Death.
A constant companion.
Suiteonemiades remembered.
A thousand years hadn’t dimmed the memory.
He would never allow it.
Death.
A distant friend one met at the end of a long road.
An unwelcome bandit with a blade at the beginning.
He remembered it well.
Autumn waves, soft and silky with the scents of the forest.
Strong arms holding him close, but not strong enough to keep him in the warm embrace.
A mother’s love.
A mother’s disappointment.
He remembered despite the harsh taskmasters’ efforts to drive all traces of softness from his childhood.
“I am my father’s son, after all… sorry for the ten thousandth time, mother.”
The dark sky was awash with fire.
Skyships dueled with his aerial forces.
The harpies deserved better, but then again all the servant species of the Gods deserved better.
From the lowliest thrall to the mightiest demigod.
It didn’t matter how close one was to divinity.
They all served at the whims of the pantheon.
He remembered the lesson well.
The tall building shimmered with a forcefield.
God-like eyes revealed multiple layers.
Magic, science, a combination of the two.
Redundancy at the cost of singular strength.
Granted the humans of this world were new to the spires, which made them weak.
A single barrier mage or defender at over Level 70 could create stronger without the need for the roomfuls of enchanted items, devices and machinery.
“The structure’s skeleton is made of better metal. Hmm, steel as the base, but altered for greater strength against all potential stressors.”
That—
Typically, took powerful magic or Skills and yet, he detected neither at work.
It looked like a normal alloy.
He supposed being on the so-called Ring of Fire meant they had to build their structures to be proof against earthquakes.
The structures of his erstwhile allies were nowhere near as stout.
Regardless, it didn’t matter all that much.
Not with the divine energy at his disposal.
Ironic, that which he hated so much suffused every cell in his body such that to have it removed would mean an instant death, crumbling to the dust of mortality.
Doubly so, that it was the instrument with which he’d achieve his singular goal.
A blade of golden energy emerged from his hand, growing and growing until it could be seen from kilometers away, a structure in its own right.
The enemy saw it. Undoubtedly realized the threat.
They’d be fools not to.
Fire came for him then.
Thumping projectiles from the skyships.
Missiles and lasers from the tall building in his sights and the surrounding ones.
Spells and Skills from the tiny ants on the streets and rooftops.
The harpies swooped down to protect him with their own spells, Skills and ancient artifacts released from the Gods’ vaults.
They really wanted to seize this Terminus World.
What better outpost to launch their unending hunger for worship to an uncountable number of new worlds?
Better yet, to be able to strike deep into the core worlds of their myriad enemies.
Granted, what was good for them was just as good for said enemies.
Truth be told, he expected that there would be no true resolution to the matter of Earth— the word brought a smile— to name one’s world after the dirt it was made of was silly. Although, not that rare from his experience. However, natives typically changed their world’s name into something a bit more impressive or apt to their people when they realized that.
“Clear my blade’s path.”
The harpies obeyed.
He swung.
High to low on the diagonal.
The building’s forcefields broke in succession.
Glass screamed.
The super steel shrieked.
Resistance.
More than he expected.
But, giving way in the end.
He dismissed the blade the instant it carved through the other side.
The top of the building began to slide.
5 floors at the shortest portion of his cut. 10 at the longest.
He felt power from one of the upper floors surge.
“The battle is yours to conduct as planned, Aerie Queen Glylethe.”
His answer was a screech from somewhere in the clouds.
Good enough for him.
They didn’t matter anyways— well, that wasn’t entirely accurate.
They mattered, but secondary to his primary Quest.
Charming little things.
Rewards had lost meaning for him centuries ago.
Why, it’d take something as monumental as slaying a God to stir the loins, metaphorical speaking.
He crashed into the building, leaving faint golden trails in his wake.
Just in time too as a rainbow-colored forcefield appeared to hold the building together, at least for the moment.
He had a long list thanks to the sacrifice of those precious young things.
A few even survived.
