BOOK 8. CHAPTER 16: CONFRONTATION

Jake now stood in front of the hidden storeroom’s warded wall. They had decided to hit both idols at once. Fhesiah had snuck them back into the cafeteria from before easily, but it turned out her illusion wasn’t quite perfect.

The more powerful inner sanctum disciples could actually sense her kitsune flames even through the mystical arts she knew, perhaps because of their high affinity with flames. It wasn’t that they got caught, but they got a few strange looks in their direction before they moved out of their sensory radius.

Jake was glad that they hadn’t decided to try to infiltrate the core sanctum, as sneaking in definitely would not have worked. Ultimately, he may have been able to get through with Ira teleporting them inside anyhow, but he knew that their opponent would desire to fight to the death the moment they were spotted, and that would be inevitable.

Fhesiah still got them into the storeroom, and then Ophelia and Nessa waited in place and took over hiding with one of Jake’s improved cultivator items. He had improved the effectiveness of a special camouflage item much like a large cloak or blanket, which could hide him and a few normal-sized people from sight visibly. Then, it also greatly dampened and hid their auras, making it nearly impossible to detect for anyone not specifically looking for them.

They were thankful that the security around the cafeteria was nearly nonexistent and that the crowds had lessened. Fhesiah, Jake, and Ruby snuck the other way together and got into position. They were to strike both places at once, and Jake had an easy one to break through without much noise, and where the infiltrators might still be near.

Among his runic spells of the second Tier were a few that allowed for temporary elemental manipulation. Breathing out his void energy from his Void Lungs, he dampened the wards to become unresponsive and lose their protection. Then, his earthen runic spell took effect, and the wall crumbled away with a flex of his will.

Ophelia had no issues replicating his usage of the spell, but unfortunately, she did not have his void energy. She let Nessa unravel the wards, and Nana helping her with the task only took them a little longer than Jake’s party.

Upon revealing the statues of Balor, the malevolence within was palpable. And to his surprise, he actually received more than one notification, but he was focused on the entity in question.

The spirituality of the evil entity pressed down on them like a heavy weight over their heads, but Jake had already taken on Nessa’s state of the Justicar, enabling him to purge the taint with his flames and blast it down easily, shattering it. The statues by themselves were not powerful without cultists around to be empowered by them, and the malevolence had nearly zero effect on their Divine-powered party unless they touched it.

As much as he wanted to move the idol instead, the object was extremely dangerous for him and his party if left alone. Not only could it potentially injure their spirits, but it may be able to send the energy off to another location with enough time.

When the idol was destroyed, a shot of purified divinity, the faith energy, shot into him and his party through him, and seeing no additional threats, he checked the messages.

[Influence of Tartarus Divine detected. Destroy it for reward.]

[This world is currently Contested, and this is a No-Contest Zone. Discover and defeat the betrayer plot for rewards. Restrictions lifted for party for facing potential native-betrayer threat. Altering restrictions worldwide.]

It was good to receive this message before their battle. Their intent mattered, even for just interrogating the cultists. If they had wanted to slay them, the Framework wouldn’t have actually allowed it. This was also a large part of the reason Jake and his party didn’t desire to go in with their guns blazing, needing to investigate before they acted as best they could.

If natives got in the way of their attempts to stop the threats, the Framework would have actually prevented them from doing much more than defending themselves. With them invading the No-Contest zone, even Clan Hart needed a valid reason to slay the natives. Otherwise, the Obsidian Mercenaries could have just forced their way in and then ‘defended themselves’ when the temple occupants were the defenders and send the world into ruin, in theory.

Likely, the same message had occurred on Highlands before Clan Hart had even arrived. It simply hadn’t mattered until Jake and the rest met the reptile beastkin underground.

They had other options for invading the temple, of course. Jake was a baron, and he could request for the restrictions to be lessened or lifted. Because they had already submitted evidence from their interrogations that this was a point of potential plot, it may not have even taken long. But they would have needed to try entry first and show that the natives were not cooperating besides. This was their plan for the wind temple, but they hoped that, once they resolved the Grand Fire Temple’s issue, one of their people could speak as a representative.

Their other option was merely to tunnel in and check those locations on the outside. This would have worked, but they didn’t know that for sure. Hindsight was twenty-twenty.

