The Divine Punishment

"E-eight of the lesser gods? W-what are you talking about? Who the fuck are you anyway!"

"But... I just showed you the illusion. I'm the one who wanted to destroy the Earth."

"Y-you're... the god?"

"That's right, I am the god Izanagi, the creator of the earth and the lesser gods, whose powers were taken by you, I saw. Good, only I hadn't permitted you to take them."

"I-I-Izanagi...w-what do you mean with the eight powers?"

"Interesting, my own thief speaks to me by calling me by my first name. Anyway, don't play dumb, I don't like being made fun of, that's why I destroyed Earth. You, humans, started insulting me out of your own vent, and almost all of you had forgotten I existed, inventing other gods that don't even exist."

"I-I admit that I didn't have any certainty of your existence, but after meeting someone who explained your story to me, I began to think that maybe I was wrong."

"So you're telling me that it wasn't until you realized I existed that you decided to steal from me?"

"I-I don't understand what you mean, what would I have stolen from you?"

I was playing dumb, but I was pretty sure he meant the kamien.

"I told you, I don't like being played. The powers of the lesser gods, don't you remember what the "narrator" had said in the illusion? All the divine essences were enclosed in a huge piece of rock, the Hiderigami."

"W-wait, so you're talking about... t-the kamien?"

"Huh? Did you by any chance dare to insult me face to face?"

"No! I didn't say anything bad, why did you get angry?"

"The initial of the word, kami, means god in Japanese, and with 'en' at the end, I thought it was blasphemy!"

"No, the surviving humans use this word for these...essences of lesser gods. In Polish, it means stone, because since they looked like pieces of fallen meteorite, we wanted to give them this name."

"Huh... and how come it's specifically in Polish?"

"Well, I chose the word, and I'm Polish."

"It's a good thing they let YOU choose it, you're the most powerful human being in the universe right now."

"Yeah, but... if I weren't, right now..."

"What?"

"Well, to get this far, loved ones of mine had to sacrifice, including my teacher, my best friend, who was the possessor of the ka-... essence of fire, and... even the girl I... was in love with," I said starting to cry.

"Well, I'm sorry, I don't want to make you sad again, but those essences are mine, and now you have to give them back to me."

"I-I would gladly do that, but if I pulled out the stones, I would bleed to death."

"I don't care, you were supposed to die when the... what do you call it...meteorite crashed."

"And, how come, I didn't die?"

"A fool got in the way and protected you, but I'll make up for it as soon as I get back what's mine."

"Can't we make a deal or something? I don't want to die, and I don't want any more survivors to die either."

Izanagi, without even letting me finish my sentence, unsheathed his Ame-no-Ohabari (sword) and threw a broadsword at the air, creating a huge shockwave, which threw me 20 meters away from him.

I quickly got back up to avoid his second attack from the Ame-no-Nuhoko (spear) he held in his other hand. It hit the ground and made a huge crack that reached my feet; I jumped and had to move from there: I had to use Emmy's Susanoo.

"But I've never tried it before, so I can't know unless I'll master it right away."

"Human, you can't do anything against me."

I had no choice but to try, so I activated the wind kamien and tried to remember what Acuro had said to Emmy. By now I had forgotten, and after Izanagi's illusion, my mind was even more clouded. I had to do it myself, so I created the wind, and pulled myself up, but I also had drafts on all sides, to use it as if it were some sort of steering wheel.

"Wow, it works! Wait, Evan also used thrusters made from fire."

With that thought, I tried activating the fire kamien and used it on the soles of my shoes, it initially pushed me away, but after a few seconds I had figured out how it worked. Then after that, I moved on to the next step: boosting the fire with the Susanoo wind. I succeeded easily, I imagined it to be more difficult from the way Evan and Emmy described it; well maybe it's because they had to adjust together, while I have both kamien and easily understand how much power to put in.

The god became even angrier to see me using "his" powers.

"Boy, you are very skilled and intelligent, you have figured out in a short time how those god powers work. You would make a great colleague as a god, but you stole them, and you're a human, so I'm going to eliminate you!"

"I don't care what you think, I have to make sure that the living beings left on earth don't go extinct, I'm the only one who can do it, and many people have bet their lives on me!"

"Fuck it"

Izanagi made a cut in the air from left to right with his sword to create discomfort for me, and then came up attempting a lunge with his spear; thanks to Emmy's Fujin I managed to dodge it in time, but it wasn't enough to parry it completely, in fact, it hit me very hard and pushed me away until I crashed into a mountain I destroyed.

"Cough!"

"And now I'm going to kill you!" he said as he was closing in on me.

"Shit, what can I do, think, think, Tenkei!" I thought.

I also activated the black hole kamien and created a minefield in the air, I also started making rain with the water kamien, but the rain was radioactive, like Clark's technique.

