(Optional BGM: Malevolent Shrine)
A flurry of arrows came at Kukulkan. In turn, they were met with a wall of divine fire.
Tohil's Authority over the Flames. Kukulkan borrowed it and manifested its effects right in front of her in the form of a shield.
Arrows came in, and ashes came out.
"Ptoo!"
Some of those ashes went inside Kukulkan's grinning mouth, prompting her to spit them out.
"Ble— disgusting."
Only when Heracles had hit the ground on another island did the shower of arrows cease. Rather they were replaced with something much thicker and much longer— entire trees.
Grabbing their trunks, Heracles uprooted them from the earth. The demigod then placed his bow horizontally instead of vertically as if it was a ballista. There, he loaded the trees onto the Bow of Hydra with the handle supporting the tree and pulled back, shouting "<Nine Lives>" before releasing.
Heracles was using entire trees as if they were arrows.
This was done on such a large scale that Heracles managed to clear a small section of a forest in less than a second. Such was godspeed— something mortals will never be able to attain.
From far away it appeared like a swarm of bugs. Those salvo of trees, a fleet of supersonic missiles. They flew through the air, the trees shaved themselves as leaves and smaller branches broke off thanks to air resistance, sharpening a somewhat blunt object into giant spears that could easily go through a whole battleship like a knife through water.
In turn, Kukulkan only turned up the heat, so much so that even something as large as a tree, traveling so quickly that it was beginning to fall apart, could not penetrate the wall of flames.
The Divine Fire wasn't an actual 'flame' in the conventional sense. This 'fire' can burn in the depth of space, for it doesn't need heat, fuel, or oxygen and doesn't go out by itself. It was the concept of flames made manifested, a crystallization of the idea of fire and all related that falls under its umbrella in a way similar to Noble Phantasms.
Such was the Divine Authority of a God.
Not that Kukulkan knows about this. To her, it simply appeared as if she could will fire into existence.
A second later, the wall of flames disappeared, revealing Kukulkan with one hand stretched out, all five fingers poking outward as if she was reaching out to grab something. It served as the handle from which curved limbs of pure fire erupt forth, creating an arc resembling a 'bow'. It wasn't a true bow, for bows require solids and fires aren't that. The Goddess' other hand was pulled back, her fingers gripping something that didn't exist as though she were pulling back the invisible strings of a bow.
In between the two hands, connected with each other, was a length of divine flame that possessed the outline of something faintly resembled an arrow.
By now, the sun appeared to have retreated, as if giving the stage to a new light source. A new radiance took hold, blindingly bright.
She was mocking him. Heracles realized. She wasn't an Archer class Servant, but she's replicating his movement as if to show she's better.
He couldn't yet feel the heat from those flames since they hadn't reached him— when the heat does, he'll be hit with hurricane-force wind that'll flatten the entire island the demigod found himself on.
No, being so close to that source of divine fire meant everything on this island would turn into ash, possibly not even that would remain. This whole area will turn into a hellscape.
"Cremate."
A seemingly unending onslaughter of fire flooded forth. A deluge of burning ruin. Cataclysm in the form of an 'arrow' with an ever-shifting shape.
The world screamed as if alive, drowning out all noise as it bathed the island Heracles found himself on in an unstoppable incineration. A torrent of pure extinction turns all that is into what was during the primordial times.
A glimpse of the fiery hell the planet was before life emerged. It was a primal fear ingrained upon all lifeforms that emerged on the planet.
Even as the jungle covering the island was rendered into nothing more than a field of gray ash and blackened stumps, Heracles stubbornly remained standing, returned from death even after seeing what it was like in the primordial times.
He stood there in the ash-filled waste. The most sterile place in the entire Singularity for the fires of extinction erases all life— even microbes. His immense magical energy reserve returned to full, as it has after each resurrection. It was how he could endlessly use his Noble Phantasm.
Heracles raised his bow— his most trusted weapon— and nocked three arrows at once before pulling back.
Heracles felt himself return to his Twelve Labors, back when he felt so annoyed by Helios' glare that he shot an arrow at the sun. It missed, but Helios was impressed with Heracles' audacity and gifted him a chariot.
He won't miss this time. Not against this Sun.
Suddenly, he felt himself be boosted. More magical energy flowed into him.
Jason… he must be near. Or maybe it's Medea's Divination. Either way, Jason must've seen Heracles' battle with his greatest obstacle and chose to empower the demigod.
"
Faster than ever before, boosted by a newfound power coming from the Holy Grail that sustains this Singularity, he began to nock two or three arrows at once and let them loose. They traveled in strange, unpredictable trajectories with the barrage no longer appearing like it was a minigun— no, that's an understatement for the number of arrows in the air at once.
