Equan grit his teeth, instinctively forcing his body to stand in front of Michael's drained figure.
As the true enemies simply stood there... Marveling at how easy of a victory they had gained just by having Unity tear itself apart from the inside... Leo stumbled in-between the path of Equan and the monsters.
However...
Equan noticed that he wasn't regenerating...
His mangled from barely holding itself together as he stood with barely any balance...
"Leo! No!" Luke pulled him back by the collar, acting as the true wall...
Then Hans landed with a deafening blow, crushing the ground below him...
But he looked even worse than Leo if that was even possible...
He was also mangled in everywhere except for his head... Which even his Panda-shaped helmet had been shattered on the right side.
Gideon slowly descended, landing with a limp as his knees eventually collapsed before the true monsters before them.
This was it...
This is what Unity had come to...
Gemini's face was strained and his body was also torn apart in so many ways... But one of his eyes had returned to normal... And was crying...
Equan wanted to call out... To tell him that it was going to be okay...
But he couldn't lie... Not after all of this...
He fell forward, but was caught...
Griffin... Who was somehow holding an unconscious Neveah and Gabriel at the very same time had put his boot out in front of Equan, holding him up with his leg.
"Thanks..." Equan mustered up the words as if they had any meaning...
Kaylynn leaned against a large pillar of ice beside Griffin... Clearly unable to help in any way at this point.
However... Little did Unity know that the hole behind them was burning with neon green intensity...
"You can probably blame your leader for your pitiful deaths... Although I am surprised that you managed the first battle without any deaths..." The goddess's evil and familiar voice chuckled from her throne.
"No... You are the witch who has attacked us without reason..." Leo growled, his body swaying left and right but his will refusing to die.
"Hehehe... Go ahead and look behind you..." She shrugged from afar, then pointed at the hole...
"NO!" Hans screamed, launching forward pathetically as the gauntlet finally fell into the void, bringing the rope with it...
Hans's body hit the ground, no where near in time to reach the gauntlet. Horror struck his face as he realized he had been unable to save his friend...
"And to say that I do not have a reason... Blasphemy of the highest degree!" She boomed with wicked laughter.
"I came to kill your king... Simple enough!" She chuckled.
Every member of Unity was mortified, unable to comprehend just how bad they had lost...
Hope in general had been completely lost.
But hope...
What is hope...
In school they had learned that hope was like a flame that refused to die... An ember that would pass through generation after generation... Ensuring that humans never gave up in a world where they would always have the disadvantage...
Just like the flame that could always be rekindled...
The neon green flames continued to burn...
"Fool..."
Everyone's eyes widened... Reminding them just how little of an action could reignite that very flame...
A burning figure ascended from the void like an angel... No... That wasn't quite right...
A devil had ascended... Burning himself alive in order to remain sane...
With his own molten bones leaking out of his incinerated flesh... Chase had arrived... Hovering atop his flames like some sort of demon...
He wore a terrible, no good, and truly evil grin upon his sizzling lips...
Chase grit his teeth from the pain... Feeling the guilt of having left his allies to fight among themselves while he couldn't even manage to remain sane in the face of Gods...
"Forgive me... I didn't intend on relying on a certain someone... But I'm here now... So burn... Burn like the fire that consumes me..." He growled the words like a chant... As the flames of the Phoenix began to ignite in each and every one of his comrades...
Some of their wounds were healed, and some of them gained a second wind of energy... But it was pathetic compared to the lesser god and her forces before them.
Meanwhile, Leo was grinning like a madman, looking up at Chase with a smile so big that his lips were beginning to tear apart, and his cheeks began to rip open.
Then he turned towards their enemies with this monstrous smile...
"Give Gemini back..." He growled as flames started to slightly repair his mangled body.
But Hans had realized it first... Looking up at Chase's hovering figure that almost all of them found as a miracle... Hans seen the truth...
Behind the flames were burnt up splatters of blood...
But more than that... The shackle that had once been around his wrist...
Had been removed...
Meaning that even Chase had to go all out for whatever he had faced within that abyss...
They may have gained hope...
However, they were fighting on their last limb... Putting all of their faith into whether or not Chase can hold back a goddess with his own goddess...
As for the monsters on her side...
He would not be able to fend off against them at the same time.
Hans was filled with dread as his eyes locked onto the crimson troll...
Hans knew from tales of a similar monster...
That monster...
Stronger than any lesser god or goddess...
And Hans knew that he would have to fight that thing...
Then Chase's flames erupted violently, as his body rocketed forward so fast that a hot breeze blew back several Unity members, and then...
The battle of Olympia had truly begun...