fun."

Sika saw the small girl coming and released his Titan–just the ribcage and skeletal hands. When the girl neared him, he formed a fist with the skeletal hand and drove it towards the girl. Rory continued moving toward the punch before suddenly disappearing.

Rory appeared behind Sika, holding her lightning sword. She lunged toward the apostle's back, stabbing the sword forward. The sword collided with the Titan and came to a complete stop, failing to pierce through but it did leave a slight crack. Rory was forced to jump into the air when Sika started to twist around.

The Apostle's Titan took a larger form and while Rory was within the air, it created a huge sword before flashing it. Rory had chains form in front of her, before the sword collided with her. The large sword hit her defense but still sent her flying backwards in a heap. Rory was still able to land gracefully on the ground.

"Well, this is going to be a little difficult, but I like the challenge." Rory said while cloaking herself in mana. She held out her right hand, gathering raw mana. She created a small sun and grabbed it before disappearing in a flash of yellow.

Sika was surprised at the speed the girl showed. She was fast but that speed was on another level. It had almost looked as if she had teleported. He was reminded of Urd's spell for a moment but he did not dwell on it when he felt a huge shock on his Titan.

His eyes widened slightly but with a bit of excitement when he saw the girl in front of him.

Rory had flashed in front of Sika's complete Titan.

She landed a resounding punch on the Titan's chest, causing a huge shockwave to rock through the area. The Titan's chest cracked as it stumbled backwards, falling over. Rory was not done yet; she released the mini sun she held as a beam. The super heated plasma blast burst through the Titan, further causing it to fall over.

Rory jumped away, to create some distance. The blast spread toward Sika before engulfing him as the Titan hit the ground on its back. A huge explosion followed shortly, raising a huge column of debris into the air.

The debris did not settle before Sika launched another attack. Huge stones covered in intense flames shot out of the debris, flying over to Rory.

Rory twisted around, engulfing herself in a huge ice tornado. The icy winds deflected up to ten balls of flames to the sides before small explosions occurred as the flames hit the ground. When the fire tornado stopped, Rory was in mid-air.

"Guh!"

Sika's shadow suddenly landed a brutal punch to her gut, causing her to spit liquids from her mouth as veins popped up around her neck. The pain shot through her body within seconds, making her tense. The blow sent her flying and as she did, she was forced to try to bring both hands across her gut, trying to stop anything bad from happening.

Bam!

Rory was suddenly hit from above, and sent crashing into the ground like a bullet. Rory hit the ground in a loud boom, causing debris to fly along with dust.

"Shit…" She cursed silently.

It looked like Sika was trying to kill her!

Rory was forced to roll over to the side when she sensed something. The giant fist of a Titan crashed into where she had been standing, burying itself into the ground. When she sensed another, she held out both her hands, creating four more mana hands.

Boom!

Another huge fist crashed into her, burying her into the ground.

Sika was floating within his Titan. His entire upper clothing had been torn apart by the spell Rory released. But there was no harm done. He watched as dust settled and came to see something wrong. Rory was buried but she had still managed to block his punch and not just block it, but also hold onto it with her mana hands.

He raised an eye brow as the bleeding girl stood up, while holding onto his fist. He tried pulling back but the girl held firmly.

What was she going to do?

His answer came when Rory suddenly yanked him. It was ridiculously amazing. In all his years, no one had ever effortlessly lifted his complete Titan from the ground. He was more impressed than worried when the Titan flew into the air before being hurled to the side.

Sika canceled his Titan to better balance himself but the second he did, a invisible blade pierced through his arm, leaving a wound, and blood gashing out.

Rory flashed in front of the Apostle while he was still in mid-air. She drove a right punch towards the Apostle's temple, hitting him hard. The punch sent the Apostle crashing to the ground. Rory flashed to the ground.

'He is indeed a legendary apostle…' Rory thought, forming a mini sun.

"I didn't think he would dodge that at its speed."

Sika slowly got up, smiling. He glanced at the blood on his right arm.

