Chapter 63: Immortal-Cup Part 4: The reckless and insane
Fein (God of Ruin) - Harlotte (God of Chaos):
The announcer says "Well ladidaa. That was a match and a half. We just saw a machine defeat a god in single combat. Well isn’t that exciting?!
Anyways, moving onto the next match, we have the god of ruin Fein versus god of chaos Harlotte.
Which will win, will ruin fall to chaos or will chaos succumb to ruin? Let’s find out!"
One the one side, Fein, with his smoking body, steps into the arena.
On the other side, Harlotte, with her high energy, makes the ground tingle for the audience in the arena.
Once both were at the arena, Harlotte asked "So how’s things going Fein?"
Fein, confused, answered "Fine? Why do you..."
Harlotte asks "So if you like... get to the finals and stuff... are you actually going to fight Perkele like realsies?"
Fein, still confused, answers "Yeah? And I know that it is weird coming from me but... why do you assume that Perkele is going to get to the finals?"
Harlotte tilts her head in confused manner "He isn’t? But I’m sure that he is the best fighter among all the gods. He already beat Jyqbolos and that Godfreya, or whoever they are, they don’t stand a chance."
Fein claims "Godfreya is you of all possible timelines and harnesses the power of madness and abyss above that."
Harlotte asks "So?"
Fein asks "So... Don’t you think father will have some issues facing them?"
Harlotte answers while bursting out laughing "For you to forget what Perkele can actually do is quite hilarious. Heh... You of all people should know that..."
Then in a swift motion, Harlotte appears behind Fein and says all serious "In his head, everything is within his calculations. And all in those calculations are malleable from his defilement."
Fein coughs and says "We’ll see about that. Still... How about we get this started?"
Harlotte hops in front of Fein and says "I’d be glad to do so."
Then both of them are sent to a bizarre place. On the one side, is ashen ruins with fallen towers and dunes of ash laying all over the place.
On the other side, there are rivers flowing to the skies, trees upside down, herbivores eating carnivores, ice storms billowing and freezing some of the rivers in the skies, floating islands and much, much more.
Fein asks Harlotte, who is standing on the chaotic field "Did you do something to make this place look... iconic... for both of our characters?"
Harlotte giggles and says "Fear not, youngster Fein, I didn’t do anything that gives me an unfair advantage. Just some... Artistic interpretations for those who send us to pocket dimensions."
Fein sighs and says "Fine... Now perish."
The area around Harlotte begins to crumble. Trees wither, floating islands break apart, animals are drained of their vitality and the rivers in the sky begin to dry.
Harlotte claps her hands and says "As expected of the god of ruin. You just broke my spectacle. However..."
Harlotte snaps her fingers and the gravity on Fein’s side gets switched. Fein, along with the fallen towers and ash began to fall to the skies with no end in sight. Harlotte just gestures as she looks at Fein falling to the skies.
Fein doesn’t falter. He uses his powers to make gravity disappear in its entirety, so all objects just float like they are in some sort of emptiness.
Harlotte marvels "Well done, but why haven’t you made me forget that we are in battle? Don’t tell me that you don’t want it to end that way?"
Fein says "You would be much more formidable if I simply made you forget why we were fighting. That much should be obvious."
Harlotte wipes her finger back and forth in disapproval. She says "You know that isn’t what I meant, Feiney. You know exactly what I asked you didn’t do."
Fein stares daggers at Harlotte, who in turn is smiling all smug like.
Fein sighs and says "You asked for it."
And suddenly, Harlotte gets a dumbfounded look on her face. She looks around and doesn’t know what is happening. As she floats about, she just babbles some nonsense that doesn’t mean anything.
Then thunder begins to clap all around the place. Flames burst and winds tear. Time moves backwards at one time and forward on another. Gravity shifts from place to place, making singularities in places where they shouldn’t be. Eventually Harlotte tears herself apart from the sheer gravity she enforces from two opposite ends and golden blood begins to flow.
Things appear and disappear, even Fein gets torn apart piece by piece, just barely holding consciousness. Eventually, what remains of Harlotte disappears and so ends the chaotic match in Fein’s win.
