Havanah had long since lost track of what round of this spar she was on but every single round prior to the one she was about to begin, by stepping foot back into the pagoda after getting blown to smithereens by the armillary not even a second ago, was irrelevant. The round number may as well have been reset to one for all the difference it made as this next fight was going to be a real heated frenzy of magic and might. She didn't know what she was in for but there was nothing that could top this feeling of excitement so she charged headfirst back into the portal for the umpteenth time while all the spectators were musing amongst themselves about the rate at which Havanah was getting kicked out. Was Ares that much stronger than her? Weren't they 'mates'? A lover's spat perhaps? There were so many questions they wanted answered! Alas, nobody was going to talk to them so they would just have to continue speculating while waiting around in the queue.
Inside the pagoda, Ares was met with a face full of bronze magic that threatened to squash him like a bug the second Havanah returned. She was bringing out the big guns now and her magic was going to be churned out in spades. The bronze magic was like a miasmic wave that undulated through space and created a mirage wherever it passed. The air grew tighter as the magic drew towards Ares and it felt like even the air was trying to escape the zone of heaviness gradually approaching. Out of curiosity, Ares threw some annihilation pressure at it but was somewhat surprised when he lost, hard. He hadn't gone all out or anything but he'd sent over a decent enough chunk of pressure such that it really should have stood a decent chance against the gravity magic... And yet it disappeared basically instantaneously so it was evident the kiddy gloves had come off and Ares wouldn't be able to bully this cat with just pressure anymore. He could still use it, just not as a weight because it was simply pointless. Even if he could hit Havanah with it she would just reduce gravity in the area and she could walk away unscathed. Ares' pressure mastery meant little in this fight, unless he got clever with physical pressure, so he was going to have to go back to his tried and true magic. He would keep Garmr as his hidden ace for if things went wrong and, if Havanah could somehow beat that, there was something even more horrifying on the horizon. The Ares clone had invested a good amount of time playing around with the Primordial Blade and, under the right circumstances, there was some stuff he could do with it that was downright absurd. He didn't want to have things get to that point, though, so he was being reserved with Garmr to try and put Havanah in a spot she couldn't predict or overcome later on when he dropped that big surprise on her. It was 'underhanded', at least comparatively to Havanah who wasn't going to hold anything back and just laid all her cards out on the table, but Ares was actually fighting for something here and couldn't lose!
The bronze cloud had travelled pretty slowly, so Ares was able to move out of the way, but it pulverised the building it hit and acted like a black hole, warping everything it touched as any and all obstacles were sucked into the mass of gravity and forced to disappear for all eternity as they were grinded into atoms. By upping the density of the magic, and subsequently the gravity, Havanah could make the attack slow but hit hard or fast but do less damage. Ares was certain she could freely swap between both, as well as redirect the magic mid-air, but right now she was still testing the waters and seeing if Ares had any kind of response to this magic before she committed to using it long term. She didn't get any answers out of Ares, though, as he simply experimented alongside her and the full extent of his defensive capabilities were still unknown.
Rather than try again and potentially waster her time and mana, the latter of which she struggled with occasionally, Havanah picked up her sword, slung it over her shoulder, and dashed at Ares while keeping her body low to the ground. She was pushing herself forward by digging her claws through the street and pulling herself forward with her one free hand. She travelled at incredible speeds until she was within range to lunge at Ares where she was certain she held an advantage. He didn't look too physically strong, aside from the obvious pressure enhancement beefing him up, so there was a chance she could win here. Combining her raw power and gravity magic meant her strikes could match his physical prowess and maybe even come out on top. What she hadn't considered, though, was that what Ares lacked in physical strength, thanks to his adept trait, he more than made up for with technique. Havanah swung wide with her treasure sword and cleaved through the air. She leant into the swing so hard she almost stumbled after following through on it but felt confident that she'd just sliced Ares body in half. The swing had been so powerful it generated a gust of air that pierced through several buildings and caused them to crumble from a single indirect strike. There'd been little resistance on her swing, though, so she turned around to see the results of her attack only to see Ares crouched on top of the flat side of her blade and extending his hand towards her with a smug smile.
