CHAPTER 445: ARC 6, CHAPTER 61: ODE TO THE SEA-WITCH

"How amusing~!!" Beauregard clapped. Then her neck and face wilted, "But that is not what I crave for at the very moment. You want to save them, correct? Noble by beauty and by heart~"

"I’d rather not let them drown, so yes," Jotou answered.

The slime-woman lifted a hand to her lips and smiled wide, "Then beg."

"Huh?"

"Oh~ you need more training! Both of you, on the ground, like little puppies whimpering for their treat~ Make your master happy, and I might just give you your reward~" Beauregard whimsically marched towards another pedestal.

"Sobi switch," Jotou hushed. ’I can’t close the distance in time.’ The blonde’s eyes wandered the bodies submerged in water. ’And even if I hit her, that doesn’t guarantee their safety. ...You’ll die by this blade, I swear.’

Swallowing her pride, her narrowed eyes stared daggers at Beauregard. "Tang." The Skyslayer hit the marble floor and Jotou kneeled down.

Asobi gripped her wand in both hands, confused at the sight of the blonde and then shot a slight glare at the slime-girl; she followed suit, getting onto her knees.

"Ooo~! Let’s hear it, you’re getting me all worked up!" Beauregard barely took eyes off of the two while water surged and busted open the glass framing around sheets of poetry, which she picked up.

Jotou got on her hands and bowed her head, "Please, oh magnificent new God, your humble pathetic pet asks that you spare these lives. I promise to serve for your benevolence master."

"Mh," Asobi got into the same position uncomfortably and spoke, "And I’ll be yours too."

Beauregard yipped and giggled, "AHH! Oh, I’m all drenched, oh my sweet little pets, here’s your treat~!"

"CRACK."

Beauregard twisted a finger in the air and multiple muffled yet audible snaps were heard simultaneously. Within the liquid walls, water surged around every person’s head and twisted around, creating enough pressure to snap all their necks in an instant.

The vortexes around each neck surged into their noses and mouths and easily tore their necks from the rest of their body; sanguine fluid diffused into the water.

The abrupt conclusion to dozens of lives made Jotou’s and Asobi’s eyes widen at the sight. Beauregard’s childish giggle was the only loud sound, "A ruined reward makes the next one much sweeter~!

Those expressions~ To see the treat for your obedience to be—popped!—so easily. You will just have to do more to earn it~" Her titillated expression shifted into a dark one, "What gives you the right to make requests of me?

I am centuries old. I am Beauregard, beloved and revered; the most beautiful new God with the most luscious form. And did you truly think I would fall for your tricks again my adorable elf?"

"BWFOOSH!"

The aquamarine water came crashing down and roiled together to blast into two invisible figures and grapple them in two separate vortexes high up from the ground.

The illusion of Asobi and Jotou on their knees faded, while the real two reappeared in the magical grasp behind Beauregard. The slime-woman’s face, hair and limbs twisted within the body that stayed still and adjusted to look at her newly caught prey, "I adapt~"

Both of them had only their head exposed while water rushed around their necks and encased form; they struggled while severed heads, blood and corpses circled in the water around them. "Why!? We could’ve just fought and you let them go!" Asobi shouted out.

"Cause like the other new gods, she belongs in an asylum," Jotou grunted.

"I have no heart and yet it aches, but you my sweet lightning are nothing more than a flesh puppet—I adore resistance, it’s fun to break~" Beauregard giggled.

"Jotou’s Jotou, there’s no one else like her!" Asobi’s fingers fidgeted in the water, hoping to catch her wand swirling around within.

"Thanks Sobi, but don’t waste your breath," Jotou’s body became calm and her eyes sparked down at the slime-girl. "I’m much more than a puppet or a vessel, I’m a person. Whatever I look like, I’ll always be that.

You? You’re a delusional lab experiment gone awry masquerading as a god because no one will see you as a person and it’s the only thing that will satisfy your soulless existence.

All you can fill yourself is with lust like an animal because you’re nothing more than a monstrosity; and you have the gall to try and look like a person, because you secretly crave connection. I pity you."

...

Tears of slime ran down Beauregard’s cheeks while her lips pouted. "Petty wench," she sniffled. Her expression brightened the next second, "I’m the one who does the degrading! No matter, you will learn soon enough~ We shall be leaving, I have what I need."

"TSSHHH!"

The water and blood swirling around Jotou evaporated; from head to toe she sparked. She landed on the ground with her feet apart and she brought her shoulder up to, "Shoulder-Charge!"

She was whizzed forward towards the slime-girl, but Beauregard squeaked as her lower body formed into a wave of water and she drifted back before the blonde’s lightning could discharge into her.

