The few dozen attacks suddenly turned into thousands, and with the statue still following her, Eris found herself only running and defending herself as best as she could, unable to even approach Arad. She could wait until he burns out from using too much divine magic, but seeing how massive and jacked his body was, he could probably keep this on for hours.

She can’t keep running; she has to somehow force him to dispel the expansion. She can use her trump card, but that would set her up for failure as she won’t be able to pull it again before resting.

She smiled from ear to ear... until now, she had been mainly using her sun powers, not her murder ones, but it seems she can’t keep her sanity any longer. Arad won’t mind her going a bit crazy, would he?

She stopped running and glared right back at Arad with a large grin on her face, two bloody red eyes, and a giggle that sounded like a thousand hyenas cackling a dreadful song. The statue didn’t immediately smack her down, but the ranged attacks that were already sent out hit her all at once. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Thousands of slashes, crushing impacts, and sharp piercing attacks tore Eris’s body apart into a fine mist of red blood, but for some reason, Arad could still see her mad grin in the cloud of misty blood. In the next moment, his body was torn to pieces, vaporized into a bloody mush.

Eris’s giggle could still be heard echoing out of the blood mist as the statue above faded away, and the glow of her eyes emerged again as she regenerated.

Arad regenerated since his Nymph bodies were still out and alive, but if he had been whole, this might’ve put him in the ground. Looking at her still giggling as if she had gone insane, Arad could see that her pretty and bright purple soul had been married with black blood, and is now pulsing with ineffable depravity and lust for gore.

He also can’t read her thoughts, since all she was thinking about was how to tear him apart and decorate the ground with his innards.

"So, this is the Murder Goddess Eris?" He smiled, pulling his black hole sword for a direct confrontation. "Let’s see what you can do." In the next moment, he teleported behind her and was already swinging toward her neck, but Eris didn’t move.

She was still giggling, and when Arad slashed her head clean off, he could see her crazed eyes glaring at him with a disturbing sense of elation and ecstasy. The next thing he knew, his head was cut off as well, falling to the ground with a splash of blood.

Before his head could hit the ground, Arad kicked it back up to his neck and attached it back. Eris’s head, on the other hand, hit the ground and splattered into a pool of blood before she regenerated a new one.

"I see... any damage I deal to you is thrown back at me..." He smiled, "No, it doesn’t make sense. My neck is pretty big and hard, and this void sword can’t cut me... so you’re not dealing the same damage to me. The wounds themselves are copied between us. I cut your head, my head gets cut, I shatter your ribs, so mine shatter in the same way."

"He is smart." Amaterasu looked down with a worried face. "That is the first stage of her Murder Divine Powers, Pretty Psycho. But this is just the start... Eris’s sun powers aren’t truly divine, since they aren’t tied to any portfolio, but Murder is."

Blood dripped from Eris’s hand, and they pierced the ground. For a second, nothing seemed to happen, but then, the blood formed into a great scythe, and bones started bursting from the crust of the universe, moaning in agony.

A bleeding moon flashed bright above them, and even though it was the outer void above them, Arad could suddenly see stars. When he blinked, an entire city had grown around him. Tall building, cold alleyways, and the rancid stench of rotting trash and dead rats.

He was certain they were still on the crust of the universe; Eris didn’t teleport him anywhere else, but instead summoned this entire city.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Arad suddenly heard a woman scream in the dark alleyways, and his head turned as quickly as it could. Deep within the darkness, he could smell blood.

He hesitated for a second, knowing well that it might be a trap, but he couldn’t stand here and wait for Eris to attack him. He will go there and crush whatever trap she sets for him. Being active is always better than being reactive.

He ran through the streets and then reached the gruesome scene. The woman, who looked to be in her late twenties, was stabbed thirty-six times, kicked to the wall, and left to bleed to death. The only thing left was the murder weapon, a foot-long chef’s knife, and a trail of fresh blood going deeper into the darkness.

Arad looked at the woman’s corpse for a second. She was clearly terrified and crying in pain, but... he immediately crushed her head with his fist. "As I expected," The bones were black, the same ones Eris summoned earlier.

This entire city, the victims, and the murderer on the loose are all a part of Eris’s power. She could be the murderer himself, or one of the victims, hiding and biding her time, waiting for an opportunity to murder him.

"Do you really think that this would work on me?" Arad smiled as he stood, opened his eyes wide, and tried to look for Eris’s soul. He quickly noticed that the entire city was inside her titanic divine soul, so there was nothing for him to track. What’s more, he couldn’t even follow her smell since this entire place smelled like her, had her magic, and even divine power.

For all intents and purposes, this city could be considered a part of her body, the same way nails are a part of a human’s body, even though they are already dead the moment they form.

He started walking into the darkness with a smile on his face, and then stopped by an unassuming door. It didn’t matter where he started after all, all he needed to do was not play into Eris’s hand. She wants him to follow the killer, but he won’t be doing that.

Arad opened the door, walked inside the old house, and headed up the stairs. On the second floor, he found a short hallway with a door right beside the stairs, he opened it up, and there was a couple sleeping on their bed, unaware of his presence.

Arad approached the bed, lifted his fist, and then crushed the man’s head with a single hit. The woman gasped awake and screamed, but before she could do anything, he grabbed her by the neck, lifted her up, and tore her head off.

Due to the commotion, a kid opened the door and walked in with a scared face. "Mommy?!" Arad slowly turned and glared back at him with glowing purple eyes, and in the next second, the child was kicked out of the window like a ball and hit the wall of the nearby house.

The first thought that came to Arad’s head was to blow this entire city out and force Eris out, but that won’t work. The problem was that her soul engulfed the entire place, and her reflections. If he did blow this place, it might also blow his soul, and even if Eris can survive that, he isn’t sure about himself.

Destroying the walls won’t help much, so killing everyone in this city one by one is the only option left.