"Rory is indeed quite capable. This is the second time she is making me ble…" he trailed off when the girl materialized in front of him once more.

Sika held out his right hand and blasted the girl away from him. But he was left to put on a look of surprise when a chain suddenly wrapped around his outstretched hand and then pulled him along with the girl.

He was forced to fold his hands in a defensive manner when another Rory suddenly flashed between, twisting around with a raised right foot. The high kick collided with his hands, as the chain dispersed. The kick sent him down but Sika still managed to land on both his feet, harmlessly.

"When Prisha said you will be strong, I didn't think you'd be this capable."

"I will take the compliment from you." Rory said with a smile.

"But you are still just a brat." Sika said in a serious tone, hands folded across his chest. "You seem to be capable of handling my complete Titan but I wonder how you can handle the other one."

Rory knew that this would be much more difficult. She already received blows that would otherwise be fatal had she not been a Transcendence but there was no lasting damage to the Apostle. Sure, the two blows she landed would damage a normal apostle but she was dealing with the infamous Sika Madu here–such blows could be shaken off.

Rory watched as Sika released a tremendous amount of mana, rising high. Slowly, but surely, the Founder Titan formed in its all Majesty. Standing in front of the thousand-meter-tall Titan, she was nothing more than an insect.

Rory was amazed.

It was so much more than what she had expected.

Sika grabbed one of his swords and wondered for a moment before slashing it across the girl.

Boom!

The sword swing cut through all boulders standing, leveling everything to the ground. Rory remained rooted to the ground, with a raised brow at the sword swing that just cut above her head.

So it was true, the sword swing of a Founder Titan could cut down a mountain range. But then again, the full power of a Transcendence was rumored to be able to level a mountain range by just swinging its hand.

Rory clapped her hands together and summoned divine mana. Her dark blue mana quickly formed a giant being, rivaling the Founder Titan.

"Come!" Sika invited.

"With pleasure!" Rory shouted as she charged toward the Founder Titan.

As she lunged forward, Sika took out his other sword, arming two hands, leaving two others attached. He swung the sword on his right, charging it towards Rory. He could feel the wind being brushed to the side by the sword swing.

Rory came to a halt, holding out both arms and then moved towards the sword. She moved quickly in allowing it to slip between her hands before slamming onto it with so much force that the ground they stood on shattered.

The sword came to a complete halt after being caught.

Before Rory could even let loose of a breath of relief, Sika swung his other sword in a downward slash. Rory created eight mana hands to block the onslaught. The sword hit the hands in a loud boom that forced her to hit the ground and three hands were cut off.

After composing herself, Rory pushed back, pushing both swords away. This left the Titan slightly off-balance. Rory lunged, before landing a right hook on the Titans face. It stumbled back, as Rory jumped into the air.

Sika brought himself to balance and straightened up when Rory started descending. He held a sword firmly and slashed it towards the girl, the sword picking up dust as it moved from the ground, up toward the girl.

Before the sword could hit her, Rory's mana form disappeared, returning to just being clothed in divine mana. Rory was able to dodge the sword because of this. Upon landing atop of the sword, she transformed back into mana beast once more before slamming a hard punch on the Titan's head.

But before it hit the ground, one of its swords cut through Rory's mana beast form, nearly halving it. Rory was forced to jump back. Upon landing on the ground, her mana beast form patched up quickly.

While Sika rose, Rory began to charge a mini sun. By the time the Apostle's Titan was back on its feet, she had already completed charging a massive ball of plasma that floated above his head, almost as big as him.

The spell tore through the ground, creating debris as it rushed toward Sika. The Apostle took a stance, standing steadfast before swinging his sword toward the spell. His sword collided with the spell and it pushed him backwards.

He dropped one sword to the ground and held one with both hands and then deflected the spell away from him.

Boom!

A massive explosion shook the ground after the plasma ball exploded.

"Hmm?"

Sika narrowed his eyes as Rory was in front of him, standing on the nose of his Titan. Rory threw out four blades to the side, and did a couple of hand seals. Several marks formed before what appeared to be another plasma ball started to peer out from the space, right on his face.