Below, however, I made an electric sea full of zombie-fish. Without being noticed, I filled the black holes with fire, and as if that wasn't enough, all of this was inside a cage made of wind, if he dared to touch the airstream, his hand would be severed due to the speed of the wind.

Of course, this would have exhausted all the strength I had, but at least it had given me time to hide in a safe place (still near the battlefield).

In the meantime, Izanagi was not in too much trouble, but he had to work hard to survive that attack: first, he had to avoid being absorbed by the black holes together with the fire, he used a technique similar to Evan's in the fight against Ace when he surrounded him and used the suction of two opposite holes to stay in the center. After that, when they spit fire, he jumped into the electric water, also because he could no longer stay under the radiation. He resisted the electricity with a divine technique, a kind of protective layer that made him immune to all attacks, but I suppose that the stronger the attacks were, the more energy he had to use. Once the electricity was over, he killed all the fish with his sword and spear and then swam to the wind cage, from which he came sprinting out faster than he was, getting a few injuries, but nothing serious, unfortunately.

"Tenkei Nowak, as you've seen, I'm stronger than you, so as they say over here, tooth away pain away, you're going to get yourself killed right away.

You'll suffer less, that will be your fate anyway, the fate of a thief."

I could not continue to be provoked like this, I had to respond. Then, every time I spoke, I would move to another position.

"I am not a thief, if you wanted these powers, you could have come down to earth and taken them back!"

"I couldn't until someone did the dirty work of gathering all the stones together for me."

"Often, to get what you want, you have to take a risk."

"Alright, so now I'm going to risk my life fighting you, okay? Is that enough, Tenkei Nowak?!"

I couldn't listen to him anymore, so I decided to throw a black hole at him with all the powers of the other six kamien in it, I caught him in the middle, he didn't even notice that I had attacked him. He was hurt very badly, I had done it.

He didn't seem to be spitting blood, but, like a statue, he crumbled where he was hit.

"Yes! I'm grea-"

The body had disappeared, but later his voice was heard again.

"W-what? Y-you're not dead?"

"Huh? Me dead? Did you think that was enough to kill me? You're delusional. I can make you fall asleep and see visions, I can even make you see illusions without making you take a nap. What you killed was just a combination of light and atoms that looked like me, but you will never be able to kill me."

Since he had seen where the attack was coming from, he had also figured out where I was, and I hadn't moved because I was paralyzed from what had happened. Izanagi threw the spear at me, I luckily dodged it, I didn't know when he was going to throw it or even if it was directed at me or to the side anticipating that I would move there. So I threw to the right at a random moment, I had followed my instincts. After that though, he also came to hand-to-hand combat with his sword, I obviously hadn't been able to do anything, he threw me away again

"W-what? Am I alive? He hit me several times with his divine sword..."

I couldn't understand how I had survived, but I couldn't keep reasoning about this.

"I have to survive, no matter what."

"Boy, you are more resilient than I expected. I thought that with this attack, I would take you out once and for all... well, I can't wait any longer, now I have to start committing, I underestimated you."

Izanagi picked up the spear again and pretended to throw it, I, like an idiot, fell for the trick and jumped to the opposite side to dodge it, and then he threw it after I fell to the ground. I managed to stop it with black holes acting as a wall and then flew off with the flaming Susanoo.

"Okay, now I have to keep running until I can outrun him-"

I'd only made it a few more yards, and he was about twenty away, but the spear came straight into my belly.

"Cough...h-how did you do that?"

"I told you: i-l-l-u-s-i-o-n. See what happens if you don't listen to me?"

"B-bastard-- cough!..." I said, spitting blood.

"I told you from the beginning that you were weaker than me and I would beat you, even though I underestimated you, you were still poorer."

"N-no... I can't waste all those sacrifices made to make me survive..."

"Y-O-U H-A-V-E L-O-S-T, what is it that you don't understand?"

"T-this...all these deaths have happened because of you..."

"It's pure survival, as you humans call it. Either I killed you, or there was a risk that I would die, and... another proverb of yours says: prevention is better than medicine, so I destroyed the Earth."

"W-what kind of god are you?"

"Hey, kid. Being a god doesn't mean you have to take care of the planet, those are stories you made up."

"I-I can't accept that."

"I'm sorry, but it's the only thing you can do, and anyway with all these sacrifices you say you've had, even the lowest human in the universe could have made it this far, gambling is risky, and those people staked their lives on the wrong person, don't you get it?"

"You're a beast!"

"Huh? Beast? How fucking dare you!!!" he said kicking me right in the face with his huge leg.

"Cough!" I continued spitting blood.

"I can't let this pass, a miserable human who only exists because of me, tells me I'm a beast? At most, you're a fly compared to me, how fucking dare you! I'm tired of you, I'm going to finish you off!"

He gripped his sword and stuck it on top of the spear like it was a hammer with a screw.

Tenkei Nowak.

Age: 17

Nationality: Polish-Japanese

Status: unconscious