No sooner had the arrows traveled more than a meter after leaving the bow did Heracles notch and draw back a second volley.
It was divine slaughter at its very best. A near-light speed assault of arrows only a demigod of Heracles' caliber could possibly produce.
Those arrows with the traits of Hydra venom closed in from all directions. There was not a single blindspot where Kukulkan wasn't met with the tip of an arrow.
In response, several terribly bright suns appeared next to Kukulkan, manifesting into existence without cause only effect akin to an Authority.
And from those suns poured forth starstuff.
Components of stars that only existed on Earth in the form of lightning. The Skyfire that was the exclusive domain of the gods until Tesla granted humanity access to it.
Torrents of raw starstuff graced those arrows like anti-air guns of battleships, appearing like lasers that manifest for a brief second and disappearing. Those plasma vaporized anything and everything caught within its light scorching those further away from it.
Kukulkan was like a hedgehog with the amount of 'lasers' lanced out from 'turrets' around her.
Not a single arrow touched Kukulkan. The Goddess raised a hand to her side. From the palm of that hand, she conjured forth a sun much larger than previous ones— its size comparable to a dining table.
An instant later, the heavens split with a deafening crack. The world screamed once more as a colossal surge of plasma speared downward at Heracles.
The demigod chose to observe the imminent destruction in front of him instead of fighting back. He wondered if this was what it was like to face Zeus in combat, a Zeus that wasn't holding back. A Zeus that was fully intent on utter annihilation. A Zeus that fought the Titans and lived.
The radiant starstuff blasted apart the clouds for as far as the eye could see. And when it hit the island the ashen earth shattered like glass, the ground itself buckling and heaving like the surface of a boiling pot of water. Molten cracks splintered beyond the ground zero of the plasma beam, spreading outwards in all directions.
It was so hot that ashes reignited, before being vaporized by the firestorm conjured up.
By the time the plasma subsided, the island was a crater, a pool filled with white-hot lava. Water tried to fill the empty spaces, but it turned to steam when it touched the lava.
Yet even in the face of this destruction, in the face of all this display of godly might and power, Heracles stubbornly held on.
His feet were half sunken into the lava. His eyes were full of defiance. He let out several breaths as his mind got to work, analyzing how to kill the target in front of him.
Truly, Heracles was worthy of the title 'Greatest Hero of Greece'. Truly, he was a prime candidate for the title of 'strongest' in the Throne of Heroes. Truly, he was a good friend to willingly go this much for Jason.
"How much of an unkillable cockroach can you be?" Kukulkan said, "That blast would've easily killed Longinus yet you're still alive. How many lives did I take away? You can't have that many lives left, right?"
A mortal might've fallen to total despair with how Kukulkan didn't even look winded after unleashing that island-shattering attack. It was as though she had merely taken a stroll outside— no, even less than that.
He could tell this Goddess must be running out of unique methods for killing him. Over this entire battle, aside from that initial slam attack, this Goddess has been steadily climbing the escalation ladder.
His every new death required more and more destructive methods.
How soon before it becomes world-breaking?
Instead of using his Bow of Hydra, Heracles pulled up his fist in what modern people would recognize as a boxing stance. He was ready to throw down hands.
Tilting her head, the Goddess was befuddled for a moment before smirking.
In a prideful act, Kukulkan abandoned her advantageous position by dropping down into the molten ground, standing at the same level as the demigod.
The Goddess began walking around Heracles like a predator circling their injured prey.
"Do you only have one life left in your God Hand? Hrmm, there it is, that human-like defiance to the end. Even against impossible odds, you choose to fight rather than lie down and die."
There was a hint of nostalgia in Kukulkan's tone. It was as though she were intimately familiar with defiance against something as inevitable as destiny.
"Hehehe. In a way, I guess I should thank you. You've made me realize just how much pain I can experience, and in turn, raised my pain tolerance so much that the cramps from overusing these borrowed Authorities felt like a spark compared to the inferno—"
Heracles used his leg to sweep some of the yellow-hot lava up into the air, severing Kukulkan's line of sight with him. The demigod moved like he never had before.
And he sent forth nine punches in rapid succession against his enemy. His punches went through the veil of lava that blocked her sight.
Since Heracles was using the Nine Lives technique on his fist, he didn't have to utter its name unlike with a weapon. Fists are the second weapon of humans since time immemorial, right after teeth.
He went with maximum lethality. A storm of nine pummeling strikes aimed at the throat, neck, ears, diaphragm, ribs, and nose where, even if it's not lethal, it'll hurt and disorientate.
Kukulkan moved back, out of the range of his punches.
Sadly, unlike with a bow or spear, a fist's range is only as far as one's arms.
