Nashandra…
“Izanami-no-Mikoto…? I’ve never heard of that god before. What land do they hail from?” she asked, yet Moyako did not entertain her question as she appeared next to Nashandra and swung for her neck.
She raised her sword just in time to block the attack and said, “So you’ve merged with the power of Death too, haven’t you?”
Moyako did not engage in conversation as she continued to pressure her with every swing of her sword, appearing and disappearing all around her as she tried to find an opening.
Before she manifested the power of her foreign god, it was like looking at a brightly illuminated beacon in a thick fog. The power of her soul in contrast to the aura of Death that Nashandra emitted made it easy to track her movements.
Yet now that the both of them have merged with the power of Death, this made it only slightly more difficult to anticipate Moyako’s next attacks.
As she was not a true Lich like Nashandra, her soul was still clear to see amongst the power of Death attempting to smother its presence.
“You have evened the playing field now, but how do you intend to defeat me? I have lived for over ten thousand years and have mastered the power of Death. How do you intend to claim victory by using my own specialty against me?”
Only then did Moyako decide to speak as she asked, “You say you’ve mastered it? Then tell me, can you raise the dead with your mastery over Death?”
Hearing that made her pause at the ludicrousness of such a question.
“‘Raise the dead’? Of course I can’t! There is no power on earth that can raise the dead. Death Magic can keep someone like myself from dying by merging with Death itself, but I cannot raise someone who has already died! If I could do that then…”
Upon hearing that, the face on her mask became twisted into a psychotic grin as she stared into Nashandra’s eyes.
They glowed brightly as blue flames sparked from her irises within the holes of her mask. Then, in less than a second, the memories of Jonas flashed in her mind.
“Ah...I see...then allow me to educated you just this once,” she said as she disappeared before reappearing dozens of feet away with her sword raised above her head.
Her sword then became ablaze with black flames, and with the shrill voice of Izanami-no-Mikoto, she said, “I welcome you into my kingdom, Yomi-no-Kuni. May you find solace that your loved one falls under my embrace.”
She then stabbed her sword into the dirt and a wave of black flames and death expanded over the landscape until it disappeared out of view.
From what Nashandra could tell, Moyako’s black flames had encompassed the entire surface of the planet. The flames licked at the Death Root covering her body, yet with the Arcanence flowing through the flames, it did little to burn it away from her body.
With the images and memories of Jonas briefly flashing through her mind, she hesitated to make a move against Moyako as she waited patiently for her next move.
As she pulled her blade free from the dirt, she then said, “Arise and heed my command. Arise Alan Mercer, Terrance North, Akio Takahashi, Julio Fernandez…, and Jonas Aurelius.”
At the sound of his name, Nashandra froze in horror as she watched five men rise from the hellscape.
Alan Mercer, the once great champion of Mordran, who had fallen at the hands of Frosk, rose with an imitation of Hoffnung in his hands.
Terrance North, a man who Nashandra was certain was still alive, rose from the flames with a small dagger that extended in its length with Arcanence to form a sword.
Akio Takahashi and Julio Fernandez, both men that Nashandra had never heard of, appeared. The former held a claymore in his hands, while the latter held two unusual weapons that looked like miniature handheld cannons, one in both hands.
Lastly...Jonas appeared from the flames, holding only his forging hammer in his right hand.
Her voice began to tremble at the sight of him as she said, “F-For you to...resort to this is... beyond inhuman.”
Moyako simply replied, “Whoever said I was human to begin with?”
She then pointed her spear at Nashandra and the five resurrected men began their assault.
Terrance North…
He was unnerved by the power Moyako was displaying to the entire world.
He knew for certain that he was still alive, and yet he was receiving concerned and frightened looks from others among the audience as they looked between himself and the undead version of himself fighting against Nashandra.
Even his wife, Sarah Razel Aldia, who had once served as part of Moyako’s Nøkkran Assassins, was left speechless and frightened by her power.
“Sarah...did you know that your leader had this kind of power?” he asked her.
“N-No...none of us knew the full scope of what she was capable of, but we all knew that she was undoubtedly the strongest of all of us. We’ve seen her destroy planets just to get the message across, but this is something different. She had never said anything of manifesting the power of gods, much less a god of death.”
Their two daughters that were sitting between them looked up at him with confusion on their faces as one of them asked, “Daddy, why are you down there and up here at the same time?”
Hearing that, many of the people in the audience stared at him, waiting for his response.
“Believe me honey, I’d love to know the answer to that too,” he said as he returned his attention to the fight.
Nashandra…
Things were bad enough that she was being forced to fight against Jonas, the man she had grown to love. However, to make matters even worse, she was facing against an undead version of one of the strongest human beings in recent history, Alan Mercer, and Akio Takahashi, who she was unfamiliar with, but was equally as ferocious and powerful.
Terrance North stood behind to revive them in different areas of the battlefield every time Alan was killed.
Julio Fernandez, another person she was unfamiliar with, continued firing his small cannons with such pinpoint accuracy and speed that it seemed superhuman.
All the while, Jonas stood back and slammed his hammer down upon a mass of Arcanence, concentrating its power into the other warriors facing her.
Even as she tried to attack Moyako directly, Terrance’s power made Alan and Akio appear in her place.
Every time her sword cut through Alan’s skin, even if it managed to cut him due to her power, the force would still be absorbed through his body and redirected to his imitated Hoffnung sword.
Yet with Akio, it was another story entirely. No matter how much power she poured into her sword, it could not seem to cut his skin and bounced off of him as the sheer intensity of his soul was too great. It pulsated with the strength of a neutron star, crushing everything in its path to dust.
Even the planet beneath their feet could barely handle the strain of bearing this man’s presence as every punch he threw could shatter a continent.
