The witch frowned, leaning forward with a sharp gaze directed directly at Zephyr and Claug. She could tell they weren’t lying. Their story was so hard to believe that she couldn’t help but smile. She had heard countless stupid tales in her life, but this was the best.

"Are you saying it came here, lay dormant as it slowly blocked the gods’ access to us, then went on a rampage?"

She tried to remember the days before things went south, and she could remember countless shrines and temples, relics of a lost age.

The gods never responded to prayer as far as she could remember, so they were considered as nothing but folklore and baseless tales.

Ah... but trying to remember that also brought back memories of those sweet days when she was but a normal witch hiding among people.

A handsome man would come beg her for a cure for his wife, and she would give him a potion, only for the wife to come to her a month later and willingly jump into her boiling pot.

Zephyr started thinking as she slowly turned back to her small and cute fairy form, landing on Claug’s head to rest a bit. She didn’t want to take that form yet, but it allowed her to regenerate her mana faster by lowering her consumption. Maintaining an elemental form was costly, which is why most spirit queens never do it.

"The gods would’ve noticed if all of their followers here suddenly disappeared. But if they slowly faded away across a couple of centuries, or even thousands of years, the gods might not notice the change and think it’s just a world naturally dying or rejecting their will."

That abomination must’ve taken its sweet time creating whatever sorcery it used to block the gods. Which only made Zephyr glad that it was dead, there was no telling what such a terror could do if it was still alive.

Claug looked up and growled, trying to look at Zephyr. "But this world is still sealed." That was a good point. If the abomination is dead, then why is this world still sealed?

Claug turned her gaze to the abominable witch. "Can you turn the abomination’s power off?" The sorcery, or whatever eldritch magic that abomination used, has to be somewhere, and the witch in front of them was the only one who could access it.

The witch looked at them with a grin, her eyes burning with eldritch magic. What Claug asked was impossible. Not because she couldn’t, but because she doesn’t want to. That magic is her strongest. Turning it off was like stripping naked in front of her enemies, which was ironic considering she was already naked in front of them. That made her giggle.

Honestly, she could remember that being naked in front of people was embarrassing and frowned upon in her time. But now that she had spent centuries living alone in this world, having other people see her naked felt a bit wonderful. She might just be happy that she has other people to see and talk to besides the clones of herself.

"While I’m having an all-out war with your disease? Hell no, take your sickness away first, and I’ll pull mine later." But even with how happy she was to finally see a fresh face, she isn’t stupid enough to let her guard down.

At this moment, the abominable witch’s disease was fighting Claug’s disease, each trying to eliminate the other and take hold. Since Claug didn’t have the time or resources to create a cure, she could only use this forceful method.

Claug knew her disease well, and she didn’t want to repeat what happened in her fight with Arad. She is certain that if he were here, this witch would’ve died ages ago. Her disease won’t work on him, and he’ll just pound her to the ground till she dies.

If Claug took her disease first, the abominable witch could start infecting everyone and kill them all. So she couldn’t back away first, which meant they had to come up with another plan, or do they?

Claug smiled. She got a nice idea.

"How about this? I’ll take my disease off the air, ground, and water. But I’ll keep it contained to everyone else. Basically, to what you’ll call outsiders." She pointed at herself, Zephyr, and those standing in the back. "Our bodies and the plum trees."

"So pull yours off the air and keep it contained inside your body." She smiled. "Let’s have a civil discussion with our weapons back in their sheds."

The abominable witch reached down and scooped a handful of blood. "I’ll keep it in my sea of blood." She then threw that blood at Claug. "Now, I got you safe and sound."

Claug looked down. They were sitting on the edge of a sea of blood, and her thighs and butts were drenched in it. Once she turns her disease off, she’ll be sitting in a toxic sea of filthy and toxic blood.

Of course, Claug’s disease would still protect her from the inside, but that is nowhere as safe as keeping it away.

"Got a deal." Claug didn’t mind; she was good at dealing with such things. Besides, if she doesn’t take any risks, this witch would just start fighting them again, and someone would die.

A second later, the abominable witch blinked, surprised that Claug actually pulled her disease away. She could immediately attack now and try to infect everyone again... but should she? What are those outsiders planning?

But does that really matter? No it doesn’t, and she could always infect everyone again from the sea of blood.

"Aren’t you afraid that I’ll just kill you?" The witch leaned forward, touching Claug’s feet. "You’re within my reach."

