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_Time to move another step forwards in this long travel. As always, i hope you will enjoy the ride and get the right kind of emotions from it. I look forwards to your comments. _

The Prophecy of the End War says the world will burn. The Prophecy of the Amon-Ra says that Apocalypse will happen, and a new universe will need to come to light. Can Destiny be changed...?

Chapter 90 -** Into Darkness**

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Killer looked down at Cerberus with an expression that was a mix of rage and contempt. The tiger claimed to have known that Killer's power would reach such astonishing levels, but the liger could hardly comprehend his own strength, the apparent lack of limits to what he could do, even as Reapers continued to throw themselves against him, slashing their scythes into his flesh, draining away power. They felt like little more than mosquitoes, and their attacks were suicidal, because the terrifying power radiating out of his body incinerated them in great flashes of supernatural electricity. He didn't even bless them with a gaze, a glare, a thought. They were insignificant, droplets of water that crashed against his glorious body and that failed to put a dent in his power, which only ever continued to grow.

"You knew it, you say...?" Killer growled, his eyes glowing solid sapphire as he flicked a finger and sent Cerberus flying like a toy, smashing him back into the violet barrier that kept them prisoner, cracking it like it was made of mere glass and causing several of the gods that powered it to fall over with cries of agony, blood exploding out of their mouths, nostrils and ears. "How? Who the hell are you, in reality?"

Cerberus let out a howl of agony as sharp shards of solid violet energy ripped into his back, tearing even through his special crystal armor... but then the crystal floor below thrummed violently, glowing with blindingly bright light as it sucked a huge amount of energy, even though it was cracked and crumbled. Ethereal yet very real, tube-like veins pumped the stolen power into Cerberus and Thanathos, and Killer grunted and recoiled slightly, dazed by the violent counter-shock as his crushing psychic grip was reversed against him. "Wouldn't you love to know...?" Cerberus taunted, even though his voice was broken and partially chocked by the blood and ichors that had surged up in his throat. "I know things that not you, not Elelyon, not anyone else have ever known. I've enjoyed watching you all stumble around in your ignorance. And I've prepared for this day. I've prepared exactly for this moment! All my life, I've planned for this moment!" Cerberus cackled, but broke into a violent, bloody cough almost immediately, hugging himself in a mix of pain, frustration and, absurdly, sheer delight even as he rasped and broken bones crackled audibly inside him. He slammed his feet and hands back into the damaged barrier and forced himself forwards, hissing at the pain caused by the long shards of violent energy that had torn their way deep inside his back... and he landed heavily on the shattered floor of crystal, forcing a grim on his muzzle even as Killer and Alexis walked forwards and swung their swords down against him.

Cerberus roared in a mix of pain and delight, fear and challenge, and an enormous, awful thrum made the entire barrier dent inwards for a moment as a colossal amount of energy was drawn into the tiger's body, making his crystal armor glow with blinding intensity as he reached up and caught both of the thick, glorious blades, grunting as his spine bent backwards and snapped... but somehow resisting, pushing back with enough strength to rival theirs, trembling violently yet feeling his broken bones regenerating quickly. Thanathos hesitatingly pushed back up as well, staring in shock at the scene ahead of him, fearfully admiring Killer's and Alexis's glory and uncertainly calling Requiem Aeternam back towards his hand.

Killer and Alexis snarled and flexed, muscles bulging explosively as they glared down at Cerberus, unable to believe that somehow he was resisting to their assault, and the tiger only smirked coldly before taunting: "Surprised, are you...? Knowledge is everything!" Cerberus cackled, stomping forwards and shoving back against Blue Vixen with all the strength he could find, forcing Alexis to stumble backwards with a grunt of surprise... before she growled and pivoted on one foot to strike him viciously in the face with the other as she gracefully hook-kicked him flying across the battlefield to slam into the crystal floor with such violence that he bounced back into the air and crashed over a group of alien gods, rolling all over them, crushing several into the ground. "Shut up, you little piece of arrogant shit."

The goddess immediately shoved her palm out and blasted a multitude of daggers of golden energy against the groaning, broken mortal god, but Cerberus hurriedly clawed at the air in the direction of some of the alien gods that remained and those became rigid and emotionless, their eyes losing all expression and all intelligence as they turned around and threw themselves in the way, acting as living shields: within instants, three of them had been pierced by multiple long spikes of energy which then exploded, dissolving them all in a huge blast, while other aliens turned around and created a solid barrier in front of Cerberus, allowing him to crawl back up to a sitting position, still grinning even though half of his face was a pulped, broken mass of blood and shattered bone. "Frustrating, isn't it... being so powerful, being the most powerful beings in the universe, and yet being unable to kill an insignificant cockroach like me..." Cerberus taunted, his only remaining eye glowing with cruel amusement as he slowly straightened, hissing in pain while the other half of his face began to rapidly regenerate. "But as I said, I prepared. Your strength is unmatched... but what good is it, if I can retort it against you?"

Killer charged forwards with a snarl, squeezing the handle of Wyvern in both of his hands and glaring at the alien gods that were protecting Cerberus, but before he could squish them into pulp, Thanathos slid forwards without making a sound, his tattered cloak shifting silently, surrounded by flailing, expanding tendrils of darkness, before a massive spear pushed out from under the fabric and stabbed right into the liger's side. Killer hissed in rage more than pain, turning sideways with a snarl and furiously smashing his fist down on the metallic pole of the spear, shattering it like it was a breadstick, before he seized the blade half-buried into his body and tore it back out with a snort of contempt.

Thanathos slashed the massive blade of Requiem up towards Killer's neck, but the liger spun the spearhead around and stabbed it out like a dagger, intercepting the enormous scythe and knocking it backwards, before throwing his massive weight against Thanathos, body-checking him into the air and viciously driving the spear tip towards his hidden, invisible features.

The god of death let out a cry of pain and outrage and hurriedly shoved back with a huge skeletal hand clad in a powerful crystal gauntlet, and Killer hissed in agony when the sharp talons bit into his arm. Thanathos was caught by surprise for an instant, surprised to see blood bursting out of the omnipotent liger, and the ethereal vein-tubes feeding into his armor-clad body pulsed and swelled, filling him with a literal tidal wave of power. An immense amount of pure force exploded out of Thanathos's hand and smashed into Killer, melting the spear tip in one instant and sending him crashing backwards with a growl of pain and shock...

And while he did his best to catch himself, slamming his boots into the crumbling floor of crystal, Killer gritted his fangs with a shiver as he heard fragments of distant shouts... warnings... cries of pain... prayers. He heard his father screaming. He head Gaia howling. He heard the terrified, confused thoughts of Kaya...

It all mixed together in a confused, painful cacophony, but it was enough to know that things in the far north were going in the worst of ways. And he heard Ira as well, and Boadicea, and Kimera... battle was raging on in Hell as well, and he already knew that Galen and Sandy on the Audacious were in need of his assistance as well. The invasion of Lunis was underway.

"You know it, don't you...?" Cerberus gleefully taunted, grinning widely as he strolled forwards. "You can hear them... I can see it in your eyes. Your expression tells me that all is going exactly like I planned!"

Killer turned towards the king of Alfaya with a snarl of hate and rage, and a ripple of terrifying power exploded out of him and disintegrated the crystal floor ahead while rushing straight against Cerberus. The mortal-god froze in place, staring at that wave of destruction as it made reality tremble and ripple like water, but a multitude of mind-controlled reapers rushed in the way and charged straight against Killer, even as dozens of them were torn apart like pieces of cloth, their ancient, ragged cloaks falling away in small shreds mixed with little more than bone dust. The ghastly beings kept coming, carrying scythes and spears and long, heavy chains burdened by great amounts of massive padlocks and hourglasses, and Killer furiously slashed Wyvern through their ranks, destroying bones and weapons and slapping broken skeletons out of the air as he barreled through them... only for Cerberus to spread his arms and float off the ground as raging rivers of pure power rushed through the golden veins coming out of the crystal platform. The tiger grinned widely, looking down at his hands with an expression of intense pleasure, and then he thrust both palms forwards and sent a deluge of dark flames exploding against Killer, washing him backwards even as the liger used the flat of Wyvern as a shield and tried to cut through the inferno.

"Astonished, are you...?" Cerberus taunted, grinning as he soared high into the air, spinning once and then blasting another huge downpour of black fire against Killer, who stepped back out of the way, holding up Wyvern in defence and moving towards one of the alien gods that still worked the keep the barrier whole. "Of course you are. I am too... I'm just beginning to discover everything that I can now do... and gods do I ever like it!" Cerberus cackled, the golden veins swelling and pulsing violently as they struggled to convey the huge flood of power into his body. He pumped a fist skywards and formed a massive spear of lightning in one hand, hurling it down against Killer and laughing as it exploded with terrible power against the blade of Wyvern, and he formed a second supernatural javelin, tossing it towards Alexis while she was locked in battle against Thanathos. The goddess saw it coming, the ghost image of it playing in her mind several seconds before it actually came, and she immediately stomped forwards, slamming Blue Vixen viciously up against Requiem and immediately slamming her shoulder into the god's chest, sending him crashing backwards like a ragdoll, before turning to the side with a snarl, her hand shooting up and grabbing the lightning spear, stopping it in midair and within inches of her face. She growled as electricity tore up her arm and exploded into her nervous system, but spun the javelin around and hurled it violently against Thanathos just as he prepared for a new assault, and the enormous explosion that followed sent him crashing back with a howl of agony, with crackles of energy tearing through his entire form.

Cerberus snarled and floated towards Alexis, accumulating energy in both of his hands, but then he finally noticed Killer as he prepared to squish one of the gods that held up the barrier. The tiger looked through the translucent violet wall, spotting the mighty goddesses of Killer's clan fighting their way through the horde of aliens and trying to get to their master, and he gritted his fangs with a roar of fury that caused energy to explode out of him in a blast of golden light and fire.

A ripple traveled through reality, and a second Cerberus suddenly crackled into being right before Killer, with huge blades of golden energy pushing out of his wrists as he snarled and stabbed both hard against the liger. "So, do you feel this exhilaration every time you play with time to be in multiple places at once...?" Killer grunted in surprise at the sudden assault, and he rapidly stepped back hissing as one of the blades still found his abs and pierced deep into his flesh, sending out a thick splatter of blood. He caught the second blade in his hand and yanked it hard towards the side, dragging Cerberus off the ground and throwing him away with enough force that his sword ripped out of Killer's abs.

The other Cerberus dived down like a bird of prey, slashing his blades furiously against Killer, and the liger had to turn around swinging Wyvern violently up into them, knocking them away from him and slapping the king of Alfaya right towards Alexis, hoping that she would keep him off his back for a moment as he turned around and finally managed to stomp a spell-caster into a stain on the floor, weakening the barrier. He immediately turned his attention towards the next god in line, but one of the Cerberus charged forwards again and their swords clanged viciously together, bolts of electricity exploding out of each impact. "Is this how you feel like, day after day...?" Cerberus teased, grinning in vicious delight as energy radiated brilliantly out of his form, his body visibly growing larger and stronger, bulging with muscles and expanding as he bombarded Killer with a barrage of spheres of focused force. The liger only snarled in rage, easily slapping them out of the sky and leaning into a violent slash of Wyvern, catching the mortal god in the abs and nearly sawing him in half, effortlessly hefting him clear off the ground before sending the broken, bloody body flying across the battlefield as it slipped off the blade.

"No matter how much energy you steal, you will only ever be a pale imitation!" Killer roared, and he ducked under the assault of the second Cerberus before driving Wyvern straight into his chest, burying the massive sword in right down to the hilt, lifting the tiger up into the air and then slicing him in half with a snort of contempt. Immediately, Killer turned to look for the other spell-casters that fed the barrier, but his eyes widened as he heard the distant yet very clear agony of his father Seth... and sweat of horror and confusion and fear rolled down his cheeks as his mind pounded with noise, with confusion, with disbelief... before another terrified voice came to him, that of Galen. He couldn't quite understand all the words, but part of him somehow realized that his son was asking for torpedoes for his submarine, and he focused for a moment on the matter... even as tears pushed out of his eyes and his heart raced with shock, horror, despair. "Father..."

Galen's voice reached him again, and Killer did his best to realize whatever the young captain had asked for, but the barrier and the crystal draining away his energies limited what he could do. He wasn't sure whether his powers had worked out as intended or not, but he did his best to reinforce the Audacious, to make the boat faster, stronger, stealthier, knowing that they would need each and every bit of enhancement and good luck he could ensure them... But his mind continued to pound painfully with the echo of Seth's cry of agony, and now also with Kaya's shrieks of denial, rage and horror.

And in that very same instant, a new manifestation of Cerberus leapt against him, shooting bolts of dark lightning from his fingers and grinning viciously as he claimed: "Yes, it's true... I cannot equal you... I am but a rough imitation. But it doesn't matter! I only have to hold out for a little bit longer! Soon enough I will be perfect, invincible, limitless... and you will soon be forgotten, mere short-lived prototype of my true perfection!"

Killer growled as he shielded himself with one arm, the great bolts of electricity smashing into it and cursing through his nervous system, causing him to spasm in pain as his leg bent and almost gave out, but he focused on absorbing all of that energy even as it burned his insides, until he yanked his arm hard backwards, sucking all that infernal discharge up into his palm and dragging Cerberus forwards with a yelp of surprise and shock, the tiger's eyes opened wide before he was hit in the face by the huge, electrified fist, his skull exploding in a cloud of crimson pulp while the corpse flew across the battlefield and crashed against one of the alien spell-casters, knocking him over with a grunt of pain... which turned into a shriek of terror and denial as Killer stormed forwards and slammed Wyvern down in a vicious cut, tearing both bodies into pieces. He turned sideways with a snarl of frustration and horror, knowing that his time was running out, his head pounding painfully as he received bits and pieces of thoughts, screams and images that showed him the Ice Eden shattered and the sky above Hell swarming with an endless horde of hideous spider-like cybernetic aliens, and he fired spheres of focused energy against two more spell-casters while slamming Wyvern violently against the barrier, snarling as it cracked and glowed angrily, spitting sparkles of energy against him but refusing to collapse.

