52 What a god can do.

We re-materialize at an open plaza in front of the main entrance to the dome. A quick look at the dead bodies and the destruction tells me that a really brutal fight took place here. 

There are our people, as well as enemy troops on the ground. Drem awaits us at the entrance and waves us in. "Hurry, you can never know if there are still snipers around here." 

I walk up to him and enter the dome. "How is the situation?" 

"We cleared the area and took control over the dome, but there are several layers of safety doors. We broke through three so far and encountered heavy resistance. At the fourth we are at a stale mate. There are some really strong people protecting it. I already lost a few men to them." Drem leads us through a labyrinth of corridors. 

"Is it possible that those guys are nobles from Tulhelm and Meltheim?" Celes asks with a curious voice. 

"It's likely, but we couldn't confirm it until now. I saw one of them fighting with his bare hands, crushing my people. That meets the criteria for one of the Meltheim brothers. But they all wear hooded robes and are masked like some kind of cultists." Drem snorts with an expression of disdain. 

I nod and after three big blasted doors, we reach a fourth, where Drem's people are having a good old gunfight. They are taking cover to the sides of the door and behind whatever they could carry here and use as coverage. "I am sorry, but we couldn't break the stalemate until now. We tried to enter twice, but got crushed both times." 

Walking up to the guy next to the door, I pat his shoulder. He looks at me and I signal him to make room. After he stepped to the side I go to the knees and take a quick look around the corner. I jerk back immediately and a few bullets cut through the air where my head had been. About twenty people with guns behind barricades. Some, who look like wizards are casting shield spells and about ten guys in robes, who look like the leaders. "Those guys are fast." 

"They already got three of our best shooters. Placed the bullet right between their eyes. Even the new automatic healing devices don't help against that. Either you are fast in taking cover again or you are dead." The soldier grimaces with pain. 

I look at the grenades in his belt. "Give me those." After I have them, I unplug their safety mechanisms and look at the soldiers. "I will teleport inside and start a distraction. As soon as you hear the explosions you storm inside." 

The soldiers nod and Celes starts to kick at the wall a few feet down the door. "I will make a new entrance here." She grins at the dent in the wall. 

Arthur lifts an eyebrow and kicks the wall at another spot lightly. It dents in a little too. "The more entrances the better." 

….. Family of brutes.... oh, shit I belong to that family! Argh! 

"I will take the main-entrance! The day I sneak through a self dug hole is far in the future!" Nicosar seems to be undisturbed and lifts a gun in each hand. YOU AREN'T RAMBO! 

I nod at everyone and teleport, reappearing close to the ceiling of the dome above the enemies. While I start to fall, I throw the grenades and two fireballs before I teleport again. 

Reappearing again behind the enemy, I take cover and start to hurl spells at them to get their attention. 

The dome is turned into a hell of bullets and explosions. My people break the walls, while some enemies turn around to shoot at me. 

Everything turns into chaos, as our people storm the enemy. One of the hooded figures disappears and reappears right in front of me. 

A fist impacts my chest and I stumble backwards. But the shock is mostly absorbed by my armour. "Long time no see. I hope you can remember me!" The figure uncovers it's face. 

Sarda! I grin at him. "Did you join the priests?" 

"Insolence! You will come to fear the one true god too! Once he enters this world the people who don't believe into him will burn!" Sarda has a mad look in his face. 

"It looks like you guys locked yourselves up for far too long. Some screws seem to be loose." -Me 

Sarda screams and draws a sword. Then he jumps at me and I dodge. Elsewhere I can see Celes, Arthur and Nicosar fighting with other hooded figures. 

Looks like they build up their own cult while they locked themselves inside this city. Fanatics can be truly troublesome. 

I evade another strike and realize that Sarda didn't really get better in all those years. Though it seems like he got the mana treatment. He throws the mana around like he has enough to waste. But I have seen to it that we all got a little charge up too. 

The armours are actually constantly converting mana from a small power cell and infusing it into our bodies. A little piece of technology I am quite proud of. 

Sarda jabs his sword at me again and I cast a fireball directly into his face. The strong aura he emits protects him but he is blinded for a second. 

A little rock, lifted by telekinsis blasts through his knee and while he falls, I twist the sword out of his hand and nail him onto the floor. 

I watch his big round eyes staring up at me. "Feels like old times doesn't it?" 

He grins stupidly at me. "Yeah. Feels familiar, but you will still lose in the end." Then the life in his eyes fades and I pull the sword out of him. 

Taking another look around the room, I see that the chaos has lightened up a little. But six of the hooded figures are still fighting. 

Celes is smashing a guy into the ground like a doll. He is struggling but can't put up a fight any more. 

Arthur is surrounded by two enemies while he is using the feet of someone as clubs. It seems his first victim got the doubtful honour of being torn apart to serve as weapon. 

Nicosar is surrounded by three others. They are hacking in horror at his mangled body while it keeps trying to reform. 

"Just Die!" "Zombie!" "Unholy Monster!" 

I throw a lightning spell at them to fry them together with the geezer. They seem to be too occupied to mind me. It's wonderful if you don't have to mind friendly fire! 

When their colour turns to a crispy brown I release the spell and watch out for the next target. But the one who was unlucky enough to be Celes's opponent is just a bloody mess by now. 

Arthur has dealt with his opponents too, while the surviving soldiers sniped them from the side. He has a lone survivor grabbed at the neck. "Look who we have here! Odlef of Meltheim he looks a little mangled, but i am sure he is it." 

The man struggles but can't break free. Both his legs are bent in an unnatural way. "The god will punish you all! He will clean the world!" 

