Each of the activated platforms started to emanate a feeling of crushing pressure, causing Tilly to stumble, jostling Amelia on his shoulders in his final steps to the portal. The crowds were now pouring in on each side of the platform, entering the tear in space from every direction.
As Tilly lowered Amelia from his shoulders he was immediately pressed by the panicking crowds, almost getting pushed into the Portal several times himself. A burdened Hiro arrived with Linus and Franklin a moment later and unleashed his killing intent, pushing the crowd back in all directions and forcing them to go around the group. Shuji rushed toward them, making full use of his girth to push through the crowd.
“Just in time my friends! I take it you were… successful?!” He said eyeing the giant ball of horror slowly rolling this way from the street they had just vacated.
“We have done what we can, now we must take control of the situation on the other side. These people will only be escaping to more chaos if we don't establish order as they arrive.” Hiro said tiredly.
Tilly said nothing in reply, gently placing Amelia in Shuji's arms and turning towards Hiro and Linus, expelling the little Mana he had just regained in a Flame’s Renewal. They both shuddered as their growing resistance to the foreign substance trying to invade their bodies was supercharged.
Hiro was right, the situation on the other end had to be pure chaos as thousands of panicked refugees arrived every minute in the village square. It would be an administrative nightmare to get it all sorted... Tilly shivered at the thought and looked around for an excuse to avoid it for as long as possible.
“Hiro, you and Shuji are definitely needed to handle all of this back at the village. But me? Whatever help I have left to give is probably best spent here.” he said looking back towards the Bursting Defiler rolling inexorably down the street. Another explosive snap sounded above them, and they all looked up as the divine snake tipped back its head and swallowed its old enemy whole.
'And...There goes the emperor.'
Then Kihei’s voice echoed through the crashing waves, somehow able to be heard even above the screaming and the battle happening at the entrance to the square. “All who are not through that Portal in the next two minutes will not survive.” He grunted, his voice heavy-laden as if he was lifting a huge weight.
Hiro fought to suppress the shuddering that was running through his body as beads of sweat ran down his face. Linus had been rendered completely unconscious by the new power wracking his body and Shuji stood there holding Amelia, looking torn. Franklin, however, nodded agreeably and moved away through the crowd to join up with the line of casters supporting the defenders of the square. The line was holding against the professional army... but barely, as it slowly backed toward the portal platform.
Finally, the Samurai Lord grunted in acknowledgment, and moved through the portal without any further fanfare, carrying Linus through. Shuji gave Tilly a hopeful smile and a wink before following afterward, with an unconscious, but stable Amelia in his arms. Tilly turned and jogged off, pushing through the crowd back in the direction of the monstrosity rolling its way toward the still numerous fleeing refugees.
He didn't know what he could possibly do with zero Mana, he was all out of tricks... Maybe he could try a distraction, luring it away with an enflamed hatchet throw? He would regain enough Mana for that in a minute or two… But that would be cutting it pretty close to Elder Kihei's timeline.
The glow from the other platforms grew more intense as Kihei’s magic suffused the whole of the Hub. The Divine Serpent, far above, slowly turned his head to the ants milling about in the city below.
“Bow before your God, sssslavesssss,” it hissed out.
“You will gain nothing from this place,” Kihei shouted, his voice hitting several octaves as it blended with the sound of the crashing waves now filling the city. Whatever prepared magic he had laid on the Hub had linked each platform and had begun to weave a huge runic circle above the group of platforms.
“What is thisss? A little water magic will do nothing to harm me!” The serpent spat, its huge eyes narrowing at the enchantment forming below it. It began to build its own technique, gathering red and green energy in its slowly opening jaw.
Kihie's runic circle started to spin, whirling faster and faster as water exploded forth from the activated platforms. Each river-sized torrent crashed into the rotating spell above and was pulled into the working.
Empowered by the water it was taking in, the runic circle started to expand and stretch out into a rotating dome that covered almost all of the Hub in an azure barrier of magic-imbued water. Before Tilly really understood what was happening, the barrier had lowered down in front of him, cutting off half of the remaining refugees from the portal. He could faintly make out the shock on their faces just feet away as their fates were sealed and they were left to the mercy of the Defiler.
Tilly looked around in desperation, wanting to find something, anything he could do to help those now trapped outside the protective barrier. The dome had dropped right in between the first and the second rank of the pressing Cult army, leaving only the front rank to keep fighting against the depleted force of refugee militia and Bastions.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
The swirling Sapphire dome seemed impenetrable, an absolute protection for those who had made it within and a damning blockade to those too slow to make it to the square.
The Defiler rolled in amongst the hundreds of poor souls and began to snatch refugees with abandon, its tentacles snaking out in all directions. Tilly pressed against the barrier helplessly, not sure what he could have done to stop the atrocity, but feeling a gut-wrenching guilt all the same. The hopeless looks of those just feet away from salvation raked his soul, as they collapsed to their knees, the light of hope, snuffed out in an instant.
“Your petty defiancesss endssss here” The god snapped above them, the gathered corrosive energy flashing into a spell that took the shape of a green snake biting its tail, with a blood red sun at its center.
