Chapter 148: The Beast.
"To think I would live to see the day a god gained the ability to fight back, that too on the same day the entirety of my people were slaughtered, there was no prophecy of such a calamity, and I have been acting on impulse," the demon-god looked at Ikaris, feeling the waves of her mana building from deep within the cavern and then shifting his focus to Atla when he felt a foreboding energy pulsing from her as well.
"That one," he narrowed his eyes at Arla. "She has more skill than the others, more control, and she is the one who can teleport me around-" he vanished mid-thought and appeared next to the elf foregoing a weapon and swinging his fist with a roar.
[Great heal-]
Arla's focus from the pulsar she had been building was broken when she splitt her consciousness and cast a healing spell over herself in the same second his fist collided in the side of her head like a comet, causing a wave of mana to explode around them as she was sent plumetting out of the sky.
"Shit-" Dina raised her staff, creating a barrier made of origin explosions between himself and her and diving downward when Arla showed no signs of recovery.
Saleos tanked the entirety of the explosions and flew right through it, grabbing Dina by her leg right before she could catch Arla and spinning with her, using her as a batton to smack Ikaris who was on the approach before stopping and placing his hand on her abdomen, summoning his gun and aiming it for her chin.
Arla crashed, and Ikaris staggered in a slower descent, snapping back to her senses when Saleos fired the gun, but upon looking at him Dina was missing from his grasp and a wave of mana had replaced her.
"Ugh," Dina slumped and landed on the ground seeing Arla wince as her hand lowered and she sighed in relief.
"That was too close..." The elf chuckled, extending her hand to Dina as they helped each other stand.
"That one keeps getting in the way!" Saleos snapped in agitation, diving downward and vanishing from their senses for a split second before the ground before them exploded like a mine and he came rushing through the debris roaring.
Neither was ready or prepared since they were still recovering from his previous attacks, but it was Ikaris who seemed to match his speed that came from the side with a kick to his shoulder, staring shocked when she realised that he managed to block it.
"And you!" Saleos grabbed Ikaris's leg and spun with her as they both crashed and rolled, raising his hand and punching with every intent to blow her head clean off her shoulders, only to have her dodge and and lock her legs around his arm, spinning and slamming him face first into the ground and then slipping off his hand and placing her palm on the back of his head as she knelt in his back.
"INCINERATION MAXI-"
"No!" Saleos spun beneath her elbowing her in her side and then grabbing her leg before the momentum and force of his stroke sent her flying again.
"Enough!" The demon-god roared turning with the goddess and slamming her into the ground so hard it condensed several times on itself causing some of the stone to press and heat into shards of glass and diamond before everything around them exploded in dust, chunks of land and sparkles.
This was without a doubt, the hardes Ikaris had ever been hit, it showed in the way her reflexes slowed down as she blacked out for a second and slumped in his grasp before he raised her again with another roar and made an attempt to repeat smashing her into the ground, if only Arla was not there at every turn.
Ikaris vanished from his grasp, and then his hand that had been swinging turned as if it had a mind of its own and all that force and momentum was redirected right into his nose when Dina cast [inversion] on him again, and then on Ikaris causing her to fly upward instead of hitting the ground.
Without a moment to breathe, Saleos emerged from the dust of his own collapse reaching out to Arla who was being the most troublesome of the three, but just before his hand closed over her face his balance shifted when Ikaris came out of nowhere and grabbed his hair dragging him and slamming him into the ground in a comical explosion of white fire and terrain that sent Arla and Dina flying.
"The longer I fight, the stronger I will get, I have power to spare even if it is only an invisible fraction!" Ikaris stepped on his arm and spun around his other hand, delivering a kick to his chin that had him spinning like a disk in the dirt and creating a massive trench.
"Altogether I have enough power right now to destroy three universes whole, do not underestimate me!" She caught his leg mid-spin and raised him out of the ground, coming face-to-face with the barrel of his cannon the projectile from it mere millimetres away from hitting her forehead.
