Various viewpoints IV

***

Hana Nowak was walking down the church´s hall, her bright white wings were gently flapping, and her long brown hairs were neatly laying on her back, she was going to get another mission from the cardinal today.

Despite being in the middle-rank upper part in the ranking of angels and having the ability to join some angel group or making her own settlement Hana chose to work for the church.

Hana grew in a small village in Poland, her parents died when she was still small, sadly she doesn't remember much, only mother´s warm smile and father´s loud laugh as he played with her.

After her parents died, she was taken in by her aunt who was a nun, growing up in the church Hana found peace there, and just as she turned 18, she joined her aunt and became a nun as well.

Hana enjoyed every single day, the boring prayers, cleaning the church she stayed in, and most of all she liked to help others, making other people smile was her biggest joy.

But everything changed with the coming of mana, to this day it was around three months and everything is just getting worse, she had to leave the church she loved and was relocated to the Vatican by the pope, now she complete missions from him and do the "gods work".

The pope thinks its all a test from god but she thinks otherwise, even if what they told her at the platform was false she wouldn't believe in God who tests his believers by releasing all kind of monsters upon them… but the pope and the high ranking cardinals can´t be reason with.

At the platform Hana got to know where the pope and others got their power from God, it was the belief of the believers, with every prayer they affect the mana it may be only a drop of water in an ocean but if you count all the believers… normally if a single person did that the mana would just harmlessly disperse but with the number of believers the mana form tainted clouds that instantly manifest themselves in the Vatican or other places for different religions.

There is even a chance that there may be a manifestation of the god from the mana but the god will be only as strong as the mana backing him and if the believers stop praying the god will cease to exist.

The angels use this and some of the power they wield come this way, but in the end personal power is more reliable.

This is the lie Christianity now stands on, Hana tried to tell it to them, she told them it doesn't matter where the power comes from but how they use it to help people but they just don't listen. In the end, Hana decided to stay only to help others but with every mission, she was more and more unsure if she did the right thing, instead of helping others she was forcing them to accept Christianity and make them believe no matter what… lately even punishing those that don't believe… if it continues like this she just might run away.

Hana opened the heavy door and one of the cardinals was already here waiting, "Come here Hana, I need to tell you about your next mission, you will travel to America to help our brothers and sisters here while spreading the word about our great god"

´Or they might just get rid of me´

***

John Edberg looked at the crystal in his hand, it was crystal formed from third circle mana, and with it, the new era of machinery and devices will begin.

It was pure reusable energy that came in abundance and with the discovery of the mana crystals formed from mana there are going to be amazing changes.

John and all the "mega heads" knew about the crystals as the demon they killed had few of them, but they thought they were mined somewhere in a different world but now…

It started with himself while dissecting a dead elemental beasts John though ´it should be possible to get some residue mana from the organ the beast used as the center of its power´ and with this, he began his research, in the end, he gained more than what he thought was possible, truly everything changed in the world, instead of mana potion he gained technique to increase the speed in which their mutation progress and with it they discovered the crystals.

As for the technique, the perfected version is a small mana whirlpool which first destroys the mana organ and then integrates the mushed organ into itself, by infusing the mana with the meaning of devouring it the organ becomes pure mana, all that mana is then returned to the center of power of the user, this mana has high purity and acts as nutrients for the center of power.

With this discovery all the "mega heads" began to hunt the elemental beasts, also they become to call themselves mega heads in honor of the blue cartoon villain, it was getting annoying not to have a name for the mutation, and when one of them said it jokingly they laughed for a bit and decided to use it.

They made progress and almost everyone is now in the third circle, and when entering the third circle they discovered the new usages and the "mana world" but clearly the ability to make mana crystals is the most important.

With the abundance of mana they have, they started to mass-produce the crystals, and even though it was the only week since his entry to the third circle John already made over 100 crystals.

Still, to effectively produce the crystal on large scale there will be a need for some sort of mana reactor that will refine the mana to the third circle and then some enhancement that will condensate the mana but that is for later.

And with the discovery of crystals, there was the emergence of the first mana weapon that anyone can operate, the weapon is a mana rifle powered by crystals or man from the user, the effective range is for now only about 20 meters <65ft> but it is something.

In the rifle there is mana enhancement that drains the mana from the crystal/user and fires its raw form as a bullet, the speed of the bullet is about 50 m/s which is worse than a normal bullet but the mana bullet is less affected by the environment also with more research there is a chance for increase or adding element to the bullet.

As for the penetrating power of the bullet, this needs more explanation, for now, there are two mods to the rifle, the first is low power and the second full power, low power mode can fire 14 bullets comparable to the first circle spell, when fired against a piece of meat from a pig the bullet made it about 5 cm <2in> in, when fired with the full power mod the bullet made it 15 cm <6 in> in the meat.

Quite powerful for the common folk but the crafting of the rifle is quite expensive, for the enhancement on the rifle to last there is a need for high-quality material, preferably gold which holds the enhancements greatly, other enhancements degrade over time.

Still, with the mana rifle, they began to recruit others, slowly they are creating a settlement, John couldn't help but smile, there is no telling what he and the other mega heads can create in the future, he thought that the day mana emerged was the worse in his life but thinking about it now… it may not be all that bad… for him at least.

***

Connor was laying on the floor hiding under the bed, beasts were ravaging the settlement and probably killing everyone outside.

With tears coming down his cheeks and snot pouring out of his nose he tried to make as little noise as possible.

´It all because of these damn angels! We trusted them and they all died while attacking the demon! THOSE IDIOTS´

They should have told them, they should have warned them if the angels did so they could evacuate and run away. Some did so in the evening when the angels didn't return, Connor and most of the others didn't do so, they had nowhere to go and outside the city, there were beasts everywhere.

Suddenly the door to the room where Connor was hiding opened, green ugly creature made it though, Connor tried to hold his breath and stayed quiet like a mouse.

But it was for nothing, the last thing Connor could hear was the goblin probably smelling the air, and then almost immediately the goblin grabbed his leg.

Connor "AAGRA" more tears and snot flew from his face, wildly kicking he tried to free himself, but the goblin just smirked and hit him with a fist few times to the head until Connor stopped resisting.

He had no chance against the muscular goblin that dragged him outside, Connor almost lost his consciousness, blood was flowing from his head and his pants were soiled.

The goblin looked at him and it appeared he was disgusted ´hah… at least I won't taste good´, but the goblin tossed conner to the middle of the settlement where a small place was made to hold a gathering, there was already quite many people, most of them were sobbing and bloodied, the goblins and beasts didn't exactly care about theirs well beings.

A dozen goblins were making sure they don't run away, while laying here Connor could see how huge dog-like beasts were running around killing anyone who resists and bringing those that surrender, quickly the settlement was completely occupied and all the humans that survived were gathered in the middle.

Everyone sobbed and cried, ´fuck, FUCK… why couldn't I go to another world just like the children…´

Suddenly voice reverted through "SILENCE YOU PIECES OF SHIT" Demon with big horns and wings rode on a huge beast before the humans and spoke, "FROM NOW ON YOU ARE THE FORCED WORKERS UNDER THE RULE OF OUR GREAT LEADER JORDAN HALL!"

Another settlement was conquered.

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End of volume 1.