The alley exploded into motion.
The three girls ran.
Niklaus's heels struck the uneven stone in quick, frantic rhythm as the maroon skirt flared around his ankles, the smooth fabric rippling and flowing against his legs with every hurried stride. Aveline and Laena kept pace with him, but he couldn't help but notice that Laena had ditched her three-and-a-half-inch heels and was running barefoot.
Behind them came a chorus of footsteps that was somehow perfectly synchronized, dozens of bare feet slapping against the damp stone without a single one falling out of time.
They burst out of the end of the alley before taking a hard right and swerving into another street, one which was smaller and, more importantly, less populated than the main street. They'd only taken a few sprinting steps when Laena suddenly stopped, making Niklaus crash into her back.
He looked up to see why she had stopped, and his face paled.
From the other side of the street, the procession slowly walked forward, their crying eyes all looking directly at him.
Niklaus tried to move, but couldn't. It was like his feet were rooted to the ground.
Come on… move…
He tried till his face was red from effort, but he couldn't. He looked down and his eyes widened when he saw that his feet were already stone, and the stone petrification was ever so slowly creeping up his legs.
He was stuck there, and a single glance at the other girls revealed that so were they.
When the procession seemed to cross some invisible boundary, the air suddenly shimmered. The evening sky shattered, and fragments of… glass?... fell from the sky, each of them reflecting the same sky that had just been above them all. What replaced the evening sky was a midnight one, with a red moon high into the air, its crimson light shining ominously over them all.
"What the…?!"
His heart pounded in his chest loud enough for him to hear it, even through the large pair of breasts in the way. The sudden night sky and the crimson moonlight were creating an eerie sensation that thrummed in the air – his throat suddenly dried up as the faint and distant sounds of humming and chanting reached his ear.
The procession kept moving closer.
And closer.
And closer.
And when they were only a handful of feet away, close enough that he could smell the faint fragrance of herbs wafting off them, they stopped. The cultist in the front raised its hand and approached him, as if wanting to gently caress his face.
Niklaus grimaced and turned his head to the side as the cultist's hand reached for his face.
"Unshadowed Domain!"
A bright, fierce light BLAZED into existence, ripping apart the fake night sky with its powerful glow. A harrowing shriek escaped the entire procession as they all stumbled backwards, the light burning into their skin, causing a horrific black smoke to be released.
The most horrifying part was that the black smoke had a face, with red eyes and a mouth opened in a silent, torturous scream.
A red-haired woman landed between Niklaus and the procession. She was dressed in a red and gold armoured battle-dress and carried a bronze spear with a reflective, golden edge. She had her hair in a large, waist-length ponytail, curled slightly into a loose ringlet. She had a fierce look in her amber eyes as she glared at the cultists.
She whirled around to face the three girls stuck in stone. She frowned before opening her mouth, "God says petrification is ineffective!"
The stone encasing their legs shattered into countless pieces, and all three of the girls stumbled, all the force they had previously applied when trying to move through the petrification hitting them all at once.
The red-haired woman cared not one bit for what the three girls were feeling and shouted at them. "Follow me!" She said, with an edge of command in her voice that made any and all questions die before they left their throats.
They followed the woman as she constantly swerved left and right through the maze of alleyways and streets, till she led them directly through the main gates of a gated posh district called Little Backlund, shouting at the Awakened guards to close the gates as they ran past the guard station.
Little Backlund was one of the oldest districts in Arcos and was full of the rich and the Nobility. As such, it had mansions and manors, rather than small houses and apartments.
The guards barely had time to react before the four women disappeared deeper into the district. They shared a glance before shrugging and going to follow their orders. As soon as they turned around, the head guard flinched as he came face to face with a pastel-white-covered face.
He grinned.
Moments later, bone-chilling shrieks echoed through the air, and all that was left was melted clay, slowly bubbling on the ground – with horrified faces loosely moulded onto the clay.
OO OO OO
"Keep moving!" the red-haired woman shouted without slowing.
Niklaus obeyed, but something felt wrong. Every turn they took was met with another glimpse of white robes further ahead, standing silently at intersections before drifting into motion the moment they appeared.
He soon came to a grim realization.
They weren't chasing.
They were waiting.
