Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

Chapter 926: All Hells Break Loose - Part 2

A god gives as easily as it takes. With one hand extended, it awaits your offering, and until it’s made heavy with faith, the divine doesn’t budge. But a god isn’t as just in its vengeance. One wrong word, one wrong move, and its wrath rains even over the righteous. Alas, Ouron was one such god. A god of pitiful standing and an ego taller than the highest mountains on Atlaris.

Thus, in his anger and in the face of mockery by June, he looked her in the eyes and unleashed his final creation. A plague most profane spewed from the minds of his followers and the zombified elites. Coating every inch of the ships with a dark algae-like layer, and the air was flooded with poison, every breath of which would curse all who inhaled it.

Spreading through the ships in a flash, the muck was grabbing the soldiers and the civilians like a phantom made of ash. Smirking and smiling, reflecting the face of those they had wronged or the family long dead and buried. Consuming them from the inside and out, or so it should’ve been...

”Time to put an end to this unholy scourge!” Manifesting out of the ether, an army of ethereal priestesses emerged aboard the ships. Kneeling at once at the command of their leader, the pale, ghostly figures closed their hands in prayer and began chanting in the purest form of Arcane.

”WHO ARE YOU?!” The many minds of Oruon screamed at the women, startled by their sudden appearance. ”And what are you–”

Before he could finish his words, an aura most pure started to flow from their bodies like smoke through a stick of incense. Roiling around the curse and the visages it had created, the priestess began to pray to different, long-dead elder gods. Though their bodies had perished, their souls still persevered in the sea of stars.

Heeding the calls of their servants, the dead gods channeled their own divinity through their followers like a torch that cast away the darkness, aiding the priestesses to cast away the curse. Giving way for Athenia’s torch of guidance to shine bright as well, so much that as Oruon looked at June again, he saw Athenia’s followers glowing with divine strength. However, more importantly, he saw the hero and his companions standing beside an avatar of Athenia herself.

”You did well as a placeholder, my dear,” placing her hand on June’s transformed body, Athenia moved her to the side. ”But allow me to handle this lesser of the gods.”

”Lesser?!” Oruon grunted, his teeth bared in all of his puppets.

Waving her dismissive hand, the goddess smirked and took another step forward–giving the priestess a chance to cleanse the plague by distracting the fool god. Possessing Erika–the only person capable of hosting her divine soul without lasting damage caused to the body–Athenia had blessed her follower with the greatest reward a faithful could ever hope to get. Witnessing this, the commoners of Alliance, even the Elites, started clawing from the back of their minds, trying to find sense in why they could not receive the same blessing. Why did they have to be made into a puppet in a hivemind instead of such a gracious descent of their deity in their time of need?

”Renounce him, and I will grant you home, purpose, and a life worth living!” At once, hundreds of minds revolted against Oruon’s control, and the god felt them trying to claw their way out of their imprisoning skulls. Wincing and groaning as everyone he controlled suddenly decided to fight back, the god of creation was brought to his knees while struggling to maintain control over them all.

”AughhH! YOU WILL LISTEN TO ME, MORTALS! YOU WILL–”

”Heal~” Stretching her arm towards the puppets, Athenia healed the minds and bodies of the commoners and the elites, ”Show him what you think of his rule. Defeat him yourself, the god who failed you.”

With a blink, Athenia carved runes under the feet of all whom she’d just healed. An ability that transcended time, as she hadn’t moved at all, while at the same time borrowing the knowledge of runes from Erika’s mind.

”Soul cage!” Emerging from the runes were countless illusory chains, binding not to the bodies of the enemy but their very souls. Keeping them trapped alongside the many fragments of Ouron’s own soul, split in countless pieces as he was readying the puppets for his descent into the flesh. ”He’s not going anywhere. Give him your worst. Show him the nightmares of losing the only thing he ever had. Power over his people!”

At the same time as the screams of the enemy grew louder, Darius appeared behind Raven and his group alongside Aelin. His spell of mass binding was ready to capture the prisoners if needed, and not only one ship but all of them as the couple had flown to them all in an attempt to incapacitate the enemy all at once.

”Who are the priestesses?” Darius asked, whispering to Raven.

Glancing back at him, the hero lifted his mantle.

”The heroes in this mantle...It was about time I put them to work.” A wish had been made of the heroes long dead. Nightsilver’s allies, awaiting the last call of their duty before arriving at their final rest. ”A hundred of them I had to use, but we still have a lot more of them to help us.”

Out of the thousands of the hero’s companions held in the mantle as spirits, eight hundred and something still lay in wait. As for the priestesses who’ve just saved the Tridents and their inhabitants, they were already starting to fade. Soon to join their families in the stars, right under Elenaria’s wing–but no call to duty would move them ever again.

”I! I AM...I am...” Oruon’s voice began to fade as both his scattered mind and soul were now chained. Tugging on his broken shards of beings with her illusory chains, Athenia took a step further and looked down at the elite’s face, whose body was host to the largest fragment of the god. ”Y-you, you can’t defeat me. I won’t let you kill me with no wound!”

”I don’t have,” lifting her head, Athenia smiled at the puppets breaking out of Oruon’s control. ”The god of creation, undone by his own followers. How ironic, how fitting...”

”D-damn you, damn y–” as faith trickled down to nothing, Oruon’s words were cut short, and his soul pulled into a solid core by the soul-caging chains. A sharp click, and it all froze back into one. And the ripple of the enemy absorbed by the soul from the people of alliance rattled the tridents for a bit. But that’s how it ended.

The god of creation died with a groan at the hands of his own neglected followers.