“Even if we drink ambrosia, it won’t make any difference,” Epona said, still lying on the ground.
Ana then made a jar of chocolatl appear and set it down on the ground between the three goddesses.
“It’s the only thing we can do, Epona,” said the goddess, her body still terribly mangled. “I’ll leave it here, and whoever wants to drink it, go ahead.”
Tania was the first to drink, then set it back down between the three of them. Ana immediately drank from it and offered the rest to Epona.
“All right. We’re probably going to die here anyway,” the equine goddess said.
Epona finished the contents of the vessel and threw the cup to the ground. The wounds and broken bones of the three goddesses healed, though their faces were still smeared with blood from the injuries they had suffered.
Once the three of them were standing again, they glared defiantly at Coyote. The enormous crater created by the dark god’s attack was all that separated them.
“Splendid, bearers of Tawa’s light,” Coyote said excitedly in that terrible voice of his. “Now I shall erase that tiny light growing within your hearts. Huhuhuhu.”
“What the hell is that wolf talking about?” Epona asked.
“I’ve no idea,” Tania replied with an indifferent expression.
“I think he means what we talked about in Chaco,” Ana added. “That energy that awakened inside us when we were in despair.”
“The miracle that brought me back to life?” Epona asked.
“The voice you heard was, probably, Tawa’s voice,” Ana said.
“Then that creature must know quite a lot about the universe and its origin, though I doubt he’ll share that information with us so easily,” Tania said nervously, staring at the horrid monster’s sadistic smile.
“Have you finished chattering? Good. It is time to continue this battle. Huhuhuhu,” said Coyote, opening his deformed maw of three rows of teeth and firing a boiling beam from it.
The three goddesses avoided the attack by leaping aside, but the beam caused a massive explosion, turning that stretch of ground into magma and smoke.
Coyote kept firing those searing beams from his mouth while the goddesses continued closing in on him, when countless faces began appearing all over his body. They were human faces, moaning in agony.
The two gigantic serpents Coyote had created began moving around the three goddesses, but Ana instantly decapitated the first and Epona the second. Once destroyed, their bodies turned into liquid and sank into the ground of the great desert.
But Coyote had been waiting for that attack, because the moment the two goddesses turned back toward the monstrous god, he fired his vast heat-beam. Yet Tania, once more in her manticore transformation, stopped the blast with her fire-covered hands.
With tremendous effort, Tania redirected the attack toward the sky, where it collided with the dimensional shield protecting the continent.
The two goddesses who had not halted their advance kept flying at full speed toward the grotesque face of the demonic being.
But Coyote said calmly, “Neeznáá ooljééi adáátłizh (Fall of the Ten Moons).”
Once again, the ten moons with their diabolical grins appeared above the goddesses and began plummeting toward the earth like comets.
Tania, who was farther back than the other two goddesses, looked up toward the sky and shouted, “Galad esh resh (Fire Sphere number 500)!”
The Punic goddess created a gigantic sphere of fire over her clenched fists, which she had raised toward the phenomenon Coyote had summoned.
With a dull thunderclap, Tania hurled her attack into the first moon. The instant it was struck, magma-like cracks spread across its distorted face, and it exploded into thousands of pieces. The shockwave reached the other moons, which all disintegrated at once beneath the fire goddess’s attack.
“I can’t believe it! I destroyed them!” Tania cried out in excitement.
Ana and Epona, who had not paused because of the attack, shouted their techniques in unison: “Sgàile agus solas X-chros (X-shaped Cross of Light and Shadow)!” and “Menman selgheth (Soul Hunter)!”
Epona struck the right side of the monster’s neck while Ana hit the left. Coyote’s head fell to the ground, and once again his body dissolved as though it were made of dark matter and sank back into the desert dunes.
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But Tania was already preparing her powerful sphere of fire again. The goddess shouted once more, “Galad esh resh (Fire Sphere number 500)!”
She hurled the gigantic magma-like sphere toward the place where Coyote’s body had dissolved. A tremendous atomic explosion painted the desolation of Samalayucan red.
Ana and Epona, who had flown back to Tania after decapitating Coyote, regrouped beside the Punic goddess.
“Did you defeat him?” Ana asked Tania.
“No. We haven’t harmed him at all,” Tania replied.
“Then why—?” Ana began.
“Then we run right now and leave that beast in this cursed desert!” Tania shouted, and flew at top speed toward where their companions were lying.
Ana and Epona did the same, and together they grabbed Rodrigo, Anpiel, Menrva, Susanoo, Tul, Freyja, and Loki, flying as fast as they could toward the mountains Tania had seen before, the ones she believed marked the end of the Samalayucan Desert.
But to their horror, when they turned to look back at Coyote, the sky had gone completely dark. Yet it looked like black water, and hideous demonic faces with coyote-like features howled within it. The enormous mass of darkness surged toward the goddesses like a gigantic tidal wave at terrifying speed, while Coyote’s omnipresent voice declared:
“Anoonééł Tááʼ góneʼ Nahasdzáán (Destruction of the Third World).”
