Rem loitered near the Central Palace. Gaudy. Whoever created this place preferred forms over function. Pathetic. Unlike this shiny dartboard, Rem’s personal fortress would be underground with enough hidden turret and traps to awe an ancient Pharos. But Grand Empire wasn’t Rem, and neither gold-laced marble columns nor luxurious carpet that comboed with the fabulous, colorful crystal artworks prevented Orwell from playing Pinata with Venistalis.

As Rem imagined his future HQ, he heard the roar and crashing impact. The boy glared at the sky. Part of him tempted to mind his merry business. Per usual, his inner Kal-El beg differed after stomping REM’s shambling corpses into the mud.

Resigned to his moral duty, Rem changed his destination to rescue Vice-Captain Epic Fail.

…

Venistalis Celeb returned. Sadly, the current budget prevented us from re-inviting the judge. Right now, our director was fleeing the building after getting caught surfing to Hawaii on endangered shark.

Resuming Miss Foxy’s coverage. To Miss Enma’s fans — if any exist — hate to break the news. Her chances were bleaker than Batwoman’s viewership.

Good news, Shyme’s still kept [Divine Beast Raiment] — all 45 seconds until the timer rang. Bad news, it won’t bump her odds even by a millimeter.

Orwell bounced Shyme past a half-destroyed building — fully furbishing its new role as grounded rocks. Shyme descent, slamming into a burnt pawn-shop’s wall as its hottest modern art decoration. The fox-girl growled and summoned the juice to activate [Fire Flicker], blinking away in flashes of fires. She reappeared behind Orwell. Her spell readied.

[Air Palace: Gale Palm]

The palm attack was spectacular. Phantasia’s Academy often regarded compact air-pressure condensed into the palm as CQC spell-casting’s fastest and surest method to burst your enemy organ. With Shyme’s 9000 Mag beatstick, even a Bonafede Aircraft Carrier would fold like paper. But as Mr. Thanos — an omnicidal space-potato farmer — said; reality is often disappointing.

Shyme’s battleship-busting attack met Orwell’s skeleton armor with gusto, but Orwell’s armor emitted an 180-degree out-of-phase air-waves in response. Particularly bright physics student with textbook on destructive interference and waves under their belt would already deduce Orwell’s abilities, but Shyme’s divine bloodline didn’t award her A in Physics. Hence, she did what those physics student wouldn’t, ignoring her attack’s failure and pressing in with a flaming fist.

[Enma Style: Purgatory Charge]

[Purgatory Charge] was an assassination technique for assaulting opponent’s internal organ with sudden pressure and temperature change. An upgrade of classic [Fire first] — effective against both superhuman and giant monster by skipping defense to assault internal organs. Shyme’s moves were the logical method to by-pass Orwell’s mysterious protection.

In case someone was slow on the uptake, it must be obvious normal tactic took a vacation against anything registered as threats in Rem’s Bingo book.

Yes. Shyme’s punch landed. No. It was not very effective. Instead, the vibration from Orwell’s ghostly armor — his Adamakles — jarred her very inside, blasting Shyme into a wrecked drink vendor. Quite a shame, that drink vendor ranked as the fifth best of Venistalis before Orwell summoned evil god in the city.

“25 seconds left,” Orwell counted.

Shyme reemerged from the store’s broken counter with grim determination. Her red-hot armor glowed at maximum output. The gravity of her next action paused her for a second, but an image of one goddess floated in her mind. Suddenly, consequences were the least of her concern.

[Enma Style: Rakshasa Spiral]

Shyme released her most powerful offense. A humongous demonic fire fox that indiscriminately lit the entire street aflame. Atmospheric Mana ignited, boosting the fox power, and washing entire street in a fiery hell-scape. As a demigod, Shyme’s [Divinity] allowed her to manipulate atmospheric and Leyline Mana to fuel her attacks. Uncertified godling were strictly prohibited from using this option because the risk of permanently scar the Leyline, altering wildlife of the entire area.

