A minute prior, all the COG members had arrived in the meeting room. Edward and another figure were here as well.
"I will try my best to occupy Ovel during this raid. We need someone to break through the Transcendent Heaven Sealing Formation while I do so and inform His Majesty, Lucifer. Edward, you should try to occupy those three Great Gods. The rest, try your best against the 11 Gods. Under the lead of Dan, Klein, and Sarith, you should be able to hold for long enough."
The speaker was a Succubus. She was an emissary who had arrived here just before the barrier went up to receive an important item the city had prepared for Lucifer. Her name was Ina, and she was Grimm's greatest hope.
Her strength was at Transcendant God - Stage 1, also called Planet Transcendant God. Issue being their enemy, Ovel, although at the early stages of Tier 10 as well, completely trumped her. Over was at stage three, Solar Transcendant God, after all.
That might just seem like two stages of a tier, but the issue is which tier it is. The larger the tier, the larger the difference in each further step. Outside of anomalies like Cely, very few can cross stages at high tiers. Especially since most of those reaching that stage have lived for billions of years, with each one being a genius in their own right.
Yes. Billions.
I have not actually iterated on this enough, but Cely is ungodly old. 3.201.314.975.026 (3.2 trillion years) to be exact.
Mortals cultivate for thousands of years to become immortals, cultivate for millions of years to become gods, cultivate for billions of years to become Great Gods, cultivate for trillions of years to become Primordials.
Cely, having reached the peak of Transcendent God and having "only" been a few million years from becoming a Primordial at the ripe old age of 3.2 trillion, was an unparalleled genius.
This Succubus, Ina, was older than Cely, and by a large margin at that. Yet her strength could not compare to even that fraction of a speck of power Cely took with her through reincarnation.
The difference between a stage one Transcendant God and stage three was the difference between a being capable of destroying an average planet with ease and one destroying entire solar systems. They were not on the same level at all.
Yes, she could hold Ovel back, but that was it.
And this concerned Ina deeply. She had not come this far just to fall here due to horrible timing. She had not cultivated for tens of trillions of years to fall in this backwater town as a nobody!
And then, Ina felt those auras erupt outside, pressing onto Grimm, but most of all, onto the meeting hall.
And, after Ovel erupted with his Aura, the entire hall could no longer stand the pressure, collapsing with a bang.
Inas's arm swung, creating a huge barrier of water to shield the COG members from the debris and a good part of the aura Ovel was releasing.
"Eris. You will have the task of breaking out of the formation to contact Lucifer. You must succeed!"
Her voice was frantic, practically screaming at Eris, a female Elf and the Head of the Formation Association. Eris had the highest chances of succeeding after all.
Before the group could actually put their plan into motion, though, it happened.
The aura released by the group of Monster Gods shattered in a mere instant. The large figures of those gods staggered back, golden blood oozing from their orifices, showing the damage this one move had caused.
A moment later, though, it all changed.
In a single instance, the aura the Monster Gods had accumulated shattered. All of them cried out in pain as they staggered in the air. Blood filled with golden strands oozed from their orifices from the backlash.
The sky darkened into a deep, abyssal black.
And then they started.
The voices.
Screams that echoed in mind and soul.
Screams of the fallen and dammed.
Screams of the injured and the betrayed.
Screams for release from the torture and terror.
It was deafening.
Maddening.
The wind picked up as well. It howled as if to scream in fear of what was happening.
Suddenly, through the abyssal darkness that had tinted the sky and world, rivers of blood began to flow.
Pure darkness and rivers of blood.
The smell of death permeated every particle of this scene.
It was the incarnation, the very manifestation, of slaughter.
Fear filled every being in the city. None were spared from the sensations.
Men, women, children, all began to clutch their heads in agony, screaming for the voices to stop.
But they wouldn't.
Ina's eyes, too, trembled in terror as she felt this world. She had seen this before. She had felt this before. And so, she looked at Cely.
Black and red entwined around Cely's figure as her form grew with every torturous moment.
The intent to kill and slaughter.
It was the law in her hand.
And law would judge all who opposed it, who opposed her, who made it.
