Stas hadn't lied when he had addressed the ancient yokai, remarking upon her appearance. Indeed, however one might consider it, she looked truly monstrous.
Firstly, it's important to note that Ordyntsev looked at her upwards. And not because she was in her lamia form, which made her significantly taller. The actual reason was that the chaos warlocks had thoroughly worked upon her, grafting onto the lower half of her body a piece of the Great Serpent's tail that was several times her own size.
It was not too hard to realize, judging by the size of some of the surviving scales. Of course, it wasn't the entire tail, but rather several intertwined groups of the Serpent King's muscles, wrapped in his skin and merged with Minoru's own body.
Such a level of chimerology made even Ordyntsev himself feel uneasy. It all looked too unnaturally and repulsively combined.
Moreover, the tail itself continued to rot, and the metal staples and runes embedded in the flesh literally pulsed with the energy of decay, seeking to break out.
Secondly, Minoru's upper body had not been spared innovations either. Her right arm had been so heavily altered and twisted that it resembled a grotesquely elongated praying mantis limb more than anything else.
Because of the oversized limb, her shoulder drooped, skewing her entire figure.
And finally, what they had done with her face. As if in mockery, the left half of it was absolutely clean and unchanged, while the right bore the full brunt of the sinful gifts of rot. Her bulbous, inflamed skin glistened with the serum covering it.
Looking at this spectacle, Stanislav had no doubts that it was done to torture the lamia even more. This meant that somewhere inside, she was still alive.
Neither Stas nor Minoru spoke, silently gazing at each other and planning their next steps.
Words were superfluous in this matter, as they could neither fix nor change anything.
But assessing the strength of the opponent was absolutely necessary.
And the more Stanislav thought about it, the less he liked what was happening.
Minoru had been strong even before, but now, after her being processed by chaos, the earthling found it difficult to gauge her strength.
One thing was certain, she was stronger than an ordinary supreme, but not strong enough to overcome the threshold of a great clan head.
At the moment, only Jun Sumada came to Stas's mind as someone nearing that boundary, and that too with a number of caveats.
And if Minoru was just as strong, then Ordyntsev's situation was frankly bad.
The awareness of the chaos servants' experiments itself was no less important. If they could set up a chimerization "assembly line," then nothing would stop them.
Suddenly, something flashed brightly from behind, and a shockwave softly hit the man's back. The battle of the dragon and two yokai wasn't subsiding.
Stas knew that a single swipe of that gigantic tail would suffice to put a full stop to his existence.
That meant it was time to even the odds.
The ground beneath him exploded, sending up tons of stone, which grew covered with purple lines of ether within seconds. Points of eyes flashed and lit up, and a huge maw cracked open, revealing sharp fangs.
Rising on the head of the mega-beast he was creating, Ordyntsev controlled the technique and carefully monitored the surrounding space, knowing that he was most vulnerable at this moment.
That's why when Minoru's massive tail crashed down on his golem's head, Stas managed to jump off in time, avoiding being smeared across his own stone.
From the mightiest strike, the stone serpent was hurled downward, embedding itself into the earth and leaving behind an ugly crater, which only grew larger as Minoru's entire transformed bulk crashed directly onto it.
One had to admit, for her gigantic size, she moved unnaturally fast.
The lamia planned to destroy her opponent's creation before it fully came into its power, but the airborne Ordyntsev had other plans.
As soon as he touched the ground, he forcefully plunged his hands into it, immediately sending down a substantial volume of prana. The natural-etheric sphere dangerously flickered but withstood the abrupt discharge of energy.
At the same time, Minoru's eyes narrowed menacingly when she noticed the warmaster's strike.
In a moment, the entire area around her cracked from the stone spikes piercing the surface, their tips burning with a sinister purple light. Besides the ether, this technique was enhanced by chaos-destroying weaving, making it doubly dangerous for Minoru.
At least where the spikes entered the grafted serpentine tail, the flesh began to rapidly decay and rot, as strange as it sounded for a spawn of rot.
But the lamia wasn't about to die so easily. Twisting herself to avoid the largest "spears" and destroying the rest, she threw Stas's golem right onto the spikes growing towards her and jumped after it.
The ancient yokai intended to use the serpent's body as a safe platform, but Stas had something to surprise her with there.
The "flesh" of the golem suddenly split apart, offering no resistance to the spikes rushing up from below! This required exquisite control and the ability to multitask, but Ordyntsev managed.
