Worthy of destruction — Maribelle

Grant’s piercing blue eyes stare at me with a mix of suspicion and amazement.

“How did you assimilate your manifestation so quickly?” He asks.

“I’m just that awesome,” I say.

“I want to see it with my own eyes. Let’s have another spar,” he says.

“I would advise against that,” Cynthia interjects.

Grant raises an eyebrow at her.

“She vaporized an army instantly. You don’t want to be on the receiving end of that,” she says.

“Hey, I have at least a little self control. Also, what you saw me do back there isn’t something I can just throw around at a moment’s notice. It takes time to charge up that much damage.”

“Couldn’t you just keep it charged at all times?” Grant asks.

“Don’t give her any ideas,” Cynthia says.

“Nah, that sounds like a pain. I’ll just charge it when I need it,” I say.

“Can I make a suggestion?” Charles asks.

“Uh, sure,” I say.

“Prepare a large amount of damage, then teleport into the Arvali palace at night and release it. You might be able to assassinate Theonius without losing anything but the palace itself.”

“Don’t we need the treasury? We can’t fund a new nation with dust,” Grant says.

“No. That’s not the problem. I want to fight Theonius face to face,” I say.

“Maribelle, this is childish foolishness. Fighting him directly could destroy the city. You visited the memorial, right? Do you intend to multiply that death toll by a thousand?” Charles says.

I sigh. He makes a good point. I’m already doomed to have Emmet coming after me in a few years to avenge his parents. I don’t like making children cry.

“Fine, I’ll consider a surprise attack, but no promises.”

Charles smiles at me.

“Maybe we can get along after all, empress Maribelle.”

Grant clears his throat.

“So what about that spar?”

At that moment, the ground trembles. A voice like thunder reverberates throughout the city. Although the voce is that of a mortal, it is still extraordinarily loud.

“I am Zenithus Hale of the Salsvale Kingsguard! I challenge Maribelle Ellis, the Dark Empress, to a duel to the death! Meet me in the ruins of the military camp you destroyed, or be known throughout the lands as a coward!”

I chuckle.

“Sorry, Grant. Our spar will have to wait. The other challenger takes priority. I’ll try to be quick.”

“Be careful. It could be a trap,” Cynthia says.

“Good point. I won’t let my guard down. I’ll come right back when I’m done.”

I nod goodbye and teleport out of the secret base. A few minutes of repeated teleportation takes me outside of the city to the dusty crater that my magic gouged into the earth.

Zenithus stands in the center of the crater, a small form amidst a desolate field of death. Lightning crackles around his shiny armor. His narrow sword is already drawn.

“I admit it, you have some guts to challenge me after seeing this place. Unless Theonius put you up to this?”

“I am here for personal reasons.”

“Well, yes. I did murder your friends. If you wish to join them in death, then come.”

He flashes towards me in a bolt of lightning. He is shockingly fast. I summon my sword to block his slash.

White lightning meets black lightning. A metal sword meets bone. The latter completely crushes the former in both cases.

His sword shatters. I follow through and my blade hits his chest. His armor shatters, his chest is gored, and he is blown backwards. He lands back the crater. A plume of fine dust rises around him from the impact.

“Dead already?”

When the dust clears, he is standing. His wounds are healed, an empty vial in his hand.

“Still fighting?”

Black lighting emanates from my body, slowly collecting in an orb over my hand. At this rate, it would take a long while to collect as much damage as when I killed Vanessa, but that would be overkill anyway.

Zenithus raises his own hand, forming a ball of ordinary lightning, blatantly imitating me.

How funny. Is he trying to taunt me?

“Shall we compare which one is stronger?” I ask.

He throws his ball of lightning at me. I do not bother to dodge. The attack hits me in the face and explodes. It is quite powerful. The blast would have probably knocked me unconscious for a moment before I had assimilated my manifestation. Now, though, it is barely enough to make me blink. The damage only harms my flesh for a fleeting instant before it is my power.

“It’s not fair for you if you go first. Now your power just got added to mine.”

I throw my orb of destruction at him. He dodges in a flash of lightning, avoiding the storm of entropomancy that explodes from where the little black ball makes contact with the ground.

“You’re not supposed to dodge,” I say, already charging up another one.

“Is this a game to you?” He asks.

“You started it.”

“You are a child.”

“Yeah, obviously.”

I throw another exploding ball of destruction at him, which he once again dodges.

“So are you going to attack me or what? You have manifestations, yes?”

He crouches down and stares at me silently.

“Or could it be that you don’t want to waste your manifestations giving me more power?”

An irritated groan comes out of his mouth.

“You realize that you have absolutely no chance of winning, right?”

