Chapter 177: Omen – Chapter 163: Fall of an Empire

None of the outposts Aperio visited posed any sort of challenge. They all left her with small glimmers of satisfaction as she discovered new things about herself that she did not know, most of which boiled down to the fact that, ever since she had returned, she had been far too passive.

While killing hapless mortals was not truly a challenge, the simple act of moving her body without regard for the damage it might cause was freeing. Almost as freeing as flight… The thought crossed her mind more than once and after a short internal debate, Aperio had simply combined the two.

At one point, her daughter had challenged Aperio to fly as fast as she could, an act that resulted in a few of the forts that still housed empire loyalists simply ceasing to exist as the All-Mother threw herself at them a not insignificant amount of her strength. None of those impacts left a mark on her, but a few did manage to tear her dress. Something she could fix easily enough.

If someone would have told her only days before that she would happily slaughter thousands of mortals, she would have never believed them. But here she was, ridding the world of slavers by the droves. With my own two hands… It was a massacre; there was no other way to describe the loss of life her actions had brought upon the Eternal Empire of Zeltar, but she did not feel bad for what she had done. She was setting an example for the rest of the world. Breaking her most sacred rule would be severely punished.

Aperio raised a brow as Ferio finished piling up the corpses and lit them on fire. She had done this every time the whirlwind of murder that the All-Mother brought to a particular region had ended, and Aperio was not quite sure why. Neither had she asked. Yet.

"Why do you not just leave them?" she finally blurted out, a flick of her wrist throwing a hand that had rolled out of the pyre back into it. "Their lives were forfeit when they chose to stick to their ways. Any rites of passing are wasted on them."

"Giving them any sort of rite after you killed them would be very stupid indeed," her daughter replied as she gestured to the pyre. "I just don't want perfectly good ground infested with their rot. I'm cleaning up — burning them — to make it easier for whoever comes this way next to do something useful with the place."

The All-Mother's brow rose a little higher at the words. Given her daughter's disdain for mortals, she would not have thought her the type to go out of her way to prepare something for them. "But why a pyre?" Aperio asked. "Couldn't you just burn them where they are?"

"Of course, but this makes it seem like other mortals did it." The smile on her daughter's face widened a little. "Something their feeble minds can still comprehend."

"They certainly seem to have a hard time understanding that I am the All-Mother." Hopefully they will get it once I am done with this stupid empire…

Even if they did not believe that she was the literal Creator of everything they knew, they would surely fear someone who had single-handedly fought against an entire empire and won. Easily, at that. Thus far, all of the fights had been little more than opportunities for Aperio to apply herself. A chance to actually figure out what she could do. Well, kind of… If only they were a little stronger.

Aperio paused at the thought. Like many things, it had come to her on its own; from a more primal part of her. Everything always boiled down to a desire to fight in the end. Ferio had said that even her old self liked to fight… but why? There wasn't anything that could possibly offer her a truly good fight. And now she was somehow even stronger than she had been previously, which meant there was even less chance that she could fight someone who even vaguely approached being her equal.

“You didn’t exactly tell them who you were, either.”

“It would not have changed much, now would it?” Aperio replied. “Even the mortals that know who I am doubt my abilities.” And yet, they still fear me… It makes no sense.

"Well," Ferio began, taking Aperio from her thoughts, "no matter what they think, they cannot refute that you are above them after this."

"So," Aperio said, stepping closer to her daughter, "you want them to think I am some sort of mortal that is simply beyond anything they can fight? How does that make any sense?"

"They cannot understand what you are, so it is simpler to make it seem as though you are like them, but simply too strong for them to deal with."

"But if I am that strong," Aperio said as she rubbed the bridge of her nose, "why would I make a pyre to burn them? I obviously do not care for them or have the need to gather them up to burn them." Am I missing something or is Ferio a little… off ?

The All-Mother was by now quite sure that Ferio did not, in fact, know what she was doing. In hindsight, it had been foolish to assume that she would actually understand mortals. Her daughter had never been one. She had been born a Goddess, and had lived with Aperio. Her old self, she readily admitted, was decidedly not normal. Not even close.

"You wouldn't know," Ferio replied, "but they are likely to assume that you have an army to back you up. They would do this."

Aperio simply shook her head and let her daughter do what she thought was right. There was no point in arguing if neither of them understood what the other meant. "If you believe it is for the best, then I shall not stop you."

The Goddess of Life and Light obviously enjoyed the act of 'setting the scene,' as she had taken quite a while to arrange everything. She was done now, but in the time it had taken her to set everything up Aperio was sure she could have eliminated at least three more of the forts the Eternal Empire of Zeltar seemed to love.

Every installation she had wiped out so far had followed a very similar build pattern. A few sets of walls surrounded a castle or other fortress, sometimes with moats, sometimes with other natural features. None of those mattered when fighting her, of course, but she could not quite see why the mortals would do it like this. They were all painfully open to any form of aerial attack; something she had demonstrated multiple times now.

"Done?" Aperio asked as her daughter took a step back from the pyre.

The Goddess of Life and Light nodded to herself. "I think so," she said with her hands on her hips, letting her gaze sweep over the devastation her mother had wrought. "You really like using your body, don't you?"

"It feels good," the All-Mother replied before leaping into the air, her wings spreading behind her back once she had breached the cover of clouds that hung high above Verenier. "It feels liberating."

Ferio appeared next to her but a breath later, giggling slightly at the twirls her mother performed. "If the mortals saw you like this, they would believe the rumours about you even less than they already do."

