Clash. She caught the scimitars in her claws, and her opponent swiftly snapped one weapon free, cutting at her. Ravager grinned fiercely, enjoying the pulsing sensation of pain in her right arm. The scimitar sliced the flesh all the way from the outer side of her elbow to the shoulder. Good weapon. She broke the clench with the weapons and kicked Mad Hatter straight into her midsection with both legs, sending the khan a good two kilometers away. The woman’s body flew through a rising pillar of stone, moving so fast that the moving air pushed by her body super-heated the stone, turning it into a molten mess. Like some sort of river, it flew after Mad Hatter for some time, staining the ground with molten liquid.

The air itself screamed, pushing back into the vacuum created by Ravager’s kick. How long had it been? How long has it been? The last person who nearly brought Ravager to death had been Dominator when he broke her back, but Vasco sure came close to repeating that feat. Was the woman as strong as Blood Graf? Ravager pondered about it, falling freely onto the tattered teeth of the newly made mountains below.

Possibly. Blood Graf had superior strength and skills, but Mad Hatter was simply relentless, and her speed and precision deserved the utmost praise! Ravager’s cheek was slashed to the bone, and both of her forelegs bore signs of deep cuts. The golden scimitars left huge crimson marks across her body, cutting through tendons and leaving several organs exposed to the super-heated air. She lost an ear, but it was fine. A deep thrust that ruptured her windpipe made Ravager struggle for every breath.

But Mad Hatter had paid dearly for her success. The cloud of smoke vanished, banished by a single blow. Her furs were in tatters, one of her breasts hanged on a string of flesh. The left side of her face lacked skin, and the eye twitched in its socket, slowly turning red. The khan took a few steps, shrugging her whole body, and Ravager’s grin grew wider as he saw geysers of blood gushing from the woman’s body. Good prey.

She took a deep breath, pleasantly surprised at the lingering sanity. Usually by now the madness would have overtaken her, and Ravager would wake up to a world of destruction, with her foe lying broken beneath her claws. Not this time, though. The madness still tried to crawl into her mind, but she fought it off, taking control of her body. Her poor brain pulsed, begging for the sweet release of mindless rage. Ignoring the urge, Ravager focused on the woman with perfect clarity.

Both Mad Hatter’s and Ravager’s blood had begun to coagulate, and the edges of their wounds were moving, trying to close. A freak of nature and a monster crafted by the genius of human hands, locked in battle, almost evenly matched. Two billion to one chance, two impossible probabilities, had met.

“I’ll have to give it to you,” Mad Hatter said, running with her fingers over the lacerated wound on the neck. “You are the first person to ever make me feel actual physical pain, my loving parents and my khan aside.” The khan returned the grin and closed her eyes. “Yes. What a wondrous sensation! The throbbing in my head, the chill rushing down my spine… My very being demands your demise. So be it. Be honored. This is the technique I have been prepared to slay a pretender god with.”

Bold. Ravager thought, dropping low. As she suspected, the woman had never met her match. It stunted her growth and made her an unpolished gem. But she adapted well enough. In time, she could become a potential threat to the state.

Mad Hatter made a tap and disappeared. Ravager’s eyes narrowed, tracing the woman’s movement. She didn’t exactly leap from place to place as she appeared in and out of reality. The khan moved to the left, the ground splintering beneath her step. Immediately disappeared again, still keeping the distance from Ravager. Now she appeared on the crest of a hill, the whole thing bulging down. Again she disappeared. Slowly gaining speed. Worried, Ravager flexed her muscles and fired at the Mad Hatter, but her claws sliced only an afterimage.

Ravager looked around, noticing Mad Hatter’s all around her. The woman traversed hundreds of feet with each step, creating afterimages and weaving a web of false copies around Ravager. The commander kept her cool, barely managing to keep track of her foe. What is the point of it? This wasn’t teleportation; the woman could only attack her from a single direction. So why?

The answer struck Ravager, along with the scimitars, faster than even Animalistica’s warning. Mad Hatter attacked in full, creating a whole new path with the speed of her movement. The woman’s body flew past Ravager, and a searing pain threw the commander face down, banishing the clouds above beyond the horizon. The wave of destruction continued in a straight line, tearing a hole in the rising mountain range.

Momentum. Ravager’s brain processed the situation and came up with an answer. Mad Hatter didn’t flex her muscles or strength; the woman needed those movements to create energy within her muscles, pushing them far beyond the limits of her body. The impulses created by her initial movement moved upward, joining with each subsequent impulse, coursing up and down around the muscles, building up the god-like speed. A god slayer indeed; too bad Ravager was a monster.

As she lay face down and unbreathed, unbreathing, irritation slowly took over. The black fur was drenched in crimson from the wide, crisscrossing wounds. One wound ran across her left shoulder to her right waist. Another started at her left armpit and went down to her right waist. A beautiful strike. A few more attacks like that and even Ravager would be dead.

