Chapter 73: The Cut That Ended Noon

Liliana's voice tore through the link before Hades could stop it.

"Do it!"

The words came raw, half-choked by underworld force, but still hers. On the lower outcrop her body convulsed as she forced the shout past Hades's grip. Black veins climbed her throat. The shard in her hand cracked with a sound like ice under pressure.

"Kill him! Don't stop for me—it was my fault from the beginning! I opened the door! I let him in! Just finish it!"

Amon's blades stayed locked on Apollo. Night and flame still hummed along the edges. The sun god, pinned and bleeding ichor, watched the calculation shift again. One more push and the throat would open. One hesitation and the noon light would burn through the remaining threads.

The Oracle reached Liliana first. He seized her shoulders, ignoring the cold that burned his hands, and shouted up the mountain with everything he had left.

"Amon, don't! You care for her—more than the mountain, more than the bargains! If you take the final cut he will close her ledger before the blood hits the stone. There is still another way. There has to be!"

Amon looked at them across the distance.

At the Oracle's desperate face.

At Apollo, one push from death.

At Liliana, still fighting the possession even while she begged him to ignore her life.

At the cold presence of Hades coiled behind her eyes.

The three remaining golden threads tightened. Hermes's lag, Lucifer's curse, Michael's sword, the devil's dagger—all of it waited on the next heartbeat.

Amon chose.

He moved the Dagger of the Moon in a single, clean arc.

Night opened Apollo's throat from side to side.

Golden ichor sprayed in a wide arc. The sun god's eyes went wide. The last of the noon light poured out of the wound instead of blood. Apollo tried to speak and produced only a wet, solar rasp. His hands clawed at the air, then at the edges of the cut, as if he could hold the light inside by force of will alone.

Hades's voice exploded through Liliana's mouth.

"No—!"

He closed her ledger in the same instant.

Liliana's body arched once. The black veins reached her heart. The blue light under her skin snuffed out like a candle dropped in water. She dropped to the stone of the outcrop like a cut string. The shard fell from her open hand and went dark.

The Oracle's scream tore across the lower layer, raw and unbroken. He dropped to his knees beside her, hands already on her chest, pressing, calling her name in the old cadence that had once forced answers from the future. Nothing answered. The body stayed still. The blue light did not return.

On the terrace Apollo's body began to glow.

Not the controlled noon of before. This was the sun itself losing containment. Cracks of pure white light raced across his armor, his skin, the remains of the shield. The second moon's wrong light fled from the intensity, shrinking back as if the air itself had turned hostile. Amon felt the pressure build in the marrow of his bones and tried to fold away with the last of Hermes's speed.

He was too late.

Apollo detonated.

The explosion was not an attack. It was the death of a solar domain. Half the second layer of Olympus simply ceased to exist—columns, statues, terraces, and the cloud-sea beneath them erased in a single white-black flash that climbed the mountain like a second sunrise. The shockwave tore through every remaining layer. Peaks cracked. Lightning died mid-strike. The highest terrace where Zeus and Hera watched shuddered hard enough to throw both of them from their feet. Marble split under their hands as they scrambled for balance. Somewhere far below, a chorus of lesser gods screamed and were cut short as entire sections of the mountain folded inward.

When the light finally faded, the middle of Olympus was a smoking wound open to the sky. Blackened stone. Melted gold. Air that still shimmered with residual heat. The cloud-sea that had once held the layer aloft now poured through the gap in slow, gray cascades.

Amon hung in the air above the ruin, both blades still in his hands, golden blood streaming from a dozen new wounds. The three golden threads were gone. Hermes's speed guttered and failed, leaving him to fall the last distance on raw strength alone. The Fiery Sword and the Dagger of the Moon remained, but the cost of holding them after the blast left his arms shaking. He landed hard on a broken ledge, knees buckling, and forced himself upright before the residual underworld ice in his bones could lock him in place.

