Power Overwhelming

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As the large man swung a wicked-looking blade at her head, Envy easily dove under the blade and twisted her body to plant a fist into the man's sternum. Normally such an awkward blow wouldn't have had enough strength to make a difference, but her skin glowed metallic white as the Titan bloodline she'd copied from Wrath boosted her strength to a significant degree. Combined with her already superlative cultivation, even such a simple blow had to be taken seriously. As they were all fighting in orbit, none of them had a proper footing, something they all had to account for in all their attacks, which meant that the large man was blasted away by the strike.

Several runes glowed on his skin, seemingly dampening the damage from the blow, and he quickly recovered, but the strike had made him more careful. This time his approach was more measured and guarded as his blade wove a net of attacks made of Qi, making dodging much more difficult. The price was naturally that the strength of each attack individually was weaker, which Envy exploited by just bluntly tanking one of the blows as she broke inside her enemy’s guard again. Her natural durability combined with the boost from Wrath’s extremely high-quality Titan bloodline was enough to keep her safe. Not that she was a stranger to taking some damage to deal a lot more.

This time she didn’t strike the man with an open fist. Instead, her palm landed on his chest and twisted, sending a spiraling force of Qi inside his body to attack his organs instead of his surprisingly hard skin. The tattooed runes glowed a lot brighter this time, and he didn’t manage to avoid all the damage as he had a trail of blood leaking from his mouth. He did manage to strike back though, as his foot kicked out and sent Envy flying away this time. However, this suited her just fine, as a rain of Qi arrows came flying at him, which he had to deflect with a wasteful burst of his own Qi.

“So. What are you doing here, Rune Warrior?” Envy asked a bit playfully; the man’s Name an obvious reference to his fighting style. Despite the one-sidedness of their engagement so far, he wasn’t a bad fighter, far from it. Envy was simply one of the best in the multiverse, which made him seem crappy in comparison. These kinds of fights usually went one of two ways. Either they’d stick to a match of pure skill, speed, and strength, or they’d try to see which of them had the more powerful techniques and Qi. Usually, fighters preferred one or the other, although they could switch if they thought it would be advantageous to do so. So far, they’d stuck to the first method and Envy was definitely coming out ahead.

The man spat out a globule of blood. “We’re here to get rid of and punish evildoers. And don’t bother trying to deny your guilt, Envy. No one who carries the Name of a Sin is innocent.”

Envy burst into laughter and raised her voice to be heard over the sounds of battle around her. “THESE DUMMIES ARE HERE BECAUSE WE HAVE TWO SINS HERE! THEY FANCY THEMSELVES AS HEROES!”

At the same moment, Karna sent the Astral Dragon flying with a smack of her wing. Being large could be both good and bad but being able to move at the speed of a Kun-Peng eliminated most of the downsides. “Are they idiots?” She growled back. The Astral Dragon decided that exact moment to try and scratch her face off, but the fact that just her head was bigger than the dragon meant that each of her Celestium scales was larger than an airship and many times as thick, making such attempts rather pointless. “Scratch that, literally, they’re definitely idiots.” She chuckled at her own pun.

Envy turned back at the man. Just before Karna smacked the dragon away again. "While my fellow sin there isn't making the best counter-argument, the fact remains that your view of the situation seems rather simplistic."

At the same time, Valor sent the female knight flying past Envy with a beam of golden light from his fancy new sword. As she flew past, Envy noted that the female knight seemed the strongest member of the group despite currently being overpowered by Valor. She also carried the Name of Saint, which was something that couldn’t be earned lightly. As she flew past, the knight had the awareness to take advantage of the situation and swept her spear at Envy, which the latter side-stepped with less ease than she would've liked. The head of the spear, which was clearly a weapon spirit of some kind, glowed with a nasty amount of power and would've been rather dangerous if it had hit.

“They do seem to be rather conveniently ignoring some facts.” Valor pointed out.

“Such as?” The female knight with golden hair asked, sending her spear flying at Karna, not missing that opportunity either. Karna had sensed the attack coming and moved out of the way, and the spirit suddenly reappeared in the knight’s hand.

“Like the fact that we might have two Sins here, but we also have three Virtues.” Valor pointed out.

The woman’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Virtues?”

“Yes.” Valor nodded. “You must have checked out my Name already. And there you can see Hope…” His words faltered a bit as Hope was doing her best evil witch impression with crackling energy flowing from her fingertips to torment the mage that was her opponent. “And the big one also carries the Name Mercy…” His voice was even more feeble as it was rather clear Karna was toying with the Astral Dragon at this point, headbutting the poor thing hard enough to make it crash into the enemy airships.

“…pardon me if I’m not entirely convinced.” The female knight stated with heavy sarcasm. She could see Valor’s Name as just that, but Karna she saw as Wrath and Hope as Witch of Chaos.

