Star soared through the infinite schoolyards of the Dark Lord Academy, body blazing pink against the smoke-filled skies. Explosions erupted below towers collapsing, monsters and warriors clashing with students and teachers. The air pulsed with chaos and divine energy.
"Dallas! Demeter!" she shouted, her voice echoing through the burning clouds. She darted between beams of energy and shattered stone, desperately searching for her friends amid the storm of battle.
Around her, the cries of the wounded filled the air. Star turned sharply, spotting a group of students pinned beneath a collapsed column. Without hesitation, she rushed toward them, blasting apart debris with bursts of pink light. "Hang on!" she yelled, pulling one after another free.
Between each rescue, she kept calling out not only for Dallas and Demeter, but for her own people, the Pyraeans. "Aria! Soren! Is anyone still alive?" she shouted, her voice straining over the roar of explosions.
Enemy troops broke through the smoke, but Star met them head-on. Her eyes ignited as she fired beams across the battlefield, clearing a path for the survivors. Even amid the chaos, she refused to leave anyone behind.
Meanwhile, inside the cafeteria...
Demeter crouched low behind a row of overturned tables. Her emerald eyes glowed faintly as she whispered an incantation. "Runic Veil Silent Bloom."
Her body shimmered and vanished.
Invisible, she crept into the kitchen chaos rumbling above her head like distant thunder. Her stomach growled. She opened the storage door and reached for a sandwich. "Just one bite won't hurt," she muttered, unwrapping it quickly.
"Not you again!"
Demeter froze. The lunch lady, arms crossed, stood by the stove with an expression that could melt steel.
"What did I tell you about sneaking in here and stealing snacks, Demeter?"
The invisibility flickered and vanished, revealing the young mage mid-chew, a sandwich halfway to her mouth.
"I'm sorry!" Demeter said quickly, crumbs flying. "I'm just really hungry! All this training" She reached for another sandwich.
"Don't you dare"
Before the woman could finish, the entire building trembled. The fluorescent lights shattered, plunging the room into darkness. Then, ghostly shapes began to form spirits with curved blades, their bodies wreathed in pale blue fire.
Demeter's instincts kicked in. The first spirit lunged. She ducked under its sword and slammed her fist through its chest, shattering it into smoke.
Two more appeared behind her she kicked one across the counter and spun, her knuckles glowing with earthen runes.
"Stay behind me!" she shouted to the lunch lady.
More spirits materialized ten, then twenty filling the kitchen. The air was full with spiritual energy. Demeter's magic flared, but there were too many. She grabbed the terrified woman and burst upward, smashing through the ceiling in an explosion of dust and wood.
They landed outside, hovering above the burning academy. For the first time, Demeter saw the full scope of the attack Outer Gods, monsters, and spectral armies flooding the campus.
She lowered the lunch lady to safety. "Stay down. Don't move."
Then the ground quaked again.
From the courtyard below, a massive crow rose, its wings spreading wide enough to eclipse a sun. Six unblinking eyes burned with eerie red light, and four pairs of wings beat the air with thunderous force. Dust and debris swirled around it as its shadow stretched across the academy grounds.
Its cry split the air a sound sharp enough to crack glass.
Demeter slammed her hands together, whispering the incantation.
"Terra Ward: Earthen Bastion!"
A dome of solid rock and runes surged upward around her just as the colossal bird dove. The impact was cataclysmic the crow struck the barrier headfirst, and for a heartbeat, the world went silent.
Then the creature exploded.
Feathers and fragments of dark matter scattered like a storm, the shockwave tearing across the courtyard. Demeter was thrown back, skidding across the dirt, her arm shielding her face from the debris.
She coughed, blood on her lip, and glared up at the smoking crater where the crow had been.
"Who did that?"
Her eyes locked on a woman descending from the sky, shrouded in swirling shadows that moved like living smoke. A cold wind followed her descent, carrying the faint sound of crows crying across the burning horizon.
