From the moment the glowing OVERTIME: 20 MINUTES text appeared in the sky, the entire fight shifted from a chaotic brawl into something far more desperate. It was about stalling.
Black came back first, of course. His regeneration stitched him back together in seconds and he immediately started sprinting toward us again. This time, instead of letting me take the lead on restraint, he began using Viridescence repeatedly. Instead of carefully aimed beams or controlled strikes, he began releasing it in unpredictable bursts.
When Back lunged forward, Veneri flicked his finger.
A thin slash of energy forced Black to twist mid-charge to avoid being bisected again. The moment he adjusted his footing, Veneri punched the air, sending another shockwave exploding in a wide arc that forced Black to leap backward.
Veneri didn't get a rhythm.
One second it was a finger flick. The next it was a palm thrust, then a backhand slash that carved a glowing crescent through the air. The randomness made it impossible for Black to predict the trajectory or the timing.
And that's exactly the point. I used sapphire chains, wrapping around Black's legs the moment he tried to rush forward again. He roared and tore through them but the brief delay was enough for Veneri to release another Viridescence burst that slammed into his torso and sent him skidding across his World Overwrite.
He came back again and again and again.
Every time he tried to approach Ely's cocoon of vines and barriers, I was there, dragging him off balance just long enough for Veneri to punish him with another wave of his First Technique. His anger was becoming his weakness.
The calmer, calculating fighter we had faced earlier was gone. Now he was just reckless, charging straight through attacks and summoning stone giants in blind frustration just to overwhelm us with numbers.
Veneri annihilated the giants almost casually now. A casual backhand of Viridescence would shatter three at once. A downward palm strike would send a shockwave through the ground, cracking their legs and turning them into crumbling statues.
But that kind of constant output had a cost. He was running out.
Limitless made him absurdly efficient but even Limitless had its limits when he was spamming a technique as destructive and energy-intensive as Viridescence for minutes on end. His breathing had grown heavier and the glow around his hands was flickering instead of flowing smoothly.
If he ran dry, I wouldn't be able to maintain my physical form and Black would reach Ely. He seemed to realize it too.
"You're slowing down," he taunted, ripping through another set of sapphire chains. "You're almost out—"
"It's time."
The vines surrounding her began to crack the second Veneri said that. The entire cocoon shattered into a burst of leaves, petals and blinding green light. The Divine Presence that pressed the entire fairytale made everything else feel insignificant.
Ely floated down slowly from the center of the light.
She was five meters tall now.
Most Divines, upon reaching divinity, stabilized at around three meters in height and at most, four. At the Fifth Enlightenment, their bodies expanded further to accommodate the growing density of their divine self. However, Ely was five meters taller where most Divines would reach four.
She wore a sleeveless white robe. On her forehead, the Tree Mark glowed softly, pulsing in time with the massive Nature Energy radiating from her body. The serene, gentle High Priestess who smiled softly at everyone was gone. Her eyes were half-lidded and her lips were slightly downturned. She looked… radiant. That's the only thing I can say.
She stepped onto the ground. The moment her bare foot touched the earth, the Overwrite transformed.
Black's Overwrite shattered like glass. The cracked terrain transformed into grasslands. Farmland patterns spread across the earth as rows of crops and soft soil replaces the barren wasteland. The stone giants faded like illusions. The overtime timer in the sky also vanished.
Ely raised one hand and pointed at Black. An emerald crystal tore its way out of his chest.
He screamed as it forced itself through his flesh, hovering in front of him like a beating heart made of light. Ely closed her fingers, crushing the crystal effortlessly. It shattered into fine dust that drifted toward her and sank into her skin.
"No! You… you took my Demesne!"
"It's a Verdarite Demesne. It was never yours."
Understanding dawned on his face. His regeneration… stopped.
The wounds we had inflicted over the past twenty minutes suddenly resurfaced all at once. Blood began to pour from reopened injuries. His legs trembled. He roared and charged at her anyway.
"Enough."
He took three steps. On the fourth, his body began to fade into petals. He stopped mid-charge, staring down at his hands as they disintegrated into drifting green fragments.
"Why… why am I fading?"
"The Demesne is what kept you alive."
Veneri stepped forward slightly beside me with his arms hanging loosely at his sides.
"We would have killed you earlier. You just kept regenerating because of that Demesne."
Black's eyes widened in horror as his legs began to vanish beneath him.
"This story isn't over! Vasreveilder promised me freedom! He's watching! You hear me? We were this close! They don't deserve to win!"
Veneri watched him silently for a moment before speaking again.
"You're the strongest Divine I've fought so far. If you didn't lose your regeneration, this would've ended very differently."
Black opened his mouth to scream again but his jaw dissolved into petals before the sound could fully escape. His body crumbled from the top down, turning into ash and drifting away on a gentle wind that hadn't existed moments ago.
