The heat was abyssal, and all around them there was nothing but red beneath the light of the gigantic star floating over what had once been a planet. Flares burst from the surface of that immense sun like whips, lashing outward at tremendous speed toward the vast asteroid where Tania and Heshuka stood.
It has been a long time since I fought in a place this inhospitable. The heat is overwhelming, and the gravity feels as though it is crushing my bones, yet for some reason, I feel lighter than ever, Tania thought as she watched the hawk god leap toward her.
The Punic goddess quickly blocked Heshuka’s flaming kick with her burning clawed hand, then used the momentum to hurl him toward another asteroid drifting nearby. Heshuka crashed into it and shattered it from the force of the impact alone.
Could it be that being on that continent, and forcing my transformation in spite of the anti-divinity barrier, allowed my power to rise to this level? Tania wondered as she watched Heshuka reappear, his body blazing as fiercely as the great star above them.
I’m certain his power is similar to Ares’s… no, it’s even greater. And yet I was able to withstand his first attack and evade the second, Tania continued thinking. Did Athena know this was a way for us to surpass our limits?
“I must admit, girl, you have talent. But this ends here,” Heshuka said mockingly. Then, setting his body ablaze, the god began firing hundreds of fiery feathers like arrows at tremendous speed as he recited:
“Keékaʾuʾkaáwiʾuʾ (Fire Arrows).”
The arrows lodged themselves in drifting asteroids and destroyed them instantly. Some struck the gigantic sun itself, punching enormous flaming holes into its surface.
Tania shouted, “Tsemp Dalaq (Claws of fire)!”
With her burning claws, she deflected every arrow she could. The moment she cleared the barrage before her, the goddess hurled herself toward Heshuka and slashed at him with her blazing talons, but the hawk god swiftly caught both her hands.
“What is the matter, Tannit? Is this all you can do?” the hawk god shouted mockingly, then slammed his forehead into hers with brutal force.
The impact was so violent that it created a shockwave that cracked nearby asteroids and sent ripples through the enormous star above them. Tania bent under the blow, blood running down her forehead, yet as if by instinct, she answered with a headbutt of her own, causing the same devastating impact.
The hawk god let go of her hands, and Tania used his brief confusion to drive a savage kick into his abdomen. Cahokia’s king was hurled through several asteroids floating nearby, destroying them one after another with his body before finally coming to a halt in open space.
Tania then lowered herself into a runner’s stance and launched herself at him like a living saw, slicing him clean in half. Heshuka vomited blood as he watched his body split slowly from shoulder to groin while continuing to drift in space.
“It has been a long time since I fought with my full power, but thanks to my training, not even this is enough to defeat me,” Tania said.
Then the goddess pointed the fingers of her flaming claw at the hawk god. She was ready to make the powerful king of Cahokia explode, but stopped when she heard him laughing.
“There were five hundred soldiers in Cahokia,” the hawk god said as his body began knitting itself back together. “But every city in my empire has soldiers who wield my power as well… do you have any idea how many there are in total?”
Golden energies once again began to coil around Heshuka’s body, and Tania felt the god’s terrible increase in power. She tried to stop him, but a shockwave blasted her away.
“There are more than two thousand soldiers! This is my true power, Tannit!” Heshuka shouted, and Tania watched in horror as everything around them was obliterated in a wave of heat. Asteroids vanished completely, and the gigantic sun above them opened into a vast hole in its flames beneath the abyssal might of Heshuka.
“This power now surpasses even Ares when he assimilated his sons,” Tania said in alarm, bracing both arms against the enormous heat wave unleashed by Cahokia’s king.
When the wave of heat finally ceased, Heshuka was floating there with a face twisted by madness, his mouth stretched in signs of lunacy.
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This is the result of human sacrifice, Tania thought. He himself has lost his mind from storing so much power.
Heshuka began to laugh like a maniac.
“I have never before experienced my power at its peak—but it is magnificent!” he shouted in a voice full of madness. Then he pointed two fingers at the goddess, causing immense concentrated beams of fire to erupt from the sun and streak toward her as he said softly:
“Sakuúru waaruucak (Sunbeam).”
The beams fell with terrifying speed. Tania dodged as best she could, but some struck her right leg and left shoulder. Great holes, like wounds of molten magma, opened in the goddess where they hit, and she grimaced in pain.
“What is wrong, Tannit? Can you not come any closer?” the hawk god taunted, still conducting those descending lances of solar heat with his two fingers.
