Epic of Caterpillar

"I will distract him with my Labyrinth World's endless wave of monsters, as long as he has something to smack furiously, I can have time to employ the rest of my powers!" thought Kireina, opening a portal to her Inner Realm: Labyrinth World, a place that was born when she became a Dungeon, an endless internal world made up of labyrinths, where monsters constantly spawned everywhere!

The monstrous creature surged one after another, making up thousands after thousands!

Their roars resonated through the battlefield, as Hephaestus was bathed on this surging swarm of monsters!

"Nnngghhaaa!"

Even if they were all mortal beasts, the sheer amount of them slashing, biting, and releasing endless amounts of skills and spells, for a moment, distracted him!

Kireina smiled, as she then called upon the millions of souls she has been gathering!

All the souls began to fly around her, while she used Gungnir to keep impaling and distracting Hephaestus alongside the monster.

The souls danced at her commands, as she began to conjure spells that combined Phantasmal Attribute and most of her other divinities into one!

"Divine Soul Blades!" she said, generating thousands of soul blades, each one of the sizes of a building that flew towards the confident God, who was using all of his blazing power to break through the monsters and breaking apart Gungnir dozens of times already!

"GRAAAAAAAAHH!"

Hephaestus cried in anger, releasing a wave of pure divinity towards the blades, making most of the dissipate!

However, many of them suddenly appeared through nothingness, as if they had been teleported!

"What?! Such an advanced form of Spatial Magic…! Impossible, she was supposed to have gotten such magic recently!" thought Hephaestus. As he fended off the soul blades that came one after another.

However, the blades quickly began to slice off his Divine Aura and Divine Soul, only tiny bits but enough for him to feel excruciating pain!

"S-So this is the specialty of these things?!" asked Hephaestus.

"Divine Soul Blades are created through the combination of thousands of souls each, alongside Phantasmal Magic to keep them together, and using all of my divinities to enhance their strength even further, they all come charged with things such as God Devour, Piercing Evil, Divine Slash, and more… It is a Divine Technique I just devised! Even if his body and soul are strong, I can slowly chop him off, bit by bit!" thought Kireina.

"Do you like my blades? How about this other trick?" asked Kireina, as the space distorted once more, and endless waves of purple corrosive poison began to rain over Hephaestus!

"T-That's… Megusan poison!" said Hephaestus, generating hundreds of blazing barriers as each one of them melted!

Megusan's poison was an incredibly potent corrosive toxin, capable of even violating how the structure of Divine Techniques was made, treating them all as soft tissue that could be melted!

Seeing his powerful divine barriers melt away made Hephaestus mad, as he tried to evade the poison, only to fall into the swarm of Divine Soul Blades that slowly sliced his soul off into pieces!

"NNNGGGHH! Infernal Gate: Blazing Heavenly Phoenix Summon!"

Hephaestus roared, raising his arms as he released a shockwave of divinity to destroy the Divine Soul Blades that Kireina sent his way, the monsters were completely disintegrated, and Gungnir melted and flew away.

Atop his head, a gigantic blazing gate opened, and a titanic bird emerged, covered in blazing feathers and roaring more like a dinosaur than any sound a bird would make… It held twelve crimson eyes and gigantic, over 30 meters long wings, its talons were covered in gold and its beak was gigantic and sharp like a blade…

Even Kireina was surprised over one of Hephaestus' strongest Divine Techniques, which summoned one of his tamed Divine Beasts, a God Rank 7 Blazing Heavenly Phoenix Emperor!

The enormous creature flew through the air, as Hephaestus jumped atop its back, commanding it to fly towards Kireina!

"Charge!" he roared.

Kireina couldn't help but feel the tremendous pressure of Hephaestus, but now even his summoned monster was immensely strong as well!

"Well, I also got Divine Beasts of my own, you know?" asked Kireina, opening another portal within her gaping spectral jaws!

Flash!

Hephaestus and his Phoenix were quickly greeted by grotesque behemoths that surged within the portal, beings that exuded an air of complete disarray, of disorder, of chaos!

"Although I can't control them, I am pretty sure that they will attack you if they see you right in front of their eyes!" laughed Kireina, as the Divine Beasts that inhabited her Inner World: Fragmented Divine Realm appeared!

