Chapter 104: God...Blast!

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Majeston Zelia, covered in her dark flames, became a much greater threat. But it became even worse as she randomly threw multiple fireballs around the cave.

The dark flames were very strange as they seemed impossible to lit off, except for Edward who could absorb them. But if the others were hit, and didn't have his help, they would be helpless as they burned.

So suddenly, Edward, the weakest of the bunch, the only mortal, who was supposed to have a supporting role, at best, became the most important of the team.

After absorbing the fire from Thor and Tyr, Edward threw Aeglos up before raising both of his arms to the side. With his gesture, a tall wall was brandished right in front of Zelia.

It was a weak wall, even an average human would be able to knock a hole into it, but as the flames slammed into it, although they destroyed it, they were stopped from spreading around the cave, staying contained near Zelia.

Then, Edward jumped toward the ceiling with one big leap, landing next to Aeglos, which had planted itself in the ceiling, and formed a strong bow made of wind.

Then, a massive arrow formed, which he fired at Zelia.

His magic having became much stronger, the arrow, which was fired toward Zelia's throat was blocked by her arm band as she brought her attention on him.

Edward didn't know how she was feeling them as she had been blinded, but it seemed it wasn't similar to Chi Sense as she had only spotted him after he moved.

A fireball was fired at him, but he ignored it as he leapt toward Zelia. Passing through the fire, he absorbed it all, and Zelia seemed to sense it as she did not throw another fire ball, but instead tried to slap him away, like a fly.

Stepping on the air like it was solid, Edward narrowly dodged the slap, and landed on her face. One of his fists slammed into one of her injured eyes, covered in Chi, and elicited a cry of pain from the Dark Goddess as her eye turned mangled from the blow.

While she cried in pain, Edward moved a large strand of yin Chi toward her head, attacking her spiritually.

As a goddess, one nearly as strong as Odin, her spirit and soul were strong, and felt like behemoths in front of Edward. However, the frigid essence of the Freezing Crystal followed over, and as his Yin Chi invaded her head, the Freezing Crystal acted as it's usual self, freezing and absorbing everything in sight.

The cry that followed was even greater than any before as Zelia felt her very soul being consumed, and could feel mortal danger as her mind was growing number every second. If she didn't get rid of the human, she knew she would die, or at least be turned into a vegetable.

Not caring about the consequences, she hit herself in the face with all of her strength. Edward, who felt it coming from his Chi Sense, easily dodged the blow, and saw as Zelia's own fist destroyed what remained of her remaining eyes, and disfigured her.

She seemed to ignore that pain though as she ignored everything else around her and clawed at Edward, who was in mid air.

This time though, he did not even bother dodging as Mjollnir slammed into her outstretched hand, breaking a few bones upon contact as she was forced to stop her attack.

Tyr arrived beneath her and slashed horizontally at her snake tail, opening a rather deep gash into her flesh.

Still, Zelia did not care about her physical injuries, and cried toward Edward, planning to take care of him with a sonic attack filled with magic.

But before it could reach him Diana appeared in the air in front of him, shielding them with her shield. It did not completely negate the damage, but blocked a good part of the attack, making what remained more than manageable for him.

Then, as Edward reached the ground, Loki somehow arrived behind him and tried to pat him in the back. Edward never let his guard down, but decided to trust Loki as he had been nothing but helpful until now.

With his pat, several tens of copies of Edward appeared all around the cave following his every movement.

Edward jumped toward Zelia, who turned in every direction, her means of sensing him was unknown, but it seemed Loki's trick worked as she didn't know where he was coming from.

The blade of every copy of Edward, and himself too, began glowing with a purple glow as he approached Zelia, and cut deeply into her as he reached her.

Caught off guard, Edward's spear made a large cut from her nape, all the way down to her snake tail, destroying her spine as his Chi and Spear Aura coated blade easily sliced through her.

However, despite having her spine destroyed, Zelia did not fall. Instead, she swiped her tail at the real Edward like a whip, so fast he couldn't even escape despite his clairvoyance.

As the tail slammed into him, Edward felt like a plane had crashed into him as he was sent flying, and the second impact against the walls of the cave made the entire cave tremble.

Edward vomited a mouthful of golden blood at the impact, and felt his body broken in many areas from that attack. However, his golden blood was working extra fast to heal his body, alongside his Chi as he felt himself recovering faster than ever.

He hadn't used his recovery ability a single time in the past week, so it could work at it's full potency. Most of the time, it would struggle to work after several hours of work, but it worked just fine now.

While he took a few seconds to recover, Zelia did the exact same, and even faster as the injuries on her body healed at a speed visible to the eye. Only her eyes and back injury were a little different.

Because of Edward's Chi and Spear Aura, her back injury was taking more time to heal, making it more difficult for her to move.

The others in the cave also tried to attack Zelia, but everytime they approached her they would be forced back by her dark fire, making them unable to hit her. Even Thor had stopped throwing Mjollnir at her randomly as he had been badly scared by the small burn marks on the hammer.

Zelia's black fire was not just nearly impossible to extinguish, it was also magical in nature. It's real temperature, although hot, was nowhere near enough to do any damage to Mjollnir or any of their armors through heat alone.

However, it worked especially well against anything magical as it ate away the mana kept within the magical artefacts, damaging those more easily in the process.

