As he was coming down, a soft bed of fresh earth raised itself from the ground to catch Jeoff’s fall.
“W-WHA-!” And that half a word was all he had time to say before the crystal that he brought up himself latched to his face with a chain of light, resembling almost some kind of holy face-hugger.
In a panic, he tumbled down the small hill he had created, right onto another trap that sent him flying again, although this time with a twirl, thanks to the small tornado that spawned.
Meanwhile, the rest of his people were now advancing behind the original ten, but no matter how carefully they tried to advance, something unexpected always managed to catch them underfoot. Some, who probably thought themselves clever, tried to move as much dirt away from their patch, thinking that if they dug deep enough it would make their passage safe. It didn’t, because the [Aurumons] could move the crystals further down faster than they could dispatch the dirt. Also, during the entire time, they were also getting brutalized by our ranged attacks.
As I was thinking that I summoned a couple of [Totems] to block the incoming retaliatory fire: The actually smart people had retreated beyond the gate, getting them out of the minefield.
Our enemies gaining a foothold served as the starting gun for Sheeno to start approaching them in melee, which also meant that Undine, as the mid-ranger that she was, had to start advancing as well, and we all fell in a spear-head formation, with our [Anomalous Heliokan] as the point, and me and the [Water Nymph] acting as the sides.
“Were we even in a spear formation? We’re just three people, and we’re pretty far apart… this probably has a better and more pertinent name already, but just like the stuff with the equivalents to [DPS], [Tank], and [Support], this world doesn’t seem as militarily developed as it would like you to think.
So, I’m not going to bother to fix what works, even if the terminology might be completely wrong.
After all, the system that we’re using, with close-ranger, mid-ranger, and long-ranger already works better than the RPG-like system already in place, but everybody acts like it's normal, so whatever.”
It was only then that Prise joined us outside, seemingly fine just observing the situation, looking off in the distance.
“Shouldn’t you be joining Sheeno on the front?” I asked her once it was clear that she was just going to stand next to me.
“She has it handled and is having fun, and you know it. No, something doesn’t smell right, so I’ll be here for when things inevitably turn sour”. Was her reply; and, honestly, I didn’t need my powers to tell me that something did indeed smell fishy.
This was too easy: There was no way that this many people were so confident in fighting us and the [Knights of the Guilds] while being so wholly incompetent.
It was clear that the other shoe had yet to drop.
“What about your subordinates, the other [Knights]?”
“Who do you think has been keeping the majority of their force occupied from the back, stopping them from overwhelming you with numbers?” She finally looked at me, her usually expressionless mask cracked by how sheer obvious the situation was.
“Yeah, I should have figured”, I shrugged, and the flashes of magic I could see coming in the distance, beyond the explosions in front of us, did already point to the fact that a bigger battle was going on back there. Probably on a larger scale, and yet more orderly.
Jeff rushing in probably somewhat disrupted their plans, or maybe even that was part of the true mastermind’s plan.
I hadn’t yet gathered enough pieces of the puzzle to tell.
My staff floated to my hand and a hexagonal shield snapped into existence in Geff’s path; he ‘tunk’-ed his head against it and then fell hip first on the ground, where a fiery explosion resumed his bouncing around the garden while still shouting profanities.
“that could have been bad: Falling head-first on actual explosive… I don’t know if I could have [Repair]ed that.”
Thankfully my [Adaptive Domain], which still had my old [Trait] of [Precognitive Aura] within it, warned me in time to prevent an unwanted outcome.
Not that I didn’t know these guys were after my life, but killing someone this easily and accidentally just sat wrong with me, especially when that someone could have served better alive by tattling on his allies. Even though, at least to me, he looked too dumb to actually know anything of use.
“Maybe I should have ignored him: I’m starting to feel bad about ruining his gaudy brown robes.”
“Nice thinking. If that had it the head directly it would have taken annoyingly long to heal him back to a state in which he could have answered questions”, Prise made her own thoughts known, making me realize that we were thinking along the same lines.
Kind of bothered by that fact, for reason unclear even to me, I only answered with an uncommitted grunt, while also launching a couple of slow [Mana Orbs] at people, making them evade them right on top of more traps.
“Yup, that it”, I suddenly exclaimed, my gaze focused on a point in the distant crowd.
“What are you talking about now?” The [Knight Captain]’s attention was quick on snapping back to me.
“You know the bigger group your guys are fighting?”
“Yes?”
“I believe they’ve started summoning an [Avatar of Purity]”, I barely managed to finish my sentence that Prise was off, sprinting through our ten bumbling idiots to reach her subordinates.
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And how could I blame her in her haste when, without a moment’s notice, things went from embarrassingly easy to an ‘oh shit, oh fuck’ situation? I was thinking for a while that something was wrong, and it was pretty obvious that summoning an [Avatar] of their [Demi-God] was why they were so confident in challenging us.
I mean, a group a third as big as the idiots in front of us had almost managed to [Summon] a weak version on their own, so it was pretty obvious that they would have at least attempted the same tactic with a thousand people or so.
Just when she was about to reach the group of enemy combatants between us and the other [Knights] she transformed into a streak of fire, plowing through their numbers like a [Bulldozing Meteor]. She hit with such momentum and ferocity that their [Avatar Summoning Ritual] actually faltered, to the point that I almost heaved a sigh of relief, sure that it was about to break down. Contrary to expectation though, and with that sigh dying in my throat before ever getting the chance to get out, the ritual restabilized itself lighting quickly.
Too quick in fact,
“Shit! Please don’t tell me that their [High Priest] is somehow there?”
Ok, I will not tell you.
But before I could call [Buddy] an ass, Undine raced back towards me, and that was enough to confirm my worries even before she had time to open her mouth.
