***The Crystal City***

***Celes***

Elsaria's aura washes through the room with a sickly sweet aroma, rooting everyone in place before they can even think about activating their own aura. She turns in a circle, revelling in the feeling of complete control. “And now, we can vote for Elsaria as Mrs. President of the United Multiverse!” She spreads her hands in a grand display as if she is imagining herself in the spotlight of some stage.

Mawu takes a trembling step forward, fighting the obvious influence she has on the rest of the partygoers. “Why should we vote for you!?”

His brave resistance is quickly proven useless when people start confirming their support for Elsaria's idea left and right, ignoring Mawu completely.

“People!” Mawu turns, grabbing hold of the man next to him. “Get yourself together! Don't let yourself get influenced that easily! She merely flashed her aura!”

“What are you talking about? Can't you see how capable she is? With her, we can surely get rid of the remaining Council and deal with that thing inside the black hole!”

Elsaria turns to face Mawu, confidently challenging him with a smile on her face. “You all made a little mistake when you assumed the extent of my abilities. Though, I must admit that you got close. My divinity isn't Desire, but Adoration. The kind of feeling you have towards a childhood hero or a role model. Nonetheless, I have to commend you for your resistance, Mawu...”

I slowly get to my feet and grab the edge of the table.

Since Elsaria and her goons are facing away from me, they don't see what is happening as the goddess rattles on, “...but even you must see that there is nothing you can do on your own. Wouldn't it be for the best if all of you just accepted that...”

Elsaria's voice trails off as she notices the shadow of the large dinner table darkening the spot she is standing on. Thank the gods that Angrod had the idea of replacing all the furniture with crystal versions. They are not only resistant to a god's rampage, but they can also be used as improvised weapons.

I bring the table which I lifted with one hand down on her with all my might, spilling glasses and dinnerware everywhere.

“Eeep!”

“Mistress!” one of Elsaria's goons, a lanky woman, screams and pushes her master out of the way, right before I club her over the head with the table. The flaring aura of the goddess does literally nothing for her protection as the heavy table flattens her.

Elsaria stumbles away as her minion's aura sputters out of existence, pointing at me. “Stop her!”

Her second man, a large fellow, steps forward and releases his aura – right before a curved crystal dagger emerges from his throat, emitting a wicked, red light which causes the man's flesh to sizzle and cauterize.

Nix had been watching in silence until the man in front of her revealed his hostility.

She kicks the back of the goon's knee, bringing the paralysed body down to his knees while holding onto his shoulder to keep him from toppling over completely. She artistically pulls the impossibly sharp blade to the side and down, up, and down again in a series of apparently practised moves. Finishing her terrible performance takes only two seconds before she steps back with a sadistic grin on her face.

Instead of falling over, her victim's body unfurls like an origami flower, innards spilling all over the floor.

Somehow, in an impossible show of skill, she didn't injure any of the organs, saving us from the stench of opened up bowels. The fact that her blade cut through bones and tissue while burning the arteries also prevented a lot of bloodshed.

I abandon the table and keep walking, approaching Elsaria with the intention of ending this whole issue before it can become a problem large enough to bust the whole party.

Elsaria gathers herself just in time to duck beneath my first casual blow, a back-handed strike which held enough force to decapitate her. Admittedly, I wasn't really serious about my first strike, but I didn't expect someone like Elsaria to put up any kind of fight.

“Oh?” I raise a hand and try slapping her.

Elsaria trips, unintentionally evading me yet again.

The fear of impending death is apparent in her expression, but startlingly enough it doesn't look like her continued survival can be attributed to any kind of skill on her part.

Does she have a secondary divinity which makes her the incarnation of Luck!?

“You are a lucky one,” I admit, feeling a little bit amused and intrigued. I can tell that this woman has no skill at all and yet she managed to survive three blows that should have killed her for all intents and purposes. “But I think it's about time to finish this!”

I pull back my fist while Elsaria fumbles with an amulet around her neck.

This time my strike hits her perfectly on the nose, crushing the soft tissue right before passing all the way through...

I stumble forward, my fist passing through empty and unresisting space. Thankfully, I catch myself just in time before making a very sorry performance in front of everyone.

“What!?” I quickly check the surroundings, but Elsaria is nowhere within sight and her aura is completely gone. “She escaped!? How!?” Checking my fist, I find it bloody, but nowhere enough for Elsaria to be dead. I also don’t think that I did more than breaking her nose.

“She squished her… with a table…”

“That guy looks like one of those pieces of sword-cut art from Centaurus Nine.”

I try to ignore the whispers among the crowd – the ambassadors slowly regaining their wits – and turn to Angrod who didn’t move a finger to assist us. He just kept sitting in his seat, holding onto his glass of wine, looking as if someone killed his kitten.

“Hey, Angrod!”

He blinks… muttering to himself, “How can she be so magnificent?”

Impossible, did he manage to get himself influenced by Elsaria’s aura?

“I am the most magnificent being in the multiverse!” he affirms to himself as if trying to solve an impossible equation with two equal solutions. “How can she be better than me? That’s a contradiction! I have to kill her!”

Of course! I clench my teeth and walk up to him, grabbing his earlobe to twist. “Snