meakashi
patreon
Chapter 141 - Countdown to Destruction
🕑 Added 2020-03-17 12:02:33 +0000 UTC
I'm having a sense of deja-vu. But this time, the situation won't be explained away by an unexpectedly honorable Oinos. In fact, it's exactly what it looks like, so I won't make any excuses. I just didn't want it to come to this so soon.
"It is what it is." I look up into Areteniha's glowing eyes fearlessly. Then I grow wings and fly up toward her, to sneakily make her enter the area of effect of the inhibitor device. I have nothing against her, but she will definitely kill us all if we hurt her son.
"Stay back." In a commanding tone, the Old Human who just came from the surface of the sun glares at me. Exla told me that she can send solar winds toward Earth with a simple thought, so I think it's better to listen to her order for now. "Deactivate that device right now."
For seeing her son missing a hand, she's unexpectedly calm. It seems she knows the area of effect of the watch, as she's floating well outside of it.
"Mama!" Alverost cries while raising his cauterized stump. "Help me!"
"What will you do if I deactivate it?" I ask casually without looking at the boy. This device is the only thing that keeps her from frying us with a solar beam, and knowing Old Humans, she'd be willing to destroy the entire planet out of revenge. And unlike Zylos, she does have control over the power of the sun.
"Stop the solar winds heading for Earth right now and send them back." With a smile that sends a shiver down my spine, Areteniha delivers her threat in an even more casual manner than my earlier question. "At this rate, the moon will fall before they reach, but I know you have a plan to prevent that from happening."
Without turning around, she points over her shoulder at the celestial body that is beginning to occupy almost half the sky. Now that I think about it, even light itself needs over eight minutes to reach Earth, so there's no way she can use the power of the sun in a direct battle. Solar winds are slower than the speed of light, so that's even less useful in combat.
Then again, as a threat, it carries more weight than even the moonfall. Unlike the moon, solar winds can't be caught by the hands of a certain God of Growth, and they will most likely kill me too.
"I see that you understand." The smile fades from Areteniha's face as she regards me with her glowing eyes. She means business.
"Alright." I doubt the trick I used on Alverost is going to work on her, so I motion to deactivate the inhibition field. That's when I see a massive cloud approaching from the west and covering up the moon as it moves. It takes me but a split second to understand that it's Exla, and I lower my hand. "But a threat to one's life is only useful if it's immediate."
"What?" The Old Human glares at me but then realizes that our surroundings are growing dark. She spins her head around just in time to see an arm of the massive cloud heading for her.
But unlike what I expected, Exla doesn't try to grab the glowing woman. Instead, she forms a giant lens with her own cloud body and slides it between Areteniha and the sun. Right then, the light from the sun is scattered, causing the Old Human's body to disappear. She was nothing more than a projection.
"No!" Alverost screams in desperation when he realizes that his mother wouldn't risk her own life to save his. He slaps his belt buckle with his remaining hand, upon which the sides of his shoes open to reveal tiny thrusters.
Before anybody can react, he slides across the ground before taking off into the sky. I can't even follow him as quickly as he's flying because the inhibition field locks all my modes of air transportation to wings. I hastily draw the unlock pattern, but just as I finish and turn to fly after the escaping boy, something whisks him out of the sky.
In the next moment, a small impact a short distance away tells me that whatever it was made Alverost hit the ground quite hard. Once I finish the pattern, I quickly head over there, followed by the humans and Tokomaha.
There's a small crater in the paved stone of the plaza, and standing above a mangled corpse is Aorutihaua, blood running from their pointed helmet down to their naked but featureless onyx body. I can't make out their expression under the helmet, but when they look up at me, I can feel the sadness permeating from them.
The corpse is barely recognizable, but it's without a doubt Alverost's remains. There's blonde hair around where a self-proclaimed genius's brains are splattered across the ground, and the anachronistic t-shirt and short pants can still be recognized even with all the blood and guts spilled on them.
I descend into the crater, take off Aorutihaua's helmet, and hug them wordlessly. They snuggle into my chest and remain silent, but I can feel the small, near-indestructible body trembling in my embrace.
"My son!" The disembodied voice of Areteniha thunders across the sky in lament. "You will pay for this, Kerry!"
At this, Aorutihaua shivers even more and returns my embrace. So Kerry is their real name. If a mother, who's also the equivalent of a goddess of the sun, says it in that tone, any child would be terrified. I can agree that seeing my child get killed would have me furious, but Areteniha isn't blameless here.
