God Rising

Chapter 118

Written by: AtheistBasementDragon

Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots

AN: And here we are, the second act is about to close out here shortly, there'll be an intermission chapter detailing some world reactions, then the story will shift back to it's multifaceted state. To be frank I...MAY have to take a day or two off just to reread the ten or twenty chapters before the siege of Prart simply because so much time has been spent on this one...but you can expect quite a bit in the days ahead. Till next chapter...OH, and of course, reviews feed authors, don't leave us to starve. :)

...South Gate of Prart...Earlier that Day…

Yuri was utterly horrified, and Suchala was not less so, not because of the barbarism, neither minded brutality much, if for different reasons, nor did they mind how much this would damage Neia Baraja, but it seemed a huge risk to assume that the fighting might pause.

"It will, trust me." Remedios said. She had a very smug expression on her face. "Don't forget, Neia used to work for me. She scouted for us on the way to Re-Estize and on the way to the Sorcerous Kingdom, she was with me all through the fight with Jaldabaoth. She might seem like an ice cold killer, but it's like having a wound you're used to, you stop noticing, like your old bones creaking doesn't bother you anymore, Suchala." She gave the old general a smug look. "This will be an all new wound, she'd stop the world, and then I get to rip her heart out."

Both Yuri and Suchala had come to regret listening to her. They watched dumbstruck as Neia 'broke' and some horrible black-eyed being was born from who she had been, which exuded terror and pressure that had only one event of its like before. They still remembered the wave, those who lived to old age, even to a thousand, would never forget it, and now here it was again, concentrated and progressively moving over their army like a blanket woven from the threads of a thousand nightmares. They could only watch as the towers shattered and their men screamed before the pressure tore their jaws away from their heads.

It continued outward and brought their men to their knees, grunting frantically, some horses fell with broken legs, neighing painfully.

The only relief seemed to be that it was hurting Neia too. The pressure continued to move outwards. "We wait it out, it'll stop when she dies." Suchala kept his head about him.

"We won't have an army then!" Yuri shouted at him, grabbing his arm and forcing him to look at her.

They heard her shout, "I'll take you all with me!" and Suchala's face went white as a ghost. Yuri nodded grimly, "I've been dealing with these fanatics longer than you have! They won't stop, she won't stop, she's insane, she'll rip her own body apart if that is what it takes, she doesn't care! Now listen to me and listen good! However devoted you are to the silent six, she's a thousand times more so devoted to her single and very active one! We're fucked, do you understand me?! That stupid bitch pushed her too far and even if 'that' stops, the broken spirits won't mend and we'll have holes in our lines where people died!"

Yuri could see Suchala thinking it over, her hand darted up and she slapped him, hard. He hit back, harder with his lips curled in a snarl. Yuri fell to the ground on her back, it was enough to excite her masochistic tendencies, but she got back up, "That's exactly right!" She said of his strike, "You hit me because I hit you, Remedios just hit Neia hard enough to break her, and Neia's wife is up there while our army is getting literally crushed into the ground! What do you think she'll do?!" Yuri grabbed his shoulders and shook him hard.

"Gather what people you can, start calling back a few, we have GOT to start moving some of our people out of here, FAST! The siege is lost. Our best bet is to fall back to Yanana and hope we have enough of a head start to rest there before we move further south. If we can't or we don't, then we're done for!" Yuri said emphatically.

"Damnitall!" Suchala shouted frustratedly as he watched the events unfold and he watched the wall intently for a few seconds. "No… what?" He muttered in disbelief as he watched the dark figure pull Neia back into an embrace, and the wave went wild and vanished soon after.

"Alright fine!" He said, "Do it!"

When night finally fell and gave them a reprieve, Yuri and Suchala worked triple quick to gather routed soldiers to their ranks, they marched, or more accurately, trudged in defeat back the way they'd come, neither believed themselves to be safe, both expected it would not be long before cavalry was dispatched to harass them and they had few horses with which to respond, but venturing south was now their only choice. Though neither knew the fate of Remedios Custodio, there was little doubt in either of their minds that with the fall of the southern gate's command position, the siege of Prart was truly over.

...North Gate of Prart...Earlier that Day…

Momon arrived at the North gate to find Evileye barking out instructions to various soldiers. She was brusque in her mode of speech, though he supposed that was because of the position she'd found herself in here in Prart. He stood patiently behind her until she'd finished speaking, and when the last soldier departed, he asked "How may I be of assistance!" in a firm, noble voice.