It seemed there was nowhere for Minoru to retreat, yet, with a displeased snort, the man was forced to abandon his technique, pulling away with all his might. The purple glow of the spears dimmed, allowing Minoru to easily carve a path out of the unexpected trap.
As it turned out, the lamia had taken precautions, secretly planting dozens of ice "flowers" underground, which, upon "blooming," surfaced and scattered thousands of razor-sharp ice shards around.
Had Stas not reacted immediately, he would have been dead. The speed and durability of these projectiles were such that even the body of a supreme would have been unable to withstand them.
Yet, in the rays of the sun, all these gleaming blades looked insanely beautiful.
The spear whirling in Stas's hands broke most of them into dust, but some still flew by, crashing against the protective stone layer and the armor beneath it.
While the shards did not penetrate the armor, they easily dented it, leaving painful bruises and knocking the wind out of the man.
After repelling Minoru's water attack and sending his own in response, Stas even had to use the Insensate Demon healing technique to muffle the pain and properly activate regeneration.
On the other hand, the lamia also did not escape without damage. Ordyntsev's forest of spikes perforated her lower half in numerous places, leaving black "molten" holes in the rotting flesh. However, considering the size of the body and the resilience of chaos creatures, these damages could be considered no worse than ordinary cuts.
WO-O-OSH!
A purple ether ray, bursting out of the mouth of the titan serpent that rose from the ground, cut through the space and fiercely burrowed into the body of the caught off-guard lamia, causing a massive explosion.
Or so a normal person, unable to see at such speeds, might think. In reality, by the time the technique detonated, the yokai was already gone.
Having set up water barriers, she deftly shifted to the side, letting the streams of all-consuming energy pass by her, only to then be hit by Stanislav's strike.
The frozen-in-the-sky purple egg cracked, sending down streams of harsh etheric light, almost impossible to hide from. In the defense of Gaibatsu Fortress, this single technique destroyed entire hundreds.
Unfortunately, Minoru's body was tougher, suffering only minor burns.
Meanwhile, Stas was urgently building wall after wall, flickering between them, as Minoru's ice spears perforated his defensive constructions like paper.
Within the disfigured body of the lamia was concealed a fearsome might. She effortlessly blocked Ordyntsev's strikes, while he himself had to employ every trick to ensure her blows either glanced off or missed entirely.
On the other hand, he still retained his ability to attack simultaneously from two sides.
His mega-serpent wasn't so easy to kill. It was created to withstand the strongest blows of fate, and the impact of its attacks was quite impressive. Meanwhile, Stas himself was very fast.
Having exhausted the possibility of killing the opponent in the first minutes of the fight, both parties moved on to what Stas called the "major league."
The battles of the top-tier warmasters had a number of features that could not be ignored. And the foremost of them was their speed.
It's very difficult to hit a small human figure capable of speeds of hundreds of kilometers per hour while maintaining excellent mobility. The ability to stick to surfaces allowed warmasters to instantly change the direction of movement, and their sturdy bodies coped with overloads.
Ordyntsev once wondered whether a modern Earth tank had a chance to kill a warmaster. He concluded that without an unexpected shot from ambush, the tank's chances would approach zero.
A supreme warmaster simply wouldn't allow the barrel to aim at him at close to medium range. At a longer distance, their accelerated perception would let them calmly create a defensive technique.
This circumstance forced supreme warmasters to play, in a sense, deadly checkers, where each of the opponents throws techniques in what seems like random directions, but in reality, they block possible retreat paths.
This also included trap techniques, triggered after a short interval or activated by pressing on the ground.
Closing-in spiked walls, a forest of spears and spikes, stone explosions, and blades, and sometimes all at once. The earthling's prana source worked on wear and tear, turning the surrounding land into a scarred wasteland with a multitude of hidden traps.
Minoru also kept up. Lacking the ability to create equally cunning "surprises," she bet on scale. Noticing a lurking tsunami when water flowing is from all sides is not as easy as it might seem. Especially when you're moving at inhuman speeds.
The yokai's energy reserve was much bigger, so her techniques were truly all-encompassing.
Ordyntsev was saved only by his superiority in speed. The grafted tail slowed Minoru, not allowing her to move at her fast as she used to.
But despite them tossing mass destruction techniques left and right, both adversaries did not hesitate to employ precise attacks from the arsenal of supremes.