The warriors below dropped to one knee in reverence as the woman spread her arms, her black cloak rippling like wings of shadow. Her voice echoed across the battlefield deep, resonant, and commanding, yet threaded with prophecy.
"My warriors, press the attack! Break their lines and drown their chaos! The Dark Lord's dominion ends this day his poison will no longer stain the realms!"
"Yes, my queen Morrígan!" the soldiers cried, their voices trembling with both awe and fear as they charged again.
The Morrígan the Phantom Queen.
She hovered above them all, terrifying and divine, a vision of death's beauty and war's perfection. Her hair was black as midnight, whipping violently in the storm wind. Her eyes burned a deep, glacial blue, piercing through the smoke like divine judgment. Across her arms flowed intricate blue tattoos, glowing faintly living runes of fate and death that pulsed with every heartbeat of the battle below.
Her lips, painted a dark blue, curved into a cold smile that promised both ruin and revelation. Her armor and cloth merged in layers of black and dark blue plates of celestial metal woven into flowing fabric that fluttered like storm clouds.
Around her, the air shimmered with the faint outline of spectral ravens, circling like omens. Each time one cawed, another warrior fell below.
She raised her hand, and a low whisper rolled through the field a sound that was neither wind nor speech, but prophecy made manifest.
The Morrígan's gaze fell upon the battlefield, her expression unreadable caught somewhere between sorrow and divine purpose.
"Let fate be fulfilled," she murmured. "Let the dead remember my name."
And with that, the Phantom Queen descended into the storm of war, her presence turning chaos into destiny.
Demeter stared up at the sky, awe shifting into a fierce, confident grin.
"Feeling confident?" she muttered to herself, cracking her knuckles as the ground rumbled beneath her feet. "Morrígan… so that's her name. She must be their leader. Another attack on our academy, huh?"
The earth responded to her will stone and dust swirling around her as a golden spear began to take form, humming with runic energy.
Beside her, her grimoires burst open, radiating a blinding golden light as ancient runes spun from their pages like living embers.
"Kresh'Tal."
The symbols flared, twisting through the air before vanishing into her hand. The light condensed, solidifying into a sacred spear that gleamed like sunlight on polished stone.
It was The Golden Underworld a divine weapon forged from faith, earth, and memory. Its core pulsed with power drawn from the boundary between life and death itself.
Demeter lifted it high, the weapon blazing through the smoke, her eyes fierce and unyielding.
"Let's see how strong a goddess really is."
She drew in a deep breath, her aura flaring with molten gold.
"Golden Underworld… Infinite Spears of Light!"
With a roar, she hurled the spear skyward. The moment it left her hand, a golden portal snapped open behind it
and from that rift erupted an infinite storm of spears and staves, each one forged of radiant earthlight and divine will.
The sky blazed as the weapons poured forth, filling the air with golden trails that streaked across the campus like falling stars. The barrage converged on Morrígan, shaking the the school as light and shadow collided in a storm of godlike fury.
Morrígan only laughed a chilling, melodic sound that made the clouds recoil. She extended one arm, her palm glowing with black and dark blue energy.
"Críoch," she whispered.
A pulse of destructive force rippled outward. In an instant, every spear shattered unmade before reaching her. The spell ended as though it had never been cast. The original spear froze in midair, caught in her grasp.
Morrígan's burning eyes turned downward, fixing on Demeter. Her expression was calm, but her voice thundered like a storm.
"You are one of the Dark Lord's warriors," she declared. "Then you, too, must fall."
Demeter's jaw tightened. The ground around her split and heaved as she clenched her fists.
"We'll see about that."
Her golden spear tore free from The Morrígan grip and returned to her hand, spinning once in midair before she caught it.
A streak of pink light flashed beside her. Star landed, hair whipping in the wind, eyes bright and fierce.
"I've been looking for you everywhere!" she shouted. "The academy's under full attack everything's chaos!"
Demeter smirked. "Yeah, I noticed. But we've got one of those big problem right in front of us."
