Within the dense fog conjured by Koyanskaya, Mana reactions continued to surge.
"Time was short, but I still managed to collect some rather splendid coats across the various Lostbelts," her voice echoed through the mist. "With a spectator like you here, I might as well reveal a little ahead of schedule. After all, once you become part of that coat yourself, you won't be able to see any of this anymore. An unfinished 'god,' after all."
Her voice reverberated through the fog, layers of echo clinging to it as though the sound itself were eroding the surrounding space, seeping in from every direction.
"You sound impatient," Shiomi replied, doing his best to gather his Mana. "Are you afraid I'll recover before you manage to subdue me?"
"Or are you worried Zeus might notice what you're doing here and step in?"
Even as he said it, Shiomi doubted the latter was very likely.
For Zeus, an incomplete Beast like Koyanskaya clashing here with an existence like Shiomi, the two crippling each other, would probably be the ideal outcome.
After all, for the King of the Lostbelt who intended to overwrite the Bleached World with this world's anomalies and build a new human history, the very existence of a Beast was itself a latent threat, something that had to be eliminated sooner or later.
"That chief god wouldn't care in the slightest about what I do to his enemies," Koyanskaya said lightly. "If anything, me dealing with you here fits his wishes perfectly."
"And besides, this isn't just 'toying with a human god.' It's 'toying with a human god who's almost indistinguishable from a real one.' A once-in-a-lifetime symbol like that… how could I not be excited?"
Her words were followed by unrestrained, manic laughter that rolled through the fog and the raging wind.
Shiomi didn't bother trying to decipher her mindset. His Star Eyes strained through the thick mist, finally catching sight of the form Koyanskaya had manifested.
Even shrouded in Mana-heavy fog, the true face of the Beast was laid bare before him.
A black, four-legged beast, its body trailed by multiple tails.
"Don't be so shy," Shiomi taunted. "Hiding your true form like that. At this rate, you wouldn't even measure up to Mother, let alone Goetia."
Primordial Runes: the Ninth Rune, the Rune of Navigation.
As he probed Koyanskaya with words, the Mana of the Runes was released, pressing down on the pitch-black fog that refused to disperse, along with the eerie, sand-like currents that warped his vision.
"Goetia?" Koyanskaya replied. "Now that you mention it, I suppose I never thanked you. If you hadn't shattered that man's naïve hopes, none of this would exist today."
Unaware of the full weight behind Shiomi's words, she casually revealed her connection to Goetia.
"What?" Shiomi's eyelid twitched.
He had discussed it more than once with Romani before. Lostbelts. Humanity's bleaching. This planet reduced to a blank slate. Had Goetia, using King Solomon's clairvoyance, already foreseen a future like this?
In the end, it had remained nothing more than speculation.
After the battle at the Temple of Time, the defeated Goetia had not perished, yet he had never returned either.
Even Romani couldn't say for certain whether Goetia had accepted the total failure of the Incineration of Humanity plan, or simply decided the matter required long-term reconsideration.
And now, Koyanskaya was claiming that it was precisely Goetia's defeat that gave rise to Humanity's Bleaching.
That alone was enough to show that Shiomi's earlier conjectures had come frighteningly close to the truth behind the Bleached World.
"There's no need to keep wagging your tongue," Koyanskaya said, cutting the topic off. "My true form isn't something you need to know."
A massive mental curse swept toward him.
"Another mental attack?" Shiomi scoffed. "Even Aphrodite couldn't pull that off. What makes you think you can?"
Realizing she had no intention of continuing that line of discussion, Shiomi knew that pressing her further would only make her dodge his questions more decisively.
It was better to focus on the fight in front of him.
Even if Koyanskaya wasn't planning to reveal anything—
"No," she interrupted. "I'm just testing your quality."
Before the words had fully faded, slender eye-like markings along a tail floating in the fog flashed with light. In the next instant, scorching, venomous flames of curse came crashing down.
Shiomi evaded the initial strike and tried to break free of the fog, planning to attack from farther out. But Koyanskaya pressed in relentlessly, curse flames spiraling around him as they surged in from all directions.
And there were the tails. Their trajectories were impossible to read, lashing out from the shadows again and again, aiming to pierce Shiomi's body and rob him of his ability to move.
Because she knew Shiomi could not be killed, Koyanskaya paid no attention to the state of her "prey." She attacked without restraint, intent only on capturing him and taking him down.
"Tsk…"
Shiomi glanced at the fresh wounds spreading across his body and clicked his tongue.
The strength Koyanskaya was showing now was on par with Kiara Sessyoin back when she hadn't even finished her metamorphosis.
And of course she'd picked this moment, right after he'd fought a god. Even if he wanted to release a Noble Phantasm, there wasn't a single opening to spare.
Her assault came like a flood. This time, Koyanskaya was clearly going for the kill, no stalling, no hesitation, not a breath of room to recover.
"Take this!"
He slipped past another pincer attack from tails lashing out of the darkness, spun, and drove his spear forward, punching straight through the eye-like marking on one of them.
Even with the tail pierced, Koyanskaya didn't so much as grunt. Instead, that tail surged with even greater force, locking Shiomi in a deadlock. She was willing to pay that price if it let her wrench the Noble Phantasm from his grip, even for a moment.
She knew Shiomi had more than one spear. Even if her tail was pierced by the cursed crimson spear, it wouldn't be destroyed.
And once he was disarmed, a man already at the end of his rope would become Koyanskaya's perfect prize.
Curse-laden black flames and razor claws prowled through the fog as if they had a mind of their own. The moment Shiomi moved, they could graze his body.
His injuries were piling up faster than he could regenerate. The advantage was slipping away.
Worse still, Zeus was watching like a hawk. No matter who won, this fight was going to turn into a headache.
"Then…"
Shiomi expanded a Magecraft barrier to blunt the incoming attacks, gathering what remained of his Mana as he prepared to activate Earth Mother's Feast.
Even if the effect was reduced, Koyanskaya wouldn't walk away unscathed.
"—Mother, I humbly ask that you—"
The chant had barely begun when three cold arrows whistled in from behind.
They weren't aimed at Shiomi.
They went straight for Koyanskaya's tails, still swaying as they waited for the next opening.
"?!"
Caught off guard by the interference, Koyanskaya immediately sensed danger on the level of a lethal compatibility mismatch.
"I see," a rough, steady voice said. "So I wasn't summoned into this world just because of Artemis."
"Hunting the Beast in front of us… that's the true mission of this Spirit Origin."
Orion stepped in, voice calm and grounded.
"Sorry to keep everyone in Chaldea waiting. Cleaning up the aftermath took a while. Then, after we crossed over here, Zeus smashed our ship, so we didn't make it until now."