Once back in the arena, Harlotte bursts out laughing and taps Fein’s back repeatedly. She says, between the laughs "I knew you... heheh... got it...hahahaHAAA... You took the... Heheh... gamble and... hehhehheh won... HAh... HAHAHHAA..."
Fein says "So... were you satisfied?"
Harlotte laughs "No... heheh... I’m more than that... satisfied?...HAHAHHAAHHAHA... just satisfied isn’t enough to describe it!... Hahhahhaahha... To forget every... piece... of you... is downright... heheh... amazing experience... If only... hehhehHEEH... I could do it for reals!"
Fein asks in a worried tone "You... wish to forget everything?"
Harlotte says "Sometimes...Haha... sometimes it just is what I’d need. But..."
Harlotte looks at the audience and then says in a melodramatic way "I wouldn’t want to lose the most precious things there are. And I’m sure..."
Harlotte begins to leave the arena in a little somber mood now "That they feel that way too... May they find mercy from his grasp."
.
Emer (God of Tyranny and Betrayal) - Me-Etis Cre Unuma (God of Magic):
The announcer says "Well that was a headscratcher and a half. But let’s not dwell too deep on it and move forward to the next match.
We have Emer, the god of tyranny and betrayal, ouch, and Me-Etis Cre Unima, god of magic.
Hope the good guys win, so go for it Me-Etis!"
Emer, someone with a spiky crown on his head, ashen eyes with red irises ash coloured skin and without a shirt on walks to the arena. He has a cape on his back that is tattered beyond belief. On his left hand, he drags around a massive hammer that screams doom. He is also... quite massive in general.
He motions his hand for Me-Etis to come to the arena and face him "Come at me, you bitch."
Me-Etis is a tall, big chested woman with blue skin. She has a devilish tail and black eyes that have irises that glow sky blue. She has a very businessy attire that is often seen on office workers.
Me-Etis has a black glove on her right hand and some jewelry with chains on her left one.
Me-Etis steps into the arena with grace on her step and says to Emer "You again with this? Of course I have to deal with ruffians like you. Let’s get this over with so I can go back to managing magic."
Emer laughs and says "You say that, but you really are going to snooze off as you work."
Me-Etis looks slightly annoyed and says "Say what you will. It isn’t like I have much trouble with you anyways."
Emer says "Like you wouldn’t enjoy a little alone time with me."
Me-Etis shows the palm of her right hand to Emer and says "You gotta stop right there or there might come rumours later that you probably don’t like."
Emer asks "Like what?"
Me-Etis answers "Like the ones that you already had Fein removed from your memory."
Emer gets furious and shouts "Fucking what?! There is no way Fein has ever removed things from my head without me knowing about it!"
Me-Etis says "I know it is hard, but I need you to think for a second about what you said."
Emer shouts "I..." But then places the mace to the ground, crosses his arms and begins to think.
That lasted for a minute or so before Emer realized and muttered "Fuck me."
Me-Etis replied "Rather not."
Emer gets furious again, grabs his mace and shouts "You little scamp! I’ll..."
And then the two were sent to on top of a quite large castle wall. Emer shouted "Now then, let’s fucking end this!"
Emer, with all his might, charged at Me-Etis and slammed the mace at her.
Me-Etis teleported away and the castle wall began to crumble from the impact.
Below the castle lies a trench, to which Emer falls into. He almost couldn’t lift his hammer from the bottom of the trench, but with rage fueling his strength, he raised the mace and jumped out of the trench.
As he was on the air, Me-Etis took the opportunity to send javelins of light at Emer, to which Emer could do nothing but to take them on.
As Emer landed back to the ground, he was filled with javelins of light all over his body. Alas, he started laughing.
Me-Etis says "I see that you are in good spirits."
Emer responded "Of course I am! Because I..." Emer jumped towards Me-Etis, still filled with those javelins of light "Am the god of tyranny, bitch!"
Emer, while in the air, took a hold of a javelin of light and threw one towards Me-Etis.
