Zilliad’s entire body vibrated. She felt as if her skin were made from the same material as her web of wind. In the blink of an eye, Zilliad bolted through her wind currents, adjusting her trajectory to dodge Foal’s golden arrow. Just as quickly, Foal unsheathed her silver bow and fired an arrow onto a nearby wooden shed. Foal teleported to the shed and continued to fire several silver arrows in a circular pattern around the sheds of Vatiguth.

Like an electron jumping to a new atom, Zilliad traveled through the air to appear directly behind Foal. Zilliad cocked back a fist and delivered a shockingly fast punch. Zilliad’s body was lurched forward by the momentum of her assault, but her blow didn’t succeed in connecting with Foal’s body. Zilliad felt an arrow hurtling directly for her back, cutting through her web of wind.

Every inch of the arrow’s journey was apparent to Zilliad. Having built up electricity within her body, Zilliad could feel the slightest disturbances. She had no idea that the lightning would augment her senses so strongly. Zilliad began to force an airstream towards the arrow to stop its flight, as she had done before. But instead of a gust of wind halting the arrow, lightning crackled out of Zilliad’s body, instantaneously disintegrated the arrow, leaving nothing but ash.

Foal began warping between all of her arrows and Atma’s electrical tentacle trailed behind her, still wrapped around the deity's head. The deity of the hunt was trying to disguise the path of her next arrow. Zilliad matched Foal’s speed. The pair danced around the silver arrows as if performing a duet of death, creating a flickering light show of white and yellow.

Zilliad would ready her fist for a punch, feel where Foal would appear in her web of wind, miss a punch, and then dodge an arrow. Repeat. The process was beginning to grow tiresome, and Zilliad had no idea how long she could hold the lightning inside her body. Zilliad noticed that Foal's electrical headband, that kept the deity tied to Atma, would appear slightly before Foal did, giving away the deity's position. Zilliad decided to stop relying on her wind web and start relying on her vision.

FWOOSH! Another punch missed. Zilliad quickly turned her head to track the white light. The tentacle stopped. Zilliad bolted to that position, her fists already poised. Before Foal could reappear, Zilliad thrust her fist forward. This time, Zilliad connected with Foal’s abdomen in the same instant that the deity materialized next to her silver arrow. Foal buckled over as the air was knocked from her body. With Zilliad’s senses heightened by the electricity, she could feel even the slight vibrations of Foal’s breath as it was expelled from her lungs. This gave Zilliad an idea for her next assault.

At the same time Zilliad connected her punch, the balrogs had connected a barrel and the top of the Enclosure Walls began to rain down on Vatiguth. It would only be a matter of time before the Maker's legions flooded the city. Foal immediately recovered her composure and teleported to a new location as she loaded both of her bows.

Zilliad stared at Foal and allowed the electricity to flow away from her body. Zilliad’s complexion lost its yellowness and her eyes returned to their cold gray hue. Her hair remained in an erect, singed state. Foal drew back the string of her golden bow and positioned it towards Zilliad as Sego, Isaa, Haboo, and Sab appeared from the wooden shed where the humans were being sheltered. Before Foal had the chance to loosen her shot, Zilliad raised her right palm to face deity of the hunt. Foal's body tightened and she buckled to the floor, dropping both of her bows. The arrows she had readied were fired at awkward angles as they fell, both missing Zilliad. Foal began to grab for her throat and emit a wretched gagging noise.

Sego hastily ran over to Foal and wrapped one of his headbands, made from the material found inside a black hole, over Atma’s electrical tentacle. The tentacle evaporated into the air as soon as the headband completely concealed Foal’s forehead. Sego removed the head band and Zilliad stopped blocking the airflow within Foal’s body, allowing the deity to breathe once again. Zilliad had just discovered that she can create a small vacuum inside of a creature’s body by pulling air out of the being’s body from all of its orifices. Foal had been Zilliad’s first trial with this move and it worked flawlessly.

Another barrel exploded into the Enclosure Walls, causing the northern wall to collapse. The falling granite created an offbeat rhythm that echoed across the city. Balrogs began to hover over the rubble in waves as Atma’s white, crackling form crept overhead. Sego, Haboo, Isaa, and Sab leapt into the air and flapped their wings, leaving Foal laying in the dirt. Zilliad rushed after the four deities, just barely making it into Haboo’s aggressively strong wind stream that rocketed them towards Atma.

Zilliad’s conflict with Foal had replaced all of her abject terror with a strong conviction to protect. So, the Makers feel that they can lay claim over all of life itself? Even if the Makers created all of Garsuna, they now stand as the world’s biggest threat. Zilliad will do whatever it takes to stop this War of the Makers and free both the deities and the humans from their suffering. Isaa was right, the Makers are the true embodiment of evil.

