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Off the Coast of the Iron Islands
1st Year of Ascendance
"Too bad there is no sake to drink here." Sasayuri lamented. She missed the earthy aroma of sake but would have to do with wine for now.
Ei, who was sharing alcohol with someone for the first time in centuries, chuckled. "Any idea how to make it? It has been a long time since I last indulged in alcohol."
"I might remember a thing or two, but it'll have to wait until this war is over." Sasayuri knew the techniques used in brewing sake, but she had never attempted it herself.
"We will have plenty of time to…" Ei stopped, feeling something on the edge of her senses.
Something dangerous.
Leaving the quarters, Ei stood on the deck, watching the sea for any sign of an attack.
"Turn the ships back." She ordered the captain.
Confused by the sudden order, the sailor asked to be sure. "Your Excellency?"
"Turn the fleet back, now."
"Turn the fleet!" The captain screamed to the flag bearer, who began to wave the white flag, ordering all the ships to turn back.
"Ei, what is happening?" Sasayuri asked, her wings itching in anticipation.
"The Drowned God is coming. I'll keep it contained until the ships are safely away. You are in charge until I return." If she slayed it now, the release of uncontrolled power from the corpse would churn the sea and sink the fleet.
Ei flew up as the oarsmen turned the ships around, putting distance between herself and the fleet, waiting for the god of the Ironborn to arrive.
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Iron Islands
Pyke
"Priest, what is happening?" Goren Greyjoy asked the Priest of the Drowned God as a storm rolled up and the sea boiled.
The priest, an elderly man, spoke with reverence, as if he had been granted a divine revelation. "It is the Drowned God; he is arriving."
Goren grasped the priest by the collar of his robes, furious. "What madness are you spouting off, old man?!"
The priest did not care how he was treated and pointed at the rising pillar of seawater with a finger, awe in his voice. "He comes to deliver judgment."
"He comes! Rejoice! The Drowned God is upon us." The priest leaped to his feet, screaming for all to hear.
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Ei waited for the Drowned God to come out, Musou Isshin at hand. A peaceful resolution was unlikely considering just how stubborn his worshippers were.
Like God, like worshippers.
The sea beneath was boiling, and pillars of water shot up to the sky with increasing intensity before an abomination leaped out of the water and stood before Ei, with a vortex of water keeping him afloat.
A bloated corpse, with pale, slimy gray skin, white eyes as if they were blind, overgrown nails, and a crown of black stone.
"
I am Thalkor, who dares to set foot on my domain without permission?" The Drowned God, perhaps the ugliest entity Ei had ever seen, spoke with a baritone voice.
"Your subjects have started this war. I intend to end it." One way or another, this war would be over.
"What a pretty little thing you are. I don't remember a god like you around." The freshly named Thalkor summoned a cutlass and brought it down.
Ei raised Musou Isshin, blocking the attack effortlessly, and pushed Thalkor back. She quickly wrestled away the control of the storm summoned by the abomination, and purple lightning crackled in the sky.
"I will be the last thing you will ever see, unless you surrender." The Electro Archon pointed her sword at the eldritch god.
"Bah," Thalkor said dismissively, twirling his cutlass,
"I know how easily your people lost; this will be no different."
"Your funeral." Ei went on the offensive this time, appearing behind Thalkor with a downward slash that the Drowned God barely blocked.
With the loss of Riverlands and his already small worshipper base, Thalkor was marginally more dangerous than Orobashi, meaning Ei could have slain him easily. She was just waiting for the fleet to sail away to a safe distance.
Pushing Thalkor away with her superior strength, Ei appeared in front of the abominable god, this time faster than before, and left a deep slash across the Drowned God's chest.
"As weak as your followers. Honestly, I have fought mortals stronger than you." For in Teyvat, the Drowned God would be an easy target.
"Raagh!" Thalkor bellowed, furious even as his wound knit together—slower than it should—and attacked again, raining down a flurry of blows that were easily blocked.
"What are you?" Thalkor growled as Ei increased the strength she was applying, breaking the deadlock and launching the pale god away.
"I see no reason to indulge in any kind of courtesy with you." She said, appearing behind the Drowned God, who turned to face her, but all he saw was an afterimage before he was the one under attack.
Dismissing Musou Isshin, Ei brought Engulfing Lightning out and struck Thalkor's abdomen with the blade covered in crackling divine electro. The Drowned God screamed in agony as the foreign energy coursed through his body, and the Electro Archon twirled her naginata, slamming the handle to the wounded part and sending Thalkor flying up again.