If they could manage to pull their shattered minds back together then they could, indeed, serve as the foundation stones for Earth’s own Mt. Eboephe.
He took a small bit of satisfaction in not being a liar.
Kerkestis was an eidolon.
A lesser being to a demigod.
Most of his half-siblings and cousins would think nothing of lying to her, let alone the mortals because that was their due.
Oh, how he hated that.
Almost as much as he hated himself… but not nearly as much as he hated his father.
Speaking of fathers… Phillip Cruces was above.
Reinforced floors might as well have been paper.
An instant to fly through them.
But that was too easy.
He wanted lasting impact on as many people as possible.
To paved a dozen roads to his goal.
He used his divine senses.
Their hearts hammered like the drums of war, pushing the blood through dilated vessels like the river beneath a suddenly broken dam.
To run or fight.
The same song he had heard on an uncountable number of battles across the centuries.
The sigilist woman was well below.
People flocked to her and a very stout bunker in the middle of the building that was built with magic and science to survive the utter ruin of everything around it.
Fortune favored her this night.
He wanted death, but not the indiscriminate kind favored by his kind.
As always, each death at his hands needed to push toward his singular goal.
To treat them as scrap paper dishonored their existence, even though they were as fleeting as the last snowfall of the winter when the bright sun of spring peeked just over the horizon.
He had taken 12 lives already with a single slash.
His forces would take more, but they would fall in turn to balance the scales.
“Mother…” he whispered. “Would I do to them what was done to us?”
That sort of hatred would never die.
He attested to that.
Over a thousand years and all the godly benefits he had accrued had done nothing to dampen the flames in his gold-cursed soul.
He hadn’t decided before arriving.
“Do as planned. If an opportunity opens…”
The one named Madalena was the closest.
His initial target.
The woman wasn’t alone.
Two small ones were still with her, sharing similar genetic auras.
There were more people on the same floor, but they were irrelevant.
Except, perhaps the other child with the similar aura.
Reinforced floors, ceilings and walls meant nothing to his divinely-gifted aura.
Was it much of a gift when all his godly father had to do was force himself upon his mother?
Bitter thoughts a thousand years old, yet as fresh as they always had been had no place on a battlefield.
His so-called tutors had beaten that into him from the moment he had been stolen from his mother.
Focus flowed from his core like the roiling surface of the ocean unnaturally becalmed in an impossible instant.
The building and its contents disintegrated as he floated toward his target.
He knifed into people’s homes.
Furniture vanished into ash.
Pictures on the walls weren’t spared.
Smiling people.
Happy people.
Alive or dead?
He supposed he’d never know.
Perhaps they were enjoying the city’s night attractions and were now rushing to one of the emergency shelters or seeking other means to save themselves from his attack.
The further away from this building, the greater their chances.
This wasn’t total war.
It was a surgical strike.
The thin blade slid between a gap in the armor. Under the arm or in an eye.
He found them in a hallway strewn with debris.
The large gash he had made was visible at the other end.
He wondered how long the mother could hold the weight together.
“Madalena. Little Jennie and little Ryan, was it?”
Adorable in their copies of adult armor.
A pity they had to endure such a traumatic event.
He could empathize.
Such an event, quite similar, objectively speaking, had made him the demigod he was today.
“I have changed my mind. Madalena, surrender and the smol ones may go.”
The woman was pleasing to even a demigod’s eyes.
Strong, athletic.
A proper warrior’s form.
She glared at him like a dangerous jungle cat.
The large kind.
She tensed, then relaxed suddenly.
“Jennie, take your brother and hurry downstairs. You know where and what to do, right?”
The girl child glared at him like a less dangerous jungle cat.
The small kind.
“Jennie!” Madalena snapped her fingers like a gunshot.
“I can help,” Jennie said.
“No you cannot, smol one.” He added helpfully. “It is too early for you to be throwing yourself into real battles because you can die in them. They don’t care that you are only a child. They never care about that.”
“Don’t talk to her,” Madalena said flatly.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Make your decision quickly.”