[CLOCKWORK: DOMINION]
Her heart stopped beating, and time slowed down to a degree that it seemed to freeze around her when the projectile touched her skin.
Ikaris slipped beneath the weapon, and delivered a flurry of attacks to every inch of his body before the effects of DOMINION wore off, causing Saleos to stagger several seconds as the attacks came delayed while she took a stance before him.
Dina had barely managed to perceive what had happened because of her awareness buff, and she also recognised that attack quite well after seeing Sol perform it on Sitri.
Ikaris's teeth gnashed sparks as she forced her body into an uncomfortable stance layering [Clockwork] upon itself until even her muscles started tearing under the armour and knuckles, and then everything healed over when her invisible punch connected with Saleos, and the result was so much worse than what Sol had done.
He had triggered tectonic shifts on Arkadia, but Ikaris's constant fighting had left her in a state of heightened awareness and tunnneled her attention on performance, without even realising it her output had jumped from 0.1% all the way up to 15% and as a result Saleos's torso was torn open from his neck to his hip, the winds all started moving in the opposite direction of her punch, and Zola-Prime creaked and shook before a white ring formed vertically from her point and exploded outwards.
The entire planet was perfectly split in half from the punch from the north to south poles, and it happened with such precision that only those outside of it could see, and those just so happened to be the other gods who had been teleported to a small satellite planet which revolved around it.
Unable to bare the kickback of Ikaris's punch Dina grabbed Arla and created a shield around the two of them as they were sent flying off into the distance.
"I..." Saleos's eyes turned black, and his skin turned into a darker shade as well, and the blood in his neck, arms and legs rapidly slung back together instantaneously reforging his body in a more grotesque and beastly manner, with taller limbs, a slightly elongated snout and a long thick tail behind him, finished with a coat of fur.
"I will not lose to a lowly divine!" He caught her arm and attempted to tear her face off with a bite, but Ikaris sacrificed her other hand without hesitation, breaking free of his grasp and ripping her own limb free and then taking a deep breath when his jaws locked and her removed arm was snapped.
"His strength just tripped!?" Ikaris flipped backwards avoiding Saleos's wild and animalistic slashes at her, before raising her stub of an arm and conjuring an arm made of mana to brace against his chest when he caught up and nearly bit her head off.
"He is faster too!" She continued inhaling, the sigils on her skin began glowing brightly, and her eyes turned gold along with them when he tried biting her still, forcing her into an arch supported only by her legs until the pressure he was exuding became overbearing and she plummeted into the ground.
"Die a horrible death you filth!" Saleos smashed the mana hand pressed against him after grabbing it and then raised his hooved foot and stepped in Ikaris's head, burying her in the rocks beneath. "I will trample you, I will desecrate your filthy muddled body, I will kill everything and ascend as the most powerful demon in all actuality, the one true BEAST!"
[Stand clear, Goddess Ikaris is about to use Cosmic Scream]
The system warned Dina and Arla who were rushing back toward them now that the powerful winds had died down.
"Cosmic- that's the one I never used!" Dina stopped dead in her tracks, holding on to Arla when they felt Ikaris's mana signature drop and almost disappear before suddenly doubling the output from earlier.
Saleos leapt away from her out of pure instinct when she grabbed at his arm again, and Ikaris arose with her eyes wide in rage and her nose bloody from getting stepped on by this creature.
All the breath she had held converted into mana, and her throat bulged as she opened her mouth releasing a silent scream that quickly became the harrowing sound of a star ejecting all its power in two singular directions.
The tear through Zola-Prime slightly widened again when Ikaris planted her arms and legs in a crouch and spread her wings for balance, unleashing it with the full intent to completely destroy everything before her.
In actuality it was a one-sided Gama-ray burst, focused into a Laser capable of travelling galaxies in seconds when utilised correctly, and as Ikaris had been literally trampled on she held nothing back as she released it at him.
Multiple colours erupted from her mouth, coming with so much destruction and fire that the entire night side of the planet lit up, with everything the light touching catching ablaze from the intense heat.
[COSMIC SCREAM]