Flick BANG
The finger contained an Echo within it that blasted Havanah's head back and almost caused her neck to snap off her shoulders backwards. Thankfully she'd used gravity magic in the nick of time to slow the recoil of her swinging head so, although it hurt a ton, and she felt parts of her throat ripping, she'd managed to stay alive. That being said, she was in a terrible position as Ares was still right in front of her and she needed to bring her head forward to see what he was doing and block his next attack. Havana tried stepping backwards as she did it but this was pointless as Ares was still sat comfortably atop her sword the entire time and didn't need to move to follow along after her. When Havanah tried to take in the battlefield once more, after raising her head up, all she saw was a boot heading right for the bridge of her nose while Ares chanted 'Stamp Out' and tinged his footwear in a golden hue that made Havanah think she was getting struck by real solid gold.
BANG.
Havanah's face received yet another blow but this one was way more significant and shot her backwards through multiple buildings that crashed down all around her as she continued to slide through the streets. She managed to tumble to a landing position and grind to a halt as she kissed her teeth before displaying a toothy grin and spitting out some blood from her mouth. That last attack hurt but nothing was really damaged in a meaningful way so this was confirmation for her that a close range fight was still the best course of action. If that was as good as Ares' hits got then she could withstand them for more than a day straight! Her resilience was off the charts and Ares could only nimbly dodge her assault for so long! He would mess up eventually and Havanah could up the likelihood of such a failure on his part by weaving magic into her strikes. She hadn't used gravity magic in that last swing so the timing of it was fairly consistent and easy tp predict. By switching up her timings he would have to respect her attack a whole lot more and put him on the backfoot so she charged once more, unphased by her previous lack of success, and went right for the throat yet again.
Ares could tell what was coming, thanks to Omniscience, so he made a snap decision that ought to ruin what appeared to be a good move and turn it into a costly mistake. "Not Even Light!" This was Ares' very own anti-magic but what was noteworthy here was how it interacted with magic used on the self or on a person's weapons. The black hole targeted the current location of the mana so by attaching magic to a body or weapon the black hole could freely target people, something it would typically struggle to do unless he used that one combination with Black Blossom from a while back. If Havanah dared coat her weapon in gravity magic, the black hole would slurp it right up and bye bye goes the weapon! She could bring it back, as it was a personal treasure, but finding which dimension it had been sucked into would take a while and give Ares temporary freedom to reverse the tides. Furthermore, boosting her muscles with gravity magic would cause them to rip as well so, as long as nothing went wrong, she was about to feel the burn!
"No."
No? Unless Ares was misremembering, he'd never been told 'no' during a fight before... Was Havanah mumbling to herself? Was she complaining about his anti-magic? Was she throwing a childish tantrum and demanding Ares put the magic away so she could have fun? He didn't quite understand, at first at least, what was going on here but his questions were answered shortly. As it turned out, weird though it was, 'No' was an art! It was a very simple art too as it functioned like a counter spell. Normal 'counter spell' arts, from the anti-magic pillar usually, had to be activated beforehand and used as a sort of trap. If the opponent met the trap's criteria then the next art they tried to cast would fizzle out. Some of these magics could place a d=cooling down period on the art used to prevent it from appearing again s=during the fight. Some could quadruple the mana cost of using the art again, permitting it to make an appearance but at a costly rate that would be a massive drain on a cultivator's resources. Some could cause the art to randomly turn into another art whenever it was used. There were a lot of different punishments for these sorts of traps should they go off but the thing they all had in common was that they were predictive in nature. You couldn't use these AFTER the art was cast otherwise it just wouldn't work.
This was where No came in because Havanah could just flat out deny any cast or chant she didn't like the sound or look of. If she cast an art, and somebody else tried to cast an art that could defend against hers, all she had to do was say No and bye bye their defences went. Ares' Not Even Light was Not Even There because the mana just dispersed and nothing came of his chant because it never even formed into the art to begin with. This art was overpowered! Ares was complaining inwardly and hoping there was some kind of limit to this art! Sure he could just protect his own arts with disintegration magic but that was annoying and he didn't want to have to go to such lengths just to use ordinary magic! Thankfully, Ares was right in that there was roughly a ten second period in which Havanah could not use No again. Silver lining! Though not a silver lining that would be applicable forever. 'No' used to only be usable once every five minutes when Havanah first invented it. Her cultivation rising meant she could use this thing more frequently. Granted the rate at which that time period limit decreased was also decreasing but, at some point, it wasn't impossible for No to no longer even have a limit. Only protecting your magic the hard way, each and every single time, would be a solution to this troublesome art one day and that was a spooky thought! Once again, Ares was reminded that fundamental champions had some crazy magic at their disposal... Or, well, this version of Ares hadn't seen Mako's magic yet but that was neither here nor there because the point was that it was guaranteed to be impressive in one way or another. Every champion would have an art that made normal cultivators gasp upon seeing it. Ares had multiple but he was an exception because destruction was just flat out the strongest pillar ever and so it made sense his combat options would be higher than others at any given time. That's not to say the other champions couldn't invent more though, just that Ares would, on average, have more! They would improve in due time so Ares had to stay on his toes lest Havanah here pulled off something akin to his Absolute Reversal nonsense during the international and invented something troublesome on the fly. Speaking of Absolute Reversal, now that Ares' defensive art had been denied, he threw out an Absolute Reversal style counter stance to salvage the situation and combat this annoying cat's swing.
