Within the crashed plane, there she was, eyes closed with her legs crossed. Concentrating. She had accepted it. She could not win this head-on. So she did what anyone would do in peril. Pray. Only thinking of one man and one man only. Her lord. The immortal Aron.
"O Golden King who walks through doom,
My flame was forged by You alone.
When karma weighs and skies collapse,
Be my command—be my perhaps.
Guide my hand where fire must fall,
Grant me strength to burn through all.
By Your will, my soul is sworn—
Rise with me… or let me burn."
The ritual was done, the echo reaching all the way to the deepest sea. She had prayed this same mantra for a whole century, every word carved into her bones, every syllable a plea thrown into silence. A hundred years of unanswered fire. A hundred years of watching the world turn while her lord remained beyond reach. And now the silence broke at last.
[Connecting Herald with the Host…Connected]
[He grants you His Blessings]
She didn't see it, but she heard it. The voice of the world echoing in her ears like the first crack of dawn after endless night. She opened her amber eyes, which gradually turned golden. The surge of divinity tunneling in, flooding every vein, every scar, every memory of waiting. Her body trembled—not from weakness, but from the sheer weight of finally being heard.
"This is… Lord Aron's divinity," she whispered, voice breaking on his name. A century of devotion answered in a single rush of gold. Relief crashed over her like a tide, fierce and terrifying in its intensity. She had been so afraid he would never return, that the connection was only ever one-way. But he was here. With her. Listening.
'I am connected with him, finally,' she thought, the words a silent vow as she jumped upward, seeing Peter getting choked. The heavy damage she had exploded on him was already healed. It made sense, seeing the dried-up corpse of his own kind.
'Sucking on his own nephews, typical,' she thought, throwing the spear imbued with her leaking divinity.
Kichik!
The spear landed right through the bastard's armour to his flesh.
The pain was grounding. But for him, it was nothing. He had been tortured worse by his own blood sisters and brothers. So a simple explosion and a simple spear wouldn't push him too much. But it shined heavily, crackling to explode inside him. With utter haste, he took it out and threw it away.
BOOM!
"Neat trick you got there," he muttered. The hole in his chest gradually healed, like it was never there. His blue gaze widened as he looked at the woman who should be near death. But here she was, burning like never before.
"I know the end will be the same," she answered quietly. No mockery this time. Only certainty.
She felt it. She had enough divinity now; she could do it. She could make it happen with her lord's blessing, but it would burn her karma to zero, severing her from her own element after.
"Consider yourself worthy," she said as she burned with unprecedented intensity. Her hands crossed sideways, making it look like the holy cross. "You get to see something special."
The half-blood immediately felt the chills from that hand sign, from that overwhelming divinity. He knew then and there what she was doing—a ritual of godhood. Something even a true-blooded Olympian couldn't achieve, because it had a heavy price. A very Heavy Price.
"Are you mad?" he bellowed. "You wanna be hated by the world?!"
Khorn only smiled.
"I have my lord. I fear nothing."
She concentrated her divinity to its absolute peak, feeling her karma dwindle all the way down to nothing. Her breathing changed; fire replaced air as her body turned golden like the sun.
The light alone blinded him; his armour began to melt from the sheer heat. He tried to leap into the water—but the water was already changing.
"DIVINE DOMINION," she echoed, releasing the concentrated divinity in a single, unstoppable wave.
Reality folded around her will.
The sea boiled and turned to lava in an instant, crimson and glowing. The darkness of the night vanished beneath blinding golden light. Heat rolled outward in waves that devoured everything, turning the air itself into a furnace. Her fire became a storm, a cataclysm, a living force that answered only to her.
Julius staggered as the world rejected him. He spun his trident, calling for water, for the domain that had always been his birthright. Nothing answered. The sea that should have risen at his command now burned. He tried again—desperation sharpening his voice. Still nothing. The trident's prongs glowed dull, its ancient authority cracked and fading, as if the weapon itself had forgotten its master.
He summoned a shield of ocean pressure. It shattered before it formed. He called a tidal surge. The lava rose higher in mockery. His divine resistance, the gift of his bloodline, meant nothing here; the heat sank straight through his skin, charring muscle, blackening bone. The world had turned its face away from him entirely.
Khorn stepped forward, untouched, radiant. A fiery lance formed in her hand, longer and brighter than any spear she had ever wielded. Here, she was everything.
"I remember what you said," she told him, voice calm and terrible.
He backed away, panic finally breaking through centuries of arrogance. His body was already half burned, skin sloughing away in sheets.
"Wa… wait," he stammered. "We can talk about this. I will go away. I will run off. I will do whatever you say—"
She was already in front of him, light-fast, unstoppable. The lance pierced his stomach. The lance entered with a sickening, suckling sound. Her free hand closed around the back of his neck, burning, holding him in place.
"You said you were…"
Squelch!
"The ruler."
His legs buckled. The trident slipped from his fingers and sank into the magma.
Squish!
"The protector."
He tried to speak, but only blood and ash came out.
Schik!
"The destroyer."
Something shifted in his dying eyes—recognition, horror. The golden light pouring from her wasn't just any divinity. It carried a signature older than Olympus, deeper than the seas, forbidden to even whisper.
