Sam-Yigh and Qu-Daoli were flying over the dense forest. After getting the instructions and the needed equipment from the castle the two archangels took off immediately and now were heading towards the Extererr mountain.
Getting to that mountain was actually very hard as a very long time ago many Temerians of the older generation put up many protective charms and arrays around the sacred place so only those with Temerian bloodline and those who have permission to enter can find that mountain. Anybody else will only get lost.
Fortunately, His Highness Werben had a few keys that would let the holder enter.
Still, even with the keys, finding the place was still very hard and the two archangels have spent three hours just flying.
At last Extererr appeared in their sight. They almost missed it as it looks completely like a normal mountain if not for the strong stench of death surrounding it that was so strong they were able to faintly feel it from afar.
The experienced warrior Qu-Daoli who was no stranger to death felt very uncomfortable, not to mention the young Sam-Yigh that was born during the peaceful times who was close to throwing up when they neared their target.
“I understood that Temerians are a scary bunch but I never expected something on this level. What in the world did they do to leave such a strong stench of death around here?”
“You know that most immortal races are magical in nature and therefore don’t possess any lifeforce, right? The Temerians are only partially magical and can use lifeforce, though they can’t take it in normally and to awaken they need extremely large amounts of the energy. Well, they have to do it somehow and that’s why they use human sacrifices to get what they need. That’s also why they care so much about humans, they need their livestock after all. Sacrifices have been piling up for many millennia and so we get this thick stench of death. There’re probably millions of corpses beneath the mountain.” Qu-Daoli said with a cold face.
“How ruthless!”
“You eat meat sometimes, right? What they do is not different.” Even though the older archangel said it, his eyes betrayed his true thoughts on the matter.
“Anyway, let’s do what we have to so we can get away from this place sooner, Yigh.”
“Sure, let’s do that.”
They continued to get closer to Extererr. Once they were around five hundred meters away from the mountain they hit an invisible wall that shined for a split second after the impact. That moment revealed that the invisible wall circled around the mountain and was rising up into the skies endlessly.
Fortunately, they didn’t seem to alarm anyone so they decided to quickly come back and report the existence of the barrier.
“Hey, Qu. How many people do you think are there to keep such a huge thing going?”
“I don’t know. There’re Temerians who can easily put up such a thing and feed it enough power to keep it going for a few years.”
“No way”
“It’s nice being young and ignorant, how I envy you, my friend”
With that the atmosphere turned solemn and the duo went back at a quicker pace.
When the news of the barrier became known, King Werben decided to go check himself. A deity like himself would be able to easily deal with a hundred Temerians easily. The fact that a deity was worried enough to actually come out and do something spoke volumes about the severity of the situation, so when he ordered both Sam-Yigh and Qu-Daoli to come along as well they threw away all dignity and shame and begged their lord to spare them. Unfortunately, Werben refused to even listen and they had no other choice but to comply with the order and hope that, if worst comes to worst, the stronger foes would take no notice of them.
The reason Werben ordered them to come was simple: this experience would allow the duo to become stronger. The deity has long ago seen the potential in his two subordinates and now that such an opportunity has appeared it would be a waste not to hone their talents.
He had no doubt that everything would go his way and headed to hunt some immortals…
******
“I’m very sorry that I haven’t told you already, even though I should’ve done that long ago…”
My daughter has a solemn expression on her pretty face and the tone of her voice suggests that whatever she is about to tell me is very serious.
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I can’t help but tense up as I’ve never before seen her act like she’s acting now.
*CRASH*
Suddenly a maddening sound of glass breaking spreads in the air right before she’s about to tell me what she has on her mind. My thoughts come to the obvious conclusion – the barriers I have set up have been destroyed.
No way! Did they finally come for my little girl? But she’s sane! Of course, they don’t know it but I can only hope that they will listen and understand. No, I’m sure they will!
I turn around to face our guests and my hopes instantly shatter as I see that the ones who came aren’t my kind. There’s a muscular man in a white robe that covers his entire body and his face is hidden behind a grey mask. But I can’t mistake the divine aura surrounding him like an ocean. It’s a deity. The giant golden mace in his hand tells that he didn’t come bearing good intentions.
WHY?!!! I scream in my mind as despair hits me, it’s a deity, a god! What have we done to warrant the attention of a higher power, what have we done for an actual god to descend and personally attack us? Does the world want my daughter to die that badly? Whywhywhywhy!!!
