“They’re targeting us!” Artemis shouted over the noise of the storm.

“After what Master pulled off... I'm not surprised,” replied Deimos, focusing her voice through a channel of wind to Artemis’s ear. She ran a hand through her hair, pushing the sopping wet strands out of her face. With how violent the storm was, it would take too much mana to protect herself from the wind and rain.

The dense layer of storm clouds blocked out the sun and the torrential downpour hampered the visibility a great deal. All Deimos could make out, even when she morphed her eyes to their more effective bestial form, was the vague outlines of the enemy mages whenever one of the intermittent flashes of lightning illuminated them.

A flash of violet streaked past from the corner of her sight.

The last of the three elemental beasts was still wreaking havoc, the other one having been taken down by their mages.

A deafening boom that drowned out the sound of the storm caught her attention.

Off in the distance father-in-law was facing off against the Kirin General, each of their clashes lighting the underside of the clouds in a mix of blue and yellow.

In the opposite direction, Maya Cygnus – a Tier 5 late stage water mage – had tied down two of the Shogunate’s Generals all by herself. As she weaved through their attacks on her snow-white wings, she attracted the rainwater from all around her as a magnet would iron filings, the droplets merging into thin streams, and the streams into thick whips of water that howled as they blurred through the air.

The whips slowed as they approached the three concentric rings of light surrounding the Tennin General like a gyroscope, giving him enough time to dodge. The Tengu general left trails of jet-black shadow as he ducked and weaved through the net of whips. Whenever one of the whips touched the trails, it vanished as though swallowed by a rift in the very fabric of reality.

Despite their respective methods of dealing with the attacks, the two of them were tiring rapidly while the Maya, her long black hair whipping behind her in an elegant braid, seemed indefatigable. Each of her whips was imbued with her understanding of the Aspect of Erosion and each contact was shaving off a portion of their mana.

Having realized that victory was hopeless, they were trying to escape, but whenever they made any attempt, she would head them off with an even more intense flurry of her whips. If no one intervened, the two of them would lose sooner rather than later.

It was a textbook demonstration of the strength of a water mage in a war of attrition.

Deimos frowned. Despite this, the situation wasn’t encouraging. There were too many of them. The Regiis army was outnumbered nearly four to one in the air. The only reason they had held off until now was because of their teamwork and the airships.

While the Regiis forces attacked jointly with discipline from the safety of the airships, the Shogunate air force was wholly comprised of flight capable mages. Led by the Tengu and Tennin commanders, they either had avian bloodlines or kept themselves aloft through the Mastery of the relevant Aspects.

Also, the runic enchantments upon the airships meant that they didn’t have to worry too much about the storm while the enemy had to spend a considerable amount of mana and effort just to keep themselves from being blown away or struck by lightning.

And right now, their cluster of seven airships had become the centre of the aerial battlefield.

“BOARDERS INCOMING!”

Amplified by wind magic, the voice of the second-in-command of their artillery squad rang out.

The enemy had finally made it on board. The target of the attack was clear. They had finally realized the threat posed by her Master.

Subconsciously her head turned towards the cabin they had placed Mars in. He had utterly drained himself casting and controlling that massive collaborative spell. He wouldn't be waking up anytime soon.

“Guard him!” shouted Artemis. “I’ll deal with them!”

Then, she snapped her silvery wings open, catching the violent winds and letting them send her overboard.

Thin, nearly invisible threads spooled out from Deimos’ dress, forming an alarm perimeter around the cabin. She turned her attention back to the war, determined. Until he woke, no harm would come to him. She would make sure of it.

***

Artemis let her helmet snap closed around her head, blocking out the buffeting winds and the cacophony of the war.

The silence was soothing. Not for the first time she appreciated this feature of her armour. The solid shink as her visor snapped closed followed by utter silence. This sequence of events had preceded every single one of her duels. Now, her body instinctively responded to it by calming her down.

Her racing heart slowed, her breath became regular, and her thoughts focused. Her eyes transformed into those of a raptor. An earring in the shape of a silver feather hanging from her left ear grew slightly warm as the runes on it glowed. As the runic equipment took effect, her eyes pierced through the murky darkness and the curtain of rain.

Steel feathers detached from her wings, gathering together and merging into a long lance she grasped in her hand. Tucking her wings and whirling to gather momentum, she threw the lance with all her might.

~Aspect of Gravity~ ~Massive~

The lance whistled through the air, the magically enhanced weight of the weapon keeping it from deviating from its intended path. Before the unsuspecting Shogunate mage even had the time to react, it pierced right through her lower back, severing her spine. The force of the blow tore her right in half, sending her lower body tumbling down into the churning sea, even as her mottled brown wings instinctively fanned once, twice keeping her upper body aloft and steadying it. The woman stared uncomprehendingly at the missing half of her body and the blood and internal organs dropping down like vegetables out of a broken grocery bag. Then the pain caught up with her and an infernal screech tore its way out of her throat.

A strong gust of wind caught her outstretched wings and swept her away, her scream tapering off and losing itself in the constant noise of the storm.

Artemis gestured with her hand and the lance froze midair. Spinning rapidly and turning into a silvery disc, it reversed its direction. She caught it with a solid thunk. Using the momentum of the lance she whirled around and threw it out again in another direction.

This time, though, her target sensed the danger and managed to juke to the side at the last moment, dodging by a hair’s breadth.

