Everyone stood stiff as they viewed the goddess with her foot set on Kenpachi's head. They did not dare even consider answering her question, and it turned rhetorical by default. Over five seconds passed and nobody made a move.
"Nobody?" asked Sarasa. "Very well, then, perhaps I will choose for you."
Then, within a blink, she had already arrived right in front of Orihime and brought down her sword on the barely suspecting girl, who was just realizing that she was in immediate danger. Thankfully, she was already armed with her shield, so all she had to do was raise it as soon as she noticed she was in danger.
That was how it played out, and that way she was able to block the attack. Though her defense was successful, her eyes were widened by the sudden speed of the deity, who continued with multiple frontal attacks while Orihime continuously blocked and defended herself.
It was clear to Orihime that she was being toyed with, as she would have been impaled by now if the goddess intended to make quick work of this. From Sarasa's docile attitude, it was clear that she wasn't trying to bring a quick end to this confrontation, but rather, she was looking for excitement. She struck over and over again, while Orihime kept blocking, noticing the goddess's attacks were only getting faster while she was barely keeping up.
Kazuya wasn't quick enough to stop Sarasa from attacking Orihime, but now he was close enough to assist her and was about to strike Sarasa from behind with his blade.
Sarasa turned back. "Impressive," she remarked as she stretched forth her other hand, and another sword appeared within her grasp. With that sword, she blocked his attack.
Kazuya swore in frustration. The goddess's speed and rate of reaction were beyond human. Laying a hand on her was like trying to catch a cheetah on human legs, and it was frustrating. Then, with her brute strength, she pressed her sword against his, pushing him several feet away, causing him to fall to the ground like a rolling ball tossed aside like an abandoned toy.
Orihime thought Sarasa was now distracted by Kazuya's interference and tried initiating a lower attack by aiming her sword at the goddess's legs. But without looking back, Sarasa blocked her attack with a little twist of the hand before facing her.
"Now, where were we?" asked Sarasa before kicking Orihime's belly, sending her flying several feet before crashing into the brick wall. The hit was so severe that a lot of blood spilled out of her mouth upon impact with the hard surface. The bleeding was so much that she almost choked on her blood, coughing profusely as the thick red fluid poured out of her mouth.
"Orihime!" Kazuya cried out as he wanted to reach out to her, running in her direction, but as he was doing so, Sarasa appeared tight in front of him, bringing down her sword for his head. Kazuya did not have enough time to react, as all of his focus was now on Orihime. He needed to make sure she was okay; he couldn't control himself; she had to be okay.
Though these intentions were chivalrous, they were also foolish, as his lack of focus on the task at hand now opened him to an attack from the goddess, an attack that he could neither block nor evade. This was it for him, and by the next strike of her sword, he would get beheaded.
However, at that very second, a huge mass of stone from Shizu's direction slammed into Sarasa, driving her away from Kazuya's front and slamming her into a nearby pillar. The two large masses of stone collided with Sarasa right in the middle, seemingly crushing her into a pulp as she was sandwiched between the two heavy masses.
The large rock Shizu attacked with was the largest fragment of the defeated guardian statues of the temple, and Kazuya was lucky that Shizu was able to use it at the right time with her magical telekinesis; if she were a second early or late, he would have been dead by now.
Kazuya turned in the direction where the sudden, unexpected attack came from, and saw Shizu, breathing heavily with her hands stretched out in Sarasa's direction.
She had just saved his life.
"Focus, Kazuya!" Shizu yelled at him. "Your distraction almost cost you your life!"
It was at that moment Kazuya realized himself and bit his lower lip, disappointed with himself for losing his focus. If not for Shizu's timely intervention, his dismembered head would have been rolling on the ground by now.
Orihime struggled to get up, holding on to her sword for support as she looked at Kazuya, with blood slowly drooling from her mouth. She stood upright, though with a struggle, and spat out the residual blood from her mouth. Kazuya's eyes widened, wondering how she was able to survive that hit against the wall.