Simply being near him empowered Alan with power constantly with energy as his body glowed and his sword cleaved everything in its path.
Gritting her teeth in frustration, Nashandra said, “Osteov Basileia [Bone Empress], full release.”
With her full strength on display, her sword was finally able to cut down Alan and Akio alike. Her power over Death became that much greater as she used it freeze time in its place.
She then reached out her left hand and formed a fist as massive skeletal hands erupted from the ground and stabbed the two warriors all across their bodies.
Then, much to her surprise, the rest of them began to move within stopped time, but the worst of them were already taken care of.
As long as Alan and Akio were contained within her bone magic, her control over the Death Magic empowering them was absolute. Try as Terrance might, he could not revive them the same way as before and was crushed into past as his own rib cage burst out from his chest and grinded him into paste.
Julio’s cannons, though fast and powerful, were easy to anticipate and avoid as she maneuvered around each shot before she ripped out his spine and brought it with her as a flail.
She had not been forced to fight in such a manner for quite some time and was scared to think that she was now being forced to fight this hard to win a fight.
As she was running towards Jonas to cut him down, he had his hammer raised as he was about to strike the mass of Arcanence, but he seemed to pay her no mind.
It was through Jonas’s knowledge that Moyako could use him to craft imitation weapons of Dagon’s unholy armaments for her resurrected warriors to use against her.
She had been there to see him accumulate that knowledge with her own eyes, to see the joy fill them as he made breakthrough after breakthrough in his passion.
She felt disgusted that she was being forced into a position in which she would once again have to kill the man she loved.
But just as her sword began to fall upon him, he raised his head and stared into her eyes as he said, “Nashandra…?”
Hearing his voice caused her to go still as her sword froze in place a mere inch away from his forehead.
“Jonas, are you really-”, she tried to say but her words were cut short as Jonas disappeared and was replaced by Moyako as she pulled back her left arm and stabbed her spear into Nashandra’s heart.
Unfathomable pain filled her chest as Moyako drove it deep into her before she kicked out her leg and forced her on the ground, putting all of her weight into the shaft of the spear as she tried to bury her in the ground.
Struggle as Nashandra tried, she could not free herself from being pinned to the ground by Ame-no-Nuboko.
She stared up at Moyako as the details of her mask and of the cloth over her uniform began to change once again. Rather than a pale white mask with blood dripping from its eyes, the mask took on a light shade of brown with lines of gold and red accentuating the shape of its eyes. The cloak worn over her uniform became more whole and clean, unlike its torn fifthly counterpart. Rather than faded flowers and skeletons detailing the front, it was replaced with golden clouds on the upper right side with blue waves crashing against a cliff face on the lower left side.
With this change in appearance, the hellscape of black flames washing over the surface of the planet vanished.
Her voice then began to change as the shrill second layer became more masculine and powerful as she said, “With Ame-no-Nuboko embedded deep within you, I, Izanagi-no-Mikoto, shall purify you of that which is impure.”
As Izanagi-no-Mikoto’s the words resonated with Moyako’s own voice, the thick clouds above that had long since blotted out the sun began to open as light poured in, shining down upon the two of them and illuminating Moyako brilliantly.
She then raised her hand to the clouds as she looked down at Nashandra and said, “May the light of Takamagahara purify your soul of corruption and deliver you until the land of the gods.”
As if being slammed by an enormous waterfall, a torrent of light poured down on her and the Death Root was stripped from her flesh, breaking through her bone armor, and leaving her body bare and vulnerable.
Her defeat at Moyako’s hands was absolute, unquestionable, undeniable.
There was no scenario in which she left this battlefield the victor.
Even so, the thought of defeat did not bother her as she had accepted her loss for what it was. The only thing that she hated was that she had been forced into a situation in which she had to fight and kill Jonas a second time.
If not for Kayron, she would not be here in the first place.
“I Ye-” she tried to say but her voice was cut short as her power surged once more against her will to try and fight back against Moyako’s assault.
Even though the outcome was clear, Kayron would continue to make her fight until she had nothing left to give. He would not even allow her to admit defeat.
Even as her voice failed her, she hoped that her thoughts would reach the god that had called out to her in her dreams.
Please...Please...free me from these shackles...I beg of you…
As she spoke these thoughts in her mind, the world around her froze as if it were nothing more than a still image. The might of Moyako’s power faded away as it was replaced by the overwhelming presence of the God of Wrath and his scarlet lightning. Though she could not see him, she could tell that he was there watching over her.
“Is it your wish to become my servant? Swear your fealty to me and I shall shatter the chains upon your fate. Swear your undying loyalty unto me and I will grant you everything you desire.”
With the words falling from her trembling lips, she said, “I will serve you, my lord.”
Though his cacophonous voice was still as imposing and terrifying as it always was, she could still hear a hint of gratitude in it as he replied, “Then I welcome you as my second King.”
his presence faded away and the sight of Moyako reappeared for a moment before the flash of scarlet lightning appeared in the sky and struck her, permeating her body and soul.
It surprised Moyako so much that she took several steps back to observe the effect that it had on her.
Nashandra then stood up as she could feel her the nature of her soul swelling in intensity. In any other circumstance, it would have been a frightening experience to be struck by lightning empowered by a being of incomprehensible power.
Yet, she felt calmer, serene even.
Better yet, she could no longer feel Kayron’s power within her as she stood up but did not attack.
She turned to look at Moyako who was standing idly by to observe what she would do next, and bowed her head to her.
With a genuine tone of gratitude in her voice, not for the woman that stood in front of her, but for the God of Wrath who had blessed her, she said“I yield to you Moyako. You are indeed worthy of being called the strongest, and I thank you for letting me see Jonas again, if only for a moment.”