"Oh, no, I can't let you do that..." Cerberus venomously hissed, and another trio of his manifestations charged forth, swinging spears and swords while a fourth blasted dark lightning into Killer's back... and Vera looked up at that apocalyptic clash, her strong arms trembling, blood leaking out of her mouth as she rasped for breath, exhausted and barely conscious as pain filled every inch of her body, banging again and again against the inside of her skull, tormenting her in a way that made her wish for death. Still, she resisted, flexing her muscles and throwing all of her strength and weight against the chains that a group of Reapers were trying to wrap all around her. Every last steel link was as sharp as a razor, cutting deep into her flesh as she struggled, and they seemed to be at once incandescent and icy, causing her flesh to sizzle and smolder and yet filling her very soul with such hideous coldness that she felt like all her chances were gone, and that she'd soon turn into a brittle piece of ice. Two Reapers towered over her, their skeletal bodies clad in heavy armour and their face, if they had any, hidden by supernatural, terrifying darkness cast by their ragged hoods, while torn, ruined cloaks flapped heavily around them as they yanked back on the chains, wrestling against her stubborn resistance, dragging her down to the ground. The Doberman rolled over with a snarl, her eyes fixing for a moment on the terrifying Scythes floating obediently near the two reapers, shivering as she heard whispers coming from the glowing blades, but Cerberus clearly wasn't done tormenting her and using her because none of the two tried to end her. They wanted her alive, and in some ways that only made things even worse.

One of the Reapers leaned forwards and threw down another length of heavy chain burdened by massive padlocks that landed heavily upon her breasts and forehead, making her snarl in pain and fury as they burned horribly against her skin, but she only trashed violently and purposefully, shifting her body around until she was close enough to the reaper to slam both of her feet up, smashing into his chest and knocking him backwards with a cry of pain and surprise, his armor denting inwards like it was made of tin and several bones loudly shattering. The other Reaper looked surprised for a moment but immediately yanked on the chains all the same, and Vera allowed herself to slide painfully on the ground before throwing her weight sideways, rolling over and lashing out a hook-kick that caught the floating beast in the flank and sent him staggering away. The Doberman clawed angrily at the heavy chains, struggling to pull them loose and then finally managing to seize a long coil in one hand, dragging it off her chest and snapping it out like a whip against the first Reaper as he floated over her with a snarl of fury. She struck at his hidden face, knocking his skull violently backwards, but the minister of death only reached down even more viciously, clawing into her neck with metallic talons that pierced deep into her flesh, making her hiss breathlessly in pain... before she threw the heavy chain up over his skull and grabbed it in both of her hands, yanking hard down while kicking both feet up. The Reaper let out a short-lived cry of agony and disbelief before his skull flew off like a cork, his cloak ripping apart and revealing a long, somewhat equine-shaped snout but lined with terrible fangs. The body of the Reaper did not collapse away lifelessly, but it stumbled backwards in shock and Vera exploited the moment to slip out of the monstrous, deadly hug of the chains, picking the largest one up and beginning to spin it rapidly above her head, roaring as she whip-lashed both Reapers away, shattering their bones and denting the heavy armor.

She sprinted away from them, dragging the heavy chain on the crumbled, disintegrated floor of crystal. Each step cost her a lot of energy and made her wince in pain, but when she looked over her shoulder she saw Killer stabbing Wyvern through one of the copies of Cerberus, ripping it into shreds before he smashed his fist into the chest of another, hard enough to lift the mortal god off the ground and send him crash bonelessly hundreds of feet away... and Alexis kept beating back Thanathos, her blows sending the god of death down again and again even as he sucked in huge amounts of energy through the trap of crystal, which somehow continued to drain force out of the two ligers even now that the crystal beneath their feet was reduced to little more than gravel. Vera gritted her teeth and ran towards a chanting spell caster god that stood between a group of heavily armed disciples protecting him and giving him their energies. The Doberman knew that Killer and Alexis were far stronger than Cerberus and Thanathos, and could easily win the battle once and for all if only she could make the constant drain of power from their bodies end. Without the energy pumped into them, Cerberus and Thanathos were not going to last a single moment against the terrifying strength of the two lovers, and Vera was determined to break the trap. She had to shatter the barrier. She had to make sure that Cerberus could not stole another iota of Killer's power... but more Reapers immediately rushed in her way, and she closed her eyes with a growling sound of frustration and horror, feeling barely strong enough to stand and walk and knowing that she was nowhere near ready for a battle like that... but Killer was nearby, and she could feel the heat of his own power against her skin, like a sun shining down on her, filling her with hope. For the first time in all of her life she knew what she had to do and she was aware that better days were ahead if she could just force through that last battle...

Vera roared, flexing her muscles and running even faster, accelerating even as every last fiber of her body begged for rest and relief, and when her eyes opened they glowed with terrible, impossible force, burning emerald as she glared up at the first Reaper in her way, a corrupted beast that loomed over her, twice her size and made even more intimidating by a literal gallows of ancient dark wood that he had strapped to the back of his armor, with corpses still hanging from it.

He was a Greater Reaper, a creature that had once administered the passing of souls from a large region, perhaps a whole continent, with a multitude of reapers at his orders and with the Law of god to guide him, but now he was just a war machine, with little to no ability left to think for itself and with no residual loyalty to the laws of old. Thanathos had turned the impartial, inflexible reapers into his soldiers, and now into mindless slaves that asked no questions and had no hesitations. The gigantic monstrosity leaned forwards and swung his heavy scythe against Vera, uncaring even as the enormous curved blade tore deep into the shattered ground, digging a deep furrow in it before slashing up against the Doberman, who leapt sideways and whip-lashed the heavy chain against the great weapon, grunting as the steel links clanged against the blade and wrapped several times around it. She yanked hard on the chain and the great Reaper laughed as he easily resisted, pulling back the scythe to aim the blade at her, but Vera smirked and allowed his force to do the job for her, hefting her off the ground. She slammed one foot in the middle of his chest, stomping as hard as she could on his sternum and making him choke audibly before she climbed up higher, grabbing the neck of the scythe's pole with one hand and going into a handspring, smashing both of her boots up into the invisible chin of the monster, grinning as the crack of breaking bones echoed in the air around them while she threw herself past his shoulder, roaring as she pulled hard on the chain, dragging the scythe up towards his neck.

The Greater Reaper gargled in pain and shock at that but swiftly reached up and grabbed the heavy chain, his skeletal, talon-like fingers melting the dark metal links like they were made of butter, while the hanged corpses dangling from the gallows on his back suddenly opened their eyes and dived down with deafening, terrifying wails as they clawed towards Vera. The female landed in a crouch and ducked with a wince, looking up in disgust as the rotting corpses savagely reached down for her, their ropes lengthening and their fingers turning into terrible, flexible talons than tore glowing, incandescent wounds into the ground when they barely missed her... before a bunch of reapers assaulted her from all sides, and she twisted sideways with a grunt to avoid a stabbing spear before throwing the loose end of chain still in her hand right in the face of the beast pushing it, knocking him backwards with a muffled grunt of pain. Vera immediately sprinted forwards and grabbed his skull in one hand, muscles bulging as she roared and shoved him violently towards the trashing hanged zombies, smirking in dark satisfaction as the undead viciously clawed into the reaper and dragged him up in the air, kicking and screaming.

A second reaper aimed a lantern at her while cocking back his scythe, and Vera winced in agony as the beam of light coming from it burned into her flesh like a laser, tearing open a ugly wound and sending blood spraying thickly out as she almost collapsed forwards, feeling her body losing even more of its normally formidable strength. Her eyes became heavy and attempted to close as her mind became light and absent, a scary drowsiness settling upon her just as another blade swung against her, catching her in one arm and making her hiss in agony as it sliced deep into her huge bicep.

The reaper ahead of her moved the lantern up to aim it straight at her face just as he slashed down his scythe, but Vera grunted and threw herself straight against him, smashing her shoulder into his chest and crumbling his ribs like biscuits, sending him flying ruinously backwards just as she grabbed the pole of his scythe in both hands, stopping the deadly blade a mere two inches or so from her muzzle. She thrust the pole hard back against the reaper, smacking it hard into his skull and crunching the bone into fragments, then she yanked the weapon back, tearing it out of his fingers and immediately windmilling it around her waist, cutting several other reapers into pieces and sending the others scattering back away from her, at least for a brief moment.

The Greater Reaper snarled as it made a slapping gesture with its enormous skeletal hand, and a shockwave of dark force smashed into Vera and blew her off her feet, sending her crashing heavily on one side, blood spurting out of her devastated back as fragments of crystal pushed deep into the wound and made her cringe in agony, but still she found the strength to slam one hand into the ground to push up to a crouch, moving back just in time to avoid the giant scythe of the massive head-Reaper, before two more of the ghastly beings tossed heavy chains towards her. "I'm not coming back!" Vera roared against them, swinging the stolen scythe upwards with the force of desperation, catching the chains in midair and yanking them upwards so violently that both reapers were dragged towards her just as she went into a backwards roll, slamming her feet up into their skulls and crunching both into fragments and dust. She landed on her feet and sprung up in a flash, slapping a long blade back before it could pierce into her chest and then viciously slashing the scythe up to tear another skull off, but several other reapers aimed their lanterns at her and she felt her strength fade away, her limbs twitching as she instinctively curled up on herself as her whole body burned with agony, her skin sizzling audibly. "I'm not coming back! I'm out of your insane games!" Vera again snarled, and she blindly swung out her fist, finding a skull in the way and smashing it into pieces before savagely reaching through to grab the spine, yanking on it and hefting the dying Reaper off the ground like it was just a toy, smacking him hard into his comrades and sending at least three sprawling away from her. Chains again landed heavily onto her form, burning like hell, tearing into her flesh as they dragged her down, causing her legs to tremble violently and then give, so that she landed on her knees with a grunt even as she reached up to grab the tangle of chains, snarling as she tore them into pieces, one after the other, while swinging the scythe up with her other hand, hacking savagely into every Reaper in reach, smashing their skeletons into pieces, chopping the skulls off, lodging the curved blade inside their ribcages and then yanking them open like boxes, sending pieces of bone exploding out in every direction. The Greater Reaper leaned down over her and one snake-like, alive rope extended from the gallows on his back and rushed down around the doberman's throat, chocking her and yanking her hard back while he grabbed the scythe in her hands and tore it out of her grip. The soul-sucking blade all but dissolved at his command, but Vera stubbornly threw her body weight into a last thrust and sent the pole spearing through the beast's sternum... but the Greater Reaper snorted in contempt and viciously slammed the pole of his own goliath weapon hard into her face, knocking her over with a breathless cry of agony. "Chain the bitch up for good!" The Greater Reaper snarled, and the smaller creatures around him threw chains down on Vera, wrapping them around her strong body even as she slammed her elbow up and cracked a skull, sending a lower jaw flying off as she sat up as best she could and gripped into one of the chains, tearing it off her throat as her eyes burned with emerald flames. Her powers had no effect on the Reapers, however: their brain was impervious to her influences and they had no cyber or synthetic components that she could hack, and she snarled in a mix of rage and fear, short of options and ideas. She trashed hard against the claws and talons that worked to bind her, and flexed against the chains with all of her strength, huge muscles swelling powerfully and causing steel links to deform and snap apart like toys... and she rolled over with a roar of rage, managing to wrap her arms around the skeletal limb of one of the Reapers and dragging him down to the ground, where she grabbed his skull and smacked viciously into the floor once, twice, thrice, until it disintegrated and left her clawing uselessly at sand-like powder of crystal... before she looked up to see the alien spell-caster at work a few meters away. So close, yet so far, hidden away behind a group of Disciples that nervously spied Killer and Alexis in the distance, visibly trembling in far of those two titans that Cerberus and Thanathos were struggling to keep busy. Vera let out a cry of frustration and despair at the sight of her goal, and her rage seemed to give her new force, making her eyes burn all the brighter as she gazed up into the eyes of one of the disciples... and the bulky, hulking reptilian creature clad in heavy armor visibly shivered and turned to gaze at her with a stupid gape, drooling a bit.

"Yes, puppy... come to me..." Vera growled, a snarling grin spreading on her lips as her mental fingers clawed into the god's mind, and the disciple stepped forwards, pulling up his heavy, rotary multi-barrel machine gun and suddenly opened fire against his comrades, mowing down a first in a cloud of crimson and ugly pulp, disintegrating his body with a deluge of magic-charged armor-piercing rounds, before he trailed his fire on the back of his master just as the spell caster turned around with an expression of shock, rising a arm to create a shield of energy in front of himself, countless bullets bouncing off this with enough force to send him falling over onto his back. The other Disciples immediately rushed forwards to protect their master, aiming their own guns at their mate and opening up without hesitation, ripping him to bloody shreds. Vera glared at them, and her terrible psychic grip got into their heads and into their weapons at once: the miniguns crackled with electricity and ceased firing, malfunctioning as she hacked the circuits inside, but it was too late to save her first slave... and so she directed them onto a different target, dropping flat against the ground as all three fired in her direction, maiming the Reapers into powder and shreds of cloth, pummeling even the Greater Reaper with a tornado of massive bullets that tore through his armor and across his body, blasting out of his back... but the ghastly monstrosity still floated forwards, snarling in fury before slashing his massive scythe through them, chopping their bodies neatly in half and dragging out all three of their souls. Vera's eyes widened as the saw the spirits hang from the bloodied blade, a shiver running down her spine as a horrible sigh came from the ghosts before they were sucked directly into the goliath weapon, causing it to glow brightly as the skulls buried into the pole all filled up with energy, their empty sockets glowing and seeming to glare down at the Doberman.

