“Don’t worry, Althea. We’ll get you out of this,” Nicole said with a soft smile.

I looked up at the mostly unharmed elven girl floating in the sky, who currently had her eyes closed while seemingly praying, and I couldn’t help but shake my head. “You don’t have the strength to fight her. She’s the chosen one.”

“Huh? What do you mean? Were you beat up to the side of your head so much that now you’re quoting movies or something?” James asked, half-turning his head this way.

I wanted to stand back up, but my legs weren’t giving me enough strength to do so, so I stumbled slightly. But I still looked up at the girl glowing in the sky. “She hears the words of the Holy Gods.”

“What?!” Nicole and James exclaimed almost at the same time.

“Are you sure about that?” Nicole asked, “Are you sure that she’s just not, like, crazy, or something?”

“I’m fairly certain… After all… I can hear the Goddess too when She speaks to the girl…” I said with a forced tone of voice. There was a moment of silence, where only the whispering voice of the girl and the burning pieces all around us could be heard. However, we didn’t have time to wait so I turned to look at Nicole. “We have to get out of here.”

“That’s enough, child. You must end the Icon of Darkness,” the Goddess said as soon as I said that.

The girl opened her eyes and quickly dashed from the sky towards us. In retaliation, James jumped up to meet her in the air while pointing his spear forward. Almost immediately, there was a clash of weapons and a booming of golden light. Once the light cleared, I saw James crashing down to the rubbles a certain distance away from us, lifting a lot of rocks and dust as he did.

“Oh no,” Nicole exclaimed, carefully but quickly letting go of me, as she set her battledress aflame and flew to the place where James landed and where the elven girl was flying to—most likely to end James.

“No!” I shouted with a strained voice. “Don’t try to fight her! You’ll—”

A booming explosion of fire in the place where they all met drowned my voice. I watched with widened eyes at the fire, burning the air around me and everything around it, and the thought that perhaps the two of them were easily killed by that girl just now filled me with fear. I tried to summon as much strength as I could from my bottoming down powers, and somehow managed to get back on my feet and start moving to them.

But after just one difficult step forward, I saw a burning figure fly up to the sky. With a pulse of golden light, the fire was cleared and the elven girl was revealed to be unharmed; though, she was looking down with a frowning face. I quickly turned my attention back to the still burning fires, and from it, a large fiery bird flew out.

The bird loudly cawed, and from the bird’s beak, a tower of fire popped out, spiraling in the air as it quickly formed to cover the elven girl in the sky. While the fire was burning, Nicole flew out with James on her shoulder, quickly going over to me and dropping the young man’s body on the floor like a sack of potatoes.

I looked down, worried that perhaps James was dead, but after a couple of seconds, he grunted and slightly moved his head from side to side. “…Fuck…”

“I think we should do as you say and get out of here,” Nicole quickly said, after which, there was a golden explosion in the air and the fire bird was turned to just a mist of fiery particles. “Miss Pepi!”

“A Fire Deviant… You mustn’t let that thing escape either,” I heard the Goddess speak once more. “They are mistakes that reject Our gifts, and someone like that is only going to make it difficult for Us to find your world.”

“The Goddess is aware of what you are. She’s going to kill you now, regardless of what we do…” I said with difficulty, “Run. Quickly.”

“There is no escape,” the elven girl loudly said, “If you’re going to get in the way of the Holy Gods, then you must be dealt with!”

She lifted her open palm our way and Holy Power gathered to it. Nicole stood up with a determined expression, not fearful at all as she looked up to it. “I’ll handle this.”

“You don’t have the power to defeat her,” I said, stretching my hand to hold on to hers. “You must run away…”

Nicole looked at me with a forced smile, and as she opened her mouth to speak, there was an explosion of different magic elements that hit the elven girl in the air. We all turned urgently to see what had happened and quickly noticed there were a handful of people surrounding her.

They were all dressed in different kinds of gear, with some of them wearing loose clothes, and others wearing heavy armor, but judging from the magic I could sense from them, they were all fairly strong fighters; the weakest of them probably comparable to Nicole.

“Stop this at once!” shouted one man with clothes that reminded me of Luo Jin, as a long spear with a large blade on one end appeared in his hand. “Surrender now and come with us, or we shall take you by force!”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

One woman with very long jet-black hair and revealing loose clothes took a stance, with every element of magic surrounding her; one man with a thick armor summoned a large shield and a sword that hummed with blue magic; and another woman with just as jet-black short hair as all of them, wearing a gray military uniform, summoned a rifle to her hand and aimed it at the elven girl.

The girl simply sustained her Holy Power at her palm while calmly looking at the people surrounding her in the air. The man with the spear glanced at us for a moment, before his attention returned to the girl. “We know you were the one that destroyed the top floor of this building! Don’t add more crimes to your list by resisting!”

Despite not speaking to me directly, I could understand from that glance that they were going to ignore us, which meant that we should probably get out of here. However, I wasn’t sure if the elven girl was going to ignore us as well, so while staying in the same position, she looked back at the man.