The mortals and immortals in the city collapsed in exhaustion as they no longer heard those voices. No longer witnessed the terror.
They were not Cely's target after all.
Cely's eyes opened, her body standing a hundred meters tall and her face, no longer masked.
Then, her eyes opened.
Pure black. Red pupils.
The aura clouding her form condensed into a large robe that swung in the howling winds.
Her gaze fell upon that pack of Monster Gods that were just about to attack, with naught but indifference.
The Monster Gods stood rooted in fear. How could this be?
How long had they planned?
How? How? HOW?
"Miss, I-, eh, I bet this is a-...", before Ovel could finish this sentence, though, Cely stretched out her right hand, pointing at the Fenrir.
"You are heavy with marks of slaughter, wolf. I bet the corpses in your past could fill oceans. So, why don't you start drowning in them?"
Her words were law. Her will enacted by the world.
Ovel felt something amiss, as figures emerged from him. Monsters, people at all levels of strength. People he had killed over his long existence. They were countless. Unending.
The figures began to claw at the fenrir. Fur, ripped out. Its eyes were stabbed by the claws of some monster's figure.
Ovel could do naught but struggle in vain. The rest of the Monster Gods watched Ovel in sheer terror. Maybe... just maybe... if they stayed still, they would live?
They were mistaken, though. They would not be spared.
None of them.
One of them, a white, lion-like monster with feathers instead of fur, had just started to try to prepare an escape method before a huge finger claw punctured its dantian. In but a moment, the lion-like monster's cultivation shattered, and its life faded.
Fear and disbelief filled its eyes as, with its last breath, it looked at Cely.
Who was the monster here?
The other Monster Gods looked at their companion, who had attempted to escape in fear and disbelief.
How could the life of gods be this fragile?
Orioth knew it was doomed the second it saw what happened to that weak female it had looked down upon before. Regret could not begin to describe the despair that was engulfing it right now.
It could have just stayed in Nimmer Forest. It could have just stayed in its lair. But it became greedy. The endless flow of time had ground away its patience. It wanted resources to advance faster, and now it would die for this mistake.
Orioth watched helplessly as its companions all perished in mere moments. Even Ovel was just being played with. Orioth could tell.
"Just kill me.", Orioth pleaded. It knew the personality of this being infront of it. She was sadistic. It didn't want to suffer before its end. Though this wish was not to be granted by Cely.
Orioth, in a last-ditch effort, tried to erect a barrier as black and red tendrils closed in at lightning speed, to no effect. It shattered instantaneously, and Orioth's three heads began screaming in immeasurable pain as the tendrils dug through it.
Each tendril began splitting, over and over and over inside the large Chaos Hydra. It was pure torture. And it couldn't numb the pain, since Cely was using her laws to force Orioth to endure it in full.
Meanwhile, Ina and the COG members watched the spectacle in terror. Of them, only Edward and Ina knew exactly who Cely was. The rest only knew they shouldn't provoke her and should try to stay on her good side.
Seeing this scene, all of them were glad Edward had warned them.
If they had tried to kill her, or crossed her in other ways, they too would be where the Monster Gods were now. Sarith especially was terrified, remembering his remarks about her.
In his mind, he could only reprimand himself to rein in his arrogance while watching the terrifying scene of the Monster Gods being brutally slaughtered.
Ovel could not hold on any longer and was finally devoured by his sins, vanishing from this world forever. Shortly after, Orioth died under Cely's torture as well.
Important to note: No, Cely did not devour any of the gods. If she tried, she would die due to the overload of energy in her body. She wasn't actually using her body to carry the strain right now, instead, she used her soul.
As Orioth's life finally waned, the terror of the black sky and the rivers of blood shattered.
Cely's figure shrank rapidly, scrambling to take out one of the grains of AO-500, just in time before the backlash hit her.
Her soul finally tore under the pressure of her previous life's power. Mercury-like blood spilled from her every orifice as Cely clattered to the ground in pain and agony.
With the last of her will, before she collapsed fully, she threw the grain into her mouth.
And it all went dark.