Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

Chapter 925: All Hells Break Loose - Part 1

"Reflect!" Waving her dark mantle at the zombified citizens of Alliance charging at her, Mono’s otherworlder Twin swatted a horde of them away while Mercedes had fallen to the ground after being caught off guard by the sudden change in the prisoner’s behavior. "You okay?!"

"Bastard had a knife..." Covering her wound, Mercedes reached into her pocket with her other hand and fished a fistful of gold. Pressing the coins against her injury, she closed her eyes, and a dim golden light bled into her wound. "Ughh! T-there! A-all better."

As she removed her hand, the gold was gone, and her patron had healed her as a reward for the offering. Pinned in a corner still, however, she quickly got up and looked around for a possible escape. The soldiers with them were already down on the floor, thanks to the god of creation boosting the citizens’ physical and magical abilities.

"We should get the fuck out of here." Grabbing Mercedes’ hand, the Twin gave the prisoners one last look as her other hand split four with a hollow center in the middle. Holding it at them, she gathered what little mana she could from the surroundings and shot her imperfect mana canon at them.

The blast of energy melted the skin off the zombie, but also sent the Twin, dragging a few steps back. Watching the dust settle while Mercedes helped her stabilize herself, the otherworlder Mono stared through the smoke at the falling bodies of the prisoners and the melted prison bars behind them.

"L-let’s go, if someone hurts me and that bomb inside my body goes off, we might not have a world left to save. Neither here nor back home." Swallowing heavily, she allowed Mercedes to take her away from the cramped spot. All the while, the only thing she could ask herself was what would’ve happened if the zombie had stabbed her instead of Mercedes?

One wrong move and the world-ending amount of energy trapped in her chest would’ve been unleashed.

’I guess that’s why Raven had me running cargo with Mercedes instead of being in the middle of the action.’ As hesitant as she had always been about true confrontation with the enemy, the Twin wondered if she could somehow get her defensive model, Advarice, back to work. However, right now was far from the time to ask. After all, every ship and everyone aboard the ships were in great peril while fighting against the split mind of a god.

"There he is..." And struggling against Oruon’s mind-controlled elites, despite being invisible, Darius was being chased as he and Aelin were trying to cast the mass binding scroll. As a scribing mage and a wizard, he tried to shoot the elites chasing after him and his wife, but every time he cast something, the god of creation nullified the spell’s effect. "Damn it! We need to lose them–"

As soon as he screamed out in frustration, the door to the civilian housing flung open in front of him. Walking out from inside were June, Monty, Zoey, Princess Athenia, and her best friend Robin. The group had been hurled inside the attached room with the expecting mothers, and close associates, and the ruckus had finally forced them to make a move.

"Mass binding scroll?" Noticing the scroll at a glance, June–still visibly sombre from recent experiences- looked into Darius’s eyes and waved at him to get behind her. "We’ll hold them off; you should go finish the runes."

"But–"

"I said go!" Grabbing him by his collar, June physically moved Darius and his wife along with him. "We don’t have time to argue, and I’ve fought monsters and people before! I didn’t lose my sense just because I lost my daughter!"

Bitting through her own words, the shapeshifter rallied the fighters behind her. All ready to take on the elite horde mixed with numerous alliance commoners. The true enemy, however, wasn’t the people themselves but the cramped space where there was barely an inch to move if two or three people stood next to each other.

But June did not intend to fight. She merely wished to hold and gather Oruon’s attention to her and her again. To reach that end, she waved her hand and clad herself in glamour. A glittering spell rained down on her body, slowly transforming her into Athenia’s likeness as seen in her churches. Of two opposing aspects like a split sword with coiling blades, one dark and the other pure as light.

"Athenia, guide my path," opening her eyes, the elf swallowed her misery and smiled at the god. "Oh, poor ol’Ouron, what have we here? Hiding behind a bunch of women?"

Clicking her tongue continuously, June laughed and started walking forward. The others followed closely behind, just in case the elites or the rest tried to attack her without listening to her words.

"Poor Ouron, the god of rejects, ahaha~, your followers rejected even by you~!" Covering her metallic-seeming mouth, June continued to laugh as the elites narrowed their eyes and tried to attack her.

"Anti-gravity!" Lifting the enemy off the ground with her latest module installed by Shamisha, Zoey stopped them in their tracks long before they got even close to the shapeshifter. "Stay there and listen y-you, you cuck! YOUR FOLLOWERS WILL JOIN US SOON AND HAVE COUNTLESS BABIES WITH YOUR ENEMIES!!"

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!" At last, as frustration took hold of him, Oruon–still split in multiple bodies, an effect that weakened his divine powers–screamed at the top of his lungs. "I MAY BE DEAD, BUT I’M TAKING YOU ALL WITH ME! ALL OF YOU, INCLUDING THESE REJECTS, WILL BE DEAD!! JUST YO–AGUGHHH!"

A sharp sound blasted through another trident ship, rattling the focus of Oruon’s mind. He’s just been hit elsewhere and looking out through the windows, June could see a frost drake patching a giant hole in the adjacent trident with its freezing breath.

’Moxy got him. Did she use her rifle? It sounded like a mountain just rolled over.’

"STUPID FOX!!" Listening to him scream, June turned her attention back to Oruon. Although he was present in front of her inside another body, his mind seemed focused on Moxy at the moment, giving her a chance and an idea.

’We need to force him to focus his mind on two places at once. That should give us the opening we need to get these prisoners off the ship.’ Realizing that while taking over multiple minds was easy for the god, trying to focus on a pressing situation and act at the same time with purpose wasn’t quite his expertise. ’He can control many of them, but if he’s not controlling them directly, they’re no different than zombies.’

With her mind racing with thoughts, June quickly turned around to Robin while Oruon was still distracted by Moxy in the other trident. Leaning closer to the girl’s ears, she whispered her plan.

"A-alright, I’ll go tell Moxy what to do," Robin replied, looking out the window, her body shivering with angst.

Swallowing heavily, she opened the window and, with a quick whistle, turned into an eagle. Blessed by Athenia, the animal whisperer was off to relay June’s plan to Moxy. With Ouron distracted on two sides and the rest of the soldiers also keeping him split in many minds, the girls saw a real opportunity to either drive the god away or somehow push him to his limits.

Thus, with that in mind, June looked at the elites floating in the air and returned to her role as the goddess of Mockery–Atheina.

"A helpless old man. Why don’t you create a wheelchair or something? Or a rope to climb down? Huh?"

"YOU MORTAL!!"

"Zoey~ Sweetheart, care to sing how his women will moan while making sweet love to this pathetic loser’s enemies?" Scoffing at her own words, June waved her hands in front of her body and created a magical projection of the act. "There~ I will give you a front row seat to it all, you will be dead by then otherwise~!"

Frustrated beyond belief, the god was left with two choices. Either retreat and lose all authority he had left on Alliance and his followers, or stay and somehow try to win. He could also manifest himself in the flesh through the bodies of his followers combined in some amalgamation, and with every passing moment, that idea seemed to grow ever more tempting.

’Even if I die, you’re gonna regret this!’ Making his choice, Oruon readied himself to unleash his last creation. Whatever that may be...