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End of the World Palace
Caila's mind was chaotic for a moment before she took a breath and calmed down. She didn't understand what could have happened. What had happened to Team Fear? She checked the soul lights of the entire team, and it seemed that only two of the original six-member team remained!
One Spectra had died before, but there were still five left then. Now it's just two. Caila rubbed her face with a sigh. She did that for a few seconds before lowering her hands and touching the remaining lights to see who had survived.
Miss Kira and D'anal.
Caila shook her head. So Mara was gone too? She kind of expected him to be one of the ones to make it. He was, after all, the oldest and strongest of the team. He wasn't the strongest physically, but his ability to control fear and hypnosis was a truly frightening combination.
She had to find out what happened. Caila touched the light belonging to D'anal, who should know what happened when he was the last one to fight Liberia.
*****
South part of End of the World
Miss Kira and D'anal were near the ruined house, actually in the house right across the street. D'anal was in the frame of the mirror and Miss Kira stood across from him, both in grim silence.
D'anal sighed, for the umpteenth time. Miss Kira lifted her face, which resembled only a shadowy silhouette, toward him. "Stop sighing and say something," she said irritably.
D'anal looked down and didn't even look up as he answered. "And what am I supposed to say, Miss Kira? We screwed up big time..."
Miss Kira paused for a moment before speaking again. "Yes. But at least we accomplished the task..."
"Oh, yeah?" D'anal said with a scoff. "I don't know that part of the task was to let most of us die. This was supposed to be a game for us! Ugh!" D'anal grabbed his head and rubbed it hard until his smooth hair was all messy.
"I guess... we need to reconsider how strong the people on the outside are now," Miss Kira acknowledged slowly.
The two were silent again for a moment, thinking. "I guess that also means that even the monsters outside won't be as weak as we thought," Miss Kira added after a moment.
"Is that what you're wondering now? To hell with the lesser monsters, but Mara's dead too!" D'anal actually liked Miss Kira, but right now he was too upset to think about matters of the heart.
Miss Kira had lost her shape at D'anal's words and now looked more like a black blur. "I didn't mean it that way. Sure, I was excited about the possibility of new territory and getting more openings for Adepts. But now I was thinking more about the power of the world outside and how much they could threaten us," she explained, thinking.
Miss Kira had ambition, but she had missed her opportunity before. Getting Liege's attention was difficult, as their goddess was followed by hundreds of thousands of worshippers. Kira was just a drop of water in the ocean. There were dozens of more qualified individuals before her who were suited for the position of Adept.
Before the catastrophe, Liege was an unmatched power in this world. She had worshippers all over the world, but Liege directly ruled only one of the continents while letting the others go their own way. Their Liege was strong enough that it didn't have to worry about the whole world and there was no danger of anyone stepping up and threatening her in any way.
The rest of the world had to bow their heads to the greatness of their Liege, and if Liege wanted to she could dominate everyone.
But she didn't. She even maintained trade and diplomatic relations with other continents. Kira didn't understand why Liege didn't take over the rest of the world by force, but she also understood that trying to understand the mindset of a Goddess was beyond her imagination.
Once every five years, diplomats from the rest of the world came to the End of the World to renew peace treaties, report on major events, and other things Kira didn't know about.
The main thing was that outside of the End of the World, Liege owned a total of thirty different smaller areas under different names in a legal manner, where prospective Adepts were sent to be looked after for a period of time. Liege gave them free rein to do as they wished with the area; the only rule was no expansion.
Not everyone made it back. Kira wasn't sure what happened to those who didn't return, but she assumed they failed and were killed by local rulers or self-proclaimed heroes. Humans and creatures from other continents weren't weak at all, and some were able to match even the humans with Liege's blessing.
But those who made it back after some time for evaluation either advanced to Adept or were judged unsuitable. Those who became Adepts then took the position of Keeper of one of the main twelve regions, and if they succeeded there as well, Liege made them a lesser god.
It was not a simple matter, however. It took decades, and success was not guaranteed. If things were that simple, everyone would try to become an Adept, but there was one thing that discouraged a lot of people. If an Adept failed, they would be killed by Liege. So anyone who wanted to try had to accept the possible consequences.
