Aatu nods his head in acknowledgment upon hearing your answer, and the moment you blink your eyes, you're floating out in space alone. The atmosphere is quiet and beautiful as you look around at a variety of colorful nebulae and galaxies that surround you in every direction, then you catch a glimpse of something in the distance that's getting brighter as it gets closer and closer to you. You try to identify what exactly it is but you're unable to, and the only thing that's clear to you from your heightened perception is that it's moving many times faster than the speed of light and it's distorting the fabric of spacetime.
That must be Uphedis and his Exemplars heading towards me…
Then, almost as if it's right on cue, you see the bright light split into four trails that go in all different directions. You watch as three of these four lights collide with separate galaxies that are at least several billion light-years apart while one of the lights remains obviously heading directly towards you. Your first instinct is to pull the book out of your robes and open it in order to prepare for Uphedis's arrival.
As you open the book, you're immediately hit with a surge of raw power before your eyes turn green and a shockwave of energy explodes around you. You take a deep breath as you nervously anticipate this fight to come, and as you begin to focus up, you realize that by using the book, you're able to see all of the Gods and what they're doing in this current moment.
Obviously concerned about them, you take this opportunity to witness each of them confront their corresponding Exemplars. The Omniversal perception that the book has granted you allows you to witness each fight as if you're actually there with them as they all happen simultaneously, and due to your concern about Mimi being in Faerah's realm, you isolate your perception on Reylesh and Faerah's fight first…
Reylesh and Faerah are standing side by side on top of a hill on some sort of lava planet, and you see that Reylesh is still wearing her black suit of armor with a serious stare on her face. Faerah, however, is still only wearing her pink dress as they both look down at a river of lava that's been recently disturbed. You notice that Reylesh is armed with a scythe that has an enormous blade while Faerah remains unarmed with no weapon, and you begin to see something rising out of the lava river in front of them where they are looking.
Reylesh's face goes pale with fear as the lava slowly rises up and you begin to see molten lava dripping off of a woman's head. Her eerie red eyes peer up at the two Gods with amusement, and after she fully stands up in the river, she begins slowly walking towards them.
" Back for round two, are we? "
Valanyah says unfazed as the lava continues to smolder on her body, dripping down back into the river around her knees.
" And you brought me an appetizer too? I thought that after our last encounter, you'd understand how weak a Goddess like you is compared to an Exemplar like me… I'd say you're either brave or incredibly stupid. "
Valanyah steps up onto the molten shore with an amused smirk before Reylesh chokes down her fear and shouts at her.
" SHUT THE FUCK UP AND DIE, YOU BITCH!! "
Reylesh screams as she blitzes Valanyah, swinging her scythe in the blink of an eye. Valanyah immediately notices the increase of Reylesh's speed, pulling out her dagger at the last second to parry her strike before leaning backwards to dodge a second slash from Reylesh's scythe. Valanyah then jumps into the air backwards, doing a backflip before landing on the molten shore on the other side of the river and looking at Reylesh with a peculiar glare.
" I see… It appears I won't have the pleasure of toying with my food this time after all… "
Valanyah says as she pulls out a second dagger from behind her and wields both of them with a reverse grip.
" Let's dance. "
Valanyah says with a sinister smirk before jumping back over the river at Reylesh and throwing a flurry of strikes at her with both daggers. Reylesh clocks Valanyah's strikes, parrying each of them with her scythe as she walks backwards before twirling her scythe around when she has an opening and putting Valanyah on the defensive. Reylesh pushes Valanyah back with a kick to her stomach and Valanyah slides backwards, digging her feet into the molten ground before throwing one of her daggers at Faerah. Faerah simply looks at the dagger flying towards her face at the speed of light before sidestepping in order to dodge it.
Reylesh closes the gap, lunging at Valanyah with her scythe and Valanyah dodges all of the slashes by leaning and walking backwards before sweeping the feet out from under Reylesh with a kick and bringing her dagger down on top of her. Reylesh catches the dagger with the polearm of her scythe and Valanyah cuts the handle in half, removing it from existence as it fades away into nothingness. Valanyah goes for another stab but she's blinded by Faerah who materializes pink ribbons from her dress and wraps them around Valanyah's eyes which causes her to miss, giving Reylesh an opportunity to grab the hilt of the dagger and kick Valanyah off of her, disarming Valanyah in the process.
You can tell that Valanyah's pissed as she pulls the ribbon off of her face and Reylesh stands up. Faerah slowly walks up beside Reylesh, standing opposite to Valanyah before Valanyah snarls demonically and makes a remark, obviously frustrated about the increase in power that both of the Goddesses have.
" You filthy whores… "
Reylesh cracks a smile, obviously seeing that she's faring better than her last fight before responding with a snarky demeanor.
