Danna found herself waiting in an enormous cavern that was bigger than her entire neighborhood back on Earth. A mountain rose up into the sky and Fighting Drakes circled around it. A waterfall of flame poured down the mountain before arcing into a lazy river that wound its way around the domain. Snakes, goblins, and even Hillin, the old golem, had formed up into a rough mob at Noctua's commands.
The remnants of Danna's otters huddled around her, some of them leaning directly against her for reassurance. Noctua Dominus himself looked much more imposing now that he was in front of his followers. The weight of eons didn't sit so heavily on his shoulders and he looked over those that had dedicated their lives to him like a wise and imperious ruler.
Normally, he wore a robe that draped loosely on his shoulders, but now, he had doffed that. Dark red scales covered his entire body, but where they'd looked soft on his face and neck visible even with the robe, it now looked like armor. Spiked pauldrons, gauntlets, and chest piece seemed to cover every inch of him in scaled armor, no part seeming to have any weakness to it.
He looked out over his gathered followers and smiled. "There's something about the moment before a battle that makes you feel alive."
Danna could fully admit that she wasn't feeling the same way. She'd always dove headfirst into conflict, but she'd never been a fighter. The closest she'd ever came was starting that "gang" in elementary school. "Maybe you should have joined the First One's war then."
She was joking, but he seemed to take her comment seriously. "Perhaps, but worse things than death lie there. If our current plans fail, maybe I shall."
Danna wasn't sure what to say to that so she didn't. "Do you think we can win?"
Noctua nodded. "A surprising number of humans seem to follow him, but there are more of us and even my waning power should be stronger than a nascent god's. I wish we had Richard's belief to power you, but we will strike as hard as we can until you can build up enough strength to defend yourself."
Danna took a deep breath, though she didn't need to. "Let's get on with it then. Waiting around has never helped anyone."
In response, Noctua raised his arms, though his army was already silenced. "I know I've already spoken to each of you, and again, I thank you for appeasing my selfishness. For those that fall today and enter the cycle of reincarnation early, you have my greatest and sincere thanks."
It was strange how silent and reverent the disparate monsters acted towards Noctua and even made her feel a little self conscious of her own followers who moved with a constant energy like an ADHD child who'd been force fed sugar.
She supposed that was what it meant to be the God of Knowledge though. His followers trusted him implicitly to guide them with everything that he knew. Their trust must have had an impact on him also as another smile played about his lips. This one was much more forlorn though.
"Very well, let us fight."
Normally when Noctua pushed his Divinity, there was little in the way of fanfare. Invading another god's heaven was different.
Noctua grabbed the air in front of him like a man trying to rip open a steel wall with his bare hands. Power thrummed in the cavern and all of the monsters had to steady themselves against the sudden force that pushed back at them. Lightning crackled along his fingertips and sent rivets of nothingness cutting through the air.
With a dragon's roar, he ripped open the space in front of him in one swift movement. For half a moment, a vacuum sucked them towards the now sparking portal, but then it stabilized. On the other side, a dark castle made of black stone towered over the landscape on a hill. A sole road led up to it and the faces of humans dotted its crenellations.
The Fighting Drakes let out a resounding roar to match that of Noctua Dominus's and like a squadron of fighter jets dove down from their lazy route atop the mountain in Noctua's heaven directly for the portal. As they poured through and opened up their wings towards the sky, Noctua turned to Danna.
"Let's hurry. We need to get The Father pinned down so he can't help his followers."
Light surrounded her just as fire surrounded Noctua and the two leapt through the portal, flying past the army of Fighting Drakes. It didn't take long to find him. A rolling shadow poured out from the castle, dipping over its walls and collecting along the ground like fog as the figure of a tall man rose up into the air above it. He barked out a laugh.
"You can't beat me yourself so you bring will-less gods to fight on your behalf."
In an instant, Danna and Noctua had passed their armies, crossing across the skies of The Father's heaven and arrived before him. Danna wasn't one to hesitate.
