"Shit!... Shit!"
Madam X cursed as she tried to reactivate her bracelet and set up that bubble of concealment again. However, no matter how much she tried, the artifact didn't work.
"Shit! Is it broken?!" She cursed again, trying to get it to work, but it didn't, and the more time the bubble was off, the riskier it was for her mission.
"RIA!" she yelled, turning to her blue-haired friend, completely ignoring Lora, Nyari'ael, and the Fabbit that were lying on the ground.
On the other hand, Ria was deeply focused on her carnage, currently busy slowly cutting the arms of a dog-kin piece by piece using her saw cleaver.
"RIA!!... USE YOUR BRACELET!" Madam X yelled again as she saw that the blue-haired girl didn't react to her words.
Due to their position as Collectors, Madam X and Ria couldn't bring their own artifacts to this mission. The Nexus could track them down easily when entering a world without authorization. Moreover, the artifacts contain a log, and each Collector is required to upload it on a monthly basis.
That left no choice for her and Ria but to use hacked artifacts from the black market. But they were too damn expensive, and now Madam X lost one of them.
"RIA! DAMN IT!" Madam X yelled once again, but the blue-haired girl didn't listen; she only focused on her butchering. That left her with no choice but to dash to her partner and attempt to activate the bubble herself.
Whooosh!
Out of reflex, Ria swung her saw cleaver when she sensed someone approaching from behind, but it was quickly deflected by Madam X, who used her power.
"BITCH!" Ria yelled as she jumped away from Madam X. But the latter swiftly grabbed her left hand, yanking her arm and pressing buttons on the bracelet.
"ARGH!" Ria winced, unable to take it. "What are you doing?! Let go!"
"Shut the fuck up!" Madam X didn't even bother to answer her as she kept her eyes on her work, and in less than three seconds, she managed to activate the bubble of concealment again.
Smack!
"Ouch!" Ria yelped when the red-haired woman in a suit smacked her on the head. "What was that for!"
"That's for ignoring me," Madam X said before letting out a sigh of relief that the bubble was on again. However, she forgot what Lora said to her a few minutes ago, and that was a huge mistake.
Crack!
"Hmm?"
Madam X turned, her sharp eye narrowing. At first, she thought it was the sound of one of Ria's victims twitching on the ground. But then she felt it—an immense pressure pushing down on her chest, heavy and suffocating.
Crack! Crack!
The sky above them split apart.
A crimson flash tore through the clouds like a blade through silk, followed by a thunderous roar that made even the Collector's bones shake. The entire world seemed to hold its breath.
"!!!" Ria froze mid-movement, her cleaver dripping blood onto the golden wheat below.
"Uh… boss," she said quietly, eyes wide, voice trembling. "What… what the hell is that?"
Madam X didn't answer. She couldn't. The air was vibrating so violently that the ends of her hair stood on end. Ria's bracelet flickered, the concealment field destabilizing again.
Then came the sound.
It wasn't thunder. It wasn't the wind.
It was a voice.
"WHERE... IS... MY... DAUGHTER!?"
The words boomed through the heavens, shattering glass, snapping trees, and rippling the soil itself. It wasn't just sound—it was divinity, fury, and grief compressed into one impossible scream.
"WHO DARES TO HURT MY FRIEND!?"
"Oh no," Madam X's cigar fell from her lips.
"Oh no, what?" Ria blinked.
But before Madam X could answer, the world broke.
BOOM!
A column of blood-red light descended from the heavens, shaking the world beneath like an earthquake. The blast slammed into the land, sending a wave that blew everything in a twenty-kilometer radius. Every creature, divine or mortal, dropped to its knees in terror.
When the light faded and the dust cleared, a single figure stood in the crater.
Black wings unfurled behind her, stretching wide enough to block out the sun. Her hair, long and wild, shimmered with the glow of molten silver. Her eyes—twin crimson stars—burned with fury so intense the air itself screamed.
Morgana had arrived.
She stood silently, her chest heaving, blood still dripping from the corners of her mouth. Cracks glowed across her arms and neck, her body trembling with the aftershock of the forced breach.
Madam X staggered to her feet, shielding her face from the storm of energy still radiating from the goddess.
"So she actually did it," she muttered, half in disbelief, half in dread.
"Hehe~ finally. A real fight!" Ria licked her lips, her usual grin returning.
"..." Morgana completely ignored them. Her gaze swept across the blood-soaked fields, over the bodies of the fallen beast-kin.
And then, her eyes found them.
