She wolfed down the contents of the vial that’d been thrown her way. Pain was still radiating outwards from her guts. She didn’t glimpse at her healthbar more than she needed. Ah, ah fuck, she’d never gotten so close to reaching zero HP. The healthbar was yellowishly dripping down little by little after having momentarily gone up by a small chunk. Its decrease had slowed. The haemorrhage was being stopped. Soon, the effects of the last health potion she’d drunk would affect her a bit more, she’d just drunk it after all, she’d be fine, she would be.

  She clenched her arms around her stomach. Fuck, she needed to put pressure again on her stab wound. She’d stopped because it’d hurt sharply at one moment. Ah- ah, she needed another health potion.

  She glimpsed again at the floating blob. It was stagnating in the air, doing nothing at all. Was it stunlocked? Was it?

  “HEY,” she said, looking back at the tiny demoness. “ANOTHER POTION. Quick! Do you have high-grade ones?”

  The demoness, on the road, but having moved away to a side-street that she was looking at her from, stared with cat-like eyes. Vic looked away. Ah. Ah, maybe that’s how she managed to escape the lynx’s control. She’d never looked too long in its eyes. It had had the same properties of the eldritch abomination beyond that… screen. That- that had been a mental image, right? It went and went, going into depths of fractals that forced her gaze further into it, but she’d avoided its gaze, she’d avoided it. She’d avoided it. She’d avoided it with… her shadow’s help. Yeah. Yeah, that absolutely was a reasonable thought. There was half a chance that- all of it- was an invention of her mind. It’d been a mental attack. Hadn’t it? What else could it have been? What if she hadn’t imagined it?

  Ah, ah. Ah. No, no. What the hell had that been?

  She tightly closed her eyes. The itching had stopped.

  She rubbed them. Tears were at their corners. No, no, it wasn’t over yet. They needed to defeat it fully. Only after could she rest. They’d wanted to seal the blob, hadn’t they? If they actually knew what they were doing, she was leaving that to them. She was no fucking exorcist. Excise that shit from reality, yes please. Ah.

  Ah, haha. Hah.

  She’d started laughing. She was laughing. Could she actually leave that to them? Ah, ah fuck. Fuck, probably not. Did they even know what they were doing if they’d tried to avoid at all cost contact with this thing?

  She stepped towards the blob. She needed to stab it one final time with her pinprick to finish it off. She couldn’t trust anybody else to do it. Ah. The blob was floating, about a bit more than four metres above the ground. She could probably jump up to reach it, but… No, it was too high, even shadow-armoured. Maybe she should grab a ladder. That would look funny. Or maybe, she should use one of the houses nearby to use as a platform to jump on it. Her legs were feeling weak, all her body was lightly shaking, but she had to finish this. She wanted to stop. She stopped walking towards the wall, one of her hands pressing against her stomach while the other brandished her still-functioning pinprick light-sabre.

  “Don’t move any further.”

  Something in her relaxed. She appreciated the thought. The thought was nice. Vic stared back at who had spoken. It’d been the demoness. Vic blinked back. Ah. Ah, of course. Roots coated in darkness had moved up from the starkest shadows. The demoness’s eyes had obscured to black.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” she asked. Her voice was tainted with apathy. No. No, they weren’t that stupid, were they? They weren’t going to try to fight her now, were they?

  The demoness stared back. The shifting shadows hadn’t moved further. She’d seen some take… some vaguely human looking shapes, but very deformed. Maybe that’d only been the case because they’d immediately melted back in the darkness. Their presence left a very contrasting aftertaste in the surrounding mana. Ah. That wasn’t as mind-numbing as the… out-of-body experience she’d just gotten. Those two were incomparable, really. A dry laugh burst out from her lips. She shook her head.

  “No, really, what ARE you doing? Are you showing your real colours now that I’ve done your dirty job?” Wait. That underling had thrown her that mid-grade health potion. That demoness wouldn’t have been planning to betray her if she’d handed her that in the first place.

  “…Is it still you?” the demoness asked. “To be honest… it’s… true that I’ve been hesitating, and staying my hand, but how do I…” The demoness paused. “How could I know that you aren’t possessed by the sun deceiver?”

  Ah, ah fuck. Ah fuck no.

  Victorya stared back.

  “OF COURSE IT’S STILL ME,” she yelled. Victorya threw down her arms. Of course. No, yes, she could act like herself. T’wouldn’t be hard. “Why wouldn’t I be me?? What makes you think I’d get controlled by a god? I’m ME. Nothing can change that.”

