I stood alone atop the stage that godforsaken phantom thief had left in a shambles.
KWA-AAAAA—!
As if mocking my mounting fury, a pillar of fire erupted from the crater, roaring as it clawed at the heavens. It wasn't merely molten rock. It felt like the very life force of the island had been sucked dry and condensed into pure Authority—the raw essence of creation and destruction. The very air began to ignite. Each breath felt like swallowing liquid cinders, and the heat radiating against my skin threatened to liquefy even my magical barriers.
"Alessandro!"
I shouted over the roar.
"Take everyone and fall back as far as you can! This isn't a fight you people can survive!"
"But Your Majesty, we are your shield—!"
"I'll trust my back to you, so just focus on guarding the old man! That's an order!"
Alessandro grit his teeth at my sharp command. He signaled the other knights to retreat, half-hauling the Kahuna as they began to scramble away from the crumbling edge of the crater.
As they vanished into the haze, the silhouette of flames finally solidified into a definitive shape. It was a woman with tresses of incandescent magma fluttering in the wind. Her eyes were hollow voids, yet within them burned a primal will of destruction—an urge to return the entire world to its original, molten state.
The Heretic God, the Volcano Goddess: Pele.
"Well now, the prologue is finally over."
An infuriatingly calm voice drifted from behind me. Alec.
"I'll be taking my leave, Seventh. It should be rather entertaining to watch what kind of end you meet from a safe distance."
"What? Hey, you bastard—!"
I spun around in disbelief, only to see his body flickering and crackling into arcs of black lightning.
"You're the one who set this stage. It's only right that you stay for the curtain call."
With those parting words, he transformed into a streak of black meteor-light, soaring into the sky and vanishing without a trace.
In a heartbeat, I was left alone on this burning rock with nothing but an incarnation of destruction for company.
'…That piece of work.'
I swallowed a curse and turned to face the blazing goddess head-on. The overwhelming disparity in power vibrated against my skin. A direct confrontation was the worst possible choice. But a Godslayer can't exactly turn his back on a god. Before the slaughter started, there was something I needed to verify.
I raised my left hand, clutching the ominously pulsing Heart of the Earth.
"Hey, Fire Goddess! Isn't this what you're looking for?"
At my shout, Pele’s empty sockets finally locked onto me. The moment her gaze fell upon the Heart of the Earth, the ambient temperature spiked until the air itself seemed to shimmer and crack.
"No interest in talking this out? I’ve already struck a deal with your brother, Kamohoali'i. He seemed pretty keen on you going back to sleep."
The reaction was instantaneous. Pele’s face, previously a mask of divine apathy, twisted into an expression for the first time. It was a look of pure, unadulterated contempt and arrogance.
"…Kamohoali'i?"
Her voice sounded like the bubbling of deep-earth magma.
"You speak of that coward? The one who stays entombed in the deepest reaches of the sea, hiding in the unchanging abyss while envying my great works of creation?"
Her voice held more than just anger; it carried an ancient resentment, a divine mockery for a sibling who had chosen a path antithetical to her own.
"He views 'stagnation' as a virtue, while I know that 'change' is the very definition of life. He tries to preserve the past, while I incinerate the old to forge a new future. Are you his messenger, then? To speak the name of such a stagnant being in my presence… how blasphemous."
"I do not sleep. I shall burn this defiled land to ash and shape a new world with my flames. That is my destiny. It is the sole law of this earth that even my brother could not forestall!"
Negotiations were dead. Her logic was a closed loop of perfect destruction and creation. There was no room for persuasion.
Pele slowly raised her arm. In response to her will, the sea of lava within the crater surged upward, forming a colossal tidal wave that prepared to collapse over me.
'So it’s going to be like this, huh.'
I let out a dry, mirthless laugh and thrust my right hand forward.
"All who gaze upon me, all who face me… turn to stone and be silent."
My will manifested as an ashen ripple, shooting toward the incoming tsunami of lava.
KRADADADAK—!
The wave of lava that had been seconds away from swallowing me whole froze mid-air. Its violently churning surface cooled instantly, transmuting into a grotesque, jagged wall of black obsidian. I had stopped the momentum for now. But…
'Dammit, the heat isn't going away!'
Even through the wall, an unimaginable heat surged forward. The ground beneath my boots began to melt like soft wax. Furthermore, Pele didn't even blink; she simply conjured a second and third wave of magma that spilled over the obsidian wall I’d just created, cascading toward me.
'Shit…! There’s no point in blocking it!'
