Traveling Like Gods

I open my eyes to a brightly lit field, its golden light muffled by the black robes covering my body.

"No headaches here. Seb?"

"Nothing."

I glance over at Elizabeth. She shakes her head. Looks like the nuns' robes are working.

We find Risus waving at us from a nearby path. He greets us as we approach.

"Shawl, I'm ever so pleased to see you safe."

He looks over at Elizabeth's, noting the melted blade strapped to her side. Last night, Risus and I planned out the trip ahead of us. The Cyrene will most likely try to stop us from reaching the greater gods. The godkiller is our best weapon.

It's risky, but we have little chance of winning to begin with, and we need all the help we can get.

We walk for some time, passing through the seemingly infinite fields.

"It's a lot nicer here when my head doesn't feel like it's about to explode," Vol jokes.

Risus chuckles, "I suppose it would be, yes."

It's a long walk, though I'm intrigued to find that it's less exhausting than I had expected. The light also never moves or disappears here, so I have no way of telling the time. Still, it feels like it's quite a few hours before we finally reach something different. Two massive pillars in the middle of nowhere.

Risus continues to walk, looking unbothered. Then, just as he passes the threshold, he disappears.

How interesting.

Shrugging at Vol, I move after Risus.

A grand city of high golden spires spreads out in front of me. Confused, I look behind me. The two pillars are right where they were before, with Vol and Elizabeth standing just past it, the vast field stretching out behind them.

I see. It's a veil, then. The city is here, but it's invisible. Clever.

Since there are a few days until the meeting of the greater gods, we stay with one of Risus' friends. Society in the celestial realm is more human-like than I had expected, though their "houses" are practically temples.

"The Cyrene is a small group these days," Risus claims.

Apparently, Civis' extremist views weren't loved by everyone, and many lesser gods have left. According to Risus, few of those remaining have any combat experience, and some cannot even cast magic suited to battle. It had never really crossed my mind before, but I guess most gods wouldn't need to fight, would they?

"You have fought in more battles than every member of the Cyrene combined," he sighs.

Our real problem comes from those that can fight. Risus has narrowed it down to three likely gods: Finir, Vilos, and Civis herself.

"Civis will most likely be in a role of support," Risus explains, "She'll want to keep herself safe, and she can fight from a long distance with help from her vines."

We decide that the best solution is to counter her tendrils using Vol's barriers.

Next is Finir. From Risus' description, Finir is essentially an angel, with two large wings and a lightning spear. Frankly, he sounds like a weaker version of the Demon Lord we fought just a few days ago, except we can't defeat him without the godkiller sword.

He should be a pushover, as long as Elizabeth and I dodge his attacks. Restraining him could also work.

Lastly is Vilos.

"She's probably the most dangerous of the three."

Risus tells us that she's one of the most violent lesser gods, and is one of the original reasons why godkiller weapons were banned, after she tried to use one on her father, a greater god himself.

"I've seen her practice a few times," he says, "She carries a blade of fire in each claw."

"Claw?"

"Yes, her father had her with a harpy. I believe that's the very reason why she tried to kill him."

I'm just going to ignore how that would ever work and focus on the main issue at hand.

The fact that she fights using swords would be fine if we had proper melee weapons, but we do not. Even if we did, they wouldn't do any damage to any of the gods. Only the other way around.

We'll have to find a way to counter her, most of all.

Our chances are, frankly, not great. Not because our foes have all-powerful abilities or impossibly strong weapons, but because we have only one way to injure them, and it's a half-melted sword.

We do have one more hope, though. It remains untested, but Risus claims that, theoretically, the fact that I carry mana from so many different worlds means that my magic should have some effect on lesser gods.

We can only hope.