This was a tricky situation to be in because a counter attack here was more of a detriment than a boon against Havanah's gravity magic. Ares needed to understand the attack perfectly to be able to throw it back in her face but how could he when his opponent had free control over it? If she slowed or sped it down or up respectively, right at the last millisecond, he would be in for a world of hurt! Also, this wasn't an Absolute Reversal either, as the clone didn't know that art, so his chances of success with this random counter attack were even lower! This was still his best option though so he went for it because he was no coward, he had no fear! Literally... Although the clone didn't know that. The clone would never be able to use that art anyway as he would always die first, before his opponent, so learning such a suicidal thing was pointless!
Havanah closed in with an indecipherable expression filled with glee. It was great that she was enjoying herself but Ares was struggling to figure out her intentions as a result of this because her face was unreadable. As her gravity magic kept randomly swapping between heavy and light, Ares was going to have to take a complete guess here in the hopes he would get the right timing. He wanted to palm down the sword on its flat side but if he was too early or late he might even just die. Being too early was better than being late, though, so he psyched himself into swinging his palm early and, lo and behold, he screwed up! Havanah had seen his intentions and slowed her swing down which, combined with Ares' half-hearted and cowardly attempt, meant his hand slapped against the bladed edge and now he was in trouble.
BANG
Ares' hand was crushed on the spot and four of his fingers, all of them except the thumb, were sliced clean off. This didn't even remotely slow down the sword's progress though so it barrelled through where his fingers had once been and cut into his stomach. Ares was on point with resorting to his plan B though and managed to throw up a pressure deflect just in the nick of time to prevent himself from getting split into two halves. Funnily enough, at this cultivation, he wouldn't have even died to that but it was still not preferable so he didn't allow it. This deflect was a bit late and messy, however, so there was recoil which sent him flying just like what happened to Havanah a short while ago. He'd gotten the short end of the stick in their duel and he paid a much bigger price for doing poorly than she did. He couldn't keep this up and fighting in her face like this was going to wind up with him lying on the floor in multiple pieces if he was stubborn about it. Without Garmr he was blatantly outclassed in melee combat even if he had the advantage in terms of skill. The lack of raw power was really complicating things and, thanks to her gravity magic, Havanah could keep up with his speed. Ares rolled to his knees and pulled out a bow and arrow, both made of pressure, and shot it back at Havanah to keep her distracted for a moment while he thought his strategy through. The arrow was shockingly powerful for something that had barely any effort put into it but Ares was about to learn that No was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to Havanah's rule bending.
"Flip."
If cancelling magic was problematic then reversing its flight trajectory, and homing it on the caster, was even worse! Ares' magic was frozen in time while a square cut-out of reality quite literally flipped in a 3d space until it was now facing him. Reality, in that one spot, would now be backwards forever but it was impossible for most people to tell. They might experience a strange air flow in that space, compared to anywhere else nearby, if they really paid attention but it wasn't something many people would notice. What was plain to see for all, though, was Ares' pressure arrow come sailing right back at him at the same speed, if not a little faster, than he originally fired it! Havanah didn't know about Ares' pressure bloodline, so dealing with this arrow was easy as he just used telekinesis to halt it in place, but that didn't change the fact that another new, incredibly annoying, art had just reared its head! No and Flip did very simple things but made magic really hard to carelessly throw out there and hope for the best... Aers could throw more powerful magic at Havanah but if it was just going to come back and bite him in the ass then what was the point of escalating things? Was it Garmr time? If Havanah actually casted an offensive art, something from any aspect she wielded other than the rule breaking aspect, Ares would have to bring out the beast! Actually, he shouldn't call Garmr that. Garmr was him, Ares' real self, so he was quite literally calling himself a monster... Oh well, that wasn't relevant! What mattered here was that he couldn't defend himself with magic, as she'd just Flip or No it, and he couldn't use pressure as her gravity magic beat it, so there was only really one option for an Ares this weak. Slathering everything in disintegration would work if the cultivation gap wasn't as big as it was but, in this case, the big bad wolf was going to have to teach this cat a thing or two about the food chain out in the wild.