"Kill her!" The shocked spell-caster squealed, pointing a long finger heavy with rings and jewels in the direction of Vera. "Kill that bitch once and for all! She has betrayed us all; she is only going to cause trouble!"

"Thanathos ordered to take her alive." The Greater Reaper emotionlessly countered, turning around to loom over Vera, who did her best to crawl away from him... before looking up as Alexis landed nearby, slamming her feet into the ground as she crouched and slammed Blue Vixen up into Requiem Aeternam, knocking the great scythe back and immediately pounding Thanathos's face with a burst of heavy caliber rounds from the machine gun hidden inside her sword.

"Alexis!" Vera howled with whatever bit of breath she had left, and the goddess 's eyes darted sideways even as a second manifestation of Thanathos charged in from the side and shot a multitude of heavy chains from the tip of his bony, talon-like fingers. Alexis saw Vera's bloodied, chained-up body and the remains of the carnage around her. The Greater Reaper, and countless other Reapers tossing chains over Vera... and the terrified spell caster god just beyond, and she gritted her fangs with a snarl of fury. For all the battle she had tried to get rid of those accursed microbes that kept up the barrier, but Thanathos and Cerberus were always in the way... Alexis sprung up to her feet, turning to face the incoming dark chains and clenching her fist as she gathered as much energy as she could, even though she still felt it bleeding out in rivers, in seas, as the crystal beneath her feet continued to greedily suck her strength away, the violet barrier pulsing as it too clawed away at Killer's and her strengths.

Vera smirked and dropped her face against the ground, shielding herself as best she could as energy exploded out of Alexis with a terrifying force, generating supernatural, ungodly winds that began to spiral violently around her, slapping away Thanathos and his chains as the goddess floated off the ground and her eyes turned into burning sapphire pits as she roared and spread her arms wide, blasting out a terrible shockwave of psychic rage that crushed the very ground beneath her, denting it inwards, creating a deep, immense crater as the torturing crystal was shattered in even smaller pieces, pulverized, turned into an horrendously abrasive sand that swirled around her in a tornado. Vera grunted and clawed desperately into the disintegrating ground to resist the tremendous gales that slammed with full force into the Greater Reaper behind her, blowing him away like he was merely a piece of cloth. The crystal sand grinding against his heavy armor produced an unreal, terrifying wail that Vera thought she'd never be able to forget, and another, gloomier sound came from the bones as they were grated thin. The Reaper howled in agony and shock, struggling uselessly against the vortex, and when another blast of psychic force came from Alexis, his whole skeleton had already thinned down so much that it simply burst apart in a cloud of dust. The goddess snarled in fury as she focused on producing another blast, even more powerful, and the Disciples struggled to protect their spell-casting masters from the fury of the empress, their combined might wobbling in front of hers, their barriers and shields cracking and bending out of shape, their energies flickering weakly like a candle on the point of being snuffed out by a vicious wind.

Alexis aimed her rage at the enormous expanse of crystal beneath their feet, disintegrating the large plates and fragments into nothing but powder and making a rising gesture with her hands as multiple copies of Thanathos charged at her. The crystal dust rose in an enormous, spiraling column ahead of her and then split into huge beams that whip-lashed ferociously into the manifestations of the god of Death, smashing them all back and grinding their armors away in mere seconds, forcing them to retreat and shield themselves as best they could. Vera cautiously looked up, shivering at the insane amount of energy crackling violently in the air, the wind crushing her down against the crumbling ground, and she searched the spellcaster that had been her target. She snarled as she found nothing but clouds of dust and crystal powder, and pushed herself up with a grunt, barely able to keep her eyes open with how much pain cursed through her form, blood dripping from countless wounds all over her body. The wind seemed to deliberately avoid her, as if it could think with a mind of its own, and she murmured a word of thanks to Alexis for sparing her from that infernal maelstrom. Watching the vortexes of crystal dust consuming metal and bone and flesh in instants made her tremble in a reverent fear that she just couldn't suppress.

She glared down the length of the violet wall of the barrier, and finally she spotted the god she was looking for, a grin spreading on her lips as she saw him bloodied and broken, his back pushed hard against the barrier and his arms trembling visibly as he did his best to hold up a barrier and shield himself from the infernal winds. "Gotcha, bastard..." Vera grumbled, before stomping towards him, silently cursing the pain but picking up speed despite it and clenching her mighty fists as she reached his barrier and slammed her hands down into it in a tomahawk, glaring into the alien's eyes as he shuddered and looked at her in horror.

"Out of there, asshole." Vera venomously commanded, her eyes burning emerald as she used her psychic claws to tear into his mind... but she grunted as the barrier slapped her back, sending pain exploding into her skull. It only made her angrier, and she gritted her fangs as she smashed her fists into the shield once, twice, thrice, denting it, cracking it, while the alien shook his head in despair and pushed back with every little bit of energy he had left... And then one gust of terrible wind coming from Alexis's power seemed to wrap around Vera's arm and extend like a blade in front of her fist, and it tore through the barrier like a knife through butter, reaching down all the way to stab through the terrified alien divinity. Vera swung her arm upwards with a snarl, hefting the broken creature high up above her head and smashing him back into the violet wall before using her other fist to pummel his face into a broken, bloody pulp, striking again and again and again, until the corpse ceased to twitch and she let it collapse on the ground with a snort of contempt.

"Now! Do it now!" Alexis urged, roaring in exertion as Requiem Aeternam again slashed up towards her face and she had to seize the curved blade in her hands, wrestling it away from her while pumping out another blast of energy, disintegrating the crystal in even smaller particles... but it continued to devour their strength away, feeding it into Cerberus and Thanathos. Nothing seemed enough to break that terrible spell, and those ethereal, unbreakable golden veins continued to pump, bulging visibly with the amount of power they passed on to the god of Death and to the king of Alfaya, allowing them to ascend high above other divinities, surpassing by far the power of the other gods.

Killer heard Alexis's voice and snarled as he leaned forwards to grapple the manifestation of Cerberus that currently stood there, locked in a clash with him. Wyvern ground loudly against Cerberus's own blade, and Killer felt spikes of energy ripping into his body but ignored them, gritting his fangs as he reached over to seize the head of the tiger, squeezing on it until he felt the helmet crumple inwards, until bloody pulp spurted out between his fingers, before he hurled the headless corpse against a second Cerberus, sending him stumbling backwards. Killer flexed, roaring as he tossed away the broken remains of the crushed head and his back rippled visibly before thick, enormous black-fleshed tentacles pushed out on either side of his spine and shot across the battlefield, each massive appendage heading for a different spellcaster just as Alexis blew their Disciples off the ground, hefting them all up in a hellish tornado of crackling electricity and crystal powder which tore through everything it touched, rapidly grinding even the most adamantine of metals into nothing but dust.

Howls of agony and despair filled the violet dome as the bodies of countless reapers and alien gods smacked violently together as they were tossed around like toys, sent crashing into the violet wall and into each other while the hurricane of crystal sand literally shredded the flesh off their bones, revealing the skeletons before rapidly grinding even those out of existence. The spellcasters trembled, looking over their shoulders as the gigantic tentacles rushed forwards, jutting with cruel spikes and blades of bone and incandescent golden metal, but before they could give in and flee, or at least turn around to attempt to protect themselves, Cerberus yanked on invisible but very solid leashes and barked: "Keep your stations, useless bastards!" Immediately, the spellcasters surrendered and continued pumping all of their energies into the violet barrier, and Killer smirked as his tentacles reared up for the strike, but Cerberus grinned and leaned forwards, roaring in a mix of pain and delight as his back shifted before erupting forth with a huge tangle of tentacles of its own, which stretched out across the battlefield and coiled around Killer's own, yanking them painfully back away from their targets and crushing down on them hard enough to make the liger wince, dark blood spurting out of both his and Cerberus's tentacles as they maimed each other.

"Thank you, great god! Thank you!" Cerberus cackled, looking almost delirious with glee even as Killer's tentacles, larger and stronger, flexed powerfully and whip-lashed backwards, ripping apart several of his own, which were less muscular, thinner, more embryonic in terms of development. Still, the accursed golden veins pumped power into Cerberus and allowed him to form other tentacles as soon as the firsts were destroyed. "I haven't told you, have I...? How bad of me! Whatever trick you decide to use, you will effectively teach me!" Cerberus gleefully squealed, grinning widely at the look of shock on Killer's face and stepping forwards without hesitation, forming a great blade of golden energy in his hands, all but shaping it roughly like Wyvern as he teased: "So, teach me more, great God... let's see if I can get better with the great sword, shall we...? I love the look of you with that big, heavy lump of metal of yours."

Killer pulled Wyvern up in a ready position while whip-lashing his tentacles violently towards the spellcasters, but the copies of Cerberus used their own tentacles to protect the terrified, restrained aliens, and, before he could think of anything else there was a colossal, terrible tremble that seemed to break the sky in half, and Killer found himself howling in denial as his mind filled with images of the Anchors shattering... and of Seth's body slumping lifelessly away while Reapers prepared to reap his soul away.

"What a shame..." Cerberus patronizingly commented, turning to look to the north as reality itself ripped apart and deformed, far away in the distance, sending a ripple across the sky and a shockwave rolling over the surface, strong enough to slam them all backwards like they were toys and not titans and gods. "Your time just ran out."

"What have you done, you fool?" Killer roared, opening his eyes to stare at the way the horizon deformed, the whole planet trembling violently as it began to collapse away, sucked into the core of that terrible, impossible wound in the fabric of space and time. And high above them, far up in the sky, there was another terrible blast, an explosion that drowned everything in ghastly white light for a moment as a vast area of the sky simply shattered, ripping wide open, revealing the trembling, deformed image of Hell, the Spire looking like an accusing finger aimed down at Killer as reality fell apart and the whole of the Underworld began to push through the wound, invading deep, empty space. "Destroying the Anchors will disintegrate the entire solar system, you, your stupid allies, and everyone else!" Killer roared, slashing Wyvern up with such ferocious strength that it tore right through the golden blade and decapitated Cerberus like he was just a toy.

The other manifestations of the tiger recoiled in surprise and pain, hissing like serpents, but rapidly regained their cool as one the Cerberus stepped up and spread his arms wide, smirking as he countered: "Do you think I do not know that...? I know the Anchors better than you do. Better than even your precious Vesta does! What is happening is exactly what I expected and wanted!"

Cerberus turned around to look towards the sea as terrifying tsunami waves rolled over the cliffs and the hills, washing over even the mountains, flooding the valleys of Alfaya and pushing rapidly inland, cancelling towns and villages before invading the desert around them, a wall of dark, cold water that swallowed dunes and rocks, cliffs and wadis. Killer stared in horror as the world was literally reshaped, and much of it completely cancelled, while the rattling ground beneath his feet cracked and split apart, magma bubbling up through the fissures as distant volcanoes exploded, projecting fire and dark smoke into a sky that was completely unrecognizable. Hell loomed larger and larger into the sky as more of it tore through the wound in reality, looking like it would soon crash down on earth, and the raging sea smashed against the outside of the violet barrier, forcing Killer's Disciples and the alien gods to fly high to avoid being washed away. The battle ground to a stop as friends and foes alike stared in awe at the terrifying violence of the endless succession of gigantic waves, and the ghastly red light coming from the volcanoes and from Hell invading and replacing the sky, turned the ferocious ocean crimson. The waters took on the color of blood as they erased entire nations, whole Colonies, cancelling in an instant much of what was left of the world's populace, already on the brink of extinction after the horrendous devastations of the demonic war. Killer took a moment to realize it because his adamantine body was almost invulnerable and afraid of no flame, but the temperature around him was turning murderous, and he saw the hulks of ships melting away like they were made of butter, dissolving under his eyes while the tidal waves carried them miles and miles inland. Vera fell to her knees with a choked sound of disbelief and horror, staring at the rising sea outside of the violet barrier and trembling as she slumped, shaking her head in weak denial, unable to believe, not ready to accept what she was seeing. Even Alexis stared, speechless, while Thanathos looked at her with a hideous grin of pure satisfaction.

Cerberus, walking slow and measured paces along the edge of the violet wall, grinned widely and declaimed in a powerful, dramatic voice: "War will rage upon the earth, from east to west, from the high north to the deep south. The ice will melt. A new light will fill the sky, born from destruction, and it will paint the oceans crimson. And the seas will reclaim what's theirs, and life will be dragged back into the depths that generated it. And the sea shall rise. And so shall waters turn to blood like that of the dead, and every living thing in the depths shall die. And so shall a red sun rise, and it has power to scorch the people with fire. And so shall the earth turn black and barren, and all upon it shall die!"

Cerberus spread his arms wide and contemplated the apocalypse, smiling widely and finally shouting: "And here it is! The Prophecy of Azura, realized! The end of time has finally come, and the Gathering of Souls is about to begin!" He paused, and then tilted his head to the side, grinning in cruel delight as he gazed patronizingly at Killer, basking in his triumph as he teased: "Come on, hero... this will be the end unless you step in. Come on... we both know that you can stop this destruction, and that you WILL do so."

Killer and Alexis knew that they could not fight Cerberus and Thanathos and at the same time try to stem the devastating deluge of unbridled power exploding out of the broken Anchors. They could keep the world together and save who was left, but it meant renouncing to defending themselves.

"Alexis..." Killer simply whispered, and the goddess, for the first time ever, looked truly terrified, tears filling her eyes as she shook her head in denial and murmured: "No... it can't be..."

"It must be." Killer gently countered, smiling softly at her from over his shoulder. Remember what I said. If necessary, I will let them take me away. This is how it must end. "I love you."