And she couldn’t afford to die. A person capable of slaying her stood right behind her, walking toward Ravager, kicking away rocks the size of a building. Liberation. Liberation after centuries of misery and failure. A fellow monster. And this is exactly why she couldn’t die. Ravager had a duty to the offspring. Only someone like Geni, only someone pure, could truly end her in a way that would leave her free and the Wolf Tribe live on and prosper.

The wounds didn’t bother her too much; she had suffered worse before. Dominator’s attempt to leave her crippled for life failed. Two weeks later, her broken spine had healed. Vasco’s cracking thunders were unable to still her breath. And even Blood Graf’s ever-increasing might found its match against the rage guiding her. But prolonged combat was not an option. With every earth-shattering step, with every blow that could level a mountain, the surrounding area suffered. Already Ravager could hear the subterranean rivers hissing. With the bedrock broken, the rivers were falling into lava. It would take years to undo the damage they had already done.

An ambush was in order. Lure in the conqueror. Jump up and close your fangs on that thick neck. Strong as she may be, even Mad Hatter won’t break free from Ravager’s jaws. Not even Dominator had managed to escape unscathed.

“Such a miserable end for such an impressive fighter,” Mad Hatter said and laughed, stopping away. “Is that what you expect me to say? I can sense the life lingering in you still, beast.”

“Shallow,” Ravager grumbled, rising to all fours. She restarted her heart, filling the area with loud thumps. The commander licked the blood from her wounds. “Much too shallow to bring me low.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“I’ll just have to try harder next time, beastie,” Mad Hatter said.

“It won’t work again, madwoman.” Ravager stood up on two legs. She spread her arms, hearing the pops of bones shifting and the cracks of muscles moving. “At first I thought you had actually phased through me, yet judging by the crisscross cut and the way it shifted slightly to the side... You did it with pure speed. That’s why you have been hopping around like a bunny, to build up momentum.”

“Bunny?”

“A creature from the Old World. It had long ears,” Ravager tried to explain, pressing two index fingers to her skull to mimic the beast, “and it looked really cute.”

“I have no need for fancy powers,” Mad Hatter chuckled, lifting her arm to look at it. “Strength. Agility. Speed. Durability. All I need to bend the world to my will. Anything else will fail you at the worst possible moment.”

“I take it you’ve never met a mind controller?” Ravager asked, leaning on a piece of debris. Let the fool talk. In the meantime, her body is adjusting to her new posture.

“I did. Several times.” Mad Hatter began to circle around Ravager. “People who can take control of others with just a thought. People who can turn your blood into poison. My mind, my body have proved too much for them. Wicked and noble, I bested them all, devouring them after showing their weakness to the Sky.”

“Weakness? Devour? Who led you to this fucked-up ideology, girlie?” Ravager felt genuinely curious.

“It is said that in war, a woman suffers more.” Mad Hatter’s face softened as she looked to the side. A hint of some memory flashed in her eyes, too fast for Ravager to pick up hints. But that memory did banish the rage in the khan’s pupils, making them almost normal. “I can see it in your eyes; we both know it to be false. Men, women, once defeated, are violated, stripped of their freedom and forced to do the bidding of their masters. Those who refuse die. The loser must obey the strong, and the strong rules.”

Fuck my life! It is as if I am looking at my own warped reflection!

“You mentioned your family and some khan, yet I see no one above you. Speaking from experience, then?” Ravager inquired further.

“For the loser to become strong, the loser has to rebel, earning freedom through struggle and gore, devouring the former victor.”

“And you lost at some point, I take it.”

“I never lost!” The woman bared her teeth. Ravager’s ears caught the whining sound of Mad Hatter’s fists clenching the handles. “They are the ones who lost! Not me! I was a tag-along, nothing more. Even before I was born, my mere existence sparked wars. It’s funny.” Mad Hatter also leaned against the stone and smiled, almost gently. “He thought he could use me to secure his position. Brood Lord joined me because he wants a kingdom for himself. Iron Lord follows me because he believes I can conquer the world. And in time, I will. But the world will not be trapped in stasis; it will always be in flux. No matter the chains of oppression, a victor will one day grow complacent, weak even. And the roles shift.”

She dodged the question. Ravager returned the smile, banishing the aggression for the moment. Another tortured soul, then. Only where the Dynast guided Ravager on the path to betterment, there wasn’t anyone strong enough or close enough to make this fool listen.

Perhaps she could? There were no gods in this world, but by all rights, people like Mad Hatter deserved to die. She deserved to know weakness—to feel muscles being ripped out of her body, one after another. She deserved retribution. But… so did Geni. So many had died because of her, but she changed in the end. Ravager was little more than a killer when the Dynast steered her in the right direction, tempering her madness. She was the last person to call anyone irredeemable.