"Rock On!" before Ares could transform, Havanah managed to cast another art. The fingers on both her hands were, ironically, doing the rock on gesture as she held her hands high to sky for whatever reason. Ares couldn't guess what this art was about because he was blind to the kind of person Havanah was. She was actually just like him in many ways and they had eerily similar tendencies. As it turned out, when a bunch of massive space rocks appeared directly overhead and were ready to crash down onto the planet, this art was actually a variant of a meteor summoning art! Why did all the stronger cultivators and creatures seem to like chucking meteors at people?! It was a fairly common occurrence but also somewhat understandable. Meteors could hit a wide range, do a lot of damage against a single foe if the attacks all congregated in one spot, was surprisingly cheap on the mana front, and was hard to fend off due to how scattered it was. It was just all around a good tool so you could probably predict the talent of a cultivator by whether or not they could summon meteors or not. It was like the Water Bullet of expert cultivators and was a barrier to entry for the cool cultivators club. Of course there were exceptions, and not every strong cultivator necessarily had to have an art like this, but it wasn't shocking a fundamental champion could pull this out of their sleeve.
As for Havanah's gravity version, her rocks were M.A.S.S.I.V.E and even put Mako's rockets to shame. She'd pulled these out of deep space with her magic so these were real rocks that had been clumped together to form gigantic weapons. There were even a couple moon sized amalgamation rocks that had been stitched together hovering up above so if she crashed everything into this planet at once she could honestly destroy it with ease. This was a planet in a lower domain, after all, so a fundamental champion at Havanah's level could wipe it out of existence with a single art for sure. Anyway, regarding the name of the art, it was a dumb pun! Ares' opinion of Havanah went up! Large, chaos inducing arts? puns? A generalist in combat who was particularly talented at just about everything without any clear drawbacks? If Ares grew a tail, or Havanah lost hers, these two might as well be identical twins! The way they went about it was different but they were both cultivators who shared very similar ideals. 'Combat was fun', 'practice was good', 'the larger the better', and 'I will win off the back of my sheer talent compared to yours'. Dabbling in everything, and making sure all of it's usable, to have an option in every situation while primarily relying on gigantic scale attacks to overwhelm foes. That was the Havanah and Ares way. Havanah's pressure mastery was a little lacking, and her finesse with weapons could be improved, but she was on track to do exactly what Ares was doing. These two could swap magic for a day and nobody would even notice because their goals with their magic was the exact same and the way they went about achieving it was similar too. No and Quietus Edict, Flip and Absolute Reversal, Rock On and Auriferous Subjugation.
Ares respected the meteor art but that didn't mean he was going to tolerate it hanging around in his presence! This was still a fight at the end of the day and, though he wasn't particularly into it yet, he was interested in taking the next step to make this fight go along quicker. This wasn't a slow back and forth with a more calculating Mako, this was going to be a swing fest in which him and Havanah just kept rapidly throwing everything at one another. Ares predicted an easy win for himself, though, because his arsenal was packing some deadly secrets that would earn him an easy win if he deployed them. Garmr was the first, and would be making his appearance right now, so Ares transformed in about a second flat, stunning Havanah who'd never even seen a revenant before. She'd heard about it but it went in one ear and out the other. She was also an animal humanoid race and she didn't exactly think it was a big deal. She couldn't transform into a cat, as far as she knew, and it didn't provide too many benefits to really care about. She was a bit stronger than an average human, and her instincts were sharper, but it wasn't anything drastic. Havanah therefore assumed other animal races were similar and, yet, here was a colossal wolf king standing on two feet, towering above her and blotting out the sun with his large frame, looking to change the tides of this battle once more and put Havanah ten feet in the dirt. there was an aura emanating from his sheer presence that dwarfed Havanah's confidence and instinctively buried the thought that she was going to get crushed into her brain. If she tried to swing at that moving mountain it would swing back and it would not be a fair fight at all. How she went from 'winning' to one-sidedly losing in the span of a second she didn't know but what was clear to her was that unless she threw absolutely everything at this creature she wouldn't even leave a single dent. his physical strength went from pitiable to monstrous nd she was about to learn just monstrous it truly was.
