Chapter 360 - Millicent Rice

Everything seemed to return to calm for a moment but no one lost sight of the encroaching Egyptian Gods…

Actually, if anything, Zeel and the others were doing the Egyptian Gods a favor by rendering Himiko, who was now Aurolana, and their strongest combatant at the time, inactive…

Himiko, rest her soul, was not powerful by any stretch of the world, but all ranks of Angels were known for their beautiful voices that could seduce even the devil…

Zeel placed Aurolana in Alice's arms using his roughly mechanized arms…

With both of his arms gone, and regeneration not able to grow back new ones, Zeel was forced to create mechanical outlines of his arms using the minimal nanites in his system…

Honestly, he still couldn't tell how Lorien got a chunk of his nanites, but at least, he remembered to deactivate the chunk Aurora ripped out of his body when he occupied Aurolana's body in Purgatory…

While Zeel was contemplating his next move, The Egyptian Gods were in no hurry to attack…

The fewer combatants to participate in the upcoming fight, the better it was for the Egyptian Gods to pick their bones, so the Gods had no problem slowing their advance…

The Egyptian Gods were hoping that Zeel's group would kill themselves first…

Ironically, the prayers were somewhat answered…

And the prayers were answered in the form of a desperate Ahmanet…

Ahmanet, who was particularly close to Himiko, was forced to watch as her companion's soul was obliterated by Zeel…

Had it been before, while she was still beyond a mortal, death would not have been unwelcomed in her eyes, but now as a mortal, Ahmanet cried for the first time in thousands of years…

Himiko was pure in every sense of the word, so killing her was a sin in everyone's eyes, even Zeel's considering he had a small moral compass…

The loss of Himiko hit Ahmanet pretty hard since it reminded her of the humanity she had once lost…

Ahmanet was no more virtuous than Zeel – she had killed innocents, burn cities to the ground, and sacrificed children but in the end, those were different times…

The world was not just good or bad but… a complex mixture of colors that changed along with the seasons, and a battle against Egyptian Gods was not a season to start killing allies…

"Why are they not attacking?" Alice questioned, not liking the tense moment that seemed to have no peak…

Alice noted that everyone spent more time planning for the fight than actually fighting… even Seth had not taken the battle seriously until his untimely end…

So far, A Battle of The Gods was more of a staring contest, if you neglected the part where Lorien just slaughtered a dozen Gods like it was nothing…

Zeel sighed "They are waiting to see what happens next…"

Almost on cue, Ahmanet darted forward, dagger in hand hoping to end Zeel's life swiftly and mercilessly, but alas, it was not meant to be…

Yet, what nobody expected was who stopped Ahmanet and how they did it…

Ella and Alle met Ahmanet the moment she was too close to their father, Zeel…

The girls had been clinging to Zeel the entire time, unwilling to let go because they were unsure of when they would be allowed to hug him so intimately again…

After all, Zeel was as far from the intimate type as anyone could get…

The moment Ahmanet moved, Ella and Alle reacted on instinct for the first time in a while…

They were usually careful to keep their instincts in check for Alice's and Elizabeth's sake, but with tensions heightened, the girls were forced to let loose a bit…

Faster than anyone could react, Alle grabbed Ahmanet's lower jaw and ripped it away like an unimportant piece of Lego…

Blood spurted and a piece of Ahmanet's tongue was chipped but it didn't bother Alle one bit…

Still, the true horror came next…

Ella, the gentler of the two sisters, gouged out Ahmanet's eyes, and then ripped her right arm off…

Ella tossed Ahmanet's arm away like it was garbage, and then she licked the remnant blood on from her hands…

Zeel was sure Ahmanet died from shock the moment her lower jaw had been ripped away, but Ella and Alle seemed determined to complete the job…

Alle placed her palm on Ahmanet's head and crushed downward, reducing Ahmanet's body into a flattened heap of mush on the ground…

Their actions not only surprised Zeel and Lorien who was resting inside his soul, but frightened Alice to no end…

'My girls just became women…' Zeel thought, a proudness birthing in his heart for the off-and-on again daughters.

"H-ow… wh-at?" Alice stammered, trying to straighten her thoughts to understand what just happened.