“I’ll agree if you swear to let them go. To let everyone go.”
“Not everyone. Just those not on my list. Which is most everyone, so…” he shrugged. “I accept your condition.”
The clock’s hands ticked in his head.
How much time until the fighters arrived?
The father and mother from above?
He imagined many of the stronger fighters were on the other side of the mother’s forcefield fighting his forces.
“Jennie, knock on the doors. Tell everyone you can find that they have to go and fast. No time to waste.” Madalena eyed him. “Move back.” She gestured to the large hole in the wall he had emerged through. “You’re blocking the stairs.”
Fair.
He floated back into the home.
The floor had disintegrated, revealing people staring up at him with wide eyes and weapons in their hands.
“Don’t do it. I assure you, even Skill-enhanced or enchanted, your bullets will just bounce right off me. I know your classes and levels. Not nearly enough. But, rejoice! For Madalena has bargained a chance for you to get to safety. Tell everyone. You may flee to that emergency bunker. But, hurry! For I did slice through your building and the mother can only hold it together for so long.”
Probably a long time if he allowed her.
The people listened.
The people ran.
Little Jennie did the same in gathering the survivors on the floor.
Good spirit in that one.
It took one to glare at a demigod.
Bloody and bruised, they rushed into the stairwell.
He sincerely hoped that they would make it to the bunker.
Perhaps, the youngest among them would swear vengeance upon him and, by extension, his father.
They’d use the trauma he inflicted to fuel their hatred.
To rise in strength and levels.
One in a million might even reach the Gods.
At the last, only Madalena and the two kids remained.
He cut through the argument.
The clock continued to tick after all.
“Children. I am Suiteonemiades. Son of Suiteonem, arrogant God of sudden violence and wrath among other things. All I do is in his name. You may run away and hide, but there is no escaping his name.”
One singular goal.
Many paths to the place he desired.
So many he had seeded across the worlds like the fruit of his father’s precious tree.
Madalena shoved the kids down the stairs.
The boy cried like he should.
The girl glared at him one last time before lifting her brother like a sack of apples and jumping over the railing.
Well… that was one way to get to safety quickly.
Ah!
Such precocious youth!
He really hoped little Jennie would use this to grow into a fearsome warrior.
“What do you want with me?” Madalena said.
“For now? To wait.”
“You can’t portal out.”
“Sharp eyes, sharper mind. But, don’t make a mistake. What is that saying the American’s like to say? Ah, yes, don’t fumble the pigskin at the line of goal. Their safety is contingent on your cooperation. To answer your question? Well, I have questions for you to answer. I can’t say it won’t be unpleasant, but I swear on my mother’s name that you will be treated with dignity and respect. I strive to act differently from my half-siblings and cousins. Let alone the standard soldier.”
“So, no rape.”
Her tone suggested that she wasn’t concerned.
To be fair she was more than capable of beating every American soldier to death without much difficult with a handful of exceptions.
From what he saw with his divinely-empowered eyes she was physically stronger than Death’s Dancer, but significantly weaker than Captain Patriot.
“I don’t allow it. No inappropriate touching. No torture. The crown will be painful, I won’t lie, but not life-threatening if you don’t resist.”
“So, I answer questions. Then what? I’m a prisoner? Hostage?”
“That’s correct. I imagine your cousin will negotiate for your release.”
Her gaze cut.
“Yes. He has done a magnificent job of smearing the glass for the rest of them. But not for me. I know who you are. All of you. To his credit, it took a lot of time and effort to piece things together. A giant puzzle, but I’m finding there are puzzles within said puzzle. So, here I am to find more pieces. You’re going to help me do that and put them together to complete the picture I want to see.”
She crossed her arms and glared.
He loomed as was his wont.
It was hard to avoid when he was almost 2.5 meters tall of hard muscle with shoulders too broad to get through an Earth doorway without turning sideways.