"I love you... I love you, I love you..." Alexis replied, tears rolling down her cheeks as she moved towards him, but the manifestations of Thanathos and Cerberus immediately got in the way, and she howled in unbridled, terrifying fury, causing the enemies closer to her to simply implode in splatters of gore, her blade and her fist tearing through tangles of tentacles, bodies, armors, blades as the two parasite gods kept reforming in her way, no matter how many times she tore them to shreds... "No!" Not without me, my love... don't leave me!

"If you wait any longer, heroes, there will be nothing left to save." Cerberus coldly urged, and for a moment Killer was tempted to just do nothing. To let apocalypse accomplish its course and cancel them all. But how could he betray his daughters, his Disciples, everyone he loved and that he had promised to protect...?

Cerberus, for a moment, stiffened, doubt invading him, making him think that Killer maybe wouldn't intervene in the end... or maybe that he couldn't, that this apocalypse was too great even for his astounding, unlimited might...

But Killer put Wyvern to rest on his back, then spread his arms and aimed them skywards, his palms extending, one of them facing Hell as if to gently coup it and hold it up in the sky, and Cerberus laughed, clapping his hands in delight as he squealed: "That is the hero! That is the mighty Amon Ra, owner of the Apocalypse! Write your Legend!"

And the tiger truly couldn't help himself in front of the glorious spectacle, his mouth agape, drool leaking out of it as he trembled in awe, envy, desire as Killer's feet sunk deeper in the shattered ground, cracking stone into sand with an ease that was simply terrifying. The liger leaned back with a growl, his fingers flexing slightly as if to claw into the unbridled flood of destructive energy erupting out of the wounds in the fabric of Reality, and his glorious biceps flexed, bulging majestically, thick veins protruding out in full evidence as the massive chords of muscle swelled explosively. The liger's whole body thrummed with terrifying power, his great musculature pressing outwards and threatening to rip through his black battle armor even though it was made not of real metal but of the incarnation of fear, of the mind-shattering energies of a conquered, unkillable entity that went beyond the understanding even of gods. His immense form towered over Cerberus as he grew even greater, and the strength radiating off him made the tiger feel like nothing but a flea. Killer's presence was incomparable, unfathomable, his burning sapphire gaze alone was like a crushing, inescapable burden, an unbreakable Law above all others. Killer's abs were bare and glorious, rippling with pure power as the god of gods pushed back again the force that had created everything, that had sparked life, meeting it with his own unmatched strength and crushing those archaic, timeless forces into submission. The raging sea rapidly quieted down, the tsunami waves silently retreating as if in terror as Killer snorted steam from his nostrils, and Cerberus trembled in awe, in disbelieving admiration as the sky split apart and two enormous vortexes of black, terrible primordial energy tore through space, one coming from the high north, one from Hell; both humbly, almost fearfully coiling around the liger's omnipotent arms and then folding into his muscles, absorbed into him like fuel, making him even more powerful, even though they would have incinerated any other being, any other entity, any other god. The planet ceased to tremble, but the ground under Killer's feet cracked even more violently and collapsed into a deep crater, leaving the god floating easily over a deep abyss that crackled with massive bolts of energy, excess power that radiated out of his form, mere sparkles... sparkles that could turn a lesser divinity into ashes in one instant. And in front of that glorious beast, every divinity was a lesser, unworthy creature. Killer's body flexed with every breath. Massive biceps bulged and throbbed, his mountainous chest heaved, his abs flexed and cast shadows in the deep valleys of strength between them, while veins pulsed across the behemoth's form, those rippling cords pumping not blood, but pure power into every inch of his colossal form. A light sheen of sweat covered his almighty muscles and made him look polished and gleaming, perfect and glorious, titanic and impossible and terrifying. With a snarl and a slight flick of his hand, Killer forced the wound in the sky to open wider, releasing Hell without crushing it into pieces, and Cerberus gazed upwards in amazement as the entire Underworld floated high above, turning slowly around as great shockwaves of energy caused the Spire to rattle violently and devastated the circular provinces arranged around it. Hell convulsed as if alive and in agony, and it was clear that it would disintegrate unless its shape was changed, and Killer closed his eyes with a growl, his body flexing with absolute, undeniable power, his dominance supreme and unyielding, as he forced Space and Time to bend to his will, as Reality itself rippled and warped, fled from his power. The very structure of Hell bend in front of their astonished eyes, and new land grew all around it as Killer folded the dying Dimension up like it was nothing more than a sheet of paper, forming a new, large, crimson planet. Cerberus admired the new world as it was forged, seeing Hell becoming countless times greater than it had been, even the Spire suddenly looking almost small as entire continents and seas were born around it, before the atmosphere began to hide some of the new features under great clouds. They all felt the weight of the new Hell interfering with Earth's own gravity, and objects began to float off the ground, attracted by the new planet, which again caused the oceans to raise higher... but Killer, with fearsome ease, made a gentle shoving gesture with his open palm and sent the great red planet moving back, away from Earth and from Heaven, until it found a safe orbit of its own. Cerberus couldn't help but shiver in awe at that display of power, hugging himself quietly and panting as his traitorous body let go and his painfully hard member spewed his load inside his crystal armor, making him blush in a mix of delight and shame, rage and relief, his nostrils flaring wide as he instinctively filled his lungs with the stench of that titan, of that impossible beast, that monster that was a superior male to him in every way, a supreme incarnation of power. Killer was apocalypse incarnate, the master of reality. His muscles were Destruction in its most tremendous form; his body was conquest and eternal supremacy; his hands were War and Pestilence. He was the absolute lord and master of everything. His black armor covered only his chest and shoulders, his hands in heavy gauntlets and his feet and shins protected by heavy, terrible combat boots of massive black plates, while he hadn't bothered reforming his loincloth and belts and groin plate, leaving his maleness naked and in glorious display. And it was only fitting, because the monstrous shaft hanging between his legs only made his titanic form all the more terrifying and omnipotent. There was something just so right in seeing him give shape to a whole new world while his humongous cock ponderously dangled down far past his knees, throbbing with undeniable, unfathomable, unmatchable masculinity and strength, with endless virility; longer, vaster, thicker than a cruise ship, covered in a thick layer of sweat-precum that was black and thick as tar, leaking down in enormous ropes that could generate countless new worlds. It drove home the point that he was the omnipotent Father of All, and his goliath, godlike balls throbbed powerfully behind it, heavy and ponderous, gigantic and full of potency, looking like they were the size of mountains, no, of planets... and Cerberus swallowed thickly, trembling in fear and awe in front of that supreme, unrivalled maleness, his body covered in fearful sweat as he literally felt the heat of those goliath, titanic balls throbbing in the air above him, burning at his skin like they were twin, enormous suns.

"Yes... Yes!" Cerberus exclaimed, spreading his arms wide even as several manifestations of him fought against Alexis, struggling to keep her away from the scene. He laughed almost maniacally, basking in the glorious display of power that he dreamt of for all of his life. "You were right when you said that I dreamt of you every night! I dreamt of this power, tried to imagine it, to visualize it... And you are everything I had dreamed of, and then so much more. So. Much. More! Far more than a mortal mind could ever dream of! Ascend, glorious god! Let every universe tremble and cower before your glory!"

Killer snarled at that, closing his eyes with a grimace of fury as he focused on driving Earth and Hell safely apart while absorbing immense amounts of energy to keep the planet from exploding into pieces under his feet, while the wound in reality at the north pole continued to expand, at once pushing the continents apart and dragging everything into a dark, super-dense core of pure destruction. The liger let out a roar of frustration, pain, rage and disbelief all at once, throwing his head back as he howled in denial: he couldn't believe it. He was the strongest being ever to exist. He was at the very apex. He was stronger than he could ever have dreamt of... and yet he was powerless, incapable to defend himself, completely absorbed by his lone struggle against the apocalypse.

And Cerberus licked his lips, savoring that awareness before snapping his fingers, causing the immediate blossoming of a multitude of new portals which swarmed with Greater Reapers and alien gods carrying enormous tangles of chains made of incandescent, golden crystal and all ending in cruel hooks and harpoons and claws. Cerberus looked over his army with a grin of satisfaction and then tilted his head to smirk mockingly up at Killer, taunting: "Show us all of your glory... And let it be the prelude to mine!"

Killer closed his eyes, trying to repress the shiver of fear that went down his spine as he prepared for the agony that he knew was to come. He couldn't let go of the twin floods of destructive energies coming from the shattered anchors, and he could barely spare a thought to defend himself... and as powerful as he now was, a thought was not going to suffice.

He swallowed thickly, but made sure to force his eyes open to face his tormenters and jailers as they prudently came closer, a little closer, trembling hard and visibly terrified of his towering, immense, glorious form looming over them all. The Greater Reapers all aimed their lanterns at him, those ghastly floating lights pointing their blinding eyes against him as all the hourglasses turned slowly around to slow down the flow of time around him. Hundreds, thousands of them... and yet Killer resisted, his flexing muscles smashing through their ancient magic even as they combined their efforts. The heaving of his masculine chest as he breathed hard with the exertion of standing up to the apocalyptic forces of Light and Darkness was enough to tear through Time and cause dozens of the enchanted hourglasses to explode into fragments of crystal and small clouds of sand, and the Greater Reapers hesitated, shuddering in horror and fear even though their minds were blank and bent to Thanathos and Cerberus's whims.

Killer forced an arrogant grin on his features, but for once his bravado was truly only a bluff. He couldn't help but curse loudly in his mind. He refused to give Cerberus the pleasure of spotting his rage, his frustration and his terror, but he screamed inside. At his apex, stronger than he could even dream of... and yet, for the first time ever, truly powerless.

"Don't waste time, seal him!" Cerberus urged, and his voice betrayed all of his fear and anxiety, his eyes seeking Alexis and Vera as the two females fought desperately, destroying gods and Reapers and manifestations of both Cerberus and Thanathos, gaining ground slowly but surely... "Seal him, I said! Seal his abilities away!"

"Come at me, if you dare!" Killer taunted, and he tilted his head slightly to the side, grinning predatorily as he glared at Cerberus, and a terrifying blast of psychic force erupted out of him. Two Greater Reapers mindlessly moved in front of Cerberus, shielding him with their bodies, and both were crushed into bone dust and ragged cloth, instantaneously slapped out of existence with a sick crunch, while several other gods and Reapers were smashed flying away like toys. The whole armada wobbled as Cerberus retreated with a squeal of panic and surprise, but Killer's back bent painfully, albeit only for a brief instant, his muscles bulging explosively, almost ripping through his own hide as he gritted his fangs and pushed back against the crushing force of the Apocalypse, rasping out a breath heavy with exertion. Hell lurched visibly back towards Earth with Killer's brief distraction, and the liger did his best to suffocate a wince of pain as the force coming from the annihilated North Pole clamped into his arm with a vengeance, threatening to shatter the bone and maim the glorious muscles.

"Bind him! Take him down before it is too late, you idiots!" Cerberus screamed, and Killer loved the note of fear in it as the usurper god moved back another step, his eyes open wide as he stared at the liger. "No, no... he is too powerful... and he keeps getting stronger, he is nowhere near fully ascended yet! Bind him now! Now!" Cerberus shoved both palms forwards, and Killer spotted electric pulses traveling down nearly invisible ethereal cables that went into the back of the Reapers' skulls. The grim harvesters immediately rushed forwards, mindlessly charging at him, and he again lashed out with his psychic force, turning the beasts in front of him into nothing but powder... but then he growled in agony as the weight on his arms became unbearable and his shoulders visibly slumped. He snarled and immediately focused all his efforts on pushing back, working to restrain the flood and feeling like he was trying to stem two huge breaches in a colossal dam with his bare hands... and dozens of scythes glinted malignantly ahead of his face, making him shiver as they all slashed down. One after the other they stabbed viciously down into his chest, causing blood to spray thickly out and up over his own features as he let out a roar of pain and fury, his muscles flexing and crushing the adamantine blades, bending them out of shape, pushing them back out of the rapidly healing wounds even as the Reapers hugged the thick poles and leaned down with all of their strength and all of their bodies, trying to push down. They also looped chains around his arms and neck, throwing countless lines over his herculean form and stabbing hooks and harpoons into his flesh, trying to secure the heavy chains in place even as every breath, every little flex of his muscles caused thick chains to snap apart like so much as old spider webs.

Cerberus ducked as broken crystal links shot all around like shrapnel, tearing through Greater Reapers and gods before dissolving in midair, and he pointed a finger at the titanic liger, yelling furiously to his allies and slaves even as he retreated further. "Bind him! Restrain him! Drain him! Move, you bunch of idiots! We don't have all day!"

More and more chains snapped ferociously down against Killer's body, and more Reapers floated forwards and then viciously stabbed their scythes into his powerful back, draining even more energy out of him as his blood ran in streaks down his chiseled form, dripping to form large lakes on the bottom of the crater, soaking the crystal powder and causing corrupted life to sprout upwards, forming tentacle-like plants that several alien gods immediately attempted to burn out of existence, sending dark flames washing out all over the growing appendages. They had seen what they could become and didn't want to deal with that nightmare again. The mindless Reapers cried out in agony as the immense amount of energy tearing through their scythes cut into them, burning them from the inside until their bones cracked and half-melted away, and Killer flexed his almighty form and sent enormous, terrible tentacle-beasts rearing out of his back and ripping through the literal crowd of divinities and Greater Reapers piling up on his shoulders and dragging him down. Killer looked down at his chest almost like it was the body of someone else, because the flow of raging energy within him mixed with the pain to form a mind-numbing, confusing mix of torturing sensations. His whole body burned, and pain assaulted him from all sides, and his mind rebelled at the sight of dozens of scythes pierced deep into his chest, so many that they clanged together and the new ones still slashing down against him struggled to find an exposed inch of flesh to assault. Their adamantine, supernatural metal crumpled and corroded rapidly as it was crushed by his flexing muscles and soaked by his corruptive blood, but he could feel an enormous amount of his forces just leaking out of him while his mind slowly focused on the fact that he looked like a pincushion and that he should very much have been dead already...Killer found himself absently wondering about how far those blades reached within him, and how anything of his organs could possibly be still intact. The pain made it impossible to truly understand what was going on, and his resistance was a matter of instinct, not of conscious thought. His tentacles whip-lashed violently in the air behind him, tearing through the ranks of Greater Demons and smashing alien divinities flying back in bloody, broken heaps as the massive, curved spikes smashed down like flails, crumpling armors and crushing chests wide open, sending a reptilian god collapsing to the floor with most of his torso smashed open wide, his inner organs pulped and leaking out of him as he desperately tried to breathe, causing the great wound to rasp out sinister, terrifying suction sounds that somehow seemed louder than the sounds of battle even as Alexis tore her way through the armada of beings trying to hold her back.

