The Bird and the Garden 3: The Final Adventure

Chapter 78: Cruelty of the Gods, Part Three

The void trembled as Salem was pushed back by an invisible force, sending her hurtling through the trees. It felt like she was swimming through a bog; it was difficult to breathe, to move as fluidly as before. Shub-Niggurath, far larger than anything Salem had seen before drifted around, almost as if with no real aim. Even the Blood, which had stood at three hundred meters high when they pulled it out of the First Vao's Reality, was tiny compared to her.

Her sword flashed as she attacked the God again, but with no results. No, her weapons didn't bounce off diamond-hard skin like most strong opponents. They just phased through, as if Shub-Niggurath wasn't even there to begin with. Salem gasped, twisting her body away and swimming through the air as this incomprehensible nightmare poked at her with a tentacle.

Just like when she was masquerading as Baphomet, Shub-Niggurath seemed more intent on just fucking with Salem rather than attacking. Her mouths continued emitting awful sounds, but from the rhythm Salem could only be left to assume she was being laughed at. The Celestial snarled, whirling around and kicking off a stone, beelining it for the God's face. Well, the closest one anyway. Her magic expanded out like a pair of white wings, her sword flashing brighter than the sun as she drove the blade forward, aiming for Shub-Niggurath's eyes.

"Give them back," Salem hissed. "Give me those Souls-!?"

Shub-Niggurath wrapped herself around the blade, stopping it dead in its tracks. Even with the Relic of Destruction at its full power, even combined with her Celestial magic, she wasn't even tickling this God. Salem bit her lip and released her weapon, switching to her staff. Shub-Niggurath flicked the sword back at Salem, the weapon grinding to a halt and stopping in the air.

Using the staff's power, Salem let loose an asteroid shower in the void, the massive chunks of rock beginning to orbit the God. Shub-Niggurath stared at them curiously before they closed in. Normal creatures would have been crushed to a pulp, but not a God of this scale. They just ceased to exist on contact with her skin. Salem tried everything she could think of creating - black holes, supernovas, and even some sort of box that could contain Shub-Niggurath's power. Nothing ever came of it though; there was next to nothing that could contain a true God, as Shub-Niggurath called herself. She had beaten the Relic of Creation, Salem's instant-win button.

The Celestial collapsed the staff and returned it to its holster, her sweat rolling upwards on her face, defying gravity. She had met a lot of cocky villains; Rojo had claimed he was invincible. Leaf had claimed they couldn't win. Iris had been so full of himself that he thought everyone's will should be under his complete control. And Jack thought that he was chosen by the Gods, or something. But Shub-Niggurath stood out amongst them all; she had come in unexpectedly and declared she was a God. And now Salem was beginning to believe it.

She began to feel the urge to flee, the red trails on her cheeks painted fresh as her eyes began to bleed again, the sheer absurdity of Shub-Niggurath's entire existence threatening her own sanity. Were there really more like her? More Gods with power far exceeding comprehension? Gods that made the Gods of Light and Darkness look like infants? That was a scary thought.

She slashed her sword at the tentacles again, Shub-Niggurath letting out an abhorrent fit of that same odd laughter. Salem gritted her teeth, diving at the God again, her Celestial wings beating through the air in a flash of wispy blue light, unleashing a flurry of attacks. They wouldn't have affected Shub-Niggurath, but the God played along, dodging with surprising agility for her size.

Blood trickled from Salem's ears, from her nose, every orifice in her body dripping scarlet. Facing something this eldritch was taking its toll not just on her mind, but her body. If she had been human, she'd have lost her wits by now.