“Yeah, that doesn’t look all that great.” Envy cackled. “Not that we need to convince you. I’m just laughing at your stupidity personally. You dug your graves when you attacked us. All I want to know is, who convinced you to take this fool’s errand?”

“You seem rather confident in your victory.” The female knight stated, not really giving an answer. Instead, her golden holy power coalesced into a glyph that floated behind her head, and the same golden power suddenly surrounded her allies. Their wounds healed rapidly, and Hope was the first to notice something was wrong as her magic didn't seem to have any effect on her target anymore. Instead, the mage suddenly ignored all defense entirely and started bombarding her with his own spells with reckless abandon.

Next, Karna's wing impacted on the Astral Dragon again, but this time didn't seem to have any real effect. Sure, the momentum from the strike still sent the smaller being flying, but the dragon wasn't injured. "I see. Valor, you need to step up. Your opponent's power renders her allies invulnerable for as long as her power lasts."

Envy had to go to the defensive as well as the tattooed warrior came at her, swinging his weapons wildly. “Finally, some challenge. I was worried that this was all there was to the attack!”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m going to have to spoil your fun.” A voice called out just as a pillar seemingly made of blood smashed into Envy’s opponent. Tremere floated to them while holding the heads of his opponents. “Bah! Old vampires always think they’re powerful just because they’re old. Sending a vampire to fight a Thaumaturge is a stupid idea.” His words echoed what Karna had declared years ago.

"So, what now Saint? Still, feel like fighting while outnumbered and outgunned? Your little trick is a fun one, but we both know there are ways around it, and it won't last for too long." Valor asked while pointing his sword at her chest.

“Do your worst evildoer.” The woman declared with a voice filled with righteous judgement.

Valor was about to argue but was pre-empted by Envy. “Don’t mind if I do!” The Sin declared before pulling out the weapon Wrath had made for her. She had requested this along with the greaves she was now wearing. Her natural speed, combined with the boost from her new greaves allowed her to move with such speed that the next thing anyone realized, her new spear was already through the chest of the tattooed warrior. His runed tattoos were trying to fight the spear, failing abysmally, and the golden glow that had protected him earlier seemed to have turned sickly yellow, and seemed to be making the wound worse.

“What did you do?!” The Saint screamed. She could feel the blessing she’d extended to her ally being corrupted.

"Oh please. Most of our future enemies are either gods or borrow the powers of gods. Of course we came up with methods to fight the miracles those gods can bestow." Envy grinned wickedly while twisting her spear further before it seemed like the runed warrior's chest caved in and imploded in a shower of gore. Envy's new spear was one that carried a heavy power of curses, turning protective magic, especially the divine kind, against the one being protected.

“Cur! Heathen! Sinner!” The woman was practically spitting in her anger due to losing her companion.

“Says the supposed Saint leading an invasion fleet against a world that posed no threat to anyone. But I’m not here to debate morality. Such concepts are rather irrelevant and subjective anyway. No matter if you consider yourself good or evil, you doomed yourself and your allies when you decided to attack us. Or did you think you could just come here and murder us all without any losses?” Envy wasn’t having any of it. She’d always hated the sanctimonious types.

Hope was even more direct as her own magic turned the protective shield around her opponent into a deathtrap, as all that power suddenly turned inwards and exploded. The fight had been a short one, but brutal. It also made the difference between their group and the others clear. These reincarnators they'd fought were skilled in their own right, but they hadn't lived for countless lifetimes like Karna, Tremere, Envy, and Hope had. Even Valor to a lesser extent.

Karna looked at the dragon that also seemed devastated by the loss of two of its friends. “Last chance little dragon. Take what’s left of your little fleet and your knight friend from this place. If you do not, none of you will live to see the morning.” To emphasize her words, she activated her Domain, as did the others, making it clear that play-time was over.

With a howl of rage, the dragon led the remaining airships through a portal and back into the Astral Plane. Some of the ships had managed to make it close to the world below before they had been fired at by the forces on the ground, led by Tsumi. “That wasn’t all of it, right?” Hope voiced what they were all thinking. This had been somewhat anti-climactic, even if they were quite confident in their own strength. “I mean, the Seer wouldn’t have warned us just about that, right?”

“Well, the whole thing would’ve been much worse if the entire enemy fleet had attacked us at once…but no. I do not think that was the extent of it.” Karna confirmed.

“Is that why you let them go? I mean, the Saint was rather annoying and she could be dangerous. If the entire group had been as skilled as she was, then the fight might have been more challenging, even if still not very dangerous. Letting her go might bite us in the back later on.” Envy pointed out.

“You don’t think they were sent here to lose on purpose, do you?” Valor suddenly suggested.