The hidden room was rather sparse, looking like a storeroom of its own but with a few cots for resting. It had racks for supplies of food, and the evil idols had once again had tainted blood bowls, which it appeared the food was soaked in. Jake was morbidly curious how something that should taste so awful and be so obvious was somehow ignored, but he definitely didn’t have the time to dig into it at the moment.

Scouring the room quickly, they finally found something of interest–communication devices that looked like nothing more than disks or plates with glyphs and lines running through them. Fhesiah and Nessa were each quick to gather them up in their respective rooms, locking them down with their cultivator arts and doing their best to divine how they worked.

However, they needed to rush, so they would need to investigate them later. To their surprise, they found a magical formation inside which actually shifted the earth within to create a temporary tunnel to the third location, the place of the ritual based on their interrogations.

Fhesiah was looking over it when one of the cultists ran inside the outer storeroom to check the situation, spotting Jake in the doorway.

The goblin male was full of flames, his veins pumped full of fiery malevolence. “You…what are you doing! Erk–”

Of course, Jake was ready for him, wrapping runic shackles around him the moment he appeared. “Nice of you to join us. It means we don’t have to hunt all of you down.” The man’s heretical flames died down from the magical dampening effect, and the spell infused with the State of the Justicar seared his flesh.

Ruby then leaped from hiding and pierced him with her claw in his shoulder, drawing some of his blood into her, and her bloodflame purified the malevolence. She drew up just enough of to weaken him significantly and make him lose consciousness as she grabbed his pouch of materials.

The blood badgerdillo smacked her lips, even though the flame was drawn into her chest. “Gross because of the taint, but also spicy from the flame. Different.”

Fhesiah chuckled, not looking up from the formations on the floor and walls. “A fire elf woman is getting away though, Husband.”

“Ira.”

Ira moved through the void, the wyrm arriving near the fleeing cultist in a near instant. They had just barely gotten into the next hallway as they tried to flee from the cafeteria. Ira used its taloned claws to hamstring the fiery elven woman and wound her enough that she wouldn’t be interfering with any of their plans. As much as Jake would like to sequester her off for interrogation, they needed to move quickly.

Snatching her pouch, Ira returned with it and dropped it into Jake’s hands. “We’ll come back for her later, if we can.”

The glyphs and lines lit up, and the wall started to shift and open and form a tunnel. “I got it. Nessa should be able to get the other one now.”

Ruby sniffed as she added physical shackles that performed a similar function to the runic shackles and lifted the goblin over her shoulder. “I’ll bring this one with us?”

“Might as well. Let’s move.”

They flew through the tunnel rapidly, Ira checking ahead for any signs of a trap. Jake debated just calling the others to him, but an attack from both sides could end up working better for them.

He had opted to leave Bloodberri and Tanda together in Rashik’s room so that they could defend each other and they could move with smaller groups. Once again, the girl had suffered because she was so much bigger than others.

Perhaps because the enemy sensed them coming, the walls started to collapse as they flew through the tunnel. Jake quickly brought out the Earth Manipulation runic spell and shoved with his will to hold the walls as best as he could using his Expert Energy Manipulation as they flew the rest of the way. Ophelia, holding Nessa, instead dashed toward the end with exceptional speed from her vajrafire technique and burst through the tunnel wall on her side.

On the other side of the tunnel was a group of cultists in a much larger cavern, and Jake was shocked at the numbers present within. The place reeked of the smell of iron, mold, and general wrongness, and the tainted energy within was significant. The spiritual pressure from the evil god’s faith and divine energy was heavy in the air, weighing down on Jake and his party.

It was the most Jake had ever felt, surpassing even the Enforcer that they had faced. It was true that they lacked sensitivity at that time, and that monster was technically limited to the First Tier. But even the cultists on The Mystic Expanse hadn’t managed to build up this much malevolence; this was years of preparation and sacrifice.

The cavern was huge and sloped downward from where they arrived, with many chains and stone bowls filled with blood scattered throughout. It was set up like an auditorium, with stone stairs and platforms with pews for them to worship their god. There were well over a hundred cultists, with just as many or more people seemingly chained against their will.

