Lydia walked into the battlefield engulfed in divine magic, bathed in sunlight, and shining like a blazing infernal flame. She had so much divine magic, in fact, that for a fraction of a second, Nyar almost mistook her for Amaterasu.

On top of that, she didn’t just have quantity, but quality as well. Divine magic usually shifts to suit the user, but in exchange, it grows weaker. That is why the quality of faith that a paladin has decides how much, and how pure, the divine magic they would get.

There are paladins out there with more divine magic than Lydia, and there are some dedicated priestesses, nuns, and clerics with purer divine magic than her as well. But no one has both; most can’t have both quality and quantity, but she could.

She glared at Nyar for a moment, emotionless, and disgusted at his sight, then replied to his question in a cold, offended, and irritated tone.

"Insulting you? Of course, do you take yourself to be above the sun? A mere vessel, a pathetic avatar of a pathetic parasite." She stood, lifting her bastard sword up, "I’m only here to do a servant’s job, and take out a bug that crawled into Amaterasu’s universe of stars."

Nyar blitzed past everyone else and landed in front of Lydia, glaring down at her with two burning green eyes. "Yeah, besides AO, she was always one of the hardest things to deal with. She who was born from the stars’ beauty, from the beauty of AO’s immense body."

Suppose Yog was a smart, calculated, and evil menace. Amaterasu then would be a proud, loud, clear, and arrogant force that could not be stopped. She doesn’t play chess against him; she would kick the chessboard away and fight directly with her hands.

In the blink of an eye, he shoved his fist in Lydia’s chest, bypassing all of her armor, divine protection, and barriers. In his extended arm, her heart rested in his palm, still beating and oozing golden blood.

[God Shattering Star]

Lydia’s arms flew down, and her blade roared with a blinding flash. The entire labyrinth quaked and cracked, everyone who was nearby got blasted away, even the gods.

Nyar’s body was cleaved in half from head to groin, burned with divine light, and washed away in radiance. Even Yog felt the impact. Amaterasu must have calculated the energy needed and gave Lydia 99.999% of the power needed to destroy the labyrinth.

Nyar knew it the moment he saw Lydia’s blood had turned golden. She had soaked up so much of Amaterasu’s divine magic that it had replaced her blood, coated her organs, and infused her with so much power that she surpassed any mortal limits.

[God Shattering Star] Nyar knew of that; he had heard of it before. Amaterasu had killed two of her brothers, and once ruled over the gods immediately after AO vanished, and of course, they didn’t accept her rule willingly.

Because Amaterasu... isn’t a goddess, she is no divine being. The entire universe is AO’s body, from the stars, galaxies, and worlds. The stars are the machinations, the organs that AO used to create the worlds, to stabilize solar systems, and to create matter through the cycle of their birth and death.

Amaterasu was a nymph, born from AO’s stars. The gods feared her because, unlike them, she didn’t need mortals’ prayers, she didn’t need help, and couldn’t be bothered to entertain their whims. [God Shattering Star] was her nickname that she got after massacring any god who dared try to negotiate with the abominations who wanted to feast on her father’s corpse.

Nyar’s body exploded into a burst of divine light, and even his true body outside the universe could feel the impact, getting even more wounded. Usually, he would’ve already severed the connection to his vessel to cut his losses short... but Lydia was done for.

Pouring through her fragile human body the same power Amaterasu used to kill gods was a mistake, and a deadly one. Lydia’s body burned and disintegrated into golden ash and embers, dissipating away with the impact of her own strike.

Amaterasu was smart; she sacrificed one paladin and destroyed the vessel. But Nyar refused to let her have the win, and if he is going to lose, he’ll make sure they all lose. And thus, he didn’t sever the connection to his vessel, and instead, empowered it.

"Foolish mortal, foolish nymph, do you really think I’ll play your games? How about this? I changed my mind; I’ll deal as much damage to this universe as I can, no matter the cost." His body regenerated from nothing, forming back in the blink of an eye.

But as his eyes returned and he could see the light, he knew that he might be in bigger trouble than he first thought. Lydia was dead; she burned herself to ash in that one attack. But... her soul that Death took away was already getting reborn, burning in golden flames, fusing and collapsing on itself from the ashes and mist of divine energy.

In about a minute, a new Archangel would be born into the universe. Nyar had to finish her off before she came back, but the other gods were already rushing back to the fight, and it won’t be easy. Forcing more power into his vessel, he jumped forward, ready to shatter Lydia’s soul.

But it was then that a large, muscular arm grabbed his wrist, and he was forced to halt. Nyar immediately severed his own hand and took a step back, glaring at the large, muscular, ten-foot-tall, man standing in front of him.

Above the man’s head, a ring of black words floated, spelling, [Be Afraid] in a language only Nyar knew how to read. This man was Baal, Arad’s Archon.

The two glared at each other for a long second. None of them moved, and Nyar had to think of his moves carefully. The one standing in front of him wasn’t a normal angel or archon; he was an archon of AO, and as divine beings went, this was a whole different beast.

Nyar had faced him before as Euri and knew well what this archon could do. In fact, this archon must’ve been hiding inside AO’s all this time, slowly feeding on power. Right now, Nyar has no idea how big of a threat Baal is.