In an accusatory tone, Heracles said, "You don't know how to fight. When you throw a punch, you're just throwing it without being part of a technique or martial art."
Kukulkan looked dismissive.
"Martial arts is like working out; it's there to close the gap between two near-peer opponents. Me? I don't need any fancy martial arts when I can just break my enemy through overwhelming speed and power."
(Optional BGM: Kalwaria No Hoshi)
A change rippled from Kukulkan. A great deluge of magical energy started radiating from her body. She was burning brighter than ever.
Heracles' eyes widened as he beheld the precipice of what Kukulkan was about to do next. He had to cover his eyes lest they be burned out by the radiance that Kukulkan projected.
"Such— power—!"
She was like a star—a sun that burned with a temperature of 16 million degrees. The amount of magical energy that merely orbited her relatively small frame, like planets around stars, skyrocketed by the passing millisecond. Very quickly, they surpassed all the magical energy of Heracles' godly self, then Poseidon, then the very structure of Mount Olympus itself.
She held nearly the equivalent of a whole continent's worth of magical energy. An entire Texture!
As of right now, she held more energy within her than the entirety of the Singularity. At least ten times over.
Easily greater than the whole Ark of the Covenant that Jason seeks. If she simply releases that energy bound within her immediate vicinity, it'll annihilate this era. It'll seriously damage an entire Texture— a whole layer of reality!
"For example, I ask you: how are you going to fight against what I'm about to do next? What martial arts could possibly defend against this attack that I'm about to unleash?"
This whole time, she was playing with him, like a child with an action figure.
"Not a single being in this world has seen what I'm about to show you, Heracles. Be glad. Feel worthy. Stand proud, you are strong, but I am stronger.
Those magical energies condensed into sheer greenness. And that greenness sheathed the Goddess like armor, transforming her into a featureless green titan.
Her height now greatly surpassed Heracles. She stood so tall that everyone in this whole Singularity, if they were on the high seas, could spot the massive green titan. Even those resting in caves, or those whose line of sight is blocked by the silhouette of an island, would feel that a concentration of incredible power has just amassed, and that's why the sky was changing colors.
Heracles barely reacted to how the ground underneath his feet arose, a platform floating in the air. The green titan raised a hand. That hand was now blinding, vibrating with raw destructive scintillating light. It was annihilation, taking the form of that hand above Heracles.
"Die."
The titan slammed her palm down upon Heracles' head.
The platform… disappeared. It vanished in a burst of exotic radiation alien to this planet.
Though Heracles was dealt with, that hand continued its descent. Like a falling hammer, when the hand smashed into the island the whole world trembled and vibrated. A shockwave emanated from the site of impact. Tall debris clouds and other elements were thrown into the upper atmosphere in a gargantuan geyser of materials.
The island folded underneath the hands of the green titan, crumbling like a piece of paper. Water tried to seep in as the whole outcropping of Earth's crust sank beneath the waves, but the sheer heat present made that an impossibility. Then, the water shot outwards.
Colossal tsunamis that would grow to become kilometers tall as they neared the coast rushed out in all directions like heralds of a king, carrying the force of impact as their message. If this happened in the modern day, the entire world would feel the earth under their feet rumbling in the form of an earthquake. Buildings would crumble and the tsunami would wash away much of the coasts that bordered the Atlantic Ocean, with untold ecological and human devastation for everything involved.
Those waves would've continued traveling across the world if not for the presence of mountains that served as the only efficient breakwater.
Until those waves halted in their tracks, the green titan vanished in a flash of light. What remained where the titan's heart should be was a Goddess glowing with such radiance it pierced through the curtain of materials that shrouded her form.
In a display of raw, undiluted Authoritative might, Kukulkan halted the waves and debris in their tracks. Billions of tons of water stopped abruptly as if they were professional soldiers, only marching forth when their officers issued the command.
The Goddess redirected the force held within those waters upwards into the air, causing a section of the ocean to effectively 'jump' several dozen meters into the air before crashing and settling down.
As though the cloud that shrouded her mind had disappeared, Kukulkan appeared almost distraught at the damage she had caused. Her gaze struggled to fully take in how large that geyser of debris was becoming as it continued to rise into the upper atmosphere. Was it perhaps that vast greeneries were destroyed? Since greenery was a rarity in her last world.
Or perhaps she was like someone who had woken up from a hangover and saw the destruction they caused last night because of drunkenness, all the drunk texts they sent serving as only embarrassment.
Either way, the Goddess quickly left, heading back to where Zvezdnyy was.
_______
AN: It's all fun and games until you realize how destructive you are. Kuku's first use of her Noble Phantasm in F/GO!