Chapter 119: Regicide

FieryKathy

In the blink of an eye I appear ten meters above the market squire I envisioned. The sun has already come up in the city of Bolasf. People start shouting and cry out in fear the second they see me. When I look around, most of those reactions appear to come from the soldiers who’d teleported away from the battlefield. They must think I’ve followed them to take revenge. 

“Where’s the cathedral?” I think to myself. 

“Behind you.” The voices tell me.

I turn around and stare down the giant avenue that leads directly to an enormous building. On the top of the giant tower shines Osvik’s holy symbol, completely covered in gold. 

I direct myself to the people around me. “If you want to see the horrors your leaders have committed, follow me to the cathedral.” My voice rings out throughout the entire market square and far beyond. The soldiers, realizing I’m not out for their lives, become quiet and stare at each other in bewilderment. 

Then I start flying down the avenue, quite a lot of people from the market square slowly flock behind me. From the main avenue’s side streets, curious citizens start following us as well. 

When we arrive in front of the cathedral our crowd has grown to almost a thousand people. A small group of what looks like papal guard has decided to block the passage for the people. 

“Lay down your arms!” I command and fire a blast of radiant light behind them. “Do not waste your lifes.” A couple of soldiers who were at the battle walk up to their compatriots and convince them to put down their halberds to let the people through. The crowd looks expectantly at me. 

“And what now?” I ask the Ulusu man and his team as I land in front of the crowd.

“We will lend you our strength if you give us control for a second.” 

“Just relax.” I recognize the elder Langor man’s voice. 

I breathe out calmly and relax my muscles. To my surprise I can feel my mana start flowing like crazy and my limbs start moving on their own. Although I do feel I can retake control at any second, I decide to just let it happen. My body points my sword at the ground which promptly starts rumbling. When my sword raises the ground beneath the cathedral does so as well, lifting it in the air, meter by meter. Gasps echo all around me. Until the foundation of the cathedral is fifteen meters into the air. It reveals the walls of the dungeons. 

“Thank you for trusting us…” The voice of the man rings in my head once more and I regain control of my body. 

“Thank you for your help.” I raise my sword again and blast a wide gap in the wall so that everyone around can see what’s happening. The smell coming out of the breach makes the people closest to it immediately sick. The smell of rotting flesh and dried blood. 

Other people in the crowd start screaming, shouting and crying, even more so when they see the source of the foul smell. The heap of bodies from the souls of the people who now inhabit my own. Even the guardsmen who had been barring our entry to the front of the cathedral have fallen to their knees in anguish. 

After a couple of seconds I walk in and carefully start lifting up the body of one of the dead prisoners, carrying them out and placing them, with their back down, in front of the mass of people. Having seen this, multiple soldiers and civilians start helping me do the same thing. With all of us together, it doesn’t take that long for all the bodies to have been taken out of the dark dungeon. 

“Now it’s my time to get to work….” I think to myself. “Step back everyone.” I command and the group of people around me backs off. I walk to the middle of the gathered bodies. 

I stick my sword into the ground and kneel while keeping hold of its hilt. I concentrate deeply and pour most of my remaining mana into my sword to cast a mass heal and resurrection on the bodies around me. When enough mana has gathered a transparent blue dome forms around me and I notice that the bodies of the prisoners start healing. It takes at least a couple of minutes before the gravest of decay has been rectified. That’s when the second stage of my spell kicks in. As I exhale dense white fog leaves me, splits up, and starts finding its way to one of the many bodies around me. The voices in my head start to diminish and five minutes later I find myself completely alone in my own body again as everyone has found their rightful place back in their own bodies. However, their negative emotions remain… 

My blue dome dissipates, I feel completely exhausted. But luckily, I manage to hold back the anger inside of me with the strength left inside of me. It doesn’t take long after my dome’s dissipation for the first people to start moving around again. It’s the Ulusu couple who I had spoken to first in my spiritual dream.

“It’s a miracle…” A couple of civilians speak out from behind me and rush towards the couple, they hand them pieces of their clothing as the couple’s clothes are completely tattered. As more people start to wake up, more civilians and even the soldiers start to offer their help. 

“Thank you. Thank you so much.” After having been helped, the Ulusu couple walks over to me. I’m still kneeled on the ground, my hands still on my sword, but that doesn’t hold the woman back from embracing me. Both her and her husband are crying with joy. “You saved us.” 

“I… I just did… what’s right…” It’s hard to talk with practically all my strength sapped away from me. 

Even more people come over to me to thank me. The young Ulusu man and his team, the Drakone girl, the Langor elder… all of them come to profess their eternal gratitude. It’s overwhelming to say the least.

People are overjoyed by what they've just witnessed but I can also sense the hate and the disgust of the things that they have discovered. 

A group of soldiers walk over to me and kneel before me. “We swear we didn’t know.” Their faces are all looking down at the floor. 