“If you understand this much, surely you can see the foolishness of pursuing a doomed course.” Ravager made the attempt, struggling to comprehend why exactly she cared.

“Win, serve, or die. Such are the rules of our world, and I merely follow suit,” Mad Hatter sighed.

“Such a bland world you are building,” Ravager said with disgust. “The strong can change everything to their liking; that is our privilege. Including the rules of the world. Hear me, foolish girl. Wanton gluttony only shortens life. Your God has given you strength; use it to bring about the change that could make you happy!”

“Who says I am unhappy, beastie? I am who I am, no more and no less.” The khan struck the side of her head with the flat of her blade. “Even now, the parasite clinging to me whispers poison into my ear, offering me power in exchange for servitude. Fool. The Sky has given me enough already. I am the one who bent countless nations to my will, the one who toppled thousands of champions! I will not cheat, I will not cover, and I will never betray myself, no matter what! Today we shall settle the fate of another kingdom! The Avatar of the Sky against the Incarnate of the Spirits! Let the strongest god win!” The woman’s muscles bulged, cracking the remnants of her furs and breaking the dried crust of her coagulated blood. She raised both scimitars, pointing one at Ravager. “Enough talk; my blades thirst for blood!”

“Haaagh...” Ravager stretched, feigning weakness. Geni would have found a way to save this fool. Unfortunately, all Ravager could do was kill others. “Fine. Let’s flip that coin.”

Mad Hatter tapped, disappearing from view, this time followed by Ravager. She made the same move, sending ripples through the solid stone, mimicking the khan’s movements perfectly. With a single glance, she had learned Mad Hatter’s god-slayer style, and now she would give her a taste of her own skill.

Unlike her offspring, Ravager was a different beast. When her brain was working properly, she could learn any skill in a matter of moments. And unlike them, she didn’t thrive on victory alone. After suffering a defeat, her body would adapt itself, either making the bones sturdier or enlarging the muscles, giving her a greater range of motion and speed. By accident or design, her creators had created a perpetually self-improving biological machine. Mad Hatter’s high-speed combat has triggered another evolution in Ravager’s body. Her senses have begun to adapt.

She appeared behind the khan, bringing the paw down. Not one to panic, Mad Hatter spun and slashed with both scimitars. Their speed pushed both fighters past each other; Mad Hatter’s right side exploded with gore and splinters of bone, and Ravager’s belly quivered under the impact of another cut. Mad Hatter stepped away, her step spreading cracks across the stone, and Ravager advanced after. A cut sliced through her neck, only slicing through the air. The claws tried to gouge the khan’s eyes, but that attack too missed its mark. They kept on trying to build up momentum, attacking and hacking each other before jumping in the air and facing each other, abandoning all attempts to build up speed. Their fate will be decided in straight combat; the one who toughs it to the end wins.

The scimitars met claws, and the air screamed, creating a vacuum around them both. In utter silence, they fought for a while, Ravager’s claws and kicks shredding the woman’s body and Mad Hatter’s scimitars opening small rivers of blood across the Wolfkin’s body. Noticing that her foe was on the defensive, Ravager lunged forward and took a kick to the jaw, separating the two long enough for the air to return. And Mad Hatter seized the moment to deliver a crisscrossing slash.

Ravager raised her paws, taking the full brunt of the propelled air slashes to her forearms. Strong. Easily capable of wreaking untold havoc if it had struck Houstad. The newly made wounds went all the way to the bone, making her tremble with exhilaration. The cowardly returning clouds ended up being cut in two. If the fight goes on, it might drag on for far too long. Ravager glanced at Houstad, seeing her clearly through the cloud of smoke and the display of laser beams and explosions. Even now, her offspring are dying. The Normies are dying.

“No more,” Ravager returned the crisscross attack, performing it with her own claws.

The wind pressure struck the raised scimitars, finally leaving cracks in the unknown alloy. Mad Hatter’s finger jerked, collapsing under the Ravager’s attack. The impact carried the khan down, cratering the woman into the ground and creating a new field of destruction spanning whole kilometers. Mountains toppled. Lava and water erupted from beneath the earth.

And Ravager used it. Her own technique, a little something she had been cooking up in secret for the day when she would finally settle the score with Geni. A product of sleepless nights and countless self-flagellations, along with extensive research into the limits of her body. She named it “Divinity”, for when she used it, it could very well be the end of her. When Mad Hatter Mad Hatter leapt out of the dust mushroom, she was greeted by Ravager at her very utmost, blood oozing from every pore of the Wolfkin’s body. They clashed for the final time, no longer breaking away and falling down in a cocoon made out of claws and scimitars.

The weaker will be devoured.