It was akin to the thrusts of two masters' rapiers.
Dozens of feints, pirouettes, and rebounds - all designed to confound the adversary for that one true and devastating blow.
Such a strike was not intended to destroy tens and hundreds of cubic meters of the surrounding world. No, it was a lethal thrust, one that would pierce any number of shields and drive deep into living flesh.
In such cases, Stas used a variation of the destructive etheric ray, focused on penetration rather than explosion. Minoru, on the other hand, favored ice projectiles, accelerated by water to dizzying speeds.
Each of these thrusts penetrated the ground hundreds of meters deep until they lost their original impulse. Some even detonated deep underground.
Of course, Minoru would have preferred close combat to long-range, but Stas had other plans.
Unfortunately, the longer the battle went on, the more he felt fatigue creeping up. Sweat flooded his eyes, and his body, despite regeneration, began to give in. No matter how you looked at it, flirting with death was an exhausting endeavor.
*****
Leviathan felt terrible. Shiro's harsh words still echoed in her head, preventing her from concentrating properly.
Worse still, by venturing here, she had trapped herself. Everywhere she looked, a brutal battle raged, one in which her life was worth nothing.
If she dared to move, she would attract the attention of the combatants, which would also end in nothing good.
But she couldn't just sit underground indefinitely. The techniques of the warmasters systematically destroyed everything around them, including the very earth. More than once or twice, their attacks passed dangerously close to her refuge.
It was only a matter of time before her luck ran out.
And if she couldn't leave, then she would still do what she came here for.
Levi saw that her master was in a tough spot. The ancient yokai was too strong an opponent to be taken lightly.
Yes, the master was still holding on, but at any second, something irrevocable could happen.
That meant she had to buy Shiro a chance. But Levi was afraid to distract Ordyntsev too much from the fight, so she crawled in complete silence, even hiding her location from him.
*****
The strange silence of Leviathan did not go unnoticed by the battling earthling. However, he could not afford to be distracted by it.
His mind frantically thought of some plan that would allow him to break the dire situation. But as of yet, no ideas surfaced.
However, he wasn't the only one who noticed Leviathan's strange behavior.
When streams of water burst from the ground to the side, Stas only felt surprised. He stood too far away for that strike to have any chance of harming him.
Nevertheless, his attitude changed when he realized that, along with the incoming water, the injured body of an overly self-assured snake had flown to the surface.
Utter silence reigned in the man's mind as he locked gazes with Minoru.
They both knew what this meant.
Stas lunged forward first.
A stone wall that had risen before Leviathan's struggling body deflected a water projectile, shattering into a hundred pieces, yet it saved her life.
At the same time, Ordyntsev himself had to take a risk, barely dodging the second technique and diving under the ground. His stone barrier tightly clung to his armor, not hindering his movements at all.
Bursting back onto the surface a couple of seconds later, he was already almost near Leviathan when Minoru made her move.
If previously the lamia had no opportunity to impose close combat on Stas, now she had it, for she knew where he would be next.
Stas, reaching out to the lying Leviathan, shuddered through his whole body, freezing. Slowly, as if not believing what was happening, he lowered his head, seeing Minoru's right limb that had passed through his chest.
'No!' horror overwhelmed Levi, causing her to try to rush forward, but due to her injuries, she couldn't even move. 'No-o-o!'
Meanwhile, nothing was yet finished.
A jerk of the modified limb, and Ordyntsev's torso, pierced in the chest area, fell to the ground, to be smeared by a whole series of crushing blows from the looming above Minoru.
The stone armor could not save the earthling from such frenzied force. Blood and splinters of bones flew in all directions while the lamia was obliterating the very memory of him.
The golem lying to the side convulsed and helplessly dropped its head as it lost the energy sustaining it. The lights in its eyes finally went out.
Frozen in despair, Leviathan was forced to watch this, lacking the strength to even turn away.
And the most terrifying was the realization that she alone was to blame for everything that had occurred.
If she had listened to her master's words, she would not have become the cause of his death.
Now, she would not outlive him for long.
Having finished with her bloody deed, the lamia slowly and somehow deliberately leisurely turned towards Leviathan. She wasn't in a hurry, knowing that her prey wouldn't run away.
That's why, when the ether-covered spear, glowing from the energy invested in it, severed the upper half of Minoru from the serpentine part, she was a little taken aback. The same fate soon befell her arms, which, spinning, fell somewhere to the side.