Despite the danger of being killed, there were still plenty of people who tried, and most of the time the Adept positions were always full.
Miss Kira's thoughts drifted a bit from what she was thinking. She thought about the world around her and what it held. Once upon a time, people from other continents had posed a real danger to the residents of the End of the World, not to Liege, but to the others, yes.
When Kira had compared it before, it had seemed to her that the people who had come here were a shadow of what they once were. They seemed weak to her. And since Liege no longer had trade or diplomatic relations with the rest of the world, territorial expansion was possible. Especially since the people were so weak. But Kira underestimated them.
D'anal watched Miss Kira for a moment, but when he saw that she wasn't saying anything and was lost in thought, he sighed and looked through the window at the ruined house.
This was not his brightest moment. Just as he was about to get lost in thought as well, a powerful voice pierced through his head.
"WHAT HAPPENED?"
D'anal was so startled that he fell to the floor and disappeared from the mirror frame for a moment. Miss Kira raised her head and then reached out as if to look at him over the edge of the frame, but it was impossible for her to do so. The world beyond the mirrors could only be inhabited by *Mirrople, and while there were those who had the ability to pass through mirrors or to use them in other ways, they couldn't actually use the mirror world as a Mirrople.
On the other hand, Mirrople in turn couldn't exist outside of mirrors for very long. The longer they were outside of mirrors, the weaker they became until they eventually dissolved into small particles of dust.
There was a legend among the Mirrople that they could once exist outside of the mirrors, but a powerful curse was placed on their race that prevented them from living outside of the mirror world.
D'anal grabbed shakily at the frame and pulled himself up, and the stars seemed to fade a little on his skin. "My Liege..." he said, trying to calm himself.
"D'anal. Tell me what happened." The Goddess's voice was quieter than before, but D'anal felt it sounded far more disturbing than when her words thundered in his mind.
When Miss Kira heard him speak of Liege, she understood that they were being watched by the Goddess right now, so she bowed her head in submission and guilt.
D'anal clasped his hands together in front of him, nervously fiddling with his long fingers. "That... my Liege... we were... we were caught by surprise attack. The enemy was stronger than we anticipated."
Liege didn't speak right away, and D'anal, if he could have, would have been drenched in cold sweat by now. "Didn't I warn you not to play games and take this seriously? Why didn't you listen?" Liege finally spoke again, and D'anal winced guiltily.
"We did! But the enemy did something unexpected!" D'anal tried to defend himself.
"FOUR of my people are DEAD, D'anal! I only let you play this silly hunting game because I believed you were capable enough to take care of things. Is this your way of handling your lives? What's the point of me taking care of you then, if you endanger yourselves like this?"
D'anal squirmed more and more as Liege scolded him. It reminded him strangely of his mother, scolding him when he did something stupid, but unlike his mother, Liege was in a different league. So he was twice as scared.
"My Liege, I'm sorry... we really took things seriously. This was an unexpected turn." D'anal wondered if he should drop to his knees to sincerely beg for forgiveness.
Before he could do so, however, he heard a quiet sigh of resignation. "All right. There's nothing we can do about it now. Tell me what happened... or not. Wait. I'll see for myself." When Liege finished, she fell silent.
D'anal waited tensely for a moment, but heard nothing. Did she leave? And what did she mean, she'd see for herself?
Caila didn't know, but her worshippers had no idea that she might be delving into their memories.
*****
Caila felt a little better when D'anal scolded her, but after a moment, she began to hesitate if she had done the right thing. After all, she didn't know all the facts, and perhaps she had acted too hastily. She should have found out all the information first.
Eventually, Caila sighed in disappointment at her reaction. Once she got rid of her frustration, she began to think more and felt that scolding the boy was not the right move. She should have found out exactly what happened in the first place. She shouldn't have let her own frustration get the better of her, and she was also a damn goddess who should be looking out for her followers.
This way, she was basically just blaming them, but she should rather be scolding herself for not being better. She could blame things on the lack of understanding the scale of her abilities properly yet, or even a deeper understanding of the world around her, but they were still excuses in the end so she wouldn't feel so much responsibility.
Caila knew she couldn't pay attention to everything that was going on around her. She didn't even know if the Gods were really capable of knowing everything that was going on, but she wanted to be more strict with herself and stop making excuses.
