Chapter 280
Two enormous Quetzalcoatlus burst into the Persian Gulf from the sky. Looking at the densely packed Lahmus below, Fujimaru Ritsuka's expression turned grim.
"Lahmus are continuously emerging from the sea," Mash said worriedly as she glanced back at the white defensive line behind them. "Although Big Sister Kiana's dependents still have the advantage right now, if large numbers of Lahmus make landfall..."
"No, look. They're not reacting to us," Ishtar shook her head as she looked across the sea. "It seems it's not that they don't want to launch a fierce assault. Newly born Lahmus simply have extremely dull senses."
"If this drags on, they'll eventually become just like those on the front lines," Quetzalcoatl beside them shook her head. "This isn't a new humanity at all. They're merely terminal devices. In the name of a goddess, I cannot stand by and do nothing!"
"That's right." Mash was encouraged as well. "We have to stop this endless, unfamiliar factory as soon as possible!"
At that moment, beneath the distant black clouds, a melodious chant echoed across the entire sea.
"An abnormal Spirit Origin reaction confirmed ahead!" the Doctor immediately reported. "Divine Spirit-class scale. It's her!"
"Wait, that's..." Fujimaru Ritsuka looked at the gigantic horned woman floating on the sea and said in shock, "Tiamat?"
Such an enormous body...
Even the Demon God Pillars couldn't compare.
"That is the Creator Goddess, Tiamat," Ishtar took a deep breath. "And also our Mother."
"Wait." Fujimaru Ritsuka looked closely at Tiamat's body. "Am I seeing this correctly? Why are her hands and feet chained?"
"Yes, that's right," Ishtar said. "She cannot move freely."
A complicated look appeared in her eyes.
"If we want to defeat her, it has to be now."
"Let's go!"
Hearing this, Fujimaru Ritsuka urged the pterosaur forward.
But Tiamat suddenly raised her head high and cried out:
"Aaaa!"
Transparent sound waves immediately forced the pterosaurs back dozens of meters.
At that moment, the Doctor hurriedly spoke.
"The magical energy reaction inside Goddess Tiamat is increasing!"
"Wait!" Even Da Vinci sounded flustered. "That level of magical energy is comparable to a hydrogen bomb!"
"If she releases it in a directed attack, she could flatten Uruk from here!"
Hearing this, Fujimaru Ritsuka steeled herself and immediately prepared to force her way toward Tiamat.
But Ishtar flew in front of them and stopped them.
"Don't get close to her. It's too dangerous."
She stroked Maanna.
"Let me decide this in a single strike!"
"Fujimaru, I'll leave the support to you!"
"Okay!"
Fujimaru Ritsuka immediately raised her hand.
"Command Spell! Please, Ishtar!"
A red Command Spell mark instantly disappeared, replaced by abundant magical energy from Chaldea flowing into Ishtar.
"Leave it to me!"
At that moment, Ishtar felt invincible.
"Open the gate!"
A massive gate reflecting the starry sky opened above her head.
A golden planet emerged from within the gate as though falling from the heavens. The tremendous energy churned the surrounding clouds, instantly scattering them.
"This is my full power!"
Bathed in golden light, Ishtar threw her weapon upward. It fused with Venus, and the planet was continuously compressed and reshaped until the enormous celestial body became an "arrow" mounted upon Maanna.
"From the great heavens to the great earth!"
"Shatter them! An Gal Ta Kigal She!"
The next second, the gigantic purple spear of light descended like divine punishment from heaven, completely engulfing Tiamat.
The impact kicked up immense quantities of vapor and even formed a giant mushroom cloud over the Persian Gulf.
When the steam finally dispersed, illuminated by sunlight, the enormous Tiamat was gone.
In her place was a gigantic hole in the middle of the sea.
The surrounding seawater had been completely vaporized by the Noble Phantasm's energy, creating an artificial wonder.
"Doctor!"
Seeing this, Fujimaru Ritsuka immediately asked.
She didn't believe Tiamat had been defeated so easily.
After all, that was a Beast.
The last Beast they had encountered had been defeated within ten minutes only because Big Sister Firefly had been absurdly overpowered.
But the Beast before them—the Beast of Return that even King Gilgamesh treated with utmost seriousness—how could it possibly be killed by a single Noble Phantasm?
Fujimaru Ritsuka didn't like indulging in such fantasies.
