The sky had turned cloudy.

The big creature just stood there watching the humans. Neither it nor the humans moved. Time seemed as if it had stopped. ‘It’ had locked the humans in what seemed to be an endless staring contest. “ Everyone! Get hold of yourselves!”

One of them regained himself as he ran towards the creature. He was wearing a symbol on his back which looked to be a triangle with wing-like shapes on each side and shapes of pupil-less eyes with a grin at the bottom. The man had a big posture and a spear that he held in both of his hands. He gripped his spear tightly as if preparing for an attack.

‘It’ just simply continued staring at them.

He then prepared his ‘Runes’. ‘Alright then. With the blessing of the goddess, I will activate it. I… really hope this works. I only have one shot at this.’

His spear began emitting strange symbols. ‘There are several conditions to be met in order to use runes. Even the weakest ones require some form of conditions that need to be met. The rune, Unending dark’s descent on the other hand… heh heh you just need the correct body and the goddess's blessing.’

The man clearly remembered the words of his mentor. He also remembered the fact that there were certain risks to this rune. And… He also remembered another condition to this.

The fact that there was a certain amount of time in before the successful descent of the unending dark where the user will be in a state of trans.

‘I need backup till then.’ The man, whose name was Gabriel hurriedly escaped from ‘It’ and went to his companions who had already got back their composure. He roughly explained them the details of his plan and they all agreed. They left off a few people to defend the man and went to face ‘It’

“Alright, everyone. We’ve only got one shot at this. Prepare your best runes and launch your best spells.” Spoke a woman named Elison.

“Do you have a plan?” The rest of the people, who were only counted four. Asked in unison. They were all currently extremely nervous. After all, their situation was extreme. Never before had they had to deal with a ‘diety’ themself.

“I do. However, It will have no effect on the ‘deity’. And you all know this as well. Without the descent of the unending dark… We cannot defeat ‘It’. So, Is it even worth it to discuss a plan in this situation?” Elison spoke in a state of great anxiety and fear. She believed she had not let her fear cloud her judgement. However, she was wrong. “I guess you’re right. We must try to buy time against ‘it’.”

Spoke Abraham’s brother. Whose name was Godfray. Everyone seems to have gone mad with fear. None of them are able to have rational thoughts. They all began preparing their runes in order to attack ‘it’. However, in this entire time, not one of them thought why they hadn’t been attacked yet.

“Let’s do this.” A man named Cristall charged at the ‘diety’ . He was the one who usually took lead during fights after all. He unsheathed his sword. Which seemed to be ancient and had the patterns of the sun on its handle. He unleashed a spell called The sun’s warmth. Which is one of the strongest mutated spells he could use without the help of runes. Meaning he had full control over it. Suddenly, his sword started getting hot. It’s temperature kept rising and it started unleashing flames mixed with orange and yellow.

The temperature began rising till the point where a normal human couldn’t handle it. But his teammates weren’t affected by it as they were used to this.

They too prepared their own strongest spells they could use in this situation. Some with runes, some without.

The sky darkened and they charged the monster. From afar, it looked like a rainbow of different colours. The wind began flowing faster and dark clouds quickly covered the sky- this was the result of the usage of ‘Sky’ Element. The ‘Sky’ element mainly consisted of, well. ‘Manipulating’ the sky. As if it wasn’t already obvious.

They charged ahead and attacked the monster with all their might and- They succeeded! They had successfully made an attack!

This meant that their runes would soon activate and that will then put ‘it’ In a tight position. This’ll be enough time for the descent of the unending dark…

That is if it worked.

All five of them looked at ‘It’ with pure horror as it stood in its place, unscathed. They had lost.

***

“Let them deal with that thing. Let’s leave.” Alfred spoke. His comrades seem to agree with him too. They left the creature to their enemies and began escaping from that place. “I doubt they will be able to buy us much time. We should hurry.”

Spoke the same Old woman who had saved ‘Abraham’ earlier. The rest of them nodded. They all rushed away from that place. However, “Why can't we… go forward…”

A strange invisible wall was blocking them from leaving. One of them suddenly began panicking and using his attacks to try and get out but nothing happened to the wall. “Stop. Don’t waste your energy. That wall is too strong.”

The old woman from earlier spoke. “Did you notice something?”