The seemingly switched-off golem, still not lighting up the fire in its eyes, lunged forward, coiling around the writhing and crushing everything around piece of the Great Serpent, while Stas knocked out Minoru and dragged a bewildered Leviathan closer to himself.
"Ether technique. Ether Explosion!" as soon as the man's words broke from his tongue, the golem abruptly froze, continuing to hold Minoru's severed tail. Through the cracks in its armor, intensifying, a purple glow broke, but Stas no longer saw it.
The spherical stone shield that had grown around their trio obscured everything else.
And judging by how the earth shook, it did so for good reason. The Ether Explosion was a new technique, the existence of which Stas meticulously kept secret to surprise his enemies.
Finally, the charred dome cracked, allowing the survivors to see the light and admire the fragmented remains of Minoru's lower part. Mostly, only bones survived. The flesh evaporated in the fire of all-consuming energy.
'Master, you're alive!' Leviathan's jubilant cry froze on her tongue when Ordyntsev's incinerating gaze fixed directly on her. Only the continuing conflict deterred him from giving her a thorough dressing down.
Meanwhile, the lying and bound with special anti-chaos chains Minoru twitched slightly and surveyed her surroundings with a renewed perspective.
"How did you survive?" the lamia was genuinely interested in the answer to this question. "I was sure I had killed you. Even your beast felt your death."
"She didn't feel it," Ordyntsev shook his head negatively. "At that moment, when I dove underground and moved towards Leviathan, I pulled one of the dead cultists' bodies from the side, covering it with my stone armor. Managing and concealing the power of the resulting puppet was difficult, but I coped. Levi was so distracted that she didn't notice the absence of our connection."
"So that's how," the lamia sighed quietly, turning her gaze away from Stas. "I'm glad this will finally end. The Kami see, I've made enough mistakes."
"Are you sure?" Ordyntsev raised an eyebrow and lit up the Healing Palm. "I could try to heal you, including from chaos."
"No," Minoru refused firmly, looking resolutely at the Serpent. "Neither you nor I nor anyone else can be sure that chaos will never return. After what I did to Lady Teruko," she inhaled sharply through her broken lips. "I don't deserve forgiveness."
Several seconds passed in silence until the lamia's lips stretched into a sarcastic smirk.
"You would have killed me anyway, even if I had agreed to be saved, wouldn't you?"
"I could say a lot about that, but we are all adults here, aren't we?" Stas replied politely.
Moments later, they both laughed contagiously at the dark humor, until the man's spear pierced through Minoru's head, and the released ether finally devoured her body.
Having fulfilled his promise, Shiro the Serpent turned towards the trembling earth and the ceaseless flashes of flame. Somewhere in the dust of explosions and flying debris, the head of the Great Serpent flickered.
It was time to end this invasion once and for all.
*****
Stas could have said much about battling something akin to the Great Serpent. The first thing that came to his mind was how hard it was to believe in the reality of it all.
Despite years spent in this world, several wars, and dozens of dangerous battles, he found it very hard to regard sensibly the rampaging monster whose size was comparable to a skyscraper.
You watch the earth crack and collapse under the blows, entire buildings are flung away, and you doubt internally if this is real.
The mind refuses to accept what unfolds as true, rather than something conjured or illustrated by skilled artists and animators.
However, the more your body shakes from the impacts and your skin is caressed by the heat released from all-encompassing explosions, the less doubt you have.
And then comes the dreadful truth: everything you see is real, and you have to deal with it.
Only, Stanislav Ordyntsev was not a hero. Rather, he considered himself simply a smart person.
Therefore, looking at the rampage of the three giants, for whom the man himself was no more than a hamster, Stas decisively changed his plans, turning in another direction.
If you do not wish to risk your life, you can always find those who would gladly do so in your stead.
The main thing is to approach the matter from the right angle.
*****
Jun Sumada breathed heavily. Blood cheerfully ran down his arms, seeping through the holes in his armor and hissing as it evaporated from the scalding-hot stone.
What more is there to say, when even his sweat scarcely had time to emerge before it vaporized in the hellish heat enveloping him?
Everything that could burn had already burned, yet the stones were losing their red glow very reluctantly.
