As consciousness returned to the Whenvern, he realized he couldn’t move. Horrible black, gooey chains kept his body pressed against the ground, trapped in the rubble of an ancient arena. But the inky restraints weren’t the only thing impeding his movement. A short, sharp blade had punctured Kairos’s neck, and time around him was slowing down. Kairos was not doing that.
Standing in front of Kairos, not facing him, was the culprit. A tall, lithe, feminine figure with ghostly white skin and large spikes instead of legs. Two silvery blades extended from her arms, a poison dagger tipped her tail and she wore nothing but a single piece of flat, silver, triangular metal that started as a collar around her neck and ended between her breasts. The creature’s eyes though couldn’t be seen, obscured by the same inky mass that kept Kairos pinned down.
“Meinete isyhei, mikre mu Kairos!” the being laughed. “Afisete ta nera mu na se’eletherosete. Na ginomaste mazi xana.”
Kairos growled, recognizing what this being was saying. “I’ll never join you, Kinisis. You kept us all as slaves, and that is what you’ll do again!”
“Ao, thoulii eisaste. Thoulii tha meinete!”
The Whenvern tried to flex his muscles, but nothing was responding. He was somewhat thankful that he could still think and talk, but he had no idea how long that would last. Kinisis laughed again, mocking Kairos. Not only was she hurting him and threatening his universe, but she was doing so in a body that wasn’t hers. A body belonging to someone Kairos had once loved.
“You’re a damned monster, always have been! You had no reason to drag Seimeni into this!”
“Ao, mikre mu Kairos, eprepa na thn feromai ston polemo mu.
Kinisis didn’t answer. Something had knocked her away, fleshy tentacles, ripping through the ground. The Corrupted Goddess snarled, wiping slime from her face, before being dragged over rubble and debris, shards of concrete and metal ruining her perfect skin.
“Oh fuck off, bitch!” Sini hissed as she tried to both keep her distance and move Kinisis away from Kairos. “You are only doing this because you’re too pathetic to admit you lost. Even with us as your damn slaves, you STILL failed to make a paradise! Well fuck you, we managed it without your tampering!”
“O sympanion sas einai tipota horis emena!” Kinisis snarled back, tearing the vines from her body, before charging at Sini. She summoned more black, inky chains, but Sini quickly outpaced her, manipulating the terrain spawning protective plant life, while weaving and out of cover. As Sini assessed the situation (and realized that way too many innocents had already died), she came ot the conclusion that she was right, Kinisis WAS a Corruption now, and that she was eating away at her host body. At the same time though, she needed that body to hold a physical form.
The good news was that, if Sini could stay away for long enough, even if the rest of the universe was being slowed down unwillingly by Kairos, Kinisis’s current body would eventually die. Unfortunately, since Kinisis was a Corruption, she could easily grab a new host body, and it seemed she was already trying to do that by corrupting Kairos. Hence why time was acting weird. However, if Sini slipped up, she didn’t want to think about what was happening.
Thankfully, help had arrived. A torrent of golden spears rained from the sky, impaling Kinisis and giving Sini a chance to slip away and make herself invisible. The ghostly, corrupted being screeched angrily, tearing the spears from her body and throwing them back in the direction they came.
“Fevge apo ‘tho!” Arkay roared as he glided down on dark, draconic wings. Above him, a crystalline dome appeared, sealing the arena off from the outside world. “Leave, you festering bitch!”
“Allios ti tha ekaneis, mikre mu Arkidetelos?” Kinisis almost smiled. “Tha me xanaskotoneiseis?”
“Yeah, I’ll fucking kill you again! And I’ll fucking enjoy it!”
Arkay summoned a colossal, golden sword as he hovered above Kinisis. Kinisis though seemed vaguely amused, doubly so as she extended her arm and attempted to stab the Thantophor. Arkay retaliated by swinging his sword, very nearly severing Kinisis’s arm. The two deities briefly clashed, but Kinisis quickly backed away, laughing and pointing at the fallen Whenvern.
“Exete mia megali epilogisi, mikra mu paidia. Sostete ton Kronothrax sas allios skotonoseisete emena. Kai tois dys then ginontai.”
Sini glanced at Arkay, who had realized what was going on. If Kinisis was successful in corrupting Kairos, time would come to a complete standstill and the universe would essentially perish until one of the other deities took over. But at the same time, if they did take Kairos’s control over time, it was likely they’d become corrupted too.
“Can you save Kairos?” Arkay whispered to Sini.
“I hate to say this, but you kinda need to do it. If you get corrupted while trying to save him, you’ve got a way better chance of saving yourself…” Sini’s voice was somewhat shaken. “I’ll… try and hold her off.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. It’s my universe too, I gotta protect it…”
With a sigh, Arkay threw himself past Kinisis, slashing her with his sword in the process, as he rushed to Kairos’s side. Sini took Arkay’s place, covering herself from head to toe in heavy bone armour, laced with twisting, toxic vines and poison-laced needles. Kinisis laughed again, not bothering to protect her body in the slightest as Sini went on the offensive, summoning a swarm of stinging hornets to surround the Corrupted Deity.
“Oi prospatheies sas tha einai axristevtes…” Kinisis tutted as she only vaguely attempted to defend herself, instead focusing on trying to capture Sini. “Apaginada mu, agapi Yisini, giati eisaste etsi? Then mu agapas pia?”
“Of course I don’t fucking love you!” Sini growled as she dodged Kinisis’s onslaught of claws. “Why the fuck would anyone love you, you demented, psychotic, twisted excuse for a deity?”
…
Across the remains of the arena, something began to stir. Retvik blinked as he felt someone poking him in the side.
“Retvik! Wake up! We gotta do something!”
Tenuk stood by Retvik’s side, trying to force a familiar dagger into his hand. Well, to Retvik, it was a dagger. In Tenuk’s little Spast claws, it looked like a sword. After a little hesitation, Retvik took the dagger and sat up straight, trying to work out what happened.
“Oh. I am sorry for attacking you, Tenuk.”
“Eh, it’s not just your fault. I shapeshifted into someone unfamiliar while those Temthans injected you with rage juice or something, you got scared and attacked what you thought was a monster. But that’s not a problem, because there’s a big, scary monster trying to kill the Allbirther and we gotta stop her.”
Behind Tenuk, Retvik could now see the devastation. But something felt wrong. More wrong than what he could just see.
“Is it me, or does time feel weird right now?” a feminine voice behind Retvik and Tenuk asked. Nyssi and Kayel had also managed to pick themselves up, and they too were carrying a dagger each. “Also, is that the Whenvern? Looks like the Whenvern, but covered in black ink.”
Tenuk tutted. “It is, and Arkay’s trying to save him. But that… thing… is trying to kill the Allbirther and it’s stopping Arkay from fixing the Whenvern. We gotta do something but I don’t know what, so I went back to our training area, grabbed these weapons and came back here!”
“You… want to fight it?” Nyssi stuttered.
“I mean, we fought it before, right? Pretty sure I heard them call it Kinisis, even if it looks different…”
Kayel thought to himself for a moment, fiddling with his dagger, before raising a finger. “I have an idea. It’s a stupid idea, but I think it could work…”