A couple of draconic alien gods armed with enormous flaming cleavers stepped forth and began to chop their way through Killer's tentacles as they blindly slashed and stabbed at the crowd behind the liger, and Killer hissed in pain as he felt the severed appendages flailing and retreating back into his flesh. He tried to form new ones, but for the first time ever he found that it was a sluggish and painful process. He roared in fury and pain as he finally managed to thrust one out, a massive, muscular tentacle ending in a cruel harpoon of golden metal that stabbed one of the dragons into the chest and pierced him from side to side, hefting him high up in the air and then whip-lashing violently from side to side until the golden blade tore entirely through flesh and bone and armor, sending the corpse crashing down into the other monsters like a bloody meteor... but Cerberus and the others did not fail to notice that he was at the limit and the number of chains thrown over him immediately redoubled as more alien divinities stepped forth, chanting in a language that Killer couldn't recognize and yanking hard on glowing chains of energy that coiled all around his chest and then squeezed with tremendous force, crushing the air out of his lungs even as countless lines broke apart, exploding into motes of violet energy. Others, however, dug into his flesh... and Killer found himself snarling in fury and agony as the sharp links burned horrendously into his flesh, making him shudder violently as his skin sizzled and smoldered while the violet chains sunk inside him, leaving behind glowing scars. Even in the pain-induced haze, Killer immediately understood that he was being Sealed again, just like he had been as a newborn child... back then it had been 8 chains, and now it was dozens upon dozens, while dozens more kept shattering like brittle glass.

With every chain that pierced deep into his body, however, he felt some of his force slipping away, and his body began to shrink visibly, until he started to feel the strength of the countless beings yanking hard on the chains. He started to stumble forwards, struggling to resist to their assault... and he gritted his fangs with a cry of pain and frustration as he gazed skywards, watching as the new planet Hell moved slowly back through the sky, towards a safe orbit, and he did his best to put the finishing touches to its core, to ensure that it would not collapse, that it would not fall apart under the pressure of the immense energies that pushed to vent through it.

Ira was up there, and Boadicea, and Kimera, and Insatiables and Dark Wings and demons and countless others, people that he knew and loved as well as people he had never met but who looked up at him for protection and guidance... and he was not going to fail them. The forces of Light and Darkness continued to tear through his arm, flooding into him, and he couldn't help but realize that they no longer felt alien: they were his energies, his strength. And even as chain after chain snapped shut around his chest, leaving smoldering scars across his herculean form, he could feel that immense power inside him. Suspended, imprisoned in a sort of dark chest held shut but those uncountable chains. The Reapers couldn't drain it out of him. They couldn't even dream of touching his true power: it was too great, too immense, and too ferocious for them to survive any sort of contact with it. None of the energies bleeding out of him were lost forever: all they could do was put an endless drain to his strength just so he couldn't yank those flimsy chains apart.

They are turning me into a treasure chest... too weak to get to the treasure myself... too weak to defend it from them... Killer shuddered at the thought of what laid ahead of him. They were going to try and dig that treasure out of him, and for sure they weren't going to do it with any kind of regard for his well being.

He did his best to force that horrible awareness out of his mind, closing his eyes instead as the deluge of destructive force coming from the North Pole smashed into him in ripples and waves, slamming him backwards with a grunt, his muscles bulging explosively as pushed back with all of his strength. It was like the planet itself was yanking on his arm, tugging at his fingers as it split apart, cracking open down the middle, its crust threatening to explode outwards and blow them all into oblivion.

An unreal, terrifying column of magma and raw energy towered over the horizon as the contents of the planet's core were blasted skywards by the ripples of power ripping through it, and Killer's arm trembled violently as he clenched his hand, squeezing that deluge of power into his palm and dragging it inside himself. It was like he was squeezing the planet in his fist, forcing it together against its will and the will of the almighty, above-godlike entities that had sparked Creation with their duel... And Killer let out a cry of pain, leaning forwards without noticing it, his legs almost giving out under his weight, his balance suddenly affected by the forest of long scythe-poles sticking out of his chest. They had been feathers, their weight insignificant and unnoticed, but now they felt heavier than Killer could describe.

Cerberus grinned widely at that, knowing that his victory was near, and he snapped his fingers and pointed at Vera, growling: "I want her too. Bring me the traitorous whore!"

Crystal chains were immediately whip-lashed against the Doberman, and a group of Greater Reapers swarmed her, turning their hourglasses to freeze her in a bubble of still time as she struggled with all of her strength, slashing a great scythe stolen from one of the harvesters she had taken down. Countless lanterns aimed their sinister, supernatural light at her and Killer shuddered as he heard her shrieks of agony... and then the silence as time clamped shut around her, making her a prisoner of her own immobile body.

"Let her go, you coward...!" Killer snarled, gazing sideways at the skeletal harvesters as they yanked hard on the chains, dragging the Doberman across the battlefield. Cerberus snorted in contempt at that, turning to grin up at him as he patronizingly underlined: "You are not in a position to ask for anything, I'm afraid."

Killer gritted his fangs and lashed out with a psychic blast, trying to erase the smirk from the tiger's face, but he couldn't spare enough energy to make his assault effective, and Cerberus slapped it away with a bored flick of his wrist, his whole body surrounded for a moment by an intense golden glow as the ethereal veins pumping power into him jumped and swelled so much that Killer dared hoping they would rip apart. Sadly, they didn't, and the liger recoiled as the planet seemed to flex angrily against his hand, punishing him for his brief distraction. His eyes remained fixed on Cerberus as he seized the ends of the heavy chains wrapped around Vera, yanking the paralyzed female hard forwards over the cruel crystal sand that ground the skin off her back. He dragged her up to her feet, wrapping the chains around his muscular arm and pulling her up until her muzzle was mere inches away from his. Her eyes burned with fury as Cerberus leaned down and kissed her immobile features, licking up the blood from her cheek before he venomously growled: "We'll settle the score, you little, duplicitous whore. Your show on the field today will get properly... rewarded. I'll make sure you never again get this kind of insane ideas. You are mine, and you'll stay with me... at least until your usefulness lasts."

Killer snarled in uncontrollable rage at that, and he all but moved a step forwards, his foot sinking deep into the ground as he stumbled forwards, feeling like he was carrying the universe on his shoulders... and the ground cracked under that weight, rattling the whole desert and causing Cerberus to turn towards him with a gape of shock. His lip trembled in a mix of terror and rage, and he stiffened visibly as Killer roared in pain and began to pull one foot up, struggling against its absurd weight and against the terrible force tearing violently through his arms as the whole planet pulsed violently. The tiger clenched his fist and then yelled furiously: "How...? How is he still moving! Take him down!"

Alexis's furious roar came from the other side of the armada of Reapers, gods and manifestations of Cerberus and Thanathos, and there was a literal explosion of blood and gore as an alien god with all of his Disciples were crushed into the earth by a terrifying blast of psychic force that ground them down for hundreds of feet, until their bodies were literally liquefied and turned into shreds of meat. The goddess viciously caught another god by the skull, lifting him high above her head and then crushing his head like it was a rotten tomato, before savagely hook-kicking the falling corpse before it could touch the ground, sending it exploding into a group of Reapers like a fleshy missile. Blue Vixen slashed through one manifestation of Cerberus, chopping the legs off from under him, and before the torso could even collapse forwards she stomped it under her boot with enough force to tear right through the torso, squishing the heart, impaling it on her sharp high heel. Cerberus stared at her in horror, dragging Vera in front of him, using her like a sort of shield while he urged: "Bind him and let's get out of here!"

Killer followed Cerberus's gaze and gritted his fangs at the sight of Thanathos moving forwards with Requiem Aeternam cocked back, ready to strike. His features were as always invisible behind a supernatural darkness somehow contained within his hood, but Killer knew that he was grinning as wide as he possibly could. "I've waited so long for this very moment..."

"What a sad life you must have." Killer spat, fearlessly standing tall before the personification of Death even as Requiem Aeternam glinted malignantly, the countless skulls embodied in the pole and along the spine of the blade all seeming to look at the liger with hunger and craving, their empty sockets filling with sinister light. Thanathos snickered, and then swung his enormous blade down, using both hands to drive it with all of his strength. Vera let out a howl that somehow carried through even the frozen time bubble surrounding her, and Alexis's roar of denial and fury and horror sent a ripple of devastating force tearing through the armada of gods and Reapers, knocking many of them out of her way and disintegrating several others, allowing her to spring forwards, tearing through their ranks, getting closer to Killer... and the huge male welcomed that shockwave like it was a hug. It carried her personality, her lover, her strength. Killer snarled and flexed, leaning forwards and smashing into Thanathos with all the psychic force he could spare, but almost immediately the energies erupting out of the planet threatened to crush him, his bones loudly creaking as his arm bent painfully back... and Killer's lips crested in a sad little smile as Thanathos recoiled slightly, but tore through the shockwave with a snort of contempt.

The liger put his energies back into saving the world, extending his arm and pushing back slowly but surely. His mind filled with images of Alexis, Mriya, Elaine, Kathy, Anubis and of all his other lovers, and daughters and sons and friends, and he knew that he could not fail them. He slowly forced his hand closed, squeezing the planet back together, and the massive cracks that were tearing the continent apart suddenly closed, healing like wounds as he forced the seas to retreat back down the valleys they had invaded. He couldn't allow the apocalypse caused by Cerberus's selfish, lucid madness to devour the world and all the ones he loved and cherished. He couldn't let go of the tremendous force that, if released fully, would have destroyed everything and everyone, erasing them like stains. He couldn't bear the thought of those smiles he adored being cancelled. For a moment, he saw the faces of his loved ones melting away, consumed by an indescribable, hellish fire that turned them into skeletons and then into nothing but ashes. No, he couldn't allow that. He forced the image out of his mind, and stared instead at Alexis's warm little smile, at her glowing sapphire eyes looking at him every morning, when they woke up, tangled together, inches away. He smiled softly, and he could feel the warmth of her body as if she was truly there in his arms. The pain ceased to matter. He no longer felt it.

Requiem Aeternam struck him straight in the chest, unopposed. There was a sick, wet sound as the enormous blade tore deep through his musculature, his flesh, and then directly through his heart, and Alexis saw the long blade push out of Killer's muscular back, completely covered in blood, and her own heart missed a beat and made her wince as she shared his pain, felt the same terrible blow reverberating through her own body. And then she howled in denial and fury and despair and wrath, tears flying from her eyes as her anguish exploded in form of power, a tremendous blast that traveled through the emptiness of space, smashing into Heaven and Hell, rattling the planets whole while machines malfunctioned and overloaded with tremendous amounts of electricity, and every last living being cried out in agony as her pain and fury tore into every mind and every heart, causing them to pound violently. The gods around her were burned into ashes, and the spell-casters howled in agony, grasping their heads with screams of horror, almost trying to rip their own skulls off their necks as the psychic wrath of the goddess burned them from within.

Tentacles stretched out of her muscular back and whip-lashed savagely out in every direction, twisting together and jutting with terrible spikes that tore through everything and everyone, maiming gods into nothing but liquid, and the violet barrier around the battlefield cracked and dented outwards, then groaned audibly and almost collapsed as it was sucked towards her while powerless Reapers began to orbit around her, howling in anguish as they were incinerated by her energies.

Alexis roared in a mix of emotions that threatened to make her insane, and her body grew even larger, her muscles bulging explosively as she stomped gods underfoot like bugs, her incandescent tears burning others out of existence as she grabbed manifestations of Cerberus and Thanathos with her mind, hefted them into the air and ripped them to pieces only to use their pathetic remains as deadly javelins and spears that she sent tearing through the crowd that dared stand in her way, while her tentacles flailed and whip-lashed and contorted, viciously massacring everyone in range, immediately wrapping around every unlucky soul that didn't get away quickly enough and shredding them into unrecognizable gore before they could even attempt to defend themselves.

Thanathos looked at her with horror even as he greedily drank of the immense amounts of energy that flooded out of Killer and crackled down the pole of Requiem Aeternam, burning their way through his body with such ferocity that he was blasted backwards and crashed on his back. The god of Death scampered backwards and forced himself back up as best he could, his eyes bulging with terror as the violet barrier around them again pulsed and large pieces of it began to fall apart as Killer's Disciples smashed their fists and weapons into its damaged surface. "We... we can't take her down...!" Thanathos blurted out, trembling in fear as another colossal shockwave of power exploded out of Alexis and smashed past, knocking him again to the ground as alien gods and spell casters simply exploded into clouds of crimson and disgusting ichors, friends and enemies alike blown off their feet and sent shaking through the air as she tore her way through the entire army, Blue Vixen slashing upwards and tossing broken bodies flying in every direction in a macabre explosion of gore as her power rippled through space in defiance of the laws of space and time.

"We don't need to." Cerberus hurriedly replied, trying to sound reassuring even as he instinctively shielded himself with Vera's powerful but tightly chained-up body. "We have what we need, let's get out of here! Get us out!"