“We will see,” he says.

“You know, I don’t really have a strong desire to kill you. I am getting nothing out of this fight. We can call the duel a draw if you want. I don’t even care about you staying out of my fight with Theonius anymore. It seems like your attacks would just give me more power.”

“On my pride as a knight, I cannot accept that.”

“So what, you just want to die? Do it yourself, then. I’m not an assisted suicide service.”

I de-summon my sword, turn around, and start walking away.

“Stop! Come back here and fight me!”

I ignore him.

‘Yggdrasil Thunderbolt!’

The entire sky becomes a tree made of lightning, the trunk a giant thunderbolt that blasts me with electric power. Black lightning surges out of my body, instantly transferring the damage of his attack to the ground around me. When the blast is finished, I continue walking away.

I hear thunder crack behind me. A lightning wreathed fist hits the back of my head. I reflect the damage from his punch back into his hand. He shouts in pain as his hand bursts like a balloon.

I keep walking.

“Are you just going to ignore me now?!”

Remembering that it will take forever to get back if I walk, I teleport towards the city. Before I can teleport a second time, Zenithus zooms over to me in a flash of lightning and punches me with his other hand. Once again, I reflect the damage and his hand pops.

I turn around to look at him. Both of his hands have been turned into mangled messes.

“Done yet?”

He kicks me in the stomach. This is getting irritating. If he wants it so bad, then fine.

Black lightning flashes out, blasting apart his legs.

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He lies on his back, hands and legs no longer recognizable, let alone functional.

He chuckles.

“Damn it all. I have done my best. I can only hope that it will be enough,” he says.

“What are you talking about? Enough for what? Why would you do this to yourself?”

He smiles.

“If you want to know, sit down.”

My curiosity wins over my caution. I sit down beside him and cross my arms. He looks into my eyes, as if he is thinking about what to say. He breathes heavily, his blood pooling on the ground. He is clearly dying of blood loss. A minute passes like this, and I start to get confused. Wasn’t he going to say something? Why isn’t he talking?

“Just tell me already,” I demand.

“Theonius will kill my daughter if I fail.”

Rage bubbles up within my heart.

“If you fail to kill me?”

He opens his mouth, then closes it. Once again, he takes his time. Only when it is his dying breath does he speak.

“… if I fail to stall you long enough.”

Fuck. I repeatedly teleport back towards Salsvale, moving as fast as possible. Theonius wanted to get me out of the city. Does that mean he’s attacking my allies? Surely he doesn’t know about the secret base, right? Cynthia should be okay.

No. My stomach drops as I realize my foolishness.

Theonius is Zenath’s hero. Now that I am a legitimate threat, it is not surprising that Zenath would lend assistance. Even though the god cannot come down to earth himself, he can scry. Bezvillia was skilled at scrying. Even with the restrictions placed upon her by her imprisonment, she could see as far as Kalamath. Zenath is significantly more powerful than Bezvillia, and he is not imprisoned. He can see the whole world, and I doubt enchantments made by mere mortals could hide anything from him.

All Theonius had to do to find out about my secret base was take a nap.

I arrive at the base to find a scorched hole in the ground where the entrance should be. Theonius bypassed the password with brute force.

I jump down the hole, landing in the main room of the base. I am immediately assaulted by the smell of burnt flesh. There are many corpses on the ground.

Grant is dead. A hole has been burnt through his chest where his heart should be. His spirit has already passed on. Even if I were to remove all of the damage from him, he would not return to life. A body without a spirit is just a corpse.

Charles has met the same fate. The scholar’s face is held in an expression of indignant rage and frustration. I crouch down and close his eyelids.

Vincent, the old healer lady, and all the other revolutionaries are dead as well.

The permanence of death is something that Bezvillia hammered into my head. Even the calamity cannot truly bring back those who have been lost. Still, I do not want to believe it.

I look around for Cynthia. A strange mix of relief and terror washes over me when I realize that her body is not here. Then, I notice something glowing on the table in the middle of the room.

Cynthia’s life crystal is resting on top of a handwritten note.

Dear Maribelle,

Congratulations. Zenath has deemed you worthy of being destroyed. Are you proud?

I understand that you have a close relationship with Cynthia Dawnsmith. She is being held where the teleportation trap used to be. Do come soon. It would be a shame if you missed her execution. In the meantime, I will be entertaining myself with her.

Best regards,

Theo

I put the crystal on my neck, careful to prevent it from being turned to dust by my rage like everything else is. I teleport out of the demolished base. I shout into the sky, as loud as I can. My voice shakes the world. Windows shatter and the air trembles.

