Danna shot out of the portal like she'd hit a wall. Even as she transformed from light back into her body, she tumbled across the ground. Enormous trees surrounded her on all sides. Each one looked like a palm tree the size of a skyscraper. Her analysis of the environment didn't last long, however, because the screaming started.
All around the small clearing they were in, Gi, Noctua, and Siht had all crashed into the ground as well. Siht roared in pain and started thrashing around, whipping her neck against the trees. Giant palm leaves flew out from each strike.
"S-stop!" Noctua's growl was cut off. His claws gripped either side of his head and it was his screams that had announced their arrival.
Bewildered, Danna froze. Neither she nor Gi seemed to be affected by whatever was happening to the other two.
"What do we do?" she asked.
"You're a goddess!"
"Oh, right."
Still panicked, she rushed over to Noctua's form and started to channel her light. Her hand shone and Truth laid over Noctua like a blanket. His divine form was fuzzy to the river of Truth like most gods were, but even past that, there was a type of static in that form. Something familiar.
She pushed further focusing on the static itself and trying to isolate it, but every time she did, it seemed to flit away, appearing in a new spot in Noctua. Each time it shifted, it vibrated and the static became louder.
As she tried to remember what that sound was her memory went back to her falling through the sky as a mortal to her first appearance as a goddess. Whatever she was remembering seemed to be between her death as a mortal and her birth as a goddess. How was that possible?
"Danna?" Gi's tentative voice brought her out of her inspection of the still struggling Noctua.
She looked up just as a giant stepped through the trees. Its body was humanoid and naked, but featureless with no gendered body parts of any kind. Its face looked like a pig with a mane of tentacles all around it. A huge hand with two fingers and a thumb lashed out towards Danna.
Even as the blow travelled, claws erupted out of each digit and started to move impossibly like the tentacles on its face, but somehow still hard and sharp.
"Move!" Gi yelled and tackled her off of Noctua and out of the way of the approaching attack. The two of them rolled across the ground, but the attack never landed.
Siht's roar was cut off as she interrupted the attack with her jaw. Streams of violet energy drifted out from her eyes. Yellow blood dripped from between her teeth and the tentacles of the giant shivered violently.
Another claw slammed into Siht's neck and ripped her off of its arm. Worms spewed out of the bite wound, swimming up the yellow blood and clogging up the wounds by turning into more tentacles. Siht kicked up and dove onto the giant to continue their fight.
Watching Siht defend them, Danna rushed back over to Noctua who still tried to fight off the strange static. Gi stood in front of her. His Domain crumbled as soon as he created his summons, but not all of his Skills were useless. The ancient Truth of [Divine Commandment] screamed out in a piercing light that darted around Siht and carved into the giants' stomach.
Hoping they could handle it, she flared out her power into the diagnostic shroud that she'd done previously. The static seemed louder than it had before. The noise started to crystallize into whispers that reached out to her and beckoned her, but they weren't able to get inside of her like they were with Noctua.
Her light formed into hands and she forced her way into Noctua's being. His scream intensified at her intrusion, but she didn't know how else to help. Hands of light gripped the static whispers, but everyone time she tried to pull it out, it shifted, teleporting away to another part of Noctua's being.
Siht crashed into one of the huge palm trees. The blow was powerful enough that a chunk of the tree was blown out. Leaves rained down from the sky all around them. In the few moments since she'd looked up, Siht was now covered in blood and the violet energy in her eyes was now pouring out of her wounds, covering her body in tiny sigils.
Even as she watched, Siht's power grew just as her body grew rougher and more emaciated. With way more power than she'd had before, she rolled back to her feet and roared in defiance at the giant. A boom rang out as Siht crossed the small clearing faster than Danna could see and crashed into the giant.
She had to move faster.
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All sense of delicacy tossed aside, she started ripping handfuls of the static from Noctua's being. It couldn't shift fast enough to prevent her shining hands from snatching it, but with her decreased accuracy, she also tore out fistfuls of his divine form. Even if she tore him apart, it shouldn't kill him so she kept at it.
The static whispers that she'd tossed aside started to form a purple fog in the small clearing. The sounds of Gi and Siht battling the giant continued in the background as Danna frantically continued trying to save Noctua. In the midst of this, she glanced up and saw the strangest sight.
An older human with grey hair and wrinkles stepped out of the woods and into the clearing. She wore a simple matching grey robe with a black shawl that was across her shoulders. Despite her apparent age, the older woman stood as straight as any youth and each step across the clearing churned out far more distance than would have been expected.