Evileye jumped and spun around, though she wore a mask, the fact that her voice had gone several octaves higher was quite noticeable. "Lord Momon! I didn't think you'd be here!" She said excitedly.

"Well, I am. Should I not be? The Sorcerer King said that General Neia Baraja was asking for additional help." He said thoughtfully, only for Evileye to shake her head so vigorously that it seemed it might pop off her body, she waved her hands in the air with wild, animate gestures.

"No, no, no, no, no, no! We can definitely use your help, it is just, I didn't know you were coming and ah… well thank you for coming!" She sputtered, covering her awkwardness as best she could.

"Of course. Open the gate then." He said.

"O-Open the gate? But…" Evileye began to stammer out.

A sound from beyond the gate told them there was no more time, Momon looked towards the wall, "You are right, there is no time for that, they are coming."

Evileye had no time to object as he jumped to the top of the wall and then beyond it out of sight.

She swooned briefly, "He's so cool…" She said, clasping her hands together, she flew to the top of the wall and stared down at the force beyond. In truth, however she was scanning for only one thing, and it was not that army.

She was looking for Momon, she found him as he stepped away from where he'd landed, and moved to stand in the middle of the path to the gate. He took out his two massive blades and held them out at an angle from his body.

"They… Shall Not… Pass!" Momon's voice echoed to every soldier on the wall, and it echoed to those who could scarcely understand what they were seeing, a raven black warrior was standing alone holding two enormous blades and pronouncing the futility of their coming at him? Madness.

Or so it seemed until they began to draw closer, creaking wood drowning out their footsteps as towers moved towards the wall.

Above him, Evileye repeated his call, "They. Shall not. Pass." From one to another, it became a chant as bows were fitted with arrows, until it became a battle cry that crashed like an avalanche down a mountain side.

Still the forces of the Slane Theocracy marched on, while Momon stood alone not thirty paces beyond the gate. Orders were being shouted up and down the battle lines of both sides, and moments felt like hours, but Momon did not move. Not even as arrows flew from the wall and back again, no one seriously thought he would stand there, none except for one masked vampire mage.

Not until they were ten feet from where he stood, did he play any role but that of a statue, then as if he received a signal that was only known to himself, he sprang forward, unleashed like an arrow from a bow, he went for the nearest tower and to the terrible awe of the Slane Theocracy, the hero of humanity brought the structure down with a single blow, his sword clove through it, splintering wood from one side all the way to the other, nor did he stop at a single tower, he went down the line, the towers on the left wing were doomed, they did not fall 'immediately' but it was clear they would. Men screamed down below for those waiting above to 'Get down now!'. Some heard and heeded the warning as their brothers and sisters below rushed out of it. Others did not hear nor listen.

The towers on the right wing received the same treatment, and he returned to where he stood, holding the same dramatic pose that now seemed not a statue, but an impassable feature of the landscape itself.

He waited, the towers creaked and groaned, and then one after another, they fell forward, crashing to the ground like the fallen great trees. Momon had made himself a target, Evileye was at once awed and terrified, even the most powerful could be felled by a lucky blow. She began sending crystal shards into the enemy ranks, her soldiers at the wall, briefly frozen in shock, resumed their work with deadly confidence.

"Protect the hero! Will you let him fight alone?!" She shouted, the Slane Theocracy had halted briefly in shock, but heroes can be born in many lands, and true courage was not a virtue of only the greatest of warriors, so from their ranks came champions of the Theocracy.

For a moment it appeared, they were going to speak, to try to address him, to try to convince him that he should turn on the city he had come to protect, and Evileye trembled for a moment, she knew what she was, her sisters had only recently learned of it, and even now she knew it was still a struggle for Lakyus to accept, though she loved her sister for the effort. Lord Momon was a human however, could he be persuaded to turn on those who were not like himself? "No, he's far too noble for that." Evileye whispered so softly that only she could hear her own words.

She was thankfully not wrong. "Save your words, warriors of the Slane Theocracy!" Momon stabbed one sword into the ground, it shook at the force of the thrust and he brought his mailed fist hard to his own chest. "I am Momon, I have given my oath to protect the city, I know you come to destroy it! I have seen your works and judged them cruel! Yes, I once defended humanity alone, for virtues I thought humans alone to have possessed! But I have lived in E-Rantel and seen that virtue knows not only a single flesh! I have seen goblin children play with human children! I have seen the young of the Zern help humans build homes! I have seen giants on the hunt share the fruits of success with human party members! So now I tell you this, I, Momon, defend all who live justly, NO MATTER THEIR FLESH! Come at me if you wish to slay the just, but know that you will die before you can reach that wall!" He gestured dramatically behind him, and took his sword out again, pointing it toward the army in front of him.

