The Returning Guardian (2/4)
-The Present-
After "beating" Dakka up, Freyya quickly heads back through the World Gate and marches with her army as they spread out throughout the human's world.
Right now, the goddess is in her full battle armor, and she's using her magic to send her voice throughout the entire world, "The god-king of Lareen has stolen what is mine, and so long as nobody gets in the way, I won't touch any of your lives and property! Stay in your homes!"
Of course, Das is quite popular in both Arra and Lareen. Why wouldn't he be popular? He's brought new technologies, helpful aide, and enforced peace – all without paying taxes or really demanding anything from people except their prayers.
So, it's needless to say that all the locals and governments under Lareen gather together their swarms of war golems in huge, organized platoons, and they engage in battle with Freyya's army, all across the world.
Freyya knows that she HAS to destroy a lot of property, yet she's hesitant to take the commoner's lives so carelessly.
What to do about that?
To reconcile her conscience with the realities of the Mantling Ritual, Freyya smashes up the roads in several cities. She makes sure the roads are clear first, of course.
She uproots parks, knocks down statues, and upends the earth beneath all the roads – defacing the cities all over the globe.
Everything is chaos, and the cities burn.
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Right now, Freyya is standing on a tall hill, overlooking her army as it marches across the land like a tide of black locusts.
Slowly, the Goddess looks down at her stomach and groans internally, 'This is the painful part…'
Seemingly without explanation, Freyya pulls out a dagger and plunges it into her stomach – hitting a rather specific spot.
This dagger is laced with Spirit Stone, so the blade is able to cut Spirit Threads. Because of this, Freyya actually gravely injured her own spirit when she hit that spot of her abdomen. After all, the Spirit's most vital area is at your center of gravity – your abdomen.
Freyya actually lets a few tears fall, and blood starts pouring out of her mouth. With her Spirit being critically injured like this, her powers are barely at a fraction of what they once were.
Why would she handicap herself like this – especially in such a painful way?
She doesn't know why. All she knows is what the notebook said. This is the part where she's supposed to cripple her own power. It's part of the Ritual.
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-The Far Future-
There is a large council chamber set on what appears to be several layer of clouds. The gods are all sitting on various thrones, with the higher ranked gods being on the upper layers of the clouds, while the lower ranked ones and down below.
One of the gods slams his fist on his golden throne, and he shouts, "No! That rabid animal has caused enough damage! We have to put that thing down!"
Another god (a man with glowing red hair) crosses his arms and replies, "We can just hand over the 2 children. We can be done with this farce."
"Wait! You mean you found them?" another god exclaims. "That's great news!"
The red haired god nods, "Yes, we rescued them from some of the outer worlds. Some group of necromancer gods was in the middle of experimenting on them."
"What's so special about these two kids, anyway?" pouts a young goddess in a green, leafy dress. "Elishirothe upended the entire universe again just for two little brats? Isn't that too much, even for her?"
Another god – one in war armor, calmly gets everyone's attention. "We've found out that the children are young Elder Gods too – just like Drakavar herself."
There's some noticeable gasping coming from the council of gods. One god stands up and exclaims in a panic, "What if she's trying to find them so she can eat them? We can't let her gain their powers, or she'll truly be unstoppable!"
Everyone suddenly realizes the true gravity of the situation.
Drakavar may be powerful (though they don't' know HOW powerful, exactly), but she's always had some glaring weaknesses. How else was Mora able to trick her into an alternate dimension to seal her away?
However, if she suddenly gains the strength of another Elder God (much less, two), then she'll become impossible to contain! Not even Mora will be able to help them!
This realization passes through the council like a wave.
After some deliberation, they all come to a consensus.
"Fine… But do you think we can really defeat her on our own?" one god asks.
"You're forgetting about Mora," another god answers, "The Creator God has defeated her once; he can do it again. All we have to do is stall for time – make sure the beast doesn't find the children, before the God of gods shows up."
A god in the back interjects, "We should try to avoid fighting her face to face for as long as possible then."
Another adds, "She knows that space is so large that she could never catch us if we abandoned the World Tree and fled to all reaches of the universe."
After all, the World tree doesn't touch all worlds and all space; it only touches the worlds with life blooming on them.
