Intermission – The Sacrificial Wretch
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Pain. My existence is pain.
My body still suffers, therefore, I must travail, but I feel nothing but pain.
My life isn't my own. My death isn't my own. My will isn't my own. And it seems like the end has come at last.
My eyes regain focus, and I spot the morning sky of a random captive Realm. Blue and clear, the perfect paradise our God created for a pet race, and the best background I could ever ask for as oblivion finally arrives.
Then I notice that the Shackles are no more, and I'm finally free to choose my own destiny. My will has returned to my hands, and even though they're destroyed to the point of being unresponsive, it brings me enough happiness to overpower the pain.
But the surprises don't end there, as then the divine connection to our God is suddenly severed. Like a hair being plucked, it hurts for a second, then tingles lightly after, and you're left with the sensation that something precious was stolen from you.
I believed I wasn't going to be able to see the resolution to the End of Times, but now I have, even if only through feeling and for just a short moment. And it's beautiful.
Now, I can finally choose, and I decide to spend the last minutes of my life in bliss.
--
Intermission end.
--
After everyone recovers from the orgasm and [Clean]s their underwear, we easily clean up the shiny cans as they've stopped spawning. They weren't much of a threat with the Hau-Hou and their super-enchanted soldiers here, tee-bee-eighch, so they were just trash keeping us from bum-rushing the boss.
I take a moment to check my anti-curse talisman, and I discover that it snapped at some point. It protected against the nail bastard, but I guess it got spent, or the talkative Titan's curse was just too much and too fast for it. Though, it doesn't matter anymore, as I believe that those curses won't work now that there's no core to fuel them.
There's also still a bit of "divine energy" inside me, which feels like a warm blanket wrapped around my body, but I sense that it's gradually become colder. This is a sort of power that just "resonates" with my draconic side, and I believe that's why it's so easy to "manipulate" it. But "intuition" is basically everything I know about this energy, so I'm actually scared to try experimenting with it.
Still, I'd better use what I have before it runs out, so I approach Hana and gently land my clawed hand on her burned face.
"Heal her eyes," I order, and the energy completely leaves my body through my hands. Then Hana feels a mix of [Heal] and [Regrow Limb] affecting her, even though not a single particle of mana is coming out of the energy.
The feeling lasts only for a second, then she opens her eyes, and she can see clearly again.
"Thank you, my divine," she smoothly jokes and kisses my claws.
But I say nothing, too caught up in my love for her to joke back. I hate seeing them get wounded, and getting a blinding wound is particularly frightening to me as I'm still not used to being able to just instantly heal eyes.
"King Wolf!" King Temamana suddenly calls for my attention as he approaches.
"Yes, King Temamana?" I politely reply as I caress Hana's cheek.
He points to the bird of lightning splayed on the wall. "Isn't that the legendary Lord of Storms?"
I nod with a frown. "I assume it is, but I'll deal with the swarm outside first before I talk to them."
And the rhino king steps back in surprise. "The swarm is still going?! We must break the bridge to stop them!"
But I confidently reply, "I'll get my Horns on that, but until then, I'll summon the biggest fucking monster I can to deal with the swarm." The Hau-Hou have been a great help, but we'll be the ones to finish this.
"Then I won't hold you any longer," he solemnly states.
I nod and open a [Gate] back to our quarters in the Carrier, and Ciel, Yunia, and Alissa accompany me. Things are, predictably, quite noisy over here as the battle still isn't over, and the swarm continues to pour out.
"Your Highnesses!" one of the Companions standing guard outside greets us as we open the doors.
And Yunia promptly orders, "Announce our arrival to Hihiriwa. The core has been destroyed, and now we'll be going up on the deck to summon a Leviathan to help deal with the swarm."
"Understood!" she shouts as she salutes, then runs off.
The other Companions follow us without a word, and we make our way up to the deck.
There's still the talkative Titan that I want to have a word with, and even though his legs are broken, Roxanne still throws a soporific flask inside his little spherical bunker to knock him out, which also spares him from the pain. Then they remove the slab crushing his legs when he falls asleep. We may hate the monsters, but I'm the one who championed that the Sin of Torture must apply to them too, so this much mercy is expected of us.
Anyway, the muffled gunfire becomes uncomfortably loud once we're outside the Carrier, and I bet the firing line on the deck has already gone deaf as they're simply unloading their full-auto rifles without a care in the world. The smoke quickly becomes too thick for them to see anything, so there's a dedicated Wind mage clearing the air in between mag-dumps.
As for the swarm, the tin cans are running in the air, but they're fairly slow, so the ships constantly retreat and keep their distance to not get overrun, but the islands are slower, and two of them are already covered in a swarm of ants. There are flying monsters, with hippogryphs being the most common, but there still aren't enough of them to shut down the Sky Lander air force.
Every second that I delay another soldier dies, so I stop at the center of the landing strip and promptly summon the albino Fay Leviathan just as the firing line notices our presence.
Two Companions hold me by my armpits as my MP instantly plummets to zero, then into the negatives, and my HP starts to fall. Ciel is here to cast [Heal] while Yunia is already starting the soul treatment with [Spirit Touch], but the really important part is how everyone comforts me through [Bind] to help me get through the pain of having my mana organ stretched wide enough to give birth to the Leviathan.