My power had certainly halted the 'movement' of the lava and turned it to stone. But Pele was simply 'creating' entirely new lava from behind and beside the static stone. It was like trying to block a flooding room with a cup while the faucet was still blasting at full pressure.
I barely managed to dive away from the downpour of molten rock, but the radiant heat singed my clothes and left blistering burns across my skin.
"Gah!"
Frontal defense was useless. I kicked off the ground, moving rapidly along the rim of the crater to open up some distance. Simultaneously, I focused my will deep into the earth.
"In my garden, even a god is nothing more than a pebble!"
The volcanic rocks at my feet surged to life, sharpening into dozens of massive stone spears that launched themselves at Pele. But she didn't even bother to dodge. The moment the stone spears touched her flaming body, they were consumed like kindling thrown into a furnace—the power within them was stripped away, and they melted back into useless lava before they could even scratch her.
"Damn it… my Authority isn't just failing, it's fueling her!"
This was the worst possible match-up. My Authority was derived from Medusa, an Earth Mother Goddess. But the enemy before me was the very source of that earth—fire and magma itself. Before her, my power over the earth was being overridden at its conceptual root.
Pele ignored my struggles, raising both arms to the sky. The entire island began to wail as the ground around the crater split open, venting geysers of fresh lava from the jagged wounds. She intended to turn this entire island into her new body—the cornerstone of a new world.
I was backed into a corner. Attack and defense were both failing. At this rate, I’d just be dissolved along with the rest of the island in her molten embrace.
I stumbled, looking down at the Heart of the Earth pulsing in my left hand. A jewel that throbbed with a sickening rhythm. I forced myself to rethink the essence of my Authority.
'…Right, I figured it out during the fight with Tāwhirimātea. The core of my power is "Stasis." It’s the power to stop "Movement" itself, not just its physical form.'
I already had the answer, but I hesitated to pull the trigger. Stopping visible lava was one thing, but attempting to halt the very phenomenon of "Heat"—something invisible and conceptual—was a different dimension entirely. The backlash if I failed would be catastrophic. However…
'It’s better than just waiting to be fried.'
I made my decision.
I flashed a grimace of a smile at the burning goddess. Then, I tossed the Heart of the Earth into the air. It was a decoy to draw her gaze. For the split second her attention drifted toward the gem, I funneled every ounce of my magical energy and will into a single command.
"Let time cease its flow, and let sound lose its existence. Under the serpent’s curse dwelling in my eyes… let all that lives become a tombstone named Eternity!"
The target of my final incantation wasn't Pele’s body.
It was the "Heat" radiating from her and every drop of lava she had birthed.
KWA-AAAA—
All sound in the world suddenly receded into the distance.
The scorching sensation burning my skin vanished as if it had been a lie. The eruption of the lava pillar slowed to a crawl, looking like a frame-by-frame recording. The blinding light bleeding from Pele’s incandescent body began to dim—subtly, but unmistakably.
'Did I do it?'
No.
"…How foolish."
Pele’s voice echoed directly into my mind. It was filled with a mix of disdain and the pure fury of a higher being looking at a lesser creature that failed to comprehend her fundamental principles.
"Your power is the strength that blocks a river’s flow. But my flame is the inexhaustible spring itself."
The moment she spoke, a newer, more primordial heat began to gestate from beyond the "Heat" I had forcibly stilled. If I stopped the vibration of molecules, she simply "created" new molecules in that space and set them into motion.
'Dammit…! It’s not working!'
I screamed internally. It was a clash of Authorities. Tāwhirimātea, the storm god, was like an "unceasing river," making my "Stasis" a terror beyond death to him because it denied his reason for existing. He had backed away out of caution.
But this goddess was different.
She didn't fear my Stasis. She didn't even view it as a threat. Like the ocean swallowing a sandcastle, her power of "Creation" was simply absorbing the very concept of my "Stasis." This wasn't a matter of who was stronger. It was a fundamental, conceptual mismatch of attributes.
It was like trying to drain a bottomless pit while someone was pouring an ocean into it. No, the pit was being filled faster than I could even fathom its depth.
KRADAK!
"GUAGHH!"
With a horrific sensation of my Authority backfiring, the magical energy inside my body went wild, exploding outward. I collapsed to the ground, screaming as a pain like being charred from the inside out racked my frame. Pele looked down at me like I was an insect, raising another massive wave of lava to finish the job.
'Is this… the end?'
My consciousness began to fade into the agony. But at the threshold of death, my mind grew strangely, glacially cold.
'No… not yet. I still have one move left.'
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register