Garmr, or rather Ares, stretched his back muscles and puffed up its chest as it had been a while since it last saw the light of day. With a small crick of the neck, it shifted its gaze upwards and scoffed at the pebbles that were zooming straight him. One nail was pointed at the incoming collective of devastation in response and a single flick of the wrist caused the world to screech as the sharpness of his nail tore through reality, splintering at least half of the rocks above in one fell swoop. Shards of rock flew off in every direction for miles on end, turning the landscape into a jagged and spiky mess of earth, while Ares sauntered over to stand directly underneath one of the rocks that made it through unscathed. It wasn't unlucky that he'd missed it because, actually, it was intentional. He'd left about five rocks unharmed so that he could catch them and use them like they were baseballs by pitching them right back at Havanah. Ares reached up with his hand as though he were collecting rain drops and the moon sized rock fell neatly into his palm without causing a fuss. The weight of the 'ball' had been amplified by gravity magic and yet Garmr showed no signs of struggle and it were as though he was catching a bouquet of flowers instead of a massive rock. He then leaned his arm back slightly, turned to face Havanah, and grinned as he mumbled in a low voice, "Flip." The condescending jerk-wad that was an unchained Garmr launched the rock at nearly ten times the speed it came crashing down at him and, unsurprisingly, Havanah got smacked by it and was sent flying off into the distance attached to the side of the rock. There was a massive crash outside the city walls where Havanah landed, and was subsequently crushed by the meteor, but Garmr wasn't finished as he scooped up the remaining rocks one by one, juggling them in the air and tossing them one by one to land on the ever growing pile burying Havanah
BANG BANG BANG
Rock after rock poured down on Havanah and trapped her like a pharaoh in an ancient tomb. She lay partially broken underneath with blood streaming down her body but, in the darkness of the earth encasing her, a shiny white, toothy grin was all that could be seen. Her body clicked in places as she dragged her upper body higher, pushing aside the rocks burying her without the need for gravity magic as she was feeling a rush and didn't need it. The raw feeling of pushing against the obstacle blocking her and removing it by force was far more enjoyable than taking the easy way out so she relentlessly shoved her body through the pile of rubble, sustaining small cuts, bruises, and broken bones because she'd never felt so alive. The pain wasn't stopping her, it was an encouragement telling her she'd found the perfect partner to play around with. He was more than just a worthy mate and Havanah had to have him so lying around under these rocks was a waste of time.
Havanah unearthed herself to the sight of Ares standing menacingly above her and, though most people would feel fear, her heart tingled a little and her face blushed. This was really not the time, as he was about to drop a colossal fist on her fragile head and end this fight, but she couldn't help but squirm a little as a shiver ran through her spine for all the wrong reasons. Her first real loss in combat was a turn on, and she wouldn't mind laying down submissively in defeat and letting Ares do as he pleased as she proverbially exposed her belly, but, actually, it wasn't dwarfed by her innate desire to win so she did something that gave Ares pause. She blasted herself out of harm's way with her own magic! Much like how Ares frequently used Echo on himself to push his body around, Havanah had just palmed herself in the stomach with gravity magic and delayed her death to live and fight another day. Clever and not even remotely hesitant. Powerful and talented. Ares quite liked her as a cultivator and he was really impressed. This was the first time he'd ever seen anyone who was as good at this whole cultivator shtick as he was and that alone commanded his attention. A woman like this was definitely Ares' type and so he wouldn't be surprised if she ended up being one of the wives, he would be happy to have her around. It was somewhat strange, as they'd barely even spoken more than a few words in the heat of battle, but this was a very different type of connection.
Something more primal relating to instinct.
To exhaust themselves fighting from dusk 'till dawn, speak no words, and communicate their love language by ending their fierce struggle with a passionate and sweaty embrace in the open plains under the setting sun. Ares thought he understood love but this was a new type he wasn't aware of previously and he was curious to explore it in more depth. The longer he spent fighting Havanah, the more he wanted to keep trying harder and harder until he couldn't possibly exert any more power and won through sheer force of will. And the harder he tried in this fight, the more he grew to like Havanah for what was on offer. There was a certain desire to breed with a woman this capable that left Ares curious about what manner of monster she would give birth to if he impregnated her. It couldn't even really be classified as 'love' in the purest sense but it was definitely a form of attraction that Ares was struggling to resist. Love could come after, he actually really wanted to mate just as she did. His revenant side was out in full force and his mind was being clouded by animalistic judgement. To start a pack with this woman and maker her give him potentially hundreds of cubs... His breathing was quickening and she was becoming more and more attractive in his eyes the more he was forced to keep hunting her. She was becoming a very different kind of prize and he could tell she felt the same way because she wasn't done hunting him either. She still had means left at her disposal to potentially even beat Garmr and claim him in reverse. This was a mutual sensation and the sharp glares they were directing at one another directly contrasted the overwhelming lust but also complimented it in its own way.
