Alex flew through the sky alone as he headed for the already glowing horizon, lighted by the torches and fires of the fanatics. He was fairly irritated at their actions as he never expected them to act so quickly or rashly, and he never expected them to gather and organize. Though he knew the fanatics of Ehito would continue existing for a while, he intended to leave them be as their numbers would naturally thin over the years, instead of leading a holy inquisition against them just like Ehito would have done. As he approached the main horde of their army however, his expression of irritation turned to one of incredibility, before darkening considerably in rage. Alex had rarely felt genuine anger since reincarnating, but when he saw what the fanatics were doing it felt as if his rage was going to boil over. At the head of the horde was a series of effigies that were set on fire, but weren't actually burning due to either enchantments on the effigies themselves or from using such a weak flame, and at the forefront of the effigies was the most offensive one that was depicting Gabriel in a very vulgar manner. As much as he hated seeing the mother of his child being regarded in such a way, what really infuriated him was that alongside the effigies were several dozen women that were being crucified, while stripped naked and showing obvious signs of several forms of abuse. As he saw them Alex used his 'Domain' to amplify his voice and boomed,
"SO THIS IS THE TEACHING OF YOUR "GREAT GOD"? THE ABUSE AND HUMILIATION OF INNOCENT WOMEN AFTER SLAUGHTERING THEIR FAMILIES?!" Recoiling from the shock as none of the fanatics had noticed Alex flying to above them in the darkness, they soon responded with jeers and insults before the pope settled them down and responded,
"You must be the champion of the false goddess, I must assure you that these women are not innocent and are guilty of the most terrible of crimes, they have fallen from the grace of God and have turned towards a false idol! This is not abuse, but divine punishment to the unfaithful! Through these trials may these women realize the errors of their way and see the light! And any children born as a result of these trials would be given a proper raising by the church, and may be their first step on the road of redemption!" Alex's fists shook at his sides as he listened to the popes prattle, before suddenly plummeting down and crashing into the ground before the army. Though he could just blast them all to smithereens with a ki blast, summon a wave of fire, or any number of methods available to him, Alex didn't want to risk the people that had already suffered enough, both the women and the slaves, and most of all, he wanted the fanatics to know fear and despair before dying, he wanted them to suffer.
Seeing him take to the ground the pope sneered and banged his scepter against the platform his throne was on, and the men at the front started to move forward, their lips parted in a sneer as they stared down their opponent. They weren't actually with the church, but were actually adventurers that were somewhat infamous for taking seedy jobs and having bad attitudes, which had prevented them from reaching the higher ranks in the guilds system. Even as a couple dozen people who were almost as strong as 'Gold' rank adventurers bore down on him, Alex didn't even flinch until they were right on top of him, when his arm suddenly blurred and his attackers froze. Everyone watched with bated breath as they tried to see what happened, before the adventurers that attacked Alex suddenly fell to the ground dead, and Alex was casually standing there holding the sinister looking weapon none had seen him take out.
It was demonic looking scythe that seemed to be a fusion of metal and bone, with the pole roughly six feet long and the base of the blade adding another two feet before extending out for four. Besides being made of black metal, it also had several human looking bones fused into it along with a skull that was facing the opposite direction of the blade, that had blackish flames flickering in its eye sockets. This was Alex's newest weapon that he had used azantium ore, with Hades's bones and divine power to make. It was also created with the concept of 'Death', meaning that just the barest of scratches was enough to instantly kill almost all it was used on. Even then the adventurers that attacked Alex had all died from only taking what seemed to be paper cuts, as the concept of death took them. Alex glanced at the corpses before looking at his new weapon with pride, as his gaze turned back towards the pope and he simply said,
"Next." The pope was gripping his scepter so hard his knuckles were turning white as he glared at Alex hatefully. Though he didn't expect much from the godless adventurers to begin with, the fact they were killed so easily along with Alex's casual attitude, his anger was growing by the second. He then spat out,
"Don't hold back this time, attack together!" As his orders rang out the several hundred adventurers left charged at Alex, while he stood as still as a statue. Instead of moving to counter attack or anything, Alex instead channeled the concept of 'Death' from his scythe into his 'Domain' around them. He didn't release it immediately though, instead using his 'Domain' to first sense out each person attacking him from the slaves and women who didn't want to be there, before focusing the intent of 'Death' onto every one of the adventurers. It took a few seconds compared to actually using the scythe to attack, but soon every single one of them fell to ground as the life slowly left their eyes, leaving Alex and the few slaves present standing within a circular field of hundreds of corpses. There was pure silence as everyone took this in in disbelief, the fanatics refusing to acknowledge that Alex was capable of killing hundreds without any discernible effort, until a single word broke the silence.