The realization seemed to strike the woman at the same moment. Her expression hardened as she abruptly changed direction, cutting across a broad avenue instead of following the road ahead.
"Damn it..." He heard her mutter under her breath. "They're herding us."
She thrust her spear behind her. Brilliant golden light exploded across the street, as a lance of pure light erupted out of the tip and blasted towards the pursuing congregation. In the blink of an eye, the unshadowed spear struck the ground right in front of a cultist before erupting in a blaze of radiant solar fire.
"This way!" she shouted, vaulting over a low stone wall and disappearing on the other side. Laena quickly followed her with a big grin and a whoop, and so did Aveline.
Niklaus, in an attempt to avoid breaking his ankle by doing the same stunt as the red-haired woman, chose to enter through the proper gate, which was thankfully open. He made his way through an ornate golden gate that opened up into an absolutely massive courtyard with a large fountain in the center.
He quickly joined the other three, and the four of them cut right through the center, ignoring the groundskeeper's yell. "Hey! Get off the lawn, you damn brats!" He shouted, turning a hose towards them, trying to splash them with water.
They used the back entrance to exit the courtyard, and then quickly made their way out of the noble district, escaping into Moretti Street to get away from their persecutors.
Moretti Street was the district designated as the poor people area, almost to the level of slums, but not quite. It was certainly far more luxurious than anything he had ever seen back in the outskirts. It was also a veritable labyrinth because of the sheer lack of planning that went into constructing that area, and a person could get lost in there for days if they didn't know how to navigate the district.
And to think it had been named after some famous Savant Pathway Beyonder from the sixth epoch.
They disappeared into the labyrinth, and he instinctively reached out to grab Laena's wrist as she went to make a turn that would separate her from them, and pulled her closer as a flash of white appeared in the corner of his vision.
They kept heading deeper and deeper, when all of a sudden, the red-haired lady stopped.
Niklaus looked ahead and felt a chill run down his spine. There they were, the white-faced cultists, walking slowly and calmly towards them.
"Behind!"
He didn't know who shouted that, but he turned around, only to see a similar group walking towards him. Same for the connecting alleyway, the third way out.
They were quite literally surrounded.
OO OO OO
The red-haired woman burst into action.
"God says it's effective!" Rhea yelled in ancient Hermes before swiping her spear through the air. A huge blaze of sacred flames consumed the cultists in front of her, shrouding them and setting them on fire.
As these cultists burned, she whirled around to attack the next group of cultists, only to be suddenly swarmed by spectral evil entities. She knocked one back before driving her spear through the face of another, channelling the light of purification through the spear to be able to hurt them.
She turned to look at the other three girls she'd rescued.
They looked awful.
They stood ramrod straight in their places, a horrified and haunted look in their glazed eyes. They were clearly under the influence of some kind of charm or fear-based ability, but from what pathway, she didn't know. But since it had been able to affect a Sequence 5: Dreamwalker, it had to be someone on the demigod level.
Affecting a Dreamwalker in the affairs of the mind wasn't something just anyone could do.
So where is this demigod…
She channelled power into her eyes and activated one of the new abilities that she'd gained from her recent advancement, Holy Eye, and looked around, trying to find out where this demigod was hiding. She held back on using the Unshadowed Domain, as while it was able to shred any concealment in an area, it was also very obvious, and the last thing she needed was to attract more of these cultists here.
Instead, she activated Purification Halo, and a wave of powerful light erupted from around her head, shading everything around her in gold. The light weakened anything evil and degenerate, and it included these spirits. Then swung her spear, releasing illusory golden flames to incinerate them to nothing.
The evil spirits let out horrific screams as they dissolved into the Ether.
Rhea jabbed her spear forward right into the lingering Fire of Light flames, releasing a Pure White Ray of light that dragged the flames directly into the group of cultists standing menacingly in the side alleyway.
Needless to say, they Burned.
Ignoring the screams of pain and the smell of charred flesh, Rhea turned to face the final group of cultists, the ones who had snuck up from behind the entire group and were currently blocking their retreat.
She smiled, mighty pleased to see the look of well-concealed terror in their eyes.
She took a step forward, and her eyes gleamed at the way the cultists took a step back. She couldn't help but question why she was even running from these cultists, when she should have just incinerated them at sight.
She took another step, and her spiritual intuition screamed at her.
Danger!