The gods were uncaring buffoons, but they still possessed intense protectiveness to nature. This law strict enforcement was among few evidences to support the gods’ sanity.

Only one member of 33 Stars got approval to use [Divinity] for her low-lethality and excellent control — Cytortia Tianshang. Shyme were banking on the trick she copied from her best-friend.

…

Orwell realized Shyme’s tactic, noted the possibility she might fail to limit the fire from reaching Princess Velnia, and lifted his foot to settle the battle.

You read correctly, ladies and gents. Orwell didn’t shift a single step since Shyme received his boot. Shyme’s effort bore fruit. She got elevated from insignificant to societal nuisance in Orwell’s hate list.

But many successes on this green Earth are like communism. The moment you achieve it, you realized it is a horrible idea. Getting Orwell Mehest to take you seriously may not grant the idiotic lemming an epic socioeconomic crisis of terrifying magnitude. However, unlike starvation and breadlines, Orwell never diddled at separation of people’s soul from their body.

Bellowing cold mist detonated from Orwell’s skin. What followed was so traumatic it required massive of cuddling from Shyme’s loving future husband and her two BFFs therapeutic service to heal her trauma.

[Tundra Ice Create: Frozen World]

Supernatural Frost billowed from Orwell’s body, extinguishing Shyme’s Rakshasa before it had time to attack.

10 seconds remained in Shyme’s clock

…

Shyme understood situation had rocketed from North-pole to South Africa when her inferno disappeared in a mist of freezing chill.

Shyme grunted and tuned her Mana sense. There must be a weakness in Orwell’s defense.

Shyme Enma sensed Orwell’s Mana and froze stiff. No fucking way. Miss Enma discovered the terrifying truth. She had no soul to blame but hers. Orwell hit the bull-eyes. She took humans like him and Wayward with levity. Never paid attention to their full potential. The same arrogance Rem reprimanded his comrade was about to visit Shyme Enma with regret she never forgot.

Orwell was a void of Mana. His connection to the Leyline was active, but there was no Mana Core in his body. All the trashing he dished were his own output. The excess Mana only flowed to shore up his energy skeleton — his newest energy tank.

Just how did he generate his freezing spells without Mana?

Frost continued creeping the street, freezing the combusting atmospheric Mana and stopping the fire tsunami that about to engulf Velnia.

Click!

Orwell stepped toward Shyme. Spiderwebs of ice radiated from his very footsteps.

“You should have run,” Orwell’s voice ranged icily. “And zero.”

The Mana of [Divine Beast Raiment] dissipated, sending a cocktail of fever heat down Shyme’s spine. Her throat parched. Her vision blurred. All her limbs weighted like lead — effects from abrupt halving in stats. Shyme’s ability dropped from high A-rank to mid B as her steroid’s side-effect kicked in.

[Divine Beast Raiment] allowed the member of Enma clan to double their stats at one critical price tag. For every activation minute, the user’s parameter halved for an hour. An Enma either downed his opponents in time and found a place to recover or suffered general nastiness.

Shyme failed the former, now the latter awaited.

“[Shock Spector],” Orwell’s skeleton hardened with a single command. The four-arms giant rose straight to an attack position.

[Fist of Shock]

Click! A sound rang as the specter threw its fist.

15 meters from Orwell, Shyme funneled her Mana to protect herself.

[Air Palace: Gale Wall]

The wall of air erected by Shyme vibrated and shattered. Leftover kinetic energy knocked Shyme rolling. The fox-girl cough another mouthful of blood. That direct hit finally clued the demigoddess to Orwell’s ability.

“Longitudinal wave,” Shyme gasped.

“Wow, how long it took you?” Orwell unamusingly confirmed. “To be fair, I expect you to deduce that after we finish genetically engineer space-poodle.”

Shyme climbed to her feet. The spectral armor shielding Orwell must be able to emit a high-frequency vibration. As a method of energy transfer, Orwell’s kinetic waves could travel through any median and softened offending air-pressure attack with destructive interference. It was a superb counter offense.