And Ophelia and Nessa did arrive on the other side, slightly askew and down the hill some. There was a massive opening and stone stage at the bottom, where the blood ran down into, with several idols placed. From the idols, a black haze drifted into the air and congealed around a massive form.

The creature was perhaps the largest they had ever faced, but thankfully, it was more of a wraith or spirit at this point than a physical creature. It reminded Jake of when they faced the ‘death god’ back on Highlands to purify the taint within the Heart of the World. It was what appeared to be a kneeling fire giant, its body covered in black and red flames.

[Aspect of Evil Divine Detected(Incomplete). Defeat for reward.]

Jake saw dozens of ways for him to approach this battle against the Aspect of Balor and the cultists. But he was flooded with emotion with how all his wives looked on at the terrible crimes committed within the cavern. The chained people wailed in torment, others crying in a pool of their own blood. Cultists were already trying to stab them and drain what blood might be left in them, as if in response to their arrival.

Thanks to all the suffering and pain of countless lives ruined, it was easy to switch to the State of the Avenger as he brought all his wives into the room with Call Summon.

Bree, Avalara, Tanda, and Bloodberri all joined the room with the rest of them, leaving out only Sati–who seemed to be doing just fine making her way toward the core sanctum. Avalara roared, opening the portal to Highlands, manifesting her Sublimation.

Jake remembered what Cernunnos had done when Tanda summoned him during that battle against the Champion of Apophis, as well as what he had done to turn calamity into opportunity against the Death God. This creature was definitely around that level of strength, but he wouldn’t have Avalara’s World Core helping him.

He had her Battle Avatar at least, and they were now in the second Tier, so he was going to go for it. Jake gave out his orders.

“Defend us against the cultists. Try to leave the cultists alive to gather evidence, and buy Tanda and me some time.”

Having just been summoned to him, Jake pulled her in and held Tanda to him and took a deep breath, trying to find harmony as their hearts beat together, seeking to find synchronicity as the battle began.

On the other side of the cavern, Nessa spread out her lake across the cavern floor and entered it, and Ophelia had already summoned Valora and began dashing around cutting cultists down from her back. They went along with Jake’s plan, doing their best to avoid killing blows as they rescued the chained figures. Her Hearth Guardian joined the battle, spreading healing flames.

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Ruby rushed forward, drawing a bunch of the tainted blood toward her in a plan to purify it and then use it with her bloodflame, slicing into cultists with her claws. Drawing in more blood to create more deadly blades, the badgerdillo woman was truly in her violent element here as she rapidly cut across the battlefield.

Avalara leaped down to the middle of the cavern and rooted herself in place in front of Jake and Tanda, and vines started to grow outward from her. Bree rushed forward with her large dinodog form and crashed into some cultists, and Bloodberri weaved through the cavern to do the same. Her body sent cultists flying, and her Twilight Monarch Aura fed into the nearby chained figures, helping restore them from the torment.

The cultists did not just sit still. They drew up black and red tainted flames from their bodies and attacked. But the flames of the average cultist were nothing more than warm heat to Jake’s party, only the force behind their gouts and darts of flame having any effect on them.

The area in front of the stage had numerous powerful betrayer cultists, and they were feeding immense flames into the Aspect from the idols, chanting and murmuring in harsh whispers. The giant stirred and began to stand, roaring so loudly it shook the entire cave.

“I’ll take care of the bigshots’ flames.” Fhesiah said as she dashed forward in her draconic form. She built up her own flame from her chest and her Hestia’s Torch and prepared to receive their tainted flames. Because after the giant rose, they began casting toward members of their family, these flames far more dangerous than the rest.

The giant stomped forward and raised its fist to bring it down toward Ophelia, who was closest to the stage, but his wives were all ready. A blast of righteous vajrafire, two flaming spears of light and dark, blades of blood, and frostfire daggers struck the monster at once, rocking it back as the many spells hit its spiritual body.

The attacks from the family continued, even as they wounded and defended against the cultists. Fhesiah had already drawn in some tainted flames for her celestial alchemy, building up a powerful breath attack.

