Chapter 898 Aktzin vs Koneko & Kuroka part 4
The thin Deity's muscles instantly doubled in size as he held a Warhammer with two blunt sides in his left hand and a battle axe with two bladed sides in his right hand. While his right hand was missing four fingers, the ax seemed to be magnetized to his palm. In addition to that, there was a floating and glowing ring in front of his right eye that looked like a spectacle without any glass.
Koneko knew that this was the real part of the battle and although it seemed like a lot of things had happened, it had only been a few minutes since the battle started. Koneko took a deep breath and accelerated forward with blinding speed, leaving a trail of white light in her wake.
Koneko then split into many pieces, creating clones of herself, and began revolving around the stationary Aktzin. The same as before, Koneko was able to hide her real self and nothing could point out her location if one didn't leave a marker on her.
After seeing no action from him, Koneko sent out three of her clones with each of them attacking from different directions to test the waters. But without even seeing these clones, Aktzin twisted his body a bit and dodged all the incoming chakrams with ease, 'What!?'
At the same time, rain clouds started converging and as Koneko sent out more clones without risking herself as a strong rain also began to fall, drowning out the sounds everywhere.
Koneko was initially on guard against the rain, but stopped thinking about it after carefully inspecting its effects, which didn't seem to be any different from a normal rain, 'Should I go all in before he can get used to this and think of a countermeasure, or wait for an opportunity that I don't even know will come?'
While weighing her options, Koneko suddenly saw the unmoving Aktzin smirk as he locked eyes with the real her for a moment, 'He knew!?'
Koneko wanted to get away, but it was already too late as the rain drops around her suddenly became sharp blades that stopped her retreat. She wanted to force her way through even if it meant receiving numerous cuts, but that was the wrong decision she made as she should have just increased her defense.
As she tried to burn away the raindrops in front of her and the rest chased after her, it was already too late for her to realize that Aktzin, with renewed agility, appeared right on top of her with his warhammer covered in lightning about to swing down.
"P-Panz-!" Koneko tried to change once again, but a full mode change was already impossible to finish so she could only cross her arms in defense. Although some of her armor returned to her arms, it was still too much for her. The bones in her arms were instantly shattered along with the armor pieces at the moment of impact and the force of the hammer went through to her chest, breaking her ribs, rupturing her lungs and momentarily sending her heart into shock.
Nevertheless, that wasn't the end as a large bolt of lightning came down and struck both Aktzin and Koneko. The Deity thought that he could finally kill this resilient and hateful cat, but the moment the lightning hit them, black flames bloomed from Koneko's chest, repelling most of the lightning away from her, '!? Another strange flame... Now I'm really curious as to who these children are and where they have come from.'
Koneko crashed to the ground and along the way, the raindrop blades cut through her clothes, skin, and flesh. But thanks to her natural defenses, all of them were just flesh wounds and no vitals were damaged.
Koneko had already lost consciousness, but the white flames continued to burn strong and were attempting to repair her wounds while also devouring the raindrops, 'I see... It's eating away at my Divine Power and converting it into something useful for its master.'
Aktzin's conclusion only strengthened his resolve to kill Koneko due to her being a threat to Divine Power, which no one else should be able to take advantage of aside from the Deities, 'I'll end this devil no matter what!'
Aktzin prepared both his Warhammer and axe while thinking of reducing her to a lump of lifeless flesh. But before he could do so, a black sword approached his neck from behind and he was able to block it with his ax, "You two really do like coming up from behind. Anything new?"
Kuroka smiled but it didn't reach her eyes as she replied, "Oh? Are you asking for something new? I'll give you that."
The black sword suddenly extended by splitting itself into pieces and wrapped around Aktzin by being connected by black flames.
A thin veil of water instantly covered Aktzin as he looked down at the blades trying to pierce his skin, "I see, that last bit was your flames. This is new, but nothing else."
Aktzin then commanded the rain drops to solidify and converge to form numerous blades around Kuroka. Making sure that she didn't have any paths of retreat, the blades launched towards her. But the moment they pierced her, Kuroka's body became foggy and disappeared, leaving her sword behind, "!?"
The next moment, the Deity heard Kuroka's voice from behind, "So that ring around your eye is what gave away Shirone's position. What a convenient item."
Aktzin immediately turned around with fear on his face, "What!? How did you avoid revealing the 'truth'!?"
Bloodlust from Kuroka then suddenly spiked up as she chuckled, "Truth? So that's what you call it. Easy~ I just have to create a convincing 'lie' that you'll think is the 'truth'."
"Tsk.", Aktzin clicked his tongue loudly and used his physical strength to break the sword that was tying him. He was able to easily do so, but that only left questions in Aktzin's mind. However, he didn't want to lose his initiative as he did with Koneko as he might not be as lucky this time.
Slamming his axe and warhammer together Aktzin created a torrent of water and lightning that surrounded him as a pseudo armor of both elements covered his body.
But when he was about to launch himself towards the smiling Kuroka, something imploded inside of him and he lost control of his Divine Power. As if someone hit him on the back of his head, Aktzin became dizzy and started coughing up blood with the two elements around him dispersing, "W-what...?"
Kuroka walked through the air and slowly approached him with very slow steps, "Although I did say that I'd let Shirone fight on her own, I never said anything about not fighting alongside her."