The enormous wave erased everything in its path as it rushed toward them. Tania looked at it and realized that no matter how fast they flew, that wave would destroy them without fail. The faces of the goddesses went pale, and for a moment they lost all hope.
But Loki, who had just awakened, saw the wave and slipped free from Ana’s grasp, hurling himself toward the ground.
“Idiot! What are you doing?” Ana shouted in terror, while Loki donned his totema and placed himself between the goddesses and the colossal wave.
“I am responsible for this disaster, and I shall be the one to clean it up,” the god said, giving Ana a gesture that she understood as a farewell.
“No, Loki! It must not end like this!” Ana cried, but the dark god did not heed her.
Loki raised his arms as he continued falling and said very softly:
“Eyda ævi (Void Century).”
Using her manticore tail, Tania yanked Ana by the arm, and the three goddesses kept flying at full speed toward the mountains, refusing to look any longer at Loki’s apparent sacrifice.
Yet as if by magic, the wave vanished completely, as though nothing had happened.
The three goddesses stopped dead and turned around. Nothing. There was nothing there, only the desert dunes and, far in the distance, the craters left by the battle with Coyote. The dark, star-filled sky once again stretched over Samalayucan.
“Beautiful ladies, don’t leave me here!” Loki shouted. He was sprawled across the dunes, his body utterly immobile. The desert was slowly beginning to swallow him.
Without a second thought, Ana flew down to where Loki lay, pulled free of Tania’s tail, grabbed him by the foot, and flew back at full speed toward Tania and Epona, who were still staring in astonishment, unable to understand what had happened.
“What happened? Weren’t you going to self-destruct to stop the attack or something?” Tania asked in amazement as the helpless god dangled from Ana’s hand like an old sock.
“I never said I was going to sacrifice myself. Now keep flying at full speed—Coyote will surely attack again!” the Norse god shouted, and all three nodded.
The three goddesses flew as fast as they could toward the mountain range marking the edge of the great desert.
“That attack took me by surprise,” Coyote said. This time he stood in the form of a singular coyote upon a group of mountains on the opposite side from where the members of Orniskem were fleeing.
“Could it be some historical legacy of ‘the Void’?” the evil god mused.
The shadow of a woman appeared behind Coyote. It was the girl who had appeared earlier to Loki. She smiled with her glowing red eyes, and the bells on her calves rang in unison with each of her movements.
“So it was you who helped them after all,” Coyote said.
“If they had died under your last Ten Moons attack, we never would have seen the growth of the light within those girls. And I want to see their evolution,” the woman replied.
Meanwhile, the gods kept flying at top speed to escape Samalayucan.
“I can destroy any technique, no matter how large or small,” Loki said, still looking utterly drained. “But it tears my body apart from the inside and leaves me incapacitated for days. Even with ambrosia, I won’t be able to stand.”
Coyote and the woman kept gazing toward the horizon, in the direction the goddesses had fled.
“Three goddesses carrying Tawa’s power in this corrupt and wretched world of filth, together with a god who possesses that ability inherited from the Void itself,” Coyote said, laughing to his companion. Despite being in animal form, his muzzle still showed a satisfied grin.
“I doubt he is someone who has seen the Dwellers of Nothingness,” the woman said.
Coyote shook his head, still smiling.
“It is an ability inherited through ancient idols, much like what happened thousands of years ago in that Sanctuary Beyond the Sea...” Coyote replied.
The woman bent her arms dismissively.
“Bah, I wasn’t even born when that happened, you decrepit old fossil,” she answered.
Then Coyote, despite the bearing of an animal, sat like a human on the ground and crossed his arms.
“You insolent little girl. You are fortunate I am in a good mood at the moment. Huhuhuhu,” he answered with a sarcastic smile on his strange animal face.
“And go wash yourself. You still reek of sex,” he added.
The woman began laughing with delight.
“Innocent creatures, truly believing they could drive you away with such a basic exorcism ritual,” the woman said, laughing. “Though I must admit, it brought back many memories of my homeland.”
“Even so, those three girls gave us quite a surprise. And it seems Tawa has taken an interest in them. Huhuhuhuhu,” Coyote replied.
“All but that one individual... there is so much evil in his heart that it excites me,” the woman said, sensually caressing her own body.
Coyote gave her a sadistic look, his eyes glittering with amusement.
“I wanted to show their companions what sort of person he truly is... but it will be better if they discover it on their own. It shall be so chaotic that I would dearly love to witness it... Huhuhuhu,” Coyote replied.
“Beautiful friendships, shattered because they hide what lies within. Exactly the kind of thing you adore watching, Áłtsé Hashké.”
“Of course! I want to see how much chaos and destruction they bring into the world with those powers! Huhuhuhuhu!” he shouted excitedly while the woman laughed with sadistic delight.
“And when that happens, I myself shall intervene,” the woman replied.
The two beings remained seated upon the mountains of Samalayucan while the sun began painting the dark sky with shades of orange and pink.