The Guardian gods

Ikenga didn't hesitate. With a contemptuous flick of his wrist, he swatted the burning sword aside. A new, more insidious weapon formed on his lips: his mouth opened, and he exhaled a shimmering poison mist that glittered like a cloud of distant stars. The cloud drifted menacingly toward Vellok.

Vellok, seeing the threat, quickly distanced himself. While in retreat, he raised a hand and conjured a thousand smaller swords of light, each one a star-bright needle humming with destructive force. He flung them at Ikenga in a single, devastating volley. They arced around Ikenga, a brilliant storm of lances seeking any chink in the nature god's defenses.

But Ikenga wasn't going to sit still. The moment the constructs got close, he stole the momentum from all of them at once. His body, which had been slow and ponderous from the curse, suddenly gained light speed. He transformed from a static target into a blur of motion, closing the distance to Vellok in an instant.

The sudden acceleration was a shock, a reversal of power that took Vellok completely by surprise. Ikenga's fist, a blur of diamond and stolen momentum, was now inches from his face. The force was immeasurable, a strike that could shatter worlds.

Vellok had no time to react, no time to conjure a mirror or a shield. His only choice was survival. With a pained cry, he tore away another layer of the seal. A new, blinding light exploded from his back as a fourth wing, more magnificent and powerful than the others, burst into being.

The resulting shockwave was enough to throw Ikenga back, nullifying his attack and giving Vellok a moment of reprieve. He now hovered in vaccum, his four wings beating in perfect rhythm, his body radiating a blinding, divine light.

Ikenga who was pushed off stole the momentum and he stopped himself. His eyes, now able to perceive the newfound power, narrowed. The presence of the angel was no longer a subtle whisper; it was a deafening roar. Vellok was becoming less a man and more a vessel for the entity he held within.

Vellok's internal turmoil was now laid bare for all to see. His face wasn't in a constant state; it flickered between an expression of raw fear and one of extreme, almost feral anger. He was panicking. This wasn't how the fight was supposed to go, or perhaps it was exactly what he had feared all along but had refused to believe.

His plan to simply contain the god wasn't working. He knew the true course of action he should have taken from the very beginning, but when the time came, he found himself unable to do it. Now, he was trapped, a terrified spectator watching himself slowly disappear with each layer of the seal he unlocked. He could feel the angel's bubbling rage inside him, a palpable fire with every new wing he sprouted.

Vellok was terrified for himself, for his people. Would there be any future for them if he completely lost his hold on this angel? Yet, he had no choice. The strange god he was fighting seemed to be toying with him, deliberately provoking him to release the seal. It was like an illusion that this god wasn't taking him seriously, an illusion that was, in fact, a grim reality.

Vellok was right. The moment Ikenga had figured him out, he stopped being a legitimate threat. Ikenga's sole focus was now on releasing the angel. The Origin God had a trump card, and he was patiently waiting for the perfect moment to play it.

The angel, not Vellok, was the pressing issue for Ikenga. Vellok's tower, a floating bastion above the star, was a problem with a simple solution. With a contemptuous flick of his wrist, Ikenga made a pulling gesture.

Vellok had chosen a good battlefield, a void where no planets were in sight. But he had forgotten the asteroid belt nearby. Ikenga simply pulled a handful of them from their orbits, setting them on a collision course with the floating tower.

Vellok noticed Ikenga's actions and immediately flapped his wings, flying toward the star to protect his tower. But the moment he moved, Ikenga expanded the area of effect for his curse. Suddenly, Vellok's momentum was gone. He struggled, his mighty wings useless, unable to move forward.

Ikenga seized the opportunity, taking hold of one of Vellok's wings and spinning him like a top before throwing him a great distance away from the star. Ikenga then deactivated the curse, his normal speed returning as he sped after the bewildered mage.

Vellok, spinning uncontrollably through the void, saw the asteroids closing in on his tower, his sanctuary and the only reason he wasn't using much of the angel's power. He had to think fast.

He couldn't fly with Ikenga closing in on him, but he could still command his light especially now with his four wing. With a desperate effort, he focused his will, and a massive, blinding flash erupted from the star his tower was on creating a burst of energy to mimic supernova. The intense light pushed against the asteroids, halting their trajectory and even vaporizing the smaller ones.

Ikenga, however, was already on him. He appeared right in front of Vellok, his fist once again cocked and ready. "Clever," Ikenga sneered. "But there's more where that came from." True to his words, more asteroids were already on their way, summoned from the vast expanse of the belt.

In response, Vellok's body shimmered and split into multiple clones of himself. The duplicates, each a perfect replica, scattered in different directions. Some rushed toward Ikenga, their wings a blur of motion, while others sped toward the incoming asteroids, ready to intercept them.

Ikenga met the challenge with a sneer. "You multiply your weakness." He didn't bother to distinguish the real Vellok from the clones. Instead, he simply expanded his curse, creating a massive field that stole momentum from everything within its radius. The clones charging toward him all slowed to a crawl.

With their stolen momentum, Ikenga shot backward. Vellok was already at the star, having flown past it to intercept the incoming asteroids. Ikenga closed the distance, his eyes locked on Vellok as the mage dealt with the rock barrage. It was time for a drastic measure, one that drained a significant portion of Ikenga's divine energy.

He changed the very nature of the approaching asteroids, transforming them from rock into shimmering diamonds. Simultaneously, he placed two curses upon them: the Curse of Attraction and the Curse of Hunger. The curse wasn't a simple pull; it was an insatiable hunger for light. The diamonds now sought light as a predator seeks prey.

Vellok, still dealing with the initial asteroids, was surprised when their form suddenly changed. One of the smaller diamonds shot forward with an immense acceleration. To Vellok, its movement was slow, a simple thing to dodge. But as the diamond got closer, its speed increased exponentially, its cursed hunger for his light growing with every passing moment. The diamond, now a blur, latched onto him, its surface greedily absorbing the light from his skin.

Vellok's stunned silence was short-lived. The asteroids, previously on a collision course with his tower, now swerved as a single entity, their course unerringly set on him. They moved not with the blind trajectory of rock, but with the predatory focus of a pack of wolves. Within a matter of moments, Vellok was sealed inside a shimmering, island-sized diamond orb.

Ikenga, panting with exertion, watched the trap's completion. This curse was his most draining, and he felt the immense strain on his divine energy. He knew this prison would hold. The orb could only be broken if Vellok released more of his seals, but in his current state, his power would do nothing to the cursed diamonds. With every moment Vellok spent inside, the diamonds grew stronger, greedily absorbing his light. He might generate enough heat to melt them, but the sheer mass was too much. By the time he got through one layer, the next would have grown stronger, requiring even greater heat to melt.

Ikenga turned his gaze toward the tower, his expression hardening. He had created this moment for one purpose: to get the tower away from the star. It was the only thing preventing Vellok from unleashing the final seals. The heat radiating from the star was immense, a searing force that would undoubtedly burn him. He hesitated for a brief moment, but the resolve in his eyes never wavered. It was going to hurt, but it had to be done.

Ikenga, his body a walking mountain of cursed diamond, stepped onto the star's surface. The heat was a tangible, crushing force, but he endured. He had applied the same hunger curse to his own diamond skin. The crystals on his body greedily absorbed the star's immense light, a desperate attempt to mitigate the searing heat. But even with their insatiable hunger, the light was too vast, too pure to be consumed. It was like trying to drink an ocean. Each step was a battle against the fundamental forces of the universe, the heat and pressure a relentless assault on his divine form.