“Tul-chan! Tul-chan! Wake up,” Susanoo said as he tried to awaken the rabbit goddess, who remained unconscious after the previous battle against Mayáhuel.
Both gods were inside a small dark room. Their wounds had healed thanks to their final reserves of ichor.
Tul opened her eyes and saw Susanoo sitting beside her. The Maya goddess was still a little disoriented after having just woken up.
“Yuum Susanoo, where are we?” Tul asked, confused, while trying to sit up.
“Wakaranai,” the eastern god replied, confused. “When I awoke, I was already here.”
Then Tul grew anxious when she remembered that she had to hurry and search for Tania in Tamoanchan. Her premonition that two of her friends were dead began to crush her heart.
“I have to get out of here, yuum,” Tul said nervously. “Ana and Menrva ch’úupalob are in danger!”
Then an omnipresent voice was heard inside the room.
“Have you recovered already? We need your help!”
“Are you Mixcóatl?” Tul asked, confused.
But at that moment, the dark room disappeared, and the two gods could see exactly where they were.
Nothing remained of Tollan but ruins. The enormous pyramid they had been heading toward had been completely destroyed, along with all the other buildings.
There was fire and gigantic holes everywhere. There were also traces of blood on the ground. The smell of death and sulfur was extremely intense.
The sky was completely clouded over, and crimson lightning fell from above, as if it were the beginning of the end of the world. In the distance, volcanoes could be seen growing active while earthquakes ravaged the precarious ruins.
“Sleepyheads!” Epona shouted. “We’re gonna need a hand from you.”
The Celtic goddess stood right in front of them, her back turned. Epona had returned to her usual transformation. She, together with Mixcóatl, Tláloc, and Xipe Tótec, were fighting hundreds of Caxcan warriors who had awakened their divine power.
Although for Epona’s level of strength these warriors did not represent a challenge, the simple fact that there were so many made the battle complicated. Moreover, the goddess had decided not to kill any of them, so she was only attacking them to leave them unconscious.
However, both Tláloc and Xipe Tótec were very weak, and Epona protected them as best she could.
For his part, Mixcóatl used his smoke clouds to push his enemies away. Unlike the Celtic goddess, the soldiers’ power was not so far from his own fighting ability, and he was fighting as best he could.
“Epona-chan!” Susanoo shouted. “Worry not. I am ready to aid thee.”
Susanoo quickly drew his weapon and began attacking the soldiers approaching their position. Both Tláloc and Xipe Tótec collapsed exhausted to the ground, but Susanoo placed himself where they had been and continued the offensive.
“Epona ch’úupal… I… I have to go to Tamoanchan right away,” Tul said nervously to the equine goddess.
“I know what you mean,” the Celtic goddess replied, biting her lips. “Menrva… her energy disappeared.”
“Yes. I have to go resurrect her and Ana ch’úupal before the same thing that happened to you happens to them… or before their consciousness is devoured,” Tul replied.
“Ana… I certainly can’t feel her energy… but she can’t be dead,” Epona replied.
“Uhh! But I sensed her death!” the Maya goddess insisted.
Epona pointed toward the sky. Even though the sky was cloudy, traces of the dimension the Irish goddess had invoked still illuminated it.
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“This alternate dimension would disappear if she died,” Epona replied. “But that doesn’t guarantee she’s all right. She may be standing at death’s door right now.”
“That is why I have to go right away!” Tul shouted, but Epona stopped her.
“The problem is that we have these hundreds of soldiers blocking our path,” Epona said. “Besides, how are we going to open the portal to that world where Ana and the others are?”
“I can open the portal to Tamoanchan,” Mixcóatl said.
Tláloc and Xipe Tótec rose with difficulty, breathing slowly.
“We will keep fighting. You go on,” Tláloc said very heavily.
“We will not be defeated by mere humans,” Xipe Tótec added, though despite possessing the power of immortality, the damage caused by Camaxtli continued gnawing at his body.
“I shall continue fighting,” Susanoo said, at the same time opening a path through the enemy troops.
“No, wait! You can’t do it alone!” Epona shouted in concern while kicking away another group of enemies.
“Iie, I shall be fine,” Susanoo said. “You must go save Ana-hime and Menrva-san. I shall fight with all my power if necessary.”
But Susanoo had only just recovered after being gravely injured by Mayáhuel. Tul knew beforehand what was happening inside the eastern god’s body, because she could feel it as well. Nervously, she bit her lips, knowing that if she went to Tamoanchan, it would mean leaving Susanoo to die in this place.