When people mentioned fighting against the Hizoru, they called it a "bad war." After all, although water, earth, and wind could still defend, fire was meant only for one purpose - to evaporate your flesh, burn your house, and destroy your garden. After a war with Hizoru, little remained that could be restored.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Each of their six took on enemies to give others a chance to deal with the corrupted spirit. Sora took on the warlocks, his student fought the traitor, and he himself faced all the remaining supreme Hizoru and Avasaki.
Four supremes against him alone. Two from the fire clan and two from the air clan. There were also advanced warmasters, but they somehow quickly ended.
Twisted faces, eyes veiled with madness, and jerky, unnatural movements - these warriors were shadows of their former selves, but this in no way affected their combat skills.
If someone in the past had told him he would be fighting such a number of supremes, he would have spat in their face. Such feats were usually performed by his late older brother, not him.
Despite Jun's genuine love for risk and his uncompromising behavior, deep down he didn't want to die. It was this reluctance that allowed him to escape from the most desperate battles and skirmishes.
But four supremes were four supremes. And although he managed to finish off three out of the four, the wounds he received were too severe to continue the fight.
The supreme Sumada was still standing, but that was all he could do.
And the surviving Hizoru understood this well. He saw how slowly Jun's blood was leaving him and waited for the moment to deliver the final blow.
As for Jun... He looked with philosophical calm at the piece of his club lying nearby. The beautiful weapon couldn't withstand a double strike and split. It cost the life of one of the supremes, but now he no longer had his favorite weapon with which he had spent half his life.
Goro Sumada always knew how to make gifts.
The Hizoru standing in front of him was not without injuries either. He limped and was missing one arm, which the supreme Sumada had simply torn off with a sudden burst of prana. Perhaps it was this circumstance that accounted for the opponent's caution.
"What are you waiting for?" Jun grimaced nastily, looking at the chaos servant with his only remaining eye. He had traded the other one for the life of the third supreme. As far as he was concerned, it was a splendid exchange. Although, if he could redo it, he would choose the left one; he liked the right one more. "Maybe you'll quit wetting yourself, and we'll continue our dance?"
"Stop acting like you're still worth something!" the corrupted Hizoru growled irritably. Jun even vaguely remembered him. A decent supreme, albeit with a love for some theatrics. It was a pity that he became a toy of chaos.
"Well then, maybe you'll come closer, and we'll check?" Jun smirked, seeing the chaos servant's contorted expression.
However, despite the mocking, the Hizoru did not move. The remains of the other supremes were a beautiful deterrent for him.
Now, he no longer smiled or giggled. Chaos told them that they'd become immortal and all-powerful, but the corpses of his comrades lay right before his eyes.
The follower of rot received a lesson in caution and feared the staggering supreme before him. Yes, the Sumada was all battered, his armor only good for smelter, and his face was partially disfigured by an air technique, but even in such a terrible state, he still inspired fear.
They both stood in a giant crater emanating scorching heat, most of which Jun himself had created.
And just when Jun almost resolved to throw himself into the last battle, something unexpected happened.
The Hizoru exploded.
Or rather, not quite. He tried to do something, either retreat or defend himself, but several swift purple rays from different directions - that's not something you can easily dodge, especially if you're wounded.
The explosion from the collision of several rays of destruction was so strong that the body of the last supreme instantly turned to ash.
Jun himself would have become ash as well, since he didn't even try to dodge, facing the wave of ether rushing towards him, but a protective technique that sprang up around him at the last second saved his life.
"Sensei," a disgruntled Stas emerged from underground and swiftly approached the proudly standing teacher. "Why didn't you defend yourself? I almost killed you!"
"Why, why?" grumbled Jun. "Because I can hardly move at all! My whole body remains standing only because I keep feeding it prana. How do you think I should defend myself, son of a snake? While that scum was talking, I was afraid a breeze would blow and I'd just fall over!"
"Is it that bad?" Stas appeared instantly beside his sensei, beginning to examine him with his Healing Palm. "Stop squirming, you're interfering."
"So that's how it is," Jun nodded with an enlightened look. "Now I understand why you so diligently avoid all the clan heads who wanted to match you with their daughters. Using my helpless body for your dir…"
"If you don't shut up, I'll disable your tongue," Ordyntsev noted routinely, continuing to heal his teacher.
"You wouldn't dare do that to your magnificent sensei! After all, you wou-u-u... U-u-u? U-u-u!"
Five minutes later, a very grim Jun Sumada stood up and resolutely pointed to his lips. Stas was about to say it was even better that way, but, looking into the good eye of his sensei, decided it was best not to aggravate. Full restoration of the other eye would have taken too much time, which they didn't have right now.