Thalkor stabilized himself through the agony, and seeing he was outpowered, he resorted to summoning creatures from the depths shaped as green-skinned humans with scales, gills, and claws, in an attempt to tire his enemy.
Not that they were a threat to the Electro Archon, but Ei didn't want to waste time with them.
Kage and Thunder Dragon quickly responded to the summons of their creator. "Eradicate these abominations."
Kage pulled the electro elemental energy from within her core and transformed into her Shinkoku Musou—Peerless Divinity of Eternity—form, with six arms and multiple weapons, and dived at the creatures, followed by the dragon.
With its summons otherwise occupied, Thalkor had no choice but to fight again and raised his cutlass to attack, sending out pressurized waves meant to cleave any target in half.
Ei disappeared from view, and the next thing the Drowned God knew, he was flying upwards again as a kick to his stomach broke through his defenses.
The storm converged, bringing an enormous lightning bolt down on Thalkor, and once it was over, the Drowned God fell to the sea.
Not done yet, he came out of the water again, his white, pupilless eyes now a deep, furious red.
Looking back at the fleet, Ei saw that they had finally put enough distance from the battling gods to be safe from the initial calamity that would follow.
Thalkor was going to lose, and he realized it, seeing no choice but to resort to desperate means of survival.
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Iron Islands
Pyke
Goren Greyjoy watched with despair as the Drowned God, in flesh, fought Argella Durrandon.
And was losing.
Lowering his far-seeing eye, plundered from a Myrish trade vessel, Goren fell on his knees, his vision blurring.
"Healer…" He hacked, coughing out blood on his hand, which began to wither and turn to dust. Turning his head, the Lord of Pyke barely saw that the rest of the keep was suffering the same fate before he died, not knowing that it was happening all across the islands.
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Ei watched with disgust and shock as the Drowned God gorged on the life force of his subjects to empower himself, drawing their souls to his embrace.
With each soul consumed, Thalkor bloated more and more, with a deep laugh that made the air quiver.
"Pity, I'll have to find new followers, but killing you should be worth it."
The Narukami Ogoshi did not deign the monster—for it could not be a god—with a response and summoned Musou Isshin again, gathering her divine might.
Thalkor summoned a tower shield, created from the consumed essence of life, confident it would stop whatever attack the goddess before her was going to unleash.
What the Drowned God of the Iron Islands did not know was that conventional defenses did not work against Musou Isshin, for it cut through space itself.
For the second time in the same year, Musou no Hitotachi was unleashed, and time stopped for one second.
A horizontal slash, too fast for Thalkor to comprehend even with his increased power, sliced the shield and the Drowned God in half. The divine strike continued, eventually cleaving the island of Pyke in half, though, seeing as most of the Ironborn were dead, it did not mean much.
The wound was catheterized, but black, cursed ichor leaked out of the Drowned God's mouth, blackening its yellow teeth, as both parts fell to the sea.
She watched the corpse of the Drowned God fall to the sea, with its summons dying now that their anchor no longer existed. The sea where Thalkor fell blackened, and the miasma from the corpse was released.
In an instant, a tsunami, heading in all directions at once, exploded from where the corpse met the sea. Ordering Kage and the Thunder Dragon back, Ei readied herself. The air behind her collapsed as the sound barrier broke, and she cut through the wave with Musou Isshin, long enough to save the western shores of Westeros from certain destruction, while the rest of the calamitous wave slammed the Iron Islands.
Most of its population, whether Ironborn, thralls, or salt wives, were dead due to their god, and the kilometer-long tsunami finished the rest, crushing everything on the islands.
Ancient and mighty keeps were flattened as easily as coastal villages and towns. Coasts were reshaped, and cliffs and sea stacks collapsed. Saltwater contaminated every source of fresh water on the island.
That was not the worst part.
The miasma of a dead god, containing its resentment and out-of-control powers, plagued the islands, and for centuries to come, the Iron Islands would be cursed with monsters spawning from Thalkor's remains.
A permanent storm covered the islands, and deadly waves would sink any vessel foolish enough to approach.
The Iron Islands were neutralized, perhaps not in the way Ei had imagined, but they would not trouble the mainland anymore.
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Ei landed back on the flagship with Sasayuri and her father waiting.
"What the fuck was that?" Argilac, having fallen on his knees like many others, asked with a hollow voice.
For this time, his language would be ignored.
"The Drowned God, Thalkor." Ei explained,
"It had a name?" What the fuck? What had Argilac's life come to that the previous Storm King had to witness two gods fight?
"Appears so."
"Your Excellency, are we to sail to the Iron Islands now?" The captain, who was covering before her, asked, hoping that the answer would be no.
