His power was severely depleted, especially after the psychological blow of discovering the trap he had fallen into without even perceiving it. A god does not depend solely on his divine domain; he also needs conviction—faith in his own superiority. The simple act of believing he could lose was accelerating his downfall.
Even in my human form—clearly inferior in raw strength—I was managing to match the Yakuruna now that he had lost his domain, even as he continued to burn through the remnants of his divinity.
Elise was also key in containing him. Her real self sent more and more energy to her avatar, allowing her to unleash divine-level attacks: weak, yes, but devastating for the Yakuruna in his current state.
Soon, he couldn't even maintain flight. He lost altitude with every passing second. He couldn't flee by land, as he was no faster than Elise, nor by water… because there was no water left. Only blood. And under my active control, that was a death trap.
A blow sent him tumbling through the crimson sea that had once belonged to him. He could barely stand; he had even lost the ability to walk on liquids. I solidified the blood beneath our feet and advanced toward him.
"You were a good opponent… as far as combat goes," I said calmly, stopping in front of his kneeling figure. "Even so, I hate you for setting your ambitions on Hannah."
He didn't answer. His spirit was already broken.
"But I feel a certain empathy for you," I continued. "We are alike. And that is precisely why I must kill you. Because, as someone once said... I would not allow another monster like myself to exist in this world."
My hands deformed, turning into claws, and pierced his chest as I lifted him off the ground. His defense was so weak that I tore through scales and flesh without resistance. Blood gushed… and began to be absorbed, replacing the massive losses in my reserves.
The Yakuruna writhed, terrified. He didn't want to die.
Absorbing the blood of a god was a complex process. He was still alive, and his divine nature offered resistance. Had it continued like that, the process would have taken days… perhaps months.
Then Elise intervened.
Her horn, charged with divine power, pierced his back and emerged through the other side. The damage was catastrophic. The Yakuruna's strength failed almost completely.
Killing a god is an arduous task. They are experts at clinging to existence at levels that even Voldemort could only fantasize about. Still, that blow was enough to accelerate my absorption.
Even so, we remained there for several minutes. Elise did not hesitate to spend every fragment of divine power she managed to recover, while I tested different methods to absorb and extinguish his essence.
After about twenty minutes, I could confirm that the demigod was dead.
I didn't let go until he was completely drained, and his body turned to bright ash before my eyes.
"Finally…" I sighed.
I knew I had earned a new achievement for my list. And this time it wasn't a metaphor: the [Achievements] skill had received multiple real additions.
Only then, after my own checks and Elise's, did I allow myself to relax a little. Caution was necessary. Divine beings are absolute cockroaches when it comes to survival. Like me, they possess countless strange methods to persist.
But, in essence at least, the Yakuruna was dead. For now.
Who knows… faith and belief might reconstruct him one day, even if only as a vague shadow of what he was. I still do not possess the power to completely erase a divine being from existence. The closest I can do is something similar to what Elise did: absorb the faith intended for him.
But that no longer mattered.
I would be long gone from this campaign before anyone noticed the demigod's death… or even had the chance to think about bringing him back.
I walked toward the spot where I had sealed the girls and began the release spell.
Shortly after, the world seemed to crack in front of me. The empty space shattered like glass, and where there was nothing before, Hannah and Tonks appeared, watching with expectation.
"Are you finished?" they asked almost in unison.
"That's right," I replied.
Both let out a long, deep sigh, as if only then remembering how to breathe. Their bodies relaxed so much that for a moment I thought they would collapse right there.
It had been an intense battle. Theirs was relatively normal, within the realm of possibility. But Elise's and mine… that had occurred on a completely different level.
"Eghhhh…"
A broken, almost animal sound forced us to turn our gaze toward the last thing left of the Yakuruna.
His earthly possessions.
His wives.
The fish-women lay scattered on the ground like abandoned toys when a child grows tired of them. They gasped with difficulty, as if breathing—or even existing—cost them an immense effort. The Yakuruna had drained them in his last desperate attempt, and now, with his death, even the essences remaining in their bodies began to slowly consume themselves.
Having been transformed by him, their existences were tied to his. Without the Yakuruna, their bodies would inevitably deteriorate in a slow and painful death: minutes for the weakest Muggles; months, perhaps years, for the most powerful witches.
But the physical end wasn't the worst part.
The worst were the muffled sobs. The empty stares. The way some watched the place where he had died, unable to comprehend it.
For them, the Yakuruna had become everything. They knew no other life. Their identities, their desires, even their reason for existing had merged with his.
And now…
He no longer existed.
They were broken. Not just physically, but mentally. In many ways, their fate was sealed the moment their "everything" fell.
"What do we do with them?" Tonks asked with some indifference; she had seen enough in her life not to be overly affected by this.
Hannah was by her side, looking at me with some expectation. Although they had been enemies, she could feel it: the pain they suffered was a torture worse than death. It didn't matter if what I did was end their misery; anything would be better than leaving them like this.
