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The chest spread apart, making anyone glad this was a body of silver, as the vision of someone’s chest bursting open to accept a weird artifact would definitely freak out some people.
?
A crack in the sky appeared, as Sapphyra’s head started to come down from the crack, her eyes closed. She was concentrating; her face was absolutely gigantic, showing the immense soul power of the Goddess of Felinids Souls.
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She fell as more and more of her body came down from the crack. It was midnight, the moon’s light shining down on Cygislax as Akhenamen saw her forehead touch the new body as she suddenly disappeared. Getting absorbed into the new body.
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“So it begins.”
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“Yes… Now there’s nothing we can do but defend her.”
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Akhenamen soon saw the sand shift, forming different shapes and drawings. Making Ruby-Khion look at them weirdly.
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“So that sand golem is still too lazy to speak?”
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“You know Ulgatoth?”
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“I do. He is old, even for a goddess’s standard. He’s definitely much older than the Forgotten War; it’s a wonder why he isn't around the level of a Providence.”
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Akhenamen’s eye hadn’t left the drawing and shapes, soon understanding what Ulgatoth or one of his children was telling him. It was a warning.
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“Be ready. Three are coming.”
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“Three what?”
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“Fallen. They are attracted to your sister’s soul. I suppose a Goddess’s soul is far more attractive than a few million mortal souls.”
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“They have been asleep for thousands of years, and now they wake up at a similar time as the Cygilites…. This is getting suspicious. What the hell is the System doing?! It should have warned us! We’d have organized proper hunts to eliminate the Fallen.”
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“You only now are surprised by the System hiding things from you? I thought you were aware of its goal?”
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“We are… still doesn’t mean we’re told much, if anything at all.”
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“Here’s one of them.”
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A powerful explosion of sand made a massive sand cloud rise in the air as an enormous shape started to pull itself out of the sand, like Damocles. It looked like a mass of flesh; however, they seemed to already be in their second stage, standing up on big legs made from too many limbs to count.
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Their arms were almost as long as their body as a thousand mouths and eyes opened, roaring and screaming with millions of voices before quieting down and staring at Sapphyra, as if completely hypnotized by the goddess’s soul.
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“Magelan…”
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“What?”
?
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“That was Magelan. A good friend of ours. He was tasked with protecting us from the fourth Cygilites offensive. He failed because he had been too busy fucking with another goddess. He was a god of love and lust. He was punished by death alongside all his children.”
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“You gods sound like loyal and loving friends.”
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While Akhenamen’s snarky remark might have sounded rude, there was no pity in Akhenamen’s eye or tone. While he pitied Damocles for having been betrayed despite having fulfilled his duty and having stayed loyal. If Ruby-Khion’s tale was true, then Magelan had dug his own grave.
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He would also be pissed if he learned the guy he was counting on to protect his sides was actually fucking someone from his harem while his troops, no doubt composed from not just his children but many other god’s childrens, got slaughtered.
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As for the death of Magellan’s children? He also understood it was better to kill them rather than let them see and feel themselves mutate into horrendous creatures and monsters before inevitably losing their mind.
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Didn’t mean he approved of that sentence, though. There had to be far more ways to punish Magelan instead of killing him and dooming millions of mortal souls to damnation.
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“Anyway, we’re not here to settle political debate. Protect your sister’s body. In Cygislax, I fear nothing, nor do my Legions.”
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The first blow didn’t come from Akhenamen or even Magelan but from one of the Hyperfauna Machines, which, boosted to the rank of an Axiom (8th), flew down with immense speed, its eagle-like body covered in lightning as it landed claws first into Magelan, making its body implode and suffer immense damage right at the start of the battle.
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The Thundering Calamity screeched, its eagle-like robotic screech blowing a shockwave around its body as lightning rained down on him before he took off once more with a speed fast enough that Akhenamen would have been unable to follow if not for his even greater Sight stat.
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Something as big as a Hyperfauna Machine shouldn’t be allowed to be that quick, yet everyone was being proven wrong. In fact, Akhenamen had nothing to do; the great eagle would swoop down in a tempest of lightning and thunder every time the Fallen built itself a new body, getting annihilated and burned by lightning every time it tried.