Me-Etis simply blocked them with her magic, but Emer wasn’t deterred and tried to strike Me-Etis with his mace as he got close to Me-Etis.
As Emer struck his mace, Me-Etis simply teleported away like usual and summoned a bunch of meteors on the falling Emer who still had two javelins of light embedded on him.
Once on the ground, Emer began to swing his mace like a baseball and send the meteors right back at Me-Etis, who in turn just dodged them by teleporting.
Emer took one of the javelins of light off his chest and tried to launch them towards Me-Etis, but Me-Etis just blocked them with her magic.
Emer tried again with the last one with the same results.
Emer shouted "Come down here so I can kill you, you bitch!"
Me-Etis responded "No. I’d rather stay here where your dirty hands don’t reach."
Emer shouts "Then what the fuck are we supposed to fight with?! Are you just going to keep shooting your little magic tricks and hope for the best?!"
Me-Etis responds "That was the plan, yes."
Emer shouts "Do you have no honour!"
Me-Etis gives out a slight chuckle and says "You of all ask if I have honour. That is amusing at least."
Emer shouts "Come down and fight me!"
Me-Etis responds "Learn to fly and come to me."
Emer slams his mace to the ground repeatedly in frustration and Me-Etis comments "Looks like the child is having a tantrum. I suppose it is the adult’s job to calm the child down."
Me-Etis snapped her fingers.
Space screamed as a moon-sized mass of collapsed matter bled into existence overhead. Light bent and twisted around it; the very fabric of the pocket dimension groaned under its impossible weight.
Emer’s eyes widened, his voice caught between disbelief and awe. "You’re serious?"
Me-Etis’s lips curled into a cruel smile "Good luck."
And with that, she dissolved into the void, leaving him beneath the falling star.
The sphere descended, a devouring shadow blotting out everything above. Space warped; the ground beneath Emer cracked and shuddered as if it wanted to flee. The pull of gravity clawed at his body, dragging him toward obliteration.
Emer cloak whipped around him in the gravity storm, but his stance did not falter.He only exhaled, low and steady. "I see."
Then his voice rose, thunder breaking through the crushing silence. His stance firmed, feet digging into the trembling ground.
"Like hell I’ll bow to this!!!"
He launched himself upward, body a streak of defiance, hurtling straight toward the impossible weight of the neutron star.
The match ended in Me-Etis’ victory.
Once they were back in the arena, Emer shouted "What the hell was that?!"
Me-Etis said "’Embrace of the Oblivion’ I believe it’s called."
Emer slams his mace to the ground "Like hell I care about what the spell is called! I mean you could always just do that?! Where was it when we fought the abyss back in the olden days?!"
Me-Etis polished her left fingernails and said "I simply didn’t want to use it on a beautiful forest like that."
Emer shouts "You little bitch!" And tries to attack Me-Etis, but Atkoosa and Fein take a hold of him and escort him somewhere else.
.
Epithos (God of Remembrance and Reflection) - Delir (God of Falsehoods and Illusions):
The announcer says "Oh boy... that was... something that I wouldn’t have been able to vision that in my head if I wouldn’t have been there to see it. That is why we separated the mortals from immortals, folks. Now then. Let’s wipe our sweat from the last match and let’s get right to the next match.
We have Epithos, the god of remembrance and reflection, who will be facing a worthy opponent known as Delir, god of falsehoods and illusions.
I wouldn’t have expected for a better matchup folks. Two opposing sides. Kind of like Otzal and Werluum, but this time, we are playing a different kind of game.
Let’s welcome them folks with a loud cheer!"
The audience cheers and with that, the two contestants enter the arena.
Epithos we all know, but Delir... He is someone with long black hair in a straitjacket is quite a bizarre sight. The straitjacket is in a restrictive position.
Delir has violet eyes and a look of confidence on his face. He has one big stitched scar on the left side of his face.
Epithos asks "Why oh why did they allow you to come out is something I will never understand. But I suppose this is technically the safest place to have you currently since so many gods are present."
Delir says "I am quite surprised myself. To be sent to this prison from my free world is quite an unusual arrangement. Well, I suppose I can share news from the free world so that maybe... just maybe, they could be freed from this prison they have been born in."
