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Snowdrops
Richard Horthy
Master Bruce
Tlaloc
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Unhinged
Carlyle
Sylvan
PrinceAlexus
How To Kill A God
Hero Chronicles & The Cycle of Asheel
The God Killers
Collab between @Dracolunaris & @Timemaster
The moment Galaxor left Sylia with the Cosmic Devastator, he teleported to the Goblin Underground where he spent the following days guiding Maxima’s goblins in the defence of their underground bunker. Without his presence there, thousand goblins would’ve died when another divine being created a massive earthquake, destroying tunnels and houses. Luckly, Galaxor managed to save all the goblins before their untimely and unheroic death.
Meanwhile on the other side of the world, Luna was gathering herself an army. Killing anything standing in her path and consuming them, Luna grew into a powerful leader. A white monster devouring any who stood in her path. Her pack numbered 50 and they were all outcasts, killers one and all. Blood Frenzied Wolves. The Death Pack. The White Devils. They had many names. The monsters of the Outer Gods didn’t seem to bother them…too much. It was easy to hide in the desert.
Later on, in the Goblin Underground, the monsters came. Hundreds of them. Not from the surface as one would’ve expected but from within. Hundreds of tunnels opened up with the earthquake and for any kind of monster, it was easy to break through. Sadly…for them, the Cosmic Devastator made short work of them and those that Galaxor didn’t reach in time, Maxima and Rajesh proved their mettle in battle. Both sporting new scars over their bodies. Still…property damage was done. The tablets of the library were damaged and with them, the knowledge of what was written.
Eventually, Galaxor had enough. He deemed the Goblin Underground safe enough and teleported above the Tree of Life…only to see Allianthe being defeated mercilessly in battle but before he could swoop in and save the day, like he planned. He felt a familiar divine presence. The essence of someone he liked.
Across the desert she rode, witch’s hat now atop head once more. Rather than a broom however, the goblin goddess rode atop a machine of death. Two half circle wheels tore up the sands, while in between them unknowable machinery caused blades to slice and dice anything before them, while the goddess herself rode behind, goggles keeping the sand and outer beast viscera out of her eyes.
There was certainly plenty of the latter flying, for after softening up the army swarming towards her Mother aspect’s home of Tricity, the Breaker of Cycles was now blazing straight towards the great beast that had laid Allianthe low.
With a wave, Galaxor teleported a bit to the side of Asheel and bowed towards her. “Greetings Asheel! It is a mighty pleasure meeting you upon the battlefield. Might I say that you’re looking different than before? Wiser. Better looking. Truly, a sight to behold. ” said Galaxor. His voice would be different than Asheel would remember, gone was the obvious bravado, the pointless over-the-topness. This was a calm Galaxor. A knowledgeable one.
After a few seconds of pause, in which Galaxor pointed towards Egrioth with the Cosmic Destroyer, he started speaking again “I assume you’re here for the same thing. To banish or kill that divine. I’ve got the perfect weapon to do so, if you wish to help. ” as he talked, Galaxor showed the Cosmic Destroyer to Asheel. The sheer power of it and deadliness to divines was obvious.
The goddess eyed the god’s weapon with a mix of trepidation and envy before grinning and replying “Oh, so you have a thing for blood soaked older women do you, enough that it has you showing off your mighty hammer?” in a tone that was a mix of sultry and mocking, only for the Maiden to flip out, figuratively, litrily, and divinely as she took over to complain “uuuurgh not you too! I had to blank out the last forever because of this kinda yucky stuff!”
The mother briefly took control to start to request that “Could we stay on task here please?“ only to be banished by the Breaker who responded both to her younger aspects with an exasperated “Yes, yes, fine” and then to Galaxor himself with a matter of fact “We’re here to end a cycle so that many more can continue, yes”
Galaxor laughed politely at the Breaker’s jest even as he realised it wasn’t fully one. “Old, young, age is…how would you say it…just the marking of a cycle. Beginning, middle or just the end of it. I apologise, Maiden, for last time. You could say I learned a thing or two since then. Anyways, back to the matter at hand. It does seem that this divine wishes to end all the cycles there are and he doesn’t look so keen on rebirth either. Such bad manners. Not even a hello to his fellow divines before trying to destroy their creations. ” said Galaxor with a smile before turning to Egrioth.