“What do you mean?” Envy asked, suspicious.

“Well, I just had a thought. It would make for a bit of a story. The Saint losing in battle against two Sins, two of her companions dying in the process. If presented the right way, it could be used to incite others against us. Even more so if she had died.” Valor explained.

“Two problems with that. Now that we know about the Astral Dragon, I can make sure that approach will no longer work. Secondly, anyone important enough wouldn’t be fooled by such obvious propaganda.” Karna pointed out. “I’m not saying this can’t be used for something like that, but I doubt that was the main point.”

“I think he’s on to something though.” Envy nodded towards Valor. “I get the feeling that this was somehow meant to draw other forces into the fight, but I’m not sure how.”

“I can answer that!” A cheery voice called out to them and a small hybrid of a Cobra Dragon and a Faerie Dragon suddenly appeared above them. Some of the group could identify Ysendra of course.

“Do tell. This whole thing seemed quite suspicious.” Karna encouraged. She knew Ysendra was the type to just float there not saying anything until one of them bit.

“During the fight, you were all playing to an audience. The presence of that audience was quite subtle, and my presence made sure none of them interfered, but you were definitely monitored. And if you had shown weakness, some of their pre-arranged forces would’ve been brought in to deal with you. However, as you had no trouble dealing with the attackers, you didn’t really give them a proper opening. With me here, they were being limited to using mortal agents, and you made it abundantly clear that any mortal agents would just be marching into their doom.” The little dragon explained.

“Wait, we were being observed from the Divine Planes?” Valor caught on quickly.

"Still are, though I'm obstructing their view currently. They can't look inside Karma's tower or certain other well-protected places, but from now on you should assume any actions you take will be seen by others. I’m sure I don’t need to explain why.”

Hope pointed at Karna. “Princess Ynnead.” She frowned a bit. “Did they hear what we were saying?”

“Not as such. It’s not a video feed or anything. It’s not as detailed as that. Well, for most gods at least. And I may have made sure they would not hear about your Names. That said, you did just allow someone to escape that knows those Names, right? Will she tell if asked? I would operate under the assumption that anything you told her is now public knowledge.” Ysendra explained.

Envy made a fed-up sound before looking at Karna. “Your mercy had made things more difficult.”

While not untrue, Karna didn’t quite agree. “Some of them already know, and the rest would’ve found out soon enough anyway. You’ve been calling me Wrath all this time, essentially making sure that’s the name everyone will see when they look. They would’ve found out anyway as soon as we Ascended. Besides, we didn’t expect things to be easy, did we?” She turned to Ysendra. “So, what was the point of this whole exercise?”

“Well, there were multiple goals by multiple parties. Some really wanted to conquer this world, but your little storm effectively put an end to that plan. Those parties have already moved on to easier targets. The Saint and her group really wanted to punish evil Sins, probably encouraged by the god she serves. The observers wanted to get a measure of all of you, especially the ones like you, as you’ve already proven to be potential rivals. Those not like you still have an interest in Princess Ynnead, while some just want to see you all dead. There are also a dozen other interests mixed in, major and minor, personal and political." Seeing the tiny dragon shrug was odd, to say the least.

“So, was that it?” Valor asked. “Or will there be further attacks?”

"Impossible to say. As you suspected, some will try to use your 'obvious evil' to try and gather support for another attack, but I have no idea how successful they will be. That said, I think I'm putting my paw down. This world is in my sphere of influence, and I don't think I will tolerate any further encroachment. You're welcome." Ysendra sang the last two words, and Karna recalled hearing some kind of song to that effect before.

“I get the sense that we'll see the dragon and the Saint again," Hope murmured.

“Don’t you dare get all seer-y on me.” Envy protested.

"Ah, miss dragon." Tremere turned towards Ysendra. "Could I request a favor? Ze storm. It is still zhere."

"Hmm? Ah, the thing Karma created? Yeah, I can deal with that." For a fraction of a second, they all felt a pressure heavy enough that it would crush them if it lasted any longer, but it was gone as soon as it appeared. And they could sense that so was the storm.

“You always were good at that sort of thing.” Karna smiled at the small dragon. There was a reason why the two had joined hands to create the Crossroads, and the little dragon’s command over spatial forces was just one of them.

Ysendra grinned with a smug look. “Have you made progress with finding a way to get us away from this annoying universe?”

Karna had to sigh in return. “In theory, but I can’t really test things until I reach immortality.”

“I understand. Still, at least you have some theory in place and you’re progressing quickly. Speaking of immortality, do you remember when I mentioned two particular beings of my rank to you before? I’ve gotten word that they’re currently in the Divine Planes. You might find it beneficial to seek them out. I think the two of them could be very helpful.”