“RAAAAAAAAAH!” Helene screamed, thrusting Perfect forward. Using Twist Position, Beatrice moved sideways. Rather than striking at any opening that her enemy’s bad form may have revealed, the passive maid found herself hurriedly stepping backwards when Eclys slashed in her direction. The Wall of Arms would have followed this up as well, hadn’t an Arc Lance forced her to raise Tiemarath upwards as a shield.

As sluggish as that motion looked, it was still delivered quick enough. Helene stabbed at Aclysia, who tried to seize the moment, with the artificial guardian finding her shoulder penetrated and her whole body thrown backwards from the impact. The giant of a female took three steps forward unopposed before Aclysia and Beatrice could position next to each other again.

Bleeding from several small cuts, Helene grinned as she felt the solid dirt under her feet again. After minutes of fighting, she had made her way out of the sand and wet soil. With a brutal assault of Tiemarath and Perfect, she forced the two maids back further.

Flying downwards, John attempted to kick the giant female’s head. He aborted the mission at the slightest hint of Helen reacting. Even boosting his backwards motion by burning some mana, Eclys scraped at his sole. It was just a shallow cut. If he had been there in person, it wouldn’t have gotten through the sole of his shoes.

As it was, however, a gash opened in the magical skin that surrounded the Mandala Sphere’s spatially distorted shape. Blue energy flew out as a thin mist. To no disadvantage that John got made aware off, aside from the fact that Helene, without any doubt, now knew that she wasn’t fighting the real him.

“What the fuck CAN’T you do, Gamer?!” Helene shouted up. “What is that, some sort of 100% accurate arcane clone?”

“No, it’s the item I normally possessed warped into this shape,” John responded truthfully, the soldiers that had seen the transformation would leak that ‘secret’ anyway. “See, the way I do this is…” he made a dramatic pause, raised his hands like stage magician and…

Bought enough of the Wall of Arms’ attention for Aclysia and Beatrice to launch a sudden offensive. With her superior Agility, Helene reacted in time, but was still caught on the backfoot. Instinctively, she countered the quicker force first, only moving one arm to block Aclysia’s strike while the other three aimed to destroy the passive maid. A reaction that the trio had anticipated. With what little Devotion Aclysia had generated, she cast Master’s Shield again.

The white circle spread outwards and left a light under Helene’s feet. The same had to reverse her priorities, now only trying to block Beatrice’s strike while attacking Aclysia. With her feet firmly planted, that twist of motion wasn’t as sluggish as John hoped it would be. With True Block, the weaponized maid knocked aside the salver with her arm. Barely, she dodged Perfect’s tip. One more strike to deal with, all in the matter of a second. Tiemarath descended, and all Aclysia could do was hold up the found sword in defence.

Chipped and damaged from previous interactions with Mithril, the sword could not hope to stand the impact of the cleaver. Breaking clean in half, it was like a piece of paper under an axe strike. The descent of the weapon continued, slicing into Aclysia’s neck and splitting her down to the navel. Had she been made of flesh, the attack would have cut her clean in half.

Although Aclysia was hurt by the attack, it still opened the way for Beatrice. With a one-two combo of Twist Position and Unsteady Limb, she moved behind the counterattack and then aimed for Helene’s head. The Deathmetal Spear was on perfect trajectory to impale her skull. At the very least, that attack would have taken an eye. For a moment, the shocked realization of this was apparent on the Wall of Arms’ face.

Then the spear went through her. Quite literally, as Helene’s body became as translucent as a ghost. Surprised and smirking, Helene moved to finish off Aclysia, putting extra force on Tiemarath to completely split the weaponized maid.

And Tiemarath did go through the uncut part of Aclysia’s body. However, it didn’t succeed in causing an injury either. Everyone hesitated, unsure what was going on. Helene sliced more at Aclysia, Beatrice tried to stab Helene, Aclysia mended her wound as quickly as she could while dodging. John counted the seconds. ‘One… two… three….’

Beatrice’s spear, that had been in her incorporeal form, was ejected from that place in space. All the weapons of Helene in contact with Aclysia suffered the same fate, the force strong enough to fan Helene’s arms wide open as she suddenly manifested again. Colour returned to her as translucency faded.

Sadly, nobody was positioned properly to take advantage of that opening. All combatants just stepped back, repositioned, and tried to make sense of what just happened. ‘That must have been one of the weapon enchantments,’ John immediately analysed. ‘This is bad. She was already getting used to her extra power, if she figures out what the weapons can do as well, that just puts us at a further disadvantage.’

‘Cautious suggestion: Withdrawal?’ Beatrice’s thoughts reached out to him. The same idea had crossed his own mind as well. He gnashed his teeth until his jaw hurt at the thought of taking it.

‘She killed several of my people, and if we don’t defeat her now, there’s a chance she takes off with our best equipment. Not to mention what other havoc she might create on her path. Damn it, I should have come here as John, not Jack.’ If he was here with his proper body, the elementals would be better equipped to deal with this enemy. Aside from sheer numbers, they had a higher array of ranged attacks. Even if they failed to win with the five of them, Aclysia and Beatrice could always teleport to his position, while the reverse wasn’t possible.

Helene must have noticed the shift in the trio’s aggression. Grinning, she put one foot forward. Aclysia and Beatrice took one step back. The same thing happened again. Nobody found an opening to start another attack, but it was clear that the tide of battle had shifted.

“That distraction wasn’t exactly honourable, you know!” Helene shouted, not making the mistake of looking in the Gamer’s direction. John was careful to fly at an angle that would cause her to look at the sun if she did. A pretty basic but effective defensive manoeuvre.

