A Sinner's Eden-Chapter 191 - EVO

***Tirnanog, The Kingdom***

***Astra***

Magnus raised the crossbow bolt and regarded it with a measure of disdain while Vanya’s bodyguards pulled her behind our warriors and retreated into the compound. Hochberg’s Matriarch was protesting the rough treatment, but her own personal bodyguard and her right hand paid her no heed. Their only concern was to get their physically weak leader away from any potential violence.

Seeing the breakdown in negotiations, Mary stepped forward from the back row and cracked her knuckles. “It seems like they are giving us no other choice but to teach them a lesson.” Her filaments already flowed over her body, covering her in the familiar protective layer which made her almost invincible.

We had discussed this scenario beforehand, to demonstrate the kingdom’s leadership a show of power if they refused to cooperate. Whether it was a good idea to send Mary to do the deed was another question.

Our ancient was a walking nuclear reactor, and these people had no easy access to healing mutations. It would be irresponsible to irradiate their capital and threaten the lives of civilians when they had nothing to say in their kingdom’s dealings.

“No.” Magnus shook his head and dropped the crossbow bolt as he stepped forward. “Let me handle this.”

The leaders of the alliance looked at him with surprised expressions.

“And how do you intend to handle it?” Teresa asked. “They attacked Hochberg’s Matriarch. That’s a declaration of war.”

“I will handle it exactly as it has been done since the first person picked up a stick to bash in another’s head to establish the picking order. Just without the nuclear radiation.” Magnus took off an amulet he had hanging around his neck, and I recognised it as one of his new devices. It expanded, releasing several humming spheres which began to orbit him like drones.

He huffed once he confirmed their function to his satisfaction. “And there will be no war. I am going after those in charge. Instead of having the little man held responsible, we go right for the head.”

Before I could say something, Magnus stepped forward and casually deflected a second crossbow bolt with the back of his hand. Another was automatically intercepted by one of the drones, which momentarily flattened out to a disc with more surface area before returning to its sphere shape.

More projectiles were shot, forcing me to block one aimed directly at me. Thankfully, by now only those in iobeetle armour remained outside the compound, so the volley was utterly ineffective.

It appeared that the kingdom was being held back in more ways than one. They were established better than the clans, but there was also a lack of powerful mutations and the resources that came with them.

Unlike Magnus, I was uncertain about what to do. These people were obviously being influenced somehow. Could they be freed, or would we make everything worse by escalating the conflict?

“I am Magnus Frost,” Magnus announced himself to the king. “Protector of Clan Aerie, and Herald of the Goddess Gaia who oversees this world.” He pointed a finger at King Arseni Osvald. “And you are not worthy of ruling her subjects.”

I almost did a double-take. Had he really just said that!?

He spoke unusually loudly, but I belatedly realised that Magnus was giving a performance for the reporters and onlookers on the distant rooftops. Against the warnings of the kingdom’s security forces, some had even crept closer with the heating up conflict. The police forces were trying to hold them back, but they weren’t properly prepared for having their orders ignored.

“What did you just say!?” Arseni sounded seriously pissed off and gestured for his guards. “I am not beholden to some god! I am the kingdom and the kingdom is me! Religion doesn’t have anything to say here.”

Magnus scoffed. “You will soon learn what it means to blaspheme against the goddess, heretic!”

The largest among the guards charged Magnus with incredible speed, wielding a baton-like weapon. For a moment, Magnus stood still, and there was a rapid exchange of blows. Then one of the spheres which orbited him accelerated and kneecapped the guard while a second one hit him in the temple with such force that he spun in mid air.

Magnus caught the man’s head, moving him with the motion as he accelerated his opponent’s face downwards into the cobblestone with a ‘crack’. The guard's body immediately went limp, and he remained right where his face had been smashed into the ground. I wasn’t sure whether the earth beneath the cobblestones had given way, or whether the man’s helmet and face had yielded. I hoped it was the latter, or someone would have to clean up something nasty.

The other kingdom guards with close-range weapons hesitated to approach after seeing the secondary purpose of the spheres.

My partner didn’t give them the choice as he rose back to his feet. He flash stepped, appearing right behind one of the guards who were wielding crossbows.

Magnus’s left hand landed on the woman’s chin while the right pressed down on the back of her head. Then there was a sudden ‘crack’ and the guard’s head was turned around by 180 degrees in the other direction.

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Seeing that he had appeared right among them, the guards forgot about their hesitation. They rushed Magnus as he let go of the woman who had fired the first bolt. Gurgling, she sank to her knees where she remained, no longer in control of her body.

Slowly, Magnus turned around and ascended the stairway towards Arseni, showing utter disrespect to the king’s guards who were rushing him from all sides.

But whenever one came close enough, Magnus blurred with rapid movements, returning each attack in kind, either by fist, foot, or one of his drones. Even if something was allowed to get through, no weapon could do so much as scratch his newly enhanced armour, while the kingdom’s metal protections were dented and bent by the circling spheres. Steel was no replacement for iobeetle armour.

The king’s announcer stepped in front of his liege, holding out an open palm with the fingers curled as if he meant to crush Magnus with his mind alone.

My partner thrust out an arm, his spetum appearing almost out of nowhere as it left the pocket dimension. The blade ran through the announcer’s guts until the side blades stopped further impalement. Then the man screamed like a slaughtered molerat as electricity cooked him from the inside out.

