Chapter 176: Cursed God (1)
Ki Song let out a tired sigh and looked at the two Transcendants near her.
Revel had just finished claiming the citadel and Albedo was still studying the runes left by Hex, unaware of the approaching calamity heading their way.
The noble beast wearing human skin might have the senses of a Transcendent Titan, but he still couldn't sense the cursed one waking up.
And why would he? The senses of a Transcendant Titan could not detect the presence of a deity nor could they be compared to her supreme senses.
"You two, go back to the castle."
Both of them turned to look at her in surprise...
"Why?"
"There is a god heading our way. The backlash of our battle will likely kill you."
Revel's eyes widened in shock, and there was a hint of fear in her eyes... After all, she as a mere saint, could not even comprehend the nature of a god... Even a lesser one.
Albedo, despite being older and more powerful, still looked rattled, however he was less shaken than her. After all, he could just escape to the waking world as he did not care about anyone in Ravenheart, unlike Revel who had multiple people to protect Residing within the jade palace.
"A cursed one? I hate to say it, but this is an amazing opportunity, an unexpected surprise but a welcome one nonetheless." A fickle smile spread across his face. "Fate must have favored us, Raven Queen. If you slay the cursed one and bring its remains to me, I'll be able to harvest its cores and body for the god device."
Ki Song raised an eyebrow.
"The cores as well? I thought the three sacred soul shards I provided for you were enough for the god device."
The shards had come from a cursed demon that Ki Song had killed years ago and kept its cores.
She had thought that was all he had needed for the artifact... But now, it seems the Galvan had gotten new ideas.
"Seven is the divine number. It would raise our chances of success from sixty percent to ninety-nine. A pretty good deal, if you ask me."
Ki Song shrugged and waved her hands dismissively.
"No matter, just go for now. Your presence won't be needed here."
Albedo nodded, then, he leaped off into the sky and left the area at subsonic speed.
Revel assumed her Transcendent form once again, but before she left, she looked at her mother.
"... I know you can take care of yourself but be careful..."
With that, the dark dancer left.
'... Brat, telling her mother to be careful like that...'
Ki Song suddenly realized that all her children had grown up, which to her was both a blessing and a curse... It made her appreciate her family even more.
'No matter, now is not the time to get emotional...'
In the sky, from the direction of the jade palace, a crimson comet shot through the sky, heading Ki Song's way, until eventually the thing landed near Ki Song's puppet.
It was a breathtakingly beautiful woman in a regal red dress, Her skin was pale like that of a corpse, and a light smile played on her crimson lips. Her raven-black hair was like a lustrous waterfall of darkness, and there was something eerie and vaguely appalling about her beautiful, enchanting eyes...
This was her main body, which she had brought over for this battle.
Far away, her puppets were rushing towards the frozen wasteland as well.
There were humans among them and nightmare creatures of various ranks and classes.
Dormant, Awakened, Ascended, Transcendent, supreme...
Beasts, monsters, demons, devils, tyrants, terrors, titans...
All sorts of abominations from all sorts of different origins were present, animated by the power of her aspect and her authority.
Ki Song and her army entered the frozen wasteland, expanding her authority through the region even further.
A cursed god was trying to assault her kingdom, so it was only fair that she repaid the favor and did the same.
A mere cursed one was not enough to lay waste to her vast kingdom, but she was certainly enough to destroy it and end its profane existence, once and for all.
***
Ki Song walked across the frozen wasteland, and all forms of creatures trailed behind her, were her...
Wherever she walked was her kingdom, and all who died on those lands were her subjects.
She held authority over death, and today, she was going to deliver the death of a god.
Far away, a storm was coming.
Ice shards spread through the world, cutting and twisting it, but there was something else in there... An authority of a strange kind, one that made the storm look like it was frozen in time.
The space within and outside the storm did not seem to be functioning properly, as well.
'The concept it embodies must be related to time... No, that can't be right.'
Time was not changing in the area of the cursed one, but instead it was stagnant, unmoving and unchanging.
'Then, perhaps I should bring it some change.'
Blood poured from her arm and Ki Song shaped it into a deadly spear.
Then, she augmented herself with soul essence and shot it forward with all of her supreme strength.
The spear cut through the wind, faster than sound and impacted against the walls of the storm, fiercely battling against it until the storm parted.
Inside the storm, a pale white hand caught the spear... And crushed it into crimson shards of frozen blood.
The spear did not do any damage, but it opened the storm, allowing Ki Song to see the shape of the cursed one.
She was surprised by what she saw.
It was a young woman, with pale skin, white as snow and like that of a corpse.
Her hair fell down like a brilliant waterfall made of white stars, and her eyes... They were two endless rivers of darkness.
The young woman was a god... A god of profanity. Whether she was born as an abomination and became a god later or had once been sacred and was tainted by corruption, Ki Song did not know.
What she knew, on the other hand, was that she needed to kill it.
Ki Song pondered for a few moments, wondering how she should go about killing the cursed god.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, the cursed devil decided to answer her questions.
The storm that was surrounding the eerie god grew bigger and bigger, until it reached the boundaries of Ki Song's domain.
Their authorities battled against each other and Ki Song had to use her will to bend the world to stop the storm from consuming her and freezing all of her puppets.
'It's not even using its will yet...'
The cursed one merely extended the reach of the storm, which was one of its abilities.
