Blade of the Goddess

"Tessa! Why are we flying toward Zion's house? Shouldn't we go to where he and Arion's battle is?" Erebosa asked, a worried expression on her face.

"What? Oh, no. Zion killed Arion. But as he did so, something happened to his body. He's dying, but also is staying alive."

"Huh? What do you mean?" Luminera asked

"I don't know how to explain it well, but Zion's body is trying to die, but his power keeps regenerating him, keeping him alive. But he's in constant pain, and I don't know what to do. Nothing is working. All the protocols Zion created aren't helping either."

Erebosa couldn't believe what she was hearing. Zion's body wanted to die, but his power kept him alive. That didn't make any sense. Still, she knew Tessa wouldn't lie about Zion, so they took her word for it.

Arriving at Zion's house, every servant, maid, butler, and other people who worked in the place moved out of the way as they saw Tessa accompanied by two goddesses. They ran to the med bay where Zion was being kept to check on his condition.

"Arghhhhhhhh!!!!" He screamed violently, strapped to a medical bed while his body contorted from the pain.

"Luminera, Erebosa." Lidia cried. "Please help him. Please. I don't wanna lose him. I can't. He's my Zion. He can't die!" Her eyes were red from crying, and it was obvious that she wasn't in the right mental state at the moment.

All of Zion's women were crying, trying their best to keep things together.

His sisters, mother, and aunt were angry rather than extremely sad. They would always help Zion no matter what, but they failed to do so. They couldn't even help him fight against the gods or angels, and that really made them feel like a burden.

"Everyone, stand back. Let us look at his condition." Luminera walked over to Zion and touched his forehead.

"What's hurting you, my champion?" She peeked into his mind and was instantly forced away, her body getting blasted and thrown into the wall by an invisible force.

"Lumi!"

"I'm fine. B-But Zion. He's a god, but is not supposed to be." She said in shock.

"What? Let me see." Erebosa touched his forehead as well, getting blasted back by an invisible force like her sister.

"He was supposed to wait 200 years before confronting the gods," Willow said as she appeared in the room.

"But they came to us! You felt it! You were screaming! The world, YOU, were being ripped apart." Luminera growled as she pointed a finger at Willow.

She sighed. "I know. I'm not saying it's his fault. But you know how my power works. He was not born a god, but turned into one. However, that takes time. You groomed him into becoming a demi-god. That took time and effort on both sides. However, even after making the nexus pools flow with your powers, have the world tree emit both infernal and divine power, the time it would take to groom him into a god was still 200 years."

"And he evolved prematurely." Lidia realized.

"Correct. So, his body, which cannot handle pure, god level divine energy, is dying, only being kept alive by his genius. I guess you can say that he really is immortal." Willow joked.

But no one laughed. Zion would have, though.

"C-Can we do something?" Luna was the one to speak up this time. She had Stella in her hands and did not want her daughter to grow up without her father.

"I can ease his pain for now, but as for him waking up, that depends. On the bright side, all of you will live for thousands of years, so you can still be by his side. However, I don't know when he will wake up. Even after 200 years, he most likely will still be unconscious. Zion either has to come to terms with dying, or his body will eventually adapt to the god power he possesses, and he will be fine. The latter is the least likely, though." Willow explained.

"Dammit! This is my fault. I should have told Zion everything from the start." Luminea slammed her fist into the wall, only for it to repair itself.

"Don't beat yourself up, sis. None of us could have predicted this."

"This also isn't the least of your problems. Your battle with the gods arent over yet." Willow pointed out.

"Yes, I know. We still have Bahamut to face." Erebosa waved Willow off.

"No. Not just him, but the four other gods as well." She pointed out.

Tessa looked at the will of the world as if she had a screw loose. "What are you talking about? We killed them all. Only Bahamut is left."

"Incorrect. You may have killed their bodies, but their essences live on in their divine world. The divine world that Bahamut merged with his own if they fell in battle against you."

The goddess's eyes widened. "No."

"Yes. This was a part of their plan. Besides Zion, they knew they couldn't beat you at the moment, so they decided to take action first, breaking the rules and descending to the middle world. They made a plan to have their divine worlds merged together in case they died. This would serve as their contingency plan to ensure their victory."

"I don't get it. Why is this an "Oh, no" moment?" Lidia asked

"There are multiple ways for gods to become stronger than they normally are. The first is the power of faith, where they have followers. The second is by ascending to a higher power. But there is another method. In this method, you kill the god and not only absorb their divine essence, but also their heavenly realm, adding their power and knowledge to their own being." Luminera explained.

"And Bahamut is the strongest of all of the five. So this means we not only increased the strength of the strongest god out of them by four times, but he also has the knowledge of our battles as well." Erebosa gritted her teeth.

The sky rumbled, reality cracking under an unknown power's weight.

"I must go. Bahamut is trying to destabilize the world, and I need to make sure it doesn't fall apart." Willow vanished.

"Tessa, you're coming with us. The rest of you, please watch over Zion." Luminera teleported to her Heavenly realm with her sister and Tessa.