"So… this is his power?" he rasped, voice cracking. True fear, ancient and primal, flooded his face. "No...no, that's impossib---"
Khorn said nothing. She simply pushed.
The half-burned body toppled backward into the sea of magma, sinking slowly, silently. The lava closed over him without a sound.
She stood alone in her dominion, golden and blazing, the weight of a century finally lifted—answered, at last, by the one who had never truly left her.
Her gaze softened as it settled on Peter, the one who had unknowingly taken her title as the youngest herald of Aron. He had saved her twice now, pulling her from the brink when she had dismissed him as nothing more than a weakling—useless, a fragile burden.But tonight, in the chaos of fire and blood, he had proven her wrong in ways she could never have anticipated.
"Let's heal you up before I finish burning through this divinity," she murmured, her voice steady despite the lingering heat in her veins. She extended her palm, and warm light poured out—not the raging fire or searing magma she knew so well, but pure, gentle light itself. It flowed from her, overflowed like an endless waterfall, wrapping around Peter's broken form in golden waves that mended flesh and bone with effortless grace.
Even now, with the battle's echo still ringing in her ears, the borrowed divinity surged out of her uncontrollably, a torrent she could barely contain.
'My lord,' she thought, her hand trembling ever so slightly as the light continued to spill, 'what horrors did you endure to amass this much divinity? What monsters did you face, what prices did you pay?' She knew the truth of this world all too well—balance and karma demanded their toll.
Nothing came free. Nothing ever did. The thought sent a quiet ache through her, a mix of awe and sorrow for the golden immortal who had given so much.
Far below the crushing depths, where no light dared penetrate and no creature would interrupt the clash, the abyss had become a battlefield for two unrelenting forces—one a monstrous heir to the ocean's fury, the other a bleeding golden immortal who refused to yield.
The muffled silence underwater amplified every movement into a distant thunder, sounds warped and dulled as if the sea swallowed them whole. Goliath opened its massive jaws again, building pressure for another devastating water cannon, the vibrations humming through the depths like an approaching storm.
But Aron was already moving, adapting to the resistant currents with grim determination. His knuckles clenched tight, he surged forward and drove a powerful fist into the beast's jaw just as the blast erupted. The deflected cannon shot upward in a chaotic ripple, displacing tons of water in a muffled explosion that shook the surrounding gloom.
"I said calm down," Aron growled through gritted teeth, bubbles escaping his lips as he spoke, costing him precious air. "Don't make me do this."
[Oxygen: 32%⬇️]
His lungs were already burning, a sharp, insistent fire that spread with every strained breath. The deeper they plunged, the more the immense pressure clawed at him, compressing his chest, slowing his limbs as if the ocean itself conspired to drag him down. Vision began to tunnel slightly at the edges, the dark water blurring into indistinct shadows, and his muscles twitched with the first hints of ach against the lack of air.
The beast ignored the warning, enraged and unyielding. It coiled for another attack, unleashing a sonic boom of pressurized water that thrummed through the sea like a shockwave.
Aron intercepted it head-on, grabbing the gaping maw with both hands and forcing it shut. He channeled his blast directly inside, the explosion ripping outward in a bloom of red blood that clouded the water, seeping from the creature's nostrils and mouth in thick, swirling plumes.
Raaaaarrr!!
The roar came out as a low, aching vibration, more felt than heard, like the mournful cry of a wounded whale echoing through bone. Goliath thrashed in agony, its enormous tail whipping around in a desperate swipe.
Aron caught it mid-swing, fingers digging into scaled flesh as he heaved. With raw strength, he dragged the mountain-sized beast into a spiraling spin, building momentum with each turn, the water churning into a vortex around them as he whirled it helplessly in circles with his bare hands alone.
'I might have to rip this tail off entirely,' he thought, a flicker of genuine worry cutting through the adrenaline—for his heralds above, for the time this was taking. 'Maybe then it will finally understand submission.'
[Your herald Khorn defeated the son of Poseidon.]
[Karma gained: 1890+]
[Divinity limiter: unlocked 3%]
'Good—if Goliath was under some lingering spell from that half-blood, it should be broken now,' Aron reasoned, hope flaring briefly. But the beast showed no sign of calming; if anything, the beast only seemed to enrage it further. It charged back at full speed, much angrier than before, lowering its head for a brutal ram that slammed into Aron's stomach. The impact forced the last of his stored air out in a violent cough, bubbles streaming away into the void.
[Oxygen: 20%⬇️]
[Muscle response degrading: Strength -15%]
The effects hit harder now. His lungs screamed for air that wasn't there, a desperate, clawing panic rising in his chest. Vision narrowed further, black spots dancing at the periphery as tunnel vision set in, the world reducing to the beast's glowing eyes and thrashing form.
They plummeted even deeper during the struggle, reaching the absolute floor of the dark sea where no light penetrated at all. The pressure here was monstrous, squeezing inward like a vice on his ribs, churning his neck muscles, compressing lungs already starved, twisting stomach and insides in ways that bordered on rupture.
'You leave me no choice,' he thought, desperation sharpening into resolve amid the haze. 'Charge…'
[Charging…0.1%]
[Charging…1.2%]
[Charging…2.5%]
[Charging...3%]