Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 186: Return

A wave of golden flames pushed toward Zac who unhesitantly activated the shield of his robes as he punched through the fire. He was full of remorse for his lapse in judgment, leaving his sister alone like that. He’d thought the sniper was out of commission, but clearly he was wrong. Besides, he really hadn’t expected them to try to kill his sister, as it made no sense. Leverage her as a hostage, perhaps. But not this.

The scale of the explosion was far beyond that of the demons when they chose to kill themselves. He knew that the power of the bracelet was nowhere strong enough to withstand the power of that blast at such close proximity. He could only pray that she had a breath of life left, which would let him do something about it.

In no time he found himself back at Kenzie’s side, his heart beating like a drum. When he arrived at the center of the blast everything was in ruins burning pieces of flesh were strewn around, as everyone within at least 5 meters was dead without a doubt.

However, Zac breathed out in relief as there was one clear exception to the carnage. Kenzie was lying unconscious on the ground, completely unscathed apart from her earlier wound. Surrounding her was a blue shield looking a glass cube. A small blue light was hovering within the cube a few feet above his sister, and it was clear from the rays it emitted that it was the source of the protective shield.

What made Zac confused was that he couldn’t feel a trace of cosmic energy from the shield. All skills and defensive gear emitted energy signals, but the odd thing above Kenzie might as well be a normal stone from the energy it emitted. Zac looked down at his unconscious sister, wondering what sort of opportunity she’d run into to attain such a wondrous thing.

The next problem was how to get to her. He walked toward the shield and touched it, but it was completely solid. Even when he started to exert quite some force it didn’t budge in the slightest. The defensive power was clearly excellent, likely even above that of his own robes, and he was starting to worry that he wouldn’t be able to get her out.

Suddenly a red light flashed in the hovering ball above Kenzie, and a red beam hit Zac straight in his chest. Zac quickly moved back as he moved his axe to block the light, but he quickly realized the beam was harmless. Zac stopped and confusedly looked at the small ball, only to see it fly down and enter the head of his sister.

A few seconds later the shield flashed out of existence, and Zac ran over to his sister who woke up with a groan.

“What happened?” she asked with some confusion as Zac helped her up.

“The guy who attacked you blew himself up. You were saved by a weird ball shielding you,” Zac said

“Uh, ok,” she answered with a troubled face, not meeting his eyes.

Zac frowned, but this wasn’t the time to ask what was going on. She clearly knew what he meant, but the issue didn’t seem simple. Judging from her reaction it might be a big secret, so he was thankful that the thick smoke from the fires had covered the whole area.

The magical fire soon died down, and the smoke covering the area was blown away by the wind. Zac looked around at the destruction with a grimace. There were unmoving bodies everywhere, even up on the stands. Even more were nursing various degrees of burns, and cries and groans could be heard from every direction.

From a quick glance at least 10% of the people in the arena were killed by the desperate attack by the sniper, most of them civilians. It made Zac sick to his stomach, but now wasn’t the time to mourn.

The government was quickly trying to aid those in need, seemingly having the situation under control. Zac thought about helping out, but he didn’t dare leave his sister’s side again. Instead, he threw over a bottle of pills to the judge, who caught it hesitantly.

The judge, whose hair was in disarray and covered in soot, understood what was inside and immediately passed pills to soldiers and civilians as she was shouting orders until the situation was starting to calm down.

More and more people looked over at Zac with some trepidation, unsure what would happen next. Someone had tried to murder the sister of the strongest man in the world right at a government trial. Who knew how he would react. Zac somewhat understood what was going on, and spoke up with a loud voice covering the arena.

“I know that the New World Government wasn’t behind this attack and that the man who blew himself up wasn’t part of your organization. Certain forces want to create a conflict between me and you, but I am not the enemy of the New World Government. I am done with Kingsbury. If anyone has a problem with what happened, they are welcome to go to Port Atwood,” Zac said.

