Chapter 35: Golden Times

End of the World Palace

Caila looked at Archie for a moment, who stood still and seemed lost in thought. She could only guess that he was thinking of ways to convince the others to listen to him.

Caila closed her eyes and slowly touched her knee and a bit of her calf; she was glad she could finally feel her leg. She was looking forward to the feeling when she could walk again. She delightedly massaged her knee for a moment before moving her mind to more important things.

She had to think about all the new things she had learned. Supernova projects. Was she trying to raise this country technologically, or was she pursuing something else? Caila already knew a bit about Supernova's personality, and she was sure that wasn't the only reason. Sandra had mentioned that she was trying to pick up signals from space....

Caila began to rub her chin, feeling somewhere in her head that she knew the right answer, but she couldn't grasp it. So she started thinking about the last memory she had gotten. Mostly about Eon and the higher realm where the more powerful gods lived. Pleli was very helpful in explaining how things worked. And if she understood correctly, Supernova was the superpower on this world, ruling over all the gods.

So the question was, why did she stay on this planet where she was originally born? According to Pleli, it was normal for newly exalted gods to relocate to a better planet. Why hadn't she done the same? Instead, she had to eliminate all the original gods and replace them with ones she had raised herself.

Also... what was she up to with Hellcage? The last flashback ended with the creation of the sun and moon, but before that she and Hellcage were plotting something. What was it? Caila wished she could somehow get information from Hellcage, but she was worried that the ancient creature would be suspicious. And after what Caila had seen, she wanted to be even more careful with her identity. She didn't want to end up being torn apart by her own followers.

As Caila let her thoughts run, an idea struck her. Could Supernova have tried to access the universe in her own way? Caila opened her eyes and looked to the side while she considered this. If it was as Caila thought, Supernova was becoming more ruthless later. Did she want to sneak onto another planet to wipe out other gods there? Did she doubt Eon's omniscience? Or did she believe he didn't care?

Now what was she trying to do with the Dimensional Shards? What was it even doing? She had no idea. Until she knew exactly what it was and what it was supposed to do, she could really only guess.

While she was thinking about Pleli, something occurred to her. Supernova had swallowed a modified Prana so she could use the interactive kiosk. And Caila was inhabiting Supernova's body. She tried turning it on.

In a moment, a screen appeared before her eyes, just like the one she saw in her memory. Caila held back the laughter in her throat. But she really wanted to laugh contentedly, but she couldn't when her worshippers were around her!

But as she surveyed the Planetary Kiosk, she was disappointed. For some reason, she could browse the main page, but that was all. She couldn't get anywhere else, and everything was greyed out. What the hell was that? Is my connection missing or something that I can't view anything else? Is this some sort of offline version?

Caila tried to get the kiosk working for a while before she got up. She was disappointed. She wanted to see if the Radiant offer was still active or if Supernova had put this planet up for sale. It would be rather awkward if some god suddenly showed up wanting to buy this place. Caila had no intention of selling this planet.

So Caila turned the Planetary Kiosk off again and looked around. Everyone calmed down again, and someone brought back the others who had gone into hiding earlier. She looked at the ones fighting Jason and then spoke to the worm men. "Why didn't you participate in the hunt?" She asked him.

She thought that there were mostly non-combatants and children here, but apparently that wasn't true. The old man raised his face to her, his eyes closed. "I don't like this kind of entertainment," he replied, bowing his head slightly to her.

Caila nodded in understanding, then looked at the skeleton, which looked a little weak without the flames. "I prefer to pick fights I know I can win. I avoid uncertain situations," he scratched at his bare skull.

Caila acknowledged that as a good reason as well, before turning to the Gremlin, who was looking rather cute again. "Hmpf!" He let out a snort. "That bastard hurt Josille. My son is friends with him. I felt like I should have hit him back."

She glanced at the Gremlin, who looked proud to get revenge for Josille. Caila nodded again and looked away, she found her worshippers were indeed different and scary, but she had to like them anyway. She liked that they had their own personalities and reasons and not some blind believers with no brains. Supernova may not have been the warmest person, but she raised them all well.