"Confirmed. The Tiamat within the sea has suffered Spirit Origin collapse, and the magical energy reactor has stopped."
The Doctor scratched his head.
"But Ritsuka, be careful. I feel it's not that simple."
"Although all data indicates she has been eliminated..."
"She was really eliminated?"
Quetzalcoatl leaned over, her face full of disbelief.
"Under normal circumstances, all we need to do now is wait for the sea to return to normal, recover the Holy Grail, and the mission will be complete."
The Doctor rubbed his temples.
"But I still feel it's not that simple."
"But it really doesn't seem like anything unexpected is happening."
Mash looked around.
Even the Lahmus had fallen silent.
"Did we actually win?"
Quetzalcoatl frowned unwillingly.
"So in the end there wasn't even a place for me to contribute?"
"I haven't gone all out like that in a very long time."
Ishtar stretched lazily.
"That felt great!"
"We should still be cautious."
Fujimaru Ritsuka looked back toward the sea.
"After all, that's a Beast. Of course, Ishtar, it's not that I don't trust you. It just feels strange that a Beast which made Big Sister Kiana take things so seriously disappeared after a single Noble Phantasm..."
"Tch. I know my own limits."
Ishtar smacked her lips in annoyance.
"That's Mother. Even at my peak as a deity, I don't think I could accomplish something like that..."
"Wait, Romani."
At that moment, Da Vinci suddenly exclaimed.
"This data...?"
"As expected."
The Doctor relaxed and leaned back.
"I knew it wouldn't be that simple."
Above the Persian Gulf, Fujimaru Ritsuka and the others watched as the seawater churned violently.
Directly beneath them, concentric waves spread outward in all directions.
At the center of those waves, a pair of gigantic pincer-shaped shadows slowly approached the surface.
"It's transforming from a dispersed state into a superstructure!" Da Vinci muttered. "Its scale of existence is still increasing!"
"Spirit Origin reconstruction confirmed!"
"Wait... could it be..."
The Doctor's face darkened.
"Was the Goddess Tiamat from earlier merely a mind-body construct?"
"And this is the real body?"
"The water level of the Persian Gulf is rising rapidly!"
Da Vinci spoke quickly.
"The thing below is extremely massive! Ritsuka, evade immediately!"
Hearing this, Fujimaru Ritsuka immediately guided the Quetzalcoatlus backward.
Behind them, a gigantic wave rose into the air before being shattered by a massive blue-black layer of armor.
Two enormous blue-black horns rose from the sea like mountain ranges.
The gigantic goddess slowly stood up from the waters of the Persian Gulf.
Quetzalcoatlus is a pterosaur, also known as the feathered serpent pterosaur. Its wingspan can reach eleven meters and its weight can reach five hundred kilograms, making it the largest known flying animal in paleontological history.
Yet before this Creator Mother Goddess rising from the sea, two Quetzalcoatlus with eleven-meter wingspans looked no larger than mosquitoes.
Together, they weren't even as large as one of her eyeballs.
As Tiamat's true form revealed itself, the vast black-red tide surged explosively, occupying the entire Persian Gulf.
Countless Lahmus began to gestate.
The defensive line on Xia Yu's side also suffered a tremendous impact.
The Lahmus no longer needed to wade through the sea. They could emerge directly from the blood tide near the coast and enter battle.
Fortunately, with the support of Potnia Theron, the average quality of the Honkai Beasts still overwhelmingly surpassed that of the Lahmus, allowing the defense line to remain stable.
"Wait, that's..."
Fujimaru Ritsuka looked back at Tiamat and suddenly felt her heart skip a beat.
"She isn't looking at us. She's watching Uruk!"
"So this is the true body..."
Feeling the pressure that resembled a mountain range, Mash gritted her teeth.
"Let's return to Uruk and regroup with Gilgamesh."
Quetzalcoatl sighed.
"As we are now, there is absolutely no way we can defeat her."
At that moment, the Doctor suddenly asked:
"Quetzalcoatl! As the supreme god of South America, even if you unleashed your Noble Phantasm with all your power, could you not defeat Tiamat?"
"Even with Ishtar's Authority..."
Quetzalcoatl spoke gloomily.
"Even using every method currently available in Mesopotamia, we still couldn't harm Goddess Tiamat in the slightest."
"This is not my homeland, and I am not here in the body of a supreme god. I am merely a Servant."
"But the Tiamat before us is the true Mother of Mesopotamian lifeforms who has returned from the Sea of Imaginary Numbers."