Boom!

The explosion pummeled Rory away while engulfing the Founder Titan in a blaze of intense flames. Within the flames, a blue sword cut through. Rory had her body surrounded by divine mana before the massive energy sword swatted her a hundred miles away.

Rory coughed up blood before crashing hundred miles away from the flame engulfed Sika. She crash landed on the ground and quickly tried to stand up but then fell on one knee, breathing heavily. Her ribs had been shattered. Right lung punctured. Breathing was hard. Her magic was working overtime to heal her.

Rory was put on alert when something crash landed in front of her but before she could do anything, another shadow grabbed her right hand. The shadow that had landed in front of her, chopped downwards while the other pulled.

This resulted in her right hand being separated from her shoulder.

Rory did not make a sound. Even so when blood gushed out of her shoulder and the shadow kneed her before brutally headbutting her. She fell backwards before a slightly bruised Sika crashed landed on the side and then tried to stab her on her left shoulder with a mana rod but Rory rolled to the side.

"Bastard brat." Sika hissed lightly. He was not angry. "You planted a unique explosive spell that caused my own mana to explode before the mini-sun was detonated."

Rory smiled despite the pain.

"I…I t-thought it might…Work…" She managed to say between the heavy breaths accompanied by massive blood leaks.

"But it seems to be the end of you."

"I could not set off the mark I put on your Titan without direct contact." Rory said weakly.

"You are quickly healing yourself…" Sika noticed.

Sika took a step toward Rory but before his foot could touch the ground, something appeared in a flash of yellow just below him. His eyes narrowed down as he stabbed the mana rod he held down towards the person.

It was a Rory doppelganger who had appeared.

While he stabbed the doppelganger, Rory had released her mana chains, wrapped around the Apostle's leg. When Sika tried to move away, the chains held firm. He found himself shackled by the mana chains.

"An ambush?" Sika realized. "Hmm?"

"I hear these mana chains are strong enough to contain a dragon… even an ancient dragon…" Sika said without concern. His shadows had returned. It was something that was forced.

"This was your ace then…But I wonder if these chains will be able to hold onto the Titan Founder…it is embarrassing that I have to bring it out again but it cannot be helped."

Mana started to rise, as the Titan began to form but the chains still held him. Suddenly, the mana dispersed. Sika blinked before frowning deeply. There was something very wrong. He lost the vision of the Allmacht and could not use mana. The chains were blocking his usage of mana.

Rory was now holding her torn off arm with her left. She was still sitting on the ground, smiling with amusement. "I should not taunt you, but I can't help but be amused seeing the legendary apostle struggling so helplessly."

"How is this possible? This technique shouldn't be this powerful nor should it disable my Allmacht." He struggled but the chains just tightened.

"Your Allmacht is really troublesome if I don't neutralize it first, I can't win. Only the owner of Allmacht can nullify it. That mana chain is imbued with your blood that I took earlier. It was specifically designed to nullify your abilities."

Putting her hand on the ground. "Without that troublesome Allmacht get in the way, I can finally do this — Stomach of Void - Black Coffin." Rory recited an improved version of the incantation that Pandemonium used in their battle.

The stomach of the Void Dragon should be inescapable, especially without Allmacht.

The sky darken as Rory generated purple/black spiritual energy, which enveloped her target with a powerful torrent of gravity before taking the form of a box of black energy, covered in several spear-like protrusions.

Before Rory could celebrate her victory, a blade suddenly pierced her heart.

What?

Big mistake.

Thunder of Darkness!

The extremely powerful electric current gave Rory incredible shock throughout her body leaving her entire body paralyzed, temporarily.

"I know you have some tricks up your sleeve, so I cast 'Perfect Hypnosis' before landing here, you just too arrogant to realize."

With a single swing of his blade, Sika Madu cut Rory's head off. He then bisected her decapitated body vertically before cutting off the limbs starting at the legs then the knees and hands. After cutting Rory's body into small pieces, raising her severed head as a trophy, Sika declared. "Sorry Kid; Victory is mine!"