Lilith and Cordelia spun around, instinctively reacting to the surge of power behind them. What they saw stopped them cold.
Koharu was marching straight toward them, her boots sparking with residual lightning. Her expression was no longer timid, no longer lost; it was feral. She made a beeline for Lilith, grabbed her by the collar, and yanked her close enough for their foreheads to nearly touch.
“Hey. You. Goth-goblin.”
Lilith blinked in disbelief. “Are you talking to me?”
Koharu’s voice dropped into a growl, every word vibrating with fury. “What the hell did you say about me back there? Huh? No motivation? Useless? Garbage?! Say it again. I dare you.”
Lilith stared at her, too stunned to reply. “Are you… actually Koharu?”
“Damn right I am,” Koharu snapped, letting her go with a shove. “The one and only ultra-cute, busty little war maiden, Koharu freakin’ Saegusa. And you? You’re on my list. We’re settling this later, one-on-one. Don’t even think about ghosting me, you gloomy little goblin.”
Lilith stood frozen, mouth open in blank disbelief.
Cordelia, watching all this unfold, blinked hard. “What just happened?”
Lilith, still staring at Koharu, muttered as if to herself, “It must be a side effect. The possession… She’s in a trance, or the god’s personality is leaking into her own. There’s a psychological shift happening. Possibly a split consciousness.”
“A divine split personality?” Cordelia echoed, more baffled than skeptical.
But the storm wasn’t done yet. Koharu’s rage turned on its next victim.
“And you,” she growled, locking eyes with Cordelia, “dumb musclehead.”
Cordelia blinked, startled. “Wait, what?! Me?”
Koharu stomped toward her, grabbed her by the front of her uniform, and hauled her forward with the same ferocity.
“Yeah, you! Who the hell else? You think you can just stand there, spouting heroic nonsense and patting me on the head like some helpless little mascot?! Think being a ‘Hero’ means you get to talk down to everyone else? Don’t act like you’re better than me just because you’ve got a glowing sword and a soft-focus backstory!”
Cordelia could only gape. “Did you just… Did you seriously just call me—”
“Don’t play dumb, you overgrown cheerleader in a cape! You and me? We’re throwing down. As soon as this is over, I’m knocking the smug off your face, gorilla-bitch.”
Cordelia’s jaw dropped. “Gorilla… bitch?”
Neither she nor Lilith could quite process what was happening. But Koharu had already turned her back on them, tossing her long, crackling hair behind her like a battle flag.
For the first time since the chaos began, her attention locked onto the true enemy: the ogres. And this time, they were the ones who should have been afraid.
With both middle fingers proudly raised to the heavens, Koharu bellowed across the battlefield.
“Come get some, you rotting sacks of demon meat! You’re about to be torn apart by the Thunder God herself, Koharu Saegusa, Eastern Shrine Maiden! I’ll light you up so hard you’ll twitch yourselves into hell!”
Lightning surged around her in erratic arcs, and she formed a tight fist with her right hand, lightly tapping her temple with a smirk. Her tongue slipped playfully across her lip.
“Divine Zone: Auto-Trigger Protocol!”
Then she vanished.
The acceleration was instant, almost violent. One second, she was standing still; the next, she was a blur, tearing across the battlefield at speeds that rivaled even Cordelia in her berserker state. A thunderclap cracked in her wake.
Her body moved like a machine unbound by human limits, each motion perfectly synchronized. The technique she’d activated bypassed the body’s natural safeguards, feeding electric signals directly into her spinal cord. Reflexes, strength, speed—everything had been overridden. She was moving beyond human.
She launched herself skyward with a ground-splitting leap, trailing arcs of lightning behind her like divine wings. High above the ogre horde, she twisted her body midair, winding back her right arm as if she were a pitcher preparing a fastball for the ages.
Electricity exploded around her open palm. Bolts coiled and surged, forming a brilliant, unstable sphere of crackling violet energy. It continued to grow, the surges intensifying, the whole thing alive with raw power.
“Let’s see how you handle this straight down the middle!” she shouted. “Thunder God’s Wrath: Stormbreaker Pitch!”
She hurled it.
The sphere screamed through the air, gaining mass and speed as it flew. By the time it reached the center of the horde, it had transformed into a radiant storm front, a massive orb of pure electrical force, expanding as it traveled. When it struck, the blast radius expanded outward, exceeding a hundred meters in all directions.
First came the flash, blinding white and electric blue, swallowing the world in divine radiance.
Then came the sound, a thunderclap so deep it felt like it shook the bones from within. A sharp crack split the silence, followed by a rolling detonation that echoed like a collapsing mountain.
Inside the radiant storm, hundreds of lesser ogres and Generals were caught in the blast. Bodies convulsed and dropped one by one, steam rising from charred skin. They fell like thunderstruck trees, the wave of devastation felling them faster than they could scream.
What remained was silence.
And smoke.
And Koharu Saegusa, floating gently down through the afterglow, crackling with power.
With that single blast, more than half of the ogre horde was wiped out in an instant. Limbs smoldered, armor lay melted on the ground, and the air buzzed with the lingering scent of ozone and scorched flesh.
But not all of them had fallen.
The Ogre Kings, the true monsters, still stood.
Koharu’s eyes narrowed, scanning the battlefield. Three of them remained in her sight, massive and unmoving, their hulking forms framed in smoke. They hadn’t taken a knee. Hadn’t even flinched.
“Figures,” she muttered, cracking a grin. “Looks like the Kings are gonna put up a fight. Good. I could use a warm-up.”
She reached into her coat and pulled out three iron spheres, each the size of a clenched fist. Cold, heavy, and humming faintly from the residual charge of her divine aura.
With a flick of her wrist, she tossed them high into the air, then extended her palm straight out, aimed directly at the three kings.
Behind her, Lilith’s face went pale.
She recognized the setup instantly. Her body moved before her thoughts caught up, launching into a full sprint toward Cordelia.
“Wait, Lilith? What are you—?!”
Cordelia barely got the words out before she was tackled to the ground like a rugby dummy. Lilith pinned her there, eyes flat and focused, already chanting.
“I’ll be blunt. Without your berserker mode, you’re just a liability.”