Her grip on her spear tightened as the environment around her changed. It was like watching a painter paint, only the paint was being applied on the air around her with each swipe of a brush. In a matter of moments, the confusing labyrinth of the Moretti Street was replaced by a sprawling, evergreen jungle.
Her brows furrowed. "What…" she trailed off before turning around to face the same direction as the girls. "And who would you be?"
The air shimmered, and a black-haired woman with red eyes appeared, holding a large scythe a tad too close to Princess Cecilia Hall's neck for comfort.
"Oh, nobody. Just a wanderin' beyonder," she crooned before pulling her scythe back and planting it into the ground. She leaned against it. "The name's Morgana, wha' about you, darlin'?" She asked with an arrogant, almost taunting smirk.
"Rhea," she nodded, looking the other woman over.
Morgana was dressed in an all-black outfit with a tasteful red accent, ending in a combat skirt and leather boots. The scythe that she was aiming at the princess's neck was made of a lacquered wood, and had a sharp black blade that seemed to suck in all the light – it also had some sort of wicked aura around itself. It was likely a Sealed artifact or an enchanted weapon, Rhea silently concluded.
Still, she could spot subtle traces of memorabilia attached to her clothing that gave away her true association: the Church of the New Moon.
The cultists of the very place who were chasing them so relentlessly.
She kept her glare trained on the enemy Beyonder, and activated her Holy Eye ability only to be hit by a bright flash of light.
She grimaced in pain as the ability turned off on its own.
It was like she'd been hit by a flashbang. Or like when she used spirit vision carelessly and had accidentally gazed at her Sequence 2 Great Uncle, Algard.
But she did see something in the extremely brief moment her Holy eyes were active.
This entire jungle was overflowing with life force. And not of the normal kind either. It had a depraved, almost evil-adjacent quality to it – but in a different manner than the Hanged Man Pathway or the Abyss Pathway. This depraved spirituality was constantly being channelled into every tree and even into the ground, like a circuit.
And all of it was being fed directly into the Beyonder in front of her.
I need to get out of here…
The thought had barely crossed her mind when a wave of powerful purifying sunlight erupted from a halo that suddenly appeared around her head.
The light dyed all her surroundings a warm gold as it purified all depraved spirituality in the vicinity.
Morgana flinched as the wave of purifying light washed over her, and the Unshadowed didn't hesitate to take that chance to attack. Several beams of scorching white light shot towards Morgana, the sheer heat in those rays of light making the air shimmer as they zipped through.
Morgana folded into the trunk of a nearby tree, dissolving and disappearing into the wood right before the rays smashed through and exploded, reducing it to ashes and charred wood.
DANGER!
The edge of her spear sliced through the air as she swung around and intercepted the black, curved edge of the scythe aimed for her neck – the two weapons colliding in a powerful clash that made the air tremble as the steel shrieked in protest under the power of the two Sequence 4s.
Morgana gritted her teeth as she put more and more force into her scythe, trying to break through and get to Rhea's neck. The lower half of her body, which was still partially wood and jutting out of the trunk of a tree, gave her great leverage, as well as letting her draw power from her jungle-like Paramita to even out the strength difference between the two.
Slowly, she managed to make the red-haired bitch take a step back, letting her fully come out of the tree and turn the rest of her body back to normal.
Rhea, pushed back, decided to break this stalemate of theirs.
She pulled her spear back for a brief moment before thrusting it forward with all her strength, aiming for the little gap she could see in Morgana's form.
The spear blurred as it flashed forward with explosive speed.
Instead of stabbing Morgana in the chest as planned, it only managed to graze her side as the black-haired woman twisted around the thrust. The spearhead bounced off the armoured section of the dress protecting her ribs, throwing a shower of sparks into the air.
Before Rhea could pull her weapon back, Morgana let go of her scythe and grabbed the spear with her now free hand – She yanked!
Rhea stumbled a single step forward as her balance tilted.
Morgana, not one to waste any opportunity to end a battle, swung her scythe in a smooth motion at Rhea's neck in a vicious arc.
Rhea ducked beneath, avoiding the sharp blade by inches, the blade carving through a lock of red hair as it barely missed her head. From down below, she changed her grip before driving the butt end of her spear upwards, right into Morgana's face.
It smashed into her jaw with a loud Crack.
