The roar of the Manticores was a chorus of chaos, each bellow a living threat that resonated in the hearts of the warriors of the White Pole. The creatures charged in endless waves, their fangs gleaming with venom capable of corroding even light itself. Ceres did not hesitate. With a sweep of his hand, he summoned a barrier of celestial fire that halted the first onslaught, though the impact made the ground beneath his feet tremble.
"Formation!" shouted Rikumi, raising his sword as the soldiers around him regrouped. "Don't let them break the line!"
The Manticores showed no signs of stopping. Their bodies, an amalgamation of claws, scorpion tails, and torn wings, were living nightmares that crushed the ground with each step. One of them leaped over Ceres' barrier, heading straight for Amayori.
With a swift motion, Amayori drew her Kusanagi sword. The blade, imbued with pure energy, sliced cleanly through the beast before it could touch her. Her gaze remained fixed on the front, calculating and lethal. "This is just the beginning," she murmured to herself, as another Manticore lunged toward her.
From the rear, Shizuhana observed the chaos. She wielded no weapons, but the aura surrounding her seemed enough to keep anyone who got too close at bay. "Brute force won't be enough," she said softly, almost as a thought. "Every strike we land only feeds the distortion."
At that moment, however, a much larger Manticore, nearly three times the size of the others, advanced through the horde. Its eyes gleamed with a malevolent purple light, and its presence momentarily halted the battle.
"It's the Alpha!" Rikumi exclaimed, pointing his sword. "Everyone, with me!"
Ceres, his face tense, raised his arm to stop Rikumi. "No. That one is mine."
Before Rikumi could respond, Ceres stepped forward, surrounded by an aura of golden light that burned like a rising sun. Every step he took made the earth tremble, and the smaller Manticores instinctively recoiled.
"Come," said Ceres, fixing his gaze on the Alpha. "I'll show you why they call me the Sun of the Dawn."
The Alpha roared, releasing a wave of dark energy that caused even the bravest warriors of the White Pole to take a step back. But Ceres remained unmoved. With a swift motion, he unleashed a pillar of light directly at the creature, which responded by dodging with an unnatural speed for its massive size.
The battle between the two began. Every attack from Ceres illuminated the battlefield, while the Alpha's strikes distorted the space around it.
Meanwhile, the rest of the warriors fought desperately to contain the swarm of Manticores. Amayori led a precise offensive, cutting down the creatures attempting to flank them, while Rikumi and her soldiers held the line with sheer determination.
At the center of the battlefield, Shizuhana stood motionless, her eyes closed as she murmured inaudible words. Suddenly, a surge of gray energy emanated from her, effortlessly sweeping away the nearby Manticores. Her gaze lifted toward the Alpha and Ceres. "This balance won't last much longer," she said quietly, though no one was close enough to hear.
Ceres and the Alpha were locked in a titanic duel, each clash of light and darkness shaking the battlefield. However, the true threat wasn't just the leader of the Manticores but the overwhelming number of creatures that continued to appear. It seemed as if the ground itself was vomiting them forth, an endless wave devouring everything in its path.
"This isn't normal," Amayori said as she dodged the tail of a Manticore trying to ensnare her. Her eyes narrowed, scanning the horizon. A dark cloud of energy swirled in the distance, pulsating like a sick heart. "They're not acting on instinct. Someone is controlling them."
"Who could control something so monstrous?!" Rikumi shouted, sweeping her flame-imbued spear to knock back three Manticores.
Amayori didn't respond, her gaze slightly unsettled as she searched for an answer she couldn't yet grasp.
As the gods and warriors of the White Pole organized themselves under Ceres' command, the Manticores advanced with ferocious intensity. The hundred beasts seemed to feed off the very chaos they represented, and each step they took made the battlefield quake. Their roars were not mere sounds but waves of energy destabilizing defenses and creating cracks in the earth.
"Hold the lines firm!" commanded Ceres, his voice thundering across the battlefield. "Don't let them break through! Amayori, lead the left flank!"
Shizuhana, still at the center of the formation, adjusted her grip on the powerful weapon Ame-no-nuboko. Her gaze bore into the creatures with an intensity that seemed to overflow her thoughts. These weren't ordinary beasts; they were pure manifestations of chaos. Every action they took, no matter how erratic it seemed, followed a pattern not easily understood.
"Shizuhana, what are you doing?" Hanuman shouted from his position, bringing down a smaller Manticore. "We need your strength here!"
