The Krizian commander gave the order for the men on the wall to open fire on the Free Nation soldiers. At first he wasn’t heard, but with every step he got closer, shouted louder, and eventually he was heard. The men carrying the litter had been shot multiple times. Through strength of will they continued on, trying to reach the camp. Before long their resolve wore out. They collapsed, one by one, dropping the litter where they fell to earth, dead. The Krizian soldiers opened fire. Their elevated position on the gate gave them an advantage, allowing them to pick off the Free Nation soldiers and push them back, away from the litter.

As Jason’s men retreated the Krizian commander led a squad of soldiers to retrieve their Emperor’s litter under the cover of gun fire. They were not the unified squad of men that had previously carried the litter, but with some pushing and pulling they got it back within the camp gates just as the retreating troops got outside of the effective range of the Krizian fire. Several of them had been hit and were now lying on the ground behind the fleeing soldiers, their backs smoking.

Within the walls of the camp, the Krizian’s organized, preparing to launch their assault on the Free Nation’s forces without a single word from Chris being issued. With their god killing the enemy’s ruler they knew that his commands would be to wipe out the rest of their forces. They had a policy of complete subjugation of their enemies. Kill or capture and enslave them was their general orders. These orders were so absolute that if a soldier failed in their task, they would be publicly executed for disobedience to their god and emperor. They rushed to get into formation. Each of them carried ARMS rifles and if they were fighting any other force on Debris’ surface they would be unstoppable, but they were now about to have a full scale battle with one of the most technologically advanced nations on Debris with, perhaps some of the best trained soldiers.The Krizians did not know this though. They believed that they were the supreme force, able to take on any and all that they would come across.

The Krizian soldiers marched out of the gates, their rifles at the ready, and charged down the path quick on the heels of the fleeing Free Nation. Their goal was to eliminate their foe before they had the chance to regroup. They kicked the bodies of the fallen warriors out of the path as they passed by. When they reached Jason’s body, instead of simply kicking him to the side, the commander lifted him up, wanting to see the face of their enemy’s ruler. The ruler that their god had wanted to personally meet and deal with. The commander didn’t really believe that Chris was a god, but he’d pay lip service to the idea if it meant that he could rise up in the ranks of this world easily and be free to do what he wished. He wasn’t a particularly vile man back on Earth. One would never suspect that he’d become a high ranking commander in a medieval world with alien technology. If you asked his neighbors they wouldn’t even believe that he was capable of striking someone, let alone kill someone and the fact that he was now serving some punk, a teenager when he rose to power, as though he was a god would have left everyone he knew in shock. He was a militant atheist online, but he never shared his identity with his followers, keeping behind an avatar and pseudonym. He’d always rant about how theists were causing all the problems with the world for beliefs that were obviously false. His most famous videos were those where he’d go through scriptures or preaching and debunk them line by line in depth. It might have been a shock to some of his audience to learn that he was a minister at his local church and every day he would give impassioned sermons, preaching the word of Jesus. His ministry would certainly feel betrayed if they knew, but many of his followers online would point out that there are many preachers that are atheists who didn’t know how to come out without being shunned by their communities and losing pretty much everything in their life. That wasn’t the case with the commander though. The commander didn’t care about the community or the benefits that his position lent him. He just thought it was an easy way to fleece a flock of sheep out of a good amount of money. He put on a good face and invested money into the church, making it feel as welcoming as possible so that it would be more likely that his congregation would grow, unlike many pastors who simply took a large sum of money while the church itself was always having problems. He viewed it as a business and with any business you had to reinvest your profits to make more later and in the case of religion, money definitely attracted people to tithe more. They felt that their money went to a good cause and so they were more than willing to give. It also didn’t hurt that they could attend worship without leaving with a sore ass from sitting on hard pew, which in turn motivated them to spread the word about how great the church was. His friends and ministry would scarcely believe that now he seemed to fervently believe in this new god, but just like the gods of Earth, they were just a way for him to gain power. Jason had gained the same level of power that Chris had without using their own ideology it seemed. He was extremely curious about what such a person was like. He was surprised to find it was just another kid in his eyes.

