“Are you here to kill me, Avarus?” Said a God wearing a straw hat.

He looked over a field of grain but he didn’t seem to be paying any attention to it. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that he was looking past the seemingly endless field.

“Depends,” Ira answered, approaching the God from behind before moving to stand next to him.

Kara kept her distance but summoned her sword and stuck it into the ground, using it as support to lean on.

“...I was under the impression that you were a bloodthirsty fellow.” The God’s thin grey hair swayed in the wind as he spoke.

“I didn’t say I wasn’t, but I only really have a problem with a select few Gods.”

“The ones that slaughtered the Avarus, I take it?” The straw hat wearing God inquired.

“Yes.”

“If I’m not mistaken you’ve killed other Gods who didn’t participate.”

“Well, they gave me a reason to.” Ira shrugged.

“Ah,” The God let out a low exclamation of understanding. "I see."

“You’re awfully calm, you know?”

“What, should I cower away from my death or perhaps resist just like the others? That would be too troublesome,” The God said indifferently.

“Guess you’re right about that.” Ira turned and began to walk away when the God spoke again.

“I understand why you hate them, Avarus.”

“Do you?” Ira scoffed.

“I truly do, I was once a human, and even more importantly, a mortal. I understand the nature of those who were born Gods and those who’ve lost themselves to the lure of Godhood. There is no hope for the Mortal Realm if things were to continue as they have.”

“As nice as that sounds, I’m really only doing this for myself,” Ira replied while placing a hand on Kara’s shoulder.

“Your reason will not change the result.” The God in a straw hat managed to say just before Ira disappeared.

He continued to watch the grain field as if nothing happened at all.

…

Ira quickly became a calamity in the Divine Realm as he attacked many Gods who remained solitary. Not all of them suffered a terrible fate since he was set on those who had wronged the Avarus in the past or those who attacked him out of fear. In the end, hundreds of other Gods who had either remained hidden or distanced themselves from the rest of the realm, emerged to join Xandes leaving very little Gods left for Ira to pick off.

Kara became concerned as the number of Gods who wanted Ira to die were more than a thousand strong. With that much divinity and power concentrated on one target, it didn’t seem Ira would be able to survive even with his black flame.

“You’ve mentioned it before but, is the Void you spoke of really strong enough to defend against hundreds of Gods?”

“Who knows?” Ira responded as they walked through a snowy forest before stopping in the center.

All the beasts had long since fled due to feeling Ira’s presence which was now too hard to hide. He absorbed multiple divinities and used the rest to feed his flames. The amount of power flowing through him would be noticed by any being in his vicinity.

“Here’s good,” Ira said with a satisfied smile.

“You haven’t answered my question properly, Ira.” Kara grabbed his shoulder and tried to turn him around forcefully but he remained rooted without exerting any strength.

“Hmm?” Ira turned to look at Kara. “If it’ll help put you at ease, I’ll let you know my plan, but first...”

Ira clapped his hands together and a ripple spread through the air. A clear bubble surrounded them but everything outside it became distorted in Kara’s view.

Through compiling spatial, matter, and dimensional related divinities and gaining the memories of Gods who created domains, Ira’s comprehension of space was probably only second to the presence who balanced both realms.

Kara stared outside the bubble and then jumped in shock as she looked at a copy of her own body outside the bubble along with a doppelganger of Ira.

“What is this?!” She asked in pure disbelief.

“Listen closely,” Ira said as he snapped his finger in order to get her attention.

“I...I’m calm...continue…” Kara said. She occasionally looked toward their copies.

“...Now that I think about, it’s harder to explain than I assumed it’d be.” Ira held his chin and after a long moment of silence, he began his explanation.

“The Divine Realm and the Mortal Realm, I’m going to change it all.”

“...That’s impossible-”

“Who do you think enforces the laws of the realms?”

“The will of the divine realm acts on its own,” Kara replied but as she looked at Ira’s confident expression, she felt her answer was wrong even though it's what the Gods believed since the beginning of their existence.

“Your half-right. Though the truth is there is no will that governs this realm but rather an entity that maintains the balance between the two.”

“If that’s true then...Wait, how would you even know that? Unless you personally met with it-”

“I did and it isn’t satisfied with how things are currently. It wants me to restore the natural order or something along those lines.”

“And you’ll accomplish that by altering the two realms? That's preposterous.”

“I don't plan on doing things its way. I’d be stupid to trust an entity like that. You think it would just let me be after everything? I’ll probably be the biggest threat to both realms by the time I kill the rest of those Gods. So my plan is to be the first one to act. And since the tainted lands should cover a decent portion of the realm it will be easier.”

