[Skill Activated: Blitz Stop Time]
The world died.
No sound.
No wind.
No gods.
Just silence.
The monster's fangs hung in the air, a single droplet of venom caught in time like a pearl of death. The battlefield—once screaming, burning, thrashing—now resembled a cruel painting. Fire froze into amber shards mid-flare, casting fractured shadows that no longer moved. Time itself fractured, splintered at Nova's feet like glass under pressure.
5:00… 4:59… 4:58…
He didn't waste a second.
Nova tore his leg from the spider-limb's grasp, the frozen blood snapping like brittle threads. He sprinted to Scarlet, suspended mid-fall, her lips parted in a silent scream. Her eyes, frozen wide, didn't blink. He caught her, shielded her behind a slab of obsidian speared through the cracked earth, and laid her down gently.
She didn't breathe. Not yet. Not until time restarted.
3:12… 3:11…
He turned. The hybrid behemoth towered over them, a grotesque fusion of flesh, metal, and darkness—its dozens of eyes locked in endless stare. But Nova had no time to gawk. He leapt onto its jagged back, crawling toward the orb embedded in its chest—Lilith's dark eye. It pulsed… mocking him.
He drove his obsidian shard into it—again and again. It didn't break.
1:45… 1:44…
His gaze snapped toward the throne.
A monument of horror. Thousands of skulls fused together into a grotesque mountain, weeping black ichor, some still screaming through twisted mouths. And at the very base—almost hidden beneath centuries of death—he saw it:
A heart.
Not poetic. Not figurative.
A real, throbbing, putrid mass of meat. Large as a war drum. Webbed in molten veins. Beating slow… slow… but still alive.
Lilith's true heart.
0:15… 0:14…
Nova plunged both hands into it.
The flesh resisted—it knew. It screamed without a mouth, it burned his skin, boiled his muscle, peeled bone. Still, he held on. Screaming through his teeth, Nova ripped it free.
It pulsed in his hands like a living curse.
0:01… 0:00.
Time returned.
The hybrid's fangs clamped down—on nothing.
Scarlet's lungs heaved; she gasped back into reality. Her eyes met Nova's—then widened in horror.
Because Lilith screamed.
"THIIIIIIEEEEEEEEF!"
A voice that tore the stone apart. That bled shadows into light. That made the air bleed.
Nova stepped from behind the collapsing throne, heart in hand, black blood dripping from his fingers.
Lilith's eye exploded into fragments of red flame.
And then she unfolded.
Lilith's True Form
The transformation was not instant.
It was violence.
A rebirth of madness.
Lilith's skin peeled off in great, wet sheets like old paint. Beneath: pulsating, necrotic tissue webbed with twitching nerves. Her bones twisted outward, not inward—spines tearing through her arms like tusks.
From her back erupted wings—but not of feathers. These were stitched flesh banners, pockmarked with open sores, oozing ichor and buzzing with flies the size of fists.
Her face melted. Literally. Her beauty dissolved into a gaping mass of bone and sinew. From the skull grew more mouths—at least seven—each packed with baby teeth, animal fangs, rusted nails. They screamed in different languages.
From her sides sprouted limbs upon limbs—arms, legs, tendrils, claws. Some ended in talons, some in human hands still twitching, still reaching. One limb dragged a noose made of intestines. Another held a mirror that only reflected corpses.
Her eyes multiplied like tumors—hundreds of them—each one blinking independently, bleeding black tears. Some were vertical. Some horizontal. Some spiraled endlessly. They looked in every direction at once, including into your soul.
She had no shadow. Instead, her shadow had her—a distorted mimic that moved before she did, whispering secrets that made the rocks nearby crack and scream.
And worst of all—her voice changed.
It split into a thousand tones—male, female, child, beast—all speaking in overlapping blasphemies:
"I am no god you can beg."
"I AM THE MOTHER OF UNBEING."
"I DRINK HOPE."
"I AM WHAT COMES AFTER MEANING."
Scarlet whimpered from her hiding place.
Even the monster—half-dead, half-flesh—stepped back.
Nova stood his ground.
The hybrid creature lunged at him, desperate to kill while it could.
But Lilith moved first.
One of her impossibly long limbs lashed out—like a jagged spider-leg fused with a scorpion tail. It impaled the monster in the chest, lifted it off the ground. It screamed, then gurgled.
"FAILURE…" she said, each mouth saying a different syllable,
"…DOESN'T DESERVE MERCY."
Then she ate it.
Mouths widened, unhinged to impossible angles. A jaw opened across her abdomen. Another from her thigh. One formed from the air itself.
Bones snapped. Flesh tore. Blood sprayed like a waterfall.
And with every bite, Lilith grew.
Her legs thickened, breaking the stone beneath her. Her flesh bubbled and distorted, new faces forming on her skin. One had no eyes. One had too many mouths. One looked like Nova.
A second head burst from her shoulder, howling backwards. A third tore free from her spine, upside-down and whispering a lullaby in reverse. Her main head split open, revealing an empty cavity that stared back at you.
"LOOK AT ME NOW, LITTLE THIEF," she boomed.
"DOES YOUR MORTAL BODY STILL DARE TO FIGHT DIVINITY?"
Nova didn't flinch.
Instead, he bit into the heart.
Thick, tar-like blood poured into his mouth, searing his throat. It felt like swallowing flame and screams. But it worked.
The screen flickered—
[Temporary Buff Gained: Lilith's Corruption]
+200% Strength
+200% Speed
-80% Sanity
Warning: Unstable Soul Integrity
His body twitched, rippled with raw energy. His eyes glowed obsidian-black.
The throne shattered behind him. The air turned to ash. Cracks split the ground and screamed as they widened.
Scarlet yelled as a faultline tore the earth between them.
"NOVA!"
He looked up.
Lilith's hulking form—no longer a woman, no longer a god, just a thing—towered into the cavern roof. Her new heads shrieked, vomiting black bile that melted stone.
"I WILL RIP YOU FROM REALITY ITSELF."
Nova tightened his grip on the shard.
The heart burned in his other hand.
He charged.
The earth collapsed behind him. The sky bled.
And the final battle began.