Chapter 425: Cowardice

    Mid Morning - Mid Winter : 100 Kilometers East of the Coast | Eastern Bahamut

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    Staring toward the horizon as four presences started approaching like sharks who caught the scent of blood, my pupils sharpened, my wings flared out, and my aura exploded. *VWOOM*

    Snapping my gaze to Ho?er, so much bloodlust erupted from me that even his insanity seemed to vanish for a moment. "~I wouldn''t be laughing if I were you.~"

    His maniacal laugh ceased in an instant.

    -You know what...- "~It no longer matters whether you were telling the truth or not.~" In an instant, the air above him warped with the creation of antimatter and glittered with the sparkle of space mana.

    But he wasn''t planning on sticking around long enough for the spell to finish. *Vwoop* Disappearing with a wide, taunting smile, I detonated the antimatter, focusing the blast into a beam several times the size of me and engulfing the horizon in an instant.@@@@

    But it was too slow. "Tch..." Snickering as I felt his presence dart around the beam, I turned my attention toward Krystallo to make sure my barriers were holding up. -What a confusing bastard...- Even as he ran off, I couldn''t tell whose side he was on.

    Whether he was acting as a scout, forcing me to use my divinity and expose my presence to the Aesir, or simply wishing to give me a warning, I couldn''t be sure.

    As I turned back to the opposite horizon though, such dilemmas became meaningless.

    Catching the gaze of a lightly-clothed, well-built young man as the presences of the three Valkyries behind him scattered below the horizon, my pupils sharpened, and all color drained from my surroundings.

    Layering my aura''s projection over my eyes, the space around me became a vast sea of flowing strings and silhouettes, with fluctuating masses of information blending with the vast three-dimensional space I inhabited.

    Although I had yet to truly experiment with it, as I caught Baldur''s gaze on the horizon, all lingering hesitation disappeared.

    "~Hoho, I guess just like Father said, losing your memories really reduced you to a dog.~" Slowing down right before he entered the world of strings my mind had created around me, he matched my gaze with a rather energetic smile. "~It almost makes me feel bad.~"

    Not buying the openings he showed as he floated toward me, brandishing his divinity like a massive flag, my eyes never left his... Not even to blink...

    He was holding himself back...

    "~But don''t worry, I don''t discriminate.~" Continuing to float forward, his presence slowly started to grow heavier, steadily accelerating his divinity more and more with every second. "~Believe it or not I''m actually a pacifist.~" Trying to get me to jump out and keep him from accelerating his divinity and more than it already had, he ran his mouth while doing everything he could to show me openings.

    At least that was until his divinity accelerated beyond mine...

    The moment he passed me, his smile widened, and his confidence exploded. "~It''s truly a shame that people like you force me to commit such disgusting acts of violence, isn''t it!~" Gently adjusting the cuff on his wrist while trying to see how much he could get away with, the crazed look in his eyes grew.

    Until eventually.. his divinity reached its limit, and disbelief mixed with the craze in his eyes.

    "~Wow... To think the incarnation of death really has been reduced to a mutt... I understand you want to protect the missy behind you, but at the same time, you just let me dilate time like that?~" Shaking his head to scoff, his smile grew before his arms started turning black. "~And here I thought I''d need to use her as a hostage!~"

    *VWOOP* Closing the distance between us so fast he seemed to almost teleport, my eyes jolted to him, only for his divinity-laden fist to connect with the top of my head. *WOOM-CRRRRACKKK*

    Feeling a shockwave blow through my spine, the ocean behind me was atomized, releasing a blinding flash before the water quaked and exploded.

    Having drained his confidence, he stayed completely silent.

    "~And to think you called me a dog.~" Snickering with pent-up rage, I stared at the still-crackling space around him with discontent. "~You bastards could have killed me at any time by working together, yet Odin and Frigg send you to your death, one by one, every time. Do you not find it odd?~"

    Unable to hold it in, his smooth and steady divinity started shaking from anger before the gates finally dissipated. "~SHUT YOUR MOUTH!~" *CRACK* Hurling the Valkyrie''s spear into my open mouth, it almost immediately pierced the back of my throat.

    But at that point, my anger simply eclipsed the pain.

    Leaving the Valkyrie behind, he darted off as fast as he could before a flash left my mouth, and the sun descended, eviscerating the Valkyrie before racing to catch up to him.

    But he was too far gone by then. Stopping only to block the initial burst of space mana at the front of the blast, he immediately turned around and continued to run like a dog with its tail tucked between its legs.

    "Tch..." Clicking my tongue, I almost immediately decelerated my divinity, only for time to flow once more, and give my surroundings a chance to react.

    *WOOP-CRRRACKKK* With countless, simultaneous impacts rivaling the most powerful forces of nature, countless cubic kilometers of ocean were ejected into the atmosphere, completely misting the unfortunate schools of fish in the area and sending out a shockwave so immense that its reverberations from the various internal layers of the planet could be easily felt like an echo all around the world.

    But during that time, my focus was elsewhere. Having crawled under and encapsulated Krystallo completely, protecting her from the unfathomable blast of hot water and plasma with my body, I did everything I could to stop her momentum and address the hole that was now through her shoulder, narrowly missing her spine.

    *WOOM* But while I was ready to try and numb the area, as the impact rang out and hit Krystallo, even while weakened, it overloaded her senses to such an extent that it knocked her out cold.

    However.. perhaps that was the best thing that could have happened...

    After letting the shockwaves pass, I opened up my wings to find Krystallo laying on my underside with her crimson blood flowing down my side like a waterfall. It was a sight I thought would only exist in my nightmares, but.. as the steaming rain poured down over us, and I watched her chest slowly grow and shrink, I felt relief.

    She was alive...

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