"Next." As this single word echoed through the the battleground, a fury like he had never known filled the pope at the blatant arrogance and capabilities of Alex; but in the back of his mind, even if he'd never admit it to anyone or even himself, a small amount of fear had taken root. Though Alex may have been stronger than anyone else in Tortus, the pope had believed that numbers would easily fill the gap in strength and overwhelm him and his companions.
"What strength..."
"We're supposed to fight that?!"
"It's a monster!"
As the whispers spread through the army, the pope took yet another deep breath to calm himself before declaring,
"See how he uses demonic arts to counter us? This shows us the righteousness of our cause and the evil of his intentions! Steel your hearts and convictions and do not let the monster have his way! Demihuman slaves, I order you to kill him, and whoever deals the killing blow will be rewarded their freedom!" The pope smiled evilly as he gave his orders, and the slaves themselves looked horrified as their collar's compulsion drove them to fulfill their masters command. He had seen how Alex went out of his way to spare the slaves, and planned to use his softheartedness against him. Alex's expression darkened as he watched the demihumans reluctantly approach him while picking up the fallen adventurers weapons, and to respond to their approach he canceled the aspect of 'Death' within his domain, and instead replaced with his 'Energy Nullification'. He then specifically used his 'Domain to target each of the slaves collars and the enchantments within them, nullifying the magic energy that forced the slaves to follow their masters orders, and the functions that prevented them from removing them. One by one the slaves slowly stopped running towards him, as they realized the compulsion was no longer present, or when they all saw the others stop running. As they looked at each other with confusion, Alex's voice boomed once more,
"I have removed the compulsion and restriction on your slave collars, you are all now free! There are now two choices available to each of you, take the women these men tortured and get out of my way, or be eliminated with your former masters!" Alex's declaration had caught the former slaves off guard, but when a couple of them experimentally removed their collars, they found Alex's words to be true and a sense of jubilation ran through them. This was quickly tempered when they recalled what else he said, and several of them glanced at the crucified women with trepidation. Now that they were free they didn't want to be bothered at all with any humans but, with Alex's command and threat ringing in their ears, they hesitated to move. This wasn't missed by the pope, who happily sneered,
"Do you not see? Even when you free them and preach about coexistence, they do not listen and only care for themselves, like animals!" Alex's eyes narrowed at the pope's words, but before he could respond the night sky was suddenly lit up with a blinding light from behind him. With everyone looking at the source in blatant shock, Alex himself turned around and was also exceptionally surprised to see what was causing the light. Hovering above them all was an extremely beautiful golden haired figure, with twelve golden wings who was clothed in flowing white gowns. The only thing to contrast her beauty, was the obvious signs of the tears that had been running down her cheeks. As the divine light shined down on them, even the women who had been treated so brutally managed to barely lift their heads to see the goddess herself before them. Before Alex could figure out what Gabriel, along with the dozen or so Angels, was doing there, she stated,
"I have heard your pleas my daughters, I heard them as they took your own sons and daughters from you, and as they butchered them and your husbands for sport. I heard them, and yet I was not able to prevent your or their suffering, for this I am sorry." Everyone(including Alex) was dumbfounded at Gabriel's words as none expected the goddess herself to show up. Alex was of course the most surprised, as he knew how much Gabriel didn't like being a goddess, but then Lauren said,
'Judging on what she said, my guess would be she was compelled to act due to the prayers and pleas for help she was hearing from her followers as they were attacked. Until she could control that aspect of her divine power, she should hear their prayers especially clearly since her divine power is based on faith.' Alex was silent as he contemplated this, but before he could say anything Gabriel continued while looking at the former slaves,
"Go, save your sisters who have suffered under the cruelty of the followers of my wayward son, help them who have lost everything." As she spoke to them, the demihuman slaves suddenly felt ashamed of themselves and their lack of action, and quickly rushed to help the still crucified women alongside the Angels that came with Gabriel. As the women were all strung up at the front of the army, where the adventurers were, there was no need for fighting to get to them as they were quickly cut down and pulled to safety behind Alex. As they were all safely behind them, Gabriel turned towards Alex and said,
"My champion, though you have already done so much for me and my children I must call upon your aid one last time. Please do as you will with these wayward children, as even now I cannot bear to raise my own hand against them." As she finished speaking Gabriel gave the Angels a signal, and they immediately erected a large golden barrier of holy light to separate them, keeping the women, and the demihuman slaves from seeing the fight. As they were shielded from the view of the bystanders, a sinister smile appeared on Alex's face as he thought 'now I can go all out!' He then turned back towards the still frozen Pope and his followers, all of whom were still staring at the barrier that the goddess was behind. While the pope and the most fanatical believers were glaring at her with hatred and disgust, several other people were starting to wonder why they had been against her in the first place, their drive considerably weakened after seeing the beautiful and pure goddess for themselves. However they had already made their choice, and Alex had no mercy for anyone that was on the other side. Their thinking was interrupted when he suddenly said,