I learned that Alverost was terrorizing Aorutihaua, or Kerry, at every turn when they were still in Armeria. It's how they developed the withdrawn personality of always wearing a helmet to hide their expression. The Golden Shawl could even be interpreted as a sort of safety blanket.
Their mother knew about it, but because Kerry was a troubled child rather than a genius prodigy, they were left on the side. It's unfortunate for siblings to kill each other, but it's one of those times I think fratricide can be justified.
"Come down here and do it then, old hag." I call out into the sky in the general direction of the sun. "Kerry is under my protection now."
"You...!" Areteniha's voice sounds beyond enraged when she hears my challenge. "I will erase you all!"
"Try it." I might be overdoing it with the taunting right now, but nothing will change about the fact that the Old Human on the sun will use her power to attack us now.
But to my surprise, silence is my only answer. Then a realization hits me, and I draw together my eyebrows in skepticism. How could Areteniha, being near the surface of the sun, even react to anything down here in real-time? Light, the fastest medium in existence, takes more than eight minutes to reach Earth from the sun, so we should have double that much of a delay between every exchange.
"Exla, she's somewhere near here!" I call out to the cloud lens above, which quickly consolidates into a humanoid form. With a nod, she disperses her body across the sky in a hurricane-like cloud pattern.
No matter what Areteniha does, the power of the sun can't be immediate. Solar winds take much longer to reach Earth than light, so we have to find her and make her call them back. In the worst-case scenario, Exla or I will have to head to the sun and tap into the Imagination Engine directly.
"Tokomaha, get ready." I point at the massive moon in the sky. Even though it should still be several hours away, it's the more immediate threat right now - according to Areteniha herself. "Flann, bring us to the approximate impact point."
With a silent nod, the little goddess comes toward me just as Flann warps in out of nowhere. She seems to be observing me from another dimension or through telepathy at all times, so no matter how quietly I call for her, she always hears it.
Once we're somewhere around the Ogely mountains, I'll leave Tokomaha alone to do her thing and head for the dark side of the moon to meet Mataku. I'm sure that the moment Chaos-Juzual is out of the picture, he's going to take the opportunity to attack me. For that reason, I'll be bringing Aurelia with me - the only other person here who can survive in the vacuum of space.
"I'll be right back. Stay here with the others." With these words directed at Kerry, I hand them back their helmet. They look at me with the gaze of a lost puppy but finally nod silently in assent. Petting their head once last time, I glance at Flann to signal that I'm ready.
In the next instant, my vision warps, and we teleport.
Other side
"Where's Runa?" Rolan looks around when Chaos disappears with Tokomaha and Flann. He used Roshanee's ability to rush here and save Aurelia while leaving the others behind, but they arrived a short while later. But the half-elf is nowhere to be seen.
"She was right behind us." Gram, using his height to his advantage, peers across the plaza with a worried expression. She couldn't have been blindsided by one of the devils attacking the city without any of them noticing. Her not following them must mean that something out of the ordinary happened.
"Let's backtrack." The leader decides while looking toward the street they came from. Then he glances at the golden queen, whose body has returned to gold. She's standing at the edge of the crater and is looking down at the remains of Alverost. The onyx-skinned boy named Kerry has climbed out from the hole and is standing beside her now.
"I'll stay with them." Svanhild states with a wave of her hand while leaning on her broken lance. She sounds tired from the earlier physical exertion, even though the inhibitor has been switched off, and her training as a Chosen Knight should make her immune to fatigue. But it seems that fighting one of the Old Humans, a being she had still considered a god barely half a year ago, has taken a mental toll on her.
Rolan understands well; he had been in a similar situation before. To have one's worldview shattered by the bleakness of reality can make one forget even the best training. This was Svanhild's first engagement against one of the Old Humans, and she performed admirably.
With one last look back at the two women and the meteor child, the leader follows Gram and Halthor, who already went ahead. He has a bad feeling about Runa's sudden disappearance. Many possible explanations rise into Rolan's mind, but he hopes none of them are true.
"This is where I last saw her next to me." Halthor states while looking around. They're in the alleyway they took as a detour to pass by Tokomaha's clone army that was clogging the main street.
"Same." Gram scratches his bald head and looks up at the walls as if expecting to see footprints on them. Despite being a narrow path between two rows of houses, it's relatively clean. The Prichet district is quite affluent, so it makes sense for there to be back alley cleaning. "She wouldn't stop without telling us."
