The Rain of Pregnancy and the Hair of Betrayal
In the Great Forest War, the High Elf Queens were thrown into complete panic by the Spirit King's declaration that anyone who drank the Blessing Water would inevitably become pregnant. Not knowing what to do, they rushed toward the rampaging giant rock wolf, crying out in confusion.
"A-am I... pregnant?"
"Did I drink some of the blessing water?"
For the first time in their long lives, the High Elf Queens tasted the sensation of trembling fear as they awaited the Spirit King's judgment.
"It's fine as long as you don't lose consciousness and fall asleep within the Blessing Water."
"The real problem is when Lady Nuwa uses it in battle rather than as a blessing. They say she wields her Authority of Pregnancy as a weapon."
"What! How horrifying!"
"It's true. Lady Nuwa may look benevolent on the surface, but she is a Spirit God."
"There's a rumor that if Lady Nuwa gets serious, every other Spirit God flees."
"If you don't want to get pregnant, never fight her."
The High Elf Queens could not believe that the snake goddess smiling gently above them could appear so terrifying. Yet that same snake goddess was now unfastening the golden belt fashioned from her own golden cord. Between the loosened folds of fabric, her navel and bountiful breasts were faintly visible, but she paid it no mind as she dipped the golden belt into the water she had created.
Swish, swish, swish! Splash, splash, splash—!
She lifted the water-soaked belt above her head and began to spin it. Raindrop-like droplets flew out in every direction, soaking the surroundings.
The moment they saw it, every Spirit King let out a tremendous scream.
"Uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh—!"
"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh—!"
The High Elf Queens jumped in fright at the Spirit Kings' shrieks as they watched the snake Spirit Goddess casually scattering the droplets.
"Find a cave or any shelter from the rain! You must not get hit by those droplets—!"
"What—? Why?"
"If those droplets touch you, you'll give birth immediately—!"
"It doesn't matter if you're male or female, and you don't need sex or a gestation period! It's forced pregnancy!"
"Run, now—!"
"Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah—!"
It was the first time the High Elf Queens had ever uttered such distinctly feminine screams.
Shuhahahahahaha! Splashsplashsplashsplash—!
As Nuwa spun the golden cord belt overhead, the droplets began to fall like rain across the Great Forest. The spirits who knew exactly what kind of attack this was filled the sky with screams, warning their contractors.
"Run away! If the rain hits you, you'll get pregnant!"
"What? Pregnant?"
The situation for the High Elf army had become catastrophic. Before they could even approach the Sun Spirit Goddess they burned alive. The Earth Spirit Goddess's colossal rock wolf crushed them beneath its bulk, and countless arrows reduced them to dust. Yet the High Elf forces that had charged forward with such desperate tenacity collapsed in a single instant against the Rain of Pregnancy that Nuwa scattered.
It was only natural. Right before their eyes, beings of every gender and race—including spirits—began to fall pregnant, their bellies swelling rapidly.
"Uwaaaaaaaaah—!"
"Kyaaaaaaaah—!"
The High Elf army retreated so swiftly that even the Wind Spirit Goddess, who had been ravaging their ranks at blinding speeds wrapped in transparent gales, could not keep up.
Over this scene of utter pandemonium, a woman's sigh drifted down from the sky.
"Sigh. I really wish she wouldn't do things like that. It's truly vicious. Even after being confined to the Spirit Realm, she's using it again."
Tens of thousands of black threads suddenly burst outward, blanketing the heavens. Whirrrrrr—! Splashsplashsplashsplashsplash—!
The black threads descended in front of the retreating High Elves, stabbing into the ground to form a massive curtain. The barrier of black threads blocking the path to the World Tree began to dye the very space around it pitch black.
The High Elves attacked the threads with arrows and swords, but the instant they made contact everything was absorbed. Whoooooooooosh—!
The black threads devoured not only physical matter but even flames created from spirit power, sucking in sunlight itself. The spirits who looked up at the sky were so shocked their entire bodies froze.
Those tens of thousands of black threads were the elongated hair of a Spirit Goddess.
The Spirit Goddess who had trapped the High Elf army with her black hair wrapped her body in a dress of lustrous black fabric adorned with silver. With her eyes closed, she began to chant.
"The enemies of the High Elves and the spirits are the dark sorcerer and the summoned spirit gods."
⟨ Betrayal Selection ⟩
The spirits immediately recognized the Spirit Goddess rumored to possess the most vicious ability of all, seeing the infinitely lengthening black hair and the magical power pouring from her chant.
"Uwaaaaagh—! It's Lady Medeia of Betrayal Selection!"
"You must never touch that hair—!"
"You won't be able to tell friend from foe anymore!"
The spirits watched in horror as the infamous hair of betrayal engulfed the High Elves and coiled around their bodies. But the hair moved several times faster than the High Elves could react. Tens of thousands of High Elves had their heads ensnared, struggling futilely as they were hoisted into the air.
Thudthudthudthudthud! Thudthudthudthudthud!
The instant the hundreds of thousands of High Elf soldiers were lifted skyward by the hair, the Spirit Goddess's chant thundered across the Great Forest.
"Before the enemy, kill the spirits and High Elves first."
⟨ Betrayal Selection ⟩
This was Medeia's unique authority, Betrayal Selection, fused with her power as the Darkness Spirit God.
Its effect was to brainwash all beings below the intermediate god rank without limit, turning them into allies. This was why Medeia, who wielded darkness, was known as the most vicious Spirit Goddess of all.
Rumble! Rumble rumble!
With the Spirit Goddesses unleashing their full power and authorities, the war was racing toward its conclusion mere moments after it had begun.
The sun descended upon the earth, endlessly burning the Great Forest.