"Do you know what is most interesting thing about this weapon?" This made the entire army turn their attention back towards him, as he held out his scythe as if for them to see. He then continued,
"I originally wanted to make a weapon to channel my demonic powers through, while also giving it a powerful concept; but then the materials I used gave me amazing and unexpected results. Tell me, have you ever heard of a god from another world by the name of Hades, lord of the underworld?" As he finished speaking Alex waited a second for them to process what he was saying, to which the pope was being cautious as he didn't know what Alex was planning. He then said to him,
"No, I can confidently say none of our glorious world has ever heard of this false god, much like your so-called goddess." Alex smirked at the popes response, before explaining,
"Hades ruled the afterlife of our world, and as such was one of the most powerful of the hundreds, or even thousands of gods that called that world home. Recently I killed him, and used his body and divine power that was the closest to demonic power to craft this weapon, unexpectedly giving its wielder control over the dead, just like Hades." As Alex finished speaking the popes face paled noticeably, as did the rest of those listening as Alex did something that chilled them to their core. He lifted his scythe a few inches off of the ground, before slamming the butt of it back down. Seconds later several spectral beings started coming into focus around him, sending even more chills down the spines of the popes army as every single one of the specters was someone who had marched with them, that Alex already killed. Truthfully Alex's scythe only gave him power to control those he killed with the scythe itself, as after death it pulled their souls into the jewel that was housed within the skull at the top of it. As the spectral army grew around him, Alex ordered,
"Surround them and make sure no one escapes, other than that they're mine!" As his orders rang out the spectral figures spread out and surrounded the church supporters, while the pope also seemed to snap back to attention, as he he ordered in retaliation,
"Stand firm! Show this demon that we of the church will not fall quietly! Knights, form ranks! Mages and demons, prepare your spells! We will NOT bow down to this monster! We WILL rise to the challenge and defeat him! THIS is what our God wants! In his great name, we will restore BALANCE to the world! ATTACK!" At the popes orders the Knights and mages didn't immediately charge like the adventurers did, but instead the Knights locked shields so that they formed unbreakable wall after wall as they slowly marched towards him; and the mages, both human and demon race, started charging the strongest spells they could muster while the pope himself started chanting a string of long complicated words, as he as well finally started taking part in the war he had started. Alex smirked at their attempts to attack him, and responded by simply holding his scythe out to the side, and throwing it directly at the shield wall of Knights coming at him. Before any of them could react the scythe reached them, and sliced right through their formation as if it was warm butter. Blood and body parts went flying as the scythe flew right through them and continued unhindered into the line behind them, and the line behind that. While the rest were momentarily shocked by the bloodiest attack yet, they were suddenly bombarded by a hail of golden flames as Ascalon made its new debut. After using the sword to bombard the enemies with divine flames, Alex then threw it as well, causing the sword to pierce through and make a hole in the defensive line.
"HE'S THROWN AWAY HIS WEAPONS, ATTACK NOW!" Someone shouted, signaling the Knights charge and mages own bombardment of spells. Alex smirked as he witnessed their inferior magic attacks, and nullified them with ease while he held out his left hand. As the Knights converged on him Alex didn't pay them the slightest attention as the majority couldn't even pierce his defenses, while those that could were either dodged or blocked with Armament Haki, before they were sliced clean through when the scythe obediently returned to his outstretched hand. What followed afterwards could only be described as a nightmare, as Alex swung himself around he was surrounded by a whirlwind of blood and gore from his scythe bisecting any it came into contact with, before they were then summoned as spirits to kill any who tried to escape.
After clearing some space Alex threw his scythe again, before recalling Ascalon to his side and using it to greet the next wave of attackers. This attack pattern continued for several minutes until the sky was filled with a radiant light once more, as the pope finished his long winded chant and readied his attack against Alex. Alex smiled as ignored his surroundings and summoned a sphere of ki to counter attack the popes attack, intending to show him what "real" power was. As the sphere in his hand grew to the same size as the popes light element attack, Alex waited for the pope to finish before they were both suddenly unleashed at the same time. It felt as if the world stood still at the two attacks collided, and sent several people to the ground from the shockwaves as the popes attack was almost instantly overwhelmed, and Alex's continued on. The pope was one of those who fell from the collision, and as he tried to stand up he found himself facing the same direction Alex's attack went, but instead of the tall and sturdy mountains that were supposed to be standing there, a giant hole have been carved into the landscape. His body froze as he reached a terrible conclusion,
"He's been toying with us....." As he looked at the pure destruction Alex caused with no discernible effort, he suddenly realized that all of their efforts, all of their conviction meant nothing. Alex could have destroyed them instantly anytime he wanted, and the only thing preventing him from doing so was his own intentions, as well as the slaves and women he helped. Though part of the popes mind was saying the reason they would lose was because he sent the slaves ahead, removing them from their lines and allowing Alex to really cut loose; a much larger part was shouting that they really had no chance of victory from the beginning, and had only organized and marched to their death.
