Chapter 56: Chapter 54: Springing a Trap

Elenoa checked her appearance one final time, making sure she looked perfect for the press conference. It had taken about a month, but her preparations were finally complete. Titania had held up her end of the bargain and managed to convince the other Council members to stay out of this for the time being,

They had produced five more battle-ready tanks and had called in some favors with some dragons they knew, as well as other powerful beings of note, and set up their trap. The one notable exception was Isa, who had seemingly vanished just a couple of days before Elenoa was ready to put everything into motion. Not that it mattered; at this point she was overkill. It was really just a matter of provoking Lilith into action, and then her fate would be all but sealed.

She stepped out into the crowded room, flashing the audience a winning smile. “Thank you all for gathering here.” She said, taking her place at the stand. “I understand this is somewhat short notice, but I promise it will be worth taking time out of your busy schedules.”

She smirked inwardly as the assembled reporters, statesmen, and other people of import waited for her announcement, hanging off of her every word. “As everyone is well aware, there have been some…minor changes lately.” She let the people she had seeded start a small ripple of laughter. The joke wasn’t all that funny, but it didn’t need to be if everyone else was laughing. And if she could control how the reporters reacted, then that was one step towards controlling how the people reacted.

“The so called “High Arbiter” that made her presence known the day of the Shift is overstepping every bound. She had no right to take it upon herself to decide what a nation can or cannot do. She has not been elected by the people, nor has she been placed in her position by people who have the knowledge and experience to be making such appointments. Instead, she is riding on the words of a self-proclaimed goddess, and nothing more.”

She leaned forward for emphasis, gripping the stand and carefully raising the intensity of her voice. “This is not preserving freedom as she claims. Instead it is a naked power grab, one that seeks to hamper the freedom of not only the governments, but the citizens themselves. As such, I am going to be the first to formally denounce her, and the first to offer her an ultimatum.

“She may either step down immediately and return the status quo, or she may prove that she is capable of enforcing her tyrannical laws. Should she foolishly choose the latter, we will be waiting tomorrow at noon, in the Council building. We will be broadcasting this event, to either prove her cowardice, or prove her ineptitude. Either way, we would advise those of a sensitive disposition to refrain from watching.”

She leaned back and relaxed her stance, scanning the crowd. “For the rest of the allotted time, I will be answering the questions you doubtless have…Yes, you in the front.” She pointed towards a human who had raised his hand.

“What makes you so sure this goddess is self-proclaimed?” He asked. “So far I have yet to see any evidence that would rule out the possibility of her being real.”

“Those from Earth may be unaware, but Kali served on the Council for around the past eight hundred years as in information specialist. We have detailed records on her life before that, leading back to the moment she was born. Now, with this in mind, what is more likely? A goddess descending to the world of mortals to work in government for eight hundred years, or an information specialist somehow finding out about the upcoming change and taking advantage of it? Next?”

“What about the penalties the system gives to those trying to pretend they are the High Arbiter?” The next reporter, a half-elf woman, asked.

“Lilith is a Perfect Chimera and has especially advanced scrying abilities. It’s entirely likely that she has some spell in place that is scanning for imposters and is taking it upon herself to punish them. Next?”

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“Do you have everything ready?” Mike asked, laying a worried hand on Lilith’s shoulder. He and Jessica had finally learned humanization a week prior, and they had been visibly enjoying their now-youthful bodies, which looked near identical to how they had before they had had Lilith, save for being more fit. Their energy was infectious and had brightened the mood at a time when it was really needed.

Lilith gave him a reassuring smile. “I’ll be fine, dad. Nuwa’s whipped up some really nice potions, and that’s all I really need. Once Winston’s out of the picture, it’ll really just be those tanks, and Isa and I can deal with those no sweat. Then we just have to make sure those dragons don’t get in the way while we deal with whoever’s got the sword, and once that’s secured, it’s in the bag.”

He frowned. “That doesn’t mean I can’t worry about you. Something could still go wrong, so be careful, OK? Especially now that Mae’s turned off your sense of pain. You’ve got to maintain full awareness and not stupidly leave any wounds alone, alright?”

“I will.” She promised and stepped into the teleporter, cutting off further conversation. There was a flash, and she was in front of a large, opulent building. A couple of moments later, Carmen and Isa appeared next to her.

“Ready?” Carmen asked.

“I haven’t been more ready in centuries, newbie.” Isa said, grinning manically. “Let’s get this show on the road!”

Carmen and Lilith both activated Zoan’s Barrier, and the three of them walked into the building. Immediately, there was a load roar as the seven tanks in front of them opened fire, shots arcing towards the three.

They were, of course, immediately reflected back to their sources. They passed harmlessly through the tanks and impacted the walls behind them. There was a beat, and everyone felt a teleportation ward come into existence, blocking all teleportation into or out of the chamber. Teleportation from inside to inside was still fair game, but they were otherwise blocked off.

And then, everything descended into chaos.

Isa immediately split from Carmen and Lilith, a large sword that was more an enormous hunk of metal than a precision instrument appearing in her hands. She slammed it into the ground, throwing up rubble and forming a whirlwind around her, immediately and completely removing all visibility from the area. Any shots fired into the whirlwind were pulled out of their trajectory and sent careening elsewhere, more often than not hitting their allies instead of the walls, floor, ceiling, or their intended target.

Lilith didn’t spend long looking at Isa, instead scanning the area for Winston. She had a hard time locating him…until her arm fell off. The attack had gone right through Zoan’s Barrier, not even affecting Lilith’s Mana in any way. Mae traced the projectile back to its source while she absorbed and regrew the arm, and Lilith took off towards the balcony he was on.