When the old woman stood in front of her, Danna finally recognized her. Not her appearance, but her aura and her divine form. She was the only god that's presence wasn't obscured in the river of Truth.
The First One.
Her gaze wandered to the battle on the other side of the clearing and distaste radiated off of her features. Danna didn't see where she pulled them from, but the First One dropped two bracelets onto the ground.
Her voice was a deep alto, powerful and steady. "Those will block the corruption. I'll deal with the chaos-spawn."
One moment the First One was there, the next there was only a crater beside Danna. The First One moved too fast for Danna to even keep up with that level of power, but she could see the afterimage of the First One's Truth weapon.
A head of a giant mastiff that towered as high as the mutant palm trees had appeared at her back. Half of the giant had already disappeared into its maw, but Danna watched as the after image repeated the action before fading away.
Hundreds of thousands of worms squirmed out of the dismembered torso of the giant, but the First One's Truth was undeniable, and as the worms were exposed to even the aftereffects of the attack, they shriveled and died before they could form additional tentacles for the Giant.
Danna's hands moved automatically to slip the bracelet around Noctua Dominus's wrist and she heard her mentor's gasp as the static was instantly driven away, but she couldn't stop staring at The First One.
The God of Monsters.
With her foe now dead, Siht didn't calm down. The violet sigils sped up their journey across her scales and any intelligent light left her eyes as the violet energy covered her catlike irises completely. With an inhuman roar, Siht charged at the First One.
Danna could barely believe what she was seeing. The First One was the peak of divinity. Danna was a goddess in the same way that flicking ones and zeros was programming. By comparison, the aura of divinity that was released by the First One was on the scale of a massive super computer.
Compared to this goddess, Danna was nothing and she could see the Truth laid bare.
"NO!" Noctua's shout knocked Danna out of her daze and she finally realized what she was watching. Siht was trying to attack The First One. Noctua's shout was too late though. By the time Danna had realized what was happening, the after image of the First One's Truth weapon was already disappearing.
Queen Siht's head was gone.
The sigils exploded with unrestrained energy and Siht's body exploded in a fountain of gore and scales and power. All of the trees near the Queen were scoured halfway through as though they'd gone through a giant cheese grater in an instant. The torn and shredded remnants of Siht's soul dispersed in the air and disapeared.
The next second, Danna realized that the First One was depositing Gi beside her and Noctua, a bracelet already around his wrist.
"You killed her! Her soul wasn't ready!," Noctua yelled with no sense of self preservation.
The First One didn't flinch at Noctua's pain. "She let the corruption inside herself to defend you. Killing her before it completely took over was a mercy. Her soul may suffer over her next iterations, but who she is will survive."
Noctua opened his mouth to argue, but he didn't know enough about the corruption. Neither of them did. Helplessness filled his draconic face and he fell back into the grass. Even with his divine form, that helplessness resonated with Danna. That same feeling had once sent her flying to her death.
"Now you two are interesting," The First One said. Danna brought her attention back to the older woman to see her looking between both her and Gi. "How did you resist the corruption without the bracelets?"
Gi reached out to grab her hand and Danna squeezed it in response. "I... I don't know."
"Open yourself to me."
Danna also didn't know how to do that, but her senses changed as the First One's divinity expanded. Her aura was so complex that Danna couldn't even begin to understand it, but in the same way that thousands of dots can create an image so did she finally understand the First One's request.
The First One's aura resonated and Danna's light became water. Her divinity shifted from hard light to the serene calmness of a lake. Its transparency showed everything within.
The First One's gaze delved into her, but it was a gentle touch. She sifted through Danna's entire existence from that moment backwards to her very birth as a mortal. When she finally withdrew, it was a pleasant sensation of relief like finally getting a splinter out of your skin.
The First One tapped her chin. "That is very interesting. Your genesis by your former husband's belief was taken in direct faith that you would protect him from the Old Gods' energies. What's more surprising is that it worked.
"Even now, your connection bolsters that protection. Not only did this one's faith birth a god, but also connected you as soulmates. In all my time, I don't think I've ever seen a mortal and a god as soulmates before. Very interesting indeed."
Her soulmates comment confused Danna, but as soon as she looked for it, it was there. Just along the line of belief that connected them in the afterlife, a small rope of their souls connected. That rope comforted her as though she and Gi were always holding hands. The First One clapped once to regain everyone's attention.
"If that one can't walk, please carry him. With the mortal, it might take a bit longer to get back to camp, but it will take longer if we wait."
"A camp of what?" Gi asked.
"Of gods, of course."