When 30% of himself was shaven away, he mockingly laughed.
"You're exposed…"
At that instant—the air enveloping the world changed.
The presence of the goddess Ishtar had already vanished, and the local Texture of Snowfield was returning to the era of men until it began flipping again into another kind of heterogeneous environment.
The pivot of the alteration was Alcides's whittled Saint Graph.
The mud-like magical energy covering his body attempted to fill up the lost parts of his Saint Graph, instead flowing into Gugalanna and beginning to eat away his divine aura.
When Gugalanna noticed the disaster, it was already too late.
The blow that was supposed to completely catch his opponent–the twisters from the Age of Gods charged with his divine aura and the energy of the galestorms–was used by the lone avenger as a trap for Gugalanna.
The magical energy at the tip of the repelled arrow expanded in the form of a serpent.
The arrows shattered into nine pieces ascended to form the Hydra, and this nine-headed venomous dragon tried to strangle the thickest cumulonimbus in the hurricane: Gugalanna's head.
"Bring this to a close, divine beast."
The divine aura devoured by the mud and the serpent mix together to surge into Alcides's body, but he refuses to make it his flesh and blood.
"It's your turn… this time, your kind will be the ones paying tribute."
The repelled divinity refused to let go.
By driving his magical energy and "mud" into the lightning-colored divine aura, Alcides forcibly twisted it, twisting along the space around it.
-
"Nothing will be left. Neither this repulsive mud nor the divinity I'm stealing from you."
Alcides knew precisely how much time he had left.
He was greatly affected by having parts of his Saint Graph chipped away just now, and instead of absorbing divinity to replenish those parts, he spent all of it on an exoskeleton.
How much time did he have left?
If the magical energy supply from his contractor Bazdilot were severed, he'd instantly be swallowed by the mud and forsake the Saint Graph and consciousness of a Heroic Spirit.
Because the avenger knew that to be the case, he took his time for his first and last expression of respect to the embodiment of gust and thunderbolt Gugalanna—the beast serving the loathsome god.
"Return to the sky… You have fulfilled your duty."
(Did he get to hear it?)
The divine beast momentarily stopped, but only for a few seconds.
He quickly resumed focusing magical energy, only for Alcides to ultimately plunder all of it.
However, Alcides felt no hatred or sorrow to be found in his final struggle.
Third parties have no way of determining whether that was a delusion he had while showering in the immense torrent of magical energy or if the beast really changed in some way.
Alcides himself was also losing his means to verify it.
His last words to the divine beast, his human memories, and his remaining life were all swept away by Gugalanna's immense torrent of energy and sunk to the bottom of the deep well.
The fact that he managed to preserve his ego while the deluge ground everything into unclear particles is evidence that he was an awe-inspiring hero.
As his last light fades, the world began to slant again toward its ambiguous borders.
He was sure of only one thing: at that moment, goddess Ishtar was replaced by an equal threat in the lands of Snowfield.