“Their [High Priest] is with them! I don’t know how I failed to recognize their presence until now, but they made their presence pretty obvious when they forcefully stabilized the ritual”, she explained in one breath, before sprinting back to re-join the fray, this time much closer to the melee than before.
She probably wanted to get a closer look at the ‘priestly’ energies of whoever had her same [Job]. Fun fact about [High Priests]: The position must be appointed directly by a [God] or [Demi-God], and while the latter can only grant the role to one person, a [True God] can have multiple, while also having available an exclusive position to grant to a person of their choosing, a [Bishop].
Thankfully there were no ambiguous charges like [Arch-Bishop] or [Pope], so things were plenty straight-forward in that regard. What was less straightforward was why the fuck the most important person in the [Temple of Purity] was here!
“Fucker must have heard about someone [Anomalous] and [Aberrant] being a [Fulcrum] and couldn’t let it stand!”
And yet… I refused to believe that racism was somehow a constant and common ailment in the multiverse: This must be another piece of the puzzle that I have yet no answer to.
I mean, assholes being everywhere is believable and understandable, because, as they say, ‘the mother of idiots is always pregnant’, but since the personification of [Luck] was involved, I refuse to believe in coincidences.
“YOU’LL PAY FOR THE HUMILIATION YOU’VE PUT ME THROUGH!!!” Suddenly shouted a very frazzled and haggard Jeff.
“You’re still conscious? Color me surprised!” And I was being genuine: He got bounced around so much that I was honestly surprised that he was still able to think clearly, let alone speak.
Looking at him I finally noticed a layer of rock under his feet, with the dirt under it and around its edges constantly churning, as if being constantly repelled by the layer of compacted earth.
That was… a better show of I thought possible out of him. Maybe I should reconsider just how inept he is. Maybe, during our first encounter, he had just probed me with a weak attack, and then subsequently surprised by Undine’s retaliation. Maybe, just maybe, he could prove himself a-
An explosion of the stream from below suddenly jettisoned him and his rocky platform to the sky, the movement so sudden and violent that I saw him getting squished against his own conjured earth just before he went out of view.
Still, while funny enough to rip a surprised chuckle out of me, it was clear that he was adapting, so, sooner or later, he could become a problem.
Seeing the utter chaos that we wrought upon the enemy lines, between my traps, Sheeno barrelling through them, and Undine maneuvering them into precarious positions, into was time for the second part of the plan: Apprehension and detainment.
And with a wave for my scepter, I summoned twenty [Flying Trappers] to do just that, their bony cuboidal nature belaying the wealth of tools at their disposals to capture and stop people.
There was the option of outright killing them all while isolating those that only got maimed, but that was just… no, just no.
On a cheerier note, the [Trapper] got to work expectedly fast, and in no time at all the ten people that had come to us were now struggling inside restrictive nets, with Jeff having been caught mid-air after another boom.
“You think you’ve won!? Our [God] will finish what we’ve failed to accomplish!” This and other similarly prepared phrases were currently being spouted by our now prisoners; except Geoff, who currently had a band of ice holding his mouth shut, which he received as a compromise after me and Sheeno had become increasingly annoyed at him constantly spouting insults at me.
“[Demi-God], but yes: By what I’m feeling we won’t be able the [Avatar] from appearing this time”, I felt the need to remark, starting to feel the sweat on my back run cold.
Undine nodded seriously and was about to speak her own opinion when the [Priests] suddenly grew still, and the loud noise of a bell reverberated out from the bigger battlefield, together with a with and gold [Aura] washing over everything in sight.
[Purity] had arrived and… he felt sort of ‘bad’?
“That’s the guy you all worship? He feels kind of gross”, I couldn’t help but comment, one corner of my lips involuntarily curling up in disgust.
“I never felt such an oppressive [Aura]. I must agree with my mate that it feels most foul to my sixth sense”, Sheeno was quick to agree with me, and she revealed to me that apparently the capacity to feel [Auras] was commonly referred to as ‘the sixth sense, which was understandable really.
Just then a white humanoid figure raised itself among the distant crowd, towering above everybody else by size alone, and then it raised itself in flight with a pair of angelic wings that unfurled from his back.
Speaking of angelic, now that it was upright, I could easily describe it as an ‘it’, given that it was naked but was smooth like a Ken doll below the belt, its face was absent, and instead a spiral of eyes adorned the front of its head.
A mannequin fused with a biblically accurate angel was the best way I could describe it in my mind, at least until his eyes suddenly snapped to meet mine, and my thoughts ground to a halt.
A vision of my death slashed through my addled mind with a feeling of near certainty and the sharpness of inevitability.
I knew that it was here to kill me, and it would stop at nothing to see its will done.
“Fuck…” I choked out, breaking the silence that had draped the surroundings.
It raised a pointing finger towards me and Sheeno was the first to react by pushing out of the way and creating a wall of ice in front of herself.
No.
Undine followed soon after, a barrier that distorted time layered itself on top of her creation.
Not again.
My [Aura] was going crazy with visions of a future filled with death, loss, and despair, the flow of fate so violent that it was stopping me from reacting and causing me to hyperventilate; a cold grip squeezing my chest.
NO!
It was all happening in slow-motion: Its finger shone with brilliant might, cries of both fear and elation started breaking out, and everything that I had ever done flashed before my eyes.
My memories and my feelings, my faults and my merits, my regrets and my accomplishments.
“I SAID NO!”
I don’t know how or why, but I managed to snap myself out of the weird mental state I had been trapped in, just in time to throw a bunch of [Runes] at the barrier in front of me, transforming it, upgrading it.
In a fit of inspiration, I pushed to the front and touched the tip of my scepter to what was ice, while I imbed the other sharp end to the earth below.
Just in time for everything to go white.
And for the pain to come.