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Akhenamen was watching carefully; he didn’t have the occasion to last time, but now he could properly watch and observe how a Fallen adapted to their opponents. Albeit the Thundering Calamity might successfully kill Magelan before that.
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Seeing this beautiful construct made Akhenamen realise he would absolutely need to get himself a loyal partner and mount. Not out of necessity, just because of how cool it looked to slam down on the battlefield on top of a mount that could wipe out the army alone.
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Obviously, a Hyperfauna Machine would be extremely cool, but Akhenamen respected his people too much to reduce one of them to “a mount”.
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“Oh… is it dead? No… It’s reversing its first mutation. I suppose many smaller targets are far harder to kill than just a single big one.”
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Akhenamen raised his glaive and slammed it on Cygislax’s wall, the black walls lighting up with green like lines, activating Cygislax’s turrets and defenses. The Legions get ready to defend the city from a siege by the Fallen’s army.
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He started to walk forward calmly, green platforms being created under his feet while his cloak floated softly in the wind. With one raise of his hand, millions of green colored Cygilite bodies were created, rising like phantom armies, taking a march alongside their Hierarch toward the approaching army.
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This kind of battle was Akhenamen’s favorite; it allowed him to truly train his Divine Law of Collective Continuance. Millions of Cygilites slammed into millions of Fallens. The Cygilites were like an inevitable spear, piercing through the invaders with almost no effort.
?
The XIV and XV Legions' artillery started raining down on the Fallens lines. Supporting their brothers and sisters of silver from afar. The loud bass-like sound from the Gauss Canons, the softer but far faster whistles of Cygislax’s automated defenses shooting down any flying invaders with waves of plasma bolts raining down on the aerial attackers, everything seemed straight out of some turn-based strategy sci-fi game.
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Akhenamen himself did almost nothing; his summoned Legions were his. So any beast slain would have its exp and rewards attributed to him. However, the Fallens were unrewarding enemies as they also counted as a single entity despite being made from millions of souls.
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So right now, Akhenamen didn’t gain any experience; he would have to kill the Fallen directly to get its exp. And Fallen didn’t even carry any loot. Or he had been really unlucky with Damocles. This was also possible.
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“Four more Fallens incoming!”
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“Release the Hyperfauna Machines.”
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The Thundering Calamity, the massive whale-like Slumbering Calamity, the Slithering Earthquake, and the three wolf-like Authorities that Akhenamen had come to nickname the Pack started to come out from Cygislax’s stratum. Cygislax was made from seven floating disks, each disk having a constant increase in its defensive capacities and floating above the one below it.
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The disk/stratum at the base was the biggest and belonged to the Hyperfauna Machines. Seeing those titans rush to war made the three Legions guarding Cygislax feel… frustrated. They had the orders to stay put and support from afar.
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But they obeyed and waited, knowing their siblings depended on them to give their support. Akhenamen moved his glaive tight in one of his four hands, his knees buckling as if he was bending down to hug them, before a loud shockwave which exploded the flesh of every Fallen around him for hundreds of meters, spread around the battlefield as his body became a thin green light.
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The power of his aspect rose as he quickly reached two of the newly arrived Fallens. The Hyperfauna Machines follow their Hierarch to take care of the last two. Akhenamen wanted to sigh. He would love to just erase those Fallens swiftly to go do more important stuff like analyse his mushroom hybrids with Sofya or play with Syllena as he had promised, but well…
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[Obtained a new quest: Siege of Cygislax]
[Quest Giver] : System
[Siege of Cygislax] [Limited Quest] : The newly resurrected Cygilites’ capital, Cygislax, is being besieged by the Fallens, horrendous eldritch beasts interested only in consuming souls. They are attracted by the Divine Soul of Sapphyra, the Moon. Do your best to make this battle into one of legends and myth.
[Objectives] :
Do not kill the Fallens too quickly 0/1
Make it interesting and as marketable as possible 0/1
[Reward] :
Fate Choosen’s Radar
The objectives weren’t even to protect Cygislax or Sapphyra, just to give the System good content for its trailers. The reward, however… would be deeply useful.
(CET) (UTC+01:00) as usual!