Feeling Tanda’s will become one with his, he triggered [Fusion Ascension]. Their bodies partially became flame as they were drawn into one another and merged; the two became one. The tall, tanned-skinned person wore tribal armor and held a crescent moon spear with a flaming focus near the tip, Pyros and Tanda’s transforming weapon becoming one. Under the armor, Janda was androgynous-looking, but had long black hair and wide raven wings, a combination of the two.

The orb in the armored chestplate became filled with black, deathly flames, and the cyclical auril heart within them pulsed, singing the song of vengeance.

Despite Tanda being sealed, Jake was not. Somehow, this meant that all their Champion abilities became available, and something they had learned in their testing was that all of Tanda’s Divine Energy became available to Janda during this time.

With a wave of their merged Divine Weapon, numerous spriggon summons joined the rapidly-growing Highlands jungle, along with several Hearthtribe druid’s templates. Janda opened the Diva Seal, the patterned sealing tattoos spreading across their tanned skin.

It was paradise. The life energy within the cavern rose, the vibrant power being drawn from the seal letting out a brilliant green and gold light. Vitality and endless life flooded the already fertile Highlands jungle, and Janda’s Sublimation wrenched open an even bigger portal to Highlands, auril spilling out of it and adding on to what was already there.

Whispers of greatness and temptations for bliss and eternal satisfaction reached Janda’s ears, but their will was full of purpose as they began to prepare their summon, drawing the divine energy from their merged vessel. The spirituality weighed down on those around them, the fallen cultists near them groaning from their might.

The Aspect’s eye lit up, and an immense amount of hatred built as it turned to Janda, but Fhesiah flew into its line of sight, releasing her stored flame. The gold flames blasted outward just in time for a beam of malevolence fired from the eye to crash into her flames, the roaring spiritual pressure from the attack pushing down on them like a heavy weight. The flames were eventually overwhelmed by the blast, and what remained headed toward Fhesiah.

Ophelia’s Hearth Guardian intercepted what was left, its Sentinel ability protecting her. The Athenian Valkyrie herself then blitzed into the giant on Valora, cutting into its spiritual body with her polearm, sending vajrafire blasting into its form.

Janda summoned their Divine. “Cernunnos, I call upon you. We must punish these betrayers of life and save the victims that can be saved. Let us destroy the Aspect and turn calamity into opportunity, creating a path to heal this world and punish the wicked.”

Half of Janda’s Divine Energy was consumed, and the divine brilliance of the Alliance Divine built. Following the Divine’s guidance, the flames of his wives’ hearths were drawn in with Janda acting as the Nexus, consuming a fair amount of their mana and resources. Individually, they thankfully were not hit as hard as when Jake summoned Hestia.

Janda raised their staff into the air, the flames gathering above it. But through a portal next to it came Cernunnos himself, walking through the air as if it were the ground with his hoofed legs. The satyr man was covered with leaves and vines rather than fur, holding his horseshoe in one hand and a snake coiled around the other arm.

Cernunnos’ smile was wide as magical energies cascaded over the Highlands jungle, Avalara, and the spriggons. He laughed. “What luck, what abundance! You have prepared the stage well for me, son-in-law. I think today marks the day our enemy will truly fear the void child, because it will understand one simple fact: they are too late to stop you, too late to ruin your potential. Make sure you all pay attention well, especially you, my beloved daughter.”

The snake then lashed out and ate the orb of flames, despite its head being far too small to manage the feat. The nearly prismatic fire ran through the snake’s body, and then Cernunnos, and flowers began to bud and flower all over his body as they grew from his leafy fur.

The Divine grinned as he gestured with his hands, and all the stockpiled energy within the cavern rushed toward him, including much of the malevolence, the black miasma floating throughout the room.

“Not bad, not quite like my wife’s flames, but I’m used to them. Paradise, life, despair, death, malevolence….and vengeance to make justice. This is a recipe I’m familiar with. I can get started, but I will need some more of natural death, nethril, by the end of it.”

The many flowers across his body blossomed, seeds forming and releasing to float into his hands and thrown into Avalara and Janda’s jungle in the center. They merged with the many plants and began altering and transforming them, and as if following the Divine’s will, all the spriggons and Janda’s druid templates turned to infuse them with energy. It almost looked like the many plants caught fire in a nova of flame, but it was more like veins of flame were running through the plants and vines.