I decide that I won’t let them have what they want without a fight and I will protect my little star to the last breath and just as I was about to go ahead and fire a spell at the stupid bastard who hasn’t even bothered to explain himself I fell a tug on my hand.
“Mom, it seems I will have to postpone the explanation for later. Please promise me to try and not get too shocked, okay? And brace yourself as I can’t do fine-tuning just yet.”
Lavenna said with a nonchalant tone, though it’s a few degrees colder than usual. Not understanding what is going on I just stare at her and then pressure so strong I’m forced to kneel on the ground hits me and no matter how much I try and resist I can’t do anything. Damn, is that’s how it’s going to end? Regret, sadness fill my heart and I can’t do anything but lament my own powerlessness.
But what happens next shatters those emotions and the only thing I feel is confusion.
******
Just as I was about to confess everything to my mother some rude bastard ruined it all for me! I look at the intruder and see by his amazingly wasteful use of divine energy that the rude bastard is a deity.
It seems that my soul will get healed faster now. The reason I think so is because a deity is a being that was created by the plane they live on itself as a measure of defense against threads to itself. They come in kinds of shapes and forms and those who get to develop human-type intelligence don’t really do much aside from the times when the plane experiences something dangerous. Then they get a subconscious compulsion to eliminate the thread, though of course they would never be aware of it themselves unless they are of sufficient power-level and judging by his meagre divine energy, my opponent this time is a weakling, though it still means that my soul is being restored at a quicker rate now. I think so because so far there were no deities trying to kill me and one appeared only after I awakened. So it means that the pressure that my soul is putting on the plane is rapidly accelerating and the plane isn’t liking it.
And don’t get me wrong, my soul isn’t big enough to threaten the layer of existence that I am at right now just by being there, it’s the change in its quality that irritates it. Think of it like that: If you put a weight on the stone floor carefully, it will be alright. If you hit the floor with the weight it will get a crack. No magic is used in the example, by the way. Well, it’s kind of like that.
And while my soul being fine is good news and all I’m still pissed that I was interrupted by the divine bastard, so I will vent my anger on him.
Since my soul is far from being fully healed I can’t really use any complicated magic to, say, create a dimension full of goblins and strip the divine jerk of his powers and change his gender and throw him in, so I will just beat him into submission.
The problem is, I can’t really control my powers finely so I will not be very efficient with my energies and they will probably create an unpleasant pressure on the surroundings and Mom will probably feel it too… I’ll have to do my best to be very very careful and use the minimal amount of strength then.
“Mom, it seems I will have to postpone the explanation for later. Please promise me to try and not get too shocked, okay? And brace yourself as I can’t do fine-tuning just yet.”
I’m very sorry… And start!
I release the pressure and see mother kneeling under it. Sorry.
The bastard that is the cause of this awkward situation is about to fall down too. Weakling. I’m really angry, so I will not let you off that easily, no, don’t even hope for merci~~
I destroy the space in front of me and a rift into the second layer of space in between normal space appears. This should do fine, I can’t ‘play’ with my prey, so I will have to do something so crude. How far have I fallen…
I will for his limp and unconscious body to fly over to me and shove him inside the impromptu prison cage and restore space back to normal. Judging by his divine energy I can clearly tell he’s somewhere in between the lower and the medium level of Divinity, closer to the lower level, so something like this should have him occupied for a few hundred years as most lower gods' skill with space manipulation is just laughable. It may be a different plane from the three I’m used to but I don’t think the gods around here are much different from the ones at my previous home.
I retract my powers and mother slowly recovers. She too stunned to ask about anything so I say
“I will explain everything later, just trust me I’m your daughter Lavenna and I’m not any different from normal. You don’t have the presence of mind to process what I was going to tell you so let’s just rest and when you recover I will tell you everything. Okay?”
She meekly nods her head, likely without actually understanding anything I said.
I take her back to the hut and lay her down on the bed. I also lie down and hug her, putting my head on her chest. She hugs me back and strokes my hair absentmindedly, then falls asleep. I just lie there and think where I should start my explanation. In the end, I can’t come up with anything and decide to just wing it and look at the ceiling while listening to mother’s breathing.
******
Meanwhile, two certain archangels are lying unconscious under the mountain.