Chapter Eighty-Four - Father, why have you forsaken me?

Tamar moved nimbly, leaping through the twilight, at the dusk of the day and the beginning of the evening, her cat's eyes gleaming as the panther woman moved with her unearthly agility, she leapt off the side of one of the still standing buildings and ran in a wildly way, vertically, to the top of the structure, defying gravity.

At the top of the building, Tamar studied the environment carefully, her sharp feline senses made her absorb all the information around, it didn't take much time to her find exactly what she was looking for, in fact, even without her superior senses it would still be impossible not finding it, Tamar jumped from the top of the building, landing on the ground with surprising lightness, and ran to the main bridge.

The main bridge looked like a scene from a war movie, a war movie mixed with horror, body parts and monster corpses were scattered on the floor, the blood of several different colors, due to the different races that were massacred there, stained the asphalt and formed a macabre painting.

Tamar crossed the bridge without showing the slightest concern or displeasure with the scene, she walked through the blood and bodies without even caring about all the gore, in fact Tamar wasn't the least bit disgusted, she took a moment to analyze the corpses of the various creatures.

The reason for the deaths were quite varied, some monsters had been torn by what appeared to be claws, others had been burned to ash, others had marks on the bodies as if they had been struck by lightning, others had been crushed by debris from the buildings, there were also marks of several explosions in the area, it looked like a mighty army had slaughtered everything in its path.

What caught her attention the most were the corpses of the Goliaths, this race of giants was known to possess enormous strength and an almost infinite resistance, seeing them reduced to shattered corpses was a rare and strange scene.

It wasn't hard for Tamar to deduce that all these deaths must have been done by the dragon boy, in their brief encounter she had marked his scent and now she could smell it all over the place, besides there were remnants of that characteristic black and violent mana from that boy in many of the bodies, it was obvious that he was becoming stronger and stronger.

This thought made her feel conflicting emotions, on the one hand she felt a huge justified concern, after all, the fact that someone is so powerful not being under the control of BPD was something worrying, even worse was thinking that the boy had not even reached his peak.

On the other hand, Tamar felt a huge admiration, she was not a changed, she was born a lycanthrope and grew up in a village of lycanthropes, her race not only admired the strong, they worshiped them, even though Tamar had broken free from the shackles of her tribe and now she was living a self-sufficient life unlike her brothers, she still had those teachings within her, so she couldn't help but admire Locke.

"I hope the Bureau can come to terms with this boy, have him as our enemy…" She watched one of the severed heads of a monster. "If for some reason he becomes our enemy I will have no option but to leave the Bureau…"

The panther woman took one more look around and continued her mission, she needed to make sure that no dangerous monsters were left, she couldn't risk them organizing a new attack, she needed to be ready.

Tamar crouched and ran again.

***

Dr. Sarah continued to use all her skills to aid the Bureau, but so far all her attempts had been futile, she had no idea how and at what price, but the damn group of lunatic cultists had somehow created a mighty barrier around the entire city, all the roads and the surrounding area had been engulfed by what he likes to be a thick fog with a strange effect.

For those outside, if any person or vehicle tried to cross the fog in a straight line they would find themselves walking in the exact opposite direction they had entered, this bizarre effect had already caused dozens of accidents, with several civil vehicles collapsing in the first moments After the crisis, the Bureau had to use a lot of its resources and administer a myriad of amnesiacs to maintain control over the situation, this was being one of the biggest crises the Bureau had ever gone through.

For those inside, the fog had an even more frightening effect, if a person touched the fog they would collapse and pass out, being teleported to the front of the Cultist building, right in the middle of the monsters. Vehicles that touched the fog disappeared completely, with their occupants being teleported to the front of the building in the same way as other people, that is, inside the barrier the fog was a death trap.

Strangely, although the fog blocked normal communication signals, it was unable to block Sarah's natural abilities, even using only her brain, the good doctor was able to connect naturally to the internet network and keep in touch with outsiders, a blessing that allowed them not to be all in the dark.

The size of the barrier was also frightening, Mid Valley city was not a massive city but neither was it a small town, the main city was about 400 km², being surrounded by the adjacent countryside, the sea and a forest with mountains, the barrier focused on the areas where people lived, extending to cover the countryside, a patch of sea and the beginnings of the forest.

The scariest thing is that Sarah had never heard of any group using magic of this magnitude, the expenditure of mana to create something of this scale would have been impossible on Earth today, unless they had... the support of a deity.

Yes, deities were real, things like the Egyptian god Anubis, the Greek god Zeus or the Chinese goddess Xi Shi, they were all very real creatures who once walked this land with their avatars, being served and worshiped by humans and reigning over them as they fed on their faith and worship, luckily or unfortunately, as the dawn of humanity the earth's natural mana level diminished making it increasingly difficult for a being of that caliber to manifest here, these days the deities were limited to just watch their faithful and there were a chosen few among them who still possessed the ability to hear the voice of their own gods.

Of course those gods could still manifest as long as they were willing to pay a high price... Sarah suspected that the cultists had the support of some evil deity, something dark, obscure and, definitely, powerful.

Sarah continued to keep in touch with the agents outside the barrier, even though she had no idea how she could help, she would still do her best.

***

Alexis was irritated, after a quick round around the base's perimeter she found a quiet spot and began to practice an act she ardently despised, she needed to gather celestial energy to be ready in case of a new battle and the best eay to do that was through the bond with her father.

What annoyed her was that this process was invasive, Alexis was always connected to her father and so he always had 'eyes on her', but she at least still had the intimacy of her own thoughts intact, her father was unable to reading her mind, that was her last bastion of dignity.

Unfortunately, the best way to regain her powers was to allow a full bond with her father, to lower her natural guards and let the abusive angelic abomination completely invade her mind, fully exposing herself while having her own brain read and twisted, a process that Alexis hated with all her heart and she would never do it under normal circumstances.

But today the reason for her irritation was different, even though Alexis had completely lowered her defenses and opened the door completely, the *sshole she called her father refused to connect with her, for some reason the archangel refused the connection, even the natural bond she had with her father seemed… weakened.

At first she thought this was one of the effects of the barrier, after all the barrier in the building was powerful enough to completely cut the connection, but the church members confirmed that it was not, as they could feel they connections to heaven even within this fog, the only possible explanation then is that her father was purposely ignoring her.

But Alexis didn't know why, Baraquiel was a powerful archangel and, as touchy as he could be, he had never failed to help her in times of trouble, even though she hated to admit the *sshole loved her, in a twisted and possessive way, but he loved her. Feeling her father pulling away in this way aroused a series of complicated feelings in Alexis.

"Father, why have you forsaken me?" She spoke aloud, no response was elicited back and she felt the link was now as thin as a strand of hair, which her father seemed hesitant to cut.

"Does not matter! I never depended on you! I never trusted any of you! I always knew i was nothing more than one of the many results of your lack of character! You're up there thinking you're all superior while lying to the world! Now when everyone needs you and your angel friends, you stay there and do nothing! By the way, once again a dragon will have to do all the work for you! Only for later you try to claim the recognition!" She screamed into the air as she got to her feet. " But he won't do it alone! I'm not a coward like you! I will regain my strength on my own and I will fight head-on! And if I die today at least I won't be like you!" Alexis took a deep breath to calm herself, she walked out of the room she'd holed up in and headed back to the entrance, ready to keep watch.

Looking away, she sighed and said, "Boy, I hope you don't let us down..."