" Whores? That's just me, babe. "
Valanyah roars, stomping her foot on the ground which causes the entire lava planet to erupt into tectonic shifts and explosions of fire. You see the entire planet begin to fracture before Valanyah rushes Reylesh with her claws and throws a flurry of slashes at her. Reylesh, adjusting her movements to the tectonic plates shifting around underneath her feet, begins to dodge them but Valanyah is unrelenting with her pursuit, landing several strikes that cut through Reylesh's armor like butter and dig deep into her skin to the bone. Reylesh gasps in pain, falling backwards onto the ground and Faerah attempts to immobilize Valanyah with more ribbons, but Valanyah immediately switches her focus to Faerah and claws through them before they can bind her. Valanyah closes the gap to Faerah instantly, pursuing Faerah while Reylesh begins to bleed out onto the quaking molten ground underneath her while Faerah elegantly dodges all of Valanyah's attacks as she runs away backwards.
Reylesh groans in pain and rolls her eyes before beginning to notice that her wounds are being healed, then she looks over at Faerah to see that Faerah is keeping Valanyah occupied in order to give her time to recover.
" Fuck… "
Reylesh says as her wounds finally close and she gets up to help her sister.
Then almost instantaneously, Valanyah gets fed up with chasing Faerah and quickly kneels down, punching the ground, which causes the entire planet that they're standing on to explode. Faerah floats backwards in space with a pink bubble around her to protect her from the flying debris and Reylesh immediately pushes herself off of one of the floating space rocks of the planet to tackle Valanyah in an instant. Reylesh slams her shoulder into Valanyah's stomach as she grabs her, sending both of them flying directly through another neighboring planet which immediately shatters into an explosion upon impact and Faerah quickly follows behind in her bubble. Reylesh and Valanyah instantly exit the solar system from the tackle and enter a neighboring one before Valanyah pulls Reylesh off of her by grabbing Reylesh by her face, digging her claws deep into the sides of Reylesh's skull.
Valanyah lets out a monstrous roar before spinning and slamming Reylesh down onto a planet that was in their trajectory, destroying the planet in a massive explosion before jumping to another one and doing the same thing. Valanyah destroys six planets within the solar system by swinging Reylesh around by her face like a ragdoll until Faerah gets the opportunity to intervene, moving in front of Valanyah to catch her sister and turn Reylesh's physical form into an ethereal one, which causes Valanyah to move through both of them and crash into the planet behind them.
Faerah immediately heals the bloody claw marks deep in Reylesh's head before Valanyah leaps back towards them, launching the planet that she was standing on out of its orbit and crashing it into its host star. Faerah then lets go of Reylesh and Valanyah throws a kick at Faerah, but Reylesh catches her leg before spinning around and throwing Valanyah back at the star that just swallowed the planet whole. Valanyah's body puts a hole through the star like a speeding bullet which causes it to ripple and explode into a supernova after she exits through the other side, and Reylesh quickly follows her, grabbing Valanyah by her face this time and speaking to her in an ugly tone.
" LET'S SEE HOW YOU LIKE IT, BITCH!! "
Reylesh returns the favor, moving between solar systems and slamming Valanyah into the stars that host them which causes each of the stars to explode into a supernova. Valanyah gets slammed into three stars before Reylesh enters a dual star system with stars that are about to collide due to their gravity pulling on each other. Reylesh then immediately throws Valanyah in-between the stars before they make contact and explode into an even bigger supernova, breathing heavily after leaving a trail of destroyed solar systems behind her.
Faerah comes following behind and floats next to Reylesh as she asks her a question.
" Do you think she's finished? "
Reylesh continues to pant heavily as she responds.
" I hope so… "
Without skipping a beat, you begin to hear a demonic woman's voice cackling as it echoes throughout space.
" Hahahaha! I haven't had a fight like this in ages!! "
You then see the center of the supernova begin to shift and morph as a feminine figure grows in size.
" That was a good warm-up!! Now let's see what you're really capable of!! "
The supernova begins to calm down and what remains in its place makes Reylesh's eyes go wide with fear.
You see that Valanyah has transformed into a cosmic putrescent monster with a womanly body the size of ten thousand stars with colossal jagged tendrils emerging out of six holes that are in varying places around her body. She has six glowing red eyes, several sets of horns and scaly skin that looks like it's made out of jagged bone; and as this colossal monstrosity makes eye contact with Reylesh's human-sized physical form, you begin to see Valanyah corrupt the space within the galaxies around her. A crooked smile splits open Valanyah's face from ear to ear that reveals enormous sharp teeth the size of planets as all of the nearby galaxies slowly begin to darken.
Peering down at Reylesh with all three sets of her gargantuan eyes, Valanyah taunts her.
" You didn't actually think you had a chance, did you? "
Valanyah says as she cackles again until the entirety of space around her within this universe has been reduced into nothingness.
Reylesh and Faerah immediately go on the defensive, trying to stay alive as Valanyah's enormous tendrils pierce through the void in pursuit of them, and Reylesh shouts as she asks her sister a question.
