Not Enough
"Well, shucks," Fate smirked, his mind racing. "Six against one. I like those odds."
A shame that they caught onto his scare tactic so fast. He prided himself on pissing off his opponents, making them sloppy and inattentive. Then it was just a matter of taking advantage of it.
But this Cage guy… Fate would make sure to keep an eye on him.
"If that's the way it's going to be, mind if I even the odds a little?" With a thought, his wings burst from his back and he jumped into the air, taking flight not long after.
The Metal Embodiment, Ursa, tried to use her plates to block his escape, but he just used his Manifest Power to remove the problem.
He came into a hover fifty feet above the floor, taking advantage of the tall ceiling that still left another fifty feet for maneuvering.
"Pretty cowardly for someone who was ragging on about our underhanded methods," shouted V.
"It's still six against one," Fate grinned. "Although you'll need all six to stand a chance."
Of those left were Cage, V, Jenna, Ursa, Sema, and Sam.
Cage and Jenna's appearances and potential Manifest Powers were already burned into Fate's mind, so he turned to the other three.
Ursa had metallic gold hair and coal-like black eyes, and Fate could tell that these metal plates were coming from her based on her aura and the energy signature around the plates.
Then there was V, who had brown hair and eyes and an average face one wouldn't glance at twice on the street. The powerful physique that his armor showed off, however, gave him an air of danger. He wasn't as large as Cage, but was closer to Autumn in terms of muscle.
The last was Sema, with short brown hair and green eyes that even now watched him with the detached air of a kid watching ants march along. Her freckled face was actually quite pretty, Fate had to admit.
Before anyone could react, he used his Divine Grasp to deal with the one he deemed the most troublesome and the easiest to get rid of at the moment, the gravity girl Sam.
Spawning a vice of Divine Energy that surrounded her head, he squeezed. Her head popped into a rain of blood and brain matter, her corpse flopping to the ground.
As the remaining five let out exclamations of surprise, Fate couldn't help but widen his eyes. In that moment, he clearly felt the power he displayed. It was beyond what he should have been capable of outputting, twice that of his normal strength.
Did his new dragon form influence his Divine Reach as well?
'But if that's the case, why would Kravoss' ancestor let me keep this form? The cold he said it was necessary for is nowhere, so why am I still like this?'
That didn't even touch upon his other question, why wasn't his Divine Reach this strong when he was fending off the chimera? Sure, he dealt with the attacks without breaking a sweat, but he knew instinctively that his Divine Reach back then was at his normal strength.
Had the Dracok been suppressing this form of his? But why would he even need to do that if it was a figment of the creature's imagination anyway?
Fate decided to stop thinking about it. The world of Embodiments was a confusing place, and worrying about what he couldn't comprehend would only distract him from the battle he was now in.
The Divine Reach of the five survivors converged on him at once, prompting him to use his Manifest Power and his wings to evade. He dodged and flew around several blasts, fireballs from Jenna, and a few concentrated efforts, the latter of which was the deadliest.
While piling two or more Divine Reaches on top of each other wasn't as simple as one plus one, there was still about seventy-five percent efficiency left. This was caused by the varied and unique Divine Energy each Embodiment had, which didn't mesh well with others.
Even those with the same Manifestations as each other would have this problem, as their comprehension wasn't an exact 1:1 equivalent.
Such a detriment wasn't a problem for psychics, Prodigies, and Exemplars because they had yet to have their Manifestations color their Divine Reach, but it was an important detail for Avatars and up.
So while altogether the five Advanced had a Divine Reach strength of fifty-three hundred pounds, they could only show about four thousand of that when working together.
While Fate could exhibit a strength of three thousand one hundred pounds as a dragon, and even absorb some of that with the first Concept he ever made, there was still the matter of Level disparity.
It had to be remembered that as Personifications, the Divine Energy of these Advanced had twice the quality of Fate's own.
While that wouldn't change the base strength of pounds, as the strengthening of this was a result of that qualitative change to Divine Energy in the first place, there was still the matter of that chunk Fate couldn't block with his Divine Reach.
As he experienced before, breaking down and absorbing the Divine Energy of Embodiments a Level above him took slightly longer than those at his own Level. And he could forget about getting rid of an Incarnation's energy before they threw more in.
This was why he took extra care to avoid those, flapping around without fighting back. It was obvious that each of these attacks held large amounts of Divine Energy in them, and he could keep flapping his wings for as long as he had the stamina.
All he had to do was wait for the first person to tire themselves out.
And after a solid forty minutes of ducking and dodging, that was exactly what happened.
"I'm out of energy!" shouted Jenna, who had been blasting Fate with fireballs and Divine Energy blasts since the start. She ran for cover behind Cage to recuperate her Divine Energy.
Fate grinned and swooped down, faster than their eyes could track. He slashed out with his claws, aiming for the eyes.
Cage stepped forward and caught his wrist, giving Fate a mirthless look before gripping down with all his might. The dragon scales covering Fate's wrist shattered, the flesh below turning into a mess of blood and meat as his hand went limp.