“Zenath! Today is the day that you have condemned yourself to a finite existence! I will crush your shitty little minion into paste, and then I will get stronger! When the great war begins, I will find you, and I will kill you!”

First things first, though. I need to save Cynthia.

A new layer of frustration washes over me when I realize that I do not know where the teleportation trap used to be. I had teleported in and teleported out, never seeing it in relation to anything else.

“You! Where was the teleportation trap before I destroyed it?”

The frightened woman stumbles over her words, her two kids hiding behind her.

“That way. There’s the ruins from the explosion. It’s hard to miss.”

I repeatedly teleport in the indicated direction, moving as fast as possible.

As the nice lady said, the ruins are hard to miss. The buildings here were partially melted. Smooth spikes of glassy stone stick out from them, unanimously pointing away from the central crater.

In the middle of the ruined section of the city, a wooden platform has been erected, raised over the charred ground. On top of it, Theonius is standing. Cynthia lies naked on the floor beside him, covered in bruises. Theonius is using his Sovereign Domain, so I cannot sense her aura. There is an enchanted steel collar on her neck. She is crying.

“You finally came,” Theonius says.

I summon my blade. Black lightning crackles around it. Cynthia looks up at me. Hope immediately blooms within her eyes.

“You should be careful, Maribelle, this collar is set to explode if she disobeys me. I already commanded her to stay here, so if you take her away, she will die.”

“Cynthia, trust me,” I say.

Cynthia looks up at Theonius with a wicked smile. Without a word, she jumps off the platform.

The collar on her neck explodes. Not just her head, but her whole body is blasted to bits. Black lightning immediately courses out of her, and her body is reassembled. Her spirit manages to hang on just long enough.

The destruction accumulates around my blade as Cynthia lands completely unharmed.

She is laughing. Theonius spits on the ground, an irritated expression on his face.

“I’m beginning to understand why Zenath warned me not to underestimate you.”

Theonius points his index finger towards the sky. A bright ball of fire shoots out of it, whistling as it rises above the city. It explodes like a firework, illuminating all of Salsvale with its light.

I ignore whatever he is doing. Instead, I crouch down beside Cynthia. I gently place my hand on her back.

“You should run. This is going to get messy,” I say.

“Thank you, Maribelle.”

She gets up and starts sprinting away, dashing between the partially melted buildings.

“Maribelle, before I kill you, I want you to tell me something. Why is it that the gods fear you?”

“I have nothing to say to you.”

I teleport forward, slashing furiously with my blade. I’m going to kill this piece of shit right now.

Only, I do not teleport where I intended. Something grips my spatiomancy mid-teleport, and I appear about ten meters above Theonius’s head. My slash whiffs through the empty air.

A swirling prison of wind forms around me, trapping me in midair.

I try to teleport out, but I don’t go anywhere. My teleport takes me right back to the center of the wind prison.

“Good. The enchanters got my signal to activate it,” Theonius says.

“What is this?!”

He bites his lip and smiles.

“This, my dear Maribelle, is Salsvale’s new teleportation trap. It’s an upgrade, of course.”

What? Cynthia said they wouldn’t repair it for months! Is this all because Zenath told Theonius not to underestimate me?

“As you so helpfully showed us, the previous model had a glaring security flaw, namely that the enchantments were located in the same place as the redirection point. This version has three separate enchantment beacons, and the redirection point is in the center of the triangle. It’s ingenious, really. My enchanters have been working like dogs to get it done.”

I hiss with rage. Even if he still managed to trap me, I am not the same as before.

“Now, answer my questio—”

He is cut off when a surge of black lightning slams into his face. His skin is blasted off and his eyes are popped, but his skull is not broken. He glows with golden light, and the damage is immediately repaired. Crap. He’s going to be hard to kill. I’ll need time to charge up enough damage to finish him.

“How rude. Prisoners should be punished for insurrection. You stay right there.”

He walks away, leaving me floating in the air in my wind prison.

I am obviously not going to complain about him giving me time to charge up power.

As I am held in the air, black lightning courses out of my body, all accumulating in my blade. Bezvillia’s enchantments amplify the power even further. A couple minutes pass before Theonius returns.

He has Cynthia. He is pulling her by her hair, dragging her behind him. She is struggling uselessly. It reminds me of Harris dragging me through the woods. My rage surges.

“She didn’t quite manage to get out of my Sovereign Domain in time, it seems.”

He tosses her onto the ground. She spits blood out of her mouth. Chains of white light form, wrapping around her body and binding her. Theonius chuckles.

“Look how weak she is without her magic. If only I could do that to you, Maribelle.”

“Let her go!” I scream.

Theonius stumbles for a moment, then looks up at me with wide eyes.