Aktzin was still trying to figure out what was going on and raised his hands to see the blood on them. At that point, the tears of blood had also begun to seep through his eyes along with uncontrollable bleeding from his nose and ears. Although he heard her clearly, he didn't have time to think about Kuroka's very contradictory statements.
Kuroka didn't mind that and continued, "Sure, Shirone fought you alone, but that doesn't mean I was just standing there doing nothing."
Kuroka reached him but instead of stopping, she started walking around him, "You see, I'm also a fighter like my dear sister. But unlike her, I don't really like frontal confrontations and am more adept at working my skills from afar."
"...You're just a coward." Aktzin finally replied. He was still trying to figure out what's wrong but it seems that his opponent was about to explain what's happening so he chose to listen.
Kuroka only laughed at his remark, "Thank you for the compliment, nyaa~. I like being a coward, because that's how I survived until now while protecting my sister from the shadows."
"Moving on~ Way before this confrontation, I had already begun researching Gods and thankfully enough, I had a lot of materials that just walked about the earth. Even though their abilities were sealed and what they were using to move around was just an imitation of their original flesh, I was still able to learn a lot, nyaa.
"But before I continue down this line, I'd like to say that I'm a pretty good practitioner of both Youjutsu (Youkai Techniques) and Senjustu (Ki Techniques) and that I'm capable of creating poisons that will only affect a specific race."
Kuroka was once again in front of him so Aktzin looked up to her in disbelief, "P-poison? Impossible! Since when!?"
"Right~? I thought so too since Gods are supposedly pure and nothing can taint them. But, you see, I was able to work around that, nyaa~."
Aktzin swallowed a mouthful of bloody saliva in nervousness but still refused to believe that what was destroying him right now is poison, 'Impossible! Never! Nothing foreign can change or affect a God's body! That's where the main point of 'Gods are unchanging beings' came from after all!', he thought to himself.
"That's correct, isn't it? No poison nor medicine should be able to change a God's body, nyaa~" Kuroka correctly guessed what he's thinking while also thinking to herself, 'Kisuke might be able to do it though. He's a strange one in many ways.'
Aktzin's entire strength and power had already left his body and he began to fall down. In response, Kuroka controlled her sword to bind him again while continuing her little speech, "However, that rule doesn't apply to your Divine Power."
Kuroka walked towards him and got near enough that she was able to reach him. Aktzin saw her arm extend out and became fearful, "Y-you! Stay away from me!"
Kuroka ignored his words and lifted his chin with her fingers, "I have all the knowledge needed to figure out the way around a God's body, but that wasn't enough to create a working poison. But thanks to you ignoring me this whole time as you fought Shirone, I was able to observe the movement and attributes of your Divine Power, so much in fact, that I was able to infect the surrounding Magic Power so that when you took that in to replenish your Divine Power, it wouldn't be considered as something foreign."
Aktzin was finally beginning to understand where this was going but that only increased the terror he was feeling, "As you replenish your Divine Power with Magic Power, you also took in the poison that I had been secretly creating from the start. And here you are, already feeling its effects."
However, Kuroka's next sentence gave a bit of hope to Aktzin and he started struggling, "But you see, this isn't a particularly great poison since it could only restrict your Divine Power for a few minutes at most and you'd certainly return to normal after that. In addition to that, this poison that I painstakingly prepared can only affect you since every God has a different form of Divine Power and I'm not confident that I'd be able to create a universal poison."
"W-what do you want?" Aktzin tried to negotiate to buy some time.
"Me? Just one thing, nyaa."
A smile finally emerged on Aktzin's face, "W-what is it!? Tell me! I'll do my best to fulfill it!"
"Before that, I'd like to ask something."
"Go ahead. Ask it!"
A second later, Aktzin saw Kuroka's gentle smile change to that of a cruel one that finally matched her golden eyes, "I heard that by being able to bring your original avatar down to the Lower World, you'd also be forfeiting the protection you're receiving from the system. I wonder if that's true?"
Aktzin's face instantly fell, "H-how did you know!?"
This is the main reason why only Aktzin, aside from Osiris and Aruna, was the one who descended, because everyone else was afraid that if something was capable of killing them in the Lower World, it'd be a true death.
Aktzin thought that they were too cowardly and idiotic for believing something could kill Gods like them and simply dismissed them as inferior to him. At this moment, however, he was already regretting it dearly, "P-please... Spare me!"
"Didn't I say that I only want one thing? For hurting my dear little sister, I want to hear your screams as you embrace death, nyaa~!"
A small black flame suddenly emerged from Kuroka's palm that was holding Aktzin's chin up. It then traveled through her middle finger and reached Aktzin's chin before combusting, "P-please! Spare me! I'll do anything you want!" Aktzin didn't stop pleading for his life.
Kuroka didn't say anything and let go of him while the black flames instantly covered his whole body. But instead of a burning sensation, Aktzin felt that the flames began to compress him. He thought that he was just imagining this until the compression became painful as it began to crush his bones and flesh slowly, "AHHH!!!!!"
Kuroka's smile disappeared as she flew down to Koneko with a sad expression, "I should have done something better to protect her... It's also my mistake to wait until the last moment to move."
Kuroka gently picked up the unconscious Koneko while the white flames were still raging around her. But the flames that were usually ferocious predators became docile like a house cat when Kuroka touched them. The both of them disappeared from the artificial space leaving behind the screams of extreme agony from the God that's slowly being reduced to a lump of mangled flesh.
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