“You gave your word,” he warned. “I’m reasonable, but I intend to force you to keep it if I am to do the same. That means those people I let go to safety—”
“Shut the fuck up! I know!” she snapped.
“You will take care with your words. I am not like most demigods, but I still demand respect. I return what I’m given.”
“I heard there were a couple of others with you? What happened to them?”
“Dead! Thanks to your cousin! Let me tell you… that really angered their parents. Not that they cared, I don’t believe the Gods care for any of us as individuals. We’re investments, precious tools with which to wield their power on a larger stage.”
“So? They shouldn’t have sent them here. Maybe, all of you should just leave. What kind of imperialist dicks are you?”
“Those terms aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, I find them to be synonymous from my experience. But, what do I know? I’ve only been around for about a thousand years.”
“You’re full of shit.”
“Not as such. I can be when I need to remind myself of my mortality, but it is less convenient to allow my body’s mortal functions to, well, function.”
“Huh?”
“Eating is optional. If I do, I can will the energy in my cells to absorb everything. There is no waste in that case.”
“Listen, I don’t care about this trying to be normal thing you’re trying to fool me with,” Madalena said. “I agreed to keep them safe. So, as long as you do that, then I’m surrendered.”
“However?”
“You didn’t make that deal with everyone in this building.”
The clock ticked.
The people were still a few floors away from their precious safety bunker.
“I promised I wouldn’t harm them… intentionally.”
“You—”
“I can’t be expected to protect my enemy on the battlefield. If you want a better guarantee of safety, then tell your fighters to stand down. You can sacrifice for all those innocent people. Mothers with their children. So scared. So hopeful that their heroes will keep them safe. You’re one of those, aren’t you? So, Madalena, keep them safe. I’ll allow it.”
“… keep him talking…”
He had been listening in on their communications.
His relic had disrupted their technological means, so they had switched to purely magical.
That represented the only threat in the area he was wary about.
The archwizard of unknown level and species had a building in a different part of the city.
A school?
It was hard to tell.
Scrying and oracular means had failed to reveal anything beyond her class, but even that information was questionable.
The best clue had been the wizards working with Cruces.
The spellbooks were a dead giveaway.
They were exceedingly rare on this world and the ones in the wild, so to speak, were of decidedly lesser quality than those observed wielded by Cruces’ wizards.
Still, as long as he kept his distance from that individual and didn’t cause too many collateral deaths his projections suggested they wouldn’t interfere with their full capability.
“You can hear them, can’t you?”
Perceptive woman.
He merely raised a brow.
She sighed.
“Don’t attack. There are people still on the stairs.”
To her credit the voice on the other end of the tiny magic crystal in Madalena’s ear immediately went silent.
He pointed a finger at the wall.
“The clock ticks for all of us.”
A thin beam of golden energy lanced out.
The reinforced wall vaporized in an instant.
A head-sized circle, perfectly cut, revealed a shimmering forcefield of many hues.
He fired again, maintaining it steadily this time.
“Which of ours will hit their marked time first? Will the innocent reach safety—” he saw an unhappy sight through his divine senses. Down at the bunker. One of said innocents had been a lot faster than the rest. “Unfortunate,” he sighed. “Will they be safe? Will the mother fail in her duty to protect like mine did? Or will the power of my father triumph.” He spat the last words.
Madalena tensed.
“Remember your words,” he said flatly.
“… breaching! Retreat, Madalena! They’ll be protected!”
“They, you, will re-live this moment with regret and self-hatred.” He spoke from experience. It had always been important to him, to be mindful of that. It had taken him two centuries to re-learn his empathy. “For the innocent always suffer the worst from our kind’s actions.” He thrust his other hand down at the gaping hole he floated above.
Madalena leapt, clinging to it with her superstrong arms while wrapping her legs around it and over his chest and face.
She stretched violently, pulling back with her arms and body, while pushing up with her hips and down with her legs.
A perfect armbar with the strength to bend the thickest of iron bars.
Insignificant.
His arm didn’t move.
He blasted golden energy.