It was time for her to return to the current situation. There were still two groups of enemies to deal with. Caila dove into her Divine Space and went to see what the others were doing.

***** 

East End of the World

Bang! Bang!

"Gah!" Gallia stumbled backward as she collided with the golden robot, their fists clashing with a loud bang.

Gallia could match the strange machine's strength quite well after ingesting the blood, but she was still a bit weaker despite the fact that she was still using a strengthening blessing. She probably would have done better if she had the support of her people, but they had to deal with the attacks of a little girl who was all over the place in her cauldron, attacking them with molten gold.

At least the third one they called the Sad Prince wasn't involved in the fight; he seemed to have fallen into some sort of depression and sat on the sidelines while hugging his knees.

Gallia clapped her hands forcefully, and a wave of silver energy surged toward the Golden Piggy, pushing her back and creating distance between them again. A cloud of steam flew out of the robot's snout, and Golden Piggy resolutely charged forward again. Gallia used the moment of respite to pull out another vial of blood and drank it with urgent movements.

The veins in her arms, neck, and head enlarged, and her muscles bulged and inflated. Gallia felt the pressure on her body; this was the third vial she had to drink, and she was getting to her limit of what she could consume without causing her muscles to degrade and tendons to tear. Gallia estimated that one more vial and then it would be too dangerous for her.

Letting out a long breath, she steadied herself and faced the Golden Piggy again. Their fists collided, and this time Gallia wasn't pushed back. A smirk appeared on her face, glad that she could finally match her enemy.

Bang!

Gallia punched the robot with her fist, causing a slight dent. But the retaliation came quickly, the cell's fist slamming into her stomach until it took Gallia's breath away for a moment.

"Θεϊκό Φεγγάρι, ζητώ την προστασία και τη δύναμή σου! Δώσε σε αυτόν τον ανάξιο υπηρέτη προστασία με αντάλλαγμα ένα μέρος της ζωτικής μου δύναμης! Λύτρωσε αυτόν τον ανάξιο, Θεέ μου της Σελήνης!" She shouted the urgently learned phrase, and a silver glow emanated from her body that was different from the usual shield she used to protect herself. In addition to protection, it also provided centrifugal force, which gave her even more protection from blows, and the impact of the blows was milder.

Gallia clenched her fists and lunged at the Golden Piggy again, striking. Piggy flinched only slightly before she punched back.

The two began to wildly exchange blows in a fistfight, each punch carrying with it a crackling sound that vibrated the air around them. Small abrasions were appearing on Gallia's body despite her strong defenses, but even Zalta Piggy was not without a scratch, and more and more dents were appearing on the robot's armor.

Still, neither stopped, and they continued to punch each other in a furious fistfight.

Danann, meanwhile, stood on her cauldron, which flew at great speed low to the ground, and kept firing streams of molten gold at the rest of the priests of the god Baa.

The group took up a tight circular formation in two lines, with the outer circle being the defenders who covered everyone by creating silver scorpions, while the inner circle was the attackers who took turns firing silver missiles at Danann.

They found themselves in quite a stalemate, as the guns couldn't hit the speedy Danann and she, in turn, couldn't get through their defenses. Danann clicked her tongue in displeasure every time her molten gold just covered the raised energy shield.

"Hop hop!" She called out while she squatted down and grabbed the edge of the cauldron with one hand, which paused for a moment and then leapt high into the air with her.

"Hyyyyaaaahhh!" Danann cried out, attempting to break the formation with an attack from above. However, all of the priests in defense raised their hands and formed a layered shield above them.

DONG!!!

The cauldron rang as he and Danann hit the shield and were forced to bounce again, hitting the ground hard and almost falling over with the cauldron. Danann's body rattled a little as the vibrations from the cauldron transferred to her body. "D... D... Da... Damn..." She groaned.

The priests took advantage of the moment, and several missiles flew toward her, one hitting Danann in the shoulder and left side of her chest. "Ow!" She hissed, throwing herself and the cauldron to the side to avoid the other shots. Quickly checking the wounds that had burned through her skin and caused a slight burn, she frowned. "Tsss... making me use it like that!" She complained, lifting her hat from her head.