Tilly glanced back down from the conflict playing out in the sky, unable to leave those just on the other side. Their eyes glazed, as the desperation animating their movements was cut off like a puppet's strings. He had seen that look so many times. They always looked at him the same way, confusion mingling with denial as they fought to hold back the yawning finality of sorrow. It was the look of acceptance, the small soul death that preceded a heart's last labored beats.
And, just as he had done so many times in the past, he turned away from those faces, the ones he couldn’t do anything to help, and kept moving.
Kihei floated at the center of his huge spell as the magic continued to flow from the platforms to the circle at the top of the dome. His expression was now one of fierce concentration, glowing so brightly that Tilly could hardly make it out.
“When my ancestors first took sanctuary in this city and built these platforms, we were asked to promise one thing: That we would destroy it before we let it fall into enemy hands. Today that promise is fulfilled and I break any ties of debt my people owe this place.” He roared, departing from his normal slow pace of speaking as he grit his teeth in effort, and lifted his arms to direct the city-shattering spell.
“You will not take what is MINE!” The snake declared as it unleashed a poison Ability which dwarfed the initial salvo he had used to test the emperor. If that had been its opening shot, this was the finisher.
“Fathoms of the Deep!” Kihei shouted. The flow of water leaving each platform multiplied by a factor of 10, now flowing at a rate that Tilly couldn't even begin to calculate. He had seen a video of engineers releasing pressure off the Hoover Dam once. The volume and rate of flow of that stream had nothing on what Tilly was seeing pour out of each of the fourteen platforms linked in the spell.
The fourteen engorged torrents of water hit the spinning runic circle at the top of the dome and burst through it in a twisting braid made up of millions of gallons of empowered water. The thought struck Tilly as he raced back toward the center of the Hub, that he was looking at a far larger, empowered version of Franklin’s combat technique.
A braid of water the size of the Colorado River and moving at probably two or three hundred PSI hit the stream of poison the Divine Serpent had launched and burst through its middle. It was simple physics, no matter how powerful, caustic, or heavy the serpent’s ability was, it wasn’t going to match the force being exerted by that much water moving with unbelievable speed. It blew through the beam poison the size of a tree trunk and hit the giant serpent in the body like a freight train, forcing it thousands of feet higher into the air.
“The city will flood and this barrier will pull back until it surrounds only me, all who remain must flee. NOW!” Kihei shouted through the crashing waves of his spell to the last thousand or so refugees and their final protectors.
Tilly took one last look at the people getting slaughtered outside the barrier. On one hand, he hated what Kihei had done… but he had to admit there hadn't been any more time or other options. His mind raced through how close the defenders had cut every delaying tactic they had, all to give the people the most possible time to flee.
Refugees, Honu casters, and the remaining Bastions all moved towards the platform now. Thousands had been left outside the barrier at the mercy of the Defiler and the seemingly endless ranks of Cult soldiers, but those inside did not stay to watch their fate. None were ignoring Kihei’s urgent warning.
The new front rank of the cult soldiers locked outside of the barrier parted. This allowed some of their casters to come forward and begin a counterspell aimed at the barrier. The Defiler seemed to realize it was being denied even more food and started thrusting its appendages into the barrier. Tilly doubted either would be fast enough.
Kihei continued to glow brighter and brighter, as he floated there near the top of the dome, his hands outstretched, guiding the braid of super-pressurized water in a continuous attack. Tilly realized that the attack served two purposes as literal tons of water began to rain back down on the city, creating a deluge of rain like Tilly had never seen. The outside of the barrier was getting inches of rain a second, and the water level outside was quickly rising.
“You Will Not Take THISSSS FROM ME!” Came the voice echoing from the distance.
Fighting through the hundreds of millions of pounds of force, the snake god came, wriggling and dodging shockingly fast. Tilly could feel the force of its fury as it fought back toward the center of the city, and its palpable wrath bore down with incredible weight on the Hub. Many of the refugees around Tilly stumbled, crying out under the newly intensified aura of divine bloodlust.
Tilly’s frown turned into a snarl of effort as he looped his weapons and knelt down next to an elderly satyr couple who had fallen to their knees in front of him. Even unable to walk, they were attempting to crawl to the platform and their salvation. He grabbed each of them around their waists, finding them grossly underweight, and threw both of them over his shoulders with a grunt as he stood back up.
The pressure of a god's aura fought against the motion, trying to shove him back into the ground, but he took one teetering step and then another as he pressed forward with all his will. There was nothing he could do to change this battle. He didn't have the power to fight these things or even affect events on a conflict of this scale. The syrupy sweet voice of the Seed redoubled its efforts to tempt him, giving voice to the dark cowardly place that hid behind boarded-up doors of bitterness in his beaten, scarred heart.
'These two strangers are weighing you down!'
'All you can do is save yourself!'
'What is two more deaths in the face of thousands? These people are not your responsibility.'
The voice whined and pleaded venting out the injustice and outrage he felt at the impossibility of his circumstance... It may be right, and he might be throwing his life away by taking on one last burden, but he knew what was really at stake. His soul had taken a critical wound at the sight of so many deaths, He wouldn't... He couldn't leave anyone else behind.