Gods and greater reapers yanked hard on the multitude of chains binding Killer, and the great god stumbled forwards just as a massive portal opened in the ground beneath them. His feet slipped into it, and he began to sink through the wound in reality, especially as his jailers rapidly dived into the portal, pulling on the chains to drag him down. He did his best to resist, he tried to move back, to float out of that rippling, ghastly white wound in reality, but Requiem Aeternam and the other scythes glowed ferociously in reply and greedily sucked out even more of his strength, sending it leaking out of him together with his blood.

Thanathos tossed new and massive chains up onto his extended arms, and Killer winced as they burned into his enormous biceps, digging deep into his flesh as the god of Death yanked violently backwards and forced his arms together.

Killer snarled, feeling the deluge of apocalyptic forces slipping out of his control, out of his trembling fingers, and he did his best to hold on, to keep the planet together as volcanoes erupted and great cracks again thundered open. "A-Alexis...!" He called, with as much voice as he could gather, and the goddess shouted his name, her voice giving him the chills because it was loaded with her love... and warped by her despair, a note that he couldn't bear to hear in her voice. "Alexis!" He again shouted. "I love you!"

He flexed hard against the chains and seals, desperately trying to break free, but Thanathos only dragged him further down... but Killer managed to at least bend an arm, snapping two heavy crystal chains into pieces as he reached down and seized Wyvern's handle. Cerberus immediately hurled a huge spear of crackling energy against his arm, trying to disarm him, but Killer gritted his fangs and did his best to suffocate the howl of agony that rose up his throat as the javelin tore through his bicep from side to side, weighting down his arm and adding to his agony. Still, he tore Wyvern free and hurriedly tossed the great sword towards Alexis. Cerberus let out a roar of furious denial at losing such precious trophy and he half ran after it, extending one hand towards the glowing crimson sword and trying to yank it down with his own psychic reach, but the sword refused to listen, crackling angrily with energy and causing him to recoil with a grunt. He looked at the blade with longing, cursing violently as he saw it lost, but no matter how much he craved for Wyvern he was wise enough to just clutch Vera hard against his body and vanish down into the portal, eager to get away from the furious goddess as she easily caught Wyvern in midair and savagely swung the massive weapon through one of the tiger's copies, ripping him in two from head to groin. She rammed her shoulder into another god who tried to tackle her and smashed him flying like a toy, her muscles bulging with power as she swung Wyvern in one hand and Blue Vixen in the other, chopping down gods and Reapers and cutting some of the chains that were strangling Killer, finally almost in reach of him... but her eyes widened in horror as she saw him sinking rapidly through the portal. She threw herself towards the wound in reality, but Killer again spoke her name, with all the love he could express, with all the adoration he could fit in his tone, but also with a prayer and an order. Stay back. If they get you too, then it is over. Their eyes met for one last, brief time as he managed to turn around enough to gaze over his shoulder, and before Alexis could say a thing of the million that chaotically filled her mind, he smiled softly and flexed, throwing towards her the visible, snake-like vortex of destructive force that he had managed to control and restrain but that still struggled to break free of his control. Finish the job, my love.

"I'll find you!" Alexis promised even as tears rolled down her cheeks as she put Blue Vixen away on her back, clenching the handle of Wyvern in one hand for comfort, feeling Killer's warmth on it and tasting his energies and presence in the great weapon. She reached up with her free hand to catch the dark stream of forces coming from Hell and from the North Pole... and she grunted in awe at the sheer violence of the forces that immediately attempted to crush her out of existence as they pulsed and threatened to explode out of her grip. She stared straight at Killer as he rapidly vanished down the portal, but then Thanathos's cloak closed over them, casting him, Cerberus and Killer complete, impossible, unforgiving darkness that not even her sixth sense could pierce in any way... and in an instant they were gone.

"I'll find you, my love... you are the best..." Alexis whispered, staring brokenly at the ground where the portal had been just an instant before. Her arm shuddered as she squeezed down on that apocalyptic force even though it was already mostly tamed: Hell was stable and orbiting at a safe distance from earth and the planet's wounds were mostly sealed. She could barely imagine what Killer had just dealt with: if the force in her hand was still great enough to make her shiver, the original deluge of destructive energy that Killer had stopped and tamed was hard to even fathom. You are the best, my love. I will find you, Lion... I will... I promise, I will...

The many manifestations of Cerberus and Thanathos immediately vanished, dissolving into nothing but motes of stolen energies as the ethereal golden veins deflated and fell apart, no longer attached to anything... and the Reapers quickly attempted to hide into their cloaks and teleport away, while many of the alien gods that remained seemed to suddenly wake up from a terrifying nightmare. Several of them all but threw themselves towards the portal only to crash down on the solid ground, half-sinking in pulverized crystal as the portal vanished.

"Oh, no, you are not getting away..." Alexis venomously hissed, and the Reapers were frozen in time and viciously yanked down to the ground, smashed in the dirt as the goddess's tentacles reared up in the air around her, black fleshed, stained crimson with the blood of countless victims, dangerous, ridged and spiked, muscular appendages ending in fat, ungodly flared cockheads that slammed down with enough force to crush Reapers into bone bust and rip through the bodies of gods, spearing into orifices, making her victims howl out in anguish. "How did you dare, you insolent dregs..." Alexis savagely snarled, clenching her hand into a fist, crushing the residual apocalyptic energies into her palm and devouring them whole, causing the planet to shudder under her feet as if cowering in fear and awe of her strength. In a moment, as she clenched her fist shut so viciously that she tore into her own flesh, bleeding lightly, the planet pulsed as the gigantic crater at the North Pole was suddenly filled up by rapidly growing crystal formations that became as big as a mountain and then even more, until the wound in reality was entirely plugged and the planet welded back in one piece. The colossal formation of clear crystal in the end surpassed any other mountain in extension and in height, growing up to loom over the planet whole, visible even from Alfaya.

Alexis did not care about the mountain, nor did she take any pride in the enormity of what she had just accomplished: she was filled by nothing but rage and despair and loss, and her eyes burned with savage pleasure but zero satisfaction as her tentacles lashed outwards, moving viciously fast, becoming a tremendous multitude, a tangle of dozens upon dozens of terrifying appendages that plowed through bodies and smashed skeletons into powder, ripping into shreds every being around her as she roared in uncontrollable, endless rage: "How did you dare stand in our way, you useless maggots! Not worth my time. Not even worth this much effort, you fleas. I will destroy even the memory of your existence; I will disintegrate even your fucking past!""

Now that Cerberus and Thanathos were gone and the infernal trap of crystal no longer drained her strength out of her, she was beginning to realize just how powerful she had become, and just how weak everyone around her truly was. It only added to her fury and frustration, because they had been able to checkmate her despite the enormous power difference. It was humbling to think that Cerberus, originally no more than a mere mortal, had somehow managed to organize everything, foresee their reactions, plan out for them and turn their power against them. It was a horrible awareness. It was humiliating, and she utterly hated feeling ashamed and humiliated. And she had never felt worse in her whole life, with Killer gone, completely gone, out of sight and out of reach, dragged away from her in chains, with blades stuck through his whole body. She desperately tried to reach out of his mind, to hear even just one thought, one fragment, to perhaps trade a word... just one word. Being able to hear each other, even in bits and pieces, even faintly, would have meant the world and more. But no matter how she tried, she got only silence, horrible emptiness that left her breathlessly thinking of what he was going through, of where they were dragging him, of what they were going to do to him.

She roared in unarticulated fury and despair, running forwards blindly, her eyes full of tears as she just charged into what was left of the army of Reapers and gods, ignoring their pathetic weapons as they shattered uselessly against her flexing muscles, and she viciously clawed into the mass of squirming bodies, snarling as her fingers crushed bones into nothing but powder, crumpling heavy armor plates like they were made of paper. She smashed Wyvern viciously through the enemy ranks, battering broken corpses and shreds of gore flying across the battlefield, and when the alien gods again tried to run away from her and open portals she made a yanking gesture and dragged them backwards through the air, making them howl in anguish as her psychic rage rampaged inside their minds, melting their brains and literally sending bloody pulp leaking out of their ears. Gods and reapers floated helplessly around her, cowering in panic and curling up in agony as they orbited around her almighty, muscular form. They struggled with all of their forces, trying to break free, but it made absolutely no difference: Alexis's terrifying power was far too great, and now that it was not drained away and stolen out of her form, it kept growing greater, feeding itself to greater and greater heights. It was an avalanche, and her body rapidly devoured all of the apocalyptic force she had torn out of the North Pole's wound in reality. Her body assimilated it all: that dark, destructive hurricane of force that was made up by Unworld essence and an ungodly amount of primordial energies that had once belonged to Light and Darkness; the uncountable mortal souls released by the world-destroying cataclysm; the lost pieces of the planet itself, and then hundreds of gods and Reapers that she viciously squished into pulp, squeezing them in her hand like they were nothing but rotten fruits. She smeared their blood and pulp over her face, down her neck, across her prodigious breasts, over her enormous biceps and glorious abs, and their liquid remains rapidly dissolved, burned out of existence by the heat and energy radiating out of her muscular form. Whatever force they had to give was greedily absorbed into her body, and the most fearsome part for the helpless prisoners of her psychic grip was that it all seemed to add little to her unfathomable power. Droplets falling into a vast ocean, at best.

The spell-casters positioned all along the perimeter of the immense violet bubble desperately tried to hide, to make themselves as small and unimportant as possible as they struggled against her psychic wrath, uselessly attempting to open portals to escape from that inferno. Their disciples shielded them as best they could, but Alexis wanted them all to suffer, to pay for the part they had played in the battle. Their end was going to be cruel, slow, terrible... and even in her fury, Alexis was wise enough to know that while the Reapers were truly little more than puppets in the hands of Thanathos and thus could provide no useful information at all, those alien gods could perhaps provide some answer. She very much looked forwards to tearing every hint of information out of their skulls, and she snarled like a beast when a few small portals began to open in the distance. "You think you can just run away from me, you disgusting little dregs?"

Her monstrous tentacles flexed powerfully and stretched longer, whip-lashing into the opening passages and smashing them out of existence before coiling eagerly around the struggling disciples, hefting them off the ground. The tentacle's colossal bodies jutted with cruel spikes that maimed and destroyed the disciples, making short work of them, all but liquefying their bodies as they whip-lashed through shields and barriers, smashing gods flying away like toys and grounding others into pulp into the broken ground at the bottom of the deep crater that the battleground had turned into. When the last few alien warriors attempted to fight back against the enormous tentacles, hitting them with rifles and blades of all kinds, several of the gigantic members reared up high into the air as their colossal equine flares swelled to their full, astonishing glory, making a mockery of the desperate efforts of the helpless gods down below. The gigantic cocks seemed to look patronizingly down at the weak, puny beings, their vast single "eyes" gaping wide open and blasting out colossal loads of thick, black precum as Alexis growled: "You are just dust. Arrogant specks of dirt who still dare dreaming, hoping that there is a way out of this... there is not."

She paused, grinning savagely as they pleaded and begged and howled in denial, and their despair was music to her ears... but still too little to compensate for her loss. It could not ease her pain nor satiate her thirst for revenge. "Killer and I will devour you all. We will consume your worlds, one after the other. We'll do as we please, when we please, however we please... and you'll be our toys and our food. Worthless meat to ruin as we desire."

The gods that had come to Earth dreaming of power now trembled in terror as she sentenced them to an eternity of powerless, helpless torment, and then the monstrous tentacle-cocks slammed down over the remaining disciples, squishing them into pulp under the flat, wide flared cockheads, causing the spell-casters to shriek in panic and horror, stumbling away from the terrible spectacle of those immense member slowly tearing back out of the craters in the ground, revealing deep puddles of disgusting pulp and long ropes of the same matter dangling from the monstrous flares, before huge blasts of black precum full of titanic sperms obliterated even those last hints of existence. The spell-casters broke into panic and desperately tried to shield themselves, abandoning the damaged violet barrier, and the tremendous force radiating off Alexis in waves smashed into the cracked wall and blew it into pieces, causing the whole bubble to finally collapse, allowing the other Disciples and Praetorians to charge inside, even though they already knew it was way too late.

Mriya and Elaine were the first to reach the center of the battleground, where the portal had been only moments before, their eyes full of tears and their mouths gaping in horror as they stared breathlessly at that sinister emptiness, unable to believe what had just happened and refusing to accept it. Their rage was terrifying, and crackling bolts of energy exploded out of them and tore through the few reapers still crawling on the scorched earth, the ones that Alexis hadn't yet bothered crushing under her heel.

Pamela and the Praetorians fell down to their knees, hanging their heads in shame as they stared at the ground: their very vow and mission was to protect their master, but they had not been able to keep faith to their promise, and the shame and regret were hard to even describe. They barely breathed, crying in silence, sometimes shaking their heads in shame and disbelief... and none was more mortified than Kathy, who hugged herself tightly, trembling violently and sobbing quietly, thinking that she had failed her father in multiple ways: she hadn't been able to protect him, and even worse she hadn't been able to listen to his orders. She had volunteered to defend the Ice Eden, then had rushed back to him when the battle had started, leaving Gaia and Riaku alone. She felt like she had personally condemned king Seth to death because of her hurried, emotive decision, and she felt twice as responsible as everyone else, because the Anchor she had been tasked to help protect was gone... and because of it, Killer had been captured. She felt like she had betrayed him and stabbed him in the back, and the thought made her shiver in utter horror.

Ira, Boadicea and Kimera teleported in a moment later, walking slowly forwards, covered in wounds and blood and in the disgusting remains of the horde of suicidal cyber-spiders that had swarmed over Hell. They could only walk forwards in silence, in shock, in shame, watching as Alexis's tentacles coiled brutally around the spell-casters and hefted them up, bringing them all in front of the omnipotent, furious goddess.