“I’m doing what’s right. There’s evil in this place, and I’m here to get rid of it,” she said with a calm tone.

The woman with the long hair and loose revealing clothes scoffed. “You can’t be serious. Sure, big corporations are evil, but that doesn’t mean you can just go off and blow them up.”

The elven girl shook her head, causing her long braided hair behind her to shake as well. “This is all for the good of the world; for the good of the Holy Gods.”

“Oh my God,” the woman with the long hair replied, placing a hand on her temple as she closed her eyes. “She’s one of those people.”

“I think we’re going to have to fight…” the man with the heavy armor said with a deep voice.

“Good,” the girl with the rifle followed up, “There’s not been anyone able to keep up with me for a while.”

After a short moment of silence, the man with the long spear asked, “So you won’t come with us peacefully?”

The girl returned a sideways look at the man. “If you’re going to get in the way of the Holy Gods then…”

Without ending her sentence, the girl quickly directed her Holy Power at the man with the spear, and almost at the same time, an explosion of all sorts of magic elements ensued in the sky, with everyone immediately moving from the spots. There were roaring noises as I heard weapons clash, powers explode, and light illuminate the sky.

While that was happening, I pulled Nicole. “We must get out of here. Now.”

“R-right!” she replied, grabbing me by an arm and lifting me onto her shoulders. “I’ll carry you.” She turned to James. “Hey! Get up. We can’t stay here.”

“Urgh,” James replied and got up. “Right. I don’t need to be carried…”

As the fighting in the sky continued, Nicole and James quickly skipped over the rubble, until they found the hole they used to come up here. There was a beam of Holy Light that burned the path that we were taking, and as I turned to see the fighting in the sky, I realized that the elven girl had urgently shot that at us, before once more being attacked by the group of people.

Nicole and James quickly ignored it and jumped down the hole, as explosions and lights continued from the sky. It didn’t take much before they reached the floor that we used before, and then rushing through dark corridors until eventually reaching the same room we used to enter.

I worried that perhaps they were going to use the same tight window to come here, making it hard for Nicole to fly while carrying me, but James opened his hand to the wall, and with Earth Magic, he pulled it inside, leaving a large hole on the wall. From where I was, I could see Renard looking with wide eyes up at the top of this building from the window that we jumped from at the start of the operation. He wasn’t aware of us.

“Here’s hoping nobody notices us jumping back into that building…” James said with a low tone, and with a burst of golden light behind, he jumped over the gap between the two buildings, landing close to Renard, who looked surprised at the young man landing next to him.

Nicole quickly followed up by igniting her battledress, and I realized that her control of fire had grown much more than before as they didn’t burn me at all. But I didn’t have time to examine it as soon after, she boomed over the gap of the building, carefully landing next to Renard, who by now was looking at us with widened eyes.

“What in the hells happened?!” he shouted, “This is a complete mess!”

“The Hero of the Holy Gods attacked us,” I said as Nicole placed me down, allowing me to lean on her.

“What? Isn’t that supposed to be you?” Renard answered, one eyebrow raised. “Or have you gone mad?”

I shook my head. “There’s another Hero of the Holy Gods—she… she hears the whispers of the Holy Gods…”

“Hm?” Renard replied, half-tilting his head.

“The Holy Gods are making their way here,” I said with difficulty, limping my way to an elevator with Nicole’s help.

The people around us looked at me for a moment, seemingly confused about what I said, but a loud explosion from the other building brought them back to the reality of the situation and they quickly moved over with me.

Renard stood next to me while the door of the elevator opened and we made our way inside. “You’d better explain what you said later… I think His Majesty would also like to hear what happened here.”

With a nod, I replied to what he said but remained quiet as the elevator slowly made its way back down. We could still hear muffled explosions from the fighting between the people in the other building and I couldn’t help but feel amazed at how that group of people could still fight with a girl that carried Holy Power directly handed to her by the Holy Gods.

Once we reached the underground parking area, a couple of black cars quickly drove to be close to us. The people that were aiding Renard rushed to one of those cars, while me, Nicole, James, and Renard got in another one. The driver was still Theo, and he looked nervous as he looked everywhere while we were getting on.

“Get us out of here. Fast,” Renard commanded, and without adding a word, Theo accelerated the car.

When the cars were on the streets, I could see a few people standing by the sidewalks, looking up with awe, pointing fingers up at the lights blowing up from the top of the building we just were, and some of them using their phones to record what was going on. Thankfully, nobody was paying attention to us, so we were able to move on the roads without much issue.

As the car moved on the road, the tiredness of the fights finally set in, and I couldn’t help but close my eyes and rest my head on Nicole’s shoulder. She yelped momentarily, and I could feel her turn to look at me. “H-hey, are you alright?”

“Yes… I’m just… tired…” was all I could say as I started passing out.

There were still a few thoughts in my mind, but the one thing that kept resonating inside of me was that voice; the melodic voice of the Goddess that would whisper to me whenever I was feeling afraid; whenever I needed another push; who would give me a blissful feeling as I kept going forward and forward…

The last thing I could think of before completely passing out was… Altheras…