...Nazarick…

'He's never going to stop… is he?' Ainz thought as he cringed at the dramatic gestures of Pandora's Actor.

Yet as he watched, it seemed to have an electric effect on those behind them, Momon was widely known beyond his own adoptive home city, even his enemies knew his greatness, he was not less well known among demihumans, but this was the first time they'd heard of him as 'their' defender, and to hear the greatest champion of humanity speak of them as if they were his own, swelled their hearts to bursting, as near as Ainz could tell, he wondered again if there was something wrong with his taste, or that of the New World in which he'd found himself.

...Prart...

Evileye made two silent vows as she heard him speak that she would survive this, and no matter what, so would he, even if she had to break the first vow to ensure that kept the second. She wanted to cry with joy at hearing his short address to those who came to preserve the old ways.

But she couldn't, she had to ensure his survival, no matter what, Momon would survive, she would watch his back while his partner was away. The Holocaust Scripture came for him, five abreast they rushed in, they knew his reputation, they used every martial art they knew at the beginning, they moved faster than the eye could see, only to find he was not standing where he had been, a monk attempted a punch only to find his fist grabbed and crushed into powder before he was flung bodily at the oncoming ranks of soldiers, the army of the Slane Theocracy could do little, they had counted on the towers, now they had to rush people on horseback to the east and west gates to retrieve ladders.

In the meantime, magic flew back and forth from to and from the wall, arrows filled the sky, and those without such weapons hunkered down behind shields as the duel between Theocracy Scripture and the Raven Black Hero of Legend continued on. Momon might not have had magic himself, but Evileye could see he was adept at avoiding it, she targeted those who attempted to strike him from a distance or from behind, more than once bringing up a crystal wall, to stop a spell, only for Momon himself to shatter it by flinging an unfortunate scripture member through it like it was nothing but mere storefront glass.

Momon's sword severed two scripture members entirely in half with ease, and it became clear that elites or not, these heroes of the Slane Theocracy were in a one-sided fight that they could never hope to win, not in a thousand tries for a thousand lifetimes. Momon had impossible strength and speed to match, their weapons, gifts of the very gods themselves, seemed like children's toys in the few hits they did land, which they suspected he 'let' them land, simply skittered away, deflected by his godlike armor.

Within a matter of minutes, a long time in a fight really, all of them were dead or dying on the ground, scattered in front of them. He had kept his promise, they would not pass him.

"Turn around! Go home!" Momon shouted to the army in front of him, "Leave this place now, and I will guarantee that you will not be harmed, no one will hunt you, no one will harm you, and if that means I must protect you myself, then I will do so! I will put the name of Momon to your lives!" He said loud enough for the army in front of him to hear.

"Refuse, and my next attack will come to you! Let it not be said that Momon is merciless in his actions!" Momon added firmly.

There was a moment of hesitation, the commander of the Theocracy that sat on horseback drew his sword and held it into the air, he had the face of a man already dead.

"Then your choice is made, and I am free of the blood guilt for ending your lives!" Momon said authoritatively.

"Get down there!" Evileye roared to the soldiers on the wall, "Open the gate! Are you going to let Lord Momon fight an army by himself?! Open the gate! Charge! Rally to the raven black hero!" She shouted almost frantically, and it put the force on the ground and on the wall into instant motion.

The gate was already creaking open and the first few soldiers made it through just as the commander of the Slane Theocracy lowered his sword at Momon and commanded that they strike him down.

Momon was already moving, he tore through armor and bodies like they were paper dolls and he a pair of adamantite scissors. Evileye was already up above and sending crystal buckshots into the thick of it all, and then the rest of her forces hit, the melee was sheer chaos as people clashed so closely together that some could scarcely hold a sword out to thrust or slash it.

That was when they heard the voice. "Remedios!" And the terrible rumble that grew to roar began at the south gate. Momon knew all too well that this had to be ended quickly, and so he did, speeding up the terrible whirlwind of death that he had become, and despite having superior numbers, pebbles, even a thousand times a thousand times over, could not bring down a mountain. The massed desperate efforts at bringing down the hero were quickly coming to nothing, and when thousands more were added to it who came on knowing that they could not be defeated, while those who were failing could only feel their lives being swept aside and had no hope for victory in their hearts, the weight of their mortality slowed their swords and weakened their resolve, and so they died in great numbers and at great speed.