The wind sliced through countless giant trees and carved the numerous High Elves into pieces.
A rock wolf larger than the World Tree rampaged across the battlefield, crushing everything beneath its bulk while the goddess's silver arrows poured down without end, turning all nearby life into honeycombs before annihilating it.
The giant snake goddess rained down the water of an authority of forced pregnancy no one had ever witnessed before.
The hair that absorbed everything blocked their path while turning their own comrades into traitors and forcing them to attack.
The number of High Elves betrayed by the Darkness Spirit Goddess had already surpassed millions. What was even more despairing was that the High Elves' spirit-power-based attacks dealt no damage to the Spirit Goddesses whatsoever. Instead, they seemed to empower them further.
The High Elf Queens were helplessly battered by the Spirit Goddesses' vicious assaults and desperately searched for a way to counter them. Against one it might have been possible, but against two or more there was simply no method.
"Are these Spirit Goddesses? No, they're Demon Gods."
"That is incorrect, Contractor. Those ladies are undoubtedly Goddesses of Light."
"They cruelly burn bodies, slice them apart, smash them, pierce holes through them to kill. They even force betrayal so their victims slaughter one another. What part of this is the power of light gods?"
"Their dispositions are completely different, yet they are indeed the Light Spirit Goddesses."
As the High Elf Queens fell into despair, even the Spirit Kings trailed off. The Spirit Kings had believed that merging with their powerful contractors would give them some chance of victory, but the power of the Spirit Goddesses existed on an entirely different dimension.
All attacks from the Spirit Kings vanished as if they had never existed, instead increasing the Spirit Goddesses' power.
With extreme unfairness, the Spirit Goddesses' attacks received no attribute penalties. Instead, they struck the spirits with fatal effect.
Every spirit attack was absorbed and converted into the Spirit Goddesses' strength. Faced with these despairingly unfair authorities that rendered numbers meaningless, the Spirit Kings still could not decide whether to feel respect for their superiors' overwhelming might or to condemn the sheer viciousness of their methods.
The battlefield dominated by the Spirit Goddesses produced only one-sided sacrifice from the High Elf army.
Rumble rumble! Kwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang!
No matter how the High Elf Queens tried to turn the tide, there was nothing they could do.
The Sun Spirit Goddess made it impossible for ordinary High Elves to even approach her.
When high-ranking High Elves charged desperately, they were sliced into eight pieces by her long single-edged blade, collapsed, and vanished.
The Wind Spirit Goddess could not even be seen as she moved at blinding speed, massacring everything in her path.
The Earth Spirit Goddess used her rock wolf to evade them while raining arrows from above, hunting them like prey.
No one wanted to go anywhere near the Water Spirit Goddess and her forced pregnancy.
Around the Darkness Spirit Goddess, their own people had gone mad and were slaughtering their allies.
Despair lay in every direction. In just a few hours, the elite forces of the High Elf Empire—once more than a billion strong—were being utterly dismantled.
"Haah! Haah!"
"Huk! Huk!"
A High Elf Queen who had chased the giant rock wolf only to be shredded by randomly fired divine-power arrows stabbed her spirit sword into the ground and gasped for breath.
"There's simply no way to defeat those Spirit Goddesses. They're far too experienced in war."
"There is no method to victory against the Spirit Goddesses."
"The only remaining way to win is to kill their summoner, the dark sorcerer. But where in the world is he?"
"It's strange. Only his enormous magical power remains, yet he is nowhere on the battlefield."
Beyond the Spirit Goddesses' overwhelming abilities and bizarre authorities, they showed not the slightest hesitation in killing them. It was as if by pure reflex they pierced the weakest points of the High Elf army, annihilated them, then swiftly moved on to the next weakness.
Even when killing an insect, one might hesitate for a moment, yet they massacred as if simply clearing away stones.
They removed the enemies before their eyes with maximum efficiency and without the slightest emotion. It meant they had experienced wars even more horrific than anything the High Elves had known.
The High Elf Queens could not believe that Spirit Gods who employed such malicious tactics were light gods like Lady Granzoa.
Boom, boom, boom! Uwaaaaaaaaah!
The battlefield's explosions and screams were gradually dying down. And the High Elf Queens realized they had been defeated without ever laying eyes on the dark sorcerer.
The instant they sank into that despairing emotion, they failed to notice the presence closing in on them.
Flash—!
Hundreds of strands of black hair pierced the limbs of the High Elf Queens, robbing them of sensation. The black hair slithered like snakes, penetrating their spirit-stone armor as if it were tofu and beginning to seize control of their bodies.
"This is—!?"
"The Darkness Spirit God's hair of betrayal—!"
No matter how desperately the horrified High Elf Queens struggled, the black hair did not budge an inch and continued to perform its function perfectly. In the air where they had been lifted, the Darkness Spirit Goddess simply gazed down at them with indifference.
"Truly, for sentient beings, they are unbelievably fast and strong. I barely managed to catch them. Now then, children, help me finish this."
"Mmph! Mmmmmph!"
The High Elf Queens, who knew exactly what had happened to their subordinates caught by the Darkness Spirit Goddess's hair, fought with all their strength to break free. But any spirit power, aura, or pseudo-divine power from the World Tree was simply absorbed by the dark hair.
Before the absorption ability of a main god rank, the power of those who had only approached the level of lesser gods stood no chance.
"What the High Elf Queen protects is Granzoa and the High Elf Empire."
The Darkness Spirit Goddess's chant began once more. As the dark hair glowed with black light, the consciousness of the High Elf Queens began to flicker and fade. Their wills, which had remained steadfast through any crisis, crumbled away like grains of sand.
"Therefore, kill the High Elves."
'No—!'
Along with the High Elf Queens' mental screams, their consciousness sank into darkness.