A loud blast.
Two thirds of the Lightning God’s body exploded outwards and Godslayer pierced through. Cloudhawk fell back two hundred meters, but his escape was not an easy one. This was evident by the charred clothing and curls of smoke that rose off of him.
The tongues of electricity reformed into the Lightning God once again. The disparate bolts wrapped together into the shape of a monstrous winged beast a hundred meters long. No mark remained of where Cloudhawk struck.
Skycloud’s leader was high in the air with his hand wrapped around the hilt of Godslayer as it soared ever farther. He jerked his body around and lashed out three times, carving the electric beast into quarters. The last strike was a brutal, vertical chop that caught it down the spine.
It was useless. The pieces of the Lightning God reformed. It didn’t appear that Cloudhawk’s attacks were causing any damage. With pupils contracted he glared at the god. Its recovery speed was second to none.
This was a problem! Cloudhawk took a deep breath. His foes would not be easily defeated.
As their name implied, the Light God’s powers were based in light. It was able to move and strike at incomparable speed. Cloudhawk doubted the god could actually move at the speed of light, but if it could even manage one percent then it was faster than him. Even one percent of the speed of light was several tens of thousands of times faster than anything else on earth.
At speeds like that it was no different from teleportation. But that wasn’t exactly true, since teleportation needed time to prepare. In that way the Light God was actually faster than Cloudhawk, and by quite a lot.
At three thousand kilometers a second, a single hair could flatten a mountain. Attacking as Sacred Flash the god could destroy any physical matter. Cloudhawk might avoid an attack or two by relying on his sixth sense, but it wouldn’t save him for long.
Then there was the Lightning God, who was also not easy to deal with. Its powers lay in the fact that it’s body was in a plasma state. The mighty creature it chose to form into was ropes of electrified plasma form head to tail. There was no weak point to speak of.
In other words, the only way to defeat the Lightning God seemed to be to destroy all of it, all at once. It didn’t matter how many times you chopped it to pieces, or how vicious those attacks were, the god would simply reform.
Against either one of them alone, Cloudhawk wasn’t sure to emerge victorious. Against two, his chances of survival were much reduced.
Meanwhile the Sword of Sumeru was forming right before his eyes. Beyond the curtain in the Temple sat the War God and the Dragon God – two more Supremes waiting in the wings. Without a doubt they both knew what was happening outside and could join the fight at any moment. Any way you cut it, Cloudhawk was in mortal danger.
“Sacred Flash!”
Energy gathered in the Light God’s weapon. A second later it formed into an impossibly sharp streak of light that could cut through anything. Cloudhawk reacted instinctively to his gut feeling and tried to teleport.
No good, the Light God was too fast. Cloudhawk needed to prepare his teleportation and strong though he was, he couldn’t move faster than light. In fights like this, delaying even one thousandth of a second could be fatal for the god’s attacks were practically instantaneous.
Cloudhawk teleported fifty meters away, blinking back into reality with a nasty gash on his left shoulder. It’d cut almost all the way through and the gaping wound was nauseating to behold. Cloudhawk used his relics to heal the damage, just enough for his body’s own regenerative abilities to take over.
Residual holy fires burned near the injury, disturbing his healing efforts and continuing to burn through his flesh. If his body wasn’t already so well tempered, he would have been consumed by it.
“Sharp reflexes.” The Light God reformed and ‘voiced’ its praise. It didn’t matter, Cloudhawk was as good as dead.
But Cloudhawk had been paying attention. After two attacks he’d recognized the flaw in his foe’s attacks. Although he couldn’t dodge these strikes, the Light God had a glaring deficiency; it couldn’t attack continuously. If it could, then few creatures in the entire universe would be able to stand against it. The god could even use this power for interstellar travel..
The power of the Light God could only be used in brief, singular bursts. Each it was used there was a period of recovery. If it were just the two of them, Cloudhawk could use that opening to counterattack. Unfortunately, the Lightning God’s involvement got in the way. Before he could strike back, a torrent of electric energy swallowed him up.