And the huge, white Bad Dragon eventually materializes in the air above us. Then it lets out a bone-shaking roar that silences the battlefield, "UROOOOOO…!"
"THE LEVIATHAN IS HERE TO AID US!" Hihiriwa's magically enhanced voice echoes across the sky, and the cheers are accompanied by the sounds of gunfire as the battle resumes.
The Leviathan goes directly to the center to gobble up the swarm like a whale does with krill, but just its presence alone is enough to wound the souls of the monsters, so the Titan tide is instantly slowed down.
Now there isn't anything left for us to do here, and the Hau-Hou royals are already coming back to help their men while Samkelo is making more C4 for the Horns, so I begin to slowly return to the bridge. Everyone is tired, and now I'm officially out of any more combat, but we still need to coordinate with Alcander to transport the rest of our men back from the core room while I need to return to the Lord of Storms.
But then a Lordsguard suddenly comes up and beelines towards us. His face looks pale and very worried, so we all get a feeling that bad news is coming.
"Your Highness! I have a message from the factory!" he shouts and salutes by making a fist over his chest.
"What is it?" Alissa impatiently asks.
And his face stiffens up as he relays, "There has been an attack at the factory. The only one injured was a guard, who has already been healed, but we believe the assailants stole a golem along with a few rifles."
Are you fucking-…
These…
Fucking…
CUNTS…!
The dragon in me seethes and attempts to take over my body so that it can lash out, but even the lizard is too tired to really make a mess right now, so the burst of energy quickly dissipates, and I'm left with raw, simmering hatred.
"I'll inspect the damage," Alissa immediately volunteers.
"Go, I'm fine…" I grimly encourage her. I can't let my anger issues get in the way of what must be done.
She gives my cheek a loving but tired kiss to help with my self-control, then nods at the Lordsguard, who turns around and guides her back inside. There's nothing we can do now that it's already happened, so I just sigh and return to the bridge.
--
After a few minutes of organizing things, we're back at the core room, but the Lord of Storms still hasn't woken up. Lily is also here now, and she seems to hate that she didn't participate in the boss fight.
"Why do you look like shit?" she questions me as I approach, earning silent glares from the Companions.
"That's rich coming from the one who literally almost died," I banter back with a tired snort.
And she acts like the spoiled brat she is. "Pfft. I was in pain, yes, but it was hardly enough to actually kill me… but still, thanks for solving this shit so fast."
Needs correction…
"Indeed, this fight ended up being much faster than I expected," Belind politely interjects. She seems to be fawning over us for what we did to the boss, and Hana is barely containing her craving to boisterously brag to the pretty pixie.
"That's why the Gifted exist. They just solve all of our problems for us," Urmeie callously adds.
But the pixie immediately says it out loud to start an argument, "That's a rather callous view of the holy chosen."
Oh no… I'm not in the mood for this!
"Let's focus on waking up the Lord of Storms," Ciel requests with a perfectly kind tone, making it hard for the two troublemakers to build up their anger.
"Might be a good idea to find a way to get them off the wall first," Roxanne wryly points out.
"Exactly," I tiredly hum.
And we move on, leaving the two bickering bitches behind, but since their target of affection (me, obviously) isn't nearby to hear them, they drop the hostilities and ignore each other.
But Belind comes flying to me once she notices Yunia's spirit hand sticking to my back.
"Is your spirit wounded, Wolf? Why is Yulania using [Spirit Touch] on you?" she worriedly questions, and her butterfly wings let out a bit of sparkly dust that arouses my hunger, for some reason.
"I went back to summon a huge monster to deal with the rest of the swarm, so my mana organ got a bit beaten up," I modestly brag.
But her blonde eyebrows furrow further. "That's concerning. I hope you don't overuse it, as it's still possible for the lowered lifespan to affect someone like you."
And Alissa snorts loudly, then sends me a smug smile through our connection.
Sorry…
"It's a last resort. I had to use it to save the soldiers fighting the swarm," I solemnly explain.
"A noble sacrifice," she states matter-of-factly with a nod.
And I feel too awkward to reply to that kind of praise. It's easy to ignore the commoners when they start praying to us in the Prasa de Ananci in front of the castle's Shell because they're innocent, but that kind of comment feels too real to just brush aside.
Gify suddenly pops onto my shoulder, and I give her a little pat to soothe myself, but then she turns on her soul massage, and I almost let out a pleasant moan.
Thanks.
"Gih!"
I'd better not try to use my tentacles for now, so the girls approach the Lord for me. It seems that there are no restraints on the big bird skeleton, but it's still stuck to the wall somehow, so Hana starts poking around.
The lightning that makes up its body doesn't crackle like you'd expect, but it still "twitches" constantly, so we assume they're still alive. And they also seem to weigh nothing, for Hana's sword effortlessly pushes around a claw the size of her arm.
"Diagnosis?" I question Ciel through [Bind].
"Empty. The skill has no knowledge of the health status of legendary beings made of lightning," she answers with a refreshing amount of sass.
