Inside the heart of a goddess
As a Demon, Torn can’t even remember a time when he wasn’t aware of the Blood: the universe-spanning energy field is as much a part of his being as his DNA.
But the deeper his scythe cuts through the veins of the gigantic Gaea, the more he realizes he’s barely tapped into that source of power until now: for reasons he can’t quite understand, her mere presence seems to amplify his connection to the Blood.
Aided by the use of pentagram portals to close the distance faster, Torn eventually finds his target: cutting through a layer of green organic tissue supplied by untold liters of lymph, he lands on the planet commonly known as Olympus.
The seat of power of the Olympian Galaxy is currently inside Gaea’s chest cavity, and it’s completely surrounded on all sides by the pulsating tangle of green veins that act as her heart.
<Torn to Null. I am inside the goddess, waiting for your signal.> he says through his Soul Relay.
<Fascinating species, the Demons.> Gaea says, projecting an extension of herself inside her own body: the plants that completely cover the soil merge into a single fifteen feet tall woman.
<Unlike most mortals, you eschew technology: your own animal biology provides you everything you need. I should create something like…>
A single strike of Torn’s scythe bisects the avatar, in the middle of the sentence, then by spinning it at incredible speed he reduces the remains to dozens of scattered pieces.
<We also value action, not words.> he tells her.
<So I see.> Gaea’s voice responds. Instead of creating another avatar for herself, however, new creations appear around Torn. They still look like humanoid women, but made of wood and cellulose instead of green flesh. And there are already hundreds of them.
<I am the source of all life, but I don’t recognize the biological force your power draws upon; perhaps once my dryads absorb your essence, I will add it to my own.>
Torn breaks his scythe, changing the form of the two resulting halves into two broadswords. Holding one in each hand, the Demon assumes a battle position.
<Perhaps.>
Nothing else needs to be said before the entire plant army finds itself fighting a single man.
Bridge of the N01-Ragnarok
Myrrinha feels completely lost. Floating next to the captain’s chair thanks to her anti-gravity belt, the mermaid is struggling to understand what is happening.
Not from a technical standpoint… the ship’s computer is constantly feeding information from its sensors directly into her brain… but she doesn’t understand why she’s here in the first place.
She has witnessed Vesta and Quantum throw the most devastating attack she’s ever conceived at Gaea, even managing to decapitate a Primordial Goddess. And then she watches Gaea recover from the attack in a matter of seconds.
Even now, with the two most powerful members of the Vanguard reduced to avoiding energy blasts from a goddess many times larger than a planet, she’s still wondering why Null requested her presence on the ship. Her Drylon power to talk to computers has no offensive capabilities, and it’s not like Kari Zel needs help piloting the Ragnarok or Null requires assistance in her planning.
The ship is shaken by an impact: the Ragnarok flew in front of an attack intended for Vesta to shield her from the blast, but the fire goddess bounced against the hull at nearly the speed of light.
<Nori, we have a problem! Vesta’s not flying anymore, she must’ve been knocked out!> Kari warns her.
<On it.> Noriko acknowledges, squeezing the Key of Heaven in her hand.
In response, an unconscious Vesta appears on the bridge’s floor, accompanied by a halo of golden light. Kari hurries to create a duplicate of herself to bring her teammate to the sickbay.
<Null, I don’t want to tell you how to run your team, but… why haven’t you used the Key yet!?> Myrrinha finally asks.
<Not yet. Everyone needs to be in position.>
<In position for what!? We’re easy targets!!!>
<The Vial of Destiny makes me immune to Gaea’s power: no matter what she does, she is physically unable to harm me.>
<She’s also the most powerful being in the universe. She can literally destroy the entire Galaxy, is it really wise to antagonize her!?>
<You clearly don’t know me. Kari, it’s time to bring out the big guns.> Noriko instructs her.
<Black Hole Generator online and charged.> the Kari Zel duplicate at the weapons station reports.
<Did… did she just say…> Myrrinha mumbles, shushed by Noriko raising her hand.
<Not now. Open a radio channel, directly to Gaea.> Null says, using the Key again to teleport Quantum and their latest merman ally Kestral back on the bridge with them.
