Chương 159: 72 - I AM A GOD

The meteor reigned supreme in the sky above Graceland. Its dark rock hid a blinding light inside, under the cracks. Corlander held it there with one of his arcane powers, using it to hold the city hostage. And when he was done with it, the meteor itself faded away into sparkles of light falling like bright snowflakes. Corlander stood under a rain of his own light. He was standing right in front of T'balt, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Tyene had taken his Wanderer's loot, leaving him with nothing but the thinker to revel in this fear he felt, not for himself but for the future and the family he wanted so badly. He ran through every option in his head, a countless number of times. But in those run-throughs, every action was met with swift consequences. He saw how fast Corlander moved. His light was somehow faster than the Seraphs. He could be in places before his image even disappeared from his previous spot.

Even the pressure of looking at the man, and the eyeballs across his arms, made it feel like he was slowly bleeding to death. The only question on T'balt's tongue was, "how?" Corlander considered the question.

"I am a God, now. You must understand. There is no beast in this world, no trick that can match the strength I have created for myself. With every one that tries, I get stronger." He paused, observing the stamps on his arms, and the way the eyes encompassed them like he was noticing it for the first time.

"The multiplied light of those Seraphs has made even a country's length a trivial distance. And for that again I must thank you, T'balt. I have become one with the light." T'balt helplessly looked on, as did Dr. Sharon, Vienna, and any other Gracelandian in the area. But Tyene spit on the ground near his feet.

"Good for you. Now you finally look like the monster you always dreamed of being." Corlander looked at the mark her spit made and then at her.

"A monster? Think of me as you will. It makes no difference. I'll give you one chance… Give me the loot thief. And I'll leave you be." Corlander looked directly at Tyene, instantly scanning that she had the loot he sought. She ground her teeth, clearly with no intention to give it up to him. But T'balt thought about it. Every hair on his body stood up, telling him that if he fought Corlander like this, he was not going to win. But if they did give him the thief at least…

"Don't even consider it," German interrupted him.

"I am in his mind. He knows he can't kill you. But you're the only people in this world that could hope to stand up to him. For that, he'll never let you go. And the rest will not live to see another second."

"I figured as much," T'balt thought.

"Can you think of a realistic outcome where that doesn't happen anyway?"

"Not currently, no."

"I've got one." T'balt glanced at Tyene. He could see her hand twitching by her side as Corlander stared at her.

"Shove it up your ass," she teleported behind him, looking to surprise with the loot thief. But it turned out to be him who surprised her, for when she teleported, so did he, and he was already behind her. From the tip of his finger, a blast of light thrusted through her shoulder, somehow having the force to launch her. It happened so fast that T'balt couldn't even see what happened until Tyene was rolling on the ground. Tyene struggled, holding the bleeding and burning wound.

"That shouldn't kill you," Corlander said, already over top of her. His feet floated just above the ground, not sullying his boots with the dirt of the earth.

"I can see that you're one of them. Who knew you'd raise yourself so high in the world, Tyene." Vienna yelled as soon as Tyene was hurt. She dropped Cannon, immediately forgetting about him to attack Corlander. Before she could get anywhere near him, the ground underneath her turned soft and pulled her in. Quicksand. The once stone ground was now quicksand, swirling into a hole the exact size of her body and pulling her inside. Reacting, she melted into the shadows.

Her dark 2d form slithered out of the hole, and she reemerged on the flat ground. She grabbed for her gun, slower than usual with her left hand. Not hesitating, though, she fired a bullet aimed directly between Corlander's glowing eyes. He held a finger up, and the bullet stopped, suspended in mid-air. She fired three more shots, and those bullets did the same. Instead of turning to light to attack her, Corlander simply twirled his finger.

Those bullets then appeared to turn inside out, the metal shifting around them to unform and then reform into one, facing opposite him. Then, with the flick of his finger and without a sound, the large bullet ripped through the air at twice their original speed. Vienna couldn't react fast enough. None of them knew it was happening to warn her. Even if they did, it happened so fast that the words wouldn't have had time to leave their mouths. It pierced her throat. Reading on this site?

This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. She didn't scream. She didn't gag. She didn't do anything. Just stood there as if waiting for something to tip her over. T'balt reached into his pocket, searching his loot, trying to find something that could help, but even his slowed thoughts were panicked. Too much to do anything rational.

"She isn't as fortunate as you, to be a Redeemer," Corlander said calmly. Tyene's eyes widened at the sight and her thunder cracked. But she didn't go to attack him. Instead, she went to Vienna, who had finally fallen to her back, clutching her throat. Dr. Sharon was there trying to heal where the bullet had ripped open her neck.

"I won't let you die. Just hold on." The doctor said.

"HEY STOP! LOOK OUT!" T'balt tried to warn him, but there wouldn't have been much he could do even if he saw it. Corlander was psychically manipulating Vienna's gun. It was suspended in the air, aimed at the doctor's head. It fired, killing him instantly. Tyene watched the doctor fall to his back, horrified.