"Haa... I still have a long way to go to really be a decent God to my worshippers. I can do better," Caila sighed before touching the light representing D'anal and immersing herself in his memories.
Finding the right memory wasn't hard. As she entered his subconscious, which was like a museum of flying mirrors, a large shining mirror appeared before her. Caila guessed that this was the memory she wanted. After all, what had happened was severe, fresh, and had left an impact on the mirror boy.
Caila immersed herself in the memory.
*****
"Hahahahaha!" D'anal laughed as he flew from one mirror to the next, each time attacking Archbishop Libertia Paalon with his claws.
His claws were as sharp as shards of glass; a light touch was all it took to cut the skin. Libertia had discarded her black cloak some time ago, which had become more of a chopped-up piece of black cloth, revealing her slender and slightly muscular figure. However, no armor protected her. She wore a pair of black-dyed leather pants, a white chemise, and a lace corset.
Her wider hips were accentuated by a belt on which was attached a small box for small items, but that was all she had.
The vicar who had followed her lay on the ground and slowly crawled towards the door at the end of the corridor. Tensely, he bit his lower lip under his mask, not even allowing himself to breathe out loud to draw the monster's attention to himself.
The Archbishop had ordered him to do this, and the vicar wasn't sure whether to be glad he didn't have to be a part of it or angry that she wouldn't let him help. Actually, this way was better for Libertia, since a single kneejerk wouldn't be much help to her. So, she ordered him to protect only himself and try to get to the next corridor.
Libertia had a few minor wounds that she didn't have time to deflect due to the speed of the monster, which kept jumping from one place to another. After a few attacks, her protection broke, and before she could rebuild it, she had to be careful that the monster didn't land a devastating blow.
Libertia first tried to protect herself by breaking the surrounding mirrors around her. However, it turned out that the monster didn't need a very large piece of mirror to use, so she made the situation worse for herself by doing this. She had to move deeper into the hallway where the mirrors were still intact.
She tried to ignore the reflections in the mirror that showed her the source of her race's desire. She knew it was just another tactic to distract her, but it was hard. Lord Abraham was an ancient obsession of her race.
Silver threads shot from her fingers and began to weave themselves into several ropes, which she began to control with her will. It was as if she were holding several whips at once, but they acted as extensions of her hand.
She spread her fingers far apart, and the silver threads began to attack D'anal. The threads shot forward like thrusting spears, trying to pierce through D'anal's moving body.
The vicar, meanwhile, had managed to crawl well away from the scene of the fight, got up on his knees, and began to move faster on all fours before reaching the door and grabbing the handle.
He hesitated and looked back at the Archbishop. He wasn't sure it was a good idea to advance, but they certainly couldn't go back where the skeleton army was waiting for them. Finally, he opened the door and walked into another corridor.
Immediately, he looked around and was in the roof. This corridor looked different again. There were several doors along the scared corridor, and it looked like a high-rise apartment building. The walls were painted with faded yellow paint, and the floor was made of old tiles that needed replacing long ago.
It was silent everywhere, not even the fighting could be heard from the next hallway. The vicar said his prayers and restored the protection around him once more before slowly stepping forward. He kept his eyes on the next door at the end of the corridor, silently hoping to finally find an exit.
He moved forward cautiously, but he was no longer going to be caught out by the fact that everything seemed calm. He knew something was definitely going to happen.
Creeekkk...
The vicar jumped when suddenly one of the doors he was passing by opened slightly. He immediately braced himself, but nothing happened. Cautiously, he looked into the gap but didn't approach. Instead, he moved cautiously past the door, and when he saw that nothing was happening, he continued forward.
"Huh?" The vicar stopped when he saw something up ahead.
The black thing was moving quickly towards him without making a sound. The black creature barely touched the ground and just used its long black limbs to bounce off the walls. The body looked like blackened and dried wood with a few twisted branches sticking out of it. In front of the black torso was a disgusting human head with a gaping lower jaw that appeared to be dislocated, and blood-red small eyes sat unnaturally crooked in the face.