At that moment, ice stalagmites struck hundreds of soldiers, incapacitating them. When Epona and the others turned, they realized that Loki, together with Anpiel and Freyja, had arrived to help in the fight. The three were floating in the sky, while the Norse god held his staff in his hand, pointing it at the Caxcan warriors.
“Epona, Tul, hurry and go to Tamoanchan!” Anpiel shouted.
“We’ll handle these guys,” Loki said. “Rescue Ana for me.”
“I… thank you,” Tul replied emotionally, and she immediately stood to head toward the ruins where the great pyramid had once been.
“Could I purrhaps… go too, meow?” Freyja asked while, at the same time, attacking another group of soldiers with her spear.
“Why do you need to go?” Epona asked.
“I… I’m worried about Menrva… I’m sorry, I feel like I have to go, meow” the Norse goddess added, embarrassed.
“All right. I’ll stay,” Epona said, then turned to look at Tul. “Take care of Ana for me, dear friend.”
“Leave it to me, ch’úupal!” Tul shouted excitedly.
The rabbit goddess, together with Freyja and Mixcóatl, were about to leave for the ruins of the great pyramid when suddenly, the ground began shaking violently.
“What is this power approaching?” Anpiel asked, confused, while attacking the Chichimeca warriors with his macuahuitl.
The ground split open as if a tremendous volcanic eruption had burst from beneath the surface, and a gigantic serpent emerged from it. In its jaws, it carried a plump man who had been dead for some time.
“Is that… a tannin?” Epona asked, terrified at the sight of the gigantic serpent.
“The power of this serpent far surpasses that of the previous one I slew,” Susanoo said.
When Tul saw the murdered man, she recognized him as Tajín, one of the gods who had been with her teacher Ixchel.
“My kaansaj! Where is she?!” the rabbit goddess shouted in fear.
But it was useless. She could not feel her teacher’s energy. She had been so distracted that she had forgotten Ixchel was also on the battlefield.
“That serpent… is Cihuacóatl,” Mixcóatl said, frightened.
“You mean the lady who greeted us at Tollan’s entrance?” Anpiel asked the Xicallanca god.
“Indeed. That woman is a coateotl, that is, a serpent goddess,” Mixcóatl said while continuing to watch the powerful deity emerge triumphantly from the ground.
“But that power she has… it is gigantic,” Epona added, worried.
“According to my information, Cihuacóatl was a warrior deity and had an ability to increase her strength when her manná was very low,” the Toltec god said. “I assume she spent all her energy to create these Caxcan soldiers and then invoked that lethal spell.”
“It is an ability similar to Ana’s,” Epona said. “Except she can only use it once.”
“But what worries me is that now that the Caxcan warriors are beginning to die or fall unconscious, they are beginning to become lost in the limbo of this dimension, and their energy is returning to Cihuacóatl,” Mixcóatl said.
“You mean she created a scenario where her power would increase no matter what?” Loki asked.
The Xicallanca god remained silent, but he knew that was exactly it. The goddess’s power now broke any paradigm that could possibly be imagined.
“Well, well, well. There is still trash left in this place,” Cihuacóatl said in a chilling voice that could only be heard in everyone’s minds, since under her serpent transformation, she could not articulate words due to the lack of vocal cords and the proper tongue.
Tul looked at her defiantly and shouted at the top of her lungs:
“Bastard! Let that man go and answer me! Where is my kaansaj?”
Cihuacóatl opened her jaws and let Tajín fall to the ground. Both his neck and stomach had been pierced by the serpent goddess’s poisonous fangs. His corpse was wrapped in venomous acid that slowly corroded his skin.
“I devoured that stupid woman,” the serpent goddess said mockingly. “But do not worry. Soon you will share my stomach together.”
At that moment, Tul felt the world spin around her. She could only remember the moments when Ixchel would lay her against her shoulder and caress her. Tears poured from the rabbit goddess’s eyes, and she bit her lip with such intensity that fresh blood flowed from it.
The Maya goddess was about to leap and attack Cihuacóatl, but Susanoo quickly embraced her to stop her.
“Thou must not, Tul-chan!” Susanoo said imperatively. “Thou art the only one who can heal that deadly poison.”
Tul was frantic. She had to go to Tamoanchan to resurrect Ana and Menrva, but at the same time, Tajín’s corpse was there, poisoned, and… worst of all, her teacher had been devoured by that horrendous serpent. Her mind spun in circles.