"I think it may have been Shelnir." Rolan finally comes out with his dark premonition. The two taller men look at him with grim expressions, understanding what he's implying.
"Indeed, that does sound like her." Suddenly, Aurelia's voice comes from behind them, and they turn to face her in surprise. The golden queen has approached them in complete silence despite wearing a suit of plate armor. It's a testament to her control over the gold, making the segments float without touching each other. "Knowing her, she is most likely already gone."
"Where could they have gone?" Scratching his head, Halthor looks up into the sky again. The moon is so close now that one can see it even from this narrow alleyway. If the upside-down city were there, the answer would have been obvious.
"Maybe Shelnir took Runa to Areteniha as a hostage." Aurelia suggests while glancing up.
"Is that so?" Rolan mutters while looking down at his mechanical left arm. In the next instant, he draws Roshanee with blinding speed and bridges the distance between himself and the golden queen. Swinging the glowing sword at her neck, he aims to decapitate her before she can react. But Aurelia raises a hand and blocks his blade with her wristguard.
"Wha-?" Gram and Halthor make in surprise at their leader's sudden attack. They ready themselves to join the battle but have no idea whose side they should stand on. Rolan rushed to save the golden queen's life earlier, so why would he try to strike her down now?
Chaos side
We're in a grass-covered valley just north of the Ogely mountains, where the cults of self-mutilating kobolds live. The winds are quite cold as we're both farther north and at a higher elevation. Tokomaha is wearing an Arkaim-made version of her outfit from back when we were still in Armeria, so she should be pretty cold.
However, instead of complaining, she takes off her clothes instead. I stare at her in surprise, then glance at Flann, whose expression doesn't change. Don't tell me she wants to do it one last time before everything might end.
"I don't think this is the time and place-" I start, but she turns around and glares at me, causing me to close my mouth.
"I'm getting ready." She stabs her bone spear into the ground and walks over to me. Then she raises her face and closes her eyes, demanding a kiss from me.
I oblige her, putting my arms around her slender body and pressing her against me in a warm embrace. That's when I realize that she's shivering, not from the cold, but from a feeling of uncertainty. She was confident in her ability to stop the moon, but it seems that being faced with the reality of the situation has made her feel uneasy.
When I press my lips on hers, I feel her shaking stop. Pouring all my love for her into our connection, I let her know that I believe in her. Even more than what it means through the Imagination Engine, this should help her greatly.
Our lips part, and I look into Tokomaha's amber eyes, which are slightly glazed over from our sensual kiss. She still bears some uncertainty in her gaze, but I give her a smile that clears her last doubts.
"I'll come here to get you once we finish up on the moon." No more words are needed. The implications are enough to tell her that I don't doubt for a second that she'll stop the moonfall. All that's left is for me to do my part. "[I love you.]"
Tokomaha's face flushes red at my straightforward expression of my love for her, and she averts her gaze. Then she turns to look up at me with a broad grin that shows her sharp canines. At this sight, I have to stop myself from embracing her again; she's beaming with joy and confidence, and behind it all is her reciprocation of my love.
"Go." She says while maintaining her grin. Then she turns away and walks over to her spear to cut our prolonged farewells short. I watch her for a moment before turning to Flann. She has, with all her sense of tact, kept a close eye on our exchange of love.
"Interested?" I ask her with a grin, but she only moves her staff slightly, upon which my vision warps once again. It changes from the windswept, treeless valley to the plaza in the center of the Prichet district, right where I left the others behind earlier. Looking around in surprise, I face Svanhild. "Where did everybody go?"
"Rolan and the others went to look for Runa." The former Dragon Knight replies while leaning on her broken lance.
"What about Aurelia and Aorutihaua?" Glancing at the crater behind Svanhild, I only see the remains of Alverost, untouched as they were from before I left.
"Aurelia said she had a bad feeling and followed them" Svanhild shrugs and sighs as if this has nothing to do with her. "Aorutihaua took off to the sky."
I look up and find that the clouds have spread thin, meaning that Exla has yet to find Areteniha. At this point, she most likely already returned to the Rhodos station to make sure that her solar winds will reach Earth. We'll have to deal with her later then.
Suddenly, Svanhild staggers and falls, but I quickly catch her in time. Looking at her face from up close, I find that it's ghostly pale and covered in sweat.
"What happened?" I ask, but then notice the blood on the floor underneath her feet. "You're wounded?"
"It's... nothing." She tries to stand on her own two feet but is too weak to do so.
