ROD - Chapter 128

Chapter One-Hundred-Twenty-Eight – Lightning – Part Two

People can believe anything. Even if every single person in the world believed the same thing, it doesn’t necessarily make it true. Real truth does not require belief, it just requires discovery.

-Alpha Jimminite Theta 41-

The proverbial heavens tremble with the grace of an angry and spurned goddess. She should not be here, there should be things preventing her from communing on our world. Yet in normal god fashion she has moved around the rules and made her own.

It’s only fair that I do the same to level the playing field.

My fingers flicker as fast as the tendons allow without snapping from their enhanced mortal frame. This body is not enough as it is to fight a god on equal ground. I would need to be a demi god in order to fight a full fledged one of her caliber.

A challenge then. One I did not expect her to take, one that Azeroc discovered was a one way ticket to the hells. They never learn…

There is some time before Jaledi will appear in the flesh. This world is not her own, she must bring her body to it. She must pass through the gauntlet of wild magic the Earth has which weakens gods as strong as Seraphine. Once she has done that, she will discover my own mire of bullshit I’ve left in the echoes of it. Ones that will sap her strength and fuel the Earth’s protective wards.

Little does she know that she will power her own demise. Until then, I turn, hoping to set in motion the next phase of my longer plan. Mirathane Stormborn. Beautiful, cunning, perhaps a little unhinged at times, and extremely powerful. Owing to her heritage. A heritage I wish to share…

“Mirathane,” I begin, turning to look at her, there is pink light blossoming in her irises, “I need you to make me like you, a Drakaroth.”

She blinks, and then a cascade of magic erupts around her, swelling in her chest as her eyes dance in deep pink light, “Like me… you want to be like me, darling?”

I nod, “I do.”

She swallows and turns to look at the heavens for a moment, she whispers something, “She was right…”

“Are you willing to make me like you?” I ask.

Tears roll down her cheeks as she nods vehemently, “Yes… I want that… if that’s what you really want… darling.”

Why is she crying? Echoes of magic ripple in the sky drawing my attention. Jaledi is nearly here. Her pet Ajax will be summoned to distract me no doubt. A god of her caliber needs only a moment to vanquish me. I need my full attention on her.

Which means that I need to buff my allies so they can beat the shit out of our pinata, Ajax.

“Come here,” I beckon to Clayton and Zero.

“Godslayer?”

I wave my hand and a shroud of secrecy that blocks unwanted eyes envelops us, including Stormborn. The same kind of shroud that Sage’s ballsack tea friend used to hide us before Terra broke in.

The system won’t be able to hear us here.

“I’m going to buff you, with a failsafe mechanism. When Jaledi shows up, your levels will be changed to one hundred. Stormborn, as a Drakaroth you should be able to handle more, so I’ll raise it to a thousand.”

“Admin?” Clayton asks while his eyes become more wary.

Zero looks at him but doesn’t speak.

“A thousand… Darling… level one thousand isn’t possible… is it?” Stormborn asks.

“I was temporarily over three thousand once for slaying a god.”

“Shame they didn’t let you keep it,” Clayton says, then blinks, “Wait… did you say you were going to make us level one hundred?”

“Yes.”

“What the fuck…”

“You should be able to handle anything below a demi god at that level. Stormborn though… I’m not entirely sure what will happen to her. Scaling for Drakaroth is rather… unusual. She might become strong enough to fight Jaledi herself.”

Mira’s eyes bloom again with excitement, “Darling…” she whispers.

“Well if you didn’t get the ire of an admin before, changing system levels I’m sure is against some kind of rule. This is dangerous, Godslayer, doom the Earth kind of danger.”

“Earth is already doomed,” I say, looking toward the sky, “They wrote it off before the System even arrived. We were never meant to win. Why do you think all of our heroes were shitbags?”

He blinks, “What do you mean?”

With the barrier in place, I explain what Mythren wrote. That Earth will fall no matter what we do. Silence falls over them, even Stormborn seems surprised by the revelation.

“Fucking cheating pieces of shit…” Clayton seethes, his wariness is gone and replaced with rage. Good, he’ll need that. He turns to me, a demon in his eyes now, “What are you going to do about that, Godslayer?”

“I’m going to make my own petition… to remove Earth from the Sarlenac games.”

“Using violence?” Mira asks with a grin.

I nod, “A profound amount.”

“Oh… I love this, absolutely love this,” Mira says delightedly, she stretches her neck, “Darling you’ve no idea how happy you’re making me right now.”

I turn to look at her for but a moment, the fervor of her pink eyes is at a new high I haven’t seen before. Runes along her skin seem to shimmer with her excitement.

Lightning strikes a mere twenty paces from us. A moment later it strikes again in the same spot, then it becomes a hundred strikes rapidly cycling. Until I feel it… authority that brushes against the fabric of existence and makes it tremble.

A goddess is coming and I’m feeling very equal opportunity today. Azeroc got the boot, so too shall she.

I don’t have Abyss’s broken damage amplification or a reflect item that I’ve boosted beyond the System’s parameters of expectations. I do have some of the knowledge of the Jimminites though… that is enough to make me confident of my chances. Paired with my precautions. Technically speaking, the agreement I made with Sera should negate any punishments that my actions may cause for Earth.

With that in mind, I am ready to try and save it from these archaic assholes.

Light breaches our world and the ground trembles, sending a shockwave of air out in every direction. The winds howl and magic fractures and spindles into the skies. Her voice booms like thunder.

“All shall kneel before the Goddess of the Sacred Flame, all shall…” she begins.

“You mean the sacred fire that he pissed on!” Mira yells into the sky.