This revealed the mark on her forehead, which glistened blue and revealed the image of a drop. Danann smiled as the mark lit up with blue flame and took one step back. Her entire body was immersed in the golden liquid inside the cauldron.

The priests understood that she was about to do something, so they began to send shots at the cauldron like crazy, but it jumped from one place to another on its own while the golden liquid inside began to swirl in a circle.

The cauldron suddenly stopped in place, and its circumference stretched and expanded while the molten gold began to emit a golden light.

One gold-covered hand was the first to emerge from the liquid gold and grasped the edge of the cauldron, and the other hand immediately followed. The head broke through the golden surface, and Danann emerged, but she looked different.

"Hahahaha!" She laughed with a wide grin that revealed golden sharp teeth. Her skin was golden, her eyes an orange iris with a double pupil that was golden with a thin black hiss line in the middle. Her hair was golden and fluid, flowing slowly down, her head adorned with a thick crown of golden horns, and around her body were swirling fluid tendrils of gold that acted as her extra limbs. Another noticeable thing was a strange ball near her belly from which liquid gold was constantly dripping.

Danann grinned. "Ah, how I hate that form! You'll pay for making me use it!" It looked strange as a cheerful child's voice came out of the creature's mouth.

It puffed up both cheeks and spat out golden spittle towards the priests, which could be mistaken for a golden bullet by how fast it shot forward.

The priests raised their shields again, but were pushed back as soon as the projectile hit and their shields shattered. If the second row of priests didn't support them, they would probably fall. "Shit!" One of the priests complained as his hands trembled, his shield being the hardest hit. He looked up to Danann only to see her puffing out her cheeks again, this time spitting out one shot after another like machine gun fire.

"Shields! All shields!" Someone yelled, and the entire formation began to layer silver shields in front of them. All the priests pressed against each other, trying to protect themselves from the sniping that prevented them from making any attack.

Meanwhile, the Sad Prince nearby was looking at the ground, hugging his knees and sniffling sadly while his body was covered with more and more gold, which grew on its own. His form changed from a handsome young man to a gilded statue.

"They don't want gold... they don't... why not? Why not? Gold is nice. It makes people happy. It makes people beautiful," he mumbled anxiously to himself.

"Beautiful. Beautiful. Makes people beautiful," he repeated over and over before closing his eyes. That moment his entire body was covered in gold and finally stopped growing, the Sad Prince's expression changed. He calmed down, and when he opened his eyes again, they were calm and arrogance.

He stood up and turned toward the fighting groups. "Hmpf! How unsightly! How dare you look so shabby in my presence!?" he waved his hand dramatically, and a faint glow began to emanate from him, a faint greenish color.

At that moment, the ground around him began to turn to gold, the gold slowly expanding as if it were some slowly spreading contagion. As he stepped forward, he left golden trails behind him.

Golden Piggy heard the Sad Prince, so she broke away from the frantic pounding on Gallia, who was already all bruises but no serious injuries, and Piggy's armor also bore many dents. Now, however, Piggy paid no attention to that and looked back at the Sad Prince.

"Oh-oh. Danann! The Mad Prince has appeared!" She warned.

Danann nearly choked upon hearing this and quickly swallowed before she plunged back into the molten gold without hesitation as her cauldron began to bounce away.

Golden Piggy then did what no one should do during a fight. She turned her back on the enemy and quickly rushed over to the Mad Prince. "Your Highness! What a pleasure to see you again, but there's no need for you to be bothered by these unworthy ones!" Golden Piggy began to speak in a high, fawning voice that hid her urgency.

The Mad Prince stopped and looked at the Golden Piggy, inspecting her and grabbing his chin thoughtfully. "You were beautiful enough to stand upright in my presence, Princess," he acknowledged that Piggy's golden appearance was sufficient for his majesty.

