Bellessia

  “Over half of our subordinate forces appear to have surrendered, the Wind Runner and the Divine Bulwark have disappeared, and we’ve lost over 75% of our A ranks to squabbles with other powers, fighting with the United Federation of Planets’ in other universes, and the curse the United Federation of Planets used to kill the leaders of our subordinate forces.”

  The God of War frowned as his youngest daughter, Tiaria, Mistress of Storms, read the report she’d made from her seat around the stone table flying above what used to be the Endless Battlefield, but he maintained his calm demeanor as he began asking questions. “Regarding Bullwark and Runner, what do we know?”

  “They are still powering their priests, so they are alive,” the God of War’s eldest divine child, Omorius, the Huntsman, answered his father. “But we don’t know where they are and we don’t know what state they are in.

  “They haven’t connected to our new non-System network, and, without the System, we have no good way of tracking them.

  “I at least haven’t been able to find them anywhere in the Prime Material, so my educated guess would be they are in another universe.”

  “Without more information, we shouldn’t take any reckless actions.” The God of War steepled his fingers in front of him and looked down at the empty battlefield below. “But it is very troubling they are missing.

  “As for our subordinate forces who surrendered. Part of their surrender terms is that they have to stop worshipping us, so they have no further use.” He turned to look at his son again. “Omorius, go kill them all.”

  Then, without any change in expression, he looked at all the other gods at the table—his three children, Bellessia, and five other weaker gods, either non-combatant deities or gods whose Laws had not reached the divine level. “Let’s send a message to all the other forces who are considering surrendering after all we’ve done for them.”

  * * *

  Liminar

  Liminar Ka, the B rank king of a middle-rank human kingdom, ruling over two galaxy clusters, was very glad he’d accepted the surrender offer from the United Federation of Planets.

  He and his people had had their System access returned to them, the assassins looking to cash in the System’s bounties on his life and the lives of every other true member of his kingdom had stopped killing his subordinates and making attempts on his life, and, most important, he hadn’t died due to a divine level curse like the leaders of every force that hadn’t surrendered.

  Sure, he’d had to give up over 80% of his force’s wealth, the System teleporting it all away to give to the United Federation of Planets, and he’d had to destroy all the temples to the gods he’d believed in since he was a small child, but what was wealth in front of the threat of death, and what was worship for gods too weak or too uncaring to protect their believers?

  Looking up at the sky of his C rank capital planet from the roof of his palace, and taking a second sip from a flask of magical alcohol in his hand, he felt relaxed for the first time in a while.

  Then, however, everything changed.

  An arrow appeared in the sky, seemingly arriving via some form of teleportation, and it began to split. One arrow became two, two arrows became four, four arrows became eight, all the way until there were 9,492,184,203 arrows floating in the sky, the exact number of cultivators currently on the planet.

  Then the arrows fell and everyone died.

  * * *

  Kiri

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “I hate you!” Kiri Nigere yelled at her mother, stomping up to her room on the second floor of their house. “And I wish you were dead!”

  Fifteen years old, Kiri hadn’t been applying herself at school, instead having gotten way too into televised dramas, and, after finding out how much her grades had slipped, her evil mother wouldn’t even let her go out to a movie with her friends.

  “At least eat your dinner, young lady!”

  Stomping back down, Kiri took the plate from her mother’s outstretched hand, piled up with the old hag’s homemade cooking. Then she stuck her tongue out at the evil witch and stomped back up to her room where she turned on the viewing screen on her wall and switched to her favorite entertainment channel, watching as movie stars she idolized were interviewed outside a premier on another planet.

  Then, however, screaming came from the screen and Kiri dropped her plate onto her bed in shock as arrows fell from the sky and penetrated the heads of everyone there, creating a gory mess.

  She screamed herself, and her mom came running, but, while her mother quickly hugged her and turned off the horrific images on the screen, arrows flew through their room and killed them both as well, along with everyone else on their planet.

  * * *

  Joran

  Joran Va looked down at the small bundled up baby in his arms, then up at his exhausted wife, barely even registering the two nurses and the doctor in the room.