Star followed her gaze upward and her expression hardened.
High above, the Morrígan descended, cloaked in shadow and storm. Her arms rose slowly, fingers tracing sigils through the air as the sky turned black. From rifts within the clouds poured legions of demonic crows some the size of wolves, others as large as houses. Their feathers dripped with darkness, and their six crimson eyes gleamed like burning coals. They shrieked like tearing metal, spiraling downward in a storm of wings and death.
As the first wave of crows burst into existence, Star and Demeter exchanged a glance a silent understanding passing between them. Both nodded.
Star stepped forward without hesitation.
Her Grimoire snapped open in midair, its pages glowing with swirling pink fire as magic surged through her veins. The air shimmered, her aura flaring brighter with every heartbeat.
She lifted her hand and whispered, voice steady but burning with intent:
"Kresh'Tal."
The spellbook flashed, then vanished in a burst of celestial flame and in her grasp appeared her weapon: The Starbreaker, radiant and divine, gleaming like a shard of the heavens.
The moment the first shadow fell, Star's aura ignited, pink and gold flaring like sunrise through the storm. With a single step, she launched herself upward, meeting the descending swarm head-on.
Her sword carved arcs of pure starlight through the sky, each swing slicing crows apart in blinding flashes. Every strike left trails of brilliance that lingered like constellations her own stars born in the heart of battle.
A massive crow dove toward her, beak wide enough to swallow her whole. Star didn't flinch. She accelerated, spinning midair, and burst straight through its skull, erupting from the back of its head in a blaze of starlight. The creature disintegrated into black mist and embers.
Below her, Demeter rose from the trembling earth, her feet carried by floating slabs of stone. She launched herself skyward, dragging chunks of terrain behind her, hurling them like meteors into the oncoming swarm. Each strike shattered a crow into dust and feathers.
Her spear glowed with molten sigils as she spun it overhead.
Dozens of spectral copies of the weapon appeared in a shimmering circle around her. With a fierce cry, she sent them hurtling into the clouds like divine hammers, smashing through wave after wave of the Morrígan's monsters.
But for every one destroyed, two more took its place their screams merging into a chorus that echoed across the school as the goddesses' power surged ever higher.
Morrígan watched, amused. A faint smile crept across her face as two of her towering bodyguards stepped forward each one covered in armor of bone and molten iron.
Star and Demeter pushed higher, cutting their way through the last of the crow legion, their paths spiraling upward toward the goddess above.
The Morrígan watched their ascent with quiet amusement. A faint smile touched her lips as two towering bodyguards stepped forward, their bodies encased in black, crowlike armor. The runes across their chests pulsed red as they drew massive blades, the air vibrating with their power.
Star darted right, her sword flashing. One of the armored giants swung his weapon downward, sparks erupting as their blades collided. With immeasurable speed, Star ducked beneath his swing, twisted, and drove her heel into his chest, sending him staggering back. She spun, blade trailing light, and cleaved him cleanly in half the two halves dissolving into black mist before they hit the ground.
On the other side, Demeter charged. Her earthen surfboard crumbled beneath her feet and reformed around her arms as colossal stone gauntlets, glowing with molten cracks. She met her opponent midair, fists colliding with his blade in a burst of energy.
The ground below rose to meet her will boulders and slabs of rock lifted into the sky, orbiting her like a storm. She thrust her hands forward, commanding the stones to close around the bodyguard. In moments, the shards fused into a massive earthen sphere, trapping him completely. The prison sealed with a deep rumble before plummeting downward, vanishing into the smoke below.
Demeter exhaled, dust swirling around her, and looked toward Star.
They nodded once.
Then, side by side, they launched themselves at the Morrígan, streaks of pink, gold, and gold-brown energy tearing through the sky as they charged the Phantom Queen head-on.
The goddess met them calmly. As Star and Demeter charged, Morrígan raised her arm and two more arms materialized from her sides, shimmering with ethereal light.