“I don’t think so,” he says.

Glass shatters in my head as a brutal headache suddenly hits me. My spirit is weakened slightly. It hurts so much.

“Interesting. What was that?” He asks.

My response is a potent blast of black lightning which hits him in the neck. All the flesh of his neck is turned to dust, leaving only his spinal cord attaching his head to his body. He glows with golden light and the flesh is regenerated a moment later.

“Your punishment will be to watch her die,” he says.

“You will not kill her!” I scream.

“Oh really?”

“Any damage you do to her will just become power for me. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll let her go.”

There is a knot in my stomach. Last time I fought Theonius, his manifestation was powerful enough to kill me instantly. If he hits Cynthia with something like that, there will be nothing I can do to keep her alive.

“We’ll see,” Theonius says, calling my bluff.

He raises his fist. It glows with brilliant white light. I clench my fists. I close my eyes.

‘Incandescent Incineration!’

“No!” I scream.

I still feel Cynthia’s presence.

When I open my eyes, the light in Theonius’s fist has been extinguished. He is glaring at me, a serious expression on his face.

“How did you stop my magic?”

“Let Cynthia go, and I’ll tell you.”

“Okay. You tell me first, then I’ll let her go.”

It’s a suspicious promise. I hope he will keep his word.

“It’s a power called the divine voice. It makes one immortal and lets one command reality.”

“And how does one obtain this power?”

“To start, everything you say must be a spirit declaration. After that, it’s a long path with many different stages.”

“Is this why you can resist my domain? You aren’t a mortal?”

“Yes.”

“Why did Zenath refuse to tell me about this?”

“The white pantheon smites humans who learn about the divine voice, to preserve their place in the cosmos.”

“Why would it matter to them if humans have this power? They are gods, are they not?”

I sneer at him.

“Did Zenath never tell you? The most powerful being in existence is a human. The gods call him the calamity. He created the dragons and surpassed the strongest being of his era. He is taking a nap right now, but if he wakes up, it will shake the cosmos. You want to know why Zenath fears me? It’s because he knows first hand what humans are capable of.”

Theonius widens his eyes.

“That shouting earlier wasn’t just for show. You truly intend to kill Zenath himself.”

“Obviously. Now, let Cynthia go.”

Theonius stumbles again under the pressure of my voice. He grins with a sickening smile.

“Everything you say is a spirit declaration, huh? That means if I break your word, you will be harmed too.”

“Let her go!”

“How about instead, I kill her, and watch you break.”

Theonius raises his hand, a giant hammer made of white light appears floating above it.

“I bet the manifestations Zenath gave me will be harder for you to stop than the ones I forged.”

“Fuck you! Stop it!”

“It’s all because you said I wouldn't do it. How sad.”

Cynthia looks into my eyes, tears on her cheeks. She steels herself.

“Maribelle, you better win,” she says.

‘Zenath’s Crushing Hammer.’

“No!” I scream, putting absolutely everything into my voice.

Searing pain explodes through me as my voice fails to stop Theonius’s heroic manifestation.

The hammer of white light slams into Cynthia. She is obliterated. I try to pull out the damage, but there is just too much of it. She is already gone.

I feel her spirit fade away. She is dead.

My spirit breaks, along with my promise to keep my friend alive. I am overwhelmed with excruciating pain, but it cannot compare to the shock that I just lost her.

Blood drips out of my eyes, ears, and nose as I sob with red tears.

Theonius is laughing.

“Marvelous. Well, learning about the divine voice has been interesting, but I still have my orders from Zenath to kill you. Unlike you, I am not stupid enough to defy him.”

He raises his hand, a ball of white light building up in his palm. It is the same manifestation that he tried to kill me with the last time. Just like last time, I am certain that it can kill me instantly.

I got so much stronger, but it all turned out the same in the end. I am still trapped in the air, helpless, about to be obliterated. The only difference is that this time I have no way to escape.

I am just a child in over her head.

“Just let me go home,” I sob.

Theonius chuckles. Fuck, I hate that laugh so much.

“And you thought you could challenge the gods? How pathetic.”

I cry for warmth and safety. I cry for my mother. I cry for my life.

‘Zenath’s Light.’

In desperation, I pull on the fabric of space. I feel the teleportation trap take hold of my magic.

‘No, I don’t want to die. Please!’

Like a tiny fly slipping between the fibers of a bug screen, I push through the net that has been woven to stop me, my voice fraying the fibers just enough to allow escape.

I fall onto my mother’s lap. She is warm. I cry tears of blood into her soft white blouse.

She gasps. Her arms wrap around me.

“Maribelle?”