Jaledi’s eyes travel slowly down to look at her as her white dress billows in the winds of her own making. Circuits of light surround her in a mere breath and she begins to lower. The air screams in protest, warping as her body distorts reality.

I didn’t have time to watch Azeroc for long. God’s are more than physical things, they’re the embodiment of power. There is so much magic pouring from her it is like an endless ocean…

Jaledi pauses as she moves, one of her eyes twitches as she feels the first trap I’ve laid in the network of Ley lines on Earth. I couldn’t have done it without the Jimminites. They read the same book that I did. This Grimoire of the Magi. Countless ideas were formed from it. The first of which that laws of magic are only enforceable if sufficient power is directed into it.

The problem with a goddess like Jaledi coming to Earth is that she is not cosmically welcome here. I saw to it that the strange magics which reject their ilk was strengthened. Blood twinkles in the air as it drips from her nose. She looks at it like Sera looked at her own. As though it were foreign.

“Confused?” I whisper loud enough that I know she can hear me.

Her eyes fall into mine, piercing and terrible glacial blue eyes that sing past her golden locks of hair. Everything about her screams divine. Yet the confusion in her eyes, it’s so human…

“This is Earth, one must ask permission to dwell here. Permission I do not grant you or any god that I deem unworthy.”

She glares at me, at the audacity for a worm to rise and talk shit to the boot before it is crushed.

“You…” she seethes, “You who defiled my priestess and my temple…”

“Yes, me.”

She is wary now with the nose bleed. She expected to come here and smite me and whisk Mira back under her care. Drakaroth are rare according to Sage, extremely so. Jaledi did not expect to become even more weakened under the firmament of Earth’s magic.

In the words of Tran, the Earth goes hard.

She doesn’t react immediately, I feel her authority probing the magic of the world. It spreads so fast it’s unreal. Even with all of my dampening, she’s incredibly powerful. Were she less cautious, we’d all be dead.

Caution though is what will bind her here. She should writhe like an angry bull. But she can’t see the tangle of webs that slowly bind her here… to me.

“You look scared, bitch,” Mira goads, and I wish she wouldn’t, but I can’t say that. Hopefully Jaledi is more tempered than Azeroc.

Almost there…

“He’s going to kill you,” Mira smiles with her sharpened canines pressing through the gap, “And I’m going to enjoy every second of it, you evil old hag.”

Jaledi’s eyes narrow as Mira steps forward.

“Come down here and fight me, over baked cunt.”

Over baked? Must be a translation error.

Jaledi looks over at me, looking at my flickering fingers, then her eyes travel back up into mine. Something unfortunate happens in that moment that our eyes fully connect and she measures me… my heart rate increases as I analyze how fucked we’d be if she attacked immediately.

The air cracks and doom becomes my muse.

Shit. I was almost there. I would have been more prepared for the System fight if she had been captured smoothly.

Fuck it. My hands splay outward and a massive circuit that I’ve spent hours building hums to life. One that blocks the System’s prying eyes and stops it from interacting with Hunters within a hundred kilometers. Completely severing the connection and effecting the weather drastically.

The changes give Jaledi just enough pause that it gives me a few more seconds to prepare.

Lightning flashes and thunder booms as the skies fill with thick and oppressive black storm clouds.  

The Admin won’t be able to prove I did it. There will be no record of it. But it doesn’t stop them from coming in person to inspect.

They will, I know they will. The question is, will I be ready in time…

My hands find Clayton and Zero, “Carry the torch…”

Light blooms from their eyes and the air shudders as System laws are broken and symbols of torches ignite on the back of their necks.

“Roll fast and kill Ajax as many times as you can,” I push them forward and move rapidly toward Mira.

An arc of energy liquifies the ground near me, my teleport spell activates and Mira and I are thrown into a building a kilometer away. That was meant for me. Jaledi is on the offensive now.

Time fractures as I slow it as much as I can in order to counter all of her incoming magical manipulations. She’s trying to unwind what I’ve done to Earth… she’s trying to make her own laws.

“Mira…” her eyes catch in mine, there is excitement and no fear in them, so much that it gives me strength as I say, “Carry the torch.”

Reality tremors and a strange sensation vibrates the air as the torch ignites on the back of her neck. Her eyes widen as she swipes through her interface. I can feel her magic expand from a lake to a fucking ocean in a matter of seconds.

Her pupils dilate and her eyes close, stones move upwards as gravity grows confused as her body rises into the air. She turns to look toward the light in the distance.

“I will never forget this, Darling.”

Then she is gone, so fast I didn’t even see her move. But I feel it moments later as the air screams and buildings crumble from the shear speed. Molten road lies where she stepped.

How strong are Drakaroth at level 1,000?

The answer comes in the form of shockwaves and a woman wearing a white dress crashing through a building near me. Jaledi’s eyes are wide as she looks at Mira floating in the air. Mira doesn’t wait for her to recover, she lunges and instantly she is upon her, punching her into the ground, leveling buildings around her with the earthquakes of the force. She spins her in a circle by her hair and throws her into the sky then leaps toward her. Kicking her so fast it creates pockets that vaporize the rain.

In the distance I hear Ajax screaming for mercy as Clayton and Zero kill him over and over again, the flashing golden portal that drains Jaledi’s magical reserves shimmers. She put auto resurrect on him. Foolish goddess.

Now to prepare for the final crescendo. The last rite of my symphony. I feel it in the static of the System’s magic on the edge of the border I created. Something is probing. Lightly at first then more adamantly. Something that isn’t used to being told to fuck off.

Soon…