  “Your eyes would deceive anyone,” the demoness replied.

  Victorya blinked. She felt a voiceless “eh?” escape her lips. Vic stared back. Ah?

  “My eyes?” she asked.

  “Bright golden,” the demoness replied.

  Vic felt her mouth open, then close. What? Her eyes were bright golden?

  “Is that a metaphor?” she asked. The demoness didn’t reply. Victorya frowned with a very awkward smirk. Okay. Okay, not a metaphor.

  “Is it just the irises or the entirety of the eyes that are glowing?” she said.

  The demoness squinted.

  “You do sound like you used to. But nothing like… you has ever happened before. Nothing like this has happened before. You could have kept your personality intact for all we know. Only my liege would be capable of settling the matter. Only a few gods chose to keep information on the sun deceiver’s precise methods and its forgotten rituals, and I am certainly not part of the unlucky few carrying that heavy load.”

  Vic felt her mouth move into a grimace. No, they couldn’t possibly leave it solely to the judgement of that ass hat. Like she cared in the first place. Like he wouldn’t lie.

  She just wanted to finish this. She was tired. Not physically.

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  “Listen, I need to finish it off while its incarnation is frozen in horror or locked into place. I don’t know which it is, but it’s not gonna last,” Vic said, pointedly motioning at the blob.

  “Who knows if you’re saying that because the sun deceiver’s trying to concentrate all its accumulated mana within your shell before attacking once more in a unique vessel? Simply follow the former plan, warmage. We’ll have it sealed. We are simply… going to displace the seal to this street, most likely.”

  “I AM NOT POSSESSED,” Vic yelled. “Come on! Don’t you remember the resistance I had to the puppet god- the- the Cave? I have- I have! I have resistance! To gods! To their gospel, or whatever song they sing!”

  The demoness was not looking away from her.

  “…That is true, and… I’ve born witness to that, too, but you must understand, warmage, it’s…” The demoness looked conflicted. “It’s not a situation that has ever occurred before.”

  “It’s not moving. I’m not staying still- while that god could- while it could- start again doing whatever it was doing. Do you copy that? Is that simple enough??”

  “…Warmage,” the demoness said. She was grimacing. Oh. Was Vic being called “warmage” just in case that eldritch god could get the upper hand through that? Through… a name? It felt kind of ridiculous. But… Ah fuck, she didn’t know anymore.

  “I need a high-grade health potion,” Vic said. That was true. Fuck, she needed multiple ones, she couldn’t- no, yes, no, the only scenario where she could keep fighting was if she had several high-grade health potions. She wouldn’t last long without any. “Give me that, give me some potions, I promise I won’t move.”

  The demoness looked to the side. Oh. Oh, mana, coming outwards from a dark jewel curling around one of the underling’s pointed ears. The communication device was obvious now. How had she not noticed it before? Oh right, she’d just levelled up her mana perception.

  The demoness spoke then.

  “…My Liege thinks it unwise.”

  Vic felt a sort of quiet, cold rage in her chest.

  “You are fucking pricks.”

  The demoness stared back. Vic didn’t care. She was going on top of the closest house to jump from its roof. She needed to end that sun god. Ah. She clenched her eyes tight again. No, no time to cry. Not now. Later. Her healthbar had barely stabilised at around a fourth of its total length. She’d already used up all her health potions, she needed another one.

  “Give me another health potion if nothing else. A high-grade one,” she said, without looking back. “Please. Just… please. Any health potion.” Ah, ah crap, crap, so many craps. She couldn’t possibly be begging for resources at this time. She didn’t have time to do that. She needed to finish off the god. Its circular health bar… wait. Wait, it was fragmented. It was glitching.

  She looked back at the demoness, whose mouth just opened, and then the shutters of the house right to her left slapped open. She dodged. Ah. Ah fuck what now.

  A civilian stared back at them.

  Ah-, ah, ah.

  “Why haven’t you EVACUATED,” she said, “you fucking BUFFOON!”

  Her hands were shaking. Ah, ah, ah hells, ah fucking hells, she was losing her mind. The civilian, who wore a merchant’s garb and whose face was happily plump, then replied.

  “Well I am blessed, of course my house hasn’t been touched by this evil divinity, it never could be.”

  “IT’S RIGHT THERE,” she said. She didn’t even point. It was right behind her, unmoving, high above the ground.

