Chapter 1918 – Counteroffensive 6 – Incarnating
“It is the highest of tragedies, to outlive one’s child,” Luna muttered.
“A tragedy like no other,” Sol agreed.
“A pain that few can understand,” Tiamat whispered.
“You still have that nobility in your heart,” Romulus stated, after a moment had passed. “It is not too late for you to turn back to what you once were. You may yet right what you can right.”
“…Hehehehe…” Tiamat’s malevolent giggle was equal parts disheartening and relieving. “I am righting everything, Gilgamesh. Do you not see the beauty of this?” She tilted her head, gesturing at the corrupted mound. “We will all be one. No more children that watch their parents die, no more parents that outlive their children, just an eternity of familial unity. All will return to Mother Chaos.”
“Then there is no recourse for us but to fight.”
“You are just a human Godslayer, Gilgamesh, and I am god of humans alone no longer.”
With a sickening squelch, the mound opened. Horizontal parting revealed the outer layer to have been made from a myriad of overlapping wings. They shrunk and extended, flowing down the spine of the enormous dragon of chaos that revealed herself in all of her terrifying grace before them.
Like her children, Tiamat was a slender dragon with long limbs. Liakan and corrupted Metracana always had more of a humanoid shape, and while the signs of that were there, she leaned still towards the draconic base. A skeleton of welded metals glistened between black scales, adding ornate frames to her fluidly moving shape.
For all of the beauty that there was to it, the origins of her flesh were apparent still. Black scales intermingled with red entrails. Ugly bumps and welts betrayed the incompatibility of the materials with the soul that piloted them. Her head moved not with serpentine grace but with worm-like squirms.
‘…Shit,’ John thought. At level 1531, this creature was 200 levels shy of Macuil and the Gorged God had required a ludicrous effort to overcome. The Grim Reaper, three Riders of the Apocalypse, John, most of his harem, Malady, Norahnon and Hikari all together still had almost lost to that entity. ‘Well, we got three gods and Romulus here, so our odds are about even, I suppose.’
“One more question, if you allow,” Romulus asked respectfully.
“I am in no rush,” Mother Chaos answered, her tail of fused spines curling above the hole of stone and ivy that they all were there for.
“What do you intend with my brother?”
“Nothing,” Tiamat answered simply. “I hate him. I hate the legacy that he built. I hate the cage that he put us all in. I hate him and so do you.”
“Do not presume my feelings,” Romulus responded evenly. “If you have no designs for him, why are you here?”
“I needed the Sands of Time. Nothing more, nothing less.” The chaos goddess looked past her flowing wings and at the swirling pit. “No other source of it exists, certainly none so deep. If he rose, oh, if he please rose, I would kill him. I would kill him as many times as it took.” She laughed at the image in her mind. “Then… should we begin?”
“Indeed,” Romulus agreed.
An unspoken agreement or a custom that John was not privy to caused dragon and warrior to move. Romulus faced his right, Tiamat hers, and they both began to walk. It was the set-up for a duel, that much was obvious.
Romulus’ head snapped to the side. He saw the traitorous blow coming, but was not fast enough to rect. A hastily erected shield by Luna took the blunt of the tail whip, but the Apex was all the same launched aside.
“WHORE OF BABYLON!” Sol screamed and launched a cataclysmic solar sphere at the laughing goddess. Trees were turned to ash in its presence quicker than they could visibly burn.
John did not have to issue the order for Nightingale to cover them. “To Romulus first.”
“Roger that, tiger,” Rave answered and they hurried over to where the Apex had landed. By standards of an Abyssal fight at their level, a dozen metres was a light tap. He was uninjured, simply gathering himself while Sol bombarded the dragon with spheres of light.
“What strength are we dealing with?” Romulus asked the pertinent question immediately.
“Level 1531 – about 400 levels above you,” John reported.
“I see. Can you three fill that gap?”
John kept running that same question through his head. He came to the same conclusion every time. ‘Taking into account what I think he is truly capable of, especially with Sol and Luna, and the inexperience Tiamat must have in having a proper body again, alongside Rave and Nightingale’s capabilities…’ “Yes. It will be a slog, though.”
“I’ve fought for days before.”
John hoped it wouldn’t be that much of a slog.
“I trust your strategic instincts,” Romulus stated. “We will take the helm. Support us as you can.”
“As you wish,” John agreed.
Romulus rose to his feet. As he did, the ground around him stirred. Tree roots grew upwards, reaching through the soil and enveloping the enormous frame of the Apex. Wood, a healthy shade of brown, fused and layered as it formed an armour around the strongest human to exist. It was equal parts of nature and man, green leaves forming decorations around carved representations of muscles. It was thoroughly Greek armour in that. The helmet was open at the front, yet Romulus’ face was completely hidden. A protective layer of darkness separated his lungs from the world.
Standing tall, like a living statue, the Apex reached into his pocket dimension. He withdrew gauntlets and plated boots. Calmly, he strapped them in place while Sol and Luna together held the laughing chaos at bay. The equipment shimmered with the strength of ancient and new enchantments, their Mithril silver-white gleaming even in the winter sun. A blood red cape was the piece that the Apex placed on himself, before he began to advance once more.
“To me!” he declared.
Sol and Luna launched a final barrage of scorching sun and slicing moon light at Tiamat, then rapidly flew back to their summoner. Although the contract with goddesses was no doubt special, that was, fundamentally, their connection and with it came a benefit. A benefit that John was poorly equipped to make use of, but Romulus had taken to perfection.