Their blades and fists clashed against her defenses, but she hardly moved. Sparks and energy flared with each strike, yet the Phantom Queen only smiled.
Then, she laughed an echo that rolled through eternity.
Her mouth opened, her voice turning into a scream that carried the weight of prophecy.
"The Stream of Faith!"
A sonic wave of divine destruction exploded outward. The shockwave tore the sky apart, hurling both warriors down like meteors. They slammed into the earth below, carving craters deep into the ruined courtyard.
From above, Morrígan watched them fall, her shadow stretching across the battlefield. But as silence followed, whispers began to fill her mind ancient, familiar voices overlapping in a divine chorus.
Her body shimmered, splitting into three separate forms.
Three Morrígans now stood each identical, each alive with power.
They looked at one another and smiled darkly.
"Sisters," the one in the center said. "Let's have some fun."
The central Morrígan remained floating in the air while the other two descended in streaks of black feathers.
One dove straight for Star, slamming a crow-clawed fist into her ribs. The blow cracked like thunder, and talon-like nails raked across Star's side, leaving glowing scars of crimson energy.
The second Morrígan swooped toward Demeter, hurling eagle feathers sharpened into daggers. They sliced through the air like shards of glass. Each one that missed and struck the ground detonated, sending tiny earthquakes rippling outward.
Demeter staggered back, teeth gritted, then threw her arm forward.
"Terra Summon: Infinite Spearfall!"
A portal of golden light tore open above her, releasing endless earthen spears that rained toward the attacking Morrígan. But before they struck, the goddess's body burst into a swarm of crows, the spears passing harmlessly through. The birds circled, merged back together, and reformed beside their central sister high above.
Demeter lowered her hands, her spell fading as her spear reformed in her grip.
She scowled.
"So she can split into three…"
Above, the three Morrígans hovered close then fused back together in a flash of feathers and smoke.
The unified goddess descended like a comet, slamming into the ground before Star could rise. She caught the warrior by the hair mid-fall and drove her face into the dirt with crushing force.
Drawing a black dagger that pulsed like a living heart, Morrígan glared down.
"This is over, you demon," she said coldly. "Your master's army will taste the pain they gave us."
Demeter's eyes widened. She thrust both hands forward.
"Split the Earth!"
The ground erupted, massive stone walls rising and twisting between Star and the goddess, tearing them apart. Demeter surged forward through the smoke, her body glowing with golden runes.
She swung her fists wildly; the air split with each strike. But Morrígan divine and unshakable sidestepped every blow, laughter spilling across the scorched field like a tide.
Faster than sight, Morrígan drove a knee into Demeter's stomach. The impact folded her over; she hit one knee, the breath knocked clean from her lungs.
Morrígan clicked her heels as she walked toward her. High heels on stone, slow and deliberate. She planted a boot on the back of Demeter's neck and leaned in close.
"Any last words?" she asked.
Demeter ground her teeth. "Yeah… I can't die here."
Morrígan's laughter was a cold thing. "Too bad. You do not decide. I decide. I am the faith of battle. I am the faith of war. I choose who wins and who falls. I have decided he will lose, the Dark Lord. His legions will burn."
She raised her palm. Dark blue and ink-black energy bloomed there, a living orb of fate, humming with patient malice. It pulsed and stretched, tendrils of shadow reaching toward Demeter.
"What are you doing to me?" Demeter gasped.
Morrígan's smile sharpened. "I savor the sight of an enemy's life before I extinguish it. Sometimes I reach back and sever that life long ago; the old death ripples forward and wounds the living." She crushed the orb slightly and the surface rippled like water. Images swam inside: a younger Demeter running through sunlit fields.
"Interesting," Morrígan purred. "One of Zeus's children, abandoned young. A shame he'd be ashamed to see a child of the sky walk with a Dark Lord."
Demeter's eyes widened. "You can see my past?"