  “Precisely right, but so are you, and… you are our Lord’s envoy, aren’t you? I could never have once doubted my-”

  She’d grabbed him by the collar. She was going to eat his face.

  “Warmage,” the demoness said, very sharp.

  She glanced back to the blob, and no, it hadn’t moved yet. Fuck, fuck, fuck, what were they doing? Why was no one panicking? Why was she the only one dealing with any of this?

  She let go of the man.

  “You are an IMBECILE and you are going to die, soon. Holy fucking shit. Ah. AH.”

  Her hands had climbed up to her face. Ah. Ah, ahhhh. Ah.

  Her breathing was out of line. Ah, fuck, no, she was just panicking. Ah, she was going to puke. It wasn’t even nausea. She was heaving. She stared back at the blob. It hadn’t moved.

  “Hey, demon,” she spat the word like she’d never done before. “where the fuck is your liege? Why isn’t he here?”

  The demoness was still partly hiding in the dark, at an angle that let her avoid the blob’s direct light, like it’d done before. Vic hadn’t noticed then, only now had she. Ah. Ah, quick, she needed to climb up a roof and finish off the god. This was going to shit. The blob was wavering in that staticky way, but it’d always been doing that since it’d been frozen in place.

  “He thinks it’s too dangerous for him to be in person, right?” she laughed. Ah, ah, that made sense. “Don’t you think it’s unfair you’re here and he’s not?”

  “He is redirecting the seal as we speak,” the demoness said. Vic’s hands finally let go of her face.

  She eyed her pinprick. Somehow, she hadn’t hurt herself with it. It was still burning bright purple. Maybe she needed to start looking at the positives and cheer up at the fact that her pinprick wasn’t also golden yellow.

  “Are you going to seal that evil thing any time soon?” the merchant said. Victorya climbed up the wall, slamming the shutters closed on him on her way up with a kick.

  “My liege is close enough to respond appropriately to any emergency,” the demoness said in an urgent tone. Victorya ignored her. “It would be better for you to stay away now, you can-”

  “Rest? When you’re dealing the final blow? When you won’t even give me another health potion when I’m asking for it in case things go to shit AGAIN when it could have all been perfectly… avoidable?”

  “I… understand your- distaste and revulsion at the thought of remaining passive after… everything, but my Liege truly is redirecting the seal-”

  “I KNOW HE IS,” she replied, seething. Yeah, his music theme had overcome the one of the sun blob, which was barely a background motif as of now. The name of the Cursedblood Emperor had slotted up above the one of the blob’s long list of three titles. She knew his “majesty” was doing something. She knew the blob was stuck. The game system didn’t consider the blob god a priority anymore. Hah. Ahan. Ha. The sad, melodramatic music was pissing her off. “That’s not the problem, and you know it.” She couldn’t stop the sob to come out on her last word. Fuck. She took back control of her voice. “I can’t wait for all of you to catch up. I won’t wait, not when I could do it myself.”

  The underling blinked a few times.

  “Please,” the demoness said, with a humble tone. She bowed her head. “Please, don’t make me stop you.” She even sounded reasonable. No. Fucking hells. It wasn’t coming to that. She was on the roof already, she just needed one jump and she’d be on the blob and could stab it to death like it deserved. It needed to die. She couldn’t miss this occasion. She couldn’t miss this, nor the [exp] too. She… She…

  “HA-HA-ha,” she said. Did the tiny demon spawn honestly think that she could stop Vic? After every spell Victorya had shown off? After everything she’d overcome? She paused. “You’re serious.” Oh. The demonesss was. No fucking way. No fucking way. The goon would actually fight her now?? In those circumstances? That’s the fight she’d pick?? “You’ve got- a blob, a floating- blob,” she said, motioning with her head at the god, eyeing its familiar stupid name and title, which had stabilised, but was going to switch to another name, as it always did, eventually. “You’ve got Antiorus over there, just hanging, and y-”

  The blob then screamed. It deformed, losing its perfectly round shape.

  The three lines of title deleted themselves, turning into the sole one of: [ANTIORUS, BELATED SUN TOUCHED APOSTLE]

  It glitched again. The circular healthbar was disintegrating in parts. The formless blob was bursting at the seams. A shape tore itself from it.

  And its title changed one last time.

  [ANTIORUS, REGENERATING GOD]

  Below it, the blob was no more.

  The circular healthbar collapsed, and one straight, health bar grew, one that had an end.