Golden Piggy knew how the Prince's ability worked; only his presence caused things to turn golden on their own, but what was already golden was fine. Golden Piggy was protected by her armor, and for the most part, Danann would be fine, but her eyes could still suffer.

The biggest problem was the character of the Mad Prince, who had distorted vision, and everything that wasn't gold looked ugly and gross to him. Golden Piggy wouldn't have had a problem with his uncontrollable ability to turn everything into gold, but there had been accidents with that before, someone coming in at the wrong time and damaging his surroundings as well.

"Hahaha... thank you, Highness. I'm glad that I was worthy of it. But how about you leave things to us?" Piggy tried to convince him.

"Hmpf! Nonsense! I was more than capable of fixing the look of those cockroaches!" The Mad Prince retorted and walked past Golden Piggy, who looked unhappily at the ground turning to gold. She must have been thinking that her Lambert would have to deal with repairs again.

Meanwhile, Gallia retreated to catch her breath and consider her next course of action. The fistfight was intense, but it wasn't really going anywhere and was mostly a contest of stamina. She kept a wary eye on the Golden Piggy and the Mad Prince while she prepared her next prayer and couldn't help but notice what was going on with the man.

She glanced to the side into the alley where the treacherous cauldron was hiding, and only the top of her head and the eyes of Danann peeked out as she watched Mad Prince. Gallia understood that the man was a problem. So when Mad Prince made his way over, she immediately warned the others.

"Stay away from him! I repeat, do not approach and keep your distance!" She ordered, putting herself in front of the Mad Prince to retreat.

Mad Prince stopped when he saw Gallia and the group of priests retreating from him. He frowned and took a few more steps, but the others followed his movements and retreated again.

Mad Prince tapped his foot impatiently on the ground. "What are you filthy creatures doing!? Come to me at once! You dare to disobey this Prince!?" He angrily strode towards them again, slightly lengthening his step but not running. After all, Princes don't run.

If a stranger had been watching, they probably would have been greeted by a ridiculous scene of the Mad Prince walking quickly behind a group of people who were in turn quickly retreating in front of him; it looked like a slow-motion chase. But Gallia and the priests weren't entertained by it. A sense of intense danger followed the Mad Prince whenever he approached, and given the strange nature of their opponents, they were very wary.

Golden Piggy, seeing the Mad Prince walking all over the place, made her want to tear her hair out if she could. There were already golden stashes everywhere on the street, and even the walls of the houses he approached were beginning to turn to gold. She was going to have to do something about that.

Piggy straddled and the wheels slid out of her hooves, the sound of a button being pressed and flames bursting from the back of her legs sent Gold Piggy bounding forward and dashing towards the group of priests. If she was going to stop this destruction of the surroundings, she was going to have to help the Mad Prince, turn everything ugly into beautiful.

Piggy circled them in a wide arc, planning to disperse the group. Gallia swore and ran towards her to stop her.

"Lock 12 on that Prince!" Gallia called out as she charged at the Golden Piggy, standing up like a wrestler, legs slightly bent, and arms raised.

The priests responded with only a small delay before they synchronized and began to chant a prayer.

Gold Piggy didn't try to change direction, nor could she. If she used that acceleration, changing direction was hard to do and she could only drift at most.

Gillia clenched her muscles moments before the two collided. "Aaarrrr!" Gillia yelled out effortlessly as she wrapped her arms around the Golden Piggy's waist and dug her feet into the ground until the cobblestones cracked beneath her, leaving a ruined furrow in their path. Gillia felt like she'd torn something in her legs, but she slowed Golden Piggy down until she finally managed to hold her in place even though fire was still shooting out of her legs.

While that was an accomplishment in itself, there was nothing she could do in this situation to prevent Piggy from attacking her. Golden Piggy raised both hands above her head where she interlaced her fingers and slammed them down like a hammer to the back of Gillia's head.

Gillia was momentarily knocked out and slammed into the ground. At the same moment, the priests finished chanting a prayer centered around the approaching Mad Prince.