Her thoughts raced. All those years searching, every mage and seer she'd begged for answers none of them could glimpse her origin. They'd all said the same thing: her past was blocked by higher forces.
Her voice broke as she looked up at the goddess.
"You… you know who I really am? You know who my parents are?"
Morrígan shrugged, almost affectionate. "Sometimes I look back. Sometimes I look forward. Fate is a book I read as I please."
Demeter clawed at the dirt. "Please don't kill me. Tell me about my father. Tell me where I came from."
"No." Morrígan's laugh rang, harsher now. She focused on the orb and plunged a phantom dagger into the child in the vision stabbing at a bright-kneed girl running and laughing. The image flickered and the knife cut the past.
A sickness hit Demeter as if struck in the leg. Pain exploded along her shin; she screamed. Her leg buckled bone warping as the past's wound re-etched itself into the present.
"What are you doing to me? My leg" she howled, pinned under Morrígan's boot.
Morrígan's voice was quiet, almost tender. "I bend faith. I make past and future collide with the now. Perhaps I should have ended you at birth." She raised the dagger again, aiming the blade of memory toward the child in the orb.
A ribbon of pink flame lanced across the battlefield, coiling around Morrígan's arm. The fire snapped like a bell; heat screamed through the air.
Before the goddess could react, Star's Grimoire appeared beside her, pages flipping wildly as glowing runes ignited across its surface. Pink light poured from the pages, swirling around her hands as she drew upon every last trace of her magic and her powers.
Her voice cut through the chaos steady, fierce, and burning with purpose.
"Internal Flames!"
The spellbook flashed brilliantly, its pages dissolving into pure light before vanishing altogether. A torrent of pink fire erupted from Star's palms, streaking across the ruins and striking Morrígan dead-on, wrapping her in chains of living flame.
Morrígan only laughed cold and slow, a sound like ravens tearing at old grain.
"Foolish warmth," she drawled, brushing at the coiling fire as if it were nothing. "Child's tricks do not scorch me."
The flames clung, growing brighter the more she moved. Star's voice trembled with effort but did not break.
"They're not meant to burn," she said. "For most, they would melt skin. For you they bind. Until I release the spell, those flames will not go out."
Morrígan's smile flattened. Her eyes narrowed into cold stones. She raised a hand and intoned the ancient word an edge of Old Irish curling from her tongue:
"Críoch."
The air folded. The black, collapsing void of her ending-magic collapsed outward, seeking to unmake the flames at their root. For a heartbeat, the pink fire winked then vanished. Silence hung like a held breath.
Morrígan's eyes flared with disbelief, the blue of them turning almost white in their brightness.
"Impossible," she hissed. "One of my own powers Críoch ends all things. Spells, oaths, even events themselves. When I speak that word, existence obeys and closes."
She flexed her hand; the void still churned around her arm, yet the pink flames coiled back to life, wrapping her in light that refused to die. Her expression twisted half fury, half awe as the fire's reflection danced across her armor.
"It should have ended," she murmured. "The word of finality cannot fail."
Star steadied herself despite the toll. Her gaze was steady, merciless.
"You can end spells, Morrígan," she said quietly. "But you cannot erase what I have bound to a life. These flames are tied to me. You can unmake their shape for a moment, you can break their form but you cannot kill their thread without killing me. They will burn on you so long as I live, or until I choose to let them die."
A slow, terrible smile crawled across Morrígan's face. The godlike calm drained from her voice and was replaced by razor intent.
"Then so be it," Morrígan said, her voice a verdict that rolled like thunder. "If the flames cling to me while you live, then I will unmake you first."
Dark blue and black energy began to surge around Morrígan's arms, swirling like twin storms drawn from the void. The power crackled, bending the air and warping the light around her. She leveled both hands toward Star, the gathered force pulsing like a living heart, growing darker and denser with every breath.
The ground beneath her feet split and trembled, arcs of shadow lightning crawling outward as she aimed.
"I will unmake you myself," she said, her voice low and absolute.