“Those Tainted Lands offer no benefit that I can see so how does that affect anything?”

Ira smiled deeply at Kara’s question. “Think about it, that presence should’ve been able to remove the black pillar before it even caused as much destruction as it did. That also goes for the Tainted Lands. So its clear that it can't even alter what's been touched by the Void. If I make my stand within the Tainted Lands, my chances of winning go up.”

“You!” Kara’s eyes widened and she became speechless. “No- You couldn’t! Not even you could go against something that- No, no, no. Ira, you shouldn’t…”

As Kara realized Ira’s plan she immediately became panicked. Just how powerful would an entity like the one Ira described be? A fight between the Entity and Ira would lead to scale destruction that had never been witnessed before.

After her temporary lapse of composure, Kara drew a deep breath. “You want to use the Tainted Lands as your domain so you can fight it evenly? Do you understand the effects of such a battle?”

“I do.” Ira nodded. “But you shouldn’t worry because you won’t be around for that.”

“...What do you mean by that?”

“Well, you’ll be seeing your daughter again.” Ira grinned as he reached toward Kara.

“What are you doing?!” Kara tried to move back but found her body was unable to move as she wanted it to.

“Stay still, I’ve never tried making a God descend but it should work if I thought about this correctly.” Ira grabbed her wrist and burned a small sigil of a black wing.

“Aaaah! Ah?” Kara screamed in agony but the pain disappeared almost as quickly as it came.

“You should be weak enough to avoid detection. Now...this is the hardest step...Once you get down there, remain in the Dark Elf Empire and tell my family to do the same. Do not let anyone leave no matter what, that also includes you.” Ira took a deep breath, preparing for the next step.

“Ira! I’ve said it once before, don’t mistake my cautiousness for cowardice! There is nothing honorable in fleeing! I will stay and fight with you even if it costs me my life. I am a Valkyrie! I was born to-”

“Shut up, I can’t concentrate.” Ira lightly flicked Kara’s forehead, instantly knocking her unconscious.

He caught her limp body before it fell and began to focus. It would be extremely easy to let Kara remain in the Divine Realm but it made her death all the more certain. The entity seemed like an emotionless being but he felt it would go to any lengths to kill him. Whether it be luring him by threatening his family or otherwise.

Luckily enough, Ira had isolated the city as his own domain unknowingly and the Entity wouldn’t be able to manipulate anything within its boundaries. The fact that the Entity didn’t speak of it and even re-appeared when Ira spread the border of the Tainted Land showed it was wary of the Void and with good reason. The Void was clearly out of the entities control and it showed once it hastily confronted Ira.

The difficulty of the task came in the form of Kara’s arrival in the Mortal Realm. If the Entity discovered Ira had moved without its knowledge, it would attack him immediately.

“I hope you don’t forget what I said,” Ira spoke to an unconscious Kara before a black mist wrapped around her body.

She suddenly vanished with a loud thunderclap that would’ve reverberated throughout the realm if it wasn’t for Ira’s isolation barrier. After he sent her away, his body seemed to be filled with fatigue. He then removed the barrier instantly took the place of his copy without a single delay. There was no indication that anything ever happened and the copy of Kara looked to be extremely real.

Of course, a stolen divinity was used to create her divine signature and her body was just an assembly of altered matter made to look like her. Ira couldn’t accomplish the grand feat of creating life but with his newly acquired knowledge, he could create a golem that perfectly resembled her likeness.

Ira approached the golem and placed a hand on its shoulder, beneath the fake armor it wore, a black handprint was burned onto its shoulder.

“Alright, you should take some distance and wait for the time to come. Go meditate about swords or something.” Ira waved Kara away.

She silently nodded before flying off. Of course, it was a false display only to trick the eyes of an observer that could be watching him at all times. If the Entity didn’t detect a change in Kara, it was likely to only keep its focus on Ira.

“Time to start!” Ira shouted to no one in particular. He shifted into his beast form and raised his head toward the sky.

His jaw parted revealing an abyss-like black hole that was just behind his row of metallic teeth. All four of his arms were spread out and soon, something began to happen. Ira’s surroundings were uprooted, snow, rock, trees, chunks of dirt, and just about everything near him began to rise in the air like it was grabbed by an invisible hand.

The phenomenon spread and the pull became much violent with giant craters forming where huge piles of earth were ripped away. Everything rose into the air and then was funneled into Ira’s mouth, compressed into a small size, and consumed.

His actions couldn’t be understood at a glance, but it would surely draw the attention of the Gods and Xandes would be sure to send a small army of powerful Gods to stage another capture attempt.