Chapter 197: Bird Slayer

Goddess Nut stood from the distance, thinking the situation over and hesitating.

The wind moved hard across the high island while she stood there with her oversized wings half-open and her birds waiting on every side.

Kalon could see the conflict in her face.

Pride. Fear. Exhaustion.

The long habit of despising those who wished to seek her out and ask favours of her.

For a moment it looked like she might stand the birds down and actually listen.

Then her expression hardened.

"Take him."

The ten giant birds moved at once.

Shit...

The first came from his left, low and fast, beak open for a killing strike.

Kalon stamped down and drove Worldforge through the stone under it. A spear of compressed sky-rock punched up through the bird’s chest, sending blood and guts splattering all over the place.

The second and third attacked together from the front. He raised a wall between them, then snapped it outward. Both birds were smashed sideways off the island rim and vanished into open air. Their wings were too damaged from the attack to allow them to fly.

Despite this, the rest did not stop.

Claws scraped stone. Wings beat dust into the wind. One bird tried to pin him from behind while another dived at his head.

Kalon pulled a platform up under his feet, changed angle, and crushed the diver mid-motion with a descending slab of hardened earth. The one behind him lost both legs when the ground under it collapsed into a narrow sink and locked shut, crushing them off completely.

Despite their size, this was an easy battle for Kalon, especially since his agility was currently being buffed.

By the time the last three realised the fight was one they could not win, it was too late.

Kalon brought the centre of the island up in a hard shockwave of stone and force. The remaining birds were thrown off their feet and broken against the pillars before they could rise again.

When the dust cleared, all ten were down. Some dead. Some twitching once before going still.

Kalon felt himself make a large amount of progress through the low diamond rank.

He hadn’t been given a quest in a while, but it was fights like this that helped his progression when he was not actively seducing women.

Silence returned to the high island.

Goddess Nut stared at him in pure fear.

Her huge wings had pulled tight against her back. The short dark-haired woman who had shouted pervert at him only minutes earlier now looked like she had finally understood the gap between them.

Whatever old power she still held from creating the islands, it was not enough to ignore what she had just watched.

"You..." Her voice came out shaky. "You’re stronger than the Queen. Stronger than the Great Birds... Stronger than me."

Kalon turned to face her fully.

Nut swallowed and forced herself to keep talking.

"I can’t save them properly anymore. I can slow a crack. I can patch a line for a while. But the islands are still coming down piece by piece, and everyone below still prays like I can reverse all of it." Her hands clenched at her sides. "You can. What you just did to this stone proves it."

She stepped closer, then dropped to her knees.

Her light brown skin glowed under the sunlight that shone somewhere up above.

Up close, Kalon could see that she was cute.

"Please. Stabilise this planet. Stop the collapses. I’ll give you anything. Food. Territory. Titles. My work. My knowledge of the islands. Anything."

Before Kalon could answer, she reached up and pulled her wrap top open, then shoved the rest of her clothes down with shaking hands.

In the open wind of the high island, Nut unrobed completely and left herself naked in front of him.

Her body was petite in a way that made her enormous wings look even more extreme.

Her breasts were small, perhaps the same size as Josinia’s, although her overall body was smaller. Her nipples were slightly inverted, and a baby brown colour. Her stomach was flat and her waist was snatched. And it was those ginormous angelics wings sprouting from her back that made her look even smaller.

She kept her eyes on him while she knelt there naked, clearly offering herself as part of the same desperate bargain.

Kalon looked at her and did not move.

He did not know how to play this yet.

This woman was being crushed by the wishes and prayers of her entire planet. A planet who believed she could help them, when she actually couldn’t.

If he could save the planet, would be take credit, or give it to her?

"I’ll return," he eventually said, needing more time to think.

Nut’s eyes widened.

"Wait—"

Kalon transferred out before she could grab his leg or make the offer more complicated.

...

Venduros was warm compared to Delphinium.

Kalon found Josinia at home, white hair tied back, purple skin lit by the afternoon coming through her window. She took one look at his face and set down what she was holding.

"What happened?" she said, immediately sensing that there was a lot on his mind.

She knew him well by this point.

"I met Goddess Nut," Kalon said, as he had already told her about Delphinium before. "She isn’t a goddess. She’s a small Delphinium woman living above everyone’s flight range. The islands are her old work, and she’s losing control of them. She watched me fight, decided I could save the planet, and begged me to do it."

Josinia’s pink eyes sharpened.

"Wow... begged how?"

"She offered everything she could think of. Then she took her clothes off."

That made Josinia go still for a moment. She smiled slightly, but tried to hide it, knowing that it wasn’t the time for that right now.

"And what did you tell her?"

"I left," Kalon said. "I didn’t know how to handle her."

Josinia walked over to him and rested her forehead briefly against his shoulder, then pulled back enough to meet his eyes.

"Well, isn’t it simple? Seduction is where you are strongest. You have a gift at making powerful women need you. Or perhaps, they just can’t help themselves when they are around you... No woman can, no matter what planet they are from."