Epithos says "I hope they sent you back before you do anything that cannot be taken back."
Delir says "Such sad words you say. But I agree. For a free man to return to the prison, it is quite hard to take back. Not impossible though, mind you. Don’t tell me that you have become a prisoner instead of a guard. That would be quite... unfortunate."
Epithos says "Let’s end this useless chatter."
Delir replies "Why you ought to remember each phrase I say as the guard who supposedly remembers everything that it is to remember about the prisoners and guards alike."
The two are sent to a pocket dimension of pure darkness that only lights the two contestants.
Delir sends a packs of ’wolves’ towards Epithos, who in turn summons knights from past ages.
Delir doesn’t end there and summons all kinds of beasts that resemble beasts from the abyss. Beasts that are hard to describe with vocabulary. The only word that can be said is ferocious.
Epithos summons dragons to face off these abyssal beasts and the battle goes on for a while.
Epithos tries to throw spells at Delir, but delir simply steps lightly away from all those attacks as if they were but a breeze.
Epithos continues his barrage of attacks and summons minions to counter Delir’s but none affect Delir and the battle seems lost.
Soon, Epithos feels pain in his heart and the feeling of tiny needles scratching and stabbing all over his skin. He knows that this is one of Delir’s illusions and uses his powers to suppress them.
Epithos has lost the sight of Delir, but eventually he sees him appear right in front of him and Delir uses his teeth to bite off Epithos’ jugular.
The golden blood begins to flow and epithos is running out of time, so he summons a sword in a last ditch effort to slice off Delir, but Delir seemingly dissolves and so does the wound he inflicted.
Then Delir says "Peekaboo!" from behind Epithos and bites Epithos’ ear off with his teeth.
Epithos swings his sword to attack Delir, but this too seemed to be an illusion Delir made and so Epithos can feel the pain from his ear disappear.
Epithos starts to hear laughs of madness all over the place as the battle rages on, his summoned soldiers starting to seemingly attack each other and some even attack Epithos themselves.
Epithos takes care of his summons effortlessly but the laughter doesn’t stop. It gets louder and louder. Scatching. Footsteps that run from place to place. Right to left, back to forth up and down and backwards and forwards.
The laughter won’t stop. Epithos is fighting his own summons that won’t disappear without him defeating them first. Piles upon piles of bodies that shouldn’t be there. A battlefield that should exist.
An echoing sound of chains is heard and all the sound stops. When Epithos looks at the source of the chains, he sees a familiar back, but he can’t quite tell whose.
As he walks towards the figure, his foot gets caught into something and he falls down.
After getting up, Epithos looks where he tripped and sees that there is nothing behind him. Not anything left from the battlefield that supposedly was there earlier.
Then Epithos looks back to the figure and sees that there is nothing there.
Then Delir whispers in Epithos’ ear "Guess that time’s up."
And both end back to the arena. Epithos asks "What is this" as the audience watches in confusion what just happened. Delir answered "I forfeited. The Overseer appeared."
Epithos rubs his eyes and says "Again with this. But since you forfeited, I guess that is good."
The match ended in Epithos’ victory.
Delir asks Epithos "Is the overseer here as well?"
Epithos says "Again, I don’t know who you are referring to and you just said that he just appeared. So why are you asking?"
Delir says "Maybe he left? But that is fine. You who do not see the truth, failing to see who the overseer is. It is natural. Truly natural.
But The Architect... oh I can feel his presence today much clearer than I have in a while. Was it him who made the sound? He usually doesn’t have chains. Where is he watching? I’m sure he is here. I can feel it"
Epithos says "I..." he takes a deep breath and continues "I think Maumar is just paying more attention as he edits the footage of the fights today."
Delir nods "Ah... I see, I see. Well, for the architect to be doing such menial tasks, I’m sure you have something else here that interests him greatly. Oh, but worry not, I will not try to go against the architect today. Be sure to tell him that I’ll be on my best behaviour. I know I’ll be going back to the free world and... haah... leave the jailors and the jailed be for the time being. I think so at least."