It tore through reinforced floors and ceilings.
Dozens of them.
Into the stairwell.
Magic shields.
Technological shields.
A mixture.
The promised protection.
Woefully insufficient.
The innocent’s guardians failed them.
Lives snuffed in an instant of bright, searing gold.
“No!”
“All you had to do was stick to your agreement for just a little bit longer. They were less than two minutes away from safety.”
Madalena kicked him in the face with a roar.
He shook her off like she was an angry kitten, sending her crashing through several ruined homes.
“I suppose I can’t blame you. Someone else made the call. Regardless, nothing changes. My promises regarding your honorable treatment remain. I’m not a lesser demigod that would act out of petty spite because you ‘lesser’ beings failed to prostrate yourself at my divine toenails.”
“Murderer!”
Madalena leapt at him with a raised fist.
“Is it murder in war? If it helps. I didn’t kill all of them. Some survived.”
More paths seeded.
Yes, grow stronger in your hate for me and my father, he thought bitterly.
He caught her fist.
Like a child’s, for all that she had a heroic build across human standards in many worlds and cultures.
The guards finally attacked from above, below and the front.
Pinpoint accuracy through the ceiling, walls and floor with their weapons splashed against his golden forcefield, extended to include the woman.
Though he needn’t have bothered to protect her judging by the trajectory of the bullets, arrows and spells.
He had to admit that it was well-done.
No area of effect in any of their attacks.
“Such wonderful armor, the Threnium.”
A resource to secure in another decade or five.
Control and precision were in order.
It was only fair to meet the enemy as they met him, especially, in their home.
Darts of divine energy coalesced in front of his eyes.
Golden eyes twitched rapidly, marking each target regardless of their cover.
Over a hundred darts whistled away.
Shields held for a moment.
Armor longer.
“No!” Madalena flailed at his arm, landing thunderous blows that annoyed, but didn’t bother.
Threnium was a fine material.
Analogous to adamant, but clearly easier to find, produce and work with judging by its ubiquitous nature.
It actually took effort for him to pierce it.
All the while he poured energy into the thin beam digging into the rainbow-hued forcefield preventing him from opening a portal.
The woman tried to pry a finger off.
“More strength in a single one than you have in a whole hand. But, feel free to resist if only for your pride. I won’t begrudge it.”
He wasn’t unfamiliar with powerlessness.
But that was a long time ago.
He flashed power with a stare.
Right down to the bunker.
The mother’s forcefield was only around the exterior of the building, keeping the upper floors from sliding along his perfect cut.
As he had proved already, their reinforcements to the floors and ceilings were as thin as paper to him.
Golden light splashed against the top of the emergency bunker set in the middle floors of the building.
A symbol he didn’t understand flared yellow light in response.
“Ah, Lilah. That’s her name, correct?”
He knew exactly, but there were many levels to a fight.
Words wounded, sometimes deeper than any weapon or magic.
He watched Madalena’s face go blank.
Practiced to give away nothing.
Commendable.
If he was a few centuries younger he could almost believe that the woman didn’t recognize the name he had thrown out as a lure.
“The sigilist? She’s also on my list. I might consider leaving you in exchange for her. No?”
“You’ve already got me. Just shut up and leave!” she snapped.
“Like all lists, mine is arranged by order of importance. You aren’t at the top.”
“Well, too bad, cause you’re not getting anyone else.” She reached back and grabbed the end of a couch from where it hung precariously over the hole in the floor.
Wood shattered and metal crumpled around the side of his body.
“Ouch.”
She stabbed a jagged, arm-sized splinter against his wrist pulverizing it… the splinter, not his wrist.
The clock ticked.
The mother was proving stronger than he had projected.
“Aerie Queen, please direct a portion of your forces to focus their fire on the colorful forcefield.” He paused. “A measured attack, of course. Don’t sacrifice elsewhere in your battle.” Clarification was necessary because the harpies, loyal and exploited as they were, would be overzealous in their desire to carry out the Gods’ will as embodied by him.