"Who are we going to save next, you vile traitor?" Jun flexed his jaw, meanwhile checking his prana reserve. There wasn't much energy, but it was still there.
"Sora. The Yuki-onna is dead," Stas curtly threw back, recalling the absolutely dead, ice-bound stretch of the city, where the icy sculpture of the perpetrator herself stood eternally still.
At the end, Ataru went all out one last time. The thoroughly frozen figures of cultists, warmasters, and warlocks were so frequent that the spectacle was unsettling.
The ice itself was so cold that the earthling suspected even all the microbes in the area might have died.
If she wanted to follow her master to the grave, she created a magnificent "funeral pyre" off their enemies. Or, more accurately, would it be called a frosty burial mound?
"Well, to hell with her," Jun shrugged indifferently. He clearly didn't care about the death of the yokai. "By the way, how did it go with that traitor? Is she definitely dead?" a warning sounded in the teacher's voice.
"Don't think of me as an idiot, sensei," Stas snorted tiredly. "I know how to learn from past mistakes."
"You sometimes have too kind a heart," the sensei said with a chuckle, to which Ordyntsev only sighed. Past grievances, apparently, had already been forgotten. "Alright, let's go save that tigress. But keep quiet about how you found me!"
"Sensei, you do realize that this favor won't come cheap?"
"It's been a while since we trained together..."
"You know, I wanted to express my admiration, sensei, for how magnificently you handled all those four supremes. I hardly even had to participate."
"That's why you're my favorite student... Though don't think I've forgotten how you disabled my tongue! You owe me fi... No, ten... No, twenty recipes of booze from your Earth!"
*****
"So what's our plan?" Sora asked with interest, her gaze shifting between Jun and Stas. And after the sensei also cast an innocent glance at the earthling, the latter felt the urge to roll his eyes. The way the adult supreme warmaster avoided responsibility was almost funny if it wasn't so sad.
Stas and Jun, who had come to aid, had fallen on the warlocks' heads like winter on Earth's communal services. That is, abruptly and completely unexpectedly.
Unlike warmasters, warlocks had one serious flaw - they were quite frail, which played a cruel joke on them.
Thus, Stas's favorite stealth strikes became a death sentence for two warlocks at once. Jun finished off another two. The remaining one they "sentenced" together, although he naively tried to escape. Well, when you're pursued by three supremes, you usually end up dying.
At the moment, they were hiding from prying eyes on the second floor of one of the half-destroyed houses, which offered a beautiful view of the titans' rampage in the distance.
Sora looked at Jun in surprise but said nothing. If he trusted his student to make decisions, she had no objections. The reputation of Shiro the Serpent spoke for itself. If anyone could come up with a cunning plan, it was him.
"What's the situation with Izanami and Yamato?" Stas asked the two supremes. They fought closer to the giants' battle, thus saw more than he.
"A lot of warmasters and warlocks were gathering there," Sora shrugged and then smirked maliciously. "Though it didn't help them. Those three smeared everyone who tried to interfere."
"Judging by the strength of their techniques and the intensity of the battle, they could keep fighting like this for a long time," Jun contributed. "We need to finish this quickly."
"Hmm," Stas quickly pondered the information received. "Then, here's what we'll do..."
*****
Izanami, in a habitual movement, sent one of her favorite fire techniques at the Serpent King. Thanks to her affinity with flame, any of her techniques had terrifying might.
However, the power of Ssashas was her perfect antithesis. Moreover, he was stronger.
Flame and rotting water met to create another steam explosion.
Yamato, trying to flank, suffered another failure, forced to escape the acid vomit spewed from the serpent's maw. This fluid carried such a concentrated charge of chaos that it could have even corroded the dragon leader's scales. He had already experienced such a shower once and did not strive to repeat it.
If initially in the heart of the Nine-Tails burned rage, now there was only ash left. Watching what her brother had turned into was physically unbearable. His every furrow, ulcer, and wound struck her directly in the heart.
For her and the others, Ssashas had ever been the elder brother, always knowing exactly what to do and how to do it. His ability to predict allowed them to cope even with the most severe invasions and other challenges.
But one day, he made a mistake, after which everything went straight to hell.
Izanami didn't feel tired, but she understood that they were at an impasse. Their strength was not enough to cope with the Serpent. Chaos, coming in a continuous stream, healed all his injuries, making fighting to exhaustion simply senseless.
