Chương 71: Chapter 64 - Peace and the Demon Summoner (part 3)

Verchiel stared at the portal, dropping into a readier stance. Three people walked through. A tall, blonde man in an all-white suit-style outfit. A late-teenage girl in suit-style attire, but made of an absolute mess of colors. And Cassandra, in her usual silver dress. Henrik summoned three separate shields. Liu recomposed into the crane stance. The portal vanished behind her. She glanced at Liberation. He coughed out blood, unable to speak.

"You can take a rest," she said. She glanced at the tall man.

"Life, repair the device." The next glance aimed at the girl.

"Feast, prepare to snap-charge it."

"Yes, Founder," they both replied, each rushing to a different side. Verchiel drew in all the power compartments he normally kept at bay. All his reserve mana pulled into him.

"Nova release." His entire form lit with ethereal flame, wings spreading hundreds of feet wide. Cassandra raised an eyebrow.

"That's it? This is what it's supposed to look like. Nova release." For a split second, Verchiel's, Henrik's, and Liu's vision shifted. They saw themselves standing at an infinite, black ocean. Up in front of them, Cassandra sat on a diamond throne. They blinked, and it was gone. Verchiel slashed, releasing two bright crescents of pure force at her. Cassandra stretched her arm toward Verchiel.

"Almighty push." Invisible force caught and pushed Verchiel, Henrik, and Liu. All their defenses gave up in a nanosecond. The force threw them into the emptiness. The four suns moved. All four of them at once. They smashed into them and each other, annihilating all three of them. The suns crushed each other, all collapsing upon a single point. A black hole formed from the pressure, devouring the rest of the four suns.

As the suns were collapsing, endless roots and vines covered the pipeline mechanism of the energy-draining station. They repaired them in an instant. The black hole collapsed upon itself into a single point. The point exploded in a directed explosion. White light flashed over everything around, bathing them in light so intense it burned the eyes of anyone who watched. The released energy moved like snakes of light, each blasting into its own pipeline from the station.

I exhaled. Peace wasn't moving. The mechs were destroyed. The battle wasn't over, but it didn't matter. The shards of Peace's crystal, of Mephistopheles, vanished in Sarah, so I had to get her out of the ritual. I stepped to the coffin and reached for Sarah. Reality tore above the coffin. Cassandra fell through, landing with one shoe on the edge of the coffin. Oh shit. I pulled on my power. Intensely Vengeful Shields.

"Really? Pink shields?" She snorted and aimed her left arm at me.

"Almighty push." An invisible force threw me back. Cassandra's left arm exploded into blood. But I flew like a rocket from the ziggurat into space. And not just me. Mina, in all her titanic height, flew behind me. Together with a bunch of golden planes and machines. A pink string of light stretched to our sides. They caught Mina and me stretching like elastic bands. Mina turned into her human form, just with vicious claws stretching out from her fingertips. She braced her feet against the pink light.

Like a rubber band, the light snapped, shooting us back to the ziggurat. I saw Gilgamesh standing at the platform's edge. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. I flew by Elsha and landed next to Gilgamesh. Mina flew straight at Cassandra, arms stretched forward, aimed like a missile. Cassandra's left arm had already reformed, just with black nails.

Light now poured out of the portal, an absurd current of energy, all going into Sarah, having long since obliterated Peace's body to nothing. The pillar of energy completely warded off the coffin. Cassandra flicked her wrist. A portal appeared in front of her and behind Gilgamesh. Mina flew straight into it, and her claws pierced his back.

"Nice hit!" Cassandra had the portal disappear.

"Shame you've almost stopped me." Mina pulled herself out of Gilgamesh. He grunted, gold repairing his body until he straightened.

"We've been through this a dozen times, Cassandra." He cracked his neck, joints popping. The entire golden army vanished, power instantly withdrawing back to him.

"This time won't be any different."

"That's where you're wrong." A horn snaked out of Cassandra's left side of the forehead. Her left eye turned black.

"Because in this life, I'm made of the devil's blood." Gilgamesh's eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch.

"Is that why you're doing this whole Paradise bullshit? Because the devil told you to?"

"No. I hate all the little rules and restrictions you've baked into life on Earth. So, I've made my own place. But because I know you're not going to let me be, I'll make my own artificial goddess to keep all the rulers, secret societies, demon princesses, angels, demigods, eldritch horrors, and everyone fucking else away." Very poor choice of words. First of all, it was bound to piss Elsha off, because she was on the list.