“Can your machine end cycles too? I can take the divine alone now that he’s slowed down so much but his army too? I’ve killed divines like him before, this won’t be an easy fight. ” added Galaxor in a serious tone.
“Not as well as that hammer of yours can,” the Breaker admitted before adding that “you’ll have to tell me where it comes from later dear.” Now was not, of course, time for talk, and indeed, the time they had spent on had allowed the vanguard mentioned army to start closing in.
“It can break those things just fine however, so how about we do it this way” she said, before reaching down, pulling a lever, and causing the rear section of her mono-wheeled bike to pop out a second seat right behind the first. She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder at the new passenger seat and told him ”You ride with me ‘Gaxi’ and I’ll beak us through their ranks, while you focus on dealing with ol never in date mode of transport over there”
“We both know that my hammer can do much more than that. ” quickly said Galaxor with a wink before looking at the passenger seat and chuckling.
“We are divines, you know that right? We could just teleport right next to the guy. It’s more problematic if I’ve got to fight him and his army at the same time but, alright, I’ll hop on. Might as well enjoy the adventure. ” added Galaxor before laughing so loudly that a good part of the army was now looking towards the two divines.
“We’ll have to fight both anyway, this way we can thin the herd a bit on the way in” she pointed, before revving the divine motorbike’s engine and calling out for him to “now get ready to put some divine amounts of momentum into those hammer blows dearie!” before releasing the brakes and sending them shooting forwards at impossible speed.
Between them and the towering equine mountain were innumerable lesser beasts, all of them wading through the marshlands of Allianthé’s creation. The bike had no such issue with the quagmire of life, for the grasping plants grasping at their foes legs left them alone, and the goddess of cycles herself had plenty of experience driving though the wetlands of the riverlands. So instead it was only the lesser beasts that stood against them, and they were akin to roadbumps.
Blades cleaved through bull sized beasts of soulless flesh as the goddess weaved to and fro, cutting a path of least resistance and, as she had claimed, building up momentum of godly proportions as they sped towards their foe.
As Asheel’s machine sliced through the monsters, Galaxor was throwing his new weapon in every and it always came back to his hand a bit bloodier than before. With his other hand he’d grab monsters or outright push his enormous hands through them, killing a dozen at a time.
The grand beast, however, did not remain idle as they cut down its minions, and instead spread out its wings which glowed a sickly purple, and then unleashed a monsoon of magical arrows of the same colour, each and every one bearing a different crippling curse.
“Ah! I’ve seen this move before! I’ll sort this one out. ” said Galaxor to Asheel as he teleported off of the vehicle, right in the path of the arrows. Taking an impossibly deep breath, Galaxor sucked the air around him in a large area and with the arrows relying on the inherent laws of physics started to drop from the sky in an unpredictable pattern hitting the monsters. Other arrows would veer wildly off course as they encountered the localised area of low/no air pressure. ‘Alas, it didn’t stop them all. A few of them were still close to hitting them.
With a grin, Galaxor spun the Cosmic Destroyer at impossible speeds, forming a whirlwind. This slowed down the arrows enough to just drop or in the case of the one that did still manage to keep up, get destroyed by the godbaned artefact.
The arrows flew every which way, striking the lesser beasts instead of them, and though none of them took visible injuries when they struck, many of them nonetheless promptly keeled over, braying and shrieking as if in intense pain. This made them very easy targets for the Breaker, who did donuts and figures of eight in the marsh to maintain her speed.
If the grand beast could have looked perturbed by this state of affairs, it would have. Instead it folded its wings up, concentrating all of the curse energy it had channelled in the flaps together. Then it directed the elbows of the wings at them and started using the whole set up like a pair of back mounted cannons, a purple glow racing up the length of the folded wings before being launched towards them in the form of singular arrows, each one dozens of metres long and full of the payload as hundreds of the lesser shots it had just taken.
Galaxor weaved between the arrows with the grace of one who’s been fighting his whole life, combined with the fact that each arrow had a trajectory which if one would take in account of all the small things such as air resistance, speed, random chance and so on, they could easily calculate when to move away from their path. Unfortunately for Galaxor, there was one thing he couldn’t calculate. The movement of the beast itself.