Without outside help, they would eventually fail.
And as if in response to her thoughts, the ground under the Serpent King's body rapidly came into motion. In an instant, thick stone shackles clamped around the tail of the titanic spirit, cracking as they tightened ever more.
Ssashas tried to jerk, but a water wave that burst out from the other side crashed onto his head like a huge hammer.
"They still managed!" A joyful thought flashed in Izanami's head, but she didn't allow herself to be distracted. The Serpent King furiously tried to break free, and it was necessary to seize the moment before it was too late.
Yamato, diving onto the Great Serpent's back, thought the same.
His claws forcefully dug into the flesh as he tore it with wide sweeps, trying to reach the spine and nerve nodes. Their destruction would allow winning time until full regeneration.
Ssashas tried to turn his head and spit at Yamato, but the Nine-Tails wrapped and pulled shut the maw with her giant fiery tails. The smell of charred scales filled the air. The Kitsune also groaned through her teeth - chaos burned her flesh, but she stubbornly endured.
With a push, the Serpent King scattered all the bonds holding him, but dozens of new ones appeared in the exact second.
The corrupted spirit struggled desperately, completely ignoring his own wounds. His injuries and inflammations burst, contaminating the ground with streams of poisonous pus, but the four strongest creatures of this world held on very tightly.
"What are you waiting for?!" Jun yelled at Stas, red from the strain. His hands were deep in the ground, controlling an enormous mass of stone. "Finish him off!"
There was no time to delay.
Jumping out from under the ground, Stanislav rushed at maximum speed to the body of the bound spirit. The latter, sensing the danger represented by this new warmaster, began to break free even more actively.
Jump onto Jun's bonds, run across the constantly shuddering and cracking surface, and leap onto the flesh rotten with decay. Carefully watch your step so as not to fall into his rotting insides, and then, at the last second, duck to avoid burning in the passing tail of the Nine-Tails, who almost lost her grip on the maw.
What could be simpler?
Cursing vehemently at his allies, Stas made his way to the head of the corrupted spirit, choosing a piece of protruding bare bone to stop at.
He had to start now. Time was running dangerously low. If he didn't manage, his comrades would simply kill the Great Serpent, regardless of all the consequences.
The earthling's hands lay on the slippery bone and released in one go the most powerful version of the anti-chaos technique.
And although the man's body was still standing on the titanic spirit, his mind was already far away.
Before Ordyntsev's consciousness, the body of the spirit began to unfold in all its terrifying magnificence. And the further his prana spread, the more he realized how foolish and presumptuous his hopes to fix everything had been.
Even if there were a dozen like him here, it would still end only in failure.
The Serpent's body was so heavily infected with chaos that finding tissues untouched by instability, which could be used as a starting point, seemed impossible.
It was at this moment that Stas realized something was off. Something whispered the right answers to him. Moreover, it felt like this "something" had been with him for a long time.
Somehow, now he knew exactly what needed to be cleansed to give the Serpent King a chance to free himself from the influence of chaos.
The necessary nerve nodes seemed to burn red in his mind, allowing him to find and heal them unmistakably, which Stas did.
Ordyntsev understood that he was under external influence, but was not afraid, as he was destroying chaos regardless.
And as soon as the last of the nodes was cleansed, the body of the Serpent stopped struggling, subsiding and relaxing. The earthling himself was forcefully thrown out of his trance, almost falling from the head of the spirit.
"Did it work?" gasped Izanami, fearfully looking at her brother. She was afraid to believe what she saw.
'Not quite,' the faint voice of the Serpent King made the whole group flinch and suspiciously look at the swaddled giant. 'However, it gave us all a chance, which we have been waiting for so long.'
The words of the spirit appeared directly in their minds.
"What chance?" Stas threw sternly, jumping down and moving to a safe distance. "And how did you show me exactly where to strike?"
'Wait, and I will explain everything to you. But for now, I must do what should have been done long ago.'
The whole surrounding world strangely trembled, though objects remained in their places. It felt as if someone had suddenly dropped an unbearable burden and sighed with relief.
"What did you do?" Yamato bellowed. His claws glowed with crimson light.
'I just sent a gift to all the warlocks and champions of chaos who were connected to me. I'm sure they are now feeling a fragment of what they doomed me to.'