"Hm?" The Mad Prince stopped and looked around as six silver walls appeared, enclosing him in a neat circle, and then a silver illusion of chains with a lock wrapped around them. The Mad Prince stood for a moment before slamming his hand on one of the walls. "How bold! You dare lock this Prince up?" He frowned.

The light he emitted became stronger, and even though he was physically held in place, it didn't limit his power, and the ground around him quickly turned to gold. Gold Piggy lifted her leg and scooped up Gillia, who was recovering from a blow to the head, with it and kicked her towards the Mad Prince.

"Ugh." Gillia huffed as she hit the ground and opened her eyes. Her vision wavered a bit, but she was coming to. She caught sight of a light, automatically turning her head in that direction only to see that she was lying near the locked Mad Prince who was looking at her disdainfully.

The greenish light came into Gillia's eyes, and her vision darkened. She raised her hands, and her hands touched the cold metal that began to cover her eyes and face. The progress of gold was faster in the case of animate than inanimate objects. She wanted to shout a prayer, but her head grew heavy and numb.

Gillia soon turned into a twisted golden statue with a stunned expression. The Mad Prince looked her over, and his expression became one of satisfaction. "Isn't that better? You're really beautiful now, princess. Oh? You're welcome. I'm glad you're happy," he smiled and spoke to the statue as if he had heard her talk.

The group of priests looked on in horror. They didn't even have time to help Abbess Gillia; the curse of gold was too fast.

The priests looked at each other and knew they were in a very bad situation. Without their main force, they had no chance to deal with their opponents. They decided that they could only try to escape.

They turned and began to run. Golden Piggy blew the hot air out of her snout. "Cowards!" She called after them and began to chase them.

Mad Prince watched them disappear from his sight; once they did, he blinked and looked down at the statue of the princess again. The arrogance was gone from his eyes and instead was replaced with composure. "Ah... he did it again, didn't he?" He muttered, the glow around him fading before disappearing.

A cauldron appeared next to his prison, from which Danann prudently poked her head out. When she was sure it wasn't glowing anymore, she emerged out more. "Prince Xander?" She asked.

"Ah, Madame Danann. Hello, it's been a while." Prince Xander smiled and bowed to her, just a little because the prison still remained around him and he didn't have much room.

"You should get out more. Sad Prince is a sweetheart, but he requires too much care. And the Mad Prince is rather unbearable," Danann replied.

Prince Xander smiled politely and shook his head. Danann frowned and pointed at him. "You can't run from yourself forever, son."

There was silence for a moment before Prince Xander raised both hands and grabbed his chest, digging his fingers into the golden skin. "I'm sorry, Madame Danann. Running away is about the only thing I can do." With that, he ripped the golden skin from his body and his expression changed again. It became much more innocent and sad.

The Sad Prince dropped the golden skin and began to tear off more and more, looking around. "Have they left?"

Danann sighed. "Yes, Sad Prince. But they said they wanted your gold."

Sad Prince beamed happily. "Really? Then I'll make as much gold as I can."

***** 

End of the World Palace

Caila withdrew her gaze and sighed. Then she looked up and saw that Archie was gone. That was good; she wanted to warn him that if he didn't hurry, he wouldn't be able to save too many of his colleagues.

It was interesting to see the other abilities of her people. Danann had a special ability, and she wondered what the basis was for her being able to use molten gold like that. But the Sad Prince was definitely a case for a psychologist. She had originally thought that the Sad Prince was somewhat mentally handicapped, but it ended up being the case that there were three personalities hiding in his body.

Prince Xander seemed to be the original personality, but most of the time the body was run by the Sad Prince. Good thing he does. Caila doubted she could get along with the Mad Prince.

Caila shifted her gaze to the last place where the confrontation was taking place: Abbess Libertia. However, when Caila fixed her gaze on that place, she was immediately stunned. "What the hell happened?!" She exclaimed internally as she saw in her vision that the house that Team Fear had created was destroyed. And not only destroyed, but it looked like a bomb had gone off inside of it and the walls of the houses had rolled down like a peeled banana.

Caila immediately checked the lights of her worshippers, and her heart dropped. "Damn it!"