She remembered the time when she first opened such a dangerous portal, leading a world of chaos where everything seemed completely unreal.

In such a chaotic and dangerous world, there was life.

And the life on it, to be capable of surviving these immense catastrophic conditions, was incredibly resilient!

Hephaestus and his Phoenix suddenly felt a chill run through their spines!

But how?!

How could they fear lowly Divine Beasts produced by a fake goddess?

It was the divine beast's components, they were completely made up of Chaos, to the point that their very existence challenged the world's laws, distorting space and even beginning to put even more pressure into the Divine Formation created by Hephaestus.

The creatures resembled strange beings without defined forms, although something could be discerned from them…

One was a gigantic black mountain with a gigantic crimson eye in front, and large tentacles covered in black rock.

Another was a ridiculously enormous mass of purple gas with countless crimson lights that seemed to be its eyes inside of its gas-like body.

The other was a snake of one hundred meters of height, with nine crimson eyes and metallic scales, each section of its body had crimson eyes on it, and it also had large crab-like claws sticking out of its body one after another…

And there were countless smaller ones, floating and launching themselves to their new meal and prey, Hephaestus, and the Phoenix!

"What kind of creatures are those?! Chaos Attribute Divine Beasts?! You're packed with tricks, aren't you?!" asked Hephaestus, as he raised his hammer, tearing down through the smaller divine beasts like nothing, while his phoenix roared and released thousands of blazing feather projectiles one after another!

Hephaestus and his Divine Beast fought against the momentary distraction that Kireina had successfully employed, as the Demoness began to conjure something greater.

She began to generate countless magic circles all around herself, only for them to be eaten by her grotesque soul!

This began to happen endlessly as Hephaestus took a few minutes to dispose of out of the Divine Beasts, only to see as Kireina's soul had expanded through various kilometers!

"What?!"

Her Aura began to shine brightly as Kireina had used another ridiculous power, by conjuring spells and then devouring them in the middle of their creation, she overcharged her own soul with the mana of several attributes, even more than before!

Her soul shaped itself like an endless snake made up of various colors and covered in darkness, purple, and crimson colors, enveloping the area with a furious power!

"Uroboros, Divine Phantasmal Embodiment!"

Flash!

By infusing two of these Skills effects, the snake came to life, as if it were an even more upgraded version of Begudhur when he himself became a Primordial Beast!

Kireina directed the enormous serpent towards Hephaestus and his Phoenix, as a catastrophic battle unfolded!

Boom!

"Divine Hammer Onslaught! Heavenly Blaze Enhancement!"

Hephaestus used his trusty hammer to crush Uroboros, only to have his power absorbed by it slightly!

Although his Phoenix attacked once more, crushing, and dealing a large wound into the soul snake!

"Good job- Eh?!"

Hephaestus found himself in shock, as the large wound within Uroboros revealed an endless wave of Divine Soul Blades one after another, swarming Hephaestus, and his Phoenix!

Slash! Slash! Slash!

"Pitiful tricks!"

Hephaestus employed his blazing divinity, burning through the blades as he slowly began to feel the aftereffects on his soul, there was damage that he could not heal in time…

Kireina was slowly but steadily eating him alive!

"Hm, ah, although I can only get small bites, that's enough for me to enjoy the flavor… Like grilled meat," said Kireina, devilishly shapeshifting once more!

"You're not getting away!" roared Hephaestus, flying towards Kireina while fending off as much as he could Uroboros, only to find that Kireina0s way of shapeshifting was strange!

"She's… separating herself?!"

Flash!

Just like Geggoron once did, Kireina divided her soul and flesh into thousands of pieces!

"What?! Are you weakening yourself or something? How exactly do you believe that separating yourself into small versions of yourself do anything against my fury?!"

"Yeah, just think like that!" thought Kireina, smiling devilishly as each of her pieces used Spatial and Void Attribute Magic with masterfulness.

Each of her pieces then completely disappeared from Hephaestus's sight! As he was left fighting her enormous Soul Clone in the form of Uroboros, that kept releasing Corrosive Poison and Divine Soul Blades one after another, as its wounds only led to more attacks from its side!