“I will also warn everyone. Shapeshifters walk amongst us. One of the most powerful incursions on earth has sent out thousands of spies who can take anyone’s form. It is almost impossible to distinguish them from humans. We believe they are behind various events that have led to high rankers perishing, and they have infiltrated many major forces already,” he continued.

“And I believe that the attack we just suffered was one of them as well. The golden flames are the calling card of the Church of Everlasting Dao, the force with the shapeshifters.”

The people in the arena looked skeptically at each other, and Zac could only shake his head as he saw their reaction. He had to get the message out, but after that everything was up to these people. He could only pray that they believed him and spread the word.

“Their goal is to splinter humanity so that they can pick us off one by one, and we cannot allow that to happen. However, there is a solution. There is a cheap herb available in the general stores called Springroot. It is harmless to humans, but to these shapeshifters it’s a deadly poison. That is the only method my force has found to identify them. Everyone should carry some with them in order to expose these things, and hopefully we can stop them that way.”

With that Zac felt he was done. The multiple scares where he thought he’d lost his sister just as he found her had left him rattled, and he just wanted to get out of here before something unexpected happened again.

The government officials seemed only too happy to see the humanoid monster gone as well, and let him go without making a fuss. Kenzie was quite weak since she woke up, so Zac had her climb up on his back. He would normally have carried her but wanted his arms free in case of another attack.

“Wait, we need to get Lyla. She was in prison with me, I saw she was taken here as well before it got crazy,” Kenzie weakly said as she looked around.

“Uhm,” Zac could only answer as he looked around at charred body parts around him.

“She was at the edge of the prisoners over there. She might be fine, hurry” she said as she pulled his robe.

Zac only shook his head and walked over to where she pointed. He had a hard time believing that any of the prisoners were alive. From how it looked the government didn’t have any means to block the cosmic energy of the prisoners, but even he wouldn’t be unscathed that close to the blast unless he used some of his defensive means.

However, to his surprise, Kenzie pointed out a girl lying unconscious close to the edge of the field. Her clothes were in tatters and she was unconscious, but she was clearly alive. She’d actually reacted much in the same way as he did when faced with a suicide bomber long ago, as a burned carcass was draped above her for protection.

Zac pushed the corpse away and poured some water in the face of the girl. With a few sputters she woke up, widely looking around. She didn’t have time to react before Zac pushed some Springroot into her mouth, making her cough. Kenzie frowned and lightly slapped him on his head when she saw the treatment of her friend.

“Can’t you be gentler?” she asked unhappily as glared at Zac.

“I needed to make sure, I don’t want to get stabbed again,” Zac answered with a shrug as he observed the girl’s response.

After noticing she was fine he also took out a healing pill, though one of a lower grade, and gave it to the girl who hesitantly accepted it.

“It’s a healing pill,” Zac only said as he helped the girl to his feet.

Kenzie, who was still hanging on the back of Zac smiled at Lyla.

“This is Zac, my big brother. He’s the Super Brother-Man,” she said happily. “I’m leaving this town. Come with me.”

“Your brother is the number one ranker and you never mentioned it?” she said with a wry face as she swallowed the pill. “Where are you going?”

Kensie opened her mouth, but no words came out as she realized she didn’t know.

“Port Atwood, my town,” Zac said, realizing it seemed he had to take another person with him. “You should know, if you come with me you might not be able to get to a government town in a long while. My relationship with them is… complicated.”

“Ok. I don’t want to stay here anyway. What if they come for me again? Harold is probably only going to be replaced with another asshole,” she muttered as she started to walk toward the exit.

“Are we in a hurry?” Kenzie suddenly asked.

“Well, not really. They won’t be able to use their teleportation array for an hour at least. Why?” Zac asked as he followed the girl out of the arena.

He took one last look around at the people in the stands and the government official, most of which were silently staring back at him. He really didn’t know what he could or should do in this situation. This new life of his was just too tiring with its endless duties and expectations.

“There are some things I want to get before we go,” Kenzie said, breaking his train of thought.

