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"Do you really think I won't kill him just to finish you?"
Through the eyes of my final clone, I watched the God of Light drag the point of his spear across the broken floor. Logan remained trapped beneath the clone's arm, blood running from the hole through his stomach, but his hands were still pressed together. Light continued moving from his body into the god, strengthening his barriers and reinforcing the damaged dome around us.
Even half-dead, Logan was still doing his job.
"I'm counting on you being willing," I said through the clone. "You'll lose his support either way."
The god's expression tightened. He understood the problem. Killing Logan would remove one threat, but it would also weaken every divine body connected to the support network.
"You foxes have always been like this," he said. "Never willing to face anything directly. You hide behind illusions, false bodies, and whatever creature is foolish enough to protect you."
The clone remained still while my real body waited beyond the dome. I could feel the weak section through Dimension Sense now. Every attack thrown during the fight had widened the damage, but the barrier was still receiving power from somewhere beneath the fortress.
The god continued speaking, his voice growing colder.
"A year ago, your kind disappeared. I thought the remaining Primordial Foxes had finally accepted what they were and hidden themselves away. Then your queen returned, and suddenly every surviving fox began crawling back beneath her protection."
So that was what this was really about.
He wanted me angry. Wrath responded to fury, and he knew enough about the skill to understand what happened when its bearer lost sight of her purpose. Fran had warned me about exactly this kind of manipulation.
I ignored him and watched the dome.
A pulse travelled up through the floor before part of the barrier's support structure went dark.
Dean had reached the reinforcement system.
At the same moment, the divine connection above the dome flickered. Eliara and Thorne had forced the strongest copy to focus on them, interrupting part of the information passing between the bodies.
That was the opening we had been waiting for.
The clone released Logan and raised an ice shield beneath the weakest part of the dome. The God of Light moved immediately, crossing the distance before the shield had finished forming. His spear passed through the clone's arms and legs in several controlled strikes before his hand closed around its throat.
"You sacrificed every body for a crack in a barrier," he said. "Was it worth it?"
The clone smiled because I already knew the answer.
His spear entered its chest, and the body shattered into ice and mana. Its remaining power, memories, and final sensations returned to me in a single violent surge. Pain struck behind my eyes as my mind absorbed everything it had experienced, but there was no separate death to mourn. It had completed its purpose.
Outside the dome, I activated Wrath.
Power pushed through every muscle as the first increase began building. My three natural tails lifted behind me while red smoke rolled from my skin. Every minute I kept the skill active would raise all my statistics by another ten percent, and every minute would leave another month of pain waiting for me when it ended.
I only needed enough time to finish this.
The fracture inside the dome was narrow, but Fran's training had taught me how to work with an existing distortion instead of forcing a new passage. I connected the space beside me to the damaged section and opened a blue portal through the barrier.
An illusion wearing my body stepped through first.
The God of Light released the fading remains of the clone and turned toward it. His eyes widened when he felt Wrath surrounding the false body.
"The real one?"
He drove his spear through its chest. The illusion folded around the weapon and disappeared, leaving him staring through an empty portal.
I teleported to Logan's support position while the god was distracted.
Logan sensed me, but his injuries and divided concentration made him too slow. A short sword formed in my hand through Weapon Creation and Pseudo-God Blacksmith, and I drove it through the weakened barrier surrounding him.
His hands separated as the blade passed through his neck.
The flow of support magic stopped immediately. The buffs covering the God of Light collapsed, and several sections of the dome lost their golden shine. I caught Logan's head before it hit the floor and dropped it beside his body.
The god turned slowly.
"You killed him."
"He was keeping your network together."
"He had already served his purpose."
There was no anger in his answer. Logan had called him Father, but the god looked at his body as if it were damaged equipment.
I created a demigod-grade hand cannon in my right hand while keeping the sword in my left. A dense physical projectile formed inside the chamber, surrounded by Devil Lightning. Golden Fox Lightning spread across the outside of the weapon, not to increase its destructive power, but to interfere with the divine mana protecting him.
I fired.
The God of Light knocked the projectile aside with his spear, but without Logan's support, the impact pushed him several steps across the broken floor. He recovered immediately and struck with a compressed wave of air that ripped through the space between us.
I opened a small portal in front of the attack and redirected it into the upper section of the dome. The remaining barrier shuddered as its fractures widened.
The first minute of Wrath ended.
A fourth tail formed behind me, adding another ten thousand Intelligence and making the surrounding mana easier to control. The extra strength did not make the god helpless. He adjusted to my speed, intercepted my sword, and forced the hand cannon away before I could fire again.
His spear scraped across my ribs. Soul Regeneration began repairing the wound while I shifted weapons, replacing the sword with a chakram and using its curved edge to trap the spear.
I fired the hand cannon beneath his guard.
The physical projectile struck the barrier protecting his face. Golden Lightning disrupted the mana for a fraction of a second, allowing the Devil Lightning wrapped around the shot to punch through. The projectile tore across his left eye and sent him crashing into the damaged dome.
He responded by creating several barriers around himself, each one rotating independently. Light attacks erupted between them while he used air pressure to keep me from closing the distance.