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“The holy trinity will keep Atma at bay!” Isaa shouted out, referring to himself and his two brothers.

“There are many opportunities presenting themselves to me already,” Sego replied smugly, “Atma is as good as sealed.”

Haboo halted his wind current several yards in front of Atma. The balrogs moved like a mud slide underneath the suspended deities, destroying anything in their path and Zilliad watched as Guth’s castle was flattened in a matter of seconds. Atma slowed its approach when it noticed the deities' presence. Sego separated himself from the other deities and lowered himself to hover just out of the balrog's reach.

One of Atma’s tentacles whipped towards Zilliad, Isaa, Haboo, and Sab. As if it were second nature, Haboo shifted the group’s position in the air with a burst of wind, dodging the white lightning. Sab grabbed his bulwark and the deep, green eye in the middle began to glow outwardly. Sab’s three eyes matched the hue that glowed from the bulwark and a solid, stone cube rose from the surface, carrying dozens of balrogs with it. The cage ascended all the way to Atma’s height, and then the top slammed shut, completely concealing the Maker of Thought. Isaa brandished his golden trident towards the granite cage and created a thick layer of ice around Atma’s prison. Zilliad and Haboo began to focus as much wind as they could, creating an impenetrable force field of moving air around the confinement.

The frosty, stone cube began to crack, exposing a brilliantly bright light. Rays of pure white light shone like swords that cut through the prison and stilled the surrounding winds. Atma then burst from the inside of the stone cube with a brilliant flash. Zilliad and the deities had to shield their eyes as the light burnt through the darkness of the night and Zilliad felt the familiar feeling of being jolted with lightning.

This time, Zilliad did not feel a heightening of her senses. She did not feel that her skin was forming with the air particles around her in a state of euphoric symbiosis. Instead, Zilliad felt Atma’s white lightning dull all her mind. Zilliad’s thoughts were no longer her own, she was trapped behind her own eyes while something else operated her body, like a husk of lifeless flesh.

When the burst of white light faded, four tentacles appeared, extending from Atma’s crackling form. They were attached to Zilliad, Isaa, Haboo, and Sab. Zilliad felt the consciousness of the deities' course throughout her mind as her mind was extended into the deities’. Atma had created a neural link between itself and the four beings.

“We failed in the creation of your kind,” Zilliad, Haboo, Isaa, and Sab said in unison. “The deities have proven useless and will never succeed with our plans. However, these human creations… This half-breed… I have never felt such resolve… Such a combination of strength and will…”

Zilliad watched as her body began to move on its own. Zilliad raised both her hands, her palms facing outward. Isaa, Haboo, and Sab’s bodies began to convulse as Zilliad felt their consciousnesses leave the collective Atma had created. Zilliad was screaming from behind her mind. Tears began to stream down her face as her father and uncles died in front of her and their feelings of pain and despair were transferred into Zilliad's own mind.

“The uprising is over,” Zilliad said in a voice that was not her own.

Zilliad began to fly to the southern part of Vatiguth as Atma released the holy trinity from its clutches. The deities’ bodies crashed into the marching legion of balrogs and were crushed instantly. Zilliad’s body controlled the winds to direct her to the hut where she knew the humans were hiding. Zilliad led Atma’s electric form like a dog being walked on a leash of white lightning.

Zilliad’s feet touched the ground and she felt herself walk towards the shed. Zilliad could hear a mass of irritated air being funneled, like a fly caught in her wind web. Shortly after, Foal, who still laid by the shed, was obliterated by a flick of lightning. In her stride towards the shed, Zilliad pointed at its tattered door. The wooden shed burst from the inside as Zilliad forced all of the air within, out. After the wooden planks of the shed had blown away, a large mine shaft was revealed. Zilliad could feel warm air, heated by the presence of life, rising from the shaft.

Mahon and Cajo shot out of the mining shaft to behold Zilliad standing in front of the Maker’s balrog legions, tethered to Atma. Zilliad was trying to yell out to the two deities, tell them to fly as far away as they can. But her body just wouldn’t listen.

Tree roots shot out of the ground around Zilliad’s feet as Mahon’s head of vines began to blossom. The roots grasped Zilliad’s ankles and pulled her legs into the dirt. Cajo pointed the tip of her obsidian dagger towards Zilliad and Zilliad was grabbed from the darkness by dozens of shadowy hands, forcing her into the soil.

“Your resistance is futile,” Atma began to say through Zilliad’s mouth.

Zilliad began to laugh in a piercingly high pitch as her conviction to protect was reverted back to absolute fear. Zilliad felt her body begin to collect all of the air above the two deities. Atma was going to force Zilliad to crush Mahon, Cajo, and all of the humans inside the mine shaft, just like Haboo eradicated the balrogs.

The air screamed and the wind howled as the atmosphere above began compressing into a single point.