The Powershot pierced through the holy construct and struck one of the people within, blowing a hole through their chest and destroying the special armor the holy warrior had been wearing.
Despite this massive hole, the person remained alive, though he barely looked human anymore. Veins of glowing light marred his entire body, burning his life away from within, and the attack he’d just received only sped up his demise further.
Still, Jake couldn’t help but click his tongue as the super construct still hadn’t fallen yet despite how much he’d attacked it and how beaten and battered the people inside it were. All around him were corpses – few of them whole – of the Holy Church elite fighters who’d continued fighting even after the Desolate Child of Loss was pushed away by Carmen.
Without the desolation weakening Jake, he had gone on a rampage. As he’d also pushed his boosting skill to keep up with the False God, he saw no reason to ramp down but kept it up to fuel his slaughter.
Jake was also done experimenting and only went for the kill, showing no mercy to anyone. This had resulted in there now only being a bit over a dozen alive in the ruins of the city, with the only five still able to fight the elite party in their super construct wearing their Holy Armaments.
The five of them had proven the most durable by far, but in the end, they, too, would fall. With no other targets, Jake bombarded the construct continuously, blasting it away and into the ground as he deepened the crater created by Carmen further. The final warriors of the Holy Church tried to hold on for as long as possible, but Jake didn’t let up until the construct shattered and broke apart.
As it did, the five people who’d been part of it all lit up as their bodies exploded, releasing a massive shockwave of golden light that forced Jake to summon a protective barrier to ward it off. At that moment, he felt pretty good about being a ranged fighter, as the explosion had been extremely intense, but he also couldn’t help but be annoyed.
He despised the mere concept of those Martyr rituals and spells the Holy Church often made use of. It felt almost like adding insult to injury that it even made the people using the Holy Armaments blow up once their bodies couldn’t hold on anymore, destroying everything around them, including the armor.
Holy Church members probably didn’t care, though. The only reason they even did something so extreme in the first place was because of their free trip to the Holyland upon death for them to live out the rest of their soul’s lifespan doing... something. This Holyland still sounded incredibly boring to Jake, but it clearly appealed to a lot of people.
Anyway, the holy explosion from the five of them blowing themselves up had killed four of their comrades who had been lying in the ruins below, incapacitated but still alive. There were eleven more, and Jake showed no mercy as he raised a hand and conjured spikes of stable arcane mana that promptly shot down and finished them off, leaving only Jake alive in what had once been a massive city. Or, well, at least something built to look like a city.He wasn’t entirely alone, though. Two others still lived and observed him from nearby. Jacob and Bertram stood far outside the city, having just looked on as Jake had performed his slaughter. In fact, after Jacob had summoned, revived, conjured, or whatever the hell he had done to make the Desolate Child of Loss appear, the two of them had quietly disengaged from everything.
Jake didn’t miss this, as he’d kept an eye on Bertram primarily while fighting the super construct and the Desolate Child of Loss. Bertram was definitely a huge threat if he also had some Holy Armament to attack with, but he hadn’t taken part at all. In fact, he looked pretty damn satisfied seeing all those people killed.
Things were well and truly rotten in the Holy Church, and Jake was going to get to the bottom of what the fuck was going on... but no matter the explanation, after everything, he was determined.
The Holy Church had refused to surrender in a situation they knew they couldn’t win, even throwing away so many lives. They had apparently found and were making use of the Desolate Child of Loss, a creature that had destroyed several planets in the galaxy and likely had a kill count that put Jake’s to shame.
So many fucked up choices had been made, and honestly, Jake was done. He had removed them from Earth, but now it appeared he would have to purge them from the entire galaxy. As for those who resisted and refused...
Well, they would end up like the ruined city behind him.
Miranda stood side by side with Lillian as they observed the surrendered monarch. King Iludar, the final holdout among the Ell’Hakan loyalists knelt on the ground, his staff tossed to the side and his aura entirely dispelled from his body. He had also purposefully released his energy, making his body weak and fragile to truly show he had given up all thoughts of fighting.
His loyal soldiers followed suit and also surrendered, and if Miranda was being honest, this action kind of troubled her. It made things messier, as she didn’t feel good about breaking old-world international laws by killing prisoners of war. Still, she would have to find a solution.
William soon also joined her, the ground in the direction he came from covered in blood and body parts as the metal mage had cut up everything around him using his metal wire weapon after sneaking into the enemy forces.
