This back and forth went on for more than an hour. Now, people might say, Why am I still standing and waiting around?

Well, the answer to that question would be the fuckin' barrier or curtain of sorts surrounding the whole block, hindering the outside eye and blocking entrance and exit by the will of the caster—who, by default in my head, is none other than the glowing, moon-haired goddess floating a few dozen meters in the air.

I had tried everything in those first few minutes. Testing the edges, tapping the surface, even channelling a fraction of my Haki into the wall. Nothing. It was like pressing my hand against polished steel wrapped in velvet—unyielding, immovable, and far stronger than anything I could tear down with the pitiful energy I currently had. If I had to describe it… it felt alive, like it could flex and pulse in rhythm with her will.

So yeah. Escape? Off the table.

That left me in the middle of a war zone.

The goddess—still unnamed in my head, but every part of me screamed huntress, divine, moon-wrought judgment—stood like a flawless sculpture of disdain. For over an hour, she hadn't faltered, not once. Every arrow she loosed was the same: precise, merciless, like each shot was calculated down to the heartbeat of her opponent. Her voice had grown quieter, the venom sharpening instead of fading. At times, she whispered things under her breath, curses or perhaps prayers I couldn't catch, but the meaning was clear in her eyes: contempt, sharpened to a blade's edge.

The Minotaur, on the other hand, was a nightmare made flesh. Whatever drug it had been pumped with before all this had stripped it of reason and restraint. Blood matted its coarse fur, darkened in streaks over its thick hide, but it kept going. Its massive hooves cracked concrete every time it lunged. Every impact sent tremors through the ground, rattling my teeth even from a distance. Its eyes—bloodshot, frothing madness—locked on her like nothing else existed.

And the crazy part? It endured.

Every arrow of light should have ended it. I'd seen beams pierce cars, slice through reinforced walls, scatter chunks of pavement like sand. And yet, when they struck the beast's body, the flesh burned, split, and smoked—but the hide beneath seemed to drink in the magic, resisting the brunt of it. The Minotaur would howl, stagger, bleed… then charge again, as if pain was nothing but kindling for its fury.

I caught myself holding my breath when one of her shots buried itself in its shoulder, blasting clean through and leaving a molten hole. Any normal creature would have dropped. The Minotaur didn't. It ripped its own muscle free with a twist, bellowed so loud my ears rang, and slammed its horns into the ground in defiance. The shockwave rattled broken glass for blocks.

She grimaced at that. Just barely. A tiny crack in her mask of divinity, but I saw it. The huntress wasn't invincible.

My heart thudded, not with courage, but with the raw realisation: if she could be hurt, then she could also lose.

That didn't make me safe. If anything, it made me more of a target.

The barrier kept me boxed in with them, forced to witness their clash like some unwilling spectator to a gladiatorial match scripted by gods. My legs ached from standing, my chest tight from keeping my Haki suppressed as much as possible. Even the faintest ripple of will could draw her attention, and I wasn't suicidal enough to test how forgiving she might be.

Still, I couldn't stop watching.

The Minotaur's breath was ragged now, thick steam rolling off its nostrils in furious bursts. It staggered when it moved, but every stumble was followed by another charge. Its horns glowed faintly where divine light had seared them, cracks spiderwebbing across the bone, yet they hadn't broken. When it rammed into one of her barriers, the sound was like two titans colliding, and the shock tore fissures through the asphalt.

Her response never wavered. With every strike, she drew another arrow of light, the bow never dimming, her pale eyes cold enough to freeze marrow. But the rhythm of her breath—faint as it was—had grown heavier. She wasn't fresh anymore.

Time was grinding them both down.

Me? I was stuck in the middle, pulse spiking with every exchange, because all it would take was one stray blast or one redirected charge, and I'd be paste smeared across the ruins of New York concrete.

The air itself had turned toxic, heavy with blood, divine radiance, and the reek of the Minotaur's rage. I could taste iron on my tongue with every breath. My body screamed to run, to hide, to do something, but the barrier pressed against my instincts, cold and suffocating, reminding me there was nowhere to go.

And then it happened.

A direct hit.

One of her arrows buried itself deep into the Minotaur's abdomen, a blinding spear of silver that tore through its flesh and erupted from its back. The creature howled, a sound that rattled the soul, half rage, half despair. Its massive body swayed, blood pouring out in rivers, staining the ground beneath it black. For a moment, I thought it would collapse.

It didn't.

