Unfortunately, I’m Not A Hero: 141: Interlude: The Popess

Unfortunately, I’m Not A Hero: 141: Interlude: The Popess

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Commissioned by Shaderic

Wordcount: 2500

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Wrath and ruin stretched before me.

“What is this?” I looked to the captain of my guard, covered in enchanted steel and gleaming beneath the noon sun, as I rode upon my warhorse. “What weapon caused this?”

A forward base to support the grand crusade to destroy Ylstu was behind me, but before me a was a vast series of tents bearing the icon of the Goddess. White wings wrapped around a sword and shield for humanity. However, that icon brought me no solace, as I looked upon wounds and illnesses beyond compare.

Men and women of the Empire, proud soldiers, were dying slowly and painfully to a weapon created by Hikigaya Hachiman.

“Your Holiness, the reports say that it is a form of alchemy that has turned Manticore venom airborne and increased its danger.” Fear crept into my chief guard’s voice, but he summoned the strength to overcome it with bravery. The virtue unmade the sin, so I made no mention of his wrongdoing and did not strip him of his rank. “It permeates an entire camp after being delivered by some sort of Undead creature at high speeds, then it is set alight by a grand explosion into a firestorm. Whole battalions have been unmade by the attacks.”

“I see.” I spoke the truth and cast my gaze on a nearby soldier who survived the terror described by my guard captain. The man lay feverish and squirmed on a cot where he was bound by several straps. The bandages wrapped over his right arm and right torso were freshly wrapped, but they were already beginning to stain red. His nurse returned and looked despondent at the sight, and despaired at the tent filled with a dozen others whose wounds would not heal. “This is not a weapon. It is a curse. A mark against for those who stand with humanity wrought by Archtraitor himself.”

It was a curse of pain and suffering to all who survived his wrath to a slow and terrible death. The healing potions and poultices would keep men alive, but Manticore venom was magical in nature. It fed off those it afflicted like a parasite for the purposes of permanently increasing their libido. The sensual nature of the poison was stripped away until only the monstrous truth remained and Hikigaya Hachiman inflicted it upon the Empire in the form of pure gas and cursed flame.

These men will only be free from the pain of their burns and wounds if the afflicted areas were hewn off them, while they received no magical remedy to aid them.

Suffer being skinned alive wherever my curse has touched you, the Archtraitor has declared to Empire soldiery, or perish slowly and painfully.

Look at what I have wrought upon the strongest and bravest of your ilk, the Archtraitor said to the Empire’s citizenry, I have scarred and inflicted pain upon them worse than death. Stand against me and I shall do the same to you.

It was a challenge to the Empire on every conceivable front.

Thus, I knew what I had to do.

I clasped my hands and spoke to the Goddess.

“Oh, Divine Mother of Humanity, grant me the power to purge these valiant souls’ bodies of the curse that has afflicted them.” I spoke to Her and I felt her gaze settle upon me. My body coursed with power, some my own, but most beyond me. It swirled within my chest and filled me with love and affection for all the thousands of wounded in the tents outside the base, and I felt a great joy as I cast my hands out from atop my warhorse. “By the grace of the goddess, be cleansed and purified of corruption!”

The goddess’s might surged from me and struck the sky.

A moment later her blessing rained down from the sky over the entire camp like golden snowflakes.

And, they cleansed whomsoever they touched of their curse, their pain, and their wounds. Bandages fell away to reveal unmarked skin, but that mattered not to those who felt the Archtraitor’s curse. They only cared that the incessant pain and burning wherever they were harmed was gone.

“P-praise the Goddess!”

“The Popess has saved us! Thank you! Thank you!”

“Praise the Goddess and her mercy!”

A crowd of the healed came forth in moments and my guards formed a square around me. The healed were fervent and their praised replaced the power I used and pushed my reserves to greater heights. The Goddess was pleased as I gave her all that I could and more than she expended through their praise.

Then, I felt a horrible premonition, as the Goddess’s gaze within the back of my mind sharply turned towards the sky.

She warned me of something from Beyond coming, a creature not of our world, but of immense might, but I could not see it.

So, I focused my power into my eyes and gazed where she did.

And, I saw it.

A terrible affront to life itself, a chimerical creature created solely to be killed and made into the Undead, and used in its death to carry a bringer of death and despair. At first, I thought it impossible. All of the Archtraitor’s weapons scarcely reached past the frontier and this base was a few days from the capital upon horseback. He had no settlements or armies to launch his cursed creations upon us… but I cast those doubts aside as the grotesque thing with its spectral wings angled towards us.

“Above us! Strike against the enemy above us now!”

I yelled out a cry for my guards and they responded with deft hands. Spells were woven and great arrows were drawn in moments, while they turned to where I pointed. They enhanced their bodies and gazed upward and fired at it… but it was too late.

“No!”

A shield was deployed at its front and the fastest of spells struck it, while its speed and agile wings allowed it to dodge as it flew. Faster than a Harpy, although impossible for its sheer size, it flew to over us… over the base behind us… and activated between the base and the town of merchants, families, and auxiliaries that supported the Empire’s army.

No.

Not between.

Above both.

For a moment, its speed fell off and it glided, then in an instant a great and terrible surge of power poured forth from the despicable creature. The summoning was plain and obvious, a Kindred mimicry of the Empire’s true power, but it was enough to call upon creatures from the stars even if it could not pierce dimensions. The summoning took in the hidden tanks of condensed Mana housed within the vessel, and then used that power to convert the vessel’s mass into power for the summoning too.

Fear filled my heart, as enough power to summon a legion of barbarians who knew no faith coalesced for the sake of a single being.

And, then, suddenly the sky was filled with a black sphere.

A gate for an unspeakable horror.