In wonderful displays of stupidity, Shyme didn’t retreat, instead she stubbornly released her armor stored heat energy in another burst of laser.

Orwell lifted his finger to meet the laser without sparring a blink.

[Tundra Ice Create: Cold Sentence]

Ray of icy energy chilled the area. Shyme’s armor creaked against the temperature as its energy utterly depleted. The red torch of heat fizzled to non-existence as the icy cold reduced conical area stretching 100 meters from Orwell into Winterland.

Only five individuals realized it then, but Trimegal wasn’t Orwell’s only experiment with World Enemy. Rem’s vision and Cytortia’s knowledge confirmed Horizon Dawn’s worst suspicion. Orwell and Wayward struck a deal. First, the creation of Adamakles, an innovation which converted Mana into a permanent supernatural manifestation, which utterly dwarfed [Divine Core] and Cultivation Technique in efficiency— only falling behind para-causal True Magic in potential.

While such a weapon in his war chest was troublesome, Orwell’s experiment with World Enemy’s DNA was far deadlier. During his preparation period, Orwell successfully grafted DNA of Tundra — an ice World Enemy — into his own. It took him an entire day in recuperation chamber to readjust, but the result granted Orwell’s powers to create ice and emit thermal-cooling radiation. All it took was adapting his ice spell to this energy for Orwell to surpass any ice-mage in Phantasia before the Wolf of Snowcastle (irony at its finest).

Ignorant that she never stood a chance, Shyme collapsed to the ground, shivering from Hypothermia.

Click!

She saw the familiar frosty spider web spreading from the corner of her vision. Orwell was within a reaching distance. Shyme didn’t have the strength to resist.

Then the beating begun. The purple specter lifted her by the neck and dropped her into a waiting punch.

[Shock Spector: Fist of Shock]

Click!

Shyme ate the shock-wave-fist at point-blank. Every bone in her body creaked. New mouth-full of blood flowed up her throat. She black-outed for a second, but that was only an Hors d’oeuvre.

Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click!

34 more punches of similar magnitude arrived on her body at pointblank. Each Click landed a punch on her face, body and limbs, pulverising her entire being. The gruesome result was up to anyone’s imagination, but broken bones and ruptured muscles were obvious. Orwell’s impression of Jotaro Kujo finished momentously as his discounted Star Platinum landed its wind-up.

Click!

The 35th punches sent Shyme shooting through two more building, hitting the third hard enough to collapse the lopsided structure into mountains of rock, and landed with debris burying her.

…

Shyme Enma laid in a pool of her blood. Her broken armor sprayed in pieces around her.

She never experienced more pain in her life. Her legs refused to move. A steel bar impaled her mangled shoulder. Her left arm was a bloody mass and her body racked with pain. It was freezing. Her malfunctioning body pointlessly pumped blood to preserve her bleeding internal organ. Moving the finger on her right hand sent fresh agony down her nerve. Shyme must lost several molars in that assault given fresh pain in her gum. One of her eye was swollen shut when Orwell’s punch landed on her face. Her ears rang, but no sound registered through her burst ear drums. She experienced pain from so many locations; it was a miracle she could pinpoint any of them.

Suddenly, the darkness exploded in white and ice.

…

[Shock Spector: Vibrator Blade]

Orwell’s skeleton swung a sword of purple energy, sending concentrated air waves down the city block, blasting Shyme Enma from the safety of being buried alive under the rubbles. The demigoddess' body flew into the sky from the explosion, spraying a fountain of blood, and landed on the street after fourty-meters free-fall with a crunch.

…

She shouldn’t be alive.

No one should after those assault. God or not, sixteen years-old girls weren’t meant to survive 35 punches of Jojo-grade beating, a falling building and multistoried fall. The fact her grievously injured lung barely functioned defied all biological common-sense. The beating heart in her chest was a miracle after all it suffered through. Shyme’s [Divine Core] and beastmen physiology may pay parts in her pulse, but something far more human held her shattered body together.