The killing did not stop until the light of day did. When it was done, Momon raised his sword and let out the victory call, they had won the day where they stood, a sea of bodies lay around them, and Evileye took advantage of that moment as she came down from the sky and fell into his embrace. "We won!" She squealed happily. "Thank you, Lord Momon, for everything! Not just for this but… for fighting for my future." She said, a little nervousness in the voice of the battle hardened heroine.

"Hmmm." He said after letting her 'hang on him' for a moment, he stabbed his sword into the ground, then reached out, touching the bottom of her mask, then to her surprise, he lifted the mask up away from her face.

"You know," he said, "I think you look better this way."

'WHHHHHHHHAAAATT?!' Evileye thought in surprise. 'Did he just...?'

He held her eyes with his, and she felt her long stilled heart beat in spite of its impossibility.

"Your future is deserved, defender of justice. No need to live in hiding anymore, not after this." Momon said in assurance, and after he put his swords away, he took her little waist in his hands and gently disengaged her from himself and put her back down to the ground. She felt so thrilled by his evident, shockingly casual, treatment of her vampirism, even though he had known for some time, this was the proof that it simply did not matter to him. That alone made her so happy that she couldn't even bring herself to pout when he set her down. She looked at the mask as he handed it back to her, and rather than put it back over her face, she slipped it into her belt, and turned to her army. 'Let them see. If Lord Momon does not care, let anyone dare to.' She thought proudly.

"Tend to the wounded! Take prisoners, squads set a watch to the wall, minimal manning, then go rest up!" She seemed almost comical, her tiny body and loud voice barking out orders, but nobody laughed, they went to work, binding the wounded of both sides and tending to the injured as they sorted through the living and the dead.

As she walked back to the gate, beside Momon with her face naked to the world for the first time in some two hundred years, not simply revealed to a few leaders, not to a handful of family members, but bare for all the world to see, she had a degree of confidence about her future that she felt might last forever. The only thing that held any concern for her now was, 'If my sisters could see me at this moment, will I ever live this blush down?'

'Who cares, I have my Raven black hero, and he thinks I'm pretty.' She thought with no small amount of satisfaction.

...Prart, Governor's Manor…

"...And that is how it happened." Momon finished giving his report. As he sat down, Evileye, for the first time in her life, genuinely missed having her mask on, she had been more than a little worried he would drop some embarassing detail of her responses and behavior which… the entire table, especially her team, would absolutely believe. It had been all she could do to not sweat blood to reveal his comment on her beauty.

One by one the others filled in the gaps, how the west gate had seen the attempt at pulling out and offering support and sent out Astraka's former army to deal with it, lead by Gagaran & Tina, the east gate had seen the same, and lead by Ulthis and Tia, they had used the other half of Astraka's army to the same purpose. Between their use of reserves and support from the walls, each gate had been effectively prevented from supporting the others and eventually gained local superiority enough to drive them off in a rout.

It had been a satisfying work.

"Casualties?" Neia asked.

"Still coming in." Skana said after she stood up. "However it looks like out of the elites of the hundred we suffered twenty five dead…"

Neia's eyes went wide, "So many? We didn't even lose that many against the Gray Scripture."

"I know, but the fact that we lost 'only' twenty five today is miracle enough." Skana said calmly. "Out of the rest of the force at the south gate, it looks like, based on preliminary estimates by small group commanders, that we lost almost twenty five thousand dead or wounded, we can't be sure yet, however estimates are that the casualties we inflicted were over one hundred thousand killed or captured among Remedios's fanatics and their Slane Theocracy supporters." Skana finished and sat down.

The table was quiet. Taken together with the dead of the other gates, even without the casualty figures yet, it was the single largest battle in the world's history as far as they knew, and what was more, taken together from both sides, it had higher casualty levels than the Massacre at the Katze Plains.

Neia felt eyes on her, the weight of so many lives hanging over her head was like a dark cloud threatening to strike her down.

Her fingers intertwined together flat on the table in front of her. "I see." She said seriously, she took time looking around the table, the black void was gone from her eyes completely now, and they appeared as only the 'normal' nightmare inducing eyes that they were now familiar and comfortable with.