Below, on what remained of the outcrop, the Oracle cradled Liliana's body and did not stop screaming her name.

***

Back to present time, back where we left off:

Creatures were not born, monsters were not created. All the beasts that had once walked the seven worlds were once sentient, normal creatures. Sirens, for example, and elves.

The sirens themselves were the dominant race in the second world, until the gods, until heaven and hell, until the witch, until Amon came. With their arrival, their curses became the source of all disasters, as well as the means to create all the monsters on the earth.

That is why these cursed sirens, transformed into abominations, immediately knew this golden light from the palm of the young man, rallying to the call of monsters.

"AAAAUUUUURRRR!"

The second scream pierced the air, already filled with the first one, with fear. But this time, there was more pain that came out.

The chain on the monster's neck tightened, but the black crystal that held it around its throat with the witch's curse, pulsing, cracked second, and split further.

Tanya drove the spear into its side. A golden spray of blood flew from the wound, splashing on the shattered stone, hissing.

On the ridge, Liliana tasted the scent of this blood and laughed, seeing the hero fight.

"Found you," the witch muttered.

She dropped the fire she was throwing and opened her hands. Debt Collectors who stood behind her, their bodies torn and rebuilt, their empty eyes staring at the sky, opened their mouths at the same time.

"My new children, serve!" said Liliana.

"Yeyeyeyeyeyes."

The blast of sound that came from the mangled mouths no longer surged in waves but flowed together, forming a spear of sound that dove into the slope. It hit the monster's back, right between the shoulders, and the abomination staggered.

It was already weak from battling the demigods and the attacks of the hero, and the blow from the witch and the boy knocked it off balance. Its long arms trembled, and for a second, the monster's golden eye met Liliana's shadowy gaze. Something ancient and savage roared in the depths of the abomination's soul.

"The Witch ..."

Liliana's laughing grew louder; she stepped out onto the ridge.

The air around her still vibrated with power. The black and purple flames curled like vines around her ankles as she walked down to meet the monster. The witches' chord swelled and resonated to the very marrow of the living.

Claude and the Oracle reached the edge of the ravine at the same time as Liliana's feet met the stone.

"Why does she want to chain Amon? What's so great about the keys? Why is she even here? It's not like she needs anything from us!" murmured the Oracle, barely audible.

"You don't know? She is not here for Amon's keys"

"Then why?"

"..."

Claude tightened his grip on the two keys in his coat pocket.

"You talk less. I am here merely to fulfill some obligations, after that, and I'm leaving. "Claude muttered

Meanwhile, down in the ravine, the abomination was recovering.

It no longer had any interest in fighting the demigods or even Tanya, but its very bones were crying out in pain from the strike of the girl. The monster's disjointed body twisted and writhing, turned towards Liliana with incredible speed, cracking the stone with its movement.

"By the Witch's..." it growled, and the next heartbeat, its voice became more feminine, more youthful, and somehow stranger.

"Liliana of the First Circle, you have bound us, fed us the blood of the immortal, and turned us into monsters ..."

Liliana's eyes widened in surprise at the sound of her name, then narrowing in pleasure.

"Ohhh, beautiful sirens, you survived, huh? Good, I was starting to think that all these decades of imprisonment had finally addled your pretty little brains." said the witch, almost tenderly, almost fondly. "But, of course, it was not so."

With a flick of her fingers, a curtain of black runes rose up between them, older than the gods themselves, older even than the masks of the Debt Collectors.

The abomination's crystal gave a flash of gold, answered her runes, and the two of them collided at the center of the ravine with an explosion that sucked away all sound.

Doom!!!

Columns of stone that had stood for centuries were uprooted and shattered. Demigods were tossed like ragdolls.

Tanya's spear broke in her hands, and Cheering's glow dimmed, but he did not yield. He planted his feet and drove more power into the fight, holding his ground against the storm.