Those damned beams are like concentrated suns, Tania thought while still evading the attacks. I have to get out of here, or I will never be able to begin my counterattack.
Once more, the goddess dropped into a runner’s stance and hurled herself like a blazing saw at the hawk god. But he conjured a flaming club from the fire of the sun above them and smashed the goddess with it as she came hurtling toward him, trying to cut him apart again.
Tania’s body folded under the blow, and she made a face of pure agony. Then the hawk god shoved her away with the searing club and hurled her into the sun itself. When she fell into that star, it triggered an atomic explosion.
“Come now, Tannit! Surely a mere sun cannot snuff out your life, can it?” Heshuka mocked.
The goddess was terribly wounded upon the surface of the star. Though she could endure its heat, she still felt battered and oppressed within it, and she watched in horror as her skin began to blister under the fire. She touched her abdomen and felt her ribs broken once more.
That idiot has broken my bones for the second time now, she thought.
With great effort, Tania rose to her feet, but to her surprise, Heshuka had entered the sun as well in order to finish her. The goddess quickly stabbed him through the chest with her venomous tail.
“What is this? Poison?” Heshuka asked, halting from the strike of Tania’s tail.
Then the god seized the goddess’s fiery tail and tore it off as though it were a dry branch.
“My blood burns far hotter than the power of your fire venom! This will do nothing to me!” the god shouted, preparing to kick the goddess. Tania threw herself into a defensive stance, raising both arms to shield her face. It availed her little, however, for the god’s mighty kick shattered her limbs and sent her hurtling deeper into the heart of the sun.
The goddess crashed again upon the solar surface, which felt like boiling magma. Tania breathed heavily, though her ichor was still healing her wounds.
He is strong—far too strong. He will kill me if I do not do something, she thought while lying there upon the star’s surface.
Then the goddess felt a strange compression forming in the area where she lay. She leapt away at once, just as a huge explosion erupted from within the sun’s surface. Tania barely managed to avoid it.
“Do you still have enough blood left to move?” Heshuka asked, one palm raised, having caused that atomic blast within the sun itself.
“But do not worry. Soon nothing of you will remain,” he continued.
Tania then summoned her moon of fire above her head and caught it in her right hand as she cried:
“Yareh Edom (Red Moon)!”
The goddess hurled the attack at Heshuka, but the god dodged it.
“Pitiful attacks like that do not work on me,” he said, continuing to create more explosions with his raised hand.
What the god did not see, however, was that the moon Tania had thrown was curving back toward him like a boomerang, and before he could avoid it, it buried itself in his back.
“Damn you, bitch!” the hawk god shouted furiously, just as Tania appeared before him, both hands clasped together and raised high above her head.
The goddess brought her hands down, hurling a massive sphere of fire as she cried:
“Galad esh qoph (Sphere of Fire number 200)!”
The moon and the fireball exploded in unison upon Heshuka’s body, causing the solar flames to part like a sea.
But when the light of the attack faded, the hawk god was still there in a defensive stance, his arms shielding him. Even so, he had suffered significant injuries, though his own ichor was already healing them.
But when Heshuka lowered his arms from his face, he saw Tania leaping toward him at tremendous speed, slashing his face again and again with her burning claws. Heshuka’s flaming mask fell to the solar surface, revealing the hawk god’s true face.
He had white hair, and his skin was slightly dark. His eyes were amber, and his face was strikingly handsome, with a pronounced nose. Yet his gaze showed clear signs of madness and anxiety. Most notable of all were the many scars upon his face, especially one that ran from his forehead down to the left side of his nose.
“You are sick, and you need to be cured of that addiction to human blood,” Tania said when she saw Heshuka’s face.
The hawk god began to laugh like a maniac. Then he looked at the goddess with madness in his eyes and asked, “What do you know?”
“I too once fell under the addiction to human blood, but there is a cure for it!” Tania shouted desperately, only for Heshuka to laugh again.
“What do you know of being the last survivor of your race? What do you know of seeing your planet destroyed and your family die by your own hands? Do you truly believe everyone has lived as happy a life as yours? I care not if I must plunge into darkness, so long as I can preserve the last remnant of my blood!” Heshuka shouted at the goddess, his gaze filled with pain and yet, at the same time, with ecstasy. It was obvious that the god was deeply disturbed.
Tania understood then that there could be no negotiation with that man, and that if he remained alive, he would go on massacring his people throughout his empire. Tania knew she could not allow him to continue. The voices within her were warning her as much.