CHAPTER 200: CHAPTER 200- OVERWHELMING POWER

Clarissa’s eyes widened, her voice trembling as she looked at Celestia’s pale face. "Then... how can you say that so easily?" she said, her tone wavering between fear and frustration. "You’re poisoned, and you still tell me not to worry?"

Celestia gave a faint smile, though her complexion was still ghostly. "Because worrying won’t heal me any faster," she replied softly. "And I’d rather see you safe than see you worried."

Clarissa bit her lip, her eyes glistening. "You idiot... how can I not worry about you?" she whispered, gripping Celestia’s hand tighter.

Celestia winced again as Clarissa instinctively squeezed her hand, the pain flaring through her bandaged arm. Clarissa immediately let go, eyes wide. "I’m sorry!" she blurted out.

Celestia forced a small smile, shaking her head. "It’s alright... don’t worry."

Beatrix adjusted her glasses with a sigh. "If they had managed to bring me the centipede’s corpse, I might’ve been able to create an antidote. But that’s no longer possible, the creature’s body has already fused into that chimera."

Clarissa’s expression fell, but Celestia spoke gently before the mood could sink further. "It’s fine. Don’t rush on my account," she said, her voice calm but resolute. "I know they’ll win out there. Let’s believe in them."

Clarissa nodded slowly, her worry easing just a little. But after a moment, her eyes widened again as a thought struck her. "Wait... Zoe’s still out there, isn’t she?"

Celestia’s expression turned somber. "Yes... I couldn’t convince her to retreat. She charged straight toward where Julian was fighting."

Clarissa looked down, clenching her fists weakly. "I just hope Zoe’s alright..." she whispered.

Zoe, still in her massive black wolf form, sprinted across the battlefield with unrelenting speed, her claws tearing through the broken ground as her breath burned like fire in the cold air.

Meanwhile, Julian could feel it, the difference in Leo’s power. The man’s aura had changed completely, heavy and overwhelming, like a torrent of water crashing down on his shoulders. Julian tightened his grip on his blade and said coldly, "Then I guess you’d better wash your neck, Leo. I’ll be taking your head next."

Leo laughed, the sound sharp and mocking. "How amusing," he said, spreading his arms wide as blue energy rippled from his body. "A mortal daring to threaten a god."

Beside Julian, Joe’s dragon scales shimmered back into place across his body. He rolled his neck left and right, the cracking of his bones echoing in the air. "Heh," he smirked, eyes burning. "I’ve been waiting for this fighting a so-called god."

Rafael, however, couldn’t move. The sheer weight of Leo’s aura pressed down on him like a mountain, freezing him in place, sweat dripping from his temple.

Leo glanced at them with a godlike arrogance, his voice echoing across the shattered field. "A group of clowns, daring to defy divinity," he said with a cruel grin. "You’ll be the first to receive the judgment of a god."

Leo spread his arms like a conductor and smiled, an ugly, exultant curl.

"All right. I’ll punish you until you can’t breathe," he said, and the words became the command of a storm.

Aura bloomed from him in a living tide: cold runes of blue light shredding the air, a pressure that bent the hairs on their arms. The world hiccupped under the weight of it. Then Leo snapped his fingers.

A thousand glittering shards of ice tore into existence behind him, like an armory unspooling through the sky. They hung for a heartbeat, stars caught in a skiff of night, then launched in a freezing rain toward the three of them.

Julian answered on instinct. Shadow poured from his boots into a domed barrier, black tendrils knitting together into a ribbed shell that swallowed the first wave. The ice slammed against the barrier in a chorus of screams and cracking glass, cold struck Julian’s face and rolled down his spine. He felt the barrier flex and sag under the assault, the weight of Leo’s new divinity pressing into the shadows themselves. Every strike thinned the weave.

He could feel the difference in power.

"You two, do something before we burn out," Julian barked through clenched teeth at Joe and Rafael. The shadow dome shuddered with each impact. "If this breaks, we’re all done."

Joe didn’t wait for permission. With a roar that rattled the bones of those nearby, he shoved off Julian’s barrier and shot forward. Flame gathered around him. blue, molten, spinning like a furnace wheel and he rose in a comet-tail of heat aimed straight for Leo’s face.

"Take this, bastard!" Joe snarled as he launched the spinning, incendiary strike.

But Leo was no simple target. He braced with monstrous poise, hand rising like a dam. When Joe’s fist slammed into him, the impact rang with the sound of metal crashing into ice. For a breath it looked like the blow would crack Leo, then the man’s forearm swept up and caught Joe’s wrist.

There was a crack like a snapped branch.

Joe’s scream shredded the air. Pain exploded up his arm. Energy flared and guttered, his forging heat stuttered. Leo’s grip twisted, bone and metal working in a cruel, patient motion, he snapped Joe’s wrist. The dragon-man’s blazing gauntlet collapsed fire fizzed, sputtered, and winked.

"Argh—!" Joe howled as Leo shoved him with a boot planted on his chest. Joe tumbled, a spent comet, and skidded across the slick carcass of the whale before slamming into a chunk of broken sky. He hit hard, his breath stolen, scales smoking. He tried to rise and his body betrayed him, numbness, pain, the aftertaste of failure.

Julian felt the barrier cave under another concentrated blow and was shoved half off his feet by the rebound. He spat blood and steadied himself, lightning flaring along his knuckles. "Rafael—now!" he snapped.

Rafael’s eyes flicked to Julian, raw panic and resolve warring in them. He gritted his teeth, palms flaring with magnetic light. Metal scrap and splintered rebar answered, orbiting him like a second skin. He hurled them in a buzzing hurricane, steel rods, shards, twisted rebar, aiming to shred the wing-swarm that protected Leo and to pelt the god himself.

The metallic storm struck true, tearing through insect-proxies and battering Leo’s flank. He staggered, the chink they needed opening like a hinge.

Julian slammed his foot down and bent gravity into a knife. The field twisted, tugging on the ice shards and the metal in Rafa’s storm, bending trajectories, pulling the smaller pieces to collide with the larger ones in a cascade. The pressure pinched at Leo’s stance for a second the god’s grin thinned into concentration.

Leo roared and answered with a charge, horns lowered, blue scales flashing. The impact of his body hitting Julian’s gravity field was a physical thing, the air exploded outward, pressure waves slamming into Joe where he lay. Julian’s shadow-shield tore at the edges as the god’s momentum drove a gouge through the makeshift defenses.

Joe coughed blood and cracked a grin through the pain, half-insane defiance. His arm spasmed, regenerating already, but slow and stuttering. He pushed himself up one jaw-clench at a time and spat ash. "You hit like a child," he gasped, voice ragged. "You’ll pay."