<Are you coming back to your senses, Null?> Gaea asks, her voice clearly audible even in space.
<I am not giving you the Key of Heaven, Gaea. Promise you’ll leave my galaxy alone and we’ll negotiate an agreement about the use of the Key.>
<Gods have little use for diplomacy.>
<Suit yourself. Multiple Independently Targetable Singularities deployed.>
At the press of a button, the Black Hole Generator hums: a gravitational wave pulses through the ship, making everyone’s molecules shiver for one terrifying instant.
The Ragnarok fires a dozen singularities: their small size allows them to be fired away from the ship before its gravity can attract any matter… but these are not regular black holes.
They’re protected by a five-dimensional energy bubble, a mixture of Amazon technology and Null’s reverse engineering of the Key itself; once the bubble bursts, their full mass enters three-dimensional space and attract Gaea’s planetary sized body like real black holes.
The three black holes targeted at her right hand merge with each other, multiplying the effect of the resulting much larger black hole. The same happens to the other hand and to each feet.
The result is that Gaea’s body is pulled towards four separate directions, straining even her reality-breaking powers to their fullest… but she is resisting.
<Holy s##t, she took an antimatter-powered supernova to the face AND she’s keeping up with four black holes!? What does it take to knock her out!?> Quantum exclaims.
<If even half of what I’ve heard about her is true? The biggest gun in the universe. Luckily for us, I just happen to hold the trigger.> Noriko boasts, and her silver eyes shine as she disappears enveloped by a halo of golden light.
The Gorgon’s Veil, 390 light years from the galactic center
Not every system in the Olympian Galaxy has a name: there are just far too many stars to care.
Unless there’s an inhabited planet or a trade route involved, the vast majority of systems go unnamed. This applies to the systems surrounding the nebula called the Gorgon’s Veil: despite the sector playing a pivotal role in the war between the Greek and Egyptian pantheons a few years ago, nobody has ever bothered to name the individual stars surrounding the nebula.
However, thanks to several millennia of spacefaring civilizations, the overwhelming majority of stars of the Olympian Galaxy have been catalogued one way or the other… and once Noriko Null had a look at the full list, she made a note to remember a couple of neutron stars orbiting each other.
Aside from astronomers, nobody else has ever paid attention to them and it will take several months before anyone notices that the two neutron stars have just disappeared.
26,000 light-years from Earth
Gaea doesn’t consider herself a fighter. Not only her passion is the creation of life, but as a Primordial she is so overwhelmingly superior to other gods that she barely needs one hand to count the number of times she’s ever had to struggle to do anything.
Keeping her form intact against the competing forces of four black holes is one of them.
She even stopped paying attention to the Ragnarok, until she hears Null’s voice again.
<Hey Gaea! You know what happens when two neutron stars crash into each other?>
The Primordial Goddess knows. And the sight of the two stars being teleported right in front of her by the Key of Heaven is a stark reminder.
<A Gamma Ray Burst. The most energetic astronomical phenomenon possible… or as I like to call it, the biggest gun in the universe.>
If the two neutron stars had a larger mass, crashing them together would collapse both into a black hole… but there’s a reason why Null kept track of these two.
With one of them being slightly more massive, it turns into a black hole on its own; second the neutron star orbits around it at massive speed, obliterated by the enormous gravity… only for the entire mass of the star to be ejected as a single beam of cosmic scale power.
The whole process takes less than a second. Pushing herself to her utmost limit, Gaea transfers all of her strength into her physical manifestation: that’s enough to grab two black holes into her hands and pull them in front of herself, using them as a shield against the Gamma Ray Burst.
Everyone on the Ragnarok is silent: they’re staring at the Primordial Goddess holding back the attack; even with the ship reducing the light coming from the blast to the absolute minimum, it’s still clear that her body is starting to lose cohesion over this strain.
<It’s not going to be enough.> Vesta breaks the silence, limping towards Noriko while leaning against one of the Kari duplicates.
<You weren’t kidding about her being the most powerful being in the universe… but I have one last trick up my sleeve.>
<Didn’t you just say that thing was the most energetic weapon possible?> Myrrinha says.