*****
Jishin didn't know how long they had been fighting. He didn't even know who else was still alive. Currently, the only matters he could confidently speak to were his life and the lives of some of his guards.
Chaos pressed, struck, and tore them apart. They resisted as best they could, but it was all in vain. The enemy was stronger.
Next, they tried to confuse it, but tricks eventually ran out.
Now they simply tried to sell their lives dearly.
Jishin didn't curse Shiro and the others. They were probably already dead, and he himself would soon join them.
The moment when a fat cultist, laughing boisterously in front of him, fell to the ground and began to convulse was carelessly missed. He just killed him and walked on wearily.
Only when a similar scene began to repeat everywhere did the head of Sumada finally realize that they had somehow succeeded.
"These bastards actually managed it," he whispered, still not believing what he saw. "They managed it!"
Everywhere he looked, the strongest chaos fighters were going mad with pain due to the "gift" of the Serpent King. Ordinary cultists and chaos spawn looked confused at those who had lost control over them.
There were few survivors after the carnage, but their overwhelming joy was enough for them to charge with new strength, chopping and slashing at the writhing enemies.
No one knew how long this would last, so the survivors literally went berserk, straining every nerve to kill as many as possible.
Yes, those weakly connected to the corrupted spirit came to their senses and attacked again. But without the support of their true masters, their fate was sealed.
Across the battlefield, the same battle cry continued to grow and spread:
"Death to chaos!"
*****
'The altered pulse of chaos I sent through our connection will burn them worse than boiling oil poured into their veins," the Great Serpent explained his actions. 'Now, the remnants of your army will handle them, and peace will reign in this world once more.'
Stas tensed when he saw the Serpent King's gaze focus on him.
'I am grateful to you, human, for fulfilling your mission. I saw you in my prophecy and did everything to ensure this branch of the future would happen. Now that chaos is defeated, I can also depart with a clear heart.'
A moment of awkward silence was immediately replaced by surprise and horror among those gathered.
"Ssashas, what are you talking about?" Izanami cried out in fear, leaning in to look into her brother's eyes. Her tail gently stroked his head. "I understand you're tired and sick, but don't rush! This man will heal you, and all will be well!"
'No need, Iza-chan,' the Serpent hissed softly. He was still bound by Jun's stone, but that didn't stop him from creating a small water "branch" and stroking the Nine-Tails' head with it. 'You see that it's not so. Shiro-san's technique gave me freedom, but only for a while. Soon, I will become that insane creature again, tormented by the agony that devours it. I want to end this once and for all.'
Seeing a ten-meter-tall fiery fox sob and cry was not something Stas ever wanted to witness.
'Tell Teruko, when she wakes up, that I love her very much, and I'm sorry it turned out this way.'
"So she..."
'Yes, she will recover. And now it's time to end this...'
Stas turned sharply, his eyes widening as he saw Leviathan approaching them.
Through their bond, he felt her strange readiness.
He decidedly disliked what was happening. A suspicion formed in his mind, but it hadn't fully materialized yet.
'This world has already lost too much. The loss of another great spirit could be an unbearable burden,' the Serpent King solemnly continued, his fiery gaze fixed on the frozen Leviathan. 'Therefore, before my death, I will pass my power and title to the worthy. One who will become the new Great Spirit! From this day, you are declared the protector of this world and its integral part. Wear this title with pride!'
"No!" Ordyntsev bellowed, trying to stop something, unable to understand what exactly, but it was already too late.
Even an ordinary person would have seen how an unimaginable volume of surrounding natural energy began to flow into Leviathan's body. It looked like an angry fog being absorbed into her skin.
It didn't last long, just a few dozen seconds, and then Levi collapsed unconscious.
The man who rushed forward prevented her head from hitting the ground.
There were almost no changes, except for the bizarre emerald pattern on her head, which stood out prominently on her white scales.
'And now I will weaken all my defenses, giving you a chance to do this quickly,' the Serpent King tensed and then relaxed, preparing. 'On the count of three, strike.'
Izanami sobbed, beginning to create a massive fiery spear.
"One."
Yamato's claws glowed even brighter from the energy infused in them.
"Two."
Strong walls, studded with spikes, rose around the Serpent. Sora created several swaying water drills in the air. A purple sphere formed in Ordyntsev's hands.
"Three."
That day, another great spirit died, but a new one was born. Chaos, however, began to contemplate plans for its next return.
After all, unlike everything else, chaos is eternal.