Sun and moon goddess turned into their item forms. An ornate round shield, golden and glowing bright, in his left and a sleek longsword of silver moonlight in his right, Romulus showed them all the true form of the Apex. For as powerful Romulus on his own was, he was only complete with his loves working with him.
‘Different form, same fundamental principle,’ John thought. ‘Few people are strongest alone. Maybe no one.’
Tiamat screamed in joy and rage and lunged at Romulus. Her four-parted maw opened wide, the teeth-lined flaps of muscle approaching the smaller human, only to pull back at the last moment. Without the benefit of surprise, Tiamat could not land a cheap feint on Romulus. The swipe of her claw was lightning fast to John. To the Apex, it was predictable and the dragon’s digits bounced off the large shield. A reactive explosion of golden light forced the entire arm back.
An upward swing unleashed a paper-thin barrier of silver light. John had seen it split Thana in half before. Even Tiamat was sliced through by it, but like the goddess of genocide she had the regeneration to take it. Flesh knitted itself back together, sealing the microscopic cut in an instant.
Tiamat took the turn in momentum and brought her wings forwards. The multitude stopped flowing for the intense clap of the elongating limbs. Romulus held up both arms, tanking the impact.
Like all blows before, the meeting of these titans reverberated inside the Illusion Barrier. The ripples uprooted trees, ripped the grass off the ground, and sent chunks of dirt and stone flying. Unlike the creatures and people within, the simple material could fly past the edge of the Illusion Barrier, tumbling into the space of simulation beyond, then stopping to be affected by any further physics. A world in stasis behind a growing web of cracks.
Just the shockwaves of their exchanges were enough to start chipping away at the coherency of the Natural Barrier. John had no idea what would happen with that down the line, nor did he have the strength to stop it.
“So, what do we do?” Rave asked over the howling wind.
“We make the difference,” Nightingale said, her blackish purple hair fluttering.
John nodded to that. By his best estimation, this Tiamat and Romulus were matched or close enough to matched in power. Maybe he was underestimating Romulus or maybe it was Tiamat that had more up her sleeve than he could fathom. Whatever the case was, with 3 people of level 766 present, they had enough power to tip the scales.
They just had to be smart enough about it to not get caught in the crosshairs.
Tiamat reared her head back, the telltale sign for everyone to not stand in a wide cone in front of the dragon. Old instincts served them well, Gamer and party members making it to the side of the chaos dragon just as she exhaled. It was… difficult to even comprehend. Lorylim spores mixed with entropic energy into a stream of liquid, gaseous, viscous, enigmatic matter that torrented through space. Colours swirled within inky black like swirling nebulas as stars formed and collapsed in localized novas, all as gas ignited and fire was drowned in saltwater.
Romulus stood against the torrent, shield raised high, an aegis of energy around him. The breath parted where it met his defence, leaving a trench behind him that only got more apparent as Tiamat’s onslaught melted the ground into nothing. Crystals formed and broke around Romulus, the heavy stench of salt and iron filling the air.
The breath attack only continued. Tiamat’s jaw segments curled back fully, like the petals of a flower of flesh, revealing the internal, wide-open jaw. Watching the origin point of the breath made John dizzy, as if his eyes were slightly desynchronized. Light broke in the strangest ways. The energy gradually narrowed in its outflow, focusing in from a wide-scale attack to a penetrative beam.
“Gale, chains. Jane, I need you to uppercut the entropic chaos dragon.”
“That’s the best way to put that!” Rave’s grin showed that, for all of her cuteness, the feline Lightbearer was still a mildly insane thrillseeker. Aura flaring, she prepared to enter the fray.
The air around Tiamat rippled silver and deep purple. So focused on Romulus was she, that she did not notice until the chains of night and mana launched at her flesh. Nightingale’s bindings wrapped around the wings and neck of the goddess of chaos, while John’s spike-tipped chains penetrated scales and melded flesh.
Bindings pulled taut. Rave Shifted into the gap between Romulus and Tiamat. Excess of the entropic breath broke against her bodysuit, as she crouched down. Her Aura flared into a golden flame twice as tall as she was, before consolidating into a layer tight to her skin. Then, she brought her right fist upwards.
The impact was enough to make even the dragon of chaos tumble. Her head flew upwards, directing her focused breath into the sky. Winter turned to summer turned to autumn turned to acid rain, all in the span of a few seconds. Then Romulus swung his weapon horizontally, sending a metres-deep sheet of slicing energy forwards.
Tiamat’s breath ended. Half of her neck began to slide. Hands burst out of her skin, holding the dismembered piece of her in place as entrails weaved through the flesh like grotesque stitching. “ENOUGH OF PLAYING WITH THE CHILDREN!” she screeched. The chains that bound her shattered in one cataclysmic twist of her body.
Like thunderclaps, the manifold wings of Mother Chaos beat, taking her to the air. She screeched, a screech that was visible and violent. She roared, a second voice joining the first. She manifested, her will echoing from a thousand mouths opening all over her body and the membranes of her wings were eyes and they were wide open.
The walls of the Illusion Barrier shattered like panes of glass. What had been a view into the facsimile of reality that Gaia had erected became an open plain in that which mortals did not get access to. Around them was that space between Illusion Barriers that also formed them. It was a space of Faith, flowing eternal, in which Sanctums and places of the Abyss floated. In that space, their devastated piece of ground remained, an anchoring point amongst potential unshaped.
Tiamat hovered above, arms and wings outstretched. “You will return to Mother Chaos. All will! I know best, so be devoured and let’s all be one! You have no choice!”
“Then let us make war.” Romulus readied himself for the next strike.