Countless orbs of light, each glimmering with translucent brilliance, burst out from Horus's body.
"Divinity!" Takhisis had been waiting for that exact moment. All five of her heads, along with her foreclaws and tail, lunged wildly into the glowing swarm.
So much for grace or majesty. Every ounce of regal poise was gone.
The Dragon Queen now looked like a bargain-hunting auntie at a clearance sale.
"This one! Sky-blue divine essence—good quality, mine!" she muttered to herself.
"That dark one from the Underworld—eh, not great, but it suits me. That retired bureaucrat dares show up in my territory? I'll kill him! The others might be scared, but I'm not!"
By the time she was done looting, she'd snatched away nearly half of the scattered divine essence—most of it directly compatible with her own nature. Over thirty percent dispersed into the air, while barely ten percent drifted toward Thea.
Or rather, toward the unicorn inside her.
"Hey! Why are these things ignoring me?" Thea grumbled. How could she just sit there while free power was flying around? Whether it fit or not, she wanted her share first and could think later.
But no matter how hard she tried to grab the orbs, they slipped past her without slowing down. Thea fumed. "What is this, discrimination? Someone explain this injustice!"
A few orbs did enter her body, and for an instant she was thrilled—visions of igniting divine fire, claiming a god's mantle, ascending to the throne of heaven flashed through her mind.
Two seconds later, she realized all the orbs were orbiting the unicorn spirit inside her soul instead of her.
The unicorn ignored her frustration completely, serenely absorbing the divine energy like a monk at meditation.
Thea watched the Dragon Queen greedily hoarding light and her unicorn basking in transcendence, and pouted. "Fine. Don't include me? Then I'll go loot the corpse!"
You think I wear red for fashion? Let me show you what these red hands can do.
Circling Horus's massive body, Thea quickly realized there wasn't much to take. The fallen god was practically naked—bare chest, a single strip of linen around his waist. There was no equipment, no artifacts. Take the loincloth? Absolutely not. She had standards.
Worse, his blackened, corrupted flesh was warped beyond recognition. She sighed. "Forget it, I'll just take my share."
She cast Mage Hand—an invisible force reached for his intact right eye. Nothing happened. Tried again. Still nothing.
Awkward. She'd hoped to do this neatly, like a civilized mage, but the body was just too sturdy. She had to use her own hands.
Stepping closer, she offered a brief moment of silence. Whatever else, Horus had been a worthy opponent. Then she rolled up her sleeves. "Alright, big guy. Sorry, but business is business."
"The eye's huge," she muttered. Horus stood ten meters tall; his head alone was over a meter and a half. With the beak, nearly three meters. His left socket still held the spear she'd driven through it. She yanked it free. The right eye still faintly glowed, though the light was fading fast.
The eyeball itself was as big as a dining table. "How am I even supposed to carry this thing back?" she wondered. Atom's nanotech wouldn't help here. The image of herself trudging home with a backpack the size of a small car made her wince.
But still—loot first, questions later.
"Eh?" The moment her hand touched the surface of Horus's right eye, something shifted. A delicate balance broke. The eye crumbled like sand, dissolving into fine golden dust that streamed between her fingers.
"What the hell?" Thea turned to glare at Takhisis. "Did you do that? If you didn't want me to take it, you could've said so!"
The Dragon Queen blinked, genuinely confused. She was still busy devouring stray divine motes. After a quick look, realization dawned.
"His eye chose you," she said. "Lucky girl. That trophy's yours now, so don't fight me for the rest!"
Before Thea could respond, Takhisis's long tail swept Horus's body toward her, coiled around it, and plopped her massive weight down on top. Everything else is mine, her posture screamed.
Thea could only stare, speechless. Then she lowered her gaze, thinking hard.
The Eye of Horus chose me? My own eye?
She touched her face. Both eyes were still there. But her vision had changed—clearer, broader, almost panoramic. No pain, no gore, no replacement surgery. The change was simply… there.
She trusted the Dragon Queen enough to believe it wasn't a lie. Still, she'd been hoping to stash the eye with Horus's magic orb and maybe craft a matched set. That idea was gone. No matter how powerful the combination might be, she wasn't about to gouge out her own eye.
Takhisis, apparently in a very good mood after the battle, was far less terrifying now. Her five heads scanned the battlefield from every direction, scooping up every fragment left behind. Each time she found a piece of Horus's divine relics, she swooped over and stuffed it into a small pouch.
"That's… a spatial bag?" Thea muttered, watching with envy. That kind of magic had been lost in the main world for ages. She wanted one desperately—but she had nothing to trade for it, so she could only watch.
Ten minutes later, Takhisis finally finished looting. She'd cleaned the field so thoroughly that even fate's chosen protagonist would find nothing left.
She wrapped Horus's corpse in a shimmering purple shroud, licked her lips, and called out gleefully, "I've marked your temporal coordinates! Summon me again sometime!"
With a flick of her tail, she tore open a glowing rift in the air. Spreading her wings, the five-headed dragon vanished inside, humming happily to herself.
"So impatient," Thea muttered. "She's not planning to… eat him, is she?"
An image popped into her head: a cartoonish five-headed dragon sitting primly at a dining table, napkin tied around her neck, knife and fork in claws, a perfectly roasted eagle laid out before her.
As for that "call me next time" nonsense? Thea could only laugh dryly. No way. With the way the Dragon Queen cleaned up a battlefield, who'd ever dare summon her again?
Still, she couldn't complain. She'd only played support through most of the fight, but she'd landed the final blow—and now had the greatest prize of all: the Eye of Horus, along with six drops of god-blood. Four she'd collected directly, and two more clinging to her spear's tip.
God-blood—rare, priceless, and potent.
The unicorn had already confirmed its usefulness, though warned her not to absorb too much—three drops would be enough.
As for the other three, Thea had plans. She'd take them back for Malcolm. Maybe he'd awaken his own bloodline at last. A magic-using Malcolm Merlyn… now that would be entertaining.
As for Moira—well, that would depend on what the god-blood actually did. If it really made a person thirty years younger overnight, she wouldn't dare hand it to her mother. In America, with all its nosy scientists and mad labs, one miraculous anti-aging transformation would have the poor woman dissected before the week was out.