By the third minute, my fifth and sixth temporary tails had appeared. My rising Agility allowed me to move between the attacks, while the additional Intelligence from my tails gave me enough control to open several small portals without losing stability.
I fired into one portal and redirected the projectile through another inside his defensive barriers. The shot struck his shoulder from behind, breaking his concentration.
I teleported into the gap, drove both chakrams into the same weakened section of his defence, and released Devil Lightning through the weapons. His barriers ruptured, and the damaged containment dome finally collapsed with them.
The broken obsidian fell away, revealing the wider battlefield around the fortress.
Dean had disabled the systems reinforcing the dome from below. Above the eastern courtyard, Stacy and Kayda were keeping another divine copy occupied, preventing it from reaching me. Farther overhead, Eliara and Thorne were still fighting the strongest copy, a young semi-god whose pressure exceeded every other body on the battlefield.
Three divine bodies remained, but Gluttony's real body was not among them.
The wounded body I had fought spread all eight of its black wings and launched into the air. I followed before it could join either of the others.
During the fourth minute, a seventh tail formed. My physical statistics had risen by forty percent, while the seven tails behind me now supplied seventy thousand additional Intelligence. The sudden improvement allowed me to match his movements, but the divine network was already passing information between the copies.
He anticipated my portals. His spear intercepted my chakrams, and his barriers changed whenever Golden Lightning touched them. Everything one body learned made the others more difficult to surprise.
I stopped trying to surprise him.
A heavy hammer formed in my hands, and I teleported directly above him. He raised three barriers and braced his spear across them. I struck anyway.
The impact broke the first barrier and drove him toward the courtyard. I followed with a second strike, breaking the next one before he could recover. His final barrier held long enough for him to drive his spear through my stomach, but I caught the shaft beneath one arm and prevented him from withdrawing it.
The fifth minute ended. An eighth tail spread behind me as another increase pushed through my body.
I released the hammer, grabbed his spear with both hands, and snapped it between us.
The god tried to retreat, but Golden Fox Lightning entered the remains of his barrier and interfered with the mana rebuilding it. I formed chains around his wings and dragged him back before he could escape.
When the sixth minute arrived, the ninth tail manifested.
All nine tails spread behind me, supplying ninety thousand additional Intelligence while Wrath raised every other statistic by sixty percent. The amount of mana I could control changed instantly. The god's light attacks slowed against the pressure surrounding me, and the chains binding his wings tightened until the bones began breaking.
Fear finally entered his expression.
"You don't understand what that power will do to you."
"I understand exactly what it will do."
I pulled him closer and drove one hand into his chest. Golden Lightning disrupted the mana around his core while Devil Fire entered through the opening and began destroying the body from within.
His flesh started breaking apart, but something remained inside it.
Soul Sensitivity caught the presence before the body completely failed. This copy was not an empty vessel or a small fragment implanted into a host. It had developed a complete soul of its own while remaining connected to Gluttony.
The god reached for my throat.
I increased the Devil Fire.
His body collapsed into burning mana and pale dust. The soul fought to remain intact, but the destructive magic followed it until the presence disappeared with the rest of the body.
The moment the divine copy died, the entire network reacted.
The body fighting Stacy and Kayda faltered. High above us, the strongest copy tore free from Eliara's binding and knocked Thorne away with a burst of concentrated light. Its attention locked onto me as the information from the dead body reached it.
I sensed him move, but six minutes of combat and the sudden death inside the network had pulled my attention away for too long.
A golden blade touched my neck.
"You still mistake survival for victory, Shiro."
The blade passed through before I could turn.
The battlefield rotated around me as my head separated from my body. I struck the courtyard hard enough to crack the stone, while my body collapsed several metres away. Wrath's pressure disappeared, and the six temporary tails vanished with it.
The strongest copy did not remain to confirm the kill. He had not attacked because he believed one strike could erase an immortal fox. He had attacked to create enough time to withdraw.
A golden spatial opening spread across the sky. The remaining divine copy broke away from Stacy and Kayda, while the surviving angels retreated toward it. Eliara and Thorne tried to close the distance, but the strongest copy placed himself between them and the withdrawing forces.
He looked toward Stacy before entering the opening.
"Your birth parents made the same mistakes. We will finish this on the battlefield."
The opening closed behind him, taking the angels and surviving divine body with it.
My consciousness had never left.
Soul Regeneration kept both halves of my body connected to the same soul. My body moved before my vision steadied, one hand finding my severed head and pressing it back against my neck. Flesh and bone began reconnecting as regeneration repaired the damage.
Kayda reached me first, but she waited until the golden opening had disappeared before lowering her guard.
"Kitsuna!"
"Did they leave?"
"They're gone," Stacy answered, still watching the sky. "Stop moving."
My neck finished reconnecting, but the moment Wrath deactivated, its payment began.
Six minutes.
Six months of pain struck my body and soul at once. My arms stopped supporting me, and Kayda caught me before I collapsed completely.
"Good," I managed. "Then it worked."
The ruined courtyard disappeared as the backlash dragged me into darkness.