"You stubborn mule!" I yank her lance out of her hand and toss it aside before lowering her to the ground. She can't even protest my rough handling of her new but broken weapon and coughs up blood.
I examine her chest, but the plated crimson dragon armor makes spotting any bleeding wounds difficult. Without wasting time, I extend my fingers between the various segments of her armor and cut the leather straps holding them together before removing her breastplate. But she suddenly moans from pain and grabs my wrist.
"Under... my ribs." She presses out from between her bloodied lips. I look down but can't spot what she means. Then I move my head closer and angle it to look up between the armor plates to find a piece of shrapnel stuck in her chest.
"Alright. Bite down on this." I grow out a tentacle and give it the consistency of leather. While I can instantly heal her, there's no point in doing so if there's something stuck in the wound and prevents it from closing.
"What... is this?" She asks while looking at my offered appendage with disgust. Instead of answering, I plunge it into her mouth to prevent her from biting off her tongue.
At the same time, I pull off her chest armor with one quick movement, causing Svanhild to bite down on the mouthpiece I prepared in my foresight. Her muffled cry from the pain continues, but she's able to keep her arms and legs from flailing.
"Brave girl." I mutter to her while ripping off the shirt underneath her armor to expose her flawless white skin - save for the deep gash between her two lowermost right ribs. Pressing my hand on the open wound, I close it in a matter of seconds, upon which Svanhild's expression softens.
I caress her cheek and press a kiss on her forehead, upon which she jumps up in surprise. Her face is flushed red, and her mouth flaps open and closed in silence.
"Here, wear this." I pull out a shirt from inside my body - one of many I keep there just in case anybody might need it. Svanhild looks down at herself and realizes that her chest is bare. Quickly covering herself up with one hand, she yanks the shirt out of my hand.
"I shall remember this!" She yells while turning away.
"So shall I." With a smug grin, I glance down at her still partially exposed skin demonstratively. Despite some past personality flaws, Svanhild has grown into a cute but also sexy woman.
Then I remember that we're still not in the clear. Luna disappeared somewhere, Rolan and the others went to find her, and Aurelia said she had a bad feeling about it. All of that looks like Shelnir's handiwork, and without an Imagination Engine inhibitor, they can't defeat an Old Human. She was close to dying last time when she lost her cool, and Aurelia stabbed her through the back. But she should be prepared this time and won't show such an easy opening anymore.
Really though, she's one twisted person to let Alverost die despite being nearby. It seems this time she succeeded in the scenario she attempted in Zohigal by making Areteniha witness our side kill her son. While it ended up being Kerry who did it, I stood up to protect them, making me a target of her wrath as well.
"Where did they go?" I turn to Svanhild and ask. She has taken off the rest of the armor on her upper body and slipped into the shirt, but her well-endowed chest is pushing up the cloth. When this is all over, I'll make a move on her.
"That street, first alley to the right." Not noticing my thoughts, she points the way with a still peeved expression. If only she knew what awaited her in the near future, she would most likely be much more peeved.
"Alright, wait here." With these words, I fly straight toward where Svanhild pointed. Healing her took a lot of time already, so something could have already happened to Rolan and the others. But kidnapping Luna and having her lover come to rescue her sounds much like the setting of last time.
Don't tell me Shelnir is once again trying to make me kill Luna and have Rolan fight me to the death over it? She should know not to underestimate me this time, so it's going to be more complicated than strapping her to a machine where the falsely labeled release button will cause her death.
Whatever the case, I'll smash her prediction once again, and this time, there will be no Serent to save her.
When I reach the alleyway Svanhild pointed me toward, I find Aurelia standing with her back toward me, facing Rolan and the two other men. The leader's hand is gripping the glowing sword Roshanee, but his arm is dangling down listlessly. His despairing expression is shared by Gram and Halthor, whose eyes are swimming as if thinking hard.
"What happened here?" I walk toward them and ask in a commanding tone. It helps bring their thoughts back to the present, as they look at me in surprise. Aurelia turns around to me, her expression grim.
Then I notice the mutilated body on the floor between them. Several swords of gold are stuck in its back, from which four iridescent wings sprout.
"Shelnir put an illusion on her." The golden girl explains in a hate-filled tone. Two of the body's four slender and chitin-covered limbs have been severed, and the wounds are cauterized. A deep gash runs across the aviation-visor like compound eyes that cover almost the entire top half of her face. "She made us kill her."
It's Nymphy, the dragonfly maid.