Instead, it freakin' regenerate. And not just that particular wound, but all the injuries that it had taken up until now. Flesh that had been charred and shredded began knitting back together in thick, steaming cords of muscle. The molten hole in its shoulder sealed over with grotesque speed, the cracked horn smoothed, even the mangled gashes along its chest stitched into place as though time itself had been reversed.

I froze, breath stuck in my throat.

The goddess did too. Her hand, mid-draw on the next arrow, trembled for the first time. Her pale eyes widened, not with fear exactly, but with the sharp recognition of a mistake.

The Minotaur bellowed again, louder than before, and the sound was wrong—raw power layered over madness. Its body swelled, muscles bulging, veins standing out like molten rivers beneath its skin. The regeneration wasn't natural. Whatever drugged frenzy it had been pushed into before was fusing with its own monstrous vitality, forcing it into some berserk state beyond sense or control.

The ground shook as it stamped forward, steam rolling off its frame, blood already gone as though it had never been spilt. The silver arrow still jutted through its abdomen, but instead of crippling it, the wound glowed faintly, as if the divine energy embedded inside had only been consumed and turned into fuel.

Her bow dipped slightly. "Impossible…" she whispered, her voice sharp with disbelief, but she didn't back down. Another arrow flared into existence, brighter, hotter, burning with divine wrath.

I couldn't tear my eyes away. My hands were clammy, my chest tight, but every instinct screamed at me to move. To do what, I didn't know—there was nowhere to run, nowhere safe. All I could do was stand there, caught between a goddess's cold fury and a monster's unstoppable rage, praying that neither decided I was next.

And then the Minotaur charged again.

This time, it wasn't just rage. It was faster. Heavier. A wall of flesh and horn and wrath was tearing through the goddess's divine arrows like they were sparks in the wind.

But one thing was clear: conspiracy.

This whole thing was too much of a coincidence, A goddess—from her body language from before—was on her regular hunt, but the same easy prey turned out to be an abomination that refused to die.

The thought struck me hard as I watched the Minotaur plough forward, shattering chunks of pavement and sending cars tumbling like paper toys. My breath caught, and I had to press a hand against my chest just to remember I was still standing, still breathing, still separate from the war unfolding before me. This wasn't some accident of chance. No way. Something had driven this beast to be here, in this state, right in the goddess's path. The drugs, the madness, the way its body regenerated like it had been primed for this exact kind of fight—it stank of design. Of hands pulling strings far above my understanding.

And it seems to be working, as she was exhausted from all that waste of divine energy, her breaths slipping heavier now, her grip on the bow a fraction less steady than it had been at the start.

The Minotaur saw it. Hell, even I saw it—the faintest crack in her posture, the smallest stutter of her drawstring. For a monster whipped into mindless frenzy, it moved with a frightening clarity, like it had scented her weakness in the air.

Its hooves slammed against the asphalt, each thunderous step echoing like a war drum. The barrier around us trembled, not from her will but from the sheer force of the beast's rampage. For the first time since this battle began, the goddess's radiance faltered against the sheer ugliness of raw, unrelenting survival.

"Unworthy filth," she hissed, the words catching in her throat as another arrow manifested, light bending in her palm. "Return to the pit from which you crawled—"

The Minotaur's charge interrupted her declaration. Its horns collided with her conjured light mid-air, and the explosion of force knocked me back against a crumbling wall. My ribs screamed from the impact. Dust filled my lungs, burning and acrid, but my eyes refused to close—I couldn't look away, not now.

The goddess was driven back, her body twisting in midair to steady herself. For the first time, blood touched her lip, a small crimson streak that glowed under the silver aura around her.

My heart pounded like it wanted out of my chest. The impossible had just happened. She wasn't untouchable.

And the Minotaur knew it.

Its roar shook the ground, a sound layered with madness and triumph. Steam poured off its body, and the faint silver glow from the arrow lodged in its abdomen brightened, not as a wound but as a furnace stoked higher. The divine energy she had used to kill it was now the very thing feeding its frenzy.

Her eyes narrowed, fury tightening every line of her face. For the first time, she looked less like a goddess passing judgment and more like a predator forced onto the back foot.

And me? I pressed my palm against the barrier beside me, sweat dripping down my temples, trying to steady the quaking in my legs.

Because one thought wouldn't leave my head:

If a goddess could bleed… then so could I.

And I had no idea which of them would notice me first.

***

Stone me, I can take it!

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