Momentarily stopping his advance, Magnus lifted his spetum into a vertical position. He set it on one of the stairs with the announcer displayed on it like some macabre flag.

Once Magnus began walking once more, the spetum remained mysteriously in place, holding its bleeding victim captive.

I slowly realised that I had been lacking in my studies. What Magnus displayed almost looked like magic, but this was the final application of what Gaia had been teaching us for all those months.

Magnus raised a hand, and what looked like a longsword appeared in it. I realised that he was summoning all the additional devices from his initial amulet. Just how many of these SMDs had he stacked on top of each other?

He raised the sword above his head, and suddenly, there was an explosion of light. Lightning arced across the platform, driving off the few combatants who had remained on their feet and loyal to the king. Some of the smarter ones had already dropped their weapons and run away.

A few of my partner’s filaments spread out behind his back, guiding two wings of arcing electricity. One of the spheres came to a stop right behind his head and formed a ring, revealing a perfect, pitch-black darkness within. It looked like an angel’s halo.

As blood pooled beneath the palanquin, Magnus took the final step to face Arseni.

The king only pointed at my partner with narrowed eyes. “K-N-E-E-L!”

Even from a distance, the mental command almost drove me to my knees. It was at least on par with Vanya’s abilities. Thankfully, my training with Thalia and Vanya made it easy to resist, but people who didn’t have access to high-level psychics to train their resistances would have had no chance.

Magnus tilted his head, then replied almost jovially, “I can do that too.”

The longsword flashed, then the king’s accusing arm flew away. Before Arseni could even scream, the tip returned and carved a long, deep wound down Arseni’s thigh, right down the length of the sciatic nerve.

King Arseni Osvald, the First, screamed, right as Magnus’s foot lashed out.

The knee of the king’s good foot snapped as his feet were swiped out from beneath him. Paralysing electricity licked over his body as Magnus grabbed and tossed the king behind him.

Then Arseni fell, rolling all the way down the palanquin before he landed on the cobblestone at the very bottom.

Magnus turned around and slowly sat down on the king’s throne, ignoring the frightened servants in the background while he swung his left leg onto his right knee. He spread his fake wings wide to make a point, and their output doubled in intensity.

“In the name of Clan Aerie and the Goddess, I claim this kingdom.” Magnus looked down at the dethroned king while slowly running a hand over the blade of his sword. “As for the abdicated rulership, Goddess Gaia will decide his fate.”

And with that, the sky shimmered. For a moment, the day became brighter as light focused on the king’s crawling body. It became so bright that I couldn’t look at the scene. A wave of heat washed over me, and when I lowered my hand, all that remained of King Arseni Osvald was a charred corpse inside a perfect circle where the cobblestones had been glassed over.

Everyone gaped at the scene in shock. Had Magnus truly just called down the wrath of the heavens?

“It appears, the Goddess found him wanting…” Magnus commented.

I looked back towards the compound, hoping we had a connection as I began spamming the family chat with messages, which included Gaia.

‘What the fuck!? What did you do, Gaia? Magnus, how do you have access to Tirnanog’s weather control system?’ I almost had a meltdown. Hadn’t everyone agreed to leave the damned thing alone because the risk was too great?

‘I didn’t do anything aside from assisting Gilbert Kline in unravelling the control mechanism. Magnus pressed the button,’ our -goddess- defended herself.

‘I had the two most competent individuals we have check the thing over before using it. Besides, if we want to take total control of Tirnanog, we can’t just ignore an omnipotent weapon,’ Magnus reasoned quickly.

‘I wouldn’t have allowed them to use it if I thought there was a serious risk. After all, if you die, I die too,’ Gaia added.

“Well, that wasn’t in the script, but the boy has a taste for the dramatic,” Mary whispered from her spot next to me. “We might have to update your power level to ancient.”

“ ’Ancient’ is not a power level!” I protested, still miffed that nobody had told me of something so important! “It’s a title!”

Mary massaged her chin in thought. “It has been a long time since anyone new became powerful enough to be called an ancient. And you two are young, so it doesn’t fit at all. Though if your kids become anything like Magnus, we might need another category beyond juggernaut.”

I looked around and realised that most of the kingdom’s citizens had gone down on their knees, kowtowing to Magnus.

Magnus cleared his throat and turned around, gesturing for the throng of former servants to assemble in front of him. Once the cowed group had fulfilled his wish, he asked, “Sooo, is someone still questioning the goddess’s authority?”

They shook their heads as if they were one being.

“Who would be the next in line to manage the kingdom’s affairs?” Magnus continued.

One of the servants pointed at the king’s announcer, who was still hanging off the spetum and had stopped moving some time ago. “Prince Bahmud was…”

“Ah, so that was the prince.” Magnus stared for a moment at the dead body before he gestured with his hand for the servant to tone it down a bit. “I think we will have to go a little bit further down the ranks. Take all the corrupted despots out of the equation and put people with the necessary abilities in charge.”

One of the underdressed female servants looked confused. “But… how? There will be many who will oppose change even if the king is dead.”

My partner facepalmed and looked up at the sky. Then he raised his hands towards the goddess to remind the onlookers what had happened just a minute ago. “Why am I surrounded by morons?”