The farmland remained silent for a while after Black's ashes scattered into the air. The wind carried the last remnants of his existence across the freshly formed grass and for a moment, it almost felt like nothing had happened.
Now that the battle was over and her Divine Presence pinned wasn't trying to crush everything in a five-kilometer radius, we could finally take in her new form properly.
She was huge.
She was approximately more than five meters tall, standing there in her sleeveless white robe with the Tree Mark glowing faintly on her forehead. Her hair drifted slightly even though there was no real wind. Leaves and tiny motes of Nature Energy kept orbiting her like she was the center of a miniature ecosystem.
She looked down at Veneri. Then, slowly, she knelt on one knee.
The ground barely even cracked beneath her weight. Even while kneeling, she was still taller than both of us. She leaned forward so her face was closer to Veneri's level.
She tried to shrink.
I could feel the fluctuation in her energy as she attempted to adjust her size. Most Divines, Deities, Primordial Deities and Nexuses could alter their height slightly to interact more comfortably with mortals and smaller beings. Her body flickered but nothing happened.
She was stuck. Her shoulders sagged a little as she let out a quiet sigh.
"It seems I can't return to my previous height."
Veneri crossed his arms, staring up at her with a neutral expression.
"Yeah. Looks permanent."
She hesitated for a second before asking.
"Then… could you transform to my height instead?"
He didn't even take a second to think about it.
"I can, but I won't."
"Why?"
He looked her straight in the eye, completely unfazed by the fact that she now looked like a literal goddess kneeling in front of him.
"It's your punishment."
"Punishment… for what?"
"For not telling me about your past. You decided I didn't deserve to know something that shaped your entire life. So yeah, there are consequences."
She looked genuinely offended now.
"That's unfair. You haven't told us everything about your past either."
"Wrong. I already told you everything I know."
She opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off before she could speak. He tapped the side of his head
"I just don't remember most of it. Memory gaps aren't the same as hiding things. What I do remember, I shared it. I never chose to hide anything from you."
That… shut her up. She stared at him, searching his face for any sign of hesitation or bluffing. There wasn't any.
"So, until you earn my trust back, no height adjustments."
Ely's shoulders slumped. Her massive frame suddenly looked far less intimidating and far more… awkwardly dejected.
"And, no hugs or kisses either."
"What?"
"You heard me. You're huge now. Even if you tried hugging me, it'd be weird and awkward. And I'm not transforming to accommodate you. So until you prove you actually trust me, I'm not doing anything physical with you."
Ely's face went blank for a second. Honestly, it felt like her brain had stopped processing. Then her expression crumpled in the smallest, most heartbreaking way I had ever seen on her usually composed face. She looked down at her own hands, flexing her fingers slowly like she was realizing for the first time just how big she really was.
"That is… cruel."
I stepped forward immediately, glaring at Veneri.
"Veneri, that's basically torture for a beloved."
He glanced at me sideways.
"You're the most secretive one out of all of them. If you try to convince me to drop this, I'll do the same thing to you."
I snapped my mouth shut so fast my teeth clicked.
"Sorry, Ely. I value my own survival."
She gave me a wounded look that made me feel like absolute garbage but honestly, he wasn't bluffing. If he decided to go full no-affection mode on me too, I might actually lose my mind.
Before the awkward silence could stretch any further, the air behind us rippled. Three figures stumbled into existence like they had been forcibly dragged through a door that didn't want to open.
Jack, Griselda, and Luciana looked wrecked.
Jack's armor was repairing itself. Griselda was panting from flying too much and Luciana looked like she had just run across through a battlefield which, to be fair, she probably had. Their faces were pale and their breathing was uneven.
Luciana was the first to notice Ely. She craned her neck upward as she took in Ely's five-meter frame.
"She really is tall."
Behind them, the world began to flicker. The farmland, the distant hills, even the sky itself started to blur and distort like paint being washed off a canvas. The towering beanstalk that had once pierced the heavens faded into transparency.
The fairytale of Jack and the Beanstalk was ending.
"Looks like the scenario's collapsing," Jack muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. "About time."
The ground beneath us lost its texture, turning into a blank white plane before shattering entirely. For a split second, we were suspended in a void of swirling light and fragmented scenery. Then everything snapped back into place.
We were back on the spaceship. We found ourselves in a relaxing chamber.
The sleek interior of Hansel and Gretel's vessel stretched around us. I exhaled slowly now that the constant threat of Black was gone. Luciana collapsed onto a nearby seat without any elegance whatsoever. Jack followed suit, groaning as he stretched his aching limbs. Griselda just leaned against a wall and closed her eyes, whispering something under her breath, probably a prayer or a curse directed at Hansel and Gretel.
Ely remained standing where she had appeared. She glanced at Veneri again, hesitating, clearly wanting to say something else. He, on the other hand, just walked past her and walked outside. Of course, I followed him.