An impossible battle had just begun.
The Goddess, colossal and profane, slowly raised her hand. The gesture seemed simple — but it made the void itself shudder.
A wave of blue aura, cosmic in scale, burst from her palm. It spread out like an ocean of pure energy, swallowing entire constellations.
Planets and stars ripped from their orbits were hurled into the void — catapulted as celestial projectiles toward Sakolomi and Niyus⁵.
— I'm dreaming… she just threw asteroids like that?! Sakolomi gasped, eyes wide.
— Focus, Sakolomi! shouted Niyus⁵, his voice lost amidst the cosmic roar.
The two Deviants waved their hands in unison.
Two spheres of glowing red mana appeared, merging into a single blast that lit up the darkness.
The impact was titanic: the hurled stars exploded one by one, forming a network of shockwaves that shook the void.
Their combined auras rose in a spiral, countering the Goddess's divine power — a duel of energies dense enough to vibrate the void.
— It's not enough to respond to attack with attack, Sakolomi growled.
— Watch out! yelled Niyus⁵.
A gigantic shadow fell upon them.
The Goddess's hand — vaster than a galactic cluster — descended from the black sky, crushing dozens of celestial bodies as it came down.
But Sakolomi and Niyus⁵ were not mere mortals.
They were Deviants — mythical beings whose movements transcended space, time, and causality itself.
Their speed could not be measured: it broke cause and effect lines.
A blink, and they had already vanished from the trajectory, their silhouettes stretching between multiple realities.
Sakolomi materialized above the divine hand.
— I'm going to counterattack!
But the Goddess screamed.
An abyssal cry, charged with archaic power, tore nearby galaxies apart.
Her entire body was covered in thick, living black and red mana that rippled like demonic fire.
Each pulse resonated like a cosmic heart, ready to consume all existence.
Sakolomi felt his own energy flow falter.
— … Oh no.
— Cover yourself with a shield! Now! yelled Niyus⁵.
Instantly, the two Deviants activated their permanent mana shields.
Two spheres of pure energy spread around them, cracking reality under the pressure.
A rain of black particles fell on their defenses, slashing their protections as if each speck of light was a dimensional blade.
Sakolomi grimaced, but a nervous smile stretched across his lips.
— I feel like I'm facing… the final boss of a game.
Niyus⁵'s gaze shone.
— Then hope this game has only one level.
The Goddess's mana unfolded like an eternal breath — a primordial drive that transcended all hostility, all defense, all opposition.
It was no longer magic. It was not even divinity.
It was the naked will of absolute domination, a superior flow that crushed even the gods' structures.
Sakolomi felt his throat tighten.
At that moment, he understood why even the primordial gods had hesitated to fight her.
It was probably not Mü Thanatos herself… but something torn from her, a fragment of existence forced into being — an abomination the goddess had cursed herself.
He swallowed hard.
— I think there's nothing… we can do against her.
But a desperate idea crossed his mind.
His eyes lit with a red glow.
— Unless…
He raised his hand.
— Come to me, Maurice!
The air cracked like glass.
From the opening erupted the Myophoric creature of black and blue mist mana, whose contours seemed to swallow the light itself.
The Myophoric creature bowed, its deep voice resonating in the void:
— You have summoned me, Master?
Sakolomi nodded, his gaze burning with determination.
— Yes. Use the Scythe of the Essence of the End… on that Goddess, over there!
He pointed to the gigantic shadow, that cosmic entity watching them with icy curiosity.
— Very well, Master.
Maurice extended his hand.
A scythe materialized, forged from visceral black mana, streaked with sickly blue reflections.
Every pulse of his weapon made the void around them tremble.
Without another word, the creature swung its blade in a perfect arc.
Space twisted, light flickered out… then the wave of energy hit the Goddess.
Silence.
No reaction at all.
Light returned. The Goddess remained intact.
Sakolomi went pale.
— That's impossible…
Niyus⁵ frowned.
— What was that attack supposed to do, exactly?
— The Scythe of the End destroys the very identity of its target, Sakolomi explained in a low voice. It never misses.
But… it had no effect on her.
His gaze wavered.
The realization struck him like a blade.
If even the Scythe, a weapon designed to erase a being's essence, failed…
Then it meant one thing: this Goddess was beyond all identity.
An existence without ego, without name, without attachment.
A being so supreme that no notion of destruction, life, or death could even touch it.