"Splosh!" "Thud!" "Ouch..." Asobi landed with the rest of the water, on her back. She reached for her wand, "Eep!" it was by a wet headless corpse; in fact, she was surrounded by corpses and heads thwapping onto the floor.

"Mmhf! No fair!" the slime-woman shouted. Her lower form shifted constantly like a never-ending wave while she slithered further and further back. "You made me lose my grip on my elf!"

"She’s not yours and neither am I you sentient blob," Jotou yelled across the room and sprinted towards her.

Aquamarine water shimmered and rose in waves against her, attempting to encase her, shift her, anything. However, the sparks encasing her form proved too electrifying and sizzling for the water to have any true effect.

Beauregard pouted and kept swatting her hand; she made a razor thin whip of water directed at the blonde’s neck, but to no avail.

’Not sure if she can tell I’m casting spark twenty times at full power cause she keeps dissipating it... Ugh... I’m really not at full strength for a fight and she’s way more powerful.’

"AHH!" Beauregard jetted upwards and attached her lower self to a marble pillar, "Is this why you have been such a nuisance!? Such a gorgeous juggernaut of lightning," she sobbed. "How dare you! I am a new God, a new God I tell you!

You’re not a God! You cannot take my place! I’ll show you! You will be afraid of me; you will bow before me!" she... pathetically threw a crying tantrum?

Asobi walked over while Jotou quizzically looked up at the slime-girl. The blonde slowly reached down and grabbed her sword, which was her actual intended target.

"And I thought the Briar Prince had issues," Asobi fluttered her lashes.

"I killed a new god yesterday, so," Jotou hollered up.

"Plosh!" Beauregard slingshotted herself across the gallery and stuck herself to the ceiling, away from the two. She giggled while upside down, her eyes twisting so she was looking right side up, "Oh my sweet lightning in a bottle, he cannot die.

It might take him another half a century to return though. But even by age you won’t be alive for that long, will you~? Genuinely, how long do humans live these days? I don’t quite recall," she put a finger to her upside down chin.

"Long enough to kill you. What’s the plan here? You’re gonna escape with papers everyone could publicly read? You call yourself a ’god’ and you run away like a coward from me? Pathetic," Jotou mocked.

Said papers glided out of her slime and into her hands where she removed the moisture off of them. She read upside down, "Every river leads to you, like the blood to my heart.

How romantic~" she hugged the piece to her chest and swooned. "The words of a simple fisherman to a God; they thought it to be art, not realizing the true connection to her. Have you heard of the God of the Oceans, Irvette? The Sea-Witch they call her."

Jotou paused to ponder, not letting her sparks die out. "Not that I recall, but I know Mare."

Beauregard tilted her head and seemed to smile—or frown?—"The God of Sea-Breeze! She was an option, although finding some semblance of a connection to her proved to be nigh-impossible," she lamented.

’A connection? To a god?’ Jotou’s brows knitted, "What’s your deal slime? It seems very obvious what you want from life; the cult’s goal doesn’t seem to be one of them."

"Our goal?"

"Yeah, terrorism. Oh! And destroying the Malecise Regime," Asobi answered.

Beauregard sighed with no breath, "That is what I don’t understand about some mortals. Are you all not tired of this war that has dragged on for so long? We offer salvation and yet everyone frowns."

"What about the terrorism?" the magician chimed in.

"Necessary measures; you need to break a few bones so they heal stronger."

"I don’t consider what the cult offers as salvation; it’s genocide, plain and simple. But why do you care? It’s clear you don’t care about people’s lives," Jotou directed her hand towards the corpses.

Beauregard blinked a few times, "Because I’m their hero. They adore me, they cheer for me and they have so many nice things to utter from their sweet lips~

My followers and my fellow Gods understand our plight; you may not see it as such, however I am indeed correct whether you like it or not.

The destruction of the Regimes shall bring salvation and peace to Burnetrout. And when that happens~ Will they not throw a parade in my honour? Truly worship my glory for being their saviour?"

"You’re doing this for attention? You think you’re a hero?" Jotou scoffed.

Asobi stared at Jotou.

The blonde looked over at the elf, "What? I’m not evil."

"I think that’s subjective."

"Do you even know what that word means?" Jotou squinted.

Asobi shrugged and hummed.

"Anywho!" the slime-girl clapped. "You have questioned my authority as a God. You shall now perish~!" she fell from the ceiling and was caught by an aquamarine whirlpool beneath her.

Her form merged with it, becoming her lower half while the remaining water in the area pooled into the vortex. She grew taller and taller till the burbling liquid tornado loomed over Jotou and Asobi.