Could Shani—stripped of her Crown of Thorns, sealed off from her thorny powers, entangled by the Underworld, and branded with the mark of sin—gain the upper hand against the "punishment" carried out jointly by five Thorn Dukes?
The answer was no.
In this situation, even if Lord Payin came here, he'd be at a loss. Murphy had used the authority of the Midnight Twins, which was practically the same as having a god shaped by vampire civilization personally take the field against a Vampire Duke.
If he could still fail under these circumstances, that would only prove the Midnight Twins were utterly useless. Did such useless gods even need to exist?
Of course, Shani wasn't completely without hope.
The constraints on the world's power had now been lifted. Old monsters like the Lord and Edward had already begun breaking through toward demigodhood. If Shani could seize the chance and open up her meridians in these few desperate minutes, then pull off an invincible flashback-fueled comeback, with a little favor from fate on top, perhaps she really could break through to Vampire Demigodhood on the spot, effortlessly obliterate Murphy, that authority-cheating bastard, and make him kneel before her long legs and sing "I Will Conquer."
After all, the phantoms of the past that Murphy had summoned from the Blood River were at most Golden-level. Any demigod could easily crush them.
Unfortunately, Shani wasn't fate's chosen one. She couldn't pull off a glorious reversal in such dire straits.
Faced with her five predecessors, who appeared and vanished from the shadows as they slaughtered her, Shani could barely even defend herself.
The shadows rejected her attempts to merge with them, and the Midnight scolded her for her arrogance. Even her mind, unable to remain calm, burned with madness, dragging up her most painful