Maven, after emphatically telling those two gods to screw right off, wasn’t willing to waste another second talking to obvious enemies. Now wasn’t the time for prudence. Now was the time to see how she’d fare against a god.

In her desire to give these guys a good pounding, Maven decided to rely on the classic rocket punch - not even bothering to create an entire golem as she rushed to send a spiked gauntlet flying towards them with all the force of a meteor.

“Why don’t you take this?!” Maven shouted, voice full of fighting spirit.

No matter how full of fighting shit Maven might be, no matter how annoying these two gods were, no matter how infuriating their subordinates are, Maven knew enough by now to use her brain in a fight.

The two so-called gods blinked in surprise as the oncoming fist disappeared in mid-air, exactly as Maven intended.

One of these fellows was the god Nikol followed, so he likely possessed authority over space. If Maven didn’t utilize some space magic herself, there was no way she’d be able to land a hit - she’d have to utilize all the tricks she had picked up and then some. Plus, Maven really wanted to show off that she managed to copy a power that should be unique to the Apostles.

“Rocket punch! It’s a teleporting rocket punch!” Kannon squeeled in glee as Maven opened the battle. “It’s amazing! Show those pests who’s boss, Maven!”

“No matter how amazing Maven might be, won’t you stop it?” Henna asked in annoyance, bopping Kannon on the head to scold her.

Still, no matter how hard Kannon fan-girled and how passionately Henna retorted, both goddesses possessed enough experience and sense to back Maven’s play and fire off attacks of their own. Kannon, opting to rely on her light attribute, managed to create and fire dozens of purifying light blades in the blink of an eye while Henna, for her part, opted to rely on the death attribute, creating dozens of balls of bone-chilling fire - designed to bring ruination to all it touched.

Right as both attacks were about to fly into the two men, Maven’s rocket punch appeared soundlessly from above. Then, the three women’s attacks made to strike simultaneously, the combo attack exuding endless pressure as they fell.

“Take that!” Kannon shouted confidently.

Unfortunately, all three attacks were halted about an inch away from their targets, blocked by a thin, transparent barrier that somehow materialized without any indication of a spell being cast.

“Looks like we walked into a fight, my friend.” Kurga said lightly as he spoke to his companion, admiring the array of spells and divinity powerlessly trying to pound him to dust.

“Two withered husks, a baby demigod, and three powerless natives… It’s quite amusing how belligerent fools can act in their ignorance.” Lidar said, his tone not carrying a single hint of his ostensible amusement or any other emotion.

Fae and Shayna, shocked to see those attacks frozen in place and sensing that this fight would be out of their league, chose to delicately move behind the two goddesses - shamelessly using them as shelter from the oncoming storm.

“You think that’s all we’ve got?!” Maven shouted as she extended two thick lines of divine power to Kannon and Henna, opening the floodgates of her power.

“Stage two!”

As Maven shouted, an endless amount of grey fire shot out the back of the empty gauntlet, adding an unimaginable amount of propelling force to the rocket punch and carrying a chaotic aura. Kannon and Henna, for their part, used the pipeline of pure power Maven had shared with them to turbo-boost the power of their attacks.

Cracks started appearing on the paper-thin barrier as Kannon’s swords shone brighter, Henna’s flames burned colder, and Maven’s rocket punch pressed ever closer. Kurga, seeing this and sensing the inevitable collapse of Lidar’s space barrier, finally felt the need to exit spectator mode and join the battle.

Unlike Lidar, a god with clear dominion over an attribute (though an attribute alien to the world of Avalon), Kurga’s divinity was a bit more conceptual in nature - exuding an odd feeling the second he started mobilizing it. Not only was his divine power such a deep violet color that it nearly bordered on black, but it also possessed such a sickening aura that any normal person would immediately start retching should even the smallest whiff of it touch them.

Maven had felt this aura just once before, long ago, back when she removed Fae’s mental binding. Unfortunately for her, she wasn’t really paying attention to the nature of the binding at the time, so Maven wasn’t sure how prepare for or deal with Kurga’s next move.

“You’re not getting anywhere near my friends!”

Determined not to allow that power, whatever Kurga did with it, to hurt or influence her friends, Maven decided to provide a double and triple layer shield to each of her companions. Whenever in doubt, Maven had learned it was her best bet to rely on a heaping helping of divinity, dyed deeply in the colors of her unknown attribute.

As Lidar’s shield crackled painfully and Kurga summoned billows of dirty grey mist, Maven hurried to wrap everyone in a multi-layered shell of compressed divine power. Luckily, Maven managed to strengthen everyone’s personal force fields before the delicate equilibrium fell apart.

*BOOM*

The second Lidar’s barrier fell to pieces, a rain of attacks fell toward the two invading gods and an enormous billow of mist rushed out - obscuring everyone’s sight.