'Painful...So painful...' Glenn's muddy thoughts echoed in his head, the young man unable to open his eyes. It was as if they were stuck with glue, but with his experience, he was almost sure it was blood. How many times had he bled and hurt himself fighting horrendous creatures, and ended up in this same kind of situation?
For what? Money? Money was nice, but it has always been more of a tool to reach his goal rather than an objective. Even if being rich would probably facilitate a lot of things, Glenn felt like he could live without being one. Not that he would refuse easy cash, but there simply were things more important than that to him.
Then, was it for the glory that he fought so hard? First, the title of a Dark-Gold Fixer, then the Blood-Cross medal that made him and Sahro an honorary member... Being recognized for his worth sure was pleasing, but it wasn't worth dying over. Not to him, anyway. All of it would disappear anyway if he managed to find a way back to Earth, but the same could be said for anything when he would die.
After all, humans only live once.
No, the truth was that he liked it. The struggle, the taste of metal in his mouth, the tiredness, and the pain as he fought with his everything on the line, this was...what he lived for. Glenn would have never thought of himself as a battle-crazed person before, but he could only admit to the evidence. Most of the things he did until now had no real motivation behind them besides curiosity and a particular need for adrenaline.
A need that seemed to have killed him.
'At least let me open my eyes or something...' He thought tiredly as he tried to move any of his limbs, unable to feel any of them. Glenn mentally sighed, Diamanes seemingly gone from his conscience. It felt weird not to have his strangely reassuring presence creeping in his head, but it also cleared his head a little. Being able to think alone for once was...calming.
No one to discuss his thoughts with him, to mock or encourage him, or to say anything. Just alone with his thoughts.
'I can feel the taste of metal too strongly in my mouth for me to be dead. Maybe I'm about to be? Probably,' He pondered, wanting to shrug but unable to.
'Maybe I could try to take a look at my Mana Heart one last time... I'll probably be happy if I could die watching such a beautiful sight...' He plunged into himself, revealing his Mana Heart and the Magellanic Clouds inside it. The light the sea of stars emitted was dim, and menaced to die out at any time, sparks of a divine golden hue floating around. Glenn smiled, before frowning in confusion.
A divine golden hue? What the hell was that?
He looked at the rings vibrating slowly around the Magellanic Clouds only to realize in horror that the golden one had shattered entirely.
"HUH?!?" The shock was so great he jolted awake, pushing his face from the ground as he hurriedly cleaned his eyes. Unable to look at his surroundings, he fell back and plunged back into Meditation desperately. Sadly, the golden light was dispersing little by little, disappearing in the great empty surrounding the Magellanic Clouds.
'No, no, no, you can't just not kill me and take away what I almost died for!' He angrily thought, mentally swimming at the golden pieces and trying to pick them up, only for his hands to pass through them and make them disperse in clouds of golden dust.
"Fuck!" He blurted out, his eyes flashing open.
"Damn it! Argh, this...Shit!" He sat himself against the closest object, a crumbled wooden wall covered in entrails. Glenn hurriedly brought his hand to his side, his eyes widening in horror as he saw the wound on his side bleeding profusely, missing a little too much meat for him to be comfortable. Not that he was comfortable being hurt anyway.
He brought his left hand to try and seal the wound with Nitrogen ice again, but nothing came out of the purple limb. He winced and opted for the second-best solution. He clenched his teeth and summoned a small blade of fire, ready to cauterize the wound the best he could. He'd rather have it treated correctly, but it was either that or dying.
Blood trickled on the blood as he steeled his resolve and brought the trembling blade of fire near the wound. The second he was about to use it, the Mana he conjured dissipated, and tiredness washed over him violently, his head bobbing to the side.
'...Shit, I probably lost too much blood...And my 3rd Circle is gone as well...Fuck me...' He thought angrily, unable to speak through the blood that was invading his mouth. It felt like he could hear steps running at him, but his eyes closed before he could see who was coming.
