[b]Dyssia![/b]

For all the horror of it, this is ultimately a dead thing.

It cannot control time like it once did. It cannot control travel like it once did. It has given of its eyes and its heart and its phallus. It is a dismembered patchwork, and what part of its power still exists on this world has turned its full attention elsewhere. The divine principle represented here is now entombed within the Underworld, and Demeter has slammed shut the gates.

You feel how tenuous that link is now; how easily it yields beneath your silver blade. How it dissolves into a blind and maimed corpse, covered in liver spots, absent and fading into ash. No fit end for a God or Titan.

And yet, flowers grow from its body, as is the Law.

"Hmm," Demeter says, stepping past. Her hair cascades by as she bends down, marking a note in her sketchpad. "A fascinating confirmation. It always felt like he was grasping the short end of the lever."

She smiles, and now it's not just the body blooming with flowers. "Thank you, Dyssia! You have done the galaxy a great service!" She crowns your head with a wreath of laurel and dandelions, and marks your brow with a kiss. "An ancient evil is vanquished, and one less gate to the Underworld remains. As a blessing, I will grant your followers, the Pix, True Incarnation; they shall be severed from the chains of Biomantic control and may face the galaxy as a truly independent species. No matter their fortunes in war and diplomacy, I will ensure that they shall spread, increase and prosper. Well done, hero!"

And she's on her way, stepping over the body of Hermes without so much as a backwards glance, until she vanishes into the fire and smoke of a collapsing Knight. All around you, the Nemesis War rages on, and you are left holding a surreal silver sword, a bundle of wildflowers and an eerie lack of closure.