"Luckily, they can't." Aperio replied, coming to a stop next to her daughter. "And I don't think they will see much more of me either." She gestured towards a fort below them. "Thousands are throwing their weapons away to flee."

"Will you go after them?"

"No. As long as they've learned their lesson, I do not care what they do." If I can make it work, they will be punished for it in their next life, anyway.

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While the titles she had given out in the beginning had stemmed from a deep-seated hatred for slavers, it had given Aperio a good idea as to how she could deal with them in the future. Now, she only needed to figure out how she could get the System to actually do what she had in mind. Well, do it without giving them a title. It could already do what she wanted, just not in the way she wanted.

"So," Ferio said, her eyes fixed on her mother. "Back to the palace?"

"Yes," Aperio replied. "It is time to end this…" She paused for a moment, trying to think of a word to describe what exactly she was doing. In the end she simply shook her head. "Whatever this is."

"You think they changed their mind?"

"I think they will try to collar me, or something equally stupid." As she spoke, a part of Aperio's mind twisted reality apart in front of herself and her daughter. She could fly to the capital again — or even let herself drop through the ceiling — but, in her mind, this situation called for a little more.

The formation they had prepared flared up as reality itself began to twist on itself and the crystal lights that filled the grand hall flickered violently before giving out. Before anyone could spare any more thought to that specific magical anomaly, everyone's eyes were drawn to the black feathers that started to slowly drift down from the ceiling. They could not be touched, nor did they linger. As soon as one of the feathers made contact with anything other than air, they dissolved into a fine silver dust.

Kheho was but a simple butler, but he knew who those feathers belonged to. They looked exactly like the ones from the winged Elf that had appeared not quite a day ago. So she is back… He was not exactly scared of her, as there was little point in fearing someone that could kill you with a flick of their wrist. Fear probably annoyed a person like her, and that would only make his demise more likely.

Of course, there was also the fact that he was just a butler. He had nothing to do with the practices of the empire. He was only a step above a slave, after all. Basically am one, anyway. He might not have been bound by magic like some of his colleagues, but he was still bound by the fact that his family would perish without the money he made by working here; as little as it was.

His assumption proved correct as the tear in space vanished, replaced by the tall and broadly built Elf and the fiery haired Human. Of course, Kheho was fairly certain that neither of them were actually mortals like he was, but until he knew what they actually were, he would go by what he could see.

Unbidden, his eyes wandered to one of the generals that had remained in the palace. The man was tightly gripping the small crystal shard the military used to communicate with one another. Nobody needed to hear what the ancient artefact told the man to know that whatever military might the Eternal Empire of Zeltar used to have was no longer.

"Your answer," the winged Elf said. She took a step forwards, the floor cracking underneath her feet as a subtle glow seemed to shine through her skin. "Mortal."

Kheho took a step backwards. He doubted whatever the imperial mages had set up would work and he did not want to be so close to the formation when they sealed their fate.

"We will never serve the likes of you," the Emperor said, his voice high and shaky. "We would rather follow our Gods to the beyond than obey your will." Despite his apparent fear, he still took a step towards the winged Elf. "You should know your place."

"Really?" the much taller woman asked. There was a loud crack and Kheho lost sight of the Elf for a moment as his eyes did not want to leave the broken floor that had taken her place. "Are you really this stupid?" She grabbed the man by his throat and lifted him up without effort. "Did you think your little ritual would work?"

The runes the mages had meticulously engraved into the floor were etching themselves more deeply into it. They glowed dangerously bright before the marble itself cracked, the magic that had flowed through it simply ceasing.

"Your efforts are meaningless," the woman said as she squeezed.

There was no scream from the emperor, only a wet crack as the Elf's hand pushed through the man's skin and turned his neck into a fine paste made from bone and flesh. She let him drop, the grime on her hand disappearing a moment later.

"I am sure you have heard about me already," she said, her gaze sweeping across the room and briefly stopping on every single person present.

When her gaze landed on him, Kheho froze. His lungs refused to breathe and his legs had started to buckle despite the fact that he could not move an inch. The sensation only lasted for a moment, but it had left Kheho with an irrefutable piece of knowledge that the winged Elf was something more. Something beyond his comprehension.

He wanted to shake his head and dismiss the thought, but he couldn't. The idea stuck to his mind like fresh blood to clothes. It would not leave, almost like it had a mind of its own.

"I do not impose many rules upon my creation," the woman said as she waved her hand, causing both the corpse of the emperor and the shattered remains of the runes the mages had engraved onto the floor to disappear. "But what you people have done breaks most of them. You will be judged, and face punishment."

With those words, nearly everyone in the room simply disappeared. Only Kheho and a few other servants remained.

"I am sure the Judges will love this," the fiery-haired woman said and raised a brow. "What do you intend to do with the rest?"

"They can stay here," the winged woman said. "There is no need to do anything with them. They served here because they had little choice. Plus, Laelia and the Council will need their input when they get here."

She clapped her hands, taking Kheho from his thoughts. "Mortals," she began. "The empire you served is no longer. In a few days, members of my church and helping hands from Ebenlowe will arrive. Learn from them, and do better."

As if that had been enough information, she simply disappeared with the red-haired Human, leaving no trace of their existence except the broken floor and roof.

Throughout all the events that happened over the last day, Kheho could only form one question in his head. What the fuck is going on?

GamingWolf

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