Dull thuds echoed, sending a shiver through the walls.
“Can she handle it from both sides?” He raised a brow.
Madalena hurled the splinter in his face.
Well-aimed, but his perceptions were singing like a choir with the divine energy he was pushing through every aspect of his physical being.
A lesser demigod would’ve already run out.
“Let. Her. Go!”
“Ah… the hands turn to an ominous time once again.”
He tossed Madalena down through the hole, several floors in darkness.
If he had read the woman correctly there would be no need to chase after her.
An armored fist cracked against the golden forcefield.
The father had shot from directly above with alacrity through everything in his path.
It only made sense that strength often equated with speed.
Suiteonemiades flared a burst of golden energy.
The father’s shields flashed.
Dark gray Threnium ablated.
A red laser responded, lancing from the emitter on the father’s helmet.
Blinding against the gold.
Stars burst around him.
Smoke filled the space.
Every weapon in the father’s armor unleashed.
Good tactical awareness.
What was the benefit to saving them when he could destroy them all with a few burst of divine power?
“… open it when I say…”
“Phillip Cruces. I offer you the same bargain that Madalena accepted. You were listening so there’s no need to repeat it. Except,” he held up a finger, “for one addendum. Come peacefully and I shall recall the creature I sent after your wife. Now that you’re down here she’s rather vulnerable, isn’t she?”
The father was strong, built like a hero of antiquity despite his advanced age for an Earth human.
He saw the century or two ahead for the man, assuming Phillip didn’t meet with violent misfortune.
Dark gray armor steamed from the weapons discharges and the damage.
“I’ll help Lola!”
The father— the grandfather’s eyes widened.
“Jennie! No! Get back down to the bunker!”
“Ah, youth! Every mortal child an immortal. Said by many of my kind. Not with fondness, of course, but with a sneer. So, an additional addendum is in order in light of recent developments. Your wife and granddaughter. Your cooperation for their lives.”
“Fine. I’ll surrender. Call of your attack. No else from your list. Just me.”
“You’re a good father, Phillip Cruces. It’s easy to see why your children are so soft. But, you’re in no position to press terms. Now, remove your armor and put these on.”
Adamantine shackles and chains slid out of his extra-dimensional storage.
He grabbed them reluctantly for he could feel the enchantments seeking to chain his essence.
“… doing? Don’t! There’s no creature up… Listen to your lolo… lady… run right to the bunker… instant! Dear, you… not supposed to go with kidnappers to…”
“It’ll be okay, dear.”
Phillip’s armor opened with a hiss.
A roar echoed from below.
Madalena leapt from the darkness with an over-sized hammer in her hands.
Suiteonemiades frowned.
Where had she picked that up? And with what time?
Barely a minute had passed.
The gleaming hammer head was about as wide and thick as his fist, about half as long again as his forearm.
A glowing engine inside the Threnium shell thrummed with power through his divinely-enhanced senses.
“Open it, Tita!”
He could only sigh.
They had been given a more than reasonable chance to avoid further personal trauma and bloodshed.
Madalena’s hammer thundered against his forcefield, rocketing him towards the hole in the wall.
The forcefield he had been trying to pierce opened.
Dark sky flashed over head for a moment before he was swallowed by another building.
Three of them.
He flew through three before finally coming to a stop.
He kept his focus on his targets, listening, watching.
“I’ll keep him occupied, while you kill that creature thing. If it’s even real, Tito Phillip. Then come help.”
“Madalena, wait!”
The father reached out, but he was a fraction too slow as fingers just missed the back of her shirt.
Brave woman, foolish, but brave.
He would’ve taken the time to put on some armor, picked up a few more weapons, something more than combat boots, night clothes and an experimental hammer that looked to be close to exploding.
As for his creature?
It was less something to fight and more something to survive.
The mother could’ve done it if she had her forcefield around her and not the building.
“Unleash it,” he said to the creature.
Threats had to be carried out from time to time lest they think he was toothless.