<It was. Which is why it helps to keep impossible things around. Torn, it’s showtime.> Noriko replies, then switching to her Soul Relay.
Inside Gaea’s heart
Upon hearing his leader’s voice, Torn takes a deep breath. He’s covered in green lymph and surrounded by a field of butchered plant-based corpses… he did wonder why Gaea stopped creating new soldiers for him to slaughter.
Gathering his Blood energy, he conjures up one of the largest pentagram portals he’s ever created.
But it’s not a Blood weapon that emerges from it: it’s a living thing unlike any other, a giant snake made of pure divine energy driven by unquenchable thirst for stellar nourishment.
<Apophis is unleashed.> the Demon reports.
The Great Serpent is barely sentient: formed from the essence of Ra himself as a way to manage his vast power, it has only one goal… devour stars. After the Vanguard extracted him from the body of Eris, he’s been sustaining himself on the numerous stellar clusters that orbit the Olympian Galaxy.
The power of a Gamma Ray Burst is a delicacy to him, and Apophis doesn’t care about being inside Gaea’s body: he bursts from her chest, destroying everything around him in the process.
Under normal circumstances, Gaea would be able to overpower the Great Serpent. But not while fighting multiple celestial objects at the same time, and not with the snake attacking from within.
It’s a titanic battle she’s bound to lose. Her physical body crumbles to dust dispersed through interstellar winds, and Apophis banquets to his content.
Divine Palace of Olympus
The sky is once again free, no longer kept prisoner inside the heart of a goddess: thousands of stars shine upon the palace, and even the plants that completely covered the planet have withered away.
This is where Gaea reassembles her physical form, but it’s a shadow of her former self: she has human proportions now, and it will take time for her power to return to its full glory.
Her green body is still kneeling while she finishes reassembling it. As she looks up, she can see Noriko Null standing before her, wearing her crown and crossing her arms.
<So. Ready to negotiate now?> she asks, her silver eyes shining.
<You are one formidable mortal, worthy of my respect. I’m truly sorry that the Primordials that will follow me won’t entertain your feats to my extent.>
<I hit you with everything I’ve got and you’re still alive… I don’t want to run the risk of fighting more than one Primordial at a time, so… let’s call this a draw and make a deal.>
<You still wish to negotiate? Even after this fight!?>
<I remember trying to reason with you, but you didn’t take me seriously back then. So I ask again: ready to negotiate now?>
Gaea stands up, which much to her surprise takes a bit of effort. Despite being taller than Null by a couple of feet, she looks at her as an equal.
<I am. What is your proposal?>
<Reverse the effects of your powers on my worlds, restoring plant life. Also, swear you will no longer attack the Olympian Empire and convince your fellow Primordials to do the same.>
<You ask much of me, Empress Null. What do I get in return?>
<The Key of Heaven.> Noriko replies. She holds out her hand: the device is on her palm, still glowing golden.
<Is this a trick? What’s the catch?>
<Do you want the Key or not?>
Mortal and goddess look at each other for what feels like a long time for both, until Gaea carefully takes the Key from Null’s hand.
<You could’ve done this earlier and spare yourself the… what the Chaos!?> Gaea exclaims as the Key of Heaven disappears from her hand in a golden halo.
<What have you done with the Key? Where have you taken it!?>
<I don’t know.> Noriko shrugs.
<You betray your word faster than Hermes! You promised to hand me the Key!>
<And I did. Do you happen to know a mermaid named Myrrinha? She has a fascinating power: she can talk to any sufficiently advanced piece of technology… including the Key itself. So before I landed here I asked her reprogram the Key: upon being touched by anyone else but me, the Key would teleport itself.>
<Where did you send it? Wherever it is, I will find it!>
<Good luck with that: the Key was programmed to teleport to random coordinates. Even I don’t know where it is! And since I know for a fact gods cannot trace it… given its range, good luck combing through billions of cubic light-years to find it. That should keep you busy for, let’s see, at least a hundred billion years I guess?>
Noriko Null has anticipated several reactions from the goddess… but not that Gaea would burst out laughing and patting her back.
<Well played, Empress! I knew there was a reason we keep you mortals around.>
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