Jason’s eyes opened, looked into the Commander’s eyes, and then dropped to the ground, being freed from his grasp. In the instant between breathes Jason had stabbed his sword through the torso of the Commander at his navel and sliced straight upward. The Commander’s brain was split in two right through the corpus callosum. The commander who had once led a split life became in that instant two. The first, logical and analytical, evaluating what had happened. He clearly felt the blade of Jason go through him, but beyond the initial piercing of his flesh there was no pain. The edge of Jason’s sword was sharp enough that the wound, while deadly, it seemed like there wasn’t a wound at all to anyone else. He knew what was coming. The cut had split more than just the two halves of his brain. It had severed much of his nervous system and the parts of the brain that controlled the various parts of his body, but nerves still were connected to the part of the brain that was on its side which meant that he wouldn’t just die, slowly fading to black. Rather his brain would attempt to correct the problem, adapt to it, but it could never do so as fast as it needed to. The result would be uncontrolled convulsions, shortening the time that he could hang on to life while increasing the agony that he would feel. Almost every moment of the short few moments remaining would certainly be the most painful of his life. This half understood that there was nothing he could do and so, accepted it.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Meanwhile, the other half of his brain, the creative and intuitive side, underwent a religious conversion. it would experience all the same input as the other side and the pain was excruciating, but this half made up that it was all part of metamorphosis. His brain created hallucinations. His eyesight went through the usual tunnel vision that accompanied an oxygen deprived brain and that was all that this half of his brain needed to work with. All the knowledge of what was said about dying and out of body experiences of those who had near death experiences combined to produce the vivid experience of him leaving his body, traveling through a tunnel towards a bright light where he was back on Earth. There was no real way to tell that, but he just knew. It was a feeling that he had at the core of his being. There he met all his family and friends who greeted him into their paradise. There weren’t many people there, he noted, but that was what he preferred and this is paradise. He didn’t notice that edges of his world were slowly going monochrome and fade out. They issued him towards a white castle where he entered into the great hall to find a man on a throne that glowed white, so bright that he could scarcely stand to glance at it, but his will drove him to try to look upon this mans face. He knew it was god and he wanted to see the face of god, speak with him, and get all the answers that he has had. The final sparks of consciousness finally faded as the commander’s wish was granted. He saw the face of god and it was Jason. That was the last his consciousness knew of any world and in the end the atheist minister was both a god fearing man in paradise and he had disappeared into oblivion. If any knew, or cared, they might think that it was a fitting end to such a man.

The Commander’s end took all the time for Jason land on his feet, turn his back on the dying man’s body, and prepare to fight against the dozens of men alone. The Krizian soldiers had all kept moving forward to continue to gain their targets. They heard a body fall behind them, which they expected, but then they heard blood gurgling. It got the attention of one of them enough for them to look back to see Jason. They twisted and shot back at him, hoping to put him down in a single shot, but it was wide. Others turned to see what they were shooting at and followed suit, opening fire on the leader of their enemy who had seemingly come back from the dead. The Krizians didn’t know what was going on. They had been told that the Free Nation’s leader had been shot multiple times and killed by their god. There was no way for an ordinary man to have survived. The reasonable part of these men had all atrophied. They had been men and women of various faiths, religions, and ideologies in their past lives. They’d have never accepted that Chris was a god or that Jason had risen from the dead then, but now, it was the first answer they jumped to and held fervently to even if they were given a logical reason to what they had experienced.

Jason had not risen from the dead. He didn’t have some cast, what he could only call, healing magic on him, nor had he equipped his ARMS with some special regeneration attribute. No. What he happened was a whole lot simpler than any of that. The ARMS devices had grades. The higher the grade of the ARMS device, the more powerful they were. Weapons did more damage and armor could take more damage before it had any real effect on their wearers. Chris had figured this out, but didn’t understand how to get higher grades. He assumed that first tier of devices that were available to him were all that there was so while he had the most powerful gear for the first tier of ARMS devices Jason and the Free Nation had opened up several tiers higher and Jason was wearing armor that was of a higher grade of Chris’ guns. It wasn’t a huge advantage in this case. Guns were particularly powerful as far as ARMS weapons go and the closer you are the stronger they are. Jason was shot multiple times from very close range unexpectedly. If nothing else, the force of the shots was enough to knock him out for a short period of time. To put it simply, Chris had some good weapons, Jason just had better armor. The same was true of the Free Nations soldiers and the Krizian soldiers, but slightly worse. Chris hasn’t allowed them to keep powerful weapons or armor so they had strong gear compared to the average person on Debris, but compared to the Free Nation, they were weak.