Meanwhile, Vesperia floated above, keeping a close eye on the surrendered king, looking down at him with pure disdain. Her being there added quite the intimidating presence, helped along by the army of insects surrounding the mountain valley.
As for a certain cosmic worm...
“Over already? That was super boring... but I’m still getting paid, right?” Sandy asked with a hint of worry in their voice.
“Of course you are. Thank you for the help, Chosen of the Lord Protector,” Miranda responded telepathically, remembering to show proper respect despite the worm clearly not caring about any such thing as courtesy and respect wasn’t edible.
“Yay!” the cosmic worm said before promptly shrinking down again and flying down to land on a rock. “Poke me when we go back...”
Miranda gave a quick mental confirmation as she turned her attention to the surrendered forces at last.
King Iludar looked back at her, a certain listlessness in his eyes. She couldn’t help but consider if he could be useful, though. He was moderately powerful in his own right, and his leadership skills were evident based on the loyalty of the elite soldiers who followed him, not to mention how he had effectively been Ell’Hakan’s second-in-command.
However, needless to say, there was a bit of a trust issue. Speaking of trust issues, it was also soon time to address a certain elf who was standing a bit by himself, not quite walking over to Miranda and the others, but also not staying near Iludar.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Let’s just deal with the self-proclaimed king first, she thought, sighing internally.
“I accept your surrender, but let me ask... what do you expect to happen now?” Miranda just asked straight up. In the multiverse, there were some customs and norms when it came to dealing with prisoners of war, none of which Miranda found very appealing.
The most popular one was to not take prisoners in the first place, primarily because most wars happened between factions that absolutely hated each other. Another very popular method was to momentarily seal them away and pretty much imprison them, with the goal of doing either a prisoner exchange or selling the prisoners back to the force they originally came from. Something that was not an option in this case as said faction no longer existed.
A third method was one Miranda didn’t even consider, but slavery was one of the only ways to make use of a prisoner while making sure they were “trustworthy.” In most cases, prisoners of war were used as meat shield soldiers or sold off, but again, not an option on Earth.
Next was one Miranda would regularly consider first: exile. The problem here was, where could these people be exiled to? Anywhere in the Milky Way was out of the question, so would they have to keep them imprisoned until the universe opened up and then send them where exactly? They had no allies but only a shitload of enemies no matter where they went.
So, that left what option exactly? Just simple imprisonment? Doing so was possible, but it was also outrageously expensive, and to what end would they imprison them? For how long? A C-grade could easily live for thousands of years. Miranda was also under no illusion that throwing someone who was once known as a king in jail for a few centuries would lead to reformation that would turn Iludar into a fully rehabilitated citizen and trusted ally.
That’s why she outright asked Iludar what he expected them to do. Because she genuinely had no clue.
“I... I do not know,” Iludar spoke in a somber tone, also not helping to find a solution. “All I can do is ask that you spare those who followed this fool. If my death can give them a chance to recompense, I would gladly offer my life.”
The man had a dignified expression as he spoke those words as if he had resigned himself to his fate. His loyal soldiers all looked at him with regret, and a few even looked like they wanted to speak up, but they all stopped themselves before they did so. Miranda had to admit she did find Iludar’s actions commen-
“Yeah, that’s bullshit,” Kindroth chimed in, shaking his head.
“That was definitely all deceitful,” William concurred, Miranda staring at the metal mage as she put quite a bit more stock in his words due to his karmic magic.
“What do you mea-“ Iludar began as Kindroth cut him off.
“A minute ago, I barely managed to interrupt you from activating an escape token, and from the looks of it, that token definitely wasn’t of the mass-escape variety. You were trying to run on your own like the coward you are, leaving everyone else to die,” Kindroth said in a calm yet harsh tone.
“I believed that should I leave the battlefield on my own, it would increase the chances of you sparing my-“
“Deceitful again,” William gave Kindroth an assist as the young metal mage looked at Miranda. “He definitely just made up that excuse on the spot.”
Miranda wasn’t pleased. She had just begun to feel that if Iludar was so honorable, there maybe was a chance to make some kind of deal work, but now her face had turned cold. The man in question also noticed this as he still tried to weasel his way out.
“You all misunderstand... what I wanted was to-“
“To make Miranda think that maybe you weren’t all that bad, which would make her consider sparing your life. Because, hey, what feels worse than killing someone who’s already given up and begging for you to kill him to make up for his sins? That just makes your execution feel weird,” Kindroth shook his head as he went over and looked down on Iludar.