Epithos says "Fine. Go on then, scurry back."
Delir says "I’m not senile, you know. I’ll go. I’ll go. But only because I choose to. I do follow you guards’ instructions while I’m in the prison, but I do it because I choose to. If you try to keep me here, then I’ll be sure to..."
Epithos showes Delir "Fine. Fine. Go on now. We all know that you are the quill of your own destiny."
Delir nods and says proudly "Thank you."
.
Leeroy (God of Adventures, Journeys and Recklessness) - Karen (God of Persistence and Annoyance):
The announcer says "That was... interesting... But let’s not dawdle on that.
Next up is the god all adventurers love, Leeroy. And he’ll be facing the god who... most dread and even Perkele has trouble with, Karen.
Let’s welcome our contestants and hope we will see an interesting match!"
Leeroy, with his pointy adventurer’s hat, rides on a spectral horse towards the arena and jumps from it and lands in a stylish manner. He has wavy amber hair and he wears a shirt that is barely holding together from his physique.
Leeroy gives the cheering audience flying kisses in mass, an act which everyone, well, most love.
On the other corner comes a Karen with THE haircut. With her, she has a purse and sunglasses. Most don’t cheer but some give a mellow "woohoo" as she goes.
Leeroy says to Karen "It has been a while since we have to battle."
Karen says "Whatever you say... pretentious alpha male."
Leeroy takes a hit.
The two are then sent to a pocket dimension that looks like a shopping mall, but way too big. The audience questioned the placement of the match, but due to some other misgivings in previous matches, they let it slide.
Leeroy rises on top of a shelf and then summons a whip that he uses to swing by in search of Karen.
Karen just screeches "Manager!" in a loud voice, which is a spell that calls the person they want to see to her location. Leeroy is immediately pulled towards Karen even in the middle of a swing, which makes him fall over and make a domino effect of a few shelves falling down.
Leeroy scurries up, takes up his spectral sword and charges towards Karen.
Karen uses another spell "Assault!" which summons a spectral horde of policemen that attack their designated opponent.
Leeroy skillfully defeats every one of them, but Karen uses it again when Leeroy is about to defeat the last one.
This continues for three more rounds and eventually Karen casts a spell "I’ll sue you!" Which drains the target’s strength and willpower quite drastically.
Then Karen cast two spells "Assault!" and "My baby!", later of which increases the strength and durability of anything that it is cast upon. This time, to one of the spectral policemen.
Leeroy, being at his wits end, thinks "Is this it? Am I truly going to be defeated in the first round?"
To which he rises to a conclusion "No. I still have that."
So Leeroy shouted with his remaining strength "Jenkins!" Which is a spell that boosts the casters powers many times over by turning the switch off from safety. This effect cannot be turned off for the duration of the spell it is casted. For this instance it is one minute.
With his boosted strength, Leeroy jumped to action, swinging his sword recklessly and getting hit multiple times by the spectral policemen. Eventually though, just before the minute was up, Leeroy managed to throw the spectral sword towards Karen, which in turn, hit her right on the middle of her head.
Leeroy won the match.
When back on the arena, Karen just slaps Leeroy on the face the first chance she gets and says "Fuck you!"
And with that, Karen leaves.
Leeroy cheers in victory and the audience is all for it.
.
The contestants for the Immortal-Cup 2nd stage are as follows:
Perkele (God of Debauchery, Depravity and Defilement) - Godfreya Omen Dog (Transcended God of Chaos and Madness)
Atkoosa (God of Suns) - Otzal (God of Ice and Stillness)
Cheesos (God of Tactics and Luck) - Fates (Gods of Law)
Ferqu (God of Change) - Taboo (Hex God)
—
Li Last (Rell) - Zolon Tokiko Eishi Ilumnos (Archon of the Abyss)
Mathews Witsur (King of Death) - Song Bai (Transcended Automaton)
Fein (God of Ruin) - Me-Etis Cre Unuma (God of Magic)
Epithos (God of Remembrance and Reflection) - Leeroy (God of Adventures, Journeys and Recklessness)