  He had a daughter. And she was beautiful.

  “Little Sophia, you’re going to run like the wind with nothing in your way. And, no matter what, I’ll be your bulwark, keeping you forever safe.”

  He and his wife had decided to name their child after the Wind Runner, in the hope she’d live a free and easy life, able to make any choice she wanted with their protection. And he was going to make that a reality.

  Sure, they were poor, so the hospital expense was going to cost them. And, sure, he’d probably have to pick up an extra shift or two at the factory to cover the cost of the extra mouth to feed. But he was going to do so willingly.

  He would gladly sacrifice the remaining strength of his body so their little girl could live a better life than they had, maybe even move off world one day.

  And he was so looking forward to watching her grow.

  So focused on his new little bundle of joy, he didn’t even realize as he, his wife, and his child all died, blown to bits by arrows like everyone else on their planet.

  * * *

  Omorius

  Hunting mortals was boring, no challenge to it at all, but Omorius had long ago learned from his father to always treat every task with the seriousness it deserved. So, standing in the middle of empty space with only his bow for company, he took his time warping arrow after arrow at all the surrendered planets.

  When he was about 12.5% of the way through, however, he noticed something weird.

  The souls of those he’d killed who still believed in him were no longer giving him any faith energy after they died, their souls seemingly not entering the afterlife his aunt had set up so long ago, and that was weird.

  Activating his divine artifact boots his uncle had made for him, he teleported to the nearest planet he’d targeted, a C rank world formerly ruled by the Ka Kingdom, and there he sensed it.

  There was a formation set up somewhere on the planet, a very subtle one, and it was attracting the souls of all the dead and teleporting them somewhere else.

  “You’re going to regret slaughtering innocents.”

  Omorius quickly turned around to find two goddesses behind him, Guardian Ruler Tanilla of the one-eye race and Holy Blade Zu’Lian of the tuathans, the most likely of the 204 living gods in the Prime Material to take offense at his slaughter, and his shock at seeing them shook his mind just enough that it took him an extra few fractions of a second to react as all his contracts with mortals suddenly broke in such a way that he would be the one to receive punishment.

  The two goddesses then charged at him and Omorius took a step away, traveling about 60 kilometers, before realizing they were just illusions.

  Where he arrived, however, had a runic circle show up on the ground, the illusion around it dropping right as he landed, and it was made from extremely pure A rank energy, able to trap him for a full second.

  “Revenge for the Fallen.”

  The words were quiet, almost whispered, as the Heavenly Spark Soul King appeared in the runic circle behind him, but Omorius recognized what they meant, and he was terrified as a result.

  The Heavenly Spark Soul King’s race was a variant of a soul lord and he had access to the skeleton of the Radiant Behemoth, so, in theorizing worst case scenarios possible, Omorius and his fellow gods had considered the Heavenly Spark Soul King taking a Divine grade variant of the theorized afterlife ruler line of classes as his fifth class, but they’d thought he wouldn’t have enough control over faith energy to qualify.

  Now, however, it seemed they’d been wrong.

  Due to the class, the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s Divine grade version of the soul lord battle armor racial ability had been enhanced to Supreme grade, and, from the feel of his soul, he could handle its full boost.

  More important, however, he had access to the two core skills of soul lords with classes based on controlling an afterlife, Revenge for the Fallen and Soul Armor Filigree, the latter of which he wouldn’t even need to use.

  Revenge for the Fallen, which the Heavenly Spark Soul King was using to empower the Royal Law Blast skill he was charging in his hands, would strengthen any and all of his attacks against Omorius with the will of any souls in the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s personal afterlife who Omorius had the karmic signature of killing, and Omorius had just killed trillions, all of whom’s souls the Heavenly Spark Soul King had seemingly set up formations in advance to collect.

  A pure beam of black energy left the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s hands at a speed so fast it was impossible for Omorius to dodge at such close range. And Omorius, God of Hunting and the seventh strongest combatant among the Primordial Humans, died.