The wave of lightning was like an angry sea. Cloudhawk had found himself suddenly engulfed, proving that the Lightning God – being a Supreme – was as difficult to deal with as any of its contemporaries. What’s more, the Lightning God was also surprisingly fast.
“Go to hell!” Pale white light sprang up around Cloudhawk like an egg shell. The electricity that struck the shield was deflected and dispersed.
Roooaaarr! The Lightning God, in its terrifying beast form, rushed at him. It clamped its jaws down on the human to try and swallow him once again. Once caught in the storm that was its stomach, Cloudhawk would be blasted to pieces.
Would this never end? Cloudhawk filled Godslayer with his mental powers, causing black lightning to split the sky. The Lightning God’s hundred meter long body was cleaved in two. Cloudhawk dashed forward at rapid speeds, passing through its body and striking at what was to him the more dangerous foe.
Boom! Boom!
As he raced through it a series of explosions wracked the god’s body. Cloudhawk was caught within and was buffeted by the discharge of energy. His shield quickly weakened and his progress was slowed.
Caw caw! Caw, caw caw!
Cloudhawk’s attention was captured by the sound of a bird by his ear. He glanced over and saw a host of flapping wings made from thunder closing in on him. Countless thunder birds were flung from the explosions all around.
Every attack was strong enough to blast rock to pieces! These were difficult to suffer, even for Cloudhawk. He had no choice but to slow down and use his sword to cut the birds apart before they got too close. He also punched out with his left hand, causing a hundred more of the birds to explode at a safe distance.
But more were coming, each of them an extension of the Lightning God’s body!
Cloudhawk had no way of dealing with this creature. Mental attacks were useless because his target had split into countless parts and he had to annihilate all of them at once. It was the only way to deal a blow to the Lightning God. Even if he eliminated ninety-nine point nine percent of the birds and left just one, it wasn’t enough.
If this kept up, he would surely lose. He barely withstood the god’s fury when another keen sense of danger approached from above. The Light God was attacking again.
Shit! No time to dodge!
Cloudhawk knew it was coming but the Lightning God had him locked down. He could only cross his arms in front of him and pour all of his strength into defense. His gauntlet and sword were held out defensively and then –
BOOM!
Cloudhawk felt his mind go blank. The world turned end over end.
A streak of dazzling light had appeared from space, slamming into Cloudhawk with terrifying power. IT easily tore through his shield and ripped through his organs. His bones, a hundred times harder than diamonds, shattered into pieces as he fell to the ground.
Before the eyes of the Elysian soldiers, Cloudhawk came crashing down like a golden meteor. At ten times the speed of sound he crashed into the Guardian Palace. The great structure shattered into nine pieces. Those pieces then blasted apart. From the impact alone they could only imagine the power that had struck Cloudhawk.
A few moments later the Gods of Light and Lightning returned to their original forms. They hovered in the air, awash in radiance. Beautiful. There was no marks on their perfect forms to indicate they’d been in battle.
The two deities looked upon the destroyed palace, through the rubble at Cloudhawk buried within. His still body was wrapped in burning holy light.
“Is he dead?” The thought came from the Lightning God.
The Light God answered. “Dead or not, he is no threat.”
It was not wrong. Cloudhawk wasn’t going to run. On the one hand the area’s spatial disturbance robbed him of his greatest advantage. On the other, he was alone with no allies.
What human could win victory over two Supremes? If the Cloud God were with him, perhaps he might have kept the Light God at bay. Alone, however, he was doomed. With no way to run, he was as good as dead.
1. One percent of the speed of light is roughly 3000 kilometers a second. That’s nearly the length of the United States.
2. Theoretically I guess, but the closest stellar neighbor to our sun is Proxima Centauri which is . Blink of an eye for a god, but still a long way to go even at lightspeed.