The nanites could process what happened, but Alice's mind was in denial of the brutality she had just witnessed…

Even The Egyptian Gods faltered in their approach after witnessing the scene…

Lorien was cute, and she killed a dozen Gods…

Ella was cute, and she gouged out Ahmanet's eyes…

Alle was cute, and she cursed the Egyptian Gods with words that would make their mothers cry…

Obviously, anything cute had been labeled toxic in the eyes of Egyptian Gods…

"Good Job, girls…" Zeel cheered a bit more enthusiastically than normal…

The proudness radiating from Lorien inside his soul had affected his behavior quite a bit…

Luckily, Ella and Alle were able to distinguish where Zeel ended and where Lorien began, but they could still detect the proudness of both their parents; though, Zeel felt more like it was expected…

Upon receiving praise from both Zeel and Lorien, Alle and Ella beamed, leaping into Zeel's arms with happy smiles on their faces…

For a moment, Alice noted that Zeel and the girls looked like a real family – a family of psychopaths, murderers, and cruel killers, but a family nonetheless…

Seeing Zeel, Ella, and Alle embracing also told Alice an undeniable truth that she had always failed to realize – she just didn't belong with this family, maybe she never did…

As much as she loved Ella and Alle like they were her own, there was always that unbridgeable gap between her perception as a human and their perception as daughters of Zeel Crawford…

Alice recalled an incident in the Resident Evil Universe where she and Zeel were starving, and Zeel suggested eating humans to get them by…

It was at that time she first noticed the fundamental difference between Zeel and herself because Zeel considered humans as humans considered Earth Worms – nobody liked to eat them, but they were still a source of nutrients.

Over time, the difference between a Human and a Homo-Superior had become blurred to not just Alice, but also Zeel…

Still, there was bound to be a huge, unpassable gap if Alice just looked hard enough, and now, she was witnessing that gap first-hand…

Ella, Alle, and Zeel were all cut from the same cloth, while she just barely stitched somewhere at the bottom…

Even Aurolana in her arms was probably a part of the cloth…

Alice glanced at her daughters and smiled sadly…

Alle and Ella noticed Alice's conflict, and both extended an arm in welcome for Alice to join the family celebration…

Alice faltered…

Even if she didn't agree with what they had done…

Even if she didn't agree with who they were becoming…

Even if she didn't agree with their casual behavior towards life…

Honestly, Alice just wanted to embrace her daughters and be happy that they were happy… and so she did…

Alice placed Aurolana on the ground and walked forward to join the embrace of Zeel, Ella, and Alle… and of course, she was welcomed into the family moment without hesitation…

Actually, Zeel and the girls were relieved that Alice hadn't turned tail and ran…

The trio had always kept their behavior as human-like as possible to keep Alice comfortable, but recently, they had become accustomed to behaving as they are…

Elizabeth's untimely departure also didn't help with restraining their behaviors…

In the midst of their first intimate embrace as a family, Zeel lost all strength in his body and slumped into Alice's arms…

---COUGH---

---COUGH---

"He's dying…" Alice whispered, making sure to double-check the uploads "[Nanite Stage 4 Upload to Information Dimension: Alice Crawford – 80%, Zeel Crawford – 50%...]."

"Then we have to fight…" Ella replied, her body growing to adult size as she readied herself for a brawl…

"Something is coming…" Alle noted…

"What?" Alice and Ella questioned simultaneously…

Zeel frowned "Something big is coming… and not just from any Universe…" he added, frowning in concentration to map the Multiversal Trajectory of the object "It's incoming from the Jumper Universe…"

----BBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM---

The bright light of a Cosmic Wormhole was accompanied by an explosion…

Dust from the blackened sand rose into the air, blocking out the features of the new arrival…

The Egyptian Gods retreated as the dust cleared…

What was revealed surprised Zeel, Alice, Ella, and Alle…

Even Lorien frowned in frustration from her cozy room in Zeel's soul…

A young girl that rivaled Lorien in cuteness appeared in the middle of the battlefield…

"She seems familiar…" Alice noted…

"43% David Rice and 23% Millie Rice…" Zeel explained to Alice "Who you are looking at is David's and Millie's daughter – Millicent Rice…"