She didn't respond immediately. In her mind, something was beginning to take shape—a vague but growing understanding of the nature of these creatures. "Hanuman," she finally said with unusual calm, "these beasts aren't fighting just to destroy. Every movement they make is connected to something... something hidden within them."
Without waiting for a reply, Shizuhana advanced toward one of the larger Manticores, its black wings spread wide as if to block out the sun. The creature slashed at her, its claws slicing the air with a deafening roar, but Shizuhana dodged with supernatural precision, moving as if she knew exactly where it would strike.
Meanwhile, Amayori led the left flank. Her Kusanagi sword cut through the Manticores with swift, precise movements, but even her skill couldn't stem the endless tide. "Ceres!" she shouted, turning toward him as she fought. "These creatures are endless. If we keep this up, we'll wear ourselves out before we can stop them!"
Ceres raised his scepter, its light shining like a thousand suns, and unleashed an arc of energy that obliterated a dozen Manticores in an instant. "Then we won't wear out," he replied, his voice an anchor restoring the morale of the combatants. "We'll fight until none are left standing. That's what it means to protect the light of dawn!"
The battlefield became a whirlwind of energy and chaos, where every god and warrior fought to contain the creatures that seemed to multiply by the second. But at the center of it all, Shizuhana continued her march toward something deeper, something even she could not yet define.
As the battle raged on, Shizuhana finally reached the Alpha. Her eyes met the creature's, and for a brief moment, she felt a strange connection, as if the chaos surrounding her was challenging her directly. Wielding Ame-no-nuboko, her energy began to radiate with a force only she could comprehend.
The Alpha, far from intimidated, roared fiercely, charging toward Shizuhana with a devastating attack. Yet her weapon moved with extraordinary precision, channeling a surge of power that split the dark wave of energy in two. "You are not just chaos," she murmured. "There's something else within you... something fighting to control it."
The battle turned into a duel of wills. As Shizuhana fought the Alpha, something began to shift on the battlefield. The lesser Manticores seemed to slow, as if their strength were directly tied to the Alpha.
"Shizuhana is affecting it!" Amayori shouted, cutting down another Manticore attempting to attack her from behind. "If we take it down, we might win!"
"Then let's focus on holding the line while she faces it!" Hanuman yelled, swinging his massive club with crushing force, toppling three creatures at once.
Hearing this, Rikumi led the soldiers into a tighter defensive formation. "Protect her at all costs!" she commanded, her sword glowing intensely.
The Alpha moved with surprising agility for its size, delivering powerful strikes that shattered the ground and sent waves of energy disorienting nearby warriors. Yet Shizuhana remained unfazed, moving like a shadow between its attacks, her Ame-no-nuboko slicing with terrifying precision.
"What are you hiding?" Shizuhana murmured as a purple glow emerged from the Alpha's eyes. With every exchange of blows, the feeling that this creature was more than a mere monster grew stronger within her.
From afar, Amayori continued leading the left flank, fighting with a ferocity that rivaled the Manticores themselves. However, a flash of dark energy caught her attention. "Something is changing," she thought, seeing the Alpha begin to emit a rhythmic pulse, as if summoning something—a latent threat.
"Ceres!" Amayori shouted. "It's not just a leader; it's channeling something!"
Ceres, enveloped in his celestial aura, turned his gaze toward the Alpha. The pulse of energy was unmistakable—a sign that something greater was about to be unleashed. "Everyone, fall back!" he commanded, raising his scepter to form a barrier around his troops.
Shizuhana, however, did not stop. She knew that allowing the Alpha to complete its strange ritual would have catastrophic consequences. Gripping the Ame-no-nuboko with both hands, she channeled a burst of energy that struck directly toward the creature's heart. The Alpha let out a final roar, and its body began to disintegrate, but not before releasing an explosion of dark energy that spread like a shockwave.
"D-Damn it—Atikramaraksa!" Shizuhana shouted desperately before being struck by the shockwave. The force was so immense that she was hurled backward, slamming violently into the ground and dragged across several kilometers. Barely managing to remain on her knees, she gasped for breath, her body bleeding profusely.
"Hmph. B-Barely made it through that one, huh?" she said with a pained smile.
『The Alpha Manticore's self-destruction was so profound that, by sacrificing its own soul, it sought to annihilate Shizuhana's soul, striking beyond her immortality… A goddess so exalted, bleeding?—It was such an unusual sight. A single drop of Shizuhana's blood, like that of the other Gods of Dawn, is enough to fill the entire universe with celestial bodies.』
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