Hephaestus could not help but find himself incredibly confused over Kireina's fighting tactics, it was like something he had never seen before!

This was because Kireina could not simply fight normally, she had too many strange powers to fight normally, she had to employ bizarre ways to fight against her enemies, ways that used all her powers to their best!

"What's wrong, a rat got your tongue?!" asked Uroboros, opening its jaws and firing a powerful chaos cannon, clashing against Hephaestus barriers and crushing them!

"Ngh…! Damn it… My soul, my power is already weakening?!" wondered Hephaestus, flying away from Kireina Uroboros Chaotic Cannon, as suddenly, out of thin air, a mass of flesh of no more than ten meters appeared!

"Ngh?!"

It took the form of Kireina in less than a second. However, her appearance was majestic, with blonde hair and aquamarine eyes, releasing an Aura of light and beauty!

"You!" roared Hephaestus, as Kireina smiled devilishly, generating an endless rain of heavenly light weapons that began to pierce through Hephaestus barriers and flesh, tearing down into his soul and even his Phoenix!

"Crrryaaaaaa!"

The phoenix furiously retaliated, releasing a blazing breath that burnt down Kireina, who quickly disappeared from within space itself!

Only for another one to appear!

This one had the appeared of her usual self, but her eyes were purple, and her shoulders, arms, and legs were covered in purple scales as well, alongside large snakes in her hair!

She smiled devilishly as she released a downpour of corrosive poison over Hephaestus and his Phoenix, melting his barriers and breaking down through his flesh, melting it slightly before he healed himself quickly!

However, that Kireina had already disappeared, only for another to appear, wearing a beautiful gothic dress, with long black hair and pink eyes, she raised her long nails, and covered Hephaestus vision with dream-like illusions that suddenly turned into real, attacking him and entangling him!

The god roared furiously over having been tricked, releasing his aura of fire and quickly destroying the illusions, only for that one Kireina to have disappeared, and another one appearing down below, controlling space and void itself, she shifted the space and put Hephaestus upside down!

"E-Eh!?"

And then, he saw them…

Countless Kireina's glancing at him devilishly, laughing and mocking him!

"W-What?! So there you areeee!"

Hephaestus blasted several of these Kireinas with his powerful divine techniques, but more and more kept popping up out of thin air with her amazing control over space!

Each one throwing him powerful Transcendental Skills and Spells charged with Kireina's Divinities, and occasionally coming with combined attacks and chaos spells as well!

Hephaestus was being constantly played with by Kireina as if he was a mere rat inside of a labyrinth she had designed!

And without realizing it, he had entered that!

"Becoming a Dungeon brings a lot of wonders that you only realize after putting yourself in a serious fight… This is something I designed especially for you, Hephaestus… Can you kill all of me?" asked Kireina laughing, as she had employed a new and powerful Domain!

"Divine Illusory Labyrinth Domain!"

More and more Kireinas began to appear, attacking and wearing down Hephaestus and his mount!

Who was the real Kireina?

Who was the false Kireina?

Or were they all… real?!

All of these questions began to puzzle the Blacksmith God's mind, as he suddenly, without realizing it, separated himself from his mount due to a rain of poison that flew the moment he was thrown upside down inside a barrier of light all within mere seconds!

Everything was so incredibly confusing for the old god that he could not help but feel despair!

And then…

CLASH!

"CRRRYAAAAAA!"

"EH?!"

An enormous claw surged from thin air, as a rift in space broke out from where such a creature appeared!

It was one of Kireina's gigantic metallic claws, shaping itself as a voracious metallic monster of horror, which began to devour and tear down into pieces Hephaestus Divine Beast!

"My Phoenix!" cried Hephaestus, flying like a blazing meteor only to see his phoenix disappear out of thin air, carried away from him!

Kireina laughed devilishly, as Hephaestus could hear her tormenting crunching sounds, she was eating her Phoenix as the creature that accompanied him for so long agonized in pain, being eaten alive!

"My Phoenix… The one I raised through my entire life! You fiend! I will… I will have to use it then! You leave me no choice… I will free myself from this illusion! Helios Fragment!"

"Oh?"