"Ah... Nyari'ael..." Morgana whispered, her voice cracking as she spotted the small pink cat lying motionless on the ground beside the goddess Lora. "You're safe..."
She could sense that her daughter was alive, and in a single heartbeat, Morgana appeared at her side, scooping Nyari'ael into her arms. The small pink cat stirred weakly, letting out a soft whimper.
"It's okay, baby, I'm here now."
Morgana hugged her tightly, then gently laid Nyari'ael down before turning to Lora, who was barely conscious.
"Lora..." she whispered, her voice a dangerous calm. "Who did this to you?"
"!!!" Madam X and Ria both felt a shiver down their spines. There was a decent distance from where Morgana landed to where her daughter lay, but she crossed it in the blink of an eye—no teleportation, just raw, unadulterated speed.
A hurricane of power followed in her wake, flattening everything around her. Dust, blood, and divine residue swept outward as if reality itself was forced to bow before her.
"...T-That speed…" Madam X muttered, her voice low. Even her trained senses could barely track the motion. "Impossible… she's an Iron Rank Goddess."
"Aww~… I think we made her mad." Ria took a step forward, her smile never leaving her lips. "Can I cut her now, boss?"
Morgana ignored them. Her focus was entirely on Lora and the small cat she held. She brushed Nyari'ael's fur once more, her voice soft, trembling, human.
"You did well, my little star… rest now."
"Y-You're.... late... hentai," Lora coughed, wincing in pain. But despite all of that, she managed to smirk as she threw her usual insult at Morgana.
She was crying with joy seeing Morgana finally arrive, her tears mixing with the blood running down her cheek.
"...You came."
"Of course I came, you idiot," Morgana's expression softened for a brief second. "I always do."
"Hehehe... Ugh," Lora tried to laugh, but the sound came out as a weak wheeze. "Took… your sweet time… I thought you forgot about me."
Morgana smiled faintly, brushing the dirt and blood from Lora's messed-up face.
"Forget you? Not even the hottest, sweetest, and delicious pussy in the entire universe could make me forget about you."
"Hehe~... still a hentai," Lora let out a weak chuckle before coughing up more blood, wincing as pain wracked her body.
The moment lingered—soft, fragile, and fleeting. Morgana could have easily taken this chance to steal a kiss or two from Lora, but she refrained. The situation was far more dire than that, so she opened her inventory and gave the loli goddess healing potions to help her recover a little.
"You two…" Morgana spoke, her voice deep and cold, her expression hardened as her gaze lifted from Lora's broken form to the two Collectors standing in the distance.
"You're really scary when you're mad, you know that?" Ria tilted her head, still grinning.
"You saved us time, goddess Morgana," Madam X said, casually pulling another cigar out from her pocket and lighting it. "We were going to pay you a visit anyway."
"Looking for me?" Morgana smiled dangerously.
"And who else?" Madam X answered. "I was actually surprised that you came to us instead of the other way arou—"
"It was Odin, wasn't it?" Morgana cut her off. "That one-eyed fuck would go to whatever extreme just to get what he wants."
"..."
"Oh~ you're so smart," Madam X said, exhaling a puff of smoke. "You figured out the truth in no time. I'm impressed."
"You know, he sacrificed an eye to gain knowledge," Morgana continued, her tone sharp as a blade. "But what he truly gained was an ass for a brain and a four-inch dick."
"Well... yeah, Odin is a scumbag," Madam X shrugged, taking another drag from her cigar. "But, it's business."
Morgana frowned at that comment, and she didn't bother to hide her irritation.
"Sigh... I should have killed him all those years ago," she shook her head in annoyance, thinking about the time when Odin visited her realm.
"Well... it doesn't matter. He will bend the knee... again."
FUSHHH!!
Immediately, Morgana's divine aura erupted from her body in a giant crimson pillar of flames that expanded outward like a wave, tearing the sky itself apart.
Madam X narrowed her eyes at the level of energy. She had a bad feeling about this, while Ria only licked her lips, eager to fight Morgana and cut her to pieces.
"Hunger!" Morgana called out, and from her inventory, the living armor known as 'Hunger' began to wrap itself around the goddess, taking the shape of Morgana's old armor.
Morgana, on the other hand, gazed at the two Collectors for a few seconds before opening her mouth, uttering her judgment on the two who dared to harm her friend and daughter.
"I, Morgana, Goddess of Breeding, Blood, Night, and War… hereby deliver judgment upon you two insects who dared to harm what is mine."
Her voice was calm—far too calm.
That terrifying serenity only made it worse.
"An eternal damnation in the realm of Oblivion."