The Goddess' Champion

A relentless search, the pair of girls had investigated, sought and scavenged for Constantine's location, ultimately reaching nothing as the purple-haired beauty's countenance was starting to show signs of anxiousness.

Especially when they found the previous clearing of the fight, and they didn't find anything.

No Constantine, no werewolves, no creatures or corpses.

Not even the signs of battle.

That had been extremely worrying for her and Nia had noticed, the latter wouldn't confidently say she was totally unconcerned either.

*BOOOOOMMMMM!!!-----

!!!

"What was that!?" Zamira and Nia, both making their way across the forest; saw in the distance an immense cloud of smoke, birds flew all over, fleeing from that location in a fit of screeches.

Regardless of a living being, going to such a place would be seen as a bad omen, but Zamira frowned instead of thinking about several possibilities.

Eventually, she paradoxically thought about what Constantine, her master, would do.

"We can't follow that direction." Zamira tried to pull Nia who shook her head with a gaze that depicted shock, thankfully, she had caught onto something more aside from the obvious danger that was coming from that place, there was also an aura, a flux of spirits.

'W-Whis is she here?!'

"That's the old sage! Zamira come!" Nia pulled Zamira's wrist and the pair ran fast through the trees and vines, Zamira furrowed her brows further.

"But master-"

"He might be involved in this!"

"..."

**

**

The two quickly arrived at a place -thankfully close to their location for more than one reason; it was a gargantuan crater coated with heated and smoking soil, ridiculously big, several hundred of metres in width; inside this crater, there were two 'individuals'.

If they could still be recognised as such.

"M-Master!!!" Zamira panicked horribly at what she saw, running desperately inside that crater and jumping. There he was, her master, his skin scorched and missing two limbs not with the subtle cut of a sword or weapon, but harshly torn apart in a gruesome sight.

Her mind already thinking about the worst.

Nia too witnessed Constantine and paled in distress but then she saw beside him, that gigantic Ape, completely burned to a crisp to the point that its white fur as she recalled it could no longer be seen, now it was black, smoky and even peeled in some places, giving way to the bone.

"Sage Kumo used her sacrificial soul!?"

Zamira rushed to Constantine while Nia stared in shock at the burned ape, it was barely breathing as if striving to survive its gaze containing disbelief whilst looking at the skies with an apparent lack of lucidity.

'He did this?!' Nia could only contemplate at the result and reach that conclusion, as ridiculous as it was, fully aware of what a 'sage' represented.

...

"Master!" The purple-haired were tigress slumped and held her master, not knowing what to do, she immediately took a pill that they had gotten from the guild, a healing pill and placed it in his mouth, forcing him to take it in, at this moment still unaware that there was something already helping him. The pill would, nevertheless, maximize his healing progress.

"Z-Zamira..." Constantine's eyes opened as slow as a snail, shivering and failing to see clearly what was in fronthe sun and something was coveringing it, but muffled. A purple bush of something.

"Master, you're healing..." Constantine was missing an arm and a leg, his entire body burned to a crisp with only several parts still looking 'healthy' as if breathing a little too heavily against his face would finish the job at any moment.

Thankfully, a bright golden light seemed to be healing his body relentlessly, she guessed it must be the Goddess of Life trying to preserve her champion's life, because the regeneration could be seen with the naked eye.

Zamira's presence brought Constantine enough peace for him to fall unconscious, further scaring the warrior lady who thought that was it... he died.

"He's okay." Nia crouched near her and touched a certain spot in Constantine's neck, feeling his pulsating veins.

'W-What exactly happened... he turned into a werebeast?! moreover why is he fighting the sage, he even forced her to use her sacrificial soul, was he always this strong?!' Nia's brain was a mush, she didn't understand anything that she was seeing, and by the look of it, she wouldn't get answers soon either.

"Zamira, I know this ape... she's... a friend of my mother."

"She was killing master!" Zamira's eyes contained lightning and hatred when she looked at the ape, no backstory whatsoever, she only this creature had been fighting her master and he somehow managed to survive this catastrophe.

"Please don't get angry! I know there must have been a reason!" Looking around amidst the debris, she saw it.

"Look! It is a tree of certainty, it is... destroyed." The tree's stem was broken into tiny pieces, no longer shining as it always would.

"Could it be-"

"They must have been fighting over the tree... Zamira, help me take them away!" Nia crawled on top of the Ape who by now seemed to have lost consciousness.

"How are you going to take that Ape away!?"

"Just leave it to me..." Nia went to the Ape's body, on top of it, she pressed her hand on the Ape's chest.

'Oh, Lady Samya I beg you restore this sage beast back to its lucidity and save its soul from perishing, only you can prevent the reapers from taking away her soul...' Unbeknowst to Zamira, Nia was praying; her words would be listened to and even answers.

'As reckless as always, Kumo...' That voice was revered in her mind as wise and beautiful as the last time she heard it.

A bright white light shone in the form of stardust on top of Nia's body before travelling across the air and landing in her palm.

The stardust entered the calcinated beast's body and produced a fierce palpitation.

Its body started to shrink under Nia much to Zamira's amazement, it took several minutes before the gigantic ape became a dark-skinned lady with white short hair, her body still quite damaged and battered, she was unconscious as well.

Nia took her on her shoulder rather unpolitely, "We have to go, an explosion like this is going to get a lot of attention, we were lucky to have been this close to it! Follow me!"

Nia began running as fast as she could, the dark-skinned lady didn't seem to be as heavy for her as Zamira though.

Instead of taking Constantine like a bag of potatoes, she did place him on her back before shooting out in Nia's direction.

**

**

Constantine's eyes opened, and he got the scare of his life.

"..." The silence of the other party, the creature in front of him, was apparent.

In this dream-like world, there was nothing except a white light that fulminated everything and covered everything in light, sadly, there was Constantine himself, naked as the day he was born with a gaze filled with terror.

There was also a piece of glass in front of him, one of the infinite proportions, emitting a black haze, the glass seemed to possess no limits known to man, it expanded infinitely to its 'Y' and 'X' axis.

And it served... as a barrier.

"Are you so afraid of death, Constantine Lionheart?" The voice constituted everything that was evil in the Conqueror's consciousness, everything that sounded horrible, everything that one detested enough to look away.

The next second, that hideous creature, that abyssal existence, that entity that could only be Constantine's biggest nightmares, a formation involving a gigantic lion that better resembled a hideous black quimera; dispersed, giving way to yet another fearful yet more acceptable silhouette.

The figure of a man with a black cloak that covered his entire body.

"Are you so afraid of it, despite the fact... that you have bestowed it upon the innumerable."

"... who are you?"

"I'm one of the delegates of death, and I come for your soul, for you have perished."

!!!

"But... a powerful goddess of death seems to be quite fond of you, [The Blessing of Adjourned Death] is not given out lightly, let alone... most Death Gods aren't even qualified to possess it."

"..."

"Yet you."

*BOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!!!!---------*

From that abyssal black cloak, a gargantuan claw belonging to a creature extended and impacted heavily against the glass, creating a thunderous resonance that nearly blasted Constantine's hammer bone.

Once again the terror resurfaced as this creature showed its clear intent.

"You sand there comfortably before the reaper, and I'm unable to harvest your soul, my commitment..." The voice said with wrath, the rage of a person who can't do their job because something is in the way.