"No. The only thing you will find there is monsters, born from Thalkor's corpse. The Ironborn are dead, and this war is over."
All that preparation and digging a canal, only for the war to be over before the fleet even made landfall.
At least it would increase trade.
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Nightsong
Kitsune Saiguu shuddered.
"What happened?" The Oni, Mikoshi Chiyo, asked, testing the new limits of the modifications her friend had just finished.
"Something died, a god, I think." Her sensitivity to matters such as these was both a boon and a curse.
Chiyo hummed, considering what it could be. "Since Ei was fighting the Ironborn, could it be this Drowned God of theirs?"
"Possibly. Are you ready? I spent what power I had left on you." It would take weeks to recover her energy and attempt something like this again.
"Don't worry, I got this." Chiyo reassured her friend. Oni was already stronger than mortals, but with what Saiguu had just done, all aspects of her strength had increased exponentially.
The forces of Reach and Dorne were slowly making their way out of the passage through the mountain, and there were already hundreds of riders scouting the area.
Chiyo bent her knees, ready to jump, and with her newfound might, created a small crater on the ground as she soared through the air. Pulling her sword out, she brought it down on the unsuspecting scout, cleaving him, plate armor and flesh both, in half.
Too fast for the humans to react at seeing their fellow knights die, Chiyo brought down three more.
"Demon!" One of the knights screamed, pulling out his sword to attack, but she was too fast for the Reachman to do anything and removed the knight's head.
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A blur moved between the four hundred men that had crossed the passage, and each time, a life was taken.
There was mass confusion among the scouts, as they were all too slow to do anything but try to run.
Within minutes, corpses littered the field.
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Chiyo stopped, her sword piercing the ground as she took even breaths to calm her heart. Even with her newfound strength and speed, killing hundreds of humans was a slightly taxing affair.
She stood before the exit of the secret passage, watching as more riders came out.
Electro energy covered her sword, and a single slash sent out a purple wave, cutting men down as if they were grass, with charred body parts falling down.
Left foot slightly back, she held her katana, Torachiyo's Fang, diagonally across her body with the guard at shoulder height, with the tip pointed slightly upward and outward.
Three slashes charged with electro, each one carving up the ground, cut through stone deep into the passage, triggering a cave-in and sealing the cave entrance.
"Not bad."
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Dragonstone
Aegon sat down in his solar, with his sister-wives and champion looking at him while he emptied a bottle of wine.
"You saw it as well." Visenya stated, seeing how shaken her husband was.
"I did." His answer silenced the room. Not that Rhaenys and Orys didn't believe Visenya; it was just too outlandish to be true, but now that Aegon had seen it as well, there was no other choice but to swallow the bitter and terrifying truth.
"Then what do we do?" Rhaenys asked. There was no way forward if Argella Durrandon could destroy a castle with the swing of her sword, not unless they were to conquer a continent with a kingdom they can't afford to have as enemies splitting it in two.
"Stay away from Westeros, for one." Aegon got up, opened the drawer, took out the plans they had for the conquest of Westeros, and threw them into the fireplace, watching as years' worth of planning turned to ashes.
Orys had a different idea. "It need not end here."
"What?" Aegon didn't know what Orys had in mind, but it couldn't be worse than knowing that something far stronger than dragons was just a few days away from Dragonstone.
"If Westeros is out of the question, why don't we try our luck with Essos? They are even more disorganized compared to Westeros." Essos was more ahead in times compared to the Seven Kingdoms and richer but perhaps fought even more so among each other.
Visenya nodded. Westeros was the closest target, but conquering Essos, at least Morosh in the north and Qarth in the south, would be a greater fief, certainly richer at least. "Orys is right, unless you are content with just being the Lord of Dragonstone."
Aegon was quick to agree. "No, I am not. We should begin making new plans then."
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Notes: With how deadly Musou no Hitotachi is, and the small worshipper base the Drowned God has, the battle was bound to be a short one.
I made up the name Thalkor, because having the Drowned God call himself the Drowned God sounds annoying.
The Ironborn are gone, forever, not in the least thanks to their god.
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In the next chapter:
Sixty thousand men from Reach, half of them consisting of Faith Militant, and thirty thousand men from Dorne stood together, ready to march to Nightsong and then all the way to Storm's End.
What they did not know was the fact that a gathering of this size did not escape Argella Durrandon's gaze.
King Mern and Prince Nymor stood before their host to make a grand speech in an effort to raise morale, but it was cut halfway through when the sky split open.
The Storm Queen floated in the sky, looking down at the invaders with a frown. A tense standoff took place, with the humans watching the god warily.
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