Not even she is immune to sleep deprivation crankiness.
"Sorry," she coyly apologizes, now irritating Roxanne with how much of an angel she is.
Anyway, Aoi goes for the head and uses a random spear to push it away from the wall, and the rest of the body starts to follow it.
"IT MIGHT FALL! CLEAR THE AREA!" I shout and quickly move away. There's plenty of room for everyone plus the Lord since the DM's room expansion wasn't undone after he died, so we comfortably spread out.
Aoi stops pushing the head to give us time to move away, but its whole body continues to slowly incline forward, and it seemingly weighs so little that it's like watching a sheet of paper slowly fall flat. There's no displacement of air, though, so perhaps a better comparison would be watching a dandelion seed fall.
And after a long thirty seconds, it does completely fall away from the wall, the skeleton now gently resting upon the white crystal floor. Yunia's and my [Sense Presence] still insist that it's alive, and Yunia can also see that their Thread is still going strong, but perhaps it's too weakened to wake up.
The "lightning bones" also exude the same "wild" feeling as the lightning that the Titans and the DM were using, so it's confirmed that the Titans were using them as a battery. And that gives me an idea.
I walk up to the mergirl and ask, "Chesa, can you produce some lightning to feed it, or something?"
"What?! You think I'm a cow, or something?!" she exclaims, mildly offended, and her head-tail even tenses up.
But the girls and I share a look. "Uh… you're the one who can manipulate the 'wild' lightning, so that's why I'm asking you," I hesitantly explain.
"Oh…" she awkwardly hums and glances at Lily, asking for help on how to deal with this embarrassing situation, but the loli doesn't know what she's talking about, so she remains silent, and Chesa's light blue skin becomes pink.
It's lucky for her that Samkelo is away making more C4, or else he'd be laughing his ass off.
"Didn't you manipulate it, too?" the cat asks me, giving Chesa a breather.
"Only because I had absorbed some sort of 'divine energy' from the Dungeon Master… or Guardian, or whatever," I casually hum. Sleep deprivation is making me lose my creativity.
"The golden guy; the final boss," he helpfully adds.
"Yeah, them," I mumble absentmindedly.
"Maybe you can make that 'divine energy,'" Yunia suggests to him.
"The fuck are you talking about? Have you become demi-gods, or some shit?" Lily rudely interjects. It seems nobody's told her how the fight went yet.
So I sigh and explain, "No, it's just that the boss used a type of energy that I can only describe as 'divine,' but my dragon side could tap into it and use it against him."
"I managed to stop him from using that 'energy' to blow us up, but that's about it," Thant follows up.
And I'm happy with that, even though he missed the first javelin that hit my dragon form. "Nice, thanks. It really saved us."
"So I really missed all the fun," Lily mumbles sourly.
And I still have a bit of energy left in me to banter, "Don't worry, Brett took your pace and did just as well."
But Yunia more seriously replies before Lily can riposte, "Still, we missed your super strength. The Guardian had a shield that forced us to use our cannons at close range, which repeatedly made us go deaf."
"Really? I could've broken a goddamn energy shield with my hammer if I had participated?" the cinnamon loli whines dramatically, then snorts.
"Sorry, someone had to suffer the curse," I mumble wryly
"Brett takes it next time," she replies rather seriously.
I'm not sure Brett's soul is as resilient as hers, but I don't want to argue about this, so I turn to Chesa again and ask, "So, do you think you can do it?"
"I can try…" she prudently answers.
And I shrug. "That's good enough. We don't have any other good ideas of how to wake it up." Then I pointedly turn to Hana and Aoi, who are playing around with the Lord's head, pushing it around and watching it slowly fall down in the hope that it wakes the big bird.
But Chesa is still feeling unsure of this task, so she turns to Roxanne, who instinctively looks away to dodge all responsibility. Then the mer girl turns to Yunia, who stares back but shows no reaction. The only help she gets is an encouraging smile from Ciel.
"Fine… I'll try it," she finally agrees.
So we just sit back and wait for Chesa to begin her thunderstorm.
Meanwhile, Alissa finishes questioning the ones involved.
It seems that the thieves did a Hitman, knocking out some of the laborers that were transporting the rifles to the front and stealing their uniforms. Traffic was very heavy, and security was lax since the whole fucking Sky Lands were in crisis mode, so it really wouldn't have been hard for a dedicated group to find and infiltrate the secret golem factory.
They got found out by a golem that didn't recognize their faces as they entered the factory, so they stole that one and nabbed whatever rifles they could get their hands on before they ran and wounded a Lordsguard on the way out. Alissa also got their facial descriptions, but they can just use magic to change their appearances, and nobody got a name, and by now, they've likely teleported to gods-know-where.
My only hope is that they give the golem enough time to activate the self-destruct order. I really don't care too much about the rifles being stolen because they don't have the tools to cheaply reproduce our manufacturing precision, and, at most, they'll come up with some overengineered bullshit like the supersonic javelin throwers that Dawn of Fire had.
Then Chesa's storm forms up, and we eagerly wait for the first lightning to fall.
--
--
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