Her head snapped back, and her grip loosened.
Not by much, but it was enough. Rhea wrenched the spear free and immediately spun it around her body, using the momentum to unleash a barrage of lightning-fast thrusts, attacking all the lethal spots she could get to – with each strike flowing seamlessly into the next.
Morgana couldn't help but give ground under the relentless barrage of attacks, her scythe becoming a blur as she used all her enhanced capabilities to catch each thrust with the shaft, batting the spear aside before it could skewer her. Each deflection forced her another step backwards, her boots gouging furrows into the earth.
In fact, if it wasn't for her Paramita providing her the energy to maintain such a high-paced defence, she would've already been dead under this relentless attack.
Her eyes narrowed as her thoughts raced, even as she defended herself. This one… she's dangerous… very dangerous. I gotta kill her and the spoiled brat and get outa here before anything more annoying appears.
Like the fucking goddess.
She dared not even think the name of Her, even in the sanctity of her thoughts.
Morgana twisted her scythe around, hooking in the spear and grabbing it, before she pulled – pulling Rhea towards herself. She slammed her face next to Rhea's ear and let out a harsh whisper before kicking her away.
Her voice echoed in Rhea's ear, full of a perverse degeneracy and corruption that made Rhea's head throb. An all-consuming sense of dizziness washed over her as her vision blurred. Her spear slipped out of her hand and clattered onto the ground as blood started dripping down her nose.
It was getting… getting harder to think.
Through the haze of red and chaos, she could barely make out Morgana walking over to her with an arrogant yet placid smirk.
Through some instinct she didn't even know she possessed, she managed to activate her Horror Immunity ability. While it worked to lessen the effects of the Evil Word, it was nowhere near enough to fully remove those debilitating effects.
But still, it was enough to let her regain some of her higher mental faculties.
Morgana was easily able to notice when her Evil Word had weakened in intensity, and the spell burned more and more lifeforce to strengthen itself back. Realizing that the Unshadowed was trying to break through, she raised her scythe.
Better to finish her off before she fully broke free.
Morgana stepped closer, bringing her scythe up high, ready to swing it down and lop off her enemy's head.
Rhea suddenly opened her arms wide and turned to face upwards, where the sun would be – even after it had long sunk past the horizon.
"Praise the Sun," She called out, just as the scythe descended towards her neck.
A blazing pillar of light shot down from the heavens, descending right on Rhea herself.
A scream escaped Morgana's lips as the purifying effects of the Light of Holiness ability threatened to purify her and strip her of her powers. She jumped back out of the range of the pillar and landed in the shade of a tree. Morgana looked down at herself to see half of her body having second-degree burns and some of her skin starting to separate and slip off her bones.
"Purification," she muttered, eyes narrowing, before she turned a glare towards the Pillar of Holy Light.
She placed her unharmed arm onto the tree she was sheltering beneath, and started absorbing the sheer life force within her Paramita – energy that had taken her thousands of sacrifices to attain – into herself. The energy levels sank down faster than a dam with its gates open as her body quickly regenerated back to peak condition.
And just in time, as the Pillar of Holy Light began to fade away.
Morgana dissolved into the tree and disappeared from sight.
The light faded away, and Rhea, now purified of any curses, looked around warily. There was nothing there around her, just a silent jungle holding its breath in the anticipation of the next clash.
Did she run away?
*RUSTLE*
Rhea whirled around, just to see a tree swaying gently under a breeze.
She heard another rustle, and without any warning or time to react, a powerful force SLAMMED into her, flinging her to the side.
She slammed into the earth and pushed with her hands to throw herself back in the air, before twisting mid-air, landing on her feet. She looked up through her dishevelled red hair to see several vines and roots rocketing towards her.
She ducked under the first and jumped over the second before twisting around to avoid the third root. She reached out and summoned a glowing spear made out of golden sunlight and rapidly swung it through the air, severing any and all roots that came near her.
She even had to blast apart a few that came near the three girls she had been protecting since before this fight.
Rhea looked around, looking for any signs of Morgana but couldn't find her anywhere – and quickly realized that she was hiding in one of these trees in this jungle.
Before she could start burning the jungle to ashes to force Morgana out, a horde of evil spirits appeared out of nowhere. At the same time, the ground underneath rumbled and cracked, and animal skeletons started climbing out of the newly formed fissures.