“That’s why I called you a coward, by the way. You desperately do everything you can, no matter what, to survive. Do you know why Ell’Hakan never bothered to manipulate you much? Because he didn’t need to. He could feel your fear. You’re the kind of person who will kneel and act like a dog in front of anyone stronger while acting arrogant and noble when in the company of those weaker than yourself. To keep you on a leash, all Ell’Hakan had to do was remain stronger than you. I was honestly surprised you didn’t come crawling to the Malefic Viper’s Chosen the second he killed Ell’Hakan, but you’re probably smart enough to at least understand that wouldn’t have ended well for yourself. That’s why you wanted to instead align yourself with the biggest – and, in your view, strongest – faction in the multiverse. Because you always need to hug the knees of someone or something else.”
Kindroth turned and looked at Miranda. “Don’t get me wrong, he would definitely be loyal to Jake should you choose to adopt him, but be fully aware that the second someone comes around he believes is stronger, he’ll instantly betray you and run to them like the disloyal dog he is.”
Iludar stared at Kindroth as his facial expression slowly changed. “Says you. Aren’t you also not just siding with whatever faction you think is winning, playing all sides at once?”
“It’s complicated, but I guess there’s no harm in telling you now,” Kindroth shrugged, looking to Miranda for a moment before going back to Iludar, the explanation that followed more for Miranda than the former king. “As you said, I am indeed allied with the Holy Church. I’m not part of the Holy Church, mind you, and neither is my planet, but my Patron is certainly considered a close ally. Let me be clear, never once have my loyalties shifted; you just didn’t know who I was loyal to or what my goal was. Though, to be fair, for the longest time, I didn’t know what my goal was either, I was just following instructions and a plan laid by my Patron, with a certain level of personal flair and interpretation mixed in.”
“But you worked with Ell’Hakan. You spied on Haven for us and gave us actionable intel,” Iludar said, not as much trying to understand the situation as he wanted to also get Kindroth in trouble.
“Yeah, as I said, complicated,” Kindroth sighed. “It needed to look real and Ell’Hakan needed to be winning the conflict. At least, that’s how I came to understand why my Patron wanted me to do what I did. I was never on Ell’Hakan’s side but always working for my Patron, who in turn worked with the Holy Church... and the Holy Church expected an outcome that included the death of Yip of Yore and Ell’Hakan. Which is where I come in.”
“The Holy Church had an agreement with the Celestial Child,” Iludar continued, now looking a bit perplexed. “Are you saying they broke it, or-“
“That manipulative fuck didn’t have an agreement with the Holy Church. He had an agreement with a certain subset of the Holy Church who wanted his Bloodline. Perhaps the confusion is also partly my fault, as I should also speak more clearly,” Kindroth said, shaking his head. “I guess it would be more accurate to say that my Patron worked with the Holy Mother over the Holy Church and that I worked for the Augur primarily.”
Miranda couldn’t help but look at Kindroth with a frown as he said this. She knew some things about him, and she’d known he had been a double or triple or whatever agent playing pretty much all sides, but he had never so directly stated he’d worked for the Augur before.
“The Augur is part of the Holy Church,” Iludar said. “A high-ranking member of it.”
“Yeah, it hasn’t really felt that way during this entire thing,” Kindroth sighed. “The internal politics of the Holy Church are a fucking mess, and I’m glad not to officially be a part of it. Just know that some parts expected Ell’Hakan to die and would prefer for his Bloodline to die with him, and another part really wants that Bloodline.”
“And I assume you’re in the part that wants it gone?” Miranda spoke up for the first time in a while.
“Exactly. So is the Augur,” Kindroth answered. “I do apologize for not explaining things fully yet, but as I said, things are pretty damn complicated.”
“I knew enough to the extent that what I didn’t know caused us no harm,” Miranda answered in a forgiving tone. “I will need a long talk with you later, though. You say it’s complicated, but do humor me anyway.”
“Alright, that was the plan anyway,” Kindroth smiled as he looked at Iludar. “Should I also be kneeling in surrender?”
“We’ll find out later if that’s needed,” Miranda said, not joking at all, before she looked over at Iludar and smiled.
“I want to honor your request from earlier. We shall give your loyal soldiers a chance to recompense.”
Iludar looked relieved before switching to confusion until he landed on realization. He tried to mobilize the energy in his body again, but it was far too late. The ground below him had already turned into a murky green swamp as several arms shot up and grabbed him before pulling him under, never to be seen again.
Miranda did have to thank him for that brilliant offer of giving his life for his soldiers, though. It had helped make her decision of how to proceed a lot easier.