As Zelia got back in shape, Edward had somewhat recovered too as he extracted himself from the man shaped hole he made in the rocks, and grabbed Aeglos back in his hand.

Zelia once more ignored the other gods, and slithered toward Edward. Balder, who was midway between them, had his hands clasped as he began to emit light, which quickly converged toward his hands.

The closer she got, and the brighter the radiance between his palms became, to the point the light seemed to pass through even his hands.

And finally, as she arrived before him, he slowly opened his hands.

The light shone through the small gap between his hands into a vertical line, shining on everything in front of him.

Zelia, as well as the ground before her and the ceiling above her, burned as the light shone on them. It was like the light of purification as the black flames, which until now had only been tamed by Edward, were forcefully smothered.

Her exposed skin visibly charred at the light, and she wailed as she struggled back. Seeing the attack work, everyone was overjoyed, but before the light could completely purify Zelia and kill her, the light in Balder's hands disappeared as he faltered back, panting.

The middle of her body charred black, Zelia stopped squirming in pain as she swiped her claw toward Balder, who after his attack became defenceless.

But before the attack could connect a bolt of lightning smashed into her face, before Thor smashed into her guts with Mjollnir. The black fire gone for now, Thor used the opportunity as he demonstrated his great strength.

Thor had always been the strongest in Asgard, even considering his father Odin. Although Thor was known by most as the God of Lightning, he was also the God of Strength. Of course, being the physically strongest did not mean he would win any battle, he was still league behind his father in terms of real combat as he probably wouldn't even be able to get up close to him.

But once Thor managed to enter close combat with someone, very few could survive the assault. Mjollnir, his enchanted hammer, smashed into Zelia with power over and over again as he broke her bones with every strike.

Zelia tried to defend herself and attack him, but Loki had cast a spell on Thor, making his attacks unpredictable.

Unfortunately for the group, before Thor could smash her to death, the dark flames finally reappeared, forcing Thor to back down.

Zelia, who was getting beaten by them all with barely any way to counterattack, was quickly losing her sanity as she breathed black flames all around her.

The gods protected themselves as well as they could, but her reach was too great. Seeing they were all hit by the fire, Edward hollered, "Gather on me!"

The gods didn't need to be told twice as they willed their way through the pain of the flames and approached him.

With a deep breath, Edward swallowed all of the black flames surrounding them, and onto them, right into his mouth, before swallowing them down.

His Core wasn't refining the flames fast enough, but his body had been tempered with the Dragon's Flame, so even though the flames waiting to be refined tried to attack him from the inside, it only dealt a small amount of damage that was easily healed by his Golden Blood.

Now all gathered together, Edward asked, "Loki, can you cover me so I can reach her?"

Loki shook his head and replied with an unusual seriousness, "Her black flames have been drying all of our energy reserves, I'm useless now."

Edward frowned and looked at the others, and saw looks of exhaustion on nearly all of their faces. Only Thor and Diana looked to be in slightly better condition.

After a moment, he ordered, "Tyr, Loki, retreat with Balder and stay on edge for any incoming enemy. Thor, I will need you to fire your strongest lightning at Zelia at my signal. Diana, I will need you to stun her at the second signal."

The two nodded in agreement, and so Edward rushed toward the Dark Goddess.

Sensing the greatest threat in the room rushing at her, Zelia grinned madly in her rage as she slashed his way. Wind blades were fired toward Edward, but thanks to his Chi Sense he jumped to the ceiling, dodging the wind blades that left ravines in the ground as they missed.

Zelia was about to throw another attack when Edward yelled, "THOR!"

Thor, who had been waiting for the moment, had both of his arms grabbing his hammer, which faced Zelia. Thor channelled all of his power into his hammer as he unleashed an attack he had been working on for decades.

"GOD...BLAST!!!"

With Thor's mighty roar, a beam of concentrated lightning left his hammer, instantly reaching Zelia. The Skymother of the Dark Gods barely had the time to put up her arms when the attack reached her.

But even by putting up her defence, the Godblast smashed through her black fire, both of her arms and into her chest.

As the lightning disappeared, the very air in the room retained a tint of blue as the previous attack had charged up the cave. As for Zelia, both of her arms had disappeared, and a giant hole had appeared in her chest.

Everyone was stunned by the potency of the attack, but Edward did not stop as he still felt a strong lifeforce from Zelia. Although it was dissipating, if they didn't finish her she would finish them first.

Edward leaped from the ceiling toward Zelia's face, who now didn't have her claws to attack, and thus opened her mouth toward Edward, ready to spit out an attack at him.

But before she could, Edward yelled, "DIANA!"

Diana, who also had been waiting for this moment, had let go of her sword and shield as she arrived in front of Zelia, and suddenly crossed her arms forward.

A shockwave was produced by the gesture, and wherever it passed it picked up the lightning particles left by Thor's earlier attack, gathering them all together as they smashed into Zelia.

The shockwave itself was so powerful that Zelia was forcefully pushed back, her head knocked back as a black beam of death was fired from her mouth. Because her head was knocked back, the attack completely missed Edward.

But it wasn't all the shockwave did as arcs of lightning had appeared around Zelia, electrocuting her continuously as she began trembling from the shocks.

Before she could get rid of them, Edward landed on top of her face, and this time without any hesitation he moved his entire spirit out of his body to invade Zelia's.