The vines wrapped around the cultists and victims alike, and both Janda and Avalara swapped their Sublimations to death. A black mire began to grow underneath the rising jungle of flame and life, a mass of plants growing to cover and fill the entire cavern, and down toward the stage.

Cernunnos chuckled. “Good! Good. You’ll have to weaken the Aspect some more to make this work. But not too much. There needs to be something left to be worth taking.”

Janda’s body ignited, Avenging Flames burning hot and empowering their body. Their Divine Weapon twisted and transformed into a bow, and ballista-bolt-sized arrows were shot at the Aspect. Each arrow exploded like that of an artillery shell, blasting the monster as it wailed and stumbled.

Deathly flames invaded the Aspect’s spiritual body, tearing away at its existence as a flock of ravens was released from their massive amounts of auril. Janda’s heart was thumping in their chest, singing the song of nature’s vengeance.

Ruby and Nessa sliced the giant from one side as they dodged flaming tentacles coming from the aspect, their spirituality from their daos enhancing their blows. Evil-killing poison was injected, even as Nana controlled ice serpents and froze parts of the Aspect’s tentacles.

The giant lamia had grown from her own casting of Giant’s Growth, and she cut with her weapon, glimmering with bronze Twilight energy, into the monster’s flank. The explosion of light and dark caused the monster to stumble and wail, having difficulty recovering its footing as more of Janda’s arrows struck it and exploded with each attack. They had taken to the air with their wings, able to fire at the creature despite the room getting full of plants.

The plants grown sufficiently, covered in blackish plants, Avalara leaped with her club high, bringing it down on the giant’s head as Bree crashed into it with her horn from the front, full of the flames of fertility. It swept its arm in counter, but Ophelia was there to meet it with her flaming shield and polearm, the Hearth Guardian helping her in holding back the blow. Tentacles of flame tried to lash out and grab Bree, but they were met by her own flaming vines.

Janda thought that was comical, and their tail started to wag, even as they flew through the cavern and fired more arrows. Helping the Divine, they used their Plant Control to aid the pace of the mass of plants’ movement.

The Aspects eye then burned with hatred once more, but two shields of vines from Bree rose up into its face as she bit onto its leg and shoved and twisted. The beam pierced both shields, but its attack was sent askew from its original target, hitting the cavern walls uselessly and sending rocks and dust tumbling into the cavern.

Fhesiah released a blast of golden flame once more, this time created by Nessa’s flames mixed with her dragon flames. The monster roared as the golden flames burned its wraith body, its malevolence decreasing from the series of attacks.

Janda did their best to listen to the song being sung and feel the magic and divine energy flowing through the room as they drew their bow and continued firing shot after shot at the Aspect. The giant roared as it took heavy damage from all their allies, and it went into a rage as it seemed to understand what was happening. The mass of plants was now encroaching the stage, the entire cavern filled.

A dense mound of fiery plants with a deathly swamp underneath now moved forward onto the stage, as if crawling. At some point, it had spit the victims out safely near the rear of the cavern where Jake had entered, mostly restored from the brink of death, and now, it snatched the idols on the stage.

The cultists were dragged into the mire beneath the fiery plant, drowning them in mud and strangling them with divine mottled, death-infused vines. They fought and attempted to use flames to escape, but they had already expended much of their flames trying to burn through the flaming vines or sacrificing to their Aspect in hopes to strengthen the spirit.

The giant fought with greater fervor as it roared and went into a rage, but it was already weakening. The Twilight Monarch Aura had already sapped much of its strength from so many blows, and Blood was already covering it in holy dark shackles.

The dense mound twisted until it became a wreath. As Janda looked deeply at it, they noticed that it wasn’t just Celtic knots intricately woven. The vines were covered or tattooed in Divine Script and Celtic runes, songs of battle and vengeance, and the punishment of the wicked to restore the balance.

The giant was dragged into the plant, the wreath of life and death wrapping around the monster and restraining it. The Aspect roared as the wreath constricted around it like a living snake. The fires of vengeance scorched its spiritual body as the power of decay weakened and deconstructed it. Its spirit was being drawn into the wreath, the faith energy draining from it.