"You know, after we made it 'here' with the surviving slaves from Wenmark, and Tinamoc greeted me and showed me his success, I saw many fresh, happy faces, I saw a lot of survivors, everything I saw before, at the city…" She paused and swallowed hard, the elf servants who were attending the table stopped what they were doing to listen with interest, "…it did something to me, but when we made it back, to this place, and I saw all the survivors, the people who now got to have their lives back, they were their own again, I had one thought, can you guess what that was?" Neia asked.

Heads shook.

"I thought, 'It wasn't for nothing.' I think that is what got me the most, was that there was so much stupid suffering and death, it was just all for nothing and nobody had gotten anything for it except more pain, more suffering, and more death for their trouble."

She shook her head regretfully, "But when I saw the former slaves crying with joy, just wanting to give me thanks I didn't really deserve given my… mistakes, I was reminded that it hadn't been for nothing, that we did accomplish 'something', and as terrible as this all is, as great as those numbers are, these are the labor pains to birth a new world."

"If I could create it without suffering anyone to lose their lives, I would. I finally understand the way Queen Calca used to think, but we can't do that, things don't work the way we wish they did. So all I'll say to you all is this. You did good work and I'm proud of you all. Momon, I'm especially grateful that you chose to join us for this battle, without you, our losses would have been even greater."

"Tomorrow we'll have breakfast here and go over the night's cleanup results and deal with the final reports. The scouting parties should be out hunting down stragglers and I want to know what happened to Yuri and Suchala, if they died too, then we've all but won this country back, but if they're alive, well there is still one army in the south at least." Neia said in a very tired voice when a servant knocked on the door.

"Enter." She said, and a man approached, he leaned in and whispered, she nodded, he departed.

She let out an exhausted breath and stood. "If there is nothing else urgent right this moment, I…"

"There is one thing." Gagaran spoke up.

"Yes?" Neia asked in a voice filled with stress.

"What happened to you?" Gagaran asked bluntly. "I wasn't there, but I could see from where I was, and I heard some of the talk on the way over here, Lakyus was on that wall, and whatever happened could have killed her the way it killed the soldiers on the other side."

Neia hung her head, the neutral mask broke and a wave of guilt washed over her, only for the mask to quickly restore itself.

"Gagaran!" Lakyus said harshly, "Neia wouldn't hurt me." Her voice was confident, but Neia held up a hand.

"Maybe not on purpose, but we have a right to know what kind of threats we're facing, from inside as much as from outside." Gagaran said, standing her ground.

Lakyus and Skana were both on their feet, but Neia shook her head. "It's alright, you have a right to know." She didn't meet anyone's gaze, she just stared down at the table.

"The trouble is, I don't really know myself, when I… when I killed my friend, something broke, I don't know what else to say but that, I guess it has been building for awhile, Remedios even saw it, as near as I can guess, I somehow was able to tap into the power of the Sorcerer King. I was able to draw upon the pressure and terror he can exude and, I'll be honest, I have no idea how far that can go, but if he hadn't showed up and pulled me out of whatever state that was himself, I would have died. It was literally peeling my flesh away the way you'd slice the peel off of an apple. I managed to direct it, but it tore me apart along the way." Neia answered in a rambling, half-frustrated way.

"I can't promise that I'm not a threat, because I don't know how I drew on it in the first place, and I don't have the means to dispel it on my own. If anyone wants to leave…" Neia gestured to the door. "No hard feelings, truth is, it might even make me feel better." She lied with a hint of a smile to disguise the statement. "You'll get your full pay and I'll ask the Sorcerer King to transport you wherever you feel the safest. If I knew more, I'd tell you, but I can't say what I don't know." She went quiet and sat down to watch the table. Gagaran looked very uncomfortable.

"Sorry." She said glumly. "Just got a little worried is all." She said as she folded her arms.

"It's OK." Neia answered. "Other questions about… that?" She asked.

Silence fell.

"Then if we're done, I have to go, I'll be down in the crypt to see Tinamoc, his body I mean… I need to say a few things." She said, keeping her face coldly neutral, there were quiet salutes, as the rest of the table stood, and then she headed for the door.

"General Baraja, may I join you?" Momon asked politely.

She froze, he felt… so much like f- Ainz when he was close to her. "Y-Yes, if you wish. Please follow me." She said, and as the room emptied and went one direction, she lead him in another, until they were walking alone down a long hall together.