One of the tanks flew up in her way, firing another shot at her. She flipped Zoan’s Barrier to absorb rather than reflect and used the shot to charge Mana as she barreled straight towards the tank without stopping. She hit the teleportation field, and passed through to the other side, only to be repulsed as the air in front of her completely solidified.

Carmen, meanwhile, was taking care of the flight of dragons and various other beings that had cropped up to attack. They…did not fare well at all. Between Intimidating Presence, Horrid Fascination, and Aura of the Arbiter, most of them had a hard time moving, let alone putting up any sort of real fight. Carmen had more of a challenge knocking each of them out without really injuring them than she did fighting them. There were a couple who were able to put up a little struggle, but those were swiftly dealt with.

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Lilith’s arm hardened into an especially hard carapace which cleaved through the solidified air, then split open to reveal the barrel of a gun, already firing a shot at Winston. There was a blinding flare of light followed swiftly by deafening noise, and the balcony Winston was on practically disintegrated as it was peppered with a hail of bullets and shrapnel.

Winston himself had escaped the brunt of the damage with a magic shield and some fast movement, but he had been nicked, and that was enough. Mae had made sure the bullets were coated with the nastiest paralytic they had been able to make, and without complete immunity to toxins he would at least be slowed down.

Fortunately, he didn’t seem to have acquired a complete immunity, and he began to slow slightly. That didn’t stop him from firing a barrage of those waves of distortion at Lilith, but she quickly passed back through the tank’s teleportation field and watched with satisfaction as the bottom of the tank was bit into, nearly sliced clean off. Mana battery flew everywhere, and the tank fell like a rock, creating a huge crater as it impacted the floor below.

As the tank fell, Lilith let loose another big shot, this time catching more of Winston and slowing him down further. And with that, Lilith marked this portion of the game as “over”. His remaining attempts to maintain a distance were easily countered, and Lilith was soon close enough to break his contract. She poured Worship into her attempt, and the work of magic greedily ate it. Finally, after over one hundred Worship had been consumed, there was an almost tangible snap, and the contract broke, followed immediately by Winston crumpling to the ground.

Lilith turned to survey the rest of the battlefield. Isa and Carmen had managed to take down a majority of the tanks, with only three left standing. Lilith joined them in mopping up the remainder, overloading the teleportation field of the tank in front of her with a burst of raw Mana. Her arm, once again in the form of the barrel of a gun, let loose another shot, filling the tank with holes and causing it to spring a leak.

That was the real downside of the tanks. If the field was somehow disabled or bypassed, then any sort of leakage would cause the tank to swiftly stop functioning, and they hadn’t been optimized to handle the sheer Mana output Lilith was capable of. They had probably assumed that her Mana capacity couldn’t have grown at the rate it did, and they had been dead wrong.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t be sure the people inside the tanks were still alive. She could hope, as they were just people doing their jobs and didn’t really deserve to be killed for the folly of their superior, but at the end of the day they were trying to kill her, and she couldn’t afford to worry about whether or not her methods would guarantee their survival.

The remaining two tanks powered off in the same instant, and a voice was transmitted through the speakers on one. “We surrender!” The pilot said. “We’re not stupid enough to think the two of us can take the three of you alone, not after what we just saw. Give us an assurance that you won’t attack us, and we’ll teleport out and run away.”

“That is acceptable.” Carmen said. “But if you try anything funny, I won’t hesitate to attack, understood?”

“Yes, ma’am!” The pilot replied, and soon the two pilots were out of their tanks and scrambling for the exit.

Isa, Carmen, and Lilith met up in the center of the room. “So, what now?” Lilith asked.

“We go deeper.” Isa replied. “I can lead you to the Council room itself. We’ll probably have to fight Titania and Elenoa in there, but they shouldn’t – look out!”

Her shout came a moment too late. Lilith and Carmen had sensed it too – the field preventing teleportation in and out had dropped, but the instant it had, Titania had already teleported in, wearing heavy gloves and wielding the sword.

The same sword that was piercing Carmen’s heart. “Surprise.” Titania snarled. “We’ll call this payback for when you teleported behind me and threw me onto the ground in your house.”

Her words fell on deaf ears. There had been a moment of blinding, brilliant pain, even with Lilith’s sense of pain turned off, and then the link to Carmen was cut and her body went limp.

It was…it was like part of herself had been obliterated, leaving only an empty hole where it had been. Carmen?! You there?! Answer me! She cried, hoping that, there would be something, but, to her horror, there was no response.

Titania pulled the sword out of Carmen’s body before unceremoniously kicking it across the room. “Shouldn’t have let your guard down. Now, what say we really get this party started, hm?”

Mae, is the spare avatar still good to go? Lilith asked. For the first time in her life, she could feel pure, unbridled rage boiling up within her as she stared at Titania, a rage that clouded her thoughts and drowned everything else out. She was going to kill Titania, and she didn’t care what it might cost.

Mistress, we can’t be sure Elenoa-

Yes or no, Mae.

Mae sighed. Yes, mistress.

There was a sense of vertigo, and Lilith swapped with the spare avatar, the eldritch ability cutting right through the wards around the area. She quickly took control of it and took only a moment to confirm that it was, indeed, ready. Mae had put an enormous amount of mass into it, which she had shaped into a huge crystalline set of scales extending from behind it. Yes, a blob of raw flesh would have worked just as well, but Lilith was being recorded, and so she needed to add a certain flare to it.

She pointed a shaking finger at Titania and uttered a single word. “Die.”

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