Asked Alfred. “That's right. This wall has a ridiculous amount of mana extremely concentrated. We can't break it.”

Alfred frowned. In Fact the amount of mana concentrated in this ‘Box’ was so ridiculous that it could only be done with the help of more than one god. He was just confused on why it was needed. ‘Perhaps…’

The old woman sighed and spoke “First, we need to try to find an opening to get out. And if there isn’t- Well, we will talk about that later.”

The man attacking the wall stopped and stood on the side. “Neil. Gryffard. Go and check for holes in the wall.”

The old woman spoke to two men standing nearby. One of them was someone Abraham was familiar with. It was the red-haired person they had met a while back.

The two of them nodded and disappeared from that spot. “Alfred. Do you think we can beat that thing?”

She asked Alfred. Who had been standing there and quietly observing the battle ahead.

“We can’t. Even if we attacked together with them, we still won't be able to.” Alfred spoke. The Old woman smiled and replied “I see so killing it isn’t an option. Anyways, Can you teleport?”

“No. I can’t. I can use all my other magic but it seems teleportation is not possible.” Alfred replied. The old woman became quite disappointed. “We’re back.”

A voice came from behind them. It was Neil and Gryffard. “You two are as quick as ever. So? Did you find anything?”

The old woman asked. Neil and Gryfford showed a disappointed expression. They shook their heads and replied “No. The wall is a complete square that’s trapping us with that creature. Not even the sky is open.”

At their response, The faces of the others became pale. “What about the underground?”

Abraham asked. The two sighed and shook their heads.

“I see. So we’re completely trapped.” Spoke the old woman.

The old woman spoke “We can’t escape and we can’t fight. Guess we’re dead aren’t we?”

She burst out into laughter. “I guess this is how it’ll end for us.”

“Alfred. Make sure to keep Abraham safe. We can’t betray ‘His’ trust in us.”

“Let’s go. Everyone. To our final mission.” The old woman spoke. The rest of the people took out weapons in their hands. Circles with symbols were appearing in some of their hands. And soon. They reached the creature and began participating in battle.

Abraham had been observing the battle for quite a while now. And he couldn’t help but think ‘Why the hell is that thing not fighting back?’

“Let’s go. We shouldn’t waste the time they've bought us, we need to leave.”

However, just when they were about to begin moving, Abraham felt a huge force hitting him.

***

Nothing seemed to work against ‘It’. The situation was hopeless. “The Goddess’s believers are weaker than I thought.”

“Don’t talk as if you were able to do something.”

“Dodge! It’s gonna attack again!”

The thing crawled in the air with its hands as it charged towards the humans fighting it. It reached them in the blink of an eye. Most of them were able to dodge.

Unfortunately, Not all of them were as lucky. Elison, their leader was caught. All the tentacles surrounding ‘it’ swallowed her slowly. They all completely strangled her till she had no more breath left and made her disappear inside the tentacled monstrosity. “L-Leader!”

One of the members couldn’t control his anger and jumped to attack the monster. This was quite unusual, however. As the goddess’s believers were trained to be calm in all situations.

He tried to attack the thing, however, it wasn’t effective. One of it’s tentacles hit everyone in one fell swoop and sent them flying towards Abraham and Alfred.

***

All the people fighting that creature were thrown away by its body. One of them hit Abraham. Making him crash on the invisible wall with huge force. ‘Dammit…’

His vision gradually began turning dark. It seems Alfred too had been hit.

The last thing that Abraham saw was darkness… Rising in the sky.

***

‘Captain! I’ve succeeded!’ Gabriel spoke as he watched pure darkness descent from the sky and consume his body. Several blood dripping chains rose from the ground as if to fight back against the darkness and bound Gabriel. However, Gabriel did not care about this. He highly anticipated The goddess’s actions and they happened. The endless darkness spread all around him and broke the barrier he had sensed earlier. ‘It worked! Now the monster will be dead!’

He waited for the darkness to return… and it did but. The man’s face crumpled. His expression turned pale as he wanted to cry out loud.

Before being completely consumed by the darkness, he saw ‘It’ Head to the town. And… a male whisper in his ears.

“It seems the catastrophe before the calamity has begun its awakening. Good. Phase 2 now begins.”

***

Author: PeacefulMyst

Editor: St. Ein