Claug laughed. "Go ahead and kill me if you want. I got one nasty husband, and if he came, he’ll shove this entire world up your ass."

The witch smiled, licking her lips and reaching down with her hand. "Would killing you make him come here? Is he a giant like you? I would very much love meeting him."

"He is too much for you. So get going and turn that eldritch magic off." Claug splashed blood at her with her foot.

"You really pulled your disease back. I guess I should show a bit of sincerity as well." The witch wiped the blood off her face and clapped her hands.

It was only then that Zephyr realized the extent of the abominable witch madness; she had since lost all sense of self-preservation and the will to live. Any sane person wouldn’t trust outsiders who came and killed everyone in a few days.

But now, that witch only seems interested in amusing and pleasuring herself. She probably spent several hundred years locked up with only herself for company, which would drive any normal human mad. Zephyr herself wasn’t a human, but she knew well that humans couldn’t live without social connections for any long period of time, which was why immortality could be a curse to them more than a blessing.

An easy way to imagine it is to ask how long a human would remain sane if they were locked in a room with a bunch of mirrors and nothing else. The only thing they could do was stare at themselves.

Not much.

This witch now only cares about protecting her world, which is probably a remnant of her first goal, and amusing herself because she has been locked here for so long.

If Arad showed here first and was friendly, she would’ve been more interested in sucking him off than starting a fight.

But that madness didn’t matter anymore; they’ve already won. With the abomination’s power turned off, the gods could see this world. All Zephyr needed to do to trigger them was invoke their names.

Of course, she didn’t even need to do that. Before anyone could notice, Yog was sitting on Claug’s lap and leaning back on her torso. "Isn’t this an ugly world?"

Yog’s domain was magic and knowledge, so when the seal got lifted, even for a second, she noticed an entire world popping out in her senses and flew right in.

Everyone froze, and even the abominable witch paled a bit. Yog had escaped her detection and appeared out of nowhere; what’s more, she could tell that Yog was so utterly more powerful and terrifying than anything else that the mere thought of fighting her was stupid.

Was this what those outsiders call a god? If so, they are probably right. She had never seen so much power in a single being. But, she was certain this god of theirs is nowhere near omnipotent, because if they were, the abomination magic wouldn’t have blocked their senses.

Zephyr pointed at the witch. "The world was overtaken by an abomination, and she killed it; that was probably thousands of years ago. Now, she absorbed that monster’s power and lived here alone."

Yog looked at Zephyr. "You forgot the part where this world should be left in Plum’s care. I don’t know how that abomination did it, but it even blocked my knowledge of this place. Now that it’s gone, I know everything and anything that happened here." She stood and clapped her hands.

"I’m Yog, you can also call me Lilia. I am the Goddess of magic and the eternal bearer of the forbidden knowledge." She flicked her fingers, and the entire sea of blood disappeared, getting replaced with a vast ocean.

Suddenly, a sun appeared in the sky, followed by a moon, a cold wind, and the broken world started to rapidly heal. As Yog informed the other gods, their domains started expanding back into this world.

The witch looked at Yog, then frowned, "So you’re telling me that the gods were real? That we were just sealed away from them?"

"Yes, but what interests me more is how you managed to defeat that thing, that abomination. From what I found out, it was a class 12 horror." Yog looked at Zephyr.

"It was on the same level as Vorvadoss. It can infect people and turn them into abominations, then harvest their powers and add them to its own power. It was basically immortal unless you burn all of its hosts to ash."

Yog sat back down on Claug’s lap. "You... or should I call you Fernanda? I’m sure it’s been at least two thousand years since you heard someone else call you by that name."

The witch looked away. "Fern is enough, and about that thing, I ate it. My witchcraft allows me to get power from those I eat." She looked at Claug. "You know how. I take living people and then throw them into a boiling pot. I used to make potions and spike them with magic to effectively brainwash people so they come to me themselves. I can get power and lifespan from them, not everything, but a good chunk of what they had."

She leaned back. "I fought that monster with magic, cut its hosts to pieces, and ate them for sustenance as the world crumbled. It was my only source of food at the time. So I kept going, and going, and going, until one day I realized that it’s been almost a month since I got attacked last."

Yog smiled. "So it was like a zombie apocalypse, but if the zombies were edible. The entire world got turned, and you ate them all across centuries."