'...I don't want to die, damn it...' His head fell back against the wall, and he fell asleep entirely. It was a feverish dream, filled with magic spells, horrible, fleshy creatures and the deaths of most people knew. Something he wasn't too much of a stranger to, these nightmares plaguing him ever since that first Harvest. And it only worsened every day, like some growing curse that ate him alive.
Anyway, never Glenn would have thought dying was this comfortable? It was like he was lying on the most fluffy bed possible, angels treating him with the most beautiful smiles...
'Huh, angels, right? I never was much of a Christian man, though...'
He smiled as his soul was gradually brought to wherever Paradise was. Or Hell? Maybe there are angels in Hell, who knows? Not Glenn, that's for sure.
'What are they blabbering about, though? I can't understand a peep of it...Maybe it's because they talk in divine language or something?'
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The Head Priestess Tara Mi Lando raised an eyebrow as she looked at the forest in front of her. There was something eerily disturbing in the Aura it emitted, nothing like how natural places were supposed to be. She looked at the detachment of priests and paladins waiting in a temporary camp, her expression cold and displeased.
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In truth, she couldn't help but feel a little worried. The Goddess herself gave them the revelation, after all, and even if the Oracle had stressed enough how simple and not dangerous the mission would be, Tara couldn't help but indeed doubt a little. Would these measly twenty paladins and ten priests and priestesses even suffice?
Revelations from the Goddess always warned them about situations that involved other deities, both friendly or corrupted. Tara clenched her fists tightly, the steel gloves covering them creaking. The last time such a revelation was given to the Oracle, her Onnea's Church had failed to arrive in time, and a whole village was exterminated, with efforts lasting for half a year to get rid of the following...mess. Tara had only lived through such revelations twice in her life and hoped a third one wouldn't come, but it seemed like her time as a Head Priestess was particularly charged with work.
'More work when I could spend more time preaching her words...Sigh, I'm so unlucky...' She secretly shook her head, before turning at a young, robe-clad priestess who approached her.
"Sister Di Forte, how can I help you?" Tara gently asked, her cold expression melting like snow in the sun. She couldn't help but appreciate the presence of this brilliant woman who was probably the next one in line to take over her position. Which translated to "the best person to delegate work to".
Astrid Di Forte bowed her head slightly, smiling back.
"Sister Head Priestess, I realized after a few tactical meetings that a few of the disappeared persons were people I met, and wanted to share the knowledge I have of them," She said in a respectful tone. Tara raised an eyebrow, before inviting her to continue. Astrid made her way next to the proud elderly woman, and let out a small sigh.
'Damn it...I didn't want to tell her, but I kind of feel forced to now... Couldn't Alabaster shut his mouth for once? I'm too lazy for this...They're both all dead anyway,' Annoyance filled her mind as she did her best to keep on a worried face. Appearances, Astrid...Appearances.
"I met the Fixers Sahro and Glenn, who were both Silver-ranked at the time," She began, making Tara's eyes squint.
"Silver-ranked? When was that?"
"Five, maybe six months ago?" Astrid held her chin with a single finger, searching through her memory. Tara almost whistled in awe, but remembered that she had to keep her image of a stern woman safe.
"Cough, this is quite impressive. If I'm not wrong, the Black Heir was promoted to Gold rank a month after you met him, while the other became a Dark Gold rank a month ago, just before leaving for Palancar. These two young men both had incredible potential. Let's hope the Goddess protected them," The Head Priestess before throwing a glance at Astrid who returned the same gaze to her.
'They're probably dead, though.'
'Yeah, they're dead for sure.'
Their thoughts mirrored themselves when suddenly the forest shook tremendously, the two women's expressions hardening as they turned toward it. An invisible veil dissipated, letting the Head Priestess detect the remnants of a Heathen, the Fallen Mother, or as Her fanatics called her, The Mother Of All, Guide of whatever, too much work to remember her whole name. Why would she even care about some heretic's god name anyway?
Tara clapped her hands together, chanting silently, and a golden light fell on her troops.
