The sun had barely reached midday by the time the battle's cleanup was done. Gi hadn't had to use all of his Aether, but he was still exhausted.

He touched down on the first ship that they'd conquered. The dead were already starting to stink even in the open air of the ships. He scrunched his nose as he studied their two captives.

The first intended one was Galvina. The demon looked rougher for wear, but it was her eyes that were the worst. She looked defeated, mentally, spiritually, and physically. If it wasn't for her occasional movements as she lay on the deck, her dead eyes would have had her blending in with the corpses.

Sad, but maybe a benefit. Either way, she was a problem for later.

Their second captive was not intended. When the First One had told him that Ponde was unkilable, it had been just in a list of other much more powerful heirs. Now, Gi was faced with the insanity of this Skill for only the tenth heir.

As best Gi could tell, Ponde couldn't die. His Skill pulled Wild Aether in to heal himself. It appeared to also use some from him since he was constantly unconscious, but even with it bottomed out, he'd heal anyways.

Samba and Alice had managed to lash him to the deck and Alice occasionally slammed her axe into his chest to keep him unconscious. It was gruesome work, but it was effective.

Gi was impressed with Alice. She'd lost everything in a much more real way than he had as Richard. His response to that was overdosing on drugs and going on a drive. Hers was to take command of her village and lead them to battle.

Don't compare trauma... Gi had heard that somewhere before.

"Gi." He turned to see King Rellington and Ellen Swamp had joined him on the deck. Versha and Nori were still involved in the cleanup, and since ostensibly the Elders were beneath the King, he had a quorum with Samba, Kumo, and Tiria still in the background.

"King Rellington, how fared your side of the fight?"

The man had a little sweat on his brow, but otherwise look completely unaffected by being in the battle. "There were casualties among both my people and the ships but not many. From the ship side, I torched two where we hit some surprising resistance. The heirs weren't the only Elites among the demons' army."

"Good thinking. Your people's lives are worth more than a few ships. Unfortunately, we will probably only find more Elites as we take the battle to the rest of them."

"How was it here?"

"Zero casualties. Our roaming priests worked like a dream and being able to skirmish in and out of the water was a great advantage."

The unflappable King actually shuddered. "I still have nightmares thinking about the Boss levels in the Dungeon."

Gi's good humor died a little bit at that. They'd used very similar tactics to chip away at the King's friends. "My apologies-," Gi started but the King held up a hand.

"War always provides strange bed fellows. I have no regrets on our current course. There is just a sadness that lingers in my heart of the cost to get here. I'm not sure I'd have the strength to pay it again."

A quiet fell on the leaders on deck. This battle had been a resounding success, but it was the least of the Empire's forces in an environment where Gi's faction had ample expertise and with a plan that had been prepped with help from literal gods.

Advantages that they wouldn't have going forward. The best he could hope for is that Matar would speak with Eitina again if they were doing anything truly stupid.

The King interrupted the silence. "So what is your plan for this one?"

He gestured to Ponde where two of his dismembered heads lay near his body. "I was just considering that before you got here."

Kumo spoke up. "What if we just chain the bastard to something heavy and throw him in the ocean?"

"That's probably a little unnecessarily cruel and I'm not sure it would kill him besides. We really need him dead."

"I wouldn't call it unnecessary...," Kumo muttered.

Gi ignored her parting comment and returned his attention to the King. "I actually had an idea, but I'd need some kind of... soul paint."

"Soul... paint?" The King's bewildered expression almost made him laugh.

"Yes, something that we could put on him so I can sense his life force."

"Oh... we have some tracking magic that might could do what you need. Just give me some time to find the person I have in mind."

The King, assuming that was the end of the conversation, started to turn and leave, but Gi stopped him. "Could we also get someone to warn the Veridians? We'll need to take this to the shoreline."

***

In the chaos of the battle's clean up, it took almost an hour for the King's people to bring the tracker to Gi. He looked nervous at being around him. Gi tried to give him some calming words, but it didn't seem to help.

His tracking magic was perfect though.

It connected a target to a hunter, typical the tracker himself, using some type of seed as a material similar to a dog catching a scent from a personal belonging.

For their purposes, they treated every part of Ponde as that seed material, practically pouring Aether into the demon so Gi would have no difficulties sensing him.

Most of the city of Stonereach was an insane bastion of rock, but outside of the city's bounds, the terrain did attenuate into more standard beaches. They bound and staked the unconscious demon onto the shore. While the rest of Gi's forces retreated to a safe distance, he rose into the air.

"Four should do it...," Gi whispered to himself, looking over towards Stonereach. Having warned them about his actions, it just seemed to have drawn an audience to him.

A glance to their ships showed perhaps an even larger audience there. A show of power might not be a bad thing. Talk quietly and carry a big stick or whatever that saying was.

"I'm sorry that it came to this," Gi said to the soon to be executed below. "I don't desire destruction, but this world is sick and I must excise its cancers to save it."

Ponde obviously did not respond to his apology.

Gi took a deep breath and activated [Papal Legion] feeding it a trickle of his Aether to summon four all-white otters that swam in a cross pattern in the air with him at the center.

"Now for the hard part..."

He kept his Soul Senses on Ponde far below him and started to churn his Aether within himself. It swam faster and faster inside him while simultaneously funneling four equivalent streams to his legion.