“I believe you.” I give them a nod. 

“What is this!?! Who is responsible for doing this to MY cathedral!?” The clanging of armor and the stomping of running feet silences the crowd. 

“I-it’s the pope…” Someone close to me whispers. 

“And all the high ranking cardinals are with him…” Another replies. 

The crowd disperses and backs off, leaving me and the newly revived people in the center of attention of the pope and his cardinals. The pope is an old Ulusu man with a stubbly white beard. All his cardinals are only slightly younger than him, and just slightly better shaven. With them they have ten guards, from their armor they look to be some kind of elite unit from the papal guard I faced earlier. 

I use my sword to push myself back on my feet. 

“You…” The pope backs away a little when he sees me. But when he sees me on my knees he quickly regains his composure. “You’re the so-called heretic Goddess.” He then looks at the group of angry people staring at him. He looks back at them in disgust. “And the prisoners…” 

“You knew about this?” One of the more wealthy citizens calls out to him from the crowd behind me. Other citizens and soldiers yeah along with her. 

“Silence, you fools!” He sneers back. “Their lives were worth less than nothing. Especially compared to the greater good and prosperity of Osvik.” 

The crowd grows even angrier. “We never asked for this!” 

“Yet you profited gleefully from the vast wealth we have created. Were you really that naïve to think we gained all this wealth without any victims?” 

I’m surprised he’s not even trying to hide or sugarcoat any of it. 

“You don’t have any respect for life, do you?” I scoff, I’m now standing up and leaning on the pommel of my sword.  

“You’re the one to talk, heretic. We’ll have to redo our entire invasion now, thanks to you.” He looks at the crowd around. “But don’t fret, it looks like we’ll have plenty more subjects to use in our obelisks.” 

Suddenly from the side alleys more of those elite guards close our entire group in. A couple of the soldiers that had joined us draw their swords and try to defend their fellow people. But it is more than clear that if a fight breaks out it will be a one-sided massacre. 

“It’s a shame you used all your power to save these people, just for their lives to be snuffed out again. But be happy, now you can join them in their fate.” 

I chuckle, which quickly turns into an almost maniacal laugh.  

“What are you laughing about, heretic? You are completely done for.” 

“I’m laughing because the strength that I had left was the only reason why you are still breathing… but not anymore.” I willingly let go of the shackles that bind my rage, and instantly I feel completely reinvigorated. The red haze pulls over my vision again and a black fog turns my white armor and white wings into the darkest black. 

I turn my sword which is still embedded in the stone of the road. Black bursts of energy erupt beneath the feet of the elite guardsmen that had surrounded us. They scream in agony as dark flames reduce them to ash. The pope and his cardinals’ eyes grow wide. Some of them try to run back from the way they came but another twist of my sword encircles the group with a wall of dark flames as well. They are trapped. 

I pull my sword out of the ground and walk through the wall of flames I had created. “Looks like a change of government is in order.” I cut down the first two cardinals with one fell swoop of my sword.  Their remains burn up in dark flames. “Don’t you think so?” I cut down another pair. Three of the four remaining cardinals try their luck with my wall of flames… it doesn’t work out well for them. As I stick my sword through the last cardinal’s chest the pope looks at me with the purest look of fear and anguish I’ve ever witnessed. 

“Please. Please forgive me! I’ll change my ways!! I promise!!” He clings to my armor. 

“Why is it that people like you always say that when they are about to pay for their crimes?” 

The pope doesn’t reply. 

“Let’s go for a little bit of a fly, shall we?” I grab him tightly by his collar and take off into the air with a powerful stroke of my wings. 

“Mercy! P-please!!” The pope kicks his legs and starts crying. We are now flying a little bit above the top of the cathedral. 

“You should’ve asked the other side of me for that… it’s a little bit too late for that now.” I look at the giant cathedral below. “I think I’ll completely destroy your little monument… But be happy, you can join it in it’s fate.” With that line I skewer the pope on my sword and aim it at his precious cathedral. He gets launched into it with a stream of dark energy. The cathedral’s tower crumbles as I keep firing my lance of energy over the entire structure. With some pillars of darkness for good measures, it doesn’t take that long before the entire building is reduced to a huge pile of rubble. But I still keep blasting the rubble to work out my anger. It actually works incredibly therapeutic.

After I’m done I land back into the crowd. While some of them look afraid, most of them look at me with relief. “Keep these people safe.” I look at the group of people I revived earlier. “And try not to make the same mistake your former leaders made… or…” 

All the citizens and soldiers get on their knees. “We won’t. We promise you that m’lady. We will try to right the wrongs they’ve committed.” 

“Good.” I give them a solemn nod and look back at the others. “Be safe.” 

“Again, thank you for saving us…” The group bows before me. 

I then close my eyes again and think of the battlefield in front of the Dwarger capital. I can feel myself get teleported away before everything goes black… 

FieryKathy