"This is the Goddess sign, let us purge Palancar!" She screamed, taking out a steel morning star from her belt and raising it high above her head. Astrid smiled dejectedly and joined her fellow priestesses as they marched toward the cursed village. They went through quite an ordeal because of the traps laid in the forest, but ultimately nothing too dangerous, even more so when considering there were ten healers in the group.
The first thing they noticed was the scent of burnt wood. Then it was the ash that seemed to invade every nook and cranny of the forest, like a parasite.
Finally, it was the heavy, much too recognizable smell of blood. The faces of the detachments grew graver and they hurried their steps. They finally arrived at Palancar, a ruined and burning village covered in ashes. From where they were, they could see the central building completely collapsed, where the biggest fight seemed to have taken place. Tara didn't have to say a word that, like a single entity, the Paladins and Priests charged at the village.
They arrived in a hellish scenery. Nothing had been spared by the fire, and every houses and constructions were destroyed. There probably were hundreds and hundreds of casualties. The Head Priestess winced as she followed behind the detachment. She stopped in front of one of the destroyed houses, rubbing her chin.
The strange thing, though, was that the scent of blood didn't come from the house, nor any of the others. It distinctively came from the center of the village, where that huge collapsed wooden building was.
"Was the fight concentrated in the village's center? Why...?" Tara muttered, continuing to move through the streets. She soon arrived in front of what seemed to be previously a church, a horrible stench of guts and blood coming from it. A few corpses were strewn around it, disformed and massacred. The most noticeable, though, was a hundred or so people who were shivering and crying with all their tears while being taken care of by her puzzled troops.
"What happened here?" She asked the nearest paladin, who was busy giving first aid to one of the victims who had a bad burn on his left arm. The paladin chewed on his cheeks, before answering with a hesitant voice.
"From what I managed to gather from this poor soul, some kind of evil...entity, probably the Fallen Mother from his descriptions, took over the mind of the villagers and made them participate in sacrilegious rituals. Should we...?" He trailed off, looking at the Head Priestess with hesitation. Tara shook her head, only feeling remnants of the Heathen's influence.
"Take care of them and be sure to treat any kind of remnant signs of the Fallen Mother. We can't risk an outburst with that many people," She commanded, before walking toward the main source of gore. Astrid was staring inside the church with a pale face, her expression blank of any signs. Tara stepped over the rubble and gazed inside, squinting at the sight. The ruined church was covered in blood, guts, and bones, pieces of flesh stuck on the walls and ground.
There were a few creatures that seemed to have been created by fusing countless humans and beasts in a horrible mix, but they were all dead. Tara frowned and grabbed Astrid's shoulder, before using her other hand to draw something in the air while muttering something. A bright golden light suddenly came out of her hand and burned all of the gore away, revealing messed-up skeletons and...survivors?
She climbed down from the wreckage and approached the survivors, leaving Astrid to recover her senses. Four survivors were way more than she had expected to find after such a powerful wave of evil intent. Tara quickly checked their pulses, finding them all barely alive. She whistled to the priests to come over, Astrid soon joining her as they quickly gave the victims first aid in the form of an overbearing bath of white light. After making sure they wouldn't die right away, Tara wiped the sweat off her forehead and cracked her back.
'Oh, dead Goddess, why do you make me work so hard? Sigh...'
"We need some Paladins to carry victims, and quickly!" She yelled loudly, and almost instantly eight silver-clad Paladins jumped over the rubbles and picked up the four survivors.
They laid them inside a hurriedly set medical tent, the priests gathered to treat them. Their wounds were incredibly death-threatening, and it was a miracle these four were alive. Tara quickly verified their identities, frowning.
"Two Pale Sons of Silver-rank, the Black Heir and the Dark-Gold Fixer...Why is it that the most hurt are also the strongest? Did they take most of the brunt of the fight?" She couldn't help but wonder, when the strongest of the four suddenly sat up, cursing loudly.
"FUCK! MY CIRCLE!!!"