“I went to your home and picked up your clothes and stuff like that,” Zac said.

It was true, he went over to her Kenzie’s place during the two days he waited, making sure looters didn’t steal anything important.

“Really?” she asked with a smile. “But I’m not talking about that. Lyla and I hid a few things in a stash in case something happened.”

Soon they found themselves at an abandoned house at the edge of a town, and after being prompted Zac moved a bookshelf, showing a hidden entrance.

“We created this place when Harold was starting to become a nuisance, in case we needed to make a quick escape. We figured we could sneak back and get our things during the night or something,” MacKenzie explained as Zac looked down into the dark cellar.

Since it was pitch black Zac took out a lantern powered by cosmic energy that gave off a warm light. He gingerly walked down the stairs, ready for any type of assault in case someone had found the stash. Even his defensive skill was activated around the two of them once again, just in case.

However, it was completely empty down there, allowing Zac to finally relax. The cellar was pretty small, but it was well organized with two small cots and a few shelves of gear and provisions.

It seemed the two did not own a Cosmos Sack, so he threw one over to his sister who had jumped down from his back.

“I wish I could take a bath, I am completely sticky,” she muttered as she packed her belongings into her new pouch.

To both the girlsʼ surprise Zac simply took out a large barrel along with a canteen that held enough water to fill it up.

“It’s cold but clean. Make it quick, we need to leave soon,” he said.

He’d made sure that there was no one following him but he couldn’t be sure. They couldn’t waste too much time down here.

“Well, you wanna watch you perv?” MacKenzie said with a roll of her eyes. “Go wait upstairs. It’s the only entrance so we’ll be fine.”

After some hesitation Zac acquiesced, walking towards the stairs again, but before he got up two arms embraced him from behind.

“I knew you’d come,” MacKenzie murmured with a low voice.

“Of course, I’m the Super Brother-Man, after all,” Zac smiled as he walked up the stairs.

Soon he heard splashing and subdued talk downstairs, so Zac simply took out a chair and sat down with a sigh. His heart was finally calm, far calmer than it had been in a long, long time.

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“Report, my child,” the voice on the other side of the communication crystal said after the static died down.

“The Super Brother-Man showed up as we guessed, Father. Unfortunately, it did not go as planned. The sniper failed to kill the sister,” the acolyte Terzun answered.

“So the mission failed?” the voice said with some displeasure.

“It is Unclear. The Monarch-Select still killed the newly appointed mayor, and quite a few people perished when the sacrifice used [The Ultimate Sacrifice]. The target did not, however, conquer the town, and instead left soon after. I believe he’s heading either toward the sect inside the Undead Empire or another town.”

“… Very well. It’s an acceptable result. The sacrfice was simply a local forcefully injected with The Purity of the Boundless Heavens. He would soon expire in any case,” the priest said.

”Our resources are quite limited so far from our own Incursion. We will fan the flames from our side. Clean things up on your side, make sure all mentions of the sister’s name is absent from all reports. Otherwise it will be hard to explain it as simple incompetence,” the voice continued after a brief pause.

“Did the government’s plan fail as well?”

“No, I made sure to plant a spy next to the monarch-select as well,” Terzun quickly answered.

“Good. Try to find out the next move of the monarch-select. Report to me if he returns. But remember, this isn’t your true mission. Keep monitoring the unholy beings, they are our real enemy.”

“I understand…” Terzun said with some hesitation in his voice.

“What?”

“With respect Father, is all this subterfuge really necessary? Why aren’t we simply purifying these humans? None of the Human Empires has claimed this planet, and while the Monarch-Select showed great power, he is not a match for the High Vicar.”

Only silence came from the crystals, making Terzun believe the priest on the other side had disconnected, but after a while he spoke up again.

“Something is odd about this planet. The bishops want to understand what’s going on before we start the great purge.”

Something odd? Terzun thought with confusion. Since when did the Church of the Everlasting Dao care about such things?