Arthur shakes the guy a little and he starts to sob. "They really went insane. I hope it hasn't something to do with our bloodline." 

For the first time I can take a close look at the inside of the dome. It's completely empty execpt for the barricades, which were put up by the defenders. 

The whole floor of the size of a football field is engraved with the complicated pattern of the summoning circle. 

The metal glows in fluorescent white light. In the middle of the dome is an altar with a box. Two soldiers are already securing it and one of them is taking a look into the box. 

Suddenly a mad grin creeps over his face. 

"There is only one true god! All who are unworthy must die!" He lifts his gun and shoots his comrade right into the chest, then he turns the gun into our direction. I throw myself to the ground but a storm of bullets punches more holes into him than I can count. 

Another soldier drops his weapons and runs up to the chest while shielding his eyes. He closes the chest and then lifts his hands. "I am not insane! Don't shoot." Hoh, it seems like they are really good trained people who have something between their heads! Good job Drem! 

While I stand up again, healers come into the dome to tend to the wounded. I walk up to the altar, while I take a close look at the summoning circle under my feet and then at the altar itself. 

"So that's the seed of the problem." Celes takes a look at the chest, picking it up and shakes it …... very scientific! "Seems like nothing is in there." 

Arthur comes up to us, while dragging the sobbing Odlef behind him. "It looks like that's the -message- from this Tjenemit. Is is really possible to drive someone insane just by looking into a glowing box?" 

Nicosar is behind Arthur and takes the box out of Celes's hands and sets it very carefully back on the altar. "You just witnessed what happened to the soldier. Why are you doubting what you just saw with your own eyes." 

I walk in a circle around the altar, then I take out a knife and start to cut some of the finer connections of the glowing metal. Insane box or not, we have to stop the summoning.

"How does it look Angrod?" -Celes 

I continue to cut some other connections and then I look around the big circle. 

"Bad." 

Suddenly Odlef pulls a knife out of his clothes and cuts his wrist. Before I can stop him he sprays the blood over the floor. 

The altar starts to pulse and Odlef begins to scream. "The god is coming! The god is coming to cleanse this world!" 

I kick the altar, chipping off a piece of it and glows up angrily, giving off a buzzing sound. 

"Wow! Don't do that again!" -Arthur 

I shrug my shoulders. "I seems that produces at least a reaction!" 

I kick the altar with my full strength. The damned thing splits apart but the circle keeps pulsing with a white light. 

Shit! If I just had time to take a closer look at this. 

Suddenly reality seems do distort and a shock-wave blasts us out of the circle. People are thrown left and right while I try to steady myself. 

"Well, well. Look at this. Who would have thought that Seria was able to drag a whole world into her void zone." 

I look up and see a white glowing figure at the centre of the circle. Odlef actually got free from his shackles and is crawling towards Tjenemit. "God! Heal me! Punish the heretics!" 

"You are annoying, whoever you are." He waves his hand at Odlef and the poor idiot is blown away like an insect. He strikes the wall of the dome and is smeared flat like a fly. 

"This blocks my view." The dome blasts apart like a tent, struck by a strong wind and Tjenemit lifts a few feet into the air while turning in a circle. 

Someone grabs me and pulls me to my feet. It's Arthur. "What can we do? Is that the real power of a god?" 

I look around and find Celes a few feet beside me. "We take cover and hope that he doesn't step on us." 

At that moment a ray of energy hits Tjenemit, but it's doing nothing to him. No! Idiots! Don't shoot at the god! The people on my flying fortress have taken action. 

"Hahahaha! You guys are funny!" 

Tjenemit lifts his hand and flicks a finger at my flying fortress. It bends, breaking apart at two thirds of its length. No! Damn! It took me years to build that thing! 

The parts fall to the earth while they burn. Impacting with and impressive blast of energy. 

"Evacuate everyone, give order to retreat and don't look back!" -Me 

Celes has gotten to her feet too and I grab her shoulder. "We run!" 

Suddenly the space behind Tjenemit distorts and Seria appears. She stabs her hand into his back and everyone has to cover his ears at the unfolding scream. 

"AAAAAARRGHH!" 

Tjenemit turns around and strikes at Seria. After a few blows between them, Seria is struck out of the sky while a mountain behind her is blown apart. The resulting shock-waves lay waste to the city and blow everyone away. 

Damn! 

While I can barely hold myself upright at the fragment of the dome, I act on reflex and teleport to Seria, grabbing her body and teleport again. "Great! Was that your plan!? Backstabbing a Council member and hoping for the best? That was the worst fight I have ever seen." 

Seria looks up to me and smiles while she coughs up blood. "No. But it would have been funny if it worked." A horrifying wound spans across her chest. This doesn't look good. 

Tjenemit appears above us. I guess there is no running from a god. 

"Look who we have here. If it isn't Ascathon. If I remember right you should suffer horrible inside this void. But you look perfectly fine to me. Hmmm. I think this will be proof enough. I will have to find Myrm too." 

He points a finger towards me and a small ray of white light stabs through my throat. 

I go to my knees and gurgle up blood. It HURTS! "Hgr ee aall!" Heal! Damn! 

"Don't bother. That spell cancels every healing a mortal would be capable of. I guess I will go to work and lay waste to this world. When I have dealt with all those runaways, their souls should be really caught inside this void. And if there are no bodies which could house a soul, there are no problems with the reincarnation issue. I guess I don't have to bother with you two any further." 

Tjenemit turns around and flies off. Destroying everything in his path. 

I crumble to the ground while the lack of oxygen robs my consciousness. Seria crawls towards me and grabs my hand. 

"I am sorry Johann. I guess....." 

But I can't her words any more, as I drift off into the darkness.