The creature silently made its way towards the vicar, who was startled but prepared to fight the creature anyway. However, as the creature got closer and he could make out more facial features, he got goosebumps and took a step back.
"What... what... why does it look... like that?" He muttered to himself in horror.
"Brat..." The creature suddenly grunted, and the creature's lower jaw moved to the side, showing a sickening smile.
The vicar didn't even realize he was backing away until he rushed backward past the ajar door. When he realized this, he quickly turned and ran back. The vicar wanted to face the skeletons rather than face this.
"Why!? Why does he look like that!?" he screamed in horrified disbelief in his head.
He felt a touch on his back, and his whole body stiffened as the creature suddenly pressed against his back and embraced him all over. "Brat..." It growled in his ear. "Come play."
"No! Go away! Don't touch! Aaaarrrggg!" The vicar roared. He was so scared he didn't even notice it was strange that his protection didn't react, and the creature trapped him anyway.
When the vicar saw the creature run its tongue over his golden mask, and even though he didn't see it, it was too much for him, and his eyes rolled back in horror before he passed out.
Mara opened the door and looked at the vicar who had been standing in front of the ajar door for some time and now collapsed on the floor like a broken doll.
He took a deep breath, almost inhaling the cloth covering part of his face into his mouth. "Hm... quite a tasty scare." He bent down and grabbed the unconscious vicar by the leg before throwing him into the room where the other two unconscious priests were already. He stepped out into the hallway and quietly closed the door behind him before looking back down the hallway.
He made his way over to the main enemy.
*****
Meanwhile, D'anal was trying to deal with the fierce warrior Archbishop Libertia. The narrow corridor was filled with writhing threads that continuously attacked D'anal, who was now having trouble getting close to the horned woman.
The thread wounds were painful, and while not fatal in the slightest, the amount would eventually kill him. It was similar to being stung by a jellyfish; it hurt but nothing terrible. However, if he had jumped into a tub full of jellyfish, he would have been dead.
D'anal swam into the mirror and quickly disappeared from its frame, somewhere he couldn't be seen. Libertia halted her attack and looked around cautiously, breathing heavily.
Libertia's skin suddenly turned white, and she quickly jumped, just in time as a metal trident flew through one of the mirrors, shattering it and sending shards flying everywhere.
Shielding her eyes from the shards with her arm, Libertia quickly moved the threads again, but two dark hands suddenly flew out of the flying shards and struck her, cutting through the fabric of her chest. Gritting her teeth, Libertia backed away quickly. The claws marred her shirt, and the edges began to turn red as they soaked up her blood, which oozed from a deep wound stretching from her collarbone to her waist.
D'anal winced in disappointment when he saw that it hadn't quite worked. He aimed for her neck, but attacking through flying shards was not something he practiced.
Libertia had taken her first major wound, but she was actually quite exhausted. She wasn't built for long fights, and this fight had gone on for far too long. Still, no matter how hard she tried, the mirror monster wasn't easy to defeat. He was too mobile and had the advantage of the environment they had prepared beforehand.
Raising her other hand, Libertia began to use her filaments to stitch the wound on her chest directly. The stinging sensation brought tears to her eyes, but it was still better than bleeding all over the place.
At that moment, a door opened at the end of the hallway, and Libertia froze at the sight of the creature that barely fit in the door frame.
The white-furred creature had loose clothing, most of its face covered by cloth, but there was no hiding its half-animal appearance due to its fur and curling misty fur.
Frowning, Libertia's heart dropped. Dealing with one was already hard enough, and now this one. She thought of the vicar who had come through the door and said a brief mental prayer for his poor soul. She supposed he was dead.
Libertia was at a big disadvantage; she had two enemies here, and there was still a Shadow Monster somewhere, and escape wasn't an option either.
She hesitated only a moment until the Mirror Man appeared in the frame of the mirror near the new monster. At that moment, she decided she had to take a chance.
She raised her hands and pointed all her fingers at herself. The threads shot forward and stabbed into her skin. Libertia gritted her teeth to endure the uncomfortable feeling and began to recite while she glared at the two enemies before her.
