Everything is Anime! Chapter 90: Verethragna and Melqart! (Patreon)

The island of Sardinia is famous for two things: its gorgeous coastline — and its ancient ruins.

More than seven thousand megalithic stone towers, called nuraghe, have been found all over the island.

The first ones go back to the 15th century BCE, when the island’s indigenous people built villages around them.

Centuries later the Phoenicians took Sardinia, and after that the Romans arrived, crushed Phoenician rule, and made the island their own home.

That’s why you can still walk a few minutes in Sardinia and stumble across both Phoenician and Roman ruins.

On the west side of the island, around Oristano, the ruins are densest. One site, Tharros, is half–submerged in the sea and half still standing on shore. Tharros was built by Phoenicians who worshipped the “king‑of‑gods” Melqart.

In our era those forgotten stones accidentally gave Melqart a foothold to descend as a Heretic God.

Not long after, the foreign war‑god Verethragna — or, as he calls himself, the Invincible War‑God — showed up, and the two started trading blows.

Their first clash ended in double knock‑out: Verethragna’s Ten Incarnations were blasted apart and scattered across Sardinia in beast‑form, while Melqart burrowed underground to lick his wounds.

Erica Blandelli of the Copper Black Cross volunteered to investigate. According to the original plan she should have met a certain foreign boy, but the sudden news of a seventh Campione threw her timing off. By the time she reached the home of the local witch Lucrezia, destiny had already split into parallel lines that never cross.

Erica kept digging. Near dawn, while dozing in an inn, she jolted awake: the sky, which should have cleared, was rolling with black clouds. A storm was coming — ink‑dark masses spreading across the heavens like spilled paint.

BOOOM‑booom‑BOOM!

Thunder rolled, lightning slashed, the wind howled through every crack. A torrential downpour followed.

Townsfolk sat up in terror; children pressed their faces to the glass until parents yanked them back and told them to stay away from windows and anything electric. Before the warning finished, all the lights in Oristano went out.

To ordinary people it was a nightmare storm.
To Erica, whose mage‑senses could pierce the veil, those “howling winds” were shockwaves from two gods colliding.

A gigantic white ram marched across the sky, dragging the storm with it; bolts of lightning writhed through the clouds at its command. The wind and rain only intensified its majesty.

That was Verethragna.

Its opponent, standing amid the deluge, was the reborn Melqart.

Having re‑collected his scattered incarnations in less than two days, Verethragna had chosen the pre‑sunrise hour — when his own power peaks — to launch round two against the god‑king hiding in his sanctuary below. Melqart, brimming with confidence, accepted the challenge.

Erica, the lone human witness at ground zero, felt divine pressure crush her nerves. Only now did she grasp how laughable her earlier dream of slaying a god had been. Yes, she was a genius knight‑mage … but even that did not qualify her to challenge divinity.

The two gods never even glanced her way, yet the backlash of their duel froze her in place, face pale, limbs locked. Houses collapsed; cries for help echoed through the rain‑black streets. Something in Erica snapped back to life. Shaking, she forced herself toward the battlefield, determined to save whoever she could.

But a single stray blow from those two could turn a slice of city to ashes. She saw a little girl clinging to her mother, pinned under fallen beams, and she wasn’t fast enough. The roof caved in. The girl’s scream cut off, and Erica’s rational mind shattered.

She didn’t know how long she stood there when a voice reached her:

“Get up. They’re yours to look after now.”

A stranger had appeared in front of her. In his arms were the very mother and child she had just failed to reach. Erica numbly accepted their limp bodies.

“You are…?”

The man didn’t answer. After handing them over, he turned and strode into the storm. Over the roar of wind and rain, Erica — and every survivor nearby — heard only one line:

“Watch closely. This is how the sun’s radiance truly shines.”