Without warning, a ball of light started to escape Gi's palm and he had to force it back. Any Skill could be adjusted to be stronger or quicker with an appropriate amount of Aether provided, and with his upgraded Soul, it should be easier still.

Attempting to force most of your internal Aether into a single Skill though should be functionally impossible.

And yet, he did it.

The five streams of Aether inside him turned into rivers and then ballooned to a barely contained flood. It felt like his very Soul would escape out of those turbulent waters. His whole body started to shake with the effort of constraining it and his teeth ground together.

The ball of light that had escaped early turned out to be a blessing, providing a little relief to pressure building within him, but it started to buck in his palm with the force of the power backing it.

With a sheer force of Will that wouldn't have been possible without it being Realized, he compressed each of the bulging amounts of Aether just outside of his palm and that of his summons.

His arm could barely contain the force behind it now, shaking and quivering, but all he needed to do was to align it-

There.

Five beams of light combined to form a massive sunbeam that crashed down into Ponde's bound body. The sustained beam lit up the surroundings despite the real sun still being high in the sky. Stonereach itself seemed almost bathed in shadow such was the brilliance of Gi's [Divine Commandment.]

Having all that power flow out of him provided some relief, but if it had been difficult to control before, it felt now like he barely had his fingertips holding it in place. A defiant cry escaped his lips as he tried to focus his Soul Senses on the tracking magic within Ponde's body.

Thankfully, much of it had been burned away, but some it still remained, seemingly protected against his attack somehow. With as little as there was left, it might still kill the undying demon, but... he could also regenerate his own head.

Gi couldn't take any chances.

His Mind was already overtaxed sustaining the impossible amount of Aether in his attack, but he pushed even further until his mind felt like only a thin film separated him from insanity and pushed some Aether into [God's Passage].

He warped space, pulling the remains that he could sense further up into the path of his [Divine Commandment].

With a sigh of relief that almost made him drop his attack, he could sense the pieces starting to disappear. With a renewed vigor, he continued pulling the pieces up into the path of light until they finally faded to nothing.

Gi let go of his attack, but such was the power used, that he could still feel a phantom of it circling around inside him. He sagged in the air, surprisingly not depleted of Aether despite how he felt and looked down just as the coloration of the world seem to return to normal.

Gi gaped.

In the place where Ponde's body had been, there was now a small jagged tower of glass. Serving as a tombstone, it jutted into the sky as though it pointed towards the demon's killer.

"That was unexpected."

***

Roy tugged at his armor, trying to force it into some position that wasn't covered with sweat, but it didn't work. After the Ellen Swamp's message to the Duke that was then relayed to the guards on the wall, Roy wanted to see whatever "spectacle" that the greatest adventurer decided "was nothing to worry about."

He wasn't alone.

While most of his guardmates were all Sea Dwarves, he was human which did give him a unique advantage of being able to easily see over the crenellations and his fellows.

He hadn't been first in line, but he still elbowed his way to where everyone else already was. "You guys see anything yet?"

Bhafrin turned to look up at him. "Roy, you tall bastard, you can probably see everything from up there except your own dick."

Roy snorted. "At least I don't have to get through a forest to see my own manhood."

"Racist bastard!" Bhafrin said, but there was no heat in it. "You hear that, Thavet? Roy thinks we're hairy like some kind of Stone Dwarf."

"I think he said you look hairy and he's right. You got a grandma somewhere that has to have a barber for her back."

All the guards nearby burst out laughing much to Bhafrin's disgruntlement. Another voice called out over their laughter.

"Look someone is flying up there!"

Roy could barely see whoever it was, but they'd all seen them during the battle. It was one of those flying otters except this one had a dark brown fur. He followed the otter's flight and could just see a figure on the sands. Even from this distance, he could see the red tinge to their skin that marked them as the enemy.

Roy looked back to the flying otter and one of the dwarves yelled out, "Bhafrin, is that your grandma up there?"

They all laughed again and Roy turned to look at his friend, but Bhafrin wasn't laughing. Instead, he looked dead serious as he stared at the flying otter. "Something's happening there."

Just as he said it, a scant light sparkled like a star that you could see during the day. With its appearance, it felt like dust from an old church had settled onto his shoulders.

It was a strangely specific sensation.

Bhafrin took a step back, bumping directly into Roy. "Oh no, that's too much. How...?"

Before Roy could ask what had him so rattled, a second sun blazed in the sky. Shadows fell long against the castle as that light dwarfed the natural sun. That light dusting he'd felt had turned into an enormous out of control aura.

A temple that had been cut from the first stones crashed onto his shoulders and it pushed him to his knees with the power behind it. The guards around him likewise fell, and with one hand shielding their eyes, they couldn't look away from the figure in the sky.

At some point, one had become five, but that blazing and terrifying beam sliced down into the sands like a great blade plunging into the earth. Roy couldn't imagine anything surviving that light and that's when it occurred to him.

"It's Hyshtel's light...," Roy whispered. "He's smiting our enemies."

He'd barely realized he'd said the words, but Bhafrin still answered. "It can't be Hyshtel... The aura isn't... justice. It feels more like... mercy."

"There is no god of mercy."

"Well, there is now."