Lord of Myths: I Can Summon and Fuse Divine Powers.-Chapter 73: The Weaver of Stories and the Tyrant of the Abyss. (3)
While the Ashura needed a physical body to manifest, a body capable of generating Azoth, upon obtaining one she didn’t waste time.
She used Azoth to manipulate the reality model around her and change it, however, also to merge with her own environment, as if it had become an extension of her body.
Anansi knew something like that could happen, that’s why she took charge of extending her influence in the environment, to thus prevent not only the scenario from turning against her, but the Ashura using her advantage to "reappear" again or something like that.
However, what Anansi didn’t notice was the demon goddess of tyranny’s plan.
When she used "burn" she didn’t employ it directly on the void threads, that wasn’t her intention.
She acted that way only to divert Anansi’s attention.
However, what she was really burning were the threads that were near her.
Anansi had focused not only on attacking, but on continuing to understand her thread network and increasing its density, however she forgot the fundamental: the threads near her.
The truth is Anansi had taken charge of creating a safe network around her, something very obvious, but that also made her feel a dangerous security toward the area around her.
It was dangerous because Anansi didn’t pay as much attention to those threads, not only because she was concentrated attacking and extending the threads but because there was no indication the demon goddess of tyranny had interacted with them.
However, the truth was different.
The Ashura had burned those threads, she had "burned" them without using a flame, but an order.
With that, she managed to recover control of that space and turn it into an extension of her body, which she molded to be able to interact with Anansi again.
The first thing the Ashura did when she grabbed Anansi was finish destroying the connections between the witch and the rest of the threads.
To thus be able to eliminate them little by little while dragging Anansi downward.
Her objective was very simple, move her as far as possible from the rest of the threads and there overwhelm her with her power.
However, Anansi reacted quickly.
Anansi’s first instinct was what any person would have when being dragged down in a dense and dark liquid.
However, upon realizing what was happening, Anansi reacted quickly.
She knew it, she wasn’t facing a body, but an entire space.
She was fighting with a kind of "living reality mass."
Her actions were quick.
She quickly manipulated the void threads and formed a sphere around her to cut the space she was in.
The hand dragging her to the bottom was cut and Anansi didn’t take long to create a sphere around her.
This spherical network quickly purged that "dark liquid" that was around her while at the same time from its surface protruded a thread network that quickly reconnected with the main network.
Her main objective and her only way to survive or win was not to lose her connection with the network she had created. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂
Upon connecting with the network, Anansi realized that in the seconds she had been separated from the network, the environment’s Azoth had started to corrode the network she had woven.
Upon recovering control she quickly interfered in the environment’s "history" trying to prevent that process from continuing.
The way of manipulating the environment was different between them.
While the Ashura had literally appropriated reality using Azoth, which served to bend laws and the form of reality surrounding her.
The Ashura manipulated it practically as an extension of herself.
While Anansi manipulated the environment’s history, as if she forced probabilities or possibilities to manifest, or rather as if she controlled the course of its history.
However, Anansi realized something, the form of manipulation didn’t matter, but the power.
Now that the Ashura had turned that into a kind of pulse, it was harder to recover control of the environment, so she decided to concentrate her strategy.
In an instant all the network she had built contracted around her, forming a hyperdense network around her.
Anansi didn’t waste time, in a volume of around fifteen cubic meters around Anansi she used all the threads she had woven to literally weave a new form of reality.
The reality around her seemed to divide, as if a three-dimensional network was created around her formed by a kind of colored mosaics.
The darkness around Anansi was replaced by a network of mosaics that in turn were those threads that instead of controlling the course of their environment’s history had created an environment around her.
The "reality network" remained suspended in the void, and Anansi stayed still inside it, safe.
"Pfft, hahaha," a voice then laughed, as Caligo’s body appeared suspended in the void, "floating" near that "shell." "I see I scared you and you had to use cowardly methods to protect yourself. But it was a stupid idea, you only did what I wanted, lock yourself up!"
The Ashura exclaimed.
It was true, for the demon goddess of tyranny it was much easier to face a single target like Anansi at that moment than to deal with an entire network infecting her reality.
Now Anansi was only an easier target.
"Tch," Anansi clicked her tongue, annoyed, apparently her excess of prudence had played a bad trick on her.
In a sense the Ashura was right.
While Anansi had crystallized a reality without traces of Azoth, and therefore without possibility of the Ashura using her authority like her.
She had lost the advantage she had acquired from the beginning by letting herself be influenced.
The Ashura had conditioned her enough for her to lose her objective from mind.
"What’s wrong? Are you scared? Did you realize you can’t win?" the Ashura mocked with a smile on her face.
As she did, clones began to appear around her, mocking Anansi.
The Ashura’s blue dress floated in the immense darkness as she observed Anansi with an amused look.
Hundreds of Caligo clones began to appear in that abyss of innocuous darkness, simply insulting and mocking Anansi.
The witch began to feel insecure.
Could she really destroy the Ashura now?
She had lost her greatest advantage, the network she had built.
That was literally her only tool to win, but she had wasted it in a moment of desperation.
How could she be so stupid?
She had screwed up royally.
And it wasn’t the first time she had done it besides.
She knew it, perhaps if she had done better in her combat at the tower, perhaps her creator wouldn’t have needed to overexert himself so much.
Perhaps if he had conserved his power he would have been able to save the world.
No, that wasn’t what really shamed her, the weakness that really gnawed at her.
The true parasite in her life.
It wasn’t her weakness, nor her lack of power.
It was her lack of courage.
She never fought for what she wanted, she had no bravery.
But, if that time she had stayed with him, and hadn’t left him alone, perhaps things would have been very different.
She always regretted leaving him alone, not staying with him.
While at first she blamed him, deep down, Anansi knew she herself could have made the decision to follow him.
But instead she had decided to listen to him like an automaton. Like someone who only follows orders.
"And now it’s the same," the witch said quietly to herself.
It was true, she had acted imprudently, or rather, too prudently.
However, that wasn’t a bad thing, she had acquired an advantage.
Even if the strategy had changed, it didn’t mean she couldn’t adopt another.
The demon goddess of tyranny knew Anansi, that’s why she started mocking, trying to penetrate her mind, convince her she was lost.
That her move had made her lose the game.
But the combat still hadn’t ended, that was a palpable truth.
Why should she give up now?
The Ashura had tried to convince her it was the end, and Anansi was believing it.
But, what if that situation was really an advantage?
Was she really going to listen to her enemy?
"No... this isn’t lost, quite the opposite," the witch affirmed with determination and confidence.
Her problem from the beginning had been taking that combat calmly, trying not to wear herself out, but that wasn’t a good strategy.
"Really? Do you really think being alone you can defeat me?" the Ashura asked sarcastically.
But Anansi didn’t let herself be influenced by those words, on the contrary, those words caused her a smile.
"Who said I was alone?" the witch asked with a smile, and in an instant, the witch extended her hands.
At that instant, all the Lwa were released in that crystallized reality, which fragmented into hundreds of parts, one for each Lwa.
"Unlike you, I do have allies," the witch responded, as a smile drew on her face, something strange for her.
At that moment, Anansi stopped playing games, it was time to go all out.