" HOW THE FUCK DID AATU EXPECT US TO FIGHT THIS THING?? "
Reylesh then closes the gap to Valanyah's monstrous form and throws a devastating blow towards Valanyah's chest that sends a cosmic cracking sound echoing throughout the void, but Valanyah simply makes her torso translucent and intangible, swallowing Reylesh whole. You then see several millions of smaller dark tendrils inside of Valanyah's body closing in on Reylesh while she's trapped inside of Valanyah's torso in an attempt to grab and kill her. Reylesh fights back, avoiding all of the dark tendrils for a short while before her wrists and ankles eventually get caught and wrapped before the tendrils hold her limbs outwards to immobilize her. Faerah continues flying around the void to evade the colossal tendrils on the outside of Valanyah's body before she's caught off guard by Reylesh's scream of helplessness as the tendrils inside of Valanyah's body begin wrapping and shaving her armor off while they slither up and down her body.
Faerah looks panicked, staring at her sister who's being sliced all over in every direction as the tendrils slide across her skin and slowly begin to dig into her body. Reylesh loses several chunks of her flesh in no time as the tendrils slither around her neck, across her stomach and between her legs; and Faerah immediately decides to fly straight towards her sister in order to save her, diving into Valanyah's torso as well in order to heal Reylesh. The smaller tendrils then pursue Faerah in an attempt to immobilize her, but she evades them while keeping her sister alive as she looks around for some sort of way to escape… then she notices something.
Deep inside this colossal monstrosity, Faerah identifies some sort of cocoon in the distance where Valanyah's heart would normally be located. She looks back down at her sister who's screaming torturously while she's being mutilated and violated by the tendrils, then she looks back up at the cocoon as if she's debating on whether going to investigate the cocoon would be worth leaving her sister to suffer.
Faerah continues to evade the tendrils for a bit longer while she debates it in her head, and The Holy Omniverse Transcript allows you to hear her thoughts as if she's speaking to you.
I have a feeling that that thing is important, but I don't want to leave her… She might not survive without my healing if I go up there… Still, I can only avoid these tendrils for so long before I get caught as well… I shouldn't waste an opportunity to save us in case I'm right… I'm going up there.
Faerah then leaves her sister with a heartbroken look on her face as she begins closing in on the cocoon. Valanyah immediately notices what Faerah is doing and her cosmic voice echoes as she tries to stop Faerah with more tendrils that appear in front of her.
" Where do you think you're going!? "
Faerah elegantly spins and dodges as she gets farther away from the tendrils and closer to the cocoon, and it's not long before Faerah is able to see some sort of nude woman who's trapped inside of it as if she's asleep with her eyes open.
" Okay… What do we have here? "
Faerah says as she finally reaches the cocoon. You hear her thoughts again as she stares through the translucent shell at the woman inside.
This must be the soul…
Faerah then puts her hands on the outside of the cocoon and the cocoon begins to glow pink. As the cocoon glows, Faerah uses her empathetic power to see and feel who Valanyah's host was before her possession.
She was a Goddess in another multiverse… and she was beautiful…
Faerah thinks in a soft voice before Tom's voice begins to echo within your mind.
The Holy Omniverse Transcript reminds you of what he told you regarding the liberation of Valghuli back when you were fighting the Valghul that was possessing Sir Arthur…
" There are two known ways to separate a Valghul from its host. Right now, Sir Arthur is trapped inside of his own body because the Valghul is using him to anchor itself to a physical form. Just as I've told you before, Valghuli are actually unbeings that traverse the Omniverse through the thoughts of mortals. Without a host to possess, they can't interact with the physical domain at all… The first and more difficult method of liberating a host from a Valghul involves invigorating the host's soul that's trapped within their own body… "
She's going to invigorate the soul of Valanyah's host…
The tendrils finally catch and wrap Faerah from all sides while she's touching the cocoon before violently attempting to pull her away from it.
" NO!! "
Valanyah shouts before Reylesh goes unconscious from the blood loss and the tendrils rip her body in half at her stomach, killing her instantly before you see her intestines float and bleed out of both halves of her lifeless corpse. Faerah continues to resist the tendrils that are shredding her dress and shaving her skin off as they try to pull her away from the cocoon, and her hands glow brighter and brighter as she slowly loses more and more blood from her physical form.
I'm… gonna… set you… free…
Faerah exasperates as she struggles through the pain and fights back against the tendrils. The cocoon continues to glow more and more intensely until it eventually fractures before Faerah finally gets pulled away back into the void. Valanyah screams a cosmic screech as she attempts to rip Faerah's physical form apart, but the instant she tries, the cocoon shatters.
" IMPOSSIBLE!! "
Valanyah screams as her monstrous form immediately dissipates and Faerah is left with her skin torn to shreds, her body almost bare and bloody, and her sister's mutilated corpse that was ripped in half floating beside her in space. She then floats over to Reylesh's corpse and holds the upper half of her sister's torso with heartbroken eyes. Tears run down Faerah's face, and it's not long before Reylesh's body dissipates into nothingness as well.
" We did it… Reylesh… and I'm so sorry… "