Quetzalcoatl's expression grew grave.
"Even if I could wound her by exhausting everything I have, it would be meaningless. As a Creator Goddess, Tiamat is not so easily killed."
"Unless... Kiana acts."
She looked toward the distant white defensive line.
"As an existence on the same level as a Beast, she can absolutely stop Tiamat."
"But only stop her."
"To kill the Mother of All Life... she would first have to kill every living thing in Mesopotamia."
"And if that happens, our Grand Order would ultimately be declared a failure."
"Yeah, let's go back."
Fujimaru Ritsuka sighed and patted Mash on the shoulder.
"Don't worry. Since Big Sister Kiana planned so much, she must have a solution."
"We'll know once we return."
Meanwhile, on the coast of the Persian Gulf, Xia Yu looked at Tiamat's gigantic divine body and excitedly rubbed his hands together.
He wondered whether, when the time came to usurp a divine throne, he could obtain a divine body like that for himself.
Not because it was powerful.
But because it was a complete biological mothership capable of interstellar travel!
That's right.
Tiamat's slender legs were completely incapable of supporting her mountain-sized body.
She floated above the sea entirely thanks to the anti-gravity capabilities of her enormous horns.
Once in outer space, that anti-gravity system could serve as propulsion for interstellar travel.
Her adaptability to different environments and her ability to modify her own body would allow her to survive in space.
Her ability to recreate ecosystems anywhere would allow her to establish a rudimentary biosphere on suitable planets and gradually develop various forms of life and even civilizations.
With this set of abilities, she was practically identical to the Firstborn of God from a novel Xia Yu had read in his previous life—a demigod cast throughout the universe by a Creator Goddess to cultivate life.
Looking at it this way, there really were a lot of aliens in the ancient history of Type-Moon's Earth...
The Greek pantheon were aliens, brought by the Chaos fleet. Their gods were essentially transformed spaceships.
The South American pantheon were aliens too. Their mentality was simply more conservative and ancient. They stayed within their ecosystems and minded their own territory.
As for the Mesopotamian pantheon...
Just looking at Tiamat's configuration, she definitely couldn't be a native lifeform of Earth.
What planet's indigenous species would naturally possess an entire suite of abilities designed for space travel and ecosystem creation?
Counting it all up, how many truly native divine systems did Earth actually have?
Three foreign pantheons had appeared immediately, and none of them were minor ones.
With so many native and foreign forces crowded onto a single planet, Earth's atmosphere before the arrival of the Velber Vanguard must have been extraordinarily colorful.
That only highlighted the power of the Velber Vanguard even more.
Several alien factions together with Earth's native pantheons had all been smashed apart by the White Titan.
The Age of Gods had its backbone broken in a single blow.
Honestly, if not for the Velber Vanguard incident, Gilgamesh's dream of separating gods and humans would have been pure fantasy.
Xia Yu looked at Tiamat's configuration with genuine envy.
Its functionality was maxed out.
He didn't need overwhelming combat power right now.
What he lacked was exactly this sort of utility.
Meanwhile, in Uruk, Gilgamesh gazed at the colossal tidal wave in the distance.
"Good. We've finally reached this stage."
He walked out of the Divine Tower.
"For the past six months, this king has endured in silence!"
"Mother of Origins, Potnia Theron, Tiamat!"
He spread his arms wide.
"What comes next is a mythological battle beyond even my ability to foresee!"
"In the end, will you devour the world?"
"Or will humanity prove itself worthy of pioneering this world?"
"The time has come for an answer!"
"And also..."
He raised his head toward the purple Sky Throne above.
"And you, uninvited guest from beyond the world!"
"Hehehe..."
Gilgamesh chuckled.
"After months of living on edge, you've finally revealed your purpose."
"As long as you desire something, this king can make proper use of your power!"
What he feared most was not that Kiana desired something.
What he feared was that she desired nothing at all and had come only to destroy.
Since she had a goal, things became much easier.
Uruk could never withstand two Beast-class existences at the same time.
Using one force against another was the path to survival.
Gilgamesh had long grown accustomed to living that way.
After all, that was how the Age of Gods worked.
That was precisely why he wished to bring the Age of Gods to an end.
Now he was merely picking up the instincts of his past once more.
Leading his people through the cracks between gods, struggling to survive...
"Come."
"Let us begin the final battle of the Age of Gods!"
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