Alexis's uncontrollable rage exploded against the Praetorians and the other disciples, with the prisoner gods forced to stare at her while the gigantic, powerful tentacles squeezed their bodies hard enough to crack their bones and fill their minds with nothing but agony and fear.

"How could we let this happen...?" Alexis roared, to no one in particular and yet to all of them, spreading her arms wide and then grabbing at her face, clawing into her own features while bringing Wyvern up close to her chest, pushing the surprisingly warm blade against her body, getting whatever comfort she could from the very recognizable essence contained in the great weapon. "How could we fail him so miserably? Answer me!" Alexis howled, glaring at them all, tears dripping from her chin as she panted hard, before she met Pamela's eyes and failed to restrain a snarl of rage and frustration. "You were supposed to protect him! He's always had to save your lives, and the one time he needed saving, where the hell did you get lost...?"

Pamela and the Praetorians didn't even try to reply. They bowed their heads in shame, swallowing thickly. They were thinking the exact same thing, even though for the briefest of moments they were tempted to remind Alexis that their offer of teleporting into Alfaya in one large ground had been turned down. They had been ordered to escort them from a distance, and they had done exactly that. Maybe if they had been present... but no, the crystal would have drained them down to husks, and only added another worry for Killer and Alexis. And yet, they wished they had done things differently.

"And you! He made you the High Queen of Hell, and told you to protect the Anchor!" Alexis snarled, coming face to face with Ira, who recoiled a bit, swallowing in silence, not even trying to reply. Kathy, nearby, crouched and tremblingly curled up on herself, sobbing loudly and expecting Alexis's rage to crash into her at any moment... but Sekhmeth silently walked forwards, her cheeks streaked with tears and her movements lacking much of their usual breath-catching sensuality as she seemed to drag herself along, too horrified and tired to even breathe. Her expression, however, had a sort of wise serenity about it that even Alexis immediately noticed. The black lioness reached forwards and gently squeezed on Alexis's massive, powerful shoulder, offering a little smile before pulling the ligeress into a tight hug. Alexis did not resist, even though her eyes widened in surprise... before closing as her breathing calmed down slightly, and her heart slowed down a bit. Sekhmeth wrapped her arms tightly around Alexis's waist, and leaned her head against the empress's, taking a long, deep breath before quietly saying: "Calm down, Alexis. He wouldn't recognize you, right now. And I'm sure he doesn't want to see you like this. Never. Under no circumstance."

Alexis listened in silence, her arms wrapping tightly around the lioness's neck, rocking her slowly as she half-leaned into her, sobbing quietly. She couldn't quite put together an answer, but she knew that Sekhmeth was right. "You don't really think the things you are saying. You will regret them in a while... so, let's move right past this. We all failed. We know that. Dwelling on it is not going to help one bit".

"We need to find him, and free him, and get him back." Alexis finally said. It was a promise as well as a realization. She wasn't just stating the obvious, but getting her focus back. That was the only thing they had to do; the only thing that mattered. She squeezed her eyes hard, reining in her tears as best she could, and took several long, deep breaths before repeating: "We have to find him."

"That's right. And we will." Sekhmeth assured, squeezing her tightly in her arms before pulling back a little, until she could gaze into her eyes. She offered the best smile she could come up with while tears streaked her cheeks, and finally gathered enough control and force to whisper: "We are all knackered right now, but... we must keep going. It's what he expects from us."

Alexis nodded at that, and looked up past Sekhmeth's shoulder, gazing at Ira, then at Pamela, seeing the tears on their faces and their eyes glazed over with the same despair and shame and rage that filled her. And even though she couldn't stop being angry for how things had gone, for how both Anchors had been lost, putting them into an unwinnable conundrum; she realized how unfair and cruel she had been in shouting in their faces, in making them feel even worse than they already did.

Sekhmeth gently bumped heads with her, and quietly whispered: "It is going to hurt like hell. I guess for you it is even worse, even though I struggle to imagine how anyone could feel worse than I currently do, but... it is hell for every one of us, and it will torment us until we get him back. We will have to watch out for each other." The lioness paused, and Alexis nodded slightly, agreeing quietly with her, and then frowning a bit as she realized just how unusual it was to be brought back to calm and reason by the goddess of Destruction in person. Sekhmeth normally was all for teasing and for taunting, always eager to see violence and brutal sex erupt on any scene. Sure, she had already proven that she could be very serious when the situation called for it, but Alexis still could hardly believe what she was hearing. The ligeress tilted her head sideways and gazed into Sekhmeth's eyes with amused suspect, a little smile somehow surfacing on her lips despite all the pain as she whispered: "Are you sure you are Sekhmeth...? You are all... cuddly and wise and motherly, all of a sudden. Is Gaia possessing you or something...?"

"Oh, eat me." Sekhmeth grumbled, but she nonetheless beamed up, smiling softly as she admitted: "There are sides of me that few people have had a chance to discover, I guess. But remind me of this at the wrong time, and I'll still kick you right in the pussy".

"You can try." Alexis easily countered, and for a brief instant she even managed to flash a grin, before looking dejectedly down at the scorched ground. Sekhmeth sighed as well, taking a deep breath and gathering her thoughts and her courage before remarking: "We need you to lead us, Alexis. We need you to be lucid and focused, because we are going to have a lot of things to do. There is still a Swarm of angry gods somewhere out there, and an RA fleet invading Lunis, and a moribund world which will literally fall apart if we can't hold it together and keep the survivors confident in the future. If the news of Killer's... of... of what happened here today... if the news spreads, panic will follow. The last thing we need is to have to babysit the last mortals at this critical time."

Alexis muttered under her breath, tempted to retort that they could just snuff the mortals out of existence with a flick of their pinky and be done with them, but she grimaced and swallowed her rage and frustration down, knowing full well that Killer would not approve. He had sacrificed himself to put a stop to the apocalypse and save the world, and she had actually finished the job herself. To turn her back on the mortals after that would have only meant turning her back on Killer's efforts. She straightened instead, and met the eyes of all other disciples and of each Praetorian as she quietly said: "I'm sorry for snapping out like that... I really am. But I don't think it will be the last time it happens. We are all on the edge right now, and it won't be easy. For one, I know I will not always be able to restrain my screams and my tears. We... we'll all have to live with the tension, though, and get thought this hell." Alexis paused, and Sekhmeth slowly retreated, breaking their embrace and stepping aside as the queen met Ira's eyes and bowed her head slightly. "I'm sorry, Ira... and Pamela, and Boadicea, and Kimera... sorry about that."

"I did fail." Ira bitterly spat, making a grimace as she shook her head. "I failed him; you just said the truth. But I can assure you that I will not fail him again. No matter what, I won't."

Pamela, Nikita and the other Praetorians nodded in agreement with the cobra's words, and Mriya clenched her fists in terrible, merciless fury as she growled: "We will find him. Dad will be back, I know he will. And we'll be there to help him, protect him and avenge him."

Elaine nodded with a grunt, glaring at the terrified gods trapped in the coils of Alexis's enormous tentacles, her eyes glowing with terrible, vicious power as she barely resisted the temptation of crushing them all like bugs, and instead she growled: "We are wasting time. We should be searching for dad already. We should rip these bastards apart and get every last bit of information out of their little skulls."

"True..." Alexis agreed, looking up at her prisoners with nothing but distaste and hate, her muscles bulging explosively as she clenched her fist, energy crackling around her muscular form as she barely managed to restrain herself from turning them all into mincemeat. With a great effort, she forced herself to look away as her tentacles bent forwards and lowered the terrified, quivering gods towards the ground, dropping them almost with gentleness but only making them cower even more violently as they found themselves surrounded by towering, muscular, furious goddesses who glared down at them with indescribable ferocity. Mriya brutally kicked a bug-beast in the abdomen, knocking the alien divinity onto his back with a squeal of agony as ugly green blood burst out of his pincer-like jaws, and without a word she slammed her boot down on his face, forcing her high heel into his mouth and pressing down on his skull hard enough to make it creak. Manticora and Kimera walked forwards with snorts of fury and righteous vengeance, using their heavy, incandescent hooves to rake gods crashing back into the dirt like they were dolls, grinning viciously as they howled in anguish and terror as the hooves descended over them like apocalypse itself, mercilessly crunching bones into dust and maiming flesh and muscle as they settled majestically down, crushing limbs flat and turning groins into bloody puddles stained with the remains of whatever virility the victims had possessed. The two muscular goddesses grinned cruelly as they strolled leisurely over the defeated spell-casters, carefully avoiding fragile heads but viciously annihilating knees and joints as the two huge zebras licked their lips and felt blood and gore sizzling against the hot metal of their godly stompers.

"Whatever you do, don't risk damaging their memories. Not before we discover everything we need and want." Alexis coldly said as she effortlessly leaned her golden boot into the shoulder of a reptilian god who stupidly attempted to crawl away. She pushed him over, almost gently forcing him to roll onto his back and his eyes widened in terror as he stared at the bloody sole of her boot, trembling as he read the cruel "you go squish" letters chiseled in the solid, golden light. Then there was only darkness as she stepped on his face, covering it whole with her cruel, spiked sole, and he whimpered in panic and began to frantically lick, slurping up gore and dirt and dust, kissing her boot worshipfully and gazing up at him with eyes full of tears, begging weakly: "Please... oh, please, my goddess, my empress..." Alexis gazed down at him with distaste, heavily resting her heel upon his chest while she crushed down with her toes, burying his head deep down into the crystal powder that covered the bottom of the crater. She twisted her foot, slowly and deliberately, and the reptile shrieked in pain and denial as her sharp, metallic high heel stabbed through armor, muscle and chest, sinking deep into his body and causing blood to spray thickly upwards, washing over the helpless little planets that she kept orbiting around her heel, slaves to her omnipotence. His cheek and features were devastated, torn apart by her cruelly spiked sole as his head was forced to turn and grind into the terrible crystal-sand, his neck cracking and crunching horribly as it was bent at angles that were completely unnatural. Her heel pinned him down, crushing his ribs painfully inwards, suffocating him as he felt like his torso would simply burst apart at any moment, and his body was forced to helplessly corkscrew in the opposite direction to that taken by her toes, so he was rolled from one side to the other, toyed with, ruined.

"Where did Cerberus go? Where do they hide?" Alexis asked, coldly, with a voice that was soft, almost bored, and because of that all the more terrifying. The reptile shivered and let out a horrible cry of anguish as her voice resounded directly inside his mind, echoing painfully in his ribcage as she invaded his memories and his thoughts, while ignoring his pathetic struggling, his hands vainly gripping her heel, her foot, uselessly pulling at her exposed, perfect toes, breathlessly gasping, his mouth opening and closing but only managing to pull in blood and gore and dirt from her sole. "I... I don't know... goddess... I'm sorry...!"

"Wrong answer." Alexis coldly replied, and the lizard trembled and shrunk, clearly expecting to be crushed out of existence like a mere insect... but the goddess lightened the pressure instead, and he gasped in surprise that became agony as her foot withdrew and her sharp heel tore out of him with a splatter of blood. He shuddered hard, reaching down with both hands to squeeze on the gaping wound in his chest, but the goddess moved her great, metallic boot down to his waist, and he cried out in terror, whimpering helplessly as he squeezed his legs together, tried to shield his virility from her as her beautiful, almighty foot settled upon his groin, her toes wiggling in anticipation as she began to apply pressure, forcing all air out of his lungs as he begged with a broken, squealing voice while his cock shrunk away, tremblingly retreating while his testicles did their best to curl up into his body to escape the monstrous strength of her long, spectacular leg. Alexis took a moment to idly flex her massive thigh, showing off the bulging glory of her quads, and he began to squeal an endless succession of "please no, please, please, please..." as he realized in full what those great calves and that formidable thigh could do to him. He felt doomed, his eyes bulging almost out of his sockets as he looked up in terror to see the almighty goddess resting her hands on her hips, looking down at him with contempt. She was so spectacular and almighty that he swallowed thickly and admitted: "I'm not worthy... I'm... I'm nothing but dirt... but please, almighty goddess, spare me..." He whimpered pathetically, helplessly pushing at her boot, unable to even budge it even though her muscles were relaxed, and then he howled in anguish as she tensed her leg and slowly began to press down. The alien screamed desperately, until his voice simply died away as he literally burned his lungs out, but then Alexis stopped, and spat another question: "Where do you come from, and why are you here? This, at least, you must know."

"Y-yes, yes!" He hurriedly replied, shouting as loud as he could yet only managing to produce a barely audible sound. "I... come from a world called Kentaurus... I... it probably doesn't mean anything to you, it is... so far away..." He wheezed, coughing up blood, but he trembled hard and forced himself to breath in some air to talk quickly, in the hope that she'd be satisfied with him somehow. "I found the Anchor of my world many Eons ago. Sensed its power, never dared to break it. I craved that power, but knew I could not hope to control, never mind harness it... but then Lord Skyfall's voice came to me, and many others. Said there was a way. I didn't want to believe at first, but other gods did, and more Anchors were found and mapped. I couldn't afford to stay out of the game, you know...? If others harnessed that kind of power and I didn't, I would be dead. A piece of cake waiting to be eaten..."

"Who is Lord Skyfall? Thanathos? Cerberus? Someone else entirely?" Alexis furiously asked, shifting her weight slightly and making him groan in agony as his pelvis loudly creaked.

"The... t-the one you call...Cerberus."

That microbe. That worthless piece of shit of a mortal, who we could have squished between index and thumb... Alexis incredulously snarled, cursing under her breath before growling: "Were you with the Swarm?"

The miserable, agonizing god hurriedly nodded. "When gods began to be massacred by the Amon-Ra, Lord Skyfall urged everyone to stick together and form a single, invincible fleet. He said there would be... there would be time later on to resume our clashes and struggles. He said that if we wanted to harness the power of the Anchors, we needed Amon-Ra, and we were only going to get him by working together..."