A single raw, unadulterated wish.

Shyme still remembered it like yesterday.

…

Both she and idiot got stuck in on a desert island. Both were in ballgowns, tattered during their turbulent journey across the waves.

Both were seven years-old.

“What the hell are we going to do!!!?” Cytortia yelled like a panicky little girl (wait wasn’t she 7).

“It is your fault,” Shyme reproached the goddess. “If you had accepted my offer, we would never be in this position.”

“Oh, sorry, the offer to come under your fold?” Cytortia snorted. “You are as bad as Tai Hua! Plus, it is your fault we fell into the ocean! My plan to steal the raft would succeed without a hitch if you stuck to your business!”

It was Shyme’s turn to go ballistic.

“Which idiot tried to sneak out of the cruise-ship party by stealing a life-raft?”

“Which idiot jumped after me!”

“Of course, I must jump after you! Breaking rules is bad! Grandpa said gods are aloof entities who keep the Rule of Phantasia! A god like us shouldn’t break rules!”

“Rule this? Rule that? The only thing I see your rule accomplishes is creating problems. Do people even need those rules anyway! It also your fault the giant leviathan attacked the ship!”

“How is that my fault?”

“Whose uncle and cousins wore an accessory radiating obvious kraken’s aura? Don’t your family fund the Leviathan hunt! Given this years’ number, that species would hate you to the bone!”

“Leave my uncle out of this! My family did nothing wrong. Grandpa said they are pest! We are doing the world a favor by getting rid of them!”

““You are the idiot, not me!!!””

Cytortia and Chuang — two idiots on a desert island — continued fighting bitterly like cats and dogs.

A day later…

Growl

Both girls’ stomach rumbled.

“A truce?” Cytortia cried from hunger.

“A truce,” Shyme agreed, inches from eating her designer cloth to ease her stomach’s protest. “Can you cook?”

“Yeah,” Cytortia offered her hand. “Can you hunt?”

“I am the best in the clan at hunting.”

The two shook hands.

A week later…

Both girls rested by a fire Shyme created. Their elegant clothing were unrecognizable rags now. The two girls were gazing at the starry skies together.

“Hey, don’t you want to quit you training under Nu Wa?” Shyme asked as her friend. “Your story is hardly reassuring.”

“Still trying to recruit me? Isn’t the same go for you?”

Shyme remained silent.

“I believe in the clan,” Shyme lied to everyone and herself.

“That hardly reassuring. Are you sure you are a fox-girl? I swear you are a half wolf with your loyalty.”

Silence

“Hey, what about we team up and take the world by storm!?” Cytortia suggested. “If we join force, we will be undefeatable!”

“With an unlucky hopeless case like you? No, thank you! What are we even joining force for?”

“Maybe to save the world?”

“That is dumb!”

“Well, if you grow tired of Enma clan, you can join me whenever you want,” Cytortia offered her pinky. “I will even make you a pinky promise.”

“Keep dreaming!” Despite her mouth, Shyme’s pinky finger told another story. “Hell, I will probably have to work overtime to save your stupid life!”

…

“Like hell…” Shyme whispered to an illusion of her first friend gazing at her sadly from the distant, fighting through her body rampant protest to cease function and die. “I won’t… break my promise… not to…”

Click!

Orwell landed on the scene, utterly flabbergasted. Demigoddess or not, Shyme should be dead with those bones and muscles showing. The girl lost enough blood to kill a normal organism twice over. What sort of tenacity pushed someone in the bloodied state to continue living, much less crawl in a trail of blood under that injury?

I need to kill her now.

[Orwell’s Original: Spectral Frost Armament]

Thump!

A glowing sigil of light halted Orwell's spectral sword in its track.

Shyme’s fading eyes seared in her mind an image she never forgot — a man in a black helmet and trench coat stepping between her and overwhelming force of Orwell. His back and the symbol its shouldered boasted the very bedrock of strength.

Arrived, Hikma De Darwin had.