The monster fought back, trying to tear at its bindings, but it was hopeless. A beam of malevolence blasted out from its evil eye, shredding the plant–but it merely regrew, the damage not lasting more than a brief moment. It tried to corrupt the wreath with its blackish, tentacular flames, but the wreath was designed to absorb malevolence.

It failed to corrupt as it was burnt and destroyed, fueling the wreath’s magical growth. Combined with the auril ravens, avenging flames from Janda’s arrows, and Nessa’s poison, the creature was eventually dispersed into spiritual energy and absorbed by the wreath.

Its work done, the giant construct shrunk as the vines twisted, compressing as energy from the room was drawn in. Cernunnos laughed as he waved his horseshoe, and from the wreath, a much larger acorn was created before it flew into Janda’s hands. It had veins of flame running through it, containing both the flames infused with life but also purified death. The hint of divinity within it was significant.

A Divine Spark shot out of the seed, much to Janda’s surprise. It took them a moment to realize what it was. It was the Framework’s reward for defeating an Aspect.

Cernunnos chuckled, his voice filled with joy. “Nearly double the gains, not bad at all, son-in-law! Those cultists we dragged into the mire, their spirits were captured and will be questioned by Arawn and myself. If they know anything useful, we will contact you–but I bet you’ve already found what you need.” He smiled wide at Avalara, her bestial deer form smiling back with a laugh. “Good to see you so happy on the battlefield, Daughter. Let us see each other soon. I would like to finally meet my grandchildren in the flesh when the battle is won.”

She nodded, and Cernunnos then disappeared into motes of light, their victory complete.

Janda closed the Diva Seal before Jake and Tanda parted, and he took as much of the Divine Energy from her as he could as they separated. He felt rather drained from the summoning, but he was happy to see that he still had about two-thirds of his Divine Energy remaining–he could not take it all. He handed Tanda the acorn, and she put it into the flaming hole in her chest and into her hearthvines to nurture it.

Jake had enough left that he would have no trouble either summoning Hestia on his own or trying to fuse with Fhesiah to summon Bastet. They hadn’t been successful up to now, but he figured in the heat of a battle that matters might be best.

It certainly worked well for Ophelia and Tanda, anyway. Jake was also getting a little better at it with each attempt and success, and he didn’t fully want to blame Fhesiah for the issue. It did appear to be related to her duality, but it was challenging to know if that was or wasn’t the case.

Failing that, Jakelia could always perform a summon together, or they were plenty dangerous on their own without it. At this time, Jakelia was truly his biggest trump card. Guan Yu and Echidna were also both useful in battle.

The battle won, the family all crowded around the closed entrance to the cavern, where the captives had been dumped out by the plants, mostly healed.

They had picked up numerous spatial pouches and similar items during the battle, and Fhesiah already started going through some of them.

Berri said, “We beat that big guy easily enough, huh? I guess with nine of us, they better have more than one of them when they face us, or they are totally boned.”

Blood narrowed her eyes at that. “Yes, and that is precisely why we shall not allow ourselves to get into that position. It is difficult to accomplish thanks to Milord’s powers, but having so many of us on one world is very dangerous.”

The girls all began to heal the former captives, and Ophelia looked at them with a bit of sadness. “So many of them died. It’s good that we could save some, but so many had suffered.”

Nessa grimaced as she used a runic healing spell on a captive, its blue and green soothing light wrapping around them. “The evil cultists will taste true justice from Cernunnos and Arawn, but this was really terrible.”

Many of the captives died. There simply wasn’t enough life and vitality remaining within them to be saved, but they were cleansed of the taint in the end. Around half had made it, so this was still a big win for the temple.

They were weak and emaciated from the bloodletting, and many would actually need rest and food to recover. The healing powered by Hestia’s Renewal had certainly helped, but much of their vitality needed to be restored the usual way.

“Alright. Let’s help these people recover a bit, then get everyone over to where Sati is.”

Jake and his wives spent some time healing, cleansing the dozens of the taint, and restoring their health to mostly-functional levels. He could feel that Sati was doing well, so they took their time and helped get some food in them as well. They would need to tunnel the people out. The formations that allowed them to come and go were destroyed.

While they had crushed the main threat, he could still feel that the danger was looming from Sati.