Chapter 277: The Moon Mother

Trust?

How did that even relate to anything going on at all?

Her mind worked through it while she held his gaze. She tried to make it make sense.

What could he mean by that statement? He won’t just say it without a reason… Why is he asking for my trust? Especially after what he found out in th…

Her thoughts trailed off as suddenly, a realization dawned on her.

Not once since Finn had stepped out of that chamber in the temple had she thought about Arros. Not once had she questioned who was in control. She had just accepted it. Watched Finn go on to fight a true God, watched him tear the world apart with his invalidation spell, and it had never even crossed her mind to wonder where Arros was or whether he was about to surface.

She had no explanation for it. But looking into Finn’s eyes right now, she knew he was aware of exactly that, and slowly the beginnings of an idea about what was truly going on began to form in her mind…

She nodded slightly, and Finn stared at her for a beat longer, before looking away without another word, turning his gaze back to the sky. He raised his hands and began weaving them in the same slow deliberate hand symbols she had watched him weave before the last incantation.

Althea instinctively readied herself for another Invalidation spell, but as she looked closer she noticed nothing was happening to the environment. Instead, the spell amplification seemed to be targeted at his eyes this time. The green glow of his Error vision grew brighter with each completed gesture, and he was whispering something under his breath, the words too quiet for her to catch.

She looked back up.

The null void was almost completely sealed. The space that had collapsed into it had filled it up almost entirely. What remained of where the void had been was permanently warped and strange looking, but at least now it wasn’t a hollow blackness.

Above them the Sun Gods still floated high around the Radiant One, burning their authorities trying to do something — anything — about the legs that wouldn’t regrow, but the black nothingness surrounding the injury simply refused to give them room to work.

One by one they each looked down at Finn on the ground below, and even the God of Fury — hottest tempered among them, the one who had been the first to move when they had initially descended — was still. They all were. Looking down at the one who had done that to the strongest of them with a wary acknowledgement in their eyes.

But that wariness and acknowledgement didn’t last for long.

A look of shock crossed the eyes of all the Sun Gods simultaneously, and their heads snapped upwards to the sky above them, where the sun suddenly dimmed even further.

This wasn’t a result of them leaving their Sun domain, but rather, it was spurred by something else entirely…

A total eclipse.

Althea, who was far below next to Finn, frowned slightly.

The moon moved across the face of the sun at a rapid pace that defied all logic, and the moment it fully covered the sun, it stopped, perfectly still in the sky, holding its position.

“The Moon Mother…” Finn muttered beside her, his hands still weaving symbols in the air.

Althea’s eyes widened in shock, before immediately locking onto a figure descending from the azure blue face of the moon.

The Shadow God’s incarnate…?

It was clearly him. Except he wasn’t what he had been the last time she had encountered him. The new authority sitting in him was raw and not fully his yet, but it was undeniably real and undeniably vast — the fiery half of the Moon Mother’s power, the three core aspects he had claimed: Heat, Fury, Vengeance. The masculine burning side of the moon that faced the sun directly and reflected it back. He descended embodying it openly and the air around him heated visibly as he fell.

His eyes swept down to Finn on the ground briefly in passing acknowledgement, and then moved up to the Sun Gods and locked onto them with open hunger.

Without hesitation, he charged directly at them.

Luna, Selene, and Nyx descended behind him and the four of them hit the Sun Gods together.

Luna’s moonlight and Selene’s silver roads and Nyx’s dreaming darkness were significant authorities, real and dangerous, but against an unwounded Radiant One in full command of His divine power they would still never have stood a chance against his Rank 1 authority…

But now?

Now that He was legless and burning his divine essence simply to compensate the null void’s wound that was refusing to close — they were just enough to occupy Him. Enough to split His attention and keep Him from simply ending the incarnate before the incarnate could do what he had come to do.

In fact, Luna and Nyx were enough. They kept him at bay while the incarnate and Selene took on the three other Sun Gods. And very quickly, the might of the incarnate became apparent.

What should have been an advantage to the Sun Gods since it was three of them against two became a losing battle immediately, because the incarnate bore authorities that mirrored theirs — Heat, Fury and Vengeance — all converged onto him alone.

The God of Heat fell first.

His golden blood rained down from the sky before the eyes of everyone, eliciting pained cries of disbelief from the other two Sun Gods as they watched him fall.

They dove straight for him, but the incarnate moved first. And coupled with Selene taking the opportunity and attacking the two Gods in their state of shock, they were slowed down just for a beat, and the incarnate was provided enough time — barely more than a few seconds, but enough for a Rank 2 God equivalent like him to descend on the falling body and devour the divine essence before it could fully disperse.

In those few seconds, the incarnate pressed both hands into the dissipating golden light of the fallen God’s body and pulled the divine authority directly into himself.

Instantly, his aura exploded, expanding in waves. His body shook violently with the effort of absorbing the Sun God’s divine essence, consolidating his own authority of heat into one more solid and deadly.

A cacophonic laughter tore out of him between the trembling. Uncontrolled and escalating. His eyes went bloodshot and steam rose from his skin as the Sun God’s authority forced its way through him.

Further up in the sky, the Radiant One, who had been kept at bay by the two Moon Goddesses, Luna and Nyx, because of His wounds, went completely silent as He saw the Sun God of Heat die before His eyes.

Then with a madness that had gone beyond just fury, He broke free of the two Moon Goddesses’ attack and bore straight towards the incarnate, flashing forward with a blinding speed that surpassed the other Sun Gods, even with his grievous wounds.

But just before He could rip through the incarnate, a figure appeared in His path out of nowhere, meeting His strike head-on.

The Moon Mother herself.

She had finally descended.

Immediately She appeared, the air was filled with a strange, ripe quality that went beyond just smell. Even Althea that was far below and within the Errant’s field instantly felt the change. She nearly averted her gaze, but was able to ground herself and keep looking after firming her will with her order magic running at full throttle. If it wasn’t for the Errant field surrounding her, she wouldn’t have been able to do even that at all.

She was staring at a Rank I Goddess directly. A Rank I Goddess that wasn’t weakened. That had just descended. The mortal plane itself had restrained her, yes. But unlike the Radiant One, who had held back, not showing His absolute might until Finn posed a real threat — something that cost Him dearly — the Moon Mother did the opposite.

She descended and released the full extent of her power wantonly. That ripe quality. Fertility and suppleness, tinged with the warm comfort of a mother’s embrace… it filled the surroundings as She clashed with the Radiant One, making every single piece of fauna for miles rapidly morph into grotesque forms that grew appendages spilling milk and honey.

The sight was hair-raising, as Althea could see it exactly for what it was. She wasn’t fooled by the “comfort” the Moon Mother’s presence brought at all. This was an Eldritch entity through and through.

As if confirming Althea’s grim conclusion, the Radiant One flashed backwards in the sky like He’d been touched by something extremely repulsive. His golden aura burned off the residue on His hand from making contact with the Moon Mother, and He leveled a gaze at Her.

“Ulva…” He called her directly by Her true name. “You unholy thing. You dare to stop me from exacting justice? Have you come to die?”

The Moon Mother didn’t respond to Him verbally. All She did was smile softly, before appearing right next to Him with such speed, it looked like teleportation.

The Radiant One was taken off guard, but He raised His hands just in time to block Her attack successfully, though His legless body shot backwards in the air for miles from the impact.

The Moon Mother followed after, and a terrible fight ensued. The Radiant One’s roars filled the air as He burned His own essence madly, unwilling to allow the Moon Mother come away with this attempt to slay Him victorious.

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