“Fire upon it! Fire upon it now!” I summoned my power and might, as did my guards, and we threw upon it all we had. The flames of the righteous, bolts of lighting blessed by the goddess, and cold iron enchanted to poison the flesh of monsters. All those things flew towards the gash in reality that had formed… but it was too late. “Fi-aaahhh!!!”

Our increased reflexes and perception made us react quickly, but it was moot in the face of the sphere that was a gate into the very edges of reality itself. Like any gate into the deep abyss, it hungered for life, for air, and for all the planet offered. The open maw inflicted upon the surrounding space a terrible force. Windows broke and shattered flew at speeds that would easily kill, stone and brick came apart and flew into the maw of the abyss, and the ground itself was ripped apart and began to fly.

The military base was ravaged, but its fortifications allowed many some reprieve and purchase, as they desperately held on against the hunger of the stars. The auxiliary base filled with wagons and tents fared far worse. I saw men, women, children, horses, oxen, and entire wagons consumed by the void to pop and freeze the instant they left our planet. The faithful of the goddess perished… and those who I saved desperately held onto anything they could for the sake of surviving.

But I knew that a scant few would survive this.

This was a weapon unlike any other ever made in history.

The gate itself was terrifying enough, but its size and shape meant that it was an invitation for something befitting it.

Already, at its edges, malign creatures of the abyss were spilling forth. Chitinous, tentacled things with too many eyes entered our world and supped upon its magics to gain forms of the Kindred, even though they were completely alien to anything born upon the world. The creatures born in the abyss cared not for the effects of the gate and they set themselves upon the people of the world.

Some tore people apart to study them.

Some embraced people and turned them into pulp.

Some tried to use their newfound organs and instincts only to kill who they grasped.

Blood flowed and screams began to drown the roaring consumption of the gate, but I knew that it was just the start.

My heart dropped and my goddess wept as the hungry maw was suddenly filled and black, ichor fell like rain from its edges.

The creature was a mass of undulating flesh and mouths and eyes, just like its lesser kindred, but it was absolutely massive… and intellect beyond mortal ken filled its house-sized eyes. One of my guards looked too closely and gurgled, before falling over clutching at his skull and screaming. When his helmet was removed, there were eyes in his mouth, in his nose, in his ears, and down his throat, despite all the protections given to him by his training and his armor.

My voice shook, as I realized that there was only one thing I could do, in the face of such reckless hatred.

“We go now! We must kill the Archtraitor before he unleashes another of these!” I stirred my horse into action and ignored the cries of betrayal from the people that I had healed. My guards took to their own horses in understanding, and formed a square around me to escort me out. The scent of alien ichor reached my nose and I chanced a look back. The immense creature was halfway through. The remains of the military base were firing upon it and gashing its skin, but they were doing no more than pinching its skin. The gigantic creature was something never before seen on this planet and it would wreak untold destruction. Its mere presence was lessening the magic in the air as it sought the same form as its lesser kin. Its foremost mass was changing shape slowly, as even the mightiest magic ever cast struggled to shape its form to fit the world. “We go now! We ride to end the ruinous power that threatens all!”

And, so, I ran away from the terrible thing that Hikigaya Hachiman wrought.

Every time I looked back, my shame and terror doubled.

The first time I looked back, the hill-sized creature full entered the world. It was a mound of limbless flesh filled with mouths and eyes. From its flesh came forth parasites that found easier prey and they swarmed all left behind. It found this disdainful and gazed upon them… and they were erased from the earth along with their victims. Nothing remained of the military base thereafter.

Another glance back and I watched as the mass began to crack and crumble. I hoped that it would perish, that it would somehow not be able to survive the planet, but my hopes were dashed. It had harnessed its power and the surrounding power after finding it lacking and used its larger body as a cocoon to grow a human-like form. With my enhanced vision, I spotted the Eldritch creature and my blood grew cold.

Its features were female and exaggerated like all Kindred, and its inhuman nature was obvious with its yellow with three irises.  However, its human features were of the Far East, much like Hikigaya Hachiman’s own features were similar too. She was like a matron of his misbegotten and unblessed race with sharp eyes and long, black hair.

Then, I realized that she had no way of knowing how he looked, of how he orchestrated her arrival, unless—

“Oh, Goddess, protect me!” I cried out and I felt a terrible sickness be scourged from within me. A lump in my throat rose up and when I retched it out, I spotted a half-formed eye in the bile and blood that came out of my throat. I healed myself and cast the spells upon my retinue. Shaken and disturbed, we still moved forward upon our horses towards Ylstu. “Go! Do not look back! Do not look back!”

I ordered my guards and they complied.

I had no intention of looking myself, but a vision speared through my skull, and I found myself looking through the creature’s eyes. Its immense power and might buzzed in the very periphery of my shared senses, as did its immutable and eternal wisdom, and I felt blood flow from my eyes, nose, and ears despite my goddess fighting against it and driving it away.

It forced me to look and see through its gaze as it gestured towards the mountains and dams that separated the Empire from the frontier…

And from its fingertip issues forth a thin beam of light that traced itself from the ground on its feet to the nearest, blessed mountain.

Anything in its path was cut in twain… and a moment after the beam dispersed whatever it touched came aglow with pure energy that it couldn’t hope to contain.

I watched at as the final wall that would separate the Empire from the hordes of Kindred in the final battle was utterly torn asunder and valley too large to be defended formed.

And, just as my Goddess released me from the creature’s grasp, I saw it vision begin to move as it moved towards my blessed flock.

Oh, forgive me, my children, my sisters, and my brothers!

I must go forth to slay the creator of these calamities before he unleashes more curses and maledictions upon us!

The Eldritch horror he has unleashed upon the world must be undone by the Empire!