"Wait! Vienna's neck is still open! Don't!" She scrambled at the doctor's body, desperately searching for the healing loot that would've dropped out of his neck. She tried to heal Vienna, not caring about the cracks forming in her face. There wasn't a thought in her mind to remove one of her loots before equipping a fourth. She placed her hands on Vienna's bloody gash as her friend lost light in her eyes. Tyene muttered, "Not again. Not again," as her hands started to glow. T'balt searched his small pack of loot.

"Shit… nothing worth anything." His personal supply was limited, since he had given most of it away preparing for their defense. That's when he realized all the powers they had to counter Corlander were in Tyene's possession. He didn't blame her. he was unconscious after all, but that meant he was basically to just watch things happen. As Tyene tried to work on Vienna's wound, chains erupted out of the ground around her. They seized her wrists, pulling her hands away from Vienna's throat.

Tyene's body was contorted backward as she yelled in resistance. But they only pulled so far, just enough to pin her to the ground. She was still watching, Vienna struggle for her life. Corlander intended for her to watch her die. Tyene summoned the booma loot and three small bombs apparated, and threw themselves at Corlander. He light-formed, leading them to set fire to the air and combust into nothingness. Then he reappeared, floating gently next to Vienna.

"GET AWAY FROM HER!" Tyene yelled. Then she realized the Wanderer didn't respond to being bound as some other loots did. She teleported again, trying to go for Corlander's neck. But her fist connected with an invisible glass-like surface. She teleported again, thrashing at it from several sides until a sudden blinding light robbed her of her senses. When she came to, Corlander had grabbed her by the mouth, stifling her breath.

"Stop... let me... go…" she tried to say. But of course that wouldn't work. From his hand, some green caustic smoke started to flow into her mouth and nose. It made her immediately want to vomit, but the grip of Corlander on her face forced it all inside her. But he passively let her go, hand still leaking that substance. She wobbled, vision blurring, body weakening.

"More… fucking poison…" Corlander watched her desperately try to find solid ground like she was on a ship during high tide. Seeing her so helpless seemed to amuse him as he watched her until she eventually fell over to her stomach, reaching for Vienna. She coughed and wheezed as her stepfather floated gently over to her. T'balt stepped between them.

"Stop!" He held his hands up.

"You've got to have a line somewhere. She was your family once. Doesn't that mean anything to you?" He couldn't think of anything else to say that might buy him some time.

"No," Corlander said. Then he looked around the city.

"Trying to maintain any semblance of a family has only ever netted me FAILURE AND BETRAYAL!" he suddenly screamed. Then, as if even that was an act, he lowered his voice again.

"They could never understand the weight of ambition. Not you. Not her. Not her mother. Not German. NOT A SINGLE SOUL ON THIS PLANET BUT ME… People like that won't hold me back. They could never hold me back." As Corlander spoke, Tyene used the distraction to inch her hand towards her own neck. She was following German's orders. She grabbed the wanderer and threw it in the air. T'balt caught it and equipped it. Corlander tried to intercept it, but he flew his body right next to T'balt in panic.

T'balt grabbed him and teleported them both high in the air over the city. There was only one thing he could think of that might stop something this strong—his last resort.

"I'm sorry, Cannon. I'll make it up to you someday." Corlander gripped tightly onto T'balt's shirt as they floated weightlessly.

"I'm not letting go of you this time."

"I was counting on that." The sky was filled with fire as a spherical pocket of destruction temporarily brightened the city. The sound of it ruptured in a low moan as the shock wave sent a sharp wind through the city. Tyene looked up at it, still coughing from the poison.

"What was that?"

"It's okay," German said.

"He used his second chance." She nodded, in a motion more akin to dozing off. The poison was working on her, but it was slow acting. She wasn't too debilitated to go back to Vienna's aid… But when she looked down at her, Vienna wasn't breathing. T'balt swam to the shore of the city, pulling himself up on one of the beaches. He was completely naked, the usual side effect of the second chance destruction.

But when he finally got to shore, he breathed a lot easier even though he had lost the thinker and the wanderer deep into the ocean when his body disintegrated or whatever it did in the large explosion. He sat in the sand, thinking hard and getting over the searing white pain of being exploded from the inside out. That's when he heard a pair of wings flapping. But when he looked up, the wings weren't full of eyeballs. It was Ellie, floating down above him.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I got nervous… and I needed to make sure everything was going to be okay."

"I think we're good now." He sighed, hesitant to tell her the full truth of what that meant. He didn't have a second chance to bring Cannon back anymore.

"Well, your clothes aren't," she said, reaching out a hand.

"Come on. Seems like we have some cleaning up to do. I'm not gonna have a baby in a city that looks like this." Tyene knelt next to Vienna's body. German was yelling all sorts of things at her, but it was white noise by then. He wasn't gonna stop her from putting the gun to her head. She had made a promise after all. Her finger tingled on the cold steel of the trigger as she apologized for the uncountable number of times. A few of them were for T'balt. But it was better this way, anyway. She didn't feel it.

The pain was swept away by numbness. Instead, she saw it, and she heard it hit the ground. Her arm, the one she remembered holding the gun, was severed at her bicep, pooling blood on the ground. The cold golden silhouette of Mitas Corlander floated over her, face cracking. Damaged but already healing from it. There was a sword in his hand.

"And what do you think you're doing?" Tyene looked at him, then at her arm. And then screamed.