The abomination and Liliana were in the eye of the maelstrom. Claws of parchment met claws of shadow. The siren's half-faced mask glared furiously at the witch's smiling mouth.

Each clash sent shockwaves rippling through the valley. Each rune that bit into the abomination's back caused the black crystal to shine brighter.

Claude watched the battle with some detachment, perhaps because the sight of Liliana and the monster wounding each other was preferable to looking at himself. Partly, too, because he did not have to kill himself with the dagger in his pocket that would end it all.

"Come, now. While they are busy. We should go close to him and get the keys!" said the Oracle.

Claude was watching the two monsters fighting, the siren whose body had been twisted and stretched, the woman with the golden hair. "It feels strange. He seems younger than us."

"Twenty-six ... maybe ..." muttered the Oracle.

Meanwhile, nearby, Cheering was looking up at the ridge where Claude and the Oracle stood. Their eyes met, and for the first time, three men who had never stood together, who had only fought each other, saw the same thing.

Their common enemy, who had to be stopped at all costs.

"This is madness!" Cheering shouted. "Where did you get the other keys?!!!" he asked

Claude answered with a simple nod.

The Oracle's expression did not change, but he stepped forward into the light.

"Well, he is easy to talk to. Let's go," said the Oracle.

Liliana heard their voices, and she laughed while the monster's claws raked her ribs, sending geysers of black blood spraying everywhere.

"Did that happen before? Did you all forget who I am?" she said to the siren, whose ball of crystal sparked gold. "I have infinite divinity. I have ceased to be only a witch. I am an actual goddess now!" cried Liliana, covering the siren with her spells.

She felt the witch's grip loosen and growled in frustration. She drove both hands into the monster's chest, feeling the last of her power being squeezed out of her body.

Dark sparks of fire shot from the abomination's back, shooting into the sky and piercing the clouds.

"You will not decide your fate!" she hissed, her voice trembling with something like madness, "you belong to me! You are mine! Always have been!" With these words, the black crystal on the monster's chest pulsed, and the chain on its neck broke.

The siren's body lengthened and contracted, the abomination's legs and arms shrunk, and soon enough, the monster was no longer an abomination. Its face, too, had returned to normal, almost human.

"Thank you later," muttered Liliana, undoing the curse on the siren. "Now if you want to look like this, I'll remind you of all my demands."

Tanya touched her cheek, her tears cutting through the thick darkness. She had returned to herself, to her old self, her true self. She had heard Liliana's words and obeyed without hesitation. Turning to the demigods and the three disciples, the siren gave an order, but there was only one answer.

Nodding, she prepared to scream again, the same way every time, to lull the enemies asleep.

"Aaaaaa!"

The long-awaited battle began at the same time as the abomination's release from the witch's spell. The demigods, united with the girl, all three of them on the ground, could not move for a few seconds. The siren's song, so melodic, was almost soothing.

At the same time, however, the Oracle was not tied by this magical music. He was still somewhat awake, as was Liliana, who was smiling as she approached him.

"I always adapt, my brothers. It seems you guys are really underestimating me ... mainly you, the blind prophet who ran away when he saw Liliana. "Liliana said, tossing the siren aside like a ragdoll. "Still hiding behind others' power?"

The three witches screamed in unison when the Oracle raised his hands and pointed them at the three demigods, who were lying on the ground. The sound magic blew them away with incredible force, almost crushing them.

Claude heard his ears bleed as the Oracle stumbled over backward. Cheering's aura of light dimmed, but it held firm as his body refused to obey the siren's orders. Only his soul was free from the witch's magic.

Step! Step! Step!

"We really need a plan, huh?" said Cheering.

Claude's thoughts were racing. "I can't move ... someone kill me!"

"What?"

"Just kill me!" Claude shouted.

"Not yet. The decrees of fate cannot be avoided so easily. "The Oracle moved his hands in a certain way, and invisible threads of fate wrapped around Liliana's shadow, pinning it to the ground.