"I don't know..." I replied, scratching the back of my neck. "I think I can take them to the fief for research."
"Yeah, right..." Tonks said, crossing her arms and looking at me with open judgment, thinking I was already collecting new holes to fuck. "Seems you're not so different from that mutant fish after all."
I rolled my eyes. I perfectly understood why she thought that; my track record didn't exactly help my case.
"It's not for that," I shot back. "Seriously. They are valuable study material regarding transformations caused by divine power."
I didn't know if Tonks believed me or not, but it didn't matter. Time would tell.
The truth was, their siren aspects didn't displease me, but I didn't feel comfortable enough with them for that. If I ever wanted humans converted into sirens, they would be my own creation. No leftovers stolen from another demigod.
So, I transported the sirens to the fief via a clone and would install them in a massive tank inside one of the labs. The first priority was making sure they didn't die. At the same time, I also took the Yakuruna's weapon: what was left of it, at least. A broken spear, less impressive than its presence suggested, but still decent research material.
When it was over, the place fell silent once more. Only us… and the sounds of the jungle, which were starting to return now that the battle had ended quite a while ago.
Hannah observed the devastated environment, marked by the scars of combat.
"It's... terrifying..." she said without realizing it, seeing a battle of that magnitude for the first time.
"This is nothing," I denied, also contemplating the mess. "In reality, this is quite normal."
She looked at me, confused.
"What you're not taking into account," I continued, "is that this wreckage is going to persist for who knows how long due to the residues of divine power. Perhaps in the future, it will become a tourist attraction… or a research site."
Yes, the fight had been disastrous, but not at the level one would expect from divine beings. It was understandable. At first, I tried to save divine power. Later, the objective was never to tear up the zone, but to damage a single individual: me.
All of the Yakuruna's power was focused on affecting me directly. Large-scale attacks would have been a waste for the damage they could cause me, plus I had too many ways to counter them.
Even so, this place was now impregnated with divine residues and would undergo unpredictable changes. Perhaps an echo of this battle would remain. Perhaps some creatures would mutate, giving rise to new beings. Strange phenomena could emerge, turning it into a cursed site.
The only thing that had a chance of returning, more or less, to normal was the blood I poured into the lagoon. Without me, it would cease to be under my control. In time, it would just be blood… and it would end up dissipating.
"So... he was a god..." Hannah murmured. "You killed a god…? Are you a god…?"
Her voice trembled. She finally couldn't hold it in anymore. After everything she had seen—and especially after Elise—she was beginning to understand… and at the same time to doubt everything. Me. This world. What she had really gotten herself into.
I just smiled tiredly as I took a seat and invited the others to do the same. We needed to rest, recover our strength, and let the wounds start to close. I began to tell Hannah a bit of what normally remains unknown in this world, while distractedly stroking Elise, who settled down and rested her head in my lap as if nothing that happened had been extraordinary.
Tonks stayed for a bit longer, listening halfway. She already knew this story. She had already had her moment of shock long ago when all of this first came to light. So, after a few minutes, she decided to head to the fief to see our son and recover in her own home or the massage room.
"Bye..." she said, half-justifying herself. "I'm going to see if those sirens and all that have arrived yet." Then she turned and pointed a finger at me. "And when you get something useful out of the research on that weapon, give me something," she added. "I don't want to be at a disadvantage like that again. If you're going to get into fights of this level more often, I need upgrades." She waved as she walked… and disappeared toward the fief in a move I think she had practiced to look cool.
With her departure, it was just Hannah, Elise, and me.
The little Hufflepuff was still stunned, processing everything she now knew: that gods existed, that Elise was one—or would be when she recovered from her weakness—that I had faced remnants of divinities, that I had killed the Yakuruna… and to top it off, that I was the husband of one.
It was too much information, too intense. Hannah felt like she could faint just from the emotional exhaustion of everything she'd lived through. And she couldn't help but think about how close she had been to disaster: a divine being had tried to make her part of his harem. Without Elise and me, she would probably have scales on her skin now… and spend the rest of her life fucking a fish-man.
When she looked at me again, she no longer saw just a man. She saw a mystery that grew larger and larger. Everything I did, the things I fought against… even the simple fact of being able to travel to the past should have blown her mind.
"So... you're a goddess..." she finally said, looking at Elise.
Elise, who at that moment looked like nothing more than a large, affectionate creature lying in my lap, let out a soft snort without paying her any attention. She continued enjoying the caresses, indifferent to the fact that the girl in front of her was shaking with fear upon realizing she had something before her that she couldn't even begin to imagine.
In the end, Hannah had no strength left for anything else. Although I gave her a bit of energy so she could stand, the only thing she wanted was to go home. She had gone through too many learned emotions, truths capable of shocking anyone.
She no longer knew how to look at me.
She just wanted to get back to her bed… and sleep.