A hundred scorpion tails were rushing at them already, forcing Nephis to push herself off the ground and slide back. By the time she landed, there were already a thousand claws barreling through the air to rend her apart, a million fangs a split second away from sinking into her flesh.
The Blessing flashed again, severing them, and the glass wasteland around was suddenly painted black by swirling ash.
The battle continued.
And as it did, Sunny realized something... He realized that they had outgrown Asterion.
The situation would have been different if he still ruled the mighty Hunger Domain, if he could use humanity as a hostage against them. But the Hunger Domain was all but gone, destroyed by Cassie, and humanity was saved from the hungry maw of the Dreamspawn by her as well.
Now, he was surrounded like a beast and assaulted by four Supremes, having no choice but to lose.
His end was already decided.
His fate was already scaled...
All he was doing now was struggling against the inevitable.
Sunny and Nephis were simply too strong, too overwhelming now that their powers were one. Asterion could not resist them with the might of his Domain, so he had no choice but to be destroyed.
It was just that he could not be destroyed, so each time his grotesque body was annihilated by the pure whiter flames, he was remade anew, continuing the fight with inexhaustible fury.
However, he could not eradicate Nephis either. Every wound he dealt her was rapidly healed by the flame, and every injury he delivered disappeared without a trace moments later.
All he could do was try to manipulate their minds, poisoning them with his insidious power. But even that process was slower than it should have been, because Asterion's own mind was under Mordret's assault. Mordret was protecting them from the Dreamspawn's Aspect — from most of it, at least. As for the rest of it...
[Let's switch, Nephis.]
The radiant figure shrouded in billowing darkness moved back, and in its place, a figure woven out of shadows appeared. Sunny had regained his fate, and with it, his True Name. That meant that his sense of self had a powerful anchor now, which allowed him to use Shadow Dance without being too concerned about losing himself. So, just like in Ariel's Game, he assumed the form of the Jade Titan — a Supreme champion of the Stone Saint race, all but immune to any kind of mental attack or manipulation.
Suddenly, there was a towering colossus in fearsome jade armor towering above the glass plain, his black figure wreathed in roaring white flame.
The burning colossus raised his immense odachi into a high stance and then lunged at the grotesque chimera that besieged him. The Glass Hell quaked.
It quaked, and then shattered.
Sunny, Nephis, and Asterion plummeted into the depths of the great Hive. Their battle continued there, and the more devastation they visited upon the world, the deeper they fell.
Until the light of the sun was obscured by the mass of cracked glass, and they were surrounded by shadows.
Sunny's power grew even more because of that.
By then, the battle had reached a state of stagnant balance. Asterion could not be destroyed, and Sunny's towering body was mended by the white flames when it received damage.
In the end, it all came down to a clash of Wills.
Asterion's Will to defeat and consume Sunny, Sunny’s Will to see Asterion gone... the one whose Will was exhausted first would become the loser, while the one who remained stalwart and indomitable in his conviction was going to become the victor. Sunny and Nephis possessed a stronger Will... but was it more inexhaustible? That remained to be seen.
Ironically enough, none of the six living Supremes possessed an exceedingly strong Domain at the moment.
Sunny had lost countless shades, including some of the strongest ones, to the Vile Thieving Bird, so his Domain was diminished. Nephis had lost her Domain to Asterion, whose Domain was in turn destroyed by Cassie.
Cassie herself had just become a Supreme, and while her Domain was unique and consisted of memories of living beings instead of the beings themselves, she had not had time to properly manifest it yet. Mordret... the new Mordret... was in the same situation, ruling no one — not even a single other fragment of himself.
The only exception was the people aboard the Night Garden, which he temporarily controlled,
And finally, there was Ananke, who had never had a subject either.
So, even if Sunny and Nephis had an advantage in the battle of Wills due to being connected by the Shadow Bond, their advantage was not overwhelming.
At first.
Then, however, something unexpected happened.
Neph’s Will began to grow heavier, more oppressive... and mightier still.
Out there in the vast darkness of her empty Domain, new sparks were appearing one after another. There were a few of them at first, then more, then a sea of them.
That was because when Cassie erased the memories of Asterion from the minds of humanity, what was left in her wake was not desolate emptiness. Instead, it was the memories that those cleansed of the plague had possessed before becoming infected by it.
And most of them remembered having faith in Changing Star.
So, as if a blindfold was removed from their eyes, they were inspired by her radiance again, and therefore became subjects of the Longing Domain once more.
Things were returning to how they were meant to be.
Asterion growled with his myriad maws, feeling his conquest being reversed. But there was nothing he could do to stop it. He was already doing all he could, and his effort was woefully insufficient.
Slowly but surely, the boundless reserves of his Will were being exhausted. Even if Asterion was immortal, there was only so much death he could endure without being drained — physically, mentally, spiritually. And in the battle against an adversary as superior as Sunny and Nephis, he could not allow himself to feel even a hint of hesitation, a hint of doubt — a hint of the ominous premonition that existence would not submit to his authority.
Asterion’s ferocious Will was growing weaker.
At the same time, Nephis was only growing stronger, returning to the heights of her previous power as the guiding star of humanity.
She might have been the guiding star for all humans, but for Asterion, who did not consider himself one, she was the Star of Ruin.
Sunny felt that he would be able to subdue Asterion soon...
And it was then that Cassie's urgent voice resounded in his mind:
[Sunny! You must retreat...]