The girl within the storm rippled slightly, her pale skin crystalized and turned into ice, at the same time it grew vast and mighty, becoming big enough to encompass entire realms.
Then, the storm suddenly retreated and collapsed on itself like a star, revealing the being inside.
A magnificent sabertooth the size of a Continent, its hide was made of ice and fur and its whole body was covered by strange misty like storms. An eerie darkness dancing through its body, refusing to let go of the beautiful creature.
'A Transformation ability?'
It made her wonder if this creature possessed an aspect, or at least used to possess an aspect, a long time ago.
The sabertooth lunged towards Ki Song, its long teeth aiming to impale her and drink her blood...
Ki Song's crimson dress—A gift from her aspect legacy—shifted beautifully into an intricate red armor, surrounding her corpse like body.
With the white blade that Anvil made still impaled in her chest and the crimson armor that she was wearing, Ki Song looked like a soldier of death.
She shot forward like a missile, but not to meet the cursed one. Instead she ran to the other side, evading the cursed one and its storms entirely.
Blood poured from her body and turned into all types of projectiles, swords, spears, arrows... All of them rained down like a sea of blood, piercing the mist surrounding the frozen wasteland and finding their marks on the sabertooth's skin.
The quality of blood was supreme, but thanks to her mighty will, it should be enough to Pierce its skin...
But they weren't, for some reason.
'It's not using its will to shield itself, so why isn't it taking any damage?'
Ki Song ran faster, becoming a crimson blur, however the sabertooth easily matched her speed and chased her through the vast region.
Despite the vastness of the frozen wasteland, she still had a limited amount of space to traverse.
The only place she had an advantage in was within the boundaries of her territorial domain. Outside of it, the cursed one could slay her...
But more importantly, she could accidentally stumble on the unholy one, hidden in the cracks of reality, which would certainly cause her demise.
'Its concept must be protecting it...'
But what was it? Invincibility? Invulnerability? Indestructibility?
For some reason she doubted it was any of them.
The sabertooth finally caught up to her, and then it raised its mighty paw and brought them down on Ki Song's small body to crush her like a bug
But instead, something caught its claws mid strike...
It was a terrifying dark titan, with an onyx carapace shielding its body. The Titan was almost the size of the cursed god and it had an appealing bug like head.
That, too, was Ki Song.
Her fist came down on the head of the sabertooth, making it jerk back in pain for a moment.
All of Ki Song's puppets functioned as her main body, and so all of them were physically stronger than their original owners had been, thanks to her will augmenting them.
Two more titan puppets rushed from behind, one that looked like a white wolf and another that was a gargantuan golem made of stone.
The three titans pierced the veil of mist using Ki Song's will and hit the cursed god again and again, until their own flesh broke apart.
And yet, there was still not even a single scratch on the body of the sabertooth, despite the clear pain it was experiencing.
Ki Song pushed through, not allowing the abomination to move and then, her will—which was empowered by her domain—managed to slip past the authority of the devil for a brief moment.
Ki Song's wolf titan used its claws and scratched the ethereal hide of the beast, opening it and causing dark ichor to be unleashed upon the world.
'The blood of a god...'
The scene made her wonder what her own blood would look like if she, who was the heir of blood, became a god.
She got the thought out of her mind, then, she called upon the power of her aspect and used her dormant ability.
The wound caused by the titans worsened and decayed, rotting its skin sickly and disgustingly...
But then... The wound suddenly disappeared, as if it was never there.
It did not heal, or anything of the sort. It was not even reversed... It simply ceased to be.
Ki Song's original body frowned, but before she could do anything else, the cursed god moved at a speed beyond that of thought and beyond that of speed...
It twisted its giant body, then its claws were suddenly covered in ice. The devil brought them down on the carapace titan.
Ice spread through the titanic body in mere moments, then the devil hit it again, shattering the supreme body like it was a mundane toy.
The devil turned to the other two puppets, and jumped on them like a giant cat, ferociously tearing apart their bodies, until they too, were no more.
Before the devil could reach Ki Song's main body, or any of her other bodies, Ki Song manipulated blood from all of her puppets and shaped it into chains, pinning the cursed god into the ground for a moment.
At the same time, Ki Song finally managed to figure out what concept it embodied.
'So that's your concept...'
The frozen storm it was unleashing, its invulnerability to wounds and its ability to delete injuries from existence... All of this was the result of its concept, which was stagnation.
Ki Song knew it well... After all she had been stagnant in her rank for years.
The concept it embodied made it impossible for anyone, especially someone of lesser rank, to damage its physical body, making its body stagnant.
Well, the line between impossible and possible becomes unclear when it comes to demigods and gods.
Fighting a god, lesser or otherwise, is different from fighting any other Nightmare Creature. That is because those who wield their will and impose it on the world can exist outside the boundary of absolute laws that govern all of existence. They are not free from them, but they could twist the rules of reality and the impossible, possible.
And that was exactly what Ki Song did. She bent the laws of existence — the law of stagnation — to make the unchangeable, ever-changing.
Her will clashed with the authority of the ice god, causing the entire land to shake, and the already shattered Frozen wasteland to become even more destroyed.
The god of stagnation raced towards her main body, aiming to consume her and swallow her supreme soul... But before it could do that, Ki Song's body melted into red liquid.
An ocean of blood, capable of drowning entire realms, rose from the grounds and swallowed the cursed god in its wake.