“Well, you know, I’m an honourable guy outside of battle, but if it comes to winning, I’ll take almost all roads.” He still hoped this chit-chat would have caused some sort of opening. “I mean look her-“ The rest of the word and sentence were suddenly silenced.

Despite being present as a construct of metal and magic, John could feel the air being pressed from his lungs. His eyes suddenly burned, as if he had been awake and swimming in salt water for three days. Staying in the air itself turned into a struggle, and he slowly descended. At first, he thought this to be another weapon enchantment he didn’t know about, but Helene was also affected.

Just as Aclysia and Beatrice went to her knees from the sudden, supernatural pressure in the air, Helene had to ram Tiemarath into the ground to keep standing upright. This wasn’t an increase in gravity. John knew that feeling, and Maximillian, if he was even nearby, wouldn’t have gotten involved in this fight anyway.

No, this particular feeling of helplessness was related to a different entity. One he found standing in front of the insane blacksmith with the broken arms. Taller even then Helene, the dark-furred humanoid was hunched forwards, the red lights in the empty eye-sockets of its skull, itself a mixture of rat, goat, wolf, and many other things.

The Horned Rat turned around; saliva dropped in thick globs from the bleached white carnivore teeth. On contact with the grass, they caused the green to melt away, smoke rising from the acid burn. Creaking, the god’s maw opened, his smooth, long tongue showing in the fleshy interior of the skull. “You hurt my smith.”

Every word caused the pressure to intensify. The maids were on all fours now, a fate John followed once he made contact with the ground. Helene remained standing upright, her raised Stats allowing her to withstand that power to some degree. While the Horned Rat approached, she fought to only stand on her own feet again.

“Yo, this isn’t your war!” Helene declared, beads of sweat forming on her forehead. Whether it was from straining herself or the cold fear, John couldn’t know. What he did know, however, was that the Horned Rat’s physical capabilities were below that of Helene in her current state. At least, that was what the last successful Observe he had gotten on the god had told him. “The Illuminati aren’t involved in this, you promised to the world that you wouldn’t get involved in Newman’s affairs until a certain date!”

“Oh? You’re trying to argue with me, brutish one?” the Horned Rat stopped in front of Helene – towered over her even more than usual. It appeared he had grown to above four metres now, and continued to bulge even as he spoke. “I am a GOD, little creature!” his voice became distorted, deeper. “I have sworn no oath to you, I am free to deceive you and your fellow mongrels however I deem fit.” His arms were thicker than tree trunks now, rippling with muscles. “This isn’t a matter of the Illuminati; this is a matter of you hurting someone who was working in my schemes. I care not for your miserable little faction or what the politics may think of today.” His skull grew with the body, shifted in shape. Horns twisted as they became longer, teeth grew larger, extra holes for four additional eyes formed along the sides. “I will punish you and you alone for your lack of care in who you hurt.”

Suddenly, the pressure was lifted. Screaming mindlessly at the top of her lungs, Helene attacked the Horned Rat. All four weapons came for the massive torso of the gargantuan god’s body. He didn’t care to block any of them. They cut and penetrated his skin, but the Horned Rat just hunched over the Wall of Arms.

The acidic saliva dropped on her in viscous batches. With screams of pain and terror, she tried to pull back, but the Horned Rat grabbed her shoulders. No, pinching would have been more accurate. Under the still growing colossus of a creature, her shoulders looked like that of a child’s. Between just two of the dull, rough claws that tipped the god’s fingers, he held her on each side.

“And what miniscule thing you are.” The Horned Rat's voice was underlaid with the gawking of crows, the squeaking of rodents and the barking of wild dogs. “What was it that made you a woman that hurts before she thinks? Was it the death of your father at the hand of a Small Lake Pact thug? Perhaps the rejection of the one man you ever cared about in favour of his career? Was it that your favourite shop got blown into the skies by some stray Abyssal that thought the prices were too high? Was it the tragedy, was it the drama, was it the comedy of life? Was it Thomas, was it Klermiz, was it the death of Janna at the hand of Lorent?”

“Why do you know… you know the name of that terrorist?” Helene gasped.

“Silly mortal thing,” the Horned Rat said and ripped her right arm out with the same ease a kid takes the wing of a butterfly. The spectral limb above it vanished at the same time. “I know all affairs you leave behind. All the things you will never finish in your life.” His voice overpowered her screams with ease. “Because I am a god. I am the calamity that knows others are approaching. And you, you were a story I told my tormented children for their amusement. One of thousands that I follow. I read and sort your lives like librarians devour books. And now – your story ends.”

“No… NO!” she shouted, first in defiance, then in pain when her other arm was ripped off just as easily. Blood spurted everywhere. The Horned Rat’s head rose, the rest of the body standing still. The body of a snake grew from the god’s neck, extending the reach. “NOO!” Helene cried one more time, a drop of acid already beginning to melt the left side of her face, before the giant teeth took hold of her.

Bones crunched as the Horned Rat secured his bite, then raised the skull crowning the black snake to the sky. A quick motion raised the heavy body, legs still reaching out between the jaws, waving in desperation. Then the Horned Rat relaxed the muscles. His body convulsed, making the body slide deeper into the acid coated innards of the god.

The maw shut when he had swallowed her whole. “I’ll be taking him with me,” the Horned Rat told John, who just silently nodded. There was a sudden filter on his thoughts, like a layer of radio static. Even if the god had seemed like he was willing to discuss this, the Gamer was most definitely not in the mood for banter after all of that. Scooping Marathyu up with his massive hands, the Horned Rat disappeared into some portal he opened.