Sakolomi stepped back, sweat running down his forehead.
— … We can't hurt her.
We can't even reach her.
Before them, the Goddess barely moved — yet the entire void shivered, as if reality itself held its breath.
Sakolomi's eyes widened, fear knotting his throat. He had never before seen something so… indescribable. This immense and abominable goddess surpassed everything he knew: she was more invisible and elusive than Isissis, more impenetrable than the primordial gods themselves, already known as insurmountable obstacles.
He suddenly realized that this was not a battle. It was not a confrontation, but a sentence. Every movement, every spell, every attempt to retaliate would be useless. Before them stood an absolute wall, a wall beyond all limits of imagination, a force that annihilated even laws and concepts.
Sakolomi trembled, voice choked by terror:
— We… we absolutely cannot do anything to her… It's impossible… impossible even to approach…
The goddess screamed again. A wave of incomprehensible mana spread around them, transforming the spatial void into a dimensionless abyss, erasing laws, concepts, and annihilating all existence: planets, stars, comets, galaxies… all were reduced to nothing.
The mana flow headed straight for Sakolomi, Maurice, and Niyus⁵. If even the slightest fragment of that power touched them, they would be reduced to nothing.
But at that precise moment, something happened. Sakolomi's body lit up with dense, vibrant golden light. Mana horns sprouted on his head and body, forming an ethereal armor that seemed to draw directly from the foundations of life and essence. Maurice and Niyus⁵ turned, stunned and speechless.
— Sakolomi? — murmured Niyus⁵, voice full of disbelief.
Sakolomi looked at him, but that gaze was no longer entirely his own. A new depth, almost infinite, could be seen in it. His voice resonated with calm but powerful force:
— No… I am no longer just Sakolomi… I am Sakolomi and Saiko at once. You can call me… Saikolomeh.
The essence of Saiko, long imprisoned within Sakolomi, had finally awakened. It sensed the magnitude of the disaster unfolding and the cosmic threat descending upon them.
— There are battles… that cannot be won by force! — declared Saikolomeh, his voice echoing through the annihilated void.
And for the first time, a fragile but real glimmer of hope pierced the total shadow of the goddess, as if a new dimension of strategy, reflection, and conscious essence had just appeared within this absolute chaos.
The giant goddess, faced with Saikolomeh's presence, widened her eyes. For a moment, chaos seemed suspended. Then, almost imperceptibly, her destructive mana halted, leaving a disturbing silence floating in the annihilated void.
A voice, immense and resonant, rose in that nothingness:
— Sai…ko?!
Saikolomeh gave a slight smile before vanishing in an instant, moving closer to the goddess. His gigantic, red, incandescent eye, the size of hundreds of suns, fixed on Saiko with an intensity both curious and sad.
— Tsk… — murmured Saikolomeh, raising his eyes to that corrupted globe where white had become black, saturated with corruption.
— You shouldn't exist… you know that…
The goddess remained silent, staring at him without a word, as if measuring each particle of his presence.
Saikolomeh watched her closely. Even if she was but a corrupted fragment, her original essence came from Mü Thanatos. The original essence surpasses all in the god-father's dream, hence her titanic strength. The truth, however, was relentless: despite her overwhelming power, she could be countered by any original god — because her fractured essence made her vulnerable to those whose essence was massive and complete.
Saikolomeh placed his hand on his chest. As a child of Mü Thanatos, he too possessed original essence, but corrupted and mixed with meta-conceptual essence. He was thus neither absolute nor comparable to his uncles or even to that cursed fragment of Mü Thanatos.
This abominable entity had been extracted with the intent to remove Utha, a facet of Mü Thanatos. But some facets can never be detached; the forced existence of this fragment was born to compensate for what should have been extracted.
Mü Thanatos, now exiled, probably watched this scene somewhere, letting this cursed facet live as a reminder of the gods' mistakes. This living corruption was both a punishment and a victim: it embodied the weight of betrayed perfection, a witness to the silent chastisement inflicted upon supposedly perfect beings.
Saikolomeh sighed, gaze lost in the massive corrupted eye:
— Mother… I don't know where you are, but… do you like all this?
The void around them vibrated with palpable intensity, as if the answer would transcend the very laws of reality. In that suspended moment, tragedy, anger, and absolute power mingled, revealing that this face-off was not just a fight, but a confrontation with the weight of origin and guilt.