"But you didn't." Alexis impatiently snarled, again shifting her weight on his bloodied groin. "Numerous as you were here today, you are just a fraction of the Swarm, aren't you...?"

"Y-yes! We... some fleets within the Swarm began to disappear, and it was clear that someone was not playing according to the rules. Gods who had the ability to open suitable portals to shorten the travel times and get here faster raced ahead without helping the others. Those that remained declared war on them... but that is really only rhetoric: when the secret will be within reach, you can be sure that it'll turn into a free-for-all." The reptile attempted to pause to clear his mouth of accumulated blood and breathe in some air, but Alexis immediately applied new pressure to hurry him onwards, and he spluttered: "Thanathos came. Visited my fleet, and others, in secret. Offered us a deal. Said he spoke on behalf of Lord Skyfall himself. Promised power from the Anchors, which we wouldn't need to share with the others. We could... race ahead. He knew how. Portals which warp not just space, but also time. A travel of many light-years became nearly instantaneous. Said he had perfect plan. Said he needed our help because of our specific abilities. I accepted. Others accepted. Lord Skyfall had always been right before. Seems to know more than anyone else."

Alexis made a grimace at that. Of course, Thanathos was Death, and death was timeless. He, and even the Reapers serving him, had always had the ability to compress and warp Time. Thanathos had enabled those travels across the universe... but Cerberus! Cerberus Raja was a mortal, a mere, frail, weak mortal that had used knowledge to control, manipulate and exploit gods who were infinitely greater and stronger than him. Where did his knowledge come from...? Could he truly be Lord Skyfall...? Have we really been put through all of this because of a mere mortal...?

She glared down at the trembling creature, clawing mercilessly into his mind, her eyes glowing with barely contained fury and hunger. It was immediately clear that she would not obtain anything else from that greedy creature which had abandoned his world to pursue greater, absolute power. And so she pressed her foot down, slowly, and grinned as the lizard howled in agony while his pelvis was slowly crushed, flattened horribly as the bones were shattered and ground into nothing but dust, while flesh and muscle and skin were ripped to shreds and pretty much liquefied, blood bursting out all over her exposed toes as she mercilessly pushed down. The legs that the lizard had crossed and squeezed together did nothing to protect him, and they spasmed violently for an instant before flopping dead and limp on the floor as her foot crushed his thighs pretty much out of existence, flattening them grotesquely along with his malehood and testicles, which popped into little splatters of blood and other fluids, while his member was squished into nothing more than a scrap of skin while the toe of her boot pressed down onto the base of the creature's spine and effortlessly reduced it to fine powder. And the lizard squealed in despair and anguish as her massive thigh flexed with terrible strength, effortlessly driving her boot through his ruined body and deep into the ground beneath, before she idly dragged her foot sideways, yanking more of the beast's devastated and maimed guts out of his gaping, horrendously deformed body, spilling his innards into the dirt while she idly kicked up dust and sand.

The agonizing god trashed hard on the floor, what was left of his body spasming uncontrollably as he shook his head wildly and destroyed his claws by desperately pawing at the ground, trying to crawl away from her but only managing to leave behind his useless, destroyed legs. His eyes bulged and leaked bloody tears of horror as he gaped at the sight of the lower half of his body reduced to scraps and tatters of scales and shreds of pulped meat that flopped into a spreading puddle of blood and gore around her glorious foot, while tangles of his maimed, crushed guts were strewn on the dirt. And his screams were only part of a cacophony of tremendous howls and sinister, terrifying crunches and cracks as the other goddesses destroyed the other prisoners, literally squeezing the information out of them. Near Alexis, Manticora and Kimera were slowly and purposefully walking on the spot, stomping their bloodied, massive hooves down on unrecognizable, disintegrated bodies that squelched thick splatters of blood and gore all the way up to their muscular, powerful thighs. Both sisters grinned savagely as they trampled gods literally like they were grapes, slowly and methodically crushing them under their mighty hooves as if to turn them into wine.

It was cruel, but moreover it was freeing, and it helped ease their pain. Revenge was sweet enough to make them feel a little bit better.

Only Kathy hesitated, sitting on the ground and staring at the bloodied hooves of Manticora and Kimera, trembling in time with each stomp. The little angel looked shell shocked, and when Alexis met her wide-open eyes, she immediately walked towards her... carefully caving-in two ribcages in as many steps.

"You have not betrayed him, Kathy." Alexis quietly reassured, crouching down before her and hugging her tightly to her chest. "You did not run away from the fight. You charged into it, on the contrary. If anything, you were overeager to step in and do your part. He will never hold it against you. He has nothing but love for you, Light."

Kathy trembled hard, burying her face against Alexis's chest and sobbing quietly while her arms wrapped as best they could around the much greater female's form, squeezing her close. The queen let her do that, and allowed her to slowly get back in control of her breathing. Somehow, it was soothing for her as well. She remembered their first meeting with Kathy, soon after disembarking from the ship that had carried them into Orion. She had been truly tiny back then, but also clearly special. She had not been scared of them and she had stuck around when everyone else hurriedly ran away or hid inside buildings and dark alleys. Alexis smiled softly at the memory, and then leaned forwards to kiss the feline's hair, looking entertained at the changes she had undergone. She had grown up into a splendid angel, beautiful and strong and fearless. Her hesitations were never due to fear, but to her natural kindness and gentleness. She was the brightest light among them, even though she was not immune to Killer's powerful "corruption". She had undoubtedly changed by staying with them, developing a taste for violence and for the most brutal of sex that was very not angelic, but that only made Alexis like her even more.

"I had been given a task. I should have carried it out." Kathy finally murmured, and Alexis squeezed her gently in her arms but did not reply. That, after all, was the truth... and while Kathy's presence in the high north would almost certainly not have changed the fate of the battle by one iota, it was clear that there was a new lesson for her to learn. "It was my fault, Alexis... but... thank you. Thank you for being here. I... I will not forget this day, I promise. I will never disappoint daddy again."

"Good girl." Alexis softly said, before slowly helping Kathy up, straightening fully and taking her hand in her much larger one, squeezing it gently. "Don't fear, Light. He'll be back with us soon. No matter what it takes, we'll find him and help him get his revenge."

"That we will." Kathy said, clearing her throat and nodding, looking determined even though her cheeks were streaked with tears and her eyes still reddened and watery. The feline stepped slightly to the side and bit her lower lip as she stared at the massacre of the alien gods who, with their powerful barrier, had imprisoned Killer and Alexis into the crystal trap. She shuddered lightly with each loud, sick crunch coming from the bodies crushed under the mighty hooves of Manticora, Kimera and Nikita, and found herself licking her lips as the god caught under the Praetorian's black, metallic hooves gasped in breathless agony, his torso deformed horrendously out of shape by the deep, bloody hoofprints that reached all the way down into the dirt beneath, having torn through his flesh and pulverized his bones, flattening large areas of his body into nothing but puddles of liquid gore. The god howled miserably as Nikita dropped one mighty hoof upon his arm, pinning it easily against the ground, before she shrieked in anguish as she pressed down, throwing her head back with a snort of cruel pleasure as she slowly and mercilessly twisted. The sound of bone grinding to dust and muscles shredding and flesh ripping apart filled the air, before the god's hand flopped lifelessly onto the ground while the goddess yanked her hoof backwards, flattening his arm into a torn sleeve of bloody skin that she carelessly severed as she dug the toe of her hoof forwards, shifting her weight and making the miserable victim cry in despair as she leaned back to gaze at the underside of her heavy hoof, grinning at the vile mixture of gore and dirt covering it. She hefted her mighty stomper up and brought it above the sobbing creature's face, crushing his head down and forcing him to roll painfully around as she lazily tilted it this way and that, studying him with ruthless mirth as he helplessly pawed at her hoof and at her ankle, smearing blood over the multitude of cascading skulls that she had tattooed on her leg. She mercilessly toyed with his life and his fear, idly crushing and twisting, never with enough force to break his brittle skull and end him, but with more than enough to hurt, to torment, to ruin and break. She asked her questions almost with softness, but the quiet tone of her voice only made her more terrifying for the alien creature who helplessly cursed the disastrous decision of following Thanathos and Lord Skyfall... but his answers mirrored those that Alexis had already received, and the other goddesses were hearing the exact same things. It was already becoming clear that they were not going to get their answers from them, and that opened up scenarios that they all dreaded. They were no longer dealing with a single world... not even with three. Earth, Hell, Heaven, they were just the beginning. There were countless inhabited worlds across the universe and an enormous swarm of gods still heading their way. Cerberus's secret sanctuary could be anywhere, on any one of those worlds, or perhaps deep in space, on a starship or orbital station. Alexis trembled at the thought, terrified by the cold infinity that stood before them, hostile and mysterious. How were they going to find Killer...?

Her heart sank as the terrible question echoed insistently in her mind, demanding an answer that she could not find... and then her eyes fell on the writhing, suffering gods on crawling on the ground. Her despair only made her more furious against them, and that terrible rage crashed like a wave against the closest of them just as he tremblingly reached for her foot to beg for mercy. He was slapped back by a psychic blast so ferocious that it tore his body apart, nearly turning his insides into his outside. Kathy gasped at the sight, hesitating for a moment as droplets of blood landed on her abs and chest, but her eyes betrayed a violent hunger that Alexis didn't miss. The great goddess wrapped a powerful hand around the cat's shoulders and guided her gently forwards, saying simply: "Come with me. You need revenge exactly like we do... It will make you feel at least a little bit better."

Alexis idly racked a crying god backwards, sending him crashing on his belly, and when he immediately tried to scamper away she settled one cruel, bloodied boot on top of one of his thighs, pinning him in place, and helping Kathy step onto the other. The angel blushed, but let out a hot breath of dark pleasure when she shifted her weight and felt her own metallic sole ripping into the flesh of the spell-caster, until she felt the bone trying to resist... so weak, so frail... and she looked sideways to see Manticora grinding another creature out of existence by using him like a door mat, wiping her great hooves slowly and cruelly back and forth, turning his body into nothing but long strains of crimson gore in the dirt.

Kathy hesitated for a moment longer, torn between horror and sick pleasure, between the desire for revenge and the awareness that toying with life, even with the life of an enemy, in such a way was undoubtedly monstrous. But then she remembered hitting the violet barrier, uselessly trying to break through, watching through it to see the grinning aliens and, beyond them, Killer with a multitude of scythes stuck into his chest, and she snarled in rage and cruel hunger, stomping down hard and grinning when the bone snapped like a twig and the crying god begged for her mercy. It was intoxicating to yield such power over others, and something she was still gradually discovering. For countless years she had been the tiny girl forever stuck in the body of a baby, and now she was a mighty, formidable goddess able to take down other gods with terrifying ease... and much as she tried not to let that get to her head, sometimes the anger for everything she had suffered in the past made her ferocious, made her think of destroying, of punishing, of tormenting. And now, as she glared down at the alien that had contributed to the fall of Killer, she felt no need and no incentive for holding back, for restraining her rage. She pulled her boot up, held it teasingly above the terrified monster's face for a few long moments, sometimes dropping it suddenly just to make him squeal in panic... before ultimately bringing it down again on his leg, just above the horrendous destruction she had caused with her first step. She began to take slow, purposeful steps, putting one foot right in front of the other, heel and toes touching as she squished the howling creature bit by bit by bit, leaving behind nothing but deep, bloody footprints, her eyes glowing with fury and with power as she looked down at the spell-caster with nothing but contempt. Her rage was Alexis's rage. They all felt in the same horrible way. Lost and exhausted and worried sick. Their only comfort was that Killer had been dragged away alive: Cerberus needed him alive, or at least so he was convinced. For at least some time, they could be confident that his life would be safe... but for how long? How were they going to find him in time, when he could be anywhere in that vast universe that they knew so little of?

And he was prisoner, chained and drained and exhausted. They were going to torture him, that was definite, and the thought filled Alexis with fury and horror in equal measure. She knew torture well. She had been trained to endure it; she had tried it on her own skin, and had dished it out. She knew that if pushed far enough it could completely destroy a person, psychologically even more than physically... but whenever her mind wandered in that direction, she slapped it down. Killer would never bend and never break, of that she was sure. No matter what they did to him, no matter how they howled and shouted and struck, he was far too great for them to ever win. No matter how loud the wind howls, a mountain will not bow to it.

And yet her heart ached horribly. There was a hole in it that nothing was going to heal. Nothing other than his return. She felt so broken that she didn't even notice that the day was dark and cold, that the cataclysm had obscured the sky with clouds of smoke and dust and that the addition of Hell in the sky meant frequent solar eclipses. Everything was unimportant, and she knew that it would only get worse as time passed. Now they had their rage keeping them going. They had their prisoners to question and to punish. They could rip them to shreds again and again until they begged for lasting death and nothing else...but that distraction was not going to last long, and the tears rolling down their cheeks would continue to fall.

They had the remains of the world to put back together and protect, but it was going to be impossible to find any cheer and very difficult to show any real compassion for those mortals that had been saved through Killer's sacrifice. They had no fault in what had happened, of course... yet Alexis could not forgive them for what had happened.

The world had fallen into darkness. With his God gone, what was left of Earth was vulnerable and cold. The sun no longer shined. The volcanoes still murmured, seemingly mourning their master. The oceans still had the color of blood.

And Alexis felt like she was sinking into a darkness so complete that she didn't even notice the destruction and misery around herself. She gazed silently at the black sky, and then closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and thought of Killer's last gaze in her direction, of the confident smile he had somehow forced on his features. Of the love and adoration and trust in his eyes while his voice had echoed in her mind, telling her to carry on and finish the job.

He expected her, and everyone else that he loved and admired, to carry on with courage and determination. And no matter how much it hurt, they were going to do exactly that. "I'm coming, Lion. No matter what it takes, we'll be together again."