As soon as Galaxor was in range and past the arrows, a massive claw came down upon him. Using the Cosmic Destroyer, as a shield for the blow, Galaxor was brought to the ground where the outer god pressed on him with all his might, even as the Cosmic Destroyer damaged it.
Just in time, the Breaker demonstrated exactly why she’d tried to insist on not just teleporting in as she ramped off of the corpse of a lesser beast and sent her super cycle smashing into the side of the beast. The vehicle was no god killer, but the sheer amount of momentum getting transferred sent it stumbling off of Galaxor, ending its attempt at crushing him. It also sent the goddess and her machine tumbling down into the marsh below, where they landed with a splash next to the god.
As she pulled herself out of the water, so too did a number of unusual lesser beasts. Moss , vines, and other plant matter seemed to grow out of them, which had perfectly disguised them within the creation of the goddess of life. Yet despite that, they should have been able to sense them, yet instead they blended in perfectly with the essence of Allianthé that suffused her godkiller created swamp trap.
They charged the pair of gods, and in that moment it was as if the trap had turned upon them, as life bloomed all around, forming grasping roots and vines that threatened to drag them down into the mud, and hold them there for these beasts to feast on their divine ichor.
To feast on more divine ichor.
At that moment, Galaxor let out a roar. Something primal. Something to be afraid of. Something out of the nightmares of divines. For a second, it seemed like everything stopped to look at him and they stopped. The sounds, the movement of the creatures and everything around them. Time stopped. (For reference later, -2 MP to create a localised time stopping artefact)
From Asheel's perspective it seemed like Galaxor moved faster than usual but nothing like it was for everyone else. Galaxor blinked out of existence and when he appeared, hundreds of the monsters simply exploded and the Cosmic Destroyer was suddenly full of blood, alongside Galaxor himself. Strangely, there was now a piece of a claw around Galaxor's neck which shined with godly power.
A loud laugh soon followed and a grin on Galaxor’s face. “Wooo! I haven't had this much fun since the invasion of Avenus!” said Galaxor before the great beast took another swipe at him but this time, he expected it and teleported out of the way.
The goddess herself only caught a short moment of this, as she had ducked down to frantically pull some kind of starter cord on her Super Cycle, and only once it purred to life did she look up and see that Galaxor had blitzed everything that had been bearing down on them.
“Ridiculous”
The titan seemed to agree, infinitely frustrated by the teleporting gnat hitting it with disproportionate strength. Still, with its nearby allies obliterated, there was nothing stopping it from being more indiscriminate. It warped its wings around itself, filling them with a glow again, and then swept them out, sending a radial pulse of curse energy washing out around it.
Asheel remounted her bike and throttled the power again, sending her roaring forwards just ahead of the wave which went on and on till it had washed over hundreds of metres of mash land. Only then did it stop. Stop and hang there, creating a bubble of cursed space around itself that promised pain for any who entered it.
The bubble of cursed space stopped Galaxor in his tracks, as he teleported right at the edges of it from all the possible sides and it seemed that Erigoth smiled as he saw his foe stopped in his tracks and then the Cosmic Destroyer flew past it while Galaxor kept his distance, killing the lesser beasts by hand.
Within a breath, Galaxor teleported a few times around, each time waiting until the very last moment, until he felt the curse energy almost touching his majestic skin. Not that it worked very well. It seemed that the Outer God was learning, as the energy blasts followed Galaxor everywhere he would teleport as if homing onto his divine essence.
In a manner of minutes, Galaxor was all over the battlefield. Waves of curse energy following him right into the leftover of the beast army. Some were incinerated upon contact while others jumped away only to be caught in the blast that followed. Seeing that there was no end to the energy, Galaxor shook his head. The time for games was over.
His whole demeanour changed as he channelled his heroic Aspect. Suddenly, a part of the battlefield was covered in a bright yellow light as his aura made him shine almost like a sun. He then shrunk to the size of a flea and teleported straight onto the skin of the Outer God, cursed energy following him only to hit their master. Pain went through Galaxor’s body in waves, his majestic skin burned under the strength of the curse energy.
“I call that. Return to sender. ” Galaxor shouted through the pain before teleporting away from the Outer God and growing 20 times in size, finally matching the Outer God’s enormous size.