"By the Mind, what?!" Rhea's eyes widened as the evil spirits attacked her.
Even as she fought the spirits off, burning them with sacred flames or cleaving through them with light, her mind raced.
Just what pathway was Morgana on?
She was starting to suspect that her foe was a dual pathway Beyonder, which just opened its own can of worms.
Because Morgana was using abilities that resembled both the Death and the Mother pathway, and neither of those pathways were neighbouring and switchable between them. And Morgana was acting far too sane and in control for her to have switched to a Non-neighbouring pathway.
So either she was somehow using the abilities of a whole other pathway like she natively held them – likely from a Sealed Artifact or such – or something else was happening here.
But that was a problem for the future Rhea to figure out.
When the skeletons attacked, Rhea summoned and donned on a full armour made of Holy sunlight. A sword made of light appeared in her one hand as she readjusted her hold on a light spear with the other.
Her eyes narrowed and she jumped into the fray, slaying the skeletons and the evil spirits with the same fervour a devotee of the Sun showed when exterminating Evil.
But it was harder than she anticipated.
For every spirit or skeleton she slayed, many more emerged, until she felt like she was going to drown in a sea of them.
She was getting tired, and her spirituality was beginning to wane as well.
I need to finish this, she thought. Flaring Sun!
A huge ball of pure light condensed by countless sacred flames appeared around her, and she swirled it around into a fire storm, vaporizing the spirits and the skeletons that got in their way as the flames incinerated everything around. The trees, the grass, and even the earth below her burned as the sacred flames expanded, purifying everything to ashes in their way.
Now to wring out a mouse.
"Unshadowed Domain!"
A wave of blazing white light exploded out of her, quickly washing over the entire Paramita as its holy nature did its work and started purifying the depraved and evil. The remaining Evil spirits shrieked as they were disintegrated, and the purified skeletons just toppled harmlessly onto the floor. The trees withered under the bright light, and the shadows and darkness were banished out of existence. Any lingering curses and evil-based effects were purified from existence.
Even concealment was shredded, leaving a sickly-looking Morgana standing in front of a tree, a manic and harrowing glint in her eyes.
"You…"
A pair of wings burst out of her back as she took to the air, swiping her hands and casting a weakening curse on Rhea.
Rhea purified the curse before it could connect with her and let loose a wave of searing flames into the sky, forcing Morgana to fly closer to the ground to avoid getting singed by them.
The black-haired demigod flapped her wings once, and shot forward, a dark aura of a curse swirling around her scythe. She barrel-rolled to the side to avoid an unshadowed spear thrown at her before swinging her scythe at Rhea.
Rhea raised her own light spear to block her scythe, and even as the purifying nature of her light fought the corruption in the scythe, she used her other hand – having dispelled the light sword to fire that unshadowed spear – and blasted a ray of pure white light through Morgana's stomach.
"Gah…!" Morgana gasped in pain as the light blasted through her, cauterizing the hole shut on its way out.
"Fuck this shit!" She turned her maddened glare at Rhea and called upon all the power remaining in her Paramita, preparing to unleash a curse the likes of which will be spoken of in the annals of history. A wave of corrosive, degenerative spirituality swirled around her, powerful enough that even Rhea was forced to take a step back, feeling herself weaken under the corruption.
But before she could do anything…
*STAB*
A blade suddenly pierced through Morgana's chest from the back, coming out of the front. "Gah…!" Blood exploded out of her mouth, and she tried to heal herself, but was unable to – the curse-like nature she had turned the life force into wholly unsuitable for healing.
Morgana looked back, and her trembling eyes widened in shock.
There stood the spoiled brat, Cecilia herself, holding the spear that was currently fucking her in a way that she did not enjoy.
"Y-you dam-damn br-brat," She spat out, blood flowing down her chin with each word she spoke. "H-h-how?"
The brat smirked, "Psychological Invisibility, Bitch."
Niklaus ripped the red-head's spear out, leaving a massive hole in the black-haired woman's chest. The woman fell onto her knees as the light in her eyes faded away, and her body toppled to the ground.
In Niklaus's ear, the voice of the Nightmare Spell echoed.
[You have slain a Demigod, Sequence 4: Madame]