"Το αίμα που μου ανήκει το προσφέρω στον θεό μου, το φεγγάρι μου, σε αντάλλαγμα για τη θεϊκή σου δύναμη. Είθε η θεϊκή σου αγάπη να γεμίσει τις φλέβες μου, φεγγάρι μου, και το φως σου να φωτίσει το σκοτάδι της νύχτας και να διώξει τα ακάθαρτα πλάσματα".
Libertia didn't know what the prayer said, but she knew that its effect was powerful and also, above all, dangerous. This prayer would fill her body with divine power, but if her body wasn't strong enough, the divine power would tear her apart. The odds were fifty-fifty, and she could only hope that her body was strong enough.
Mara and D'anal looked at Libertia with curiosity, not understanding why she was attacking herself. But after a moment, they became wary as they sensed an unknown divine power in the air and Libertia's veins began to bulge under her skin, emitting a reddish light.
The power of the light grew stronger before the reddish glow receded and only glowed silver, and Mara's hair on her head bristled.
"That's not good," he muttered. Though he didn't know what this attack was going to do, he felt it was going to be dangerous.
"D'anal. Let's get out of here," he said firmly. But D'anal wasn't as experienced as Mara, and he didn't want to give up his prey.
"What? Why? I've almost got her!" he protested, holding up a hand with sharp fingers that clinked like glass as he tapped them together.
"Boy..." Mara growled impatiently and looked again at Libertia, whose eye sockets had disappeared from her eyes, replaced instead by a silver light and silver tears streaming from her tear ducts.
D'anal frowned at Mara, but Mara suddenly raised a hand clenched into a fist. "Fool!" He called out before slamming it into the mirror, shattering it.
At the same moment he did, the corridor shook, and Mara looked at Libertia, who lit up like a beacon. He made no attempt to run, instead curling into a ball, turning his back and hiding his head in an attempt to protect his vital organs.
KAAABBOOOMMM!
There was a loud explosion. Silver light surged forward, frames shattered, walls crumbled, planks were ripped from the ground. Mara only felt the pain for a moment before his nerves were burned so badly that he couldn't feel the pain, and the world around him was filled with silver light.
"Mara!" D'anal heard more surprised cries.
From the outside, it looked as if the house had inflated, the cracking sounds and straining of the wood lasting only a moment before the silver light filtered through the cracks. The house lasted only a moment, and then it exploded in a flood of light. The priests who were standing nearby quickly tried to escape, most made it, but those who were too close were hit by the blast that burned them.
This all happened in a matter of moments, and D'anal watched in horror through the window of the house opposite where he appeared in the mirror.
He clutched his head. "Shit!"
*****
Caila had enough and stepped out of the memory. She thought about what she had seen and acknowledged that she couldn't blame D'anal for the whole thing.
It seemed that Libertia had used something that was too much for her because she didn't strike Caila as someone who would commit suicide like that. And indeed, being so close to such an explosion was fatal, even for Mara.
She had to process it for a while. The losses were much greater than Caila thought they would be. Could it be better? Or was it worse? She really had no idea how she should judge the whole attack and by what.
She didn't like the fact that her people had died, and Caila wondered if things would have been different had she been involved in the attack herself. She still had a lot to work on. She needed to do better.
Though, Caila pondered for a moment why it didn't work for Libertia. Something similar had happened to Archie; he had been infused with divine power, and his body had not been torn apart. He didn't even suffer like that.
So what was the difference? Will? Physical strength? Libertia was stronger than Archie, so that couldn't be it. She shook her head because she couldn't figure it out. Putting it aside for now and researching it later, she returned to D'anal.
"All right. Gather the rest of the attackers and return to the palace," Caila said one thing to D'anal, not mentioning the scolding she had given him earlier. While she was inclined to apologize, it wasn't appropriate because of her role as a goddess. What god would be taken seriously if he apologized?
She walked back into the throne room and looked around.
"Looks like it's over. Lambert, I'll leave the report on the loss and damage to you," she said and looked at the elegant man beside her.
"Yes, my Liege," Lambert replied with a bow.
Caila closed her eyes for a moment and exhaled. It was finally quiet, wasn't it? Just the rest of the invaders, who without their leadership were just small fish.
She thought of Hellcage and wondered how he was doing in his fight. At last, the moment the followers of the god Baa attacked, she informed Hellcage, and he began his own action.