Havanah was the first to make a move by gripping her treasure and burying it into the floor. She was about to start doing something incredible but Ares wasn't intent on letting her. He wanted to be victorious so he threw caution to the wind and did something wholly unnecessary to guarantee he came out on top. He would never live down losing on their first 'date' and it would cement her as the superior if he faltered here. He would become the trophy to be claimed and that was unacceptable; the mere thought of it boiled his blood and agitated his pride. He could not bring himself to be the prize and so he was cutting this fight short. Ares transformed back into his human form, pulled out the Primordial Blade, and buried it... Inside his stomach. Not in the ground like Havanah, but straight inside himself and he let the spatial energy flow through his every vein. He floated a couple of feet in the air and his back arched as he reached towards the stars in the night sky with an enamoured expression and chanted in a steady but booming voice...
"Primordial Star System!"
Energy welled within Ares until SPLAT he burst into pitch black spatial particles that swamped the universe. The darkness that spilled out of his destroyed body contained glittering stars within as it rolled over every inch of the planet. Havanah, before she could finish her own art, was surrounded in a pitch black void with planets, suns, and moons that all felt larger than life. There was an infinite expanse of borderline-emptiness in all directions but she could sense a dangerous foe lurking within causing her hairs to stand up on end. There was something truly horrifying creeping through this void and a prickling sensation crawled up the nape of her neck. She turned and stared at a seemingly hollow passage in space but she knew... She knew that death was coming and it couldn't possibly be averted. Two golden semi-circles appeared and gradually opened in the vast expanse of space, each the size of thousands of planets joined together, revealing a set of eyes that peered down at the insignificant creature that was Havanah. She was merely a speck of universal dust in comparison to the God observing her and she knew it.
Ares, the one in the pagoda... Had already achieved apotheosis. It was impossible to tell when but it had happened. He'd hidden his apotheosis form this entire time and was only now displaying a sort of version of it that combined with his treasure. Havanah had her own form but it would take far too long to transform into it now and she'd been too starstruck and awed to make the proper judgement call. Plus she didn't think she'd win anyway because any and all feeling in her gut, other than that of admiration, had all but disappeared in the dichotomous embrace of warm and cold nothingness. She was an irrelevant organism floating through Ares' Godly domain and was barely even one one-hundred-millionth of his size currently. She had misunderstood previously. Ares was no lurking within this universe, he WAS the universe. Every single strand of space wrapped around her. Every single planet, asteroid, or dead star. His essence had fused with the Blade's universe and he was a Primordial Space God. His nothingness magic was the core gluing it all together and he could take whatever form he so desired in this space. The real world existed beyond him, behind him, and was slowly revealed to Havanah as the space trapping her 'stood up' but it was far too late. A walking universe was born and its silhouette clashed against space in reality, beyond the horizon of this ball of earth she was pointlessly stood atop, overshadowing the simulated planet hundreds of thousands of times over. Ares was a spatial demon with golden eyes and a body made of the essence of reality itself. A single hand could crush multiple stars and a Grand Annihilation would turn an entre domain into a hellscape.
The gathering of stars leaned over the planet and every other planet within this simulated domain gathered behind his incorporeal form in a straight and orderly line. A voice like that of absolute judgement and destruction given form bellowed out, ringing through the entirety of the universe, and chanted an art.
"Extinction Syzygy."
What came next was a blur. Havanah practically blinked and she was outside the pagoda once more, this time just staring blankly into the distance. She placed a hand over her heart and could feel it racing to a degree that was entirely new to her, not quite understanding that it meant something more important than just being attracted to a mate because it was an entirely unfamiliar concept. Still, that aside, she'd found the perfect mate after all! That form of his at the end... That was a height she could aspire to. She had to admit she'd been bested but she wanted to go again. She had her own tricks up her sleeve regarding apotheosis and battling that absurd monster... She would salivate just thinking about it. She had to win and she had to claim her prize! Today was a fantastic day to discover the perfect partner and it was all coming up Havanah!