Hisame drops in front of Alduin, and, frustrated, slams him with Tsukiyomi - an illusion of death, her heart stopping, her soul leaving her body, the Pure Land willow by the riverbed and knowing even if she had to cross over she'd be okay -

Alduin screams.

And falters.

An opening swiftly exploited.

Their blows do damage, now - not greatly, not deeply, but he's accumulating any injuries as he recovers mentally.

It's about time they started seeing some results.

And a new contender approaches.

Jyggalag appears just as Alduin's trying to rend apart the ground, stabilizing everything around Meridia and forming a massive crystal dome over her.

Alduin's wings start to crystallize - just the edges, and the dragon god is able to quickly reverse it, but it's enough to throw off his flight.

Alduin roars and starts flinging meteors in massive quantities, aiming especially for the other gods - Jyggalag seems to be focusing on messing up his attempts at earthquakes at least, and Glint's able to turn quite a few meteors into swarms of bats or butterflies or pigeons or swifts -

The Keres has a shield erected around the critical area that's mostly invisible. When struck, it crackles with white energy that dissipates across the dome, strengthening the structure as a whole.

And Hisame's weapons are now able to do actual damage - and quite a bit of it - though she mostly focuses on defending herself and reinforcing the death illusion.

It appears they are winning.

Alduin isn't beaten yet, and he's vicious and fully capable of wounding them - he opens rifts in the ground and Jyggalag is only barely able to close them, he summons meteors and the group is hard-pressed to turn them, he occupies them with strange fogs and creates firestorms layered with dropping the temperature, he anticipates harsher blows and moves far too quickly for something his size -

But slowly, inch by inch, they're pressing him back.

And, more importantly, he isn't successfully destroying Meridia's weapon.

That is the goal, here. Hopefully they won't have to hold out too much longer.

And then the call goes out to retreat, finally.

Finally. She was beginning to get a bit tired.

As the others depart, the Keres switches fully into offensive mode, pummeling Alduin into position above with all the physics-twisting power at her disposal.

This works.

Everyone not a god nor a disposable body gets out; Hisame's secondary body can take over the holding.

The Keres will evacuate, towards the end.

Leaving Ellayania to witness.

Glint, as well - this seems wonderfully, insanely mad.

And Merid-Nunda punches a hole in the universe, in searing light and blinding flame, in colors that can be tasted, felt, smelled, heard -

Time shatters, briefly. The mortals won't notice. The gods will. Like the Dragon blinked, and fumbled a few thin moments all on top of each other -

In Mundus, visible clearly from Skyrim, a new star blazes in the sky.

Sovngarde is rather on fire, but Alduin appears to have been shoved through the hole Merid-Nunda just made. And possibly a small bit disintegrated along the way.

Very impressive.

Merid-Nunda reforms in the Colored Rooms, and sends word to Glint, who passes on the message: "Alduin appears to have been thoroughly unlatched. While he might eventually return, we have centuries through millennia."

"I am going to tell that story to Sanguine so it gets into all the taverns, you know," Glint teases. "Get the star named Alduin's Bane."

"Will they write a song about it?"

"A very terrible one with no tune at all, I suspect."

"Not having any musical talent to speak of myself, I can be satisfied with that."