Star could barely move. Her strength was gone, her body trembling from exhaustion. She raised her arms out of instinct alone, trying to shield herself.
Then
"Don't forget about me."
The voice cut through the dust like lightning.
Morrígan turned, her eyes narrowing just as Demeter rose from the rubble bloodied, limping, but unbroken. Her leg glowed faintly as earthen energy crawled up from the soil, mending her wounds.
She raised her arm. The air around her began to twist, reality itself folding inward. Lines of energy bent and refracted, warping space like shattered glass.
"Dimension Ascension Punch!"
A domain of higher law enveloped her fist, golden sigils burning brighter than suns. Demeter lunged forward, and the moment her fist connected, the world screamed.
The impact cracked the sky and shattered the seams of existence itself. Space rippled like torn fabric; light refracted through impossible angles. Morrígan's body jerked as the shockwave tore through her not just in the present, but through past and future alike. She felt the blow in every version of herself across time, in every shadow that had ever carried her name.
The strike broke logic and reality, splitting cause from effect, bending destiny out of order.
Morrígan was hurled backward, smashing through layers of warped reality, feathers and darkness scattering across the sky before she caught herself in midair. Blood trickled from her nose as she steadied, her wings of shadow flaring wide behind her, the air trembling with divine rage.
She wiped the blood from her nose with one hand, and for the first time, her expression carried respect.
"Impressive," Morrígan murmured, her voice low and edged with a smirk. Her blue eyes gleamed faintly. "So it's true… you carry the spark of Zeus."
Star stumbled toward Demeter, catching her before she collapsed.
"I'm… completely out of energy to," Demeter whispered, her breath ragged.
Before either could move, a cold shadow swept across them. Morrígan reappeared above, hovering effortlessly, her composure restored. Her tone was calm again almost amused.
"It was nice fighting you both," she said softly. "But this… is where it ends."
She raised her hand, black energy coiling once more
But then, a surge of golden light erupted behind her, scattering her shadows like smoke.
Ava descended from the sky, his aura blazing against the storm. Behind him, teachers and students rallied, weapons drawn and glowing, their battle cries echoing through the broken campus.
Ava's voice thundered like judgment itself:
"It's not over yet!"
Morrígan's eyes flicked across the battlefield. Hundreds of defenders stood ready injured, bloodied, but unyielding. Behind her, she saw her own legions faltering; the other Outer Gods were already retreating, tearing open wormholes in the sky to escape.
She exhaled through her nose a weary sigh wrapped in pride and disdain.
"We've done enough damage for now," she said, her voice echoing across the smoldering ruins. "The others are leaving."
Her remaining warriors soared toward her, gathering in tight formation as she began to ascend. Below, Ava stood amid the wreckage, his aura dimmed but steady. Around him, teachers and students struggled to stand some bleeding, others barely conscious. Demeter was still upright, though trembling.
Morrígan gazed down one final time, her dark-blue hair whipping in the wind.
"Tell your Dark Lord to stay away from our hyperverses," she warned, her voice cutting through the smoke.
A swirling vortex of shadow and mist opened behind her. As she stepped into it, her final words echoed like prophecy:
"We'll be back… to finish the job."
Then she was gone leaving behind a battlefield drenched in ash and silence.
The fires still burned. The echoes of outer gods still trembled in the air.
Ava knelt beside Star, lifting her gently into his arms.
"Don't worry," he said softly. "Everything's going to be okay."
His eyes glowed gold as Chaos Absorption rippled through him, the black and purple energy swirling from his palms into her wounds, knitting her flesh back together.
He turned toward Demeter, voice calm but firm.
"Where's Dallas?"
Demeter stared blankly for a moment, still shaken, her voice barely above a whisper.
"I… I don't know."
Ava looked toward the horizon, his gaze hardening.
"Stay here," he said. "Both of you."
And with that, he launched skyward a streak of purple through the smoke
searching for Dallas amid the ruins of the outer gods' war.