"So you lost your focus, eh?" an unexpected voice came from behind Kazuya. "How many times during our training sessions did I tell you never to let that happen?"
"Kenpachi?" Kazuya called out as he looked back, not believing that the person who had just been impaled by the goddess's sword was now standing upright like it was a casual injury.
Kazuya was about to ask, "What is going on there?" until Shizu looked at Genta, who was holding out both hands, each in the direction of one of the injured adventurers.
"Well done, child," Shizu said to Genta, who was currently healing Kenpachi and Orihime with the multiple Kaifuku. Then she looked back at Kazuya and the other two, saying, "Don't get distracted; I doubt my attack would even be enough to break a bone in her body!" She said to them, "While she cleans up your mess, focus on taking her down at all costs! Understood?"
"You don't have to say it, old woman," Kazuya replied as the other two stood beside him, bloodstained but healed, ready for another round with the goddess.
Then, before their very eyes, the large rock that crashed Sarasa against the pillar split in two, with both halves falling on each side. Then, she noticed that something had flowed from her forehead and dropped from her chin onto her white kimono, forming a visible red spot on the glowing fabric.
When she noticed it, she frowned, hoping the stain wasn't caused by what she was thinking.
"Am I... bleeding?" she asked audibly in disbelief as she placed a finger on the strange-feeling area on her forehead, and on her finger, for the first time in a long time, she saw it: her blood.
The adventurers were almost as shocked as she was. They never thought it would have been this easy to make the goddess of war bleed, but now they had done it, and she wasn't happy about it.
Her docile face switched into cold anger as she levitated herself over ten feet above the ground, her eyes glowing white. She noticed Kenpachi and Orihime standing erect before her and frowned again, wondering how they were suddenly standing as if nothing had happened to them.
"Aren't you both supposed to be dead?" she asked, before looking around as her eyes glowed even brighter.
Shizu noticed what was happening and immediately turned to Genta with tear-filled eyes as she opened a portal, saying, "Get out of here, now! "She can see through my hidden magic!" she cried out to Genta, who hadn't realized what was going on.
Then Sarasa spotted Genta, and before the little girl could heed her master's order, she came behind her. Shizu gasped as she saw the goddess appear behind Genta, and before the young girl could look back, the goddess ran her sword through her chest, prompting Genta to scream out in pain.
"GENTA!" the adventurers cried out right before Sarasa drew out her sword, leaving the limp Genta falling to the ground, dead.
"Using hidden magic to hide the magical life energy she was using to heal them... I must admit, you humans are quite clever," Sarasa said as she stared at Shizu.
Seeing Genta fall to the ground with a large hole in her chest, Shizu lost her mind, flaring up in rage. As she knelt beside Genta's body, her anger triggered her telekinetic powers, which got out of control, causing the pillars holding up the temple's roofs to start crumbling.
It felt like a catastrophic earthquake had seized the area as Shizu cried out in fierce anger. The magic emitted by her rage was so fierce that the whole temple was beginning to shake, so much so that if it continued for much longer, the temple would collapse.
However, Sarasa showed no heed to Shizu's angry show of power but simply whispered...
"Petty nuisance!"
With those whispered words, Sarasa went behind the old woman within a blink, tearing through Shizu's back with her sword. Blood sprang out from behind her as her screams turned from a show of emotional agony into an expression of physical pain.
Shizu fell to the ground, collapsing into a pool of her blood. Seeing this, Kazuya, Kenpachi, and Orihime lunged at the goddess, screaming out angrily as they raised their swords high.
"How pathetic," Sarasa remarked as she simply swung her sword in one direction, cutting into their bellies while they were still above the ground.
This sudden attack from Sarasa caused their bellies to burst open in mid-air right before they fell to the ground.
For the pilgrims still in the temple, witnessing the goddess defeat the desecrator was a gory thing to witness. At this point, they couldn't bring themselves to worship anymore, as all that lay in their hearts for this deity was nothing more than fear.
With blood stains everywhere, all five adventurers lay on the ground, either dead or just a minute from dying. They had come to kill the goddess, but we're all now lying on the ground, defeated.