Unlike Daniel's battle with the Gorilla God, which had ended in mere seconds, the fight between Bast and the Crocodile God went back and forth.
Even so, Bast steadily held the upper hand. Moving with incredible agility, she circled around the Crocodile God, darting in and out, and every so often, her claws would leave another deep gash across its thick, resilient hide, while the Crocodile God had no way of striking back.
After patiently waiting for an opening, the Crocodile God finally gathered its strength and lunged, trying to crush Bast with a massive bite, but she effortlessly dodged.
It swung its enormous tail at her instead, but all it managed to do was carve a deep trench into the ground, neither it could hit her nor catch her.
The Crocodile God was beginning to lose its mind. It had already started thinking about retreat. Out of the corner of its eye, it saw that the strongest among the three Beast Gods had already had his head blown apart with a single punch.
Fortunately, after killing the Gorilla God, that human had simply folded his arms and stood there watching the fight. Otherwise, the Crocodile God knew it would already be dead.
"ROOOAAAR!"
The Crocodile God let out an enraged bellow infused with divine power. The spiritual attack made Bast freeze for a brief instant. Seizing the opportunity, the Crocodile God immediately turned and fled toward the river.
Its plan was simple, just escape downstream, and never return to this cursed place again. Unfortunately for it... it wasn't fast enough. Bast recovered in less than a second, and she immediately pounced forward, clamped her jaws around the Crocodile God's tail, and began dragging it backward.
She hauled the struggling beast dozens of meters across the ground without ever loosening her grip. At the same time, both of her forepaws became little more than blurs as she repeatedly slashed across the Crocodile God's back.
Before long, its thick hide had been ripped apart, leaving its back a mangled mess of flesh and blood.
"You stole my followers!"
"You three kept ganging up on me!"
"You deserve this!"
Bast muttered continuously as she shredded the Crocodile God. She had harbored resentment toward the three Beast Gods for thousands of years. If not for them, she would have never been trapped inside her divine kingdom for millennia.
Abandoning her divine kingdom had never been an option, not only would her power have been severely diminished, but after thousands of years of bitter conflict, those three beasts would never have spared her.
Likewise, the three Beast Gods had no intention of abandoning the faith they had established in Wakanda. If they gave it up, they feared Bast would hunt them down anyway, and so, the four gods had remained deadlocked for thousands of years.
Claw after claw, the Crocodile God's breathing gradually ceased. Once she was certain it was dead, Bast finally released its tail.
She spat blood onto the ground; her lips still stained with the Crocodile God's blood.
"Meow!"
Standing triumphantly atop the Crocodile God's corpse, Bast let out a victorious cry. But sadly, it still lacked any real intimidation, as the adorable catlike sound simply didn't match the atmosphere.
Bast, however, felt incredibly majestic. She was the victor, and from this day forward, she would be Wakanda's one and only true god. The only slight disappointment was that her teeth hurt a little, because the Crocodile God's old hide had been ridiculously tough.
Looking at the mangled corpse, Daniel couldn't help sighing in regret.
"What a waste..."
"Such a nice crocodile hide and the Panther Goddess just ruined it."
In Daniel's eyes, the Panther Goddess was honestly pretty weak. She had taken so long just to kill a crocodile, and she had even shredded the hide in the process.
Unlike him, who just did it with one punch to the head, so the Gorilla God's entire hide remained perfectly intact.
Now, it could be turned into chair cushions, blankets, bedsheets, and that way, whenever he and Susan got a little... energetic... they wouldn't end up tearing their normal sheets anymore.
Daniel silently gave himself a thumbs-up. Waste not, want not, as there was no sense leaving valuable materials behind
Still, the Crocodile God was enormous, even though Bast had torn up its back, there was still plenty of usable hide left. Daniel immediately decided what to do with it, he'd make crocodile-skin wallets, shoes, belts, that he could either use himself, or give them away as gifts.
How impressive would that be? This was the hide of an actual Beast God and just saying that out loud sounded incredibly cool.
I'll make one for Tony, a genuine Beast God crocodile-skin wallet. No ordinary person could ever get something like that, only someone like me.
And after getting one, the first person I thought of was you, now that's what friends are for. The more Daniel imagined Tony's reaction, the wider he smiled, as he could already picture the look on Tony's face.
...
Meanwhile, Carol was still over there "playing" with the Lion God.
Well, calling it playing wasn't entirely accurate. She was sitting comfortably on the Lion God's back, gripping his thick mane and riding him around.
The Lion God had tried every method he could think of to throw her off, but nothing worked. He had even attempted to whip her with his tail, yet Carol dodged every strike effortlessly.
Eventually he gave up, after all, whenever the tail missed, he just ended up smacking his own body instead, and that hurt a lot.
"Hahaha!"
"Come on, little lion!"
"Run faster!"
Carol was having the time of her life. The Lion God's back was far softer than an ordinary lion's and it made for an incredibly comfortable ride.
After struggling for ages without any success and realizing that both the Crocodile and the Gorilla were already dead, the Lion finally gave up resisting altogether. He simply curled up on the ground without moving.
"Ride me if you want."
"I'm done."
Knowing death was likely inevitable, he chose to preserve the last bit of dignity he had. He would die lying down.
"Get up."
"Come on, get up."
Carol patted the Lion God's head.
"Take me for a few more laps."
The Lion God refused to respond. He stretched all four legs out and lay flat against the earth, as he wanted one final farewell with earth.
I am the Lion God, the king of the grasslands, and I will never become a human's mount.
He roared defiantly in his heart. Even if I die, I will never stand up again!
Seeing that gentle pats weren't working, Carol increased her strength. She even channeled her cosmic energy into her fists before repeatedly pounding the Lion God's head.
She carefully controlled her power. The blows would hurt him but wouldn't seriously injure him.
"Getting up or not?"
"Huh?"
"Getting up or not?"
She kept hammering away until the Lion God's head was nearly buried in the ground. After more than a minute of relentless blows, the Lion God finally gave out. He slowly climbed back to his feet, and his tail wagged obediently as he carried Carol around the surrounding area for several laps.
The beatings had simply hurt too much, and he couldn't endure them anymore.
"Woohoo!"
Carol cheered excitedly, as she urged the Lion God to run even farther, and only after nearly half an hour did, she finally ride him back. Jumping off his back, she found the Lion God lowering his head obediently. Seeing that Carol simply patted his face.
"You know..."
"I kind of don't want to kill you anymore."
The Lion God's tail immediately started wagging wildly. He had already forgotten everything he had sworn earlier. Now, he suddenly felt that being Carol's mount wasn't such a bad deal after all. After all, a life lived in shame was still better than a proud death.
"You filthy lion!"
The moment Carol climbed down, Bast glared at the Lion God.
"I'm eating lion meat today!"
Hearing that, the Lion God didn't dare argue. Instead, he immediately hid behind Carol and even rubbed his face against her in a shameless attempt to curry favor.
"Can we not kill him?" Carol thought for a moment before asking.
"I kind of like him."
Then she quickly added, "Of course, if keeping him alive would stop you from escaping, then we'll still kill him."
Carol knew what mattered most, she had promised to help the Panther Goddess, and she intended to keep that promise.
It was just that, she genuinely liked this lion now. It was comfortable to ride, incredibly fast, and surprisingly obedient.
Standing behind Carol, the Lion God looked at her with deeply aggrieved eyes. He was beginning to regret ever letting Carol ride him, as even after carrying her around for half an hour, he still couldn't save his own life.
Wait, wasn't this basically just letting her ride him around for free?!
Thinking about it, the Lion God felt utterly wronged.