"Oh, really?" Elsha got off the petal sofa. She floated straight in a standing position. The petals from the sofa scattered around her.

"Let's see about it then." A swarm of pink motes of light appeared all around her.

"Ten thousand tears of obliteration!" I just pushed power into my shields and took cover a step lower. The motes fired in an absurd barrage. Mostly at the ziggurat top, partly all over the fortress to annihilate all remaining soldiers and weaponry. The energy column around the coffin devoured the blasts as if they were nothing. Cassandra's arms blurred around her, creating tiny portals to misdirect the motes. But they came from all sides, thousands of them. I saw the first one hit, tearing apart her shoulder.

It instantly regenerated, but a thousand more landed. She and the entire top of the platform disappeared in a continuous explosion. When the explosions finished, Cassandra still stood in her place, holding herself by the knee, panting. Elsha appeared behind her and leaned on her with a shoulder around her arm.

"Passionate flare." In the split instant, Cassandra made three portals, an entrance in front and behind Elsha, and an exit behind the one behind Elsha. Energy from Elsha exploded like a nuclear explosion. Even off the direct line of sight, it strained my shields to their limit. The explosion devoured the platform. When it finished, the portals finished too. Cassandra now stood behind Elsha, barely half of her remaining, a leg, a part of her torso, an arm, and most of the head.

The destroyed parts quickly remade themselves. She aimed the arm at Elsha.

"Almighty—""Counterspell," Elsha snapped, a pink flash blinking around Cassandra's arm. Mina bolted across the platform, reached Elsha's back in an instant, and buried her claws into her. Damn mind-control. Cassandra aimed the second, just remade arm at Elsha.

"Push." The invisible force threw Elsha and Mina away, catapulting them off the fortress. Elsha burst into petals, breaking both of their momentum. She reformed in an instant, glaring at Mina.

"Bad dog." A pink circle appeared around her.

"All-annihilating beam!" A massive pink beam hit Mina, pummelling her down into the base with a massive explosion. Gilgamesh arrived at Cassandra. He stepped straight before her, and a massive sword formed in his hands. Two-handed, core golden, the blade silver. He raised his hands and swung. The blade blurred through the air and severed Cassandra's head. Blood shot from her body, catching the head in the air. He swung three more times. Each cut cleanly severed her body.

Blood shot through the gaps, holding her connected together like a grotesque figurine. The ziggurat turned into gold. A wave rose around them from all directions. Was I just… going to watch her die? Did I even have an alternative? Well, yes, I had. I could pull on my connection to Elsha, have her stop time, and convince her to do something. But… that really wasn't the right thing to do. Even for me, to betray everything to help Cassandra at the last second, in spite of all she had done, it was too much.

I looked at her. She still had the simmering glare in her eyes. Not a shred of doubt or fear. With a sigh, I said and did nothing. At the end of the day, Cassandra organized this all. She orchestrated the climbing so that they got someone with the Slayer achievement, arranged everything to complete the ritual via the Paradise organization, as she apparently couldn't participate in any of the ritual's part directly due to her being a foreign aspect to the tower, and now the plan ran into the inevitable wall.

Power surged around Cassandra for another almighty push. Gilgamesh slashed, cutting her vertically in two, disrupting the spell. The golden wave caught Cassandra, sealing her into a bubble of pure gold. The portal above the coffin vanished, and the energy column cut off. All the light vanished from the coffin and energy lines embedded into the ziggurat. Gilgamesh stepped past the bubble that held Cassandra, lowering his sword. Sarah sat up in the coffin. She glanced at us, eyes still her.

But wings burst out of her back, made of solid feathers. Gilgamesh gripped the sword with both hands, taking a stance again.

"Worst comes to worst, Sarah will despawn to the pod." Elsha floated to me, still without a sofa.

"Looks like we're going to have to fight her." Sarah frowned.

"Fight me? But I am god." A pulse of power hit me like a supernova. All my shields disintegrated in a split second, and my body followed. Darkness swallowed me and threw me into the pod. I wrenched over, with no mana, vomiting blood. And in their pods, so did Liu, Henrik, Verchiel, Mina, and Gilgamesh.