"Whatever it takes to cut you down." Radiant arms sprouted from her body until nearly a hundred were arrayed around her. She appeared next to him and all of her limbs of light struck towards him and she imbued them with as much Truth and divinity as she could.
An amorphous shield made of shadows like a plate molded from eels stopped her attack dead in its tracks. Just like before, he was stronger than she was especially without Gi. As he'd noted though, she wasn't alone.
On his other side, Noctua popped into existence and a wash of flame exploded from his mouth. The flames themselves started as red before shifting to yellow and then blue. Just from what it radiated, Danna felt all the Truth of the sun and enough Divinity to top herself at least twice over.
Danna was happy to see surprise cut off that smug look on The Father's face as the speed of the flames moved faster than he could anticipate. His form wavered and he growled as he grit his teeth before another shield of shadow appeared.
The Father seemed to be panting as the attack ended. "It will take more than such a weak attack to-"
Danna didn't let the self impressed asshole finish his statement. Her arms of light moved out in a flurry, a thousand punches that radiated her divinity flung out towards Richard's father. Each of them she imbued with the Truth of Strength as she'd just witnessed in Noctua's own attacks.
A few struck him, but his form didn't waver as it had from Noctua's breath attack. The Father disappeared and reappeared beside her with a gauntlet of that same amorphous shadow bubbling around his arm. She moved up to block, but her defense was too slow. His fist smacked into her and she felt the nature of Shadow invading her very being. She flickered as her avatar went skyrocketing towards one of the castle walls.
She crashed into it, but quickly restabilized herself. The Fighting Drakes had already engaged the humans on the battlements and seemed to be giving better than they got with their supreme coordination. The humans had taken up defensive lines and were holding on, but they were clearly on the backfoot.
On the path approaching the castle, the rest of Noctua's army was pressing up towards the gates though they hadn't reached it yet considering the speed at which the gods fought. Danna even saw her small group of otters charging alongside. She had to protect them to provide them peace.
In the few seconds, she'd taken that all in. Noctua and the Father had exchanged a handful of blows and though he was holding his own, it was clear that The Father was getting the worst of it.
Violence may be bad in polite society, but she should have smacked her father-in-law a long time ago. In an instant, she rejoined the fight, sending her waves of arms cascading up from the Father's feet even as she blinked to his side with light coating her own arm in the shape of a massive fist.
With disdain, a nova of shadow exploded out of his body disrupting both of her attacks, but it opened him up to a wall of flame that crashed down from the heavens. As he darted out of that attack, managing to coat himself in an armor of shadow. Noctua was already there pouring out another breath attack.
While Danna's attacks were much weaker than either of the two other gods, they couldn't be completely ignored which gave Noctua the openings he needed to exploit his strength. The Father fled, his form flickering from the most recent volley.
After being chased around one of the dark towers of his castle, The Father launched himself back towards Noctua and the two exchanged another flurry of blows. Paradoxically, Shadow pushed against Flame as the two very concepts went head-to-head, each trying to distinguish the other. The Father was trying to ignore Danna's attacks, realizing that he kept opening himself up to a follow up from Noctua, but even that was a losing battle.
The two of them knew it and The Father must have realized it as well because rage at the realization of his own weakness painted his features. The shadows of his face appeared darker than they should be from the use of his own abilities, but his eyes themselves were alight with anger.
And it was that anger that caused him to make a mistake.
As Danna came in for another attack, this time as a sword of light slashing horizontally towards his hip. His eyes flicked back towards her and his lip turned upward in a snarl. He rolled over her attack, landing right in front of her.
"You little thief! You've always tried to steal from me!"
His fist collided with her form and Shadow completely engulfed her. She lost her entire sense of self for a moment and her avatar threatened to completely break apart. With all the will she could muster, she focused on herself.
Earnest as she viewed herself, kind as her followers viewed her, and even selfish as Gi viewed her. All of those were a part of her, both from their beliefs being made manifest and from how she actually was.