And down the Cosmic Destroyer went towards its head as it returned from its flight, while a punch to the sides was readying up the moment he’d raise his wings or arms to protect itself. The line was cast, it was just time for the Outer God to take the bait…only that he didn’t. Using his wings, Erigoth pulled himself out of the blow and his counterattack came swift as a death.
The two wings each went towards Galaxor’s neck while his arms towards the midsection. A similar attack that would’ve been easily dodged or parried, if it wasn’t for momentum of the previous blow or the speed at which Erigoth came at Galaxor, faster than before by a few orders of magnitude.
The Cosmic Destroyer flew from Galaxor’s hand and right into one of the wings, shattering it upon impact while one of his hands went to stop Erigoth’s then went up into the sky, circling the planet…while the other wing, came down upon Galaxor, threatening to cut him in half. Teleporting while also holding the Outer God proved to be impossible, so, the next best thing was what Galaxor did. An eye for an eye. Moving his head to the side, just as the wing came upon him, talon first, it managed to cut through Galaxor’s left eyebrow down until his chin. Godly ichor poured from the wound, scalding the ground below in heroic blood.
A loud grunt was all that was heard from Galaxor and for a split second Erigoth, if he could’ve shown it, he would’ve been proud that he managed to hit the lowly gnat that gave him trouble…not that it mattered. With his attention caught, the Cosmic Destroyer, which had flown out of sight, suddenly reappeared from the opposite direction, having circumnavigated the globe, and riding it like a broom or a bomb while waving her hat in the air and cackling like mad was the Breaker.
She and it then promptly slammed into Erigoth’s back at its weakest point, pulverising in an instant the weakest armoured plate and punching straight into it. There came two shrieks of pain from the goddess, one old, one young, and then the Mother took over and started biting and scratching at the flesh surrounding her, lifetimes of faux mortality enough to grant her the pain resistance needed to endure the curse filled heart of the beast. As she’d say later, this was nothing compared to the pain of childbirth.
Galaxor laughed out loud through the pain of losing an eye and previous burns as he saw Asheel riding the Cosmic Destroyer before stopping as Erigoth doubled his strength, trying to break the hold in which Galaxor had him.
And then they were inside the beast. A fraction of Galaxor’s willpower followed the Cosmic Destroyer inside Erigoth and started banging itself against all the internal organs that it could find. It was as if the Cosmic Destroyer was a bee caught in a glass dome, trying to escape. Hitting everything it could find and due to the strength of the armoured plates, it couldn’t find a way out combined with the distinct knowledge of any and all weak points of a monster, what happened inside Erigoth could only be described as a carnage. An internal massacre.
Deathly screams followed as the outer god was slowly broken apart from the inside until finally it finally collapsed down into the vengeful marsh that had followed it since its first and now only victory. Root and vine lashed up, practically entombing the beast and slowly started to drag it down into the mud. Before it sank completely a green fist punched its way out of the corpse, and a soaking in gore goblin pulled her way out of the carcass.
The mother tried and failed to wipe herself down, groaned, and then yelled “you owe me at least … 3 hot baths!” up at a hovering Galaxor.
Finally Erigoth was dead. Galaxor very quickly gathered up a few of his armoured plates just before they sank into Allianthe’s swamp and then watched as Asheel got itself out of it.
“By all the divines, Maintainer that was EPIC!. Truly, a heroic move not seen in aeons. Amazing! ” started Galaxor with the glee of one who just managed to kill a god before clearing his throat and continuing “3 hot baths? You’re the one that went inside him! You also owe me a new eye! Bloody lost it while you were massaging the lesser beasts with your machinery. ”, initially his voice was meant to be calm and collected but he failed and started laughing out loud for a few seconds.
“Ah quit your babying, I’m sure you’ll look fetching in an eyepatch” she bit back half heartedly, before getting caught up in his laughter more as an outlet for the dying exhilaration than the humour of any of this. As she devolved into her own cackling, her orb-like transport gradually rolled over, arriving just in time for her to dismount her corpse-based perch before it fully sank into the mud.
“That’s where you’re definitely not wrong. I look fetching in anything. ” replied Galaxor with a laugh as he showcased his muscles for her before falling towards the ground and teleporting next to her in the orb and onto the pillow pile within, exhaustion finally catching up with him, as the sun slowly started to rise, illuminating them and the battlefield in a golden light.