Theoretically, if they were to exile themselves to the darkest corners of space, then Drakavar would never be able to find them; they wouldn't be on the World Tree, and she'd be unable to sense them.
One of the older gods suddenly adds, "But Drakavar knows this as well. That's why she's not engaging our forces directly, but having her minions do her fighting for her. She doesn't want to scare us off. If we all scatter, then she'll never find the 2 children."
Indeed, deliberately withholding her own strength is the only way to incentivize the gods to stand and fight.
"That's it! That's why she's using her dragon horde instead of engaging us face to face!" a young god the front exclaims.
"So, we won't run then. We'll fight! We'll destroy her dragons! Once she finally comes out of hiding, Mora will be there to defeat her!"
Things may look bleak right now, but the air in the council is an optimistic one.
…
And so, the gods convene for battle, and a long, bloody war erupts between the dragon horde and the divine hosts.
Fortunately, the black dragoness herself isn't there in person…
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-The Present-
For some reason, Freyya disappears right before the fighting starts in earnest.
By far, she's the most powerful combatant in her army, so her choice to hide herself is quite puzzling to Das.
'Ah!' he realizes. 'I know why she's hiding! She knows that she's the only one who can fight me for more than two seconds. The second she shows her face, I'll hide Haalfrin away in a corner of the world far away from her. The only way to get close to her husband is to hide her location…'
Sadly for him, her undying army is still more than enough to stomp the crap out of the war golem army.
In fact, the only reason why the war golems are managing to hold on is because the entire human world was working overtime to keep producing more golems anyway. Otherwise, the army of the dead would just endlessly revive and overwhelm the golems, despite the golems being more technologically advanced.
Making a golem is quite cheap too. All they need is some scraps of metal, lumps of stones, and a few nearby mages to enchant the thing.
Well, Haalfrin's Arkin army is fighting on behalf of the humans too… Protecting Lareen against invaders is technically his job. Plus, Freyya said that he needs to send his armies as part of the Ritual.
So, wherever the Arkin are at, Freyya's forces tend to lose a bit more. They're both endlessly reviving dead people, and the Arkin are stronger than everybody except for the dragons.
Under any other circumstance, Haalfrin would jump straight into the fighting as well, but it seems that Das has locked him up tightly in a comfortable room.
No doubt, that old god is afraid of Haalfrin escaping and getting himself run through on the tip of Freyya's spear.
With the way he's propped his elbow up, resting his head on his hand, and staring listlessly out the window, he looks like a damsel in distress, trapped in a tower.
'… This doesn't worry me at all – being locked up,' Haalfrin thinks passively while staring at the burning city below him. 'Freyya said that the future me doesn't join in the dragon-god war immediately, so it's ok for me to stay here… for now.'
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- The Far Future -
Meanwhile we see a pair of war gods standing on a balcony overlooking a snowy landscape that glitters like glass. Both of the war gods are kneeling on the ground, and their heads are bowed before the illusory image of a grey skinned giant with pointy ears.
The first god says in a low, respectful tone, "Lord Mora, we haven't seen Drakavar in person yet. We assume that she's still afraid of your power, and she's having her dragon horde wreck her havoc for her."
Mora strokes a finger along his long, Arkin ears in contemplation, "Hmm… I feel her soul stone on the far reaches of the universe – far away from the world tree. Even for her, it would take years to reach Igdris again. You should be safe to engage her armies without fearing her vengeance."
Mora pauses to think before saying, "Oh, and notify me if she appears. I want her found."
He thinks some more, then adds, "Also, I don't trust Rehkavar and Rehkawyn with you."
"Rehka…Who?" the war god asks – puzzled.
Mora sighs, "The Fox girl and Wolf boy! They're my children, so I'm sending Felkala and her husband to pick them up. DON'T touch them. Don't talk to them. Don't even LOOK at them! Do you understand?"
Mora knows very well that anyone who looks upon those two children will instantly become bewitched. People tend to do strange, out of character things when their Spirits are wrapped completely around them.
"As you will, by lord."
Right before Mora leaves, the war god on the left reaches out his hand and asks, "My Lord, how are we going to recognize Felkala?"
"She's a grey winged Felkin. She's the only Felkin with that color, so it should be easy."