Light exploded around her as she fixed herself in her mind and pushed back the Shadow that covered her. When her sight returned, she saw a pillar of flame cut through the sky to incinerate the very stones of the castle and even begin to crack the reality of The Father's heaven.
Both of Noctua's hands were extended outward and his eyes were narrowed. Powerful Truths of both Fire and Knowledge practically poured off of the massive pillar of flame. Its intensity peaked to a swift white and the Knowledge that The Father had fallen was laid clear to her.
They'd won. It was Truth.
Then it Wasn't.
A strange aura suffused through the Father's heaven. It pressed against her and even though it didn't feel like an attack, her form wavered and she had to focus on the concept of herself to sustain it. She looked to Noctua, but the god's mouth hung open.
"What-?"
Rolling shadows pushed back the pillar of flame, specs of grey appearing in them and dancing around in the shadows erratically. The planes caused a gap in the pillar and the Father stood unharmed in the center. He looked much the same as he had before except for his eyes. They been replaced by those rolling shadows flecked with grey.
His arrogant smile returned.
"Now it's time for my turn."
****
The Prince, now King, knelt by his friend's body. His Demon Steel armor had been cracked and scuffed and his helmet was missing. His face was barely recognizable from the sheet of blood and scored flesh from what the King was confident was an attack made of Light.
The guards of the tower looked between each other as they tried to decide what they should do to help their King, but there was nothing they could do. Nothing any of them could do. Dead was dead.
"I'm sorry for your loss." Ellen Swamp had never been a kind woman, but he could tell that she meant those words. As one of the few humans who'd gone through the Dungeon's Final Boss, she understood the toll it took on people.
"We knew one of us would get the otter. Having seen him twice in the Dungeon at the key levels made it seem like a certainty. That otter has killed too many of my friends at this point."
"It's what monsters do."
King Rellington shared a measured look of understanding with Ellen Swamp and then turned to his guards. "Get someone to prepare Fader's body. He will be entombed in my family's mausoleum beside my own casket as one of my Forsworn."
Only a King could have a Forsworn and Rellington hadn't been a King when Fader and he had entered the last Dungeon. The guards didn't argue nor did Ellen herself. She just waited silently as the guards left. More people came back to collect Fader and the King knew that he'd be taken care of by his people until he could be put to rest.
Once the two of them were finally alone, Ellen asked what she'd actually come here for. "What was your fated monster?"
"A goblin of all things. It had a strange constitution called, Body of the Stolen Demon. It was a monster that had put its own ego aside to serve another. It made me question the actions that I'd taken to bring the Kingdom where it is now."
"Since you're alive, I assume those questions have been answered."
The King gave her a hard look. "I'm resolved to my path. We're as prepared as we can be for what's to come."
Approvingly, Ellen nodded and the two of them walked out of the tower that held the Dungeon portal moved back into the castle proper. As they walked, Ellen continued their conversation.
"The Dungeon Tome speaks about some fighting an unknown monster when they reach the final level. It's often because your original fated foe had already passed and the skeins of fate have tangled you against another."
"Would my fate have pulled this goblin along the path of cultivation?"
Ellen shrugged. "It's hard to say, but I think it's likely. How else would a goblin have ascended so high?"
****
Nori stepped out of the Dungeon portal before stumbling and landing in a crouch. Wounds had accumulated across her entire body as part of her fated battle, but her skill had persevered. After the time she'd spent honing herself in the Child Stage and then avoiding the Demon Empire, no human would stop her.
She grabbed her pack from where she'd hidden it nearby and pulled out bandages. A few goblins who'd been waiting for her stepped up to help, but they all paused as Tama's body fell out of the Dungeon portal. Nori's right hand goblin looked like he'd been cooked over a fire for hours.
His skin was blackened and cracked with the barest hint of pink poking through as most of the rest of his flesh had grown black as well. Horribly, the scent of cooked meat even smelled good as Nori looked down at her closest companion.
"Fuck."