The reinforced front paws of the Bear Mountain hit me and had their humerus broken immediately, the bones piercing through the leather stretched over it, then they slipped to my sides, having done nothing against me as I stared all of that unrolling with little interest.

The Bear Mountain hit the ground with a deafening thud, unable to stand on its broken front paws anymore. And Anog stared at me with deep-seated fear in her eyes.

“…Four Deaths”, I said, and the shadows of four figures started to slowly form by my sides, front and back.

“N-No… You’re not a god… What are you…?!”, Anog asked a pointless question, for even if I was to explain to her, she wouldn’t comprehend. “Bear Mountain, take me away from here!”, she flew to the front of the face of her enslaved god, which bit into her clothes, and tried to quickly hurl her away from me.

But before the enslaved god could do anything, I was already right in front of the recently ascended woman, holding her by her neck.

“G-Guah?! Ahugh!”, Anog tried to breathe through my grip, but failed in doing so.

“You won’t”, I said, pointing my palm to the forehead of the Bear Mountain, and conjuring a spear that pierced the creature straight from the forehead to the tail.

The huge creature’s green flaming eyes flashed, it’s halo of “0” and “1” vanished, and it lost all of its connections to the first world. Then, the Bear Mountain started to fall… right over the village that encircled it, about to crush all of its inhabitants and the few ones that gripped onto the fur of the Bear Mountain for their lives.

But what happened to first world beings was not of my interest.

“What a shame, I was hopping things wouldn’t have to turn out like this…” a familiar voice sounded. And with a boom, a faceless tall human man encircled by stone tools appeared right above the town, the god that spoke to me when I first entered the Bear Mountain, the one I saw in my visions from when I was stranded in the fourth world.

He raised his hands, and the earth raised too, hitting the giant falling corpse, stopping it on its fall, and protecting the town and the teachers and apprentices still on top of the Bear Mountain. The earth slowly covered the entire being, in a matter of instant turning it into part of the landscape, and yet not touching Mari, Aspen, Splash, Dust, Glance, or Gailardia.

“L- Let me go!”, Anog conjured immense trees that shocked themselves against me, spikes that tried to pierce my skin, and snake-like vines that curled around my limbs and tried to crush them. “Wh-Why do you even care what I do?! You’re not Coyote anymore!”

“I don’t care”, I said, as the four figures of true death slowly materialized around me, and the god from before used his earth-controlling skills to evacuate everyone from the surroundings. “That’s why I’ll give you a choice”, I loosened my grip on Anog’s throat just enough to allow her to breathe and talk.

“What?”, she asked, suddenly a glimpse of hope coming back to her terrified eyes.

“Option one. I end you right here and now. It would be like you never existed in the first place, even your soul will stop being, and there will be no afterlife or even eternal sleep for you. But it will be instant.”

“Why would I choose that?!”

“Option two. You live the rest of your days running away.”

“Running away… from what?”

I tilted her head upward, and showed her what I saw when I looked up after I ascended to godhood, the inevitable thing that sealed my destiny in that first world. Beyond the skies, the universe-spanning spiderweb-like monster that was constantly looking for gods and stronger beings… and had just noticed the presence of a new deity to feast on.

“WH-WHAAA?! WHAT IS THAT?! LET ME GO! LET ME GO! IT’S COMING FOR ME!”

“You said the gods disappeared because they understood they had nothing to gain from mortals? You thought that the people who created the artifact you used to control the Bear Mountain were trying to enslave their deity? You were wrong. The gods went away because they were forced to, by that thing. And those who created the artifact were trying to take their so beloved deity away from it.”

“Wh-Wh-Wh-Why is that thing up there…?!”

I followed her gaze, and observed the so indescribable immense net of flesh eyes and teeth stretching from the center of the universe to its edges.

“It seemed some of my kin escaped to this lower world… and they relived their same mistakes. That is but a poor copy of my creation, the four deaths. Either way, this world is not safe for gods or my kin anymore”, I looked back at Anog, and gave her an ultimatum: “So? What do you choose?”

“Why… Why do I have to go through this?! After millennia of planning and preparing myself! After finally ascending! Am I in the wrong simply for wanting power?!”

“No. If anything, it’s admirable to look to become more powerful. It’s just the method you used to achieve your goal that… is unpleasantly familiar. So, choose. Now.”

“I choose… to live!”

“Very well… But there is no loophole for you. You will live an eternity running away from true death”, I touched half of the woman’s face, and burned it away. Once her screams had died out and she was simply tired and with tears in her eyes, I let Anog go with one final warning: “You will never be able to move to another world.”

*

“…Well, it seems we don’t have much time here either”, After saving the townspeople, I approached the fifth world being, which floated alone in the skies, his opponent having started to fly away from her eternal pursuer right after the white-haired one let her go. Looking up, and to our executioner, I added: “…Tell me, is there any part of you who still is that innocent boy who once preyed to me?”

“Skyblue’s memories are still inside of me, they haven’t been erased. But they are so infinitesimally short in comparison to my past, that they are but a blink of an eye. Insignificant. To all purposes, Skyblue has failed in finding his place, and died.”

“…What about you?”, I asked, seeing the web of flesh, eyes, and teeth focusing its attention onto us, and approaching fast from the other side of the universe. Coyote didn’t answer, however. “It is coming for us too.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Seeing the Godeater getting uncomfortably closer, I sighed and left the fifth world being alone, returning to the fourth world, the world of the gods.

*

After the mysterious faceless man saved us from the collapsing Bear Mountain, and covered it with dirt, stone, grass, and trees, I immediately turned around and searched for Coyote.

I found him floating beside the faceless man. Then alone. And then… he simply vanished.

“What-What happened?”, Aspen asked, just as baffled as I was.

“Is Coyote okay?”, Splash asked, standing on her knees, too shaken to get back up.

I didn’t know. I didn’t know, but: “Yes. I’m sure he is.”

“…What about The Bear Mountain?”, Dust asked.

“I don’t think it will be able to connect the entire world anymore”, I answered, laying against a tree, the tiredness from all that happened finally hitting me all at once. I was barely able to stay still, my legs shaking, and my heart wavering.

“So… what now”, the shaman archer asked again.

“Darlings, as the last ones to have frequented that place, I think the duty to keep people together through this time has fallen on us now.”

“…Do you think we will see Coyote again?”, the long-legged cutie questioned.

“…I’m not so sure, love. But I’m sure that he is out there. Somewhere. Alive.”

The Strongest Shaman Apprentice, The End.