"What are your orders your excellency?!" One of the Knights suddenly asked, panic noticeable in his voice.
"....med..."
"What was that your excellency?" The knight asked confusedly.
"WE'RE ALL DOOMED!" The pope suddenly shrieked, earning him the attention of everyone else around them, before he continued,
"GOD HAS ABANDONED US TO OUR DOOM! WE HAVE NO HOPE, NO CHANCE OF VICTORY! WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!" As his shouts echoed a visible panic started spreading among the church warriors, while Alex paid them no mind and continued his slaughter with his scythe and Ascalon. As the pope was seized by raw fear and the realization that he was about to die there for an absentee God, he turned and tried to run away, unaware of the doom that already swiftly approached him. He felt a slight tugging sensation that started in his loins, before it traveled up his body and through his head. The pope's last seconds of life was watching the scythe continue flying while his vision suddenly started splitting, before everything went dark permanently. With the pope's declaration of doom and immediate death, panic seized the remaining Knights and mages. Even though there was still thousands of them left, hundreds tried to turn tail and run only to be slaughtered by the specters that had them trapped, while the rest grimly turned towards their demonic opponent with the intention to at least face their death instead of trying to run from it.
***
Several hours after they received the warning about the advancing army of the church, a large military force was moving towards the place where they were reported to be last. At its head was the emperor Gahard, the demon king Rassem, two of the elders of Verbergen Jin and Zel of the bear and tigerman tribes respectively, and even the princess Liliana, while above them flew the few dozen dragon race that had attended the ball. Even though Alex had stated that he'd handle the attack, not even bothering to bring any of the girls as backup, the various rulers of each nation had been growing increasingly fidgety while waiting, before declaring that they couldn't just sit around while Alex did the fighting for them, again! As they approached the battleground however, what they found was a giant golden barrier separating the fighting on the other side, and the group of people at the base of it. When they got closer though, everyone gradually slowed their charge before stopping altogether, as they took in what they saw.
"Hic hic, I-I miss them sooo muuuuuch!!" A woman wailed as she cried into another woman's breasts, except it was the identity of this second woman that made them all pause. She was easily the most beautiful person any of them had seen, regardless of race, with long flowing golden hair and twelve golden wings sprouting from her back. She was dressed in a pure white flowing gown and had a ring of light above her head, adding to her divine appearance as she consoled the poor woman,
"There there my daughter, I know of your loss and the pain it brings you." As she turned and looked at the newcomers, Gabriel gently released the woman and started floating off of the ground, before saying to them,
"My children, this is the suffering that will persist if these past grudges are never laid down. You are all my children and I love you equally, but please end the fighting. I'll leave these women who have suffered greatly in your hands, please help them..." As she finished speaking Gabriel rose higher into the air, as the dozen or so beautiful women with pure white wings followed her, before they all disappeared in a flash of light. As they disappeared everyone was staring at the place they vanished from in awe, before Liliana suddenly broke the silence.
"Men, move forward and help those women and demihumans!" Though they jumped slightly at the sudden command, several Knights started to carry out her demands, while Liliana rode that their head so as not to alarm the women. As they approached them the demihumans were suddenly on edge, but then Jin and Zel approached them and said,
"It's ok now, you'll never be slaves again." As the women and former slaves became less nervous they then managed to get the situation under control, something that was made easier due to the fact that any wounds were healed by the surplus of Godwater in Asora, and they had all been given a bit of food and clean clothes to wear, right as the barriers created by the Angels started flickering before vanishing altogether. Instead of an ongoing battle on the other side, they were met with the view of land that had been scorched black with a single figure standing among the ashes.
"Alex?" Liliana hesitantly asked as she approached him, before Alex looked at her and the rest while saying,
"It's done. I made sure there weren't any survivors and used my fire to burn the corpses to prevent disease and monsters from gathering. This should be the last anyone sees of the followers of Ehito." As he spoke the gathered leaders and soldiers gave him looks of both respect, and a little fear. Though they had heard stories of his strength until now, the fact that he had single handedly slaughtered ten thousand trained Knights, mages, and even adventurers, put his strength into perspective, and reaffirmed the decisions of those who chose to listen for the sake of their own people's safety. After ensuring that they could handle everything from there, Alex quickly returned to Asora in order to rest and check on Gabriel. Nearly the second he appeared though, he was tackled by the very same woman he had just been thinking about, as she said to him,
"I could hear them, I could feel their pain..." Alex embraced the mother of his first child as she continued,
"I couldn't just ignore them, as they cried about their children's deaths I imagined if that was me with Edith, a-and I couldn't bear it!" Alex said nothing as they embraced, before leading her into the bath to soak the nights troubles away.