Artemis clenched her fist and the lance shattered, sending shrapnel spraying all around. The mage screamed as the lethally sharp feathers of metal punched through his barrier as though it didn’t exist. Blood flowed liberally from his many wounds as he fanned his wings hard, fleeing blindly in panic.

The last thing he heard was the keening whistle of another lance tearing through the air.

Before Artemis could retract her lance, a thick beam of violet electricity slammed into her, throwing her through the air.

Flaring her wings to steady herself, Artemis turned to find the lightning elemental kirin glaring at her as it walked towards her, lines of electricity stretching out under its hooves.

Sweat trickled down the side of her face, pooling at the joint between her helmet and her neck piece. Even though her armour had kept off the attack, it had grown uncomfortably warm. A few more lightning bolts of that intensity and she’d be thoroughly cooked alive in it.

A quick look around showed that there were no Tier 4 mages in sight – all of them busy with troubles of their own.

Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she turned tail and sped away. Changing the direction of gravity to assist her escape, she tucked her wings and ‘fell’ towards another one of the airships. After all, she didn’t want to lead trouble to Deimos and Mars.

With a roar like thunder, the elemental beast turned into a streak of lightning and gave chase.

Artemis shed her feathers as she escaped, constantly regenerating to replenish them. They spread out behind her like silvery confetti. As the kirin slammed into them, tendrils of electricity bled off it and branched out across the metallic cloud, dissipating harmlessly.

Its speed dropped drastically, and its energy began to drop sharply. Realizing the danger, it dodged out of the cloud and tried to go around it.

Artemis flared her wings, abruptly arresting her motion. The cloud of feathers caught up with her and surrounded her in the form of a silvery storm – her Domain.

Finding no gap in her defences, the kirin roared angrily and simply barged into her Domain and discharged its energy with reckless abandon. For a short moment, a small violet sun appeared in the sky as a corona of lightning surrounded the elemental construct, vaporizing the metallic feathers and ripping apart Artemis’ Domain.

As the glowing form of the beast enlarged in her eyes, a memory of a conversation with Mars floated up to the surface of her thoughts:

Both of them had been lounging upon the living room couch of her apartment at the Capital a cup of hot chocolate in their hands. It had been her birthday and they had been celebrating with the luxurious beverage.

Mars seemed to have something on his mind. He kept opening his mouth, then disguising the motion by taking a sip of his chocolate. Finally running out of the drink, he sighed and put it down.

Unable to watch anymore, “What is it?” she had asked.

Taking a deep breath, he had turned to her with such a serious look in his eye that she had subconsciously sat straighter in her seat.

“Do you want to promote to Tier 4?” he had asked.

She had been considering it. For the past few days her bloodline had been seething; a clear indication that she was ready to promote. The speed of her cultivation progress had surprised even her. It appeared that losing to Mars had provoked the pride of her bloodline, catalysing it.

“No… I… I haven’t thought about it,” she had stammered.

“You can promote whenever you feel like it,” he had said. “You told me about your goal and that will require that you be strong. Very strong. A Demigod even… Your cultivation is your decision and I won’t ever interfere with it.

“Whatever you decide, no one will hold it against you. Least of all me.”

Somehow that statement had made her feel warm inside and hurt at the same time.

That night she had lain awake in her bed, carefully considering her options. She could promote to Tier 4 and lose the possibility of having a child… or she could rush into parenthood. Both options had been scary.

In the end, after tossing and turning for a night, she had chosen to clamp down upon her promotion and pushed the decision to the future. She hadn’t been ready for either choice.

But now, as she stopped suppressing her breakthrough, a bitter sense of regret filled her mind. Regret for what would never be.

‘I should have said yes…’

With a piercing screech a gigantic metallic falcon burst out of the corona of electricity, plates of dark metallic armour encasing its body. The size of the Domain of Silver Feathers expanded nearly ten times its previous extent, engulfing the kirin completely.

It struggled desperately, but the metallic mana was constantly sapping its energy away. And as a construct of mana, its greatest weakness was just such a draining assault. Artemis could be called its nemesis.

When there had been an entire Tier separating their realms, it had been able to overpower her Domain by sheer dint of its power. But now, with both of them at Tier 4, it no longer had that advantage with Artemis replacing each feather it vaporised with another faster than it could destroy them.

With a powerful beat of her massive wings, Artemis slammed beak first into the construct… and then pierced through it, emerging on the other side, trailing streaks of violet electricity that washed over her metallic feathers like water.

Returning to the deck of her airship, she morphed back to her Bestia form. Discarding her helmet, she collapsed into Deimos’ arms, breathing hard.

Deimos patted Artemis’ back awkwardly as she clutched her tight, her body shaking like a leaf in the wind.

“It’s okay…” whispered Deimos in the older girl’s ear. “It’s fine, ya. You’re fine.”

Even Artemis couldn't completely state the reason for her tears. The fear of truly facing death for the first time, killing two individuals who hadn’t been condemned to death, sorrow for an opportunity lost… or, maybe it was a combination of all of those.

She simply clutched Deimos tighter and sobbed.

Suddenly an invisible ripple spread across the battlefield and everything seemed to stagnate for a moment in time.

Then, a massive pillar of lightning connected the clouds and the sea at the location of one of the ships in the Kirin fleet. Unlike the jagged, unruly nature of natural lightning, this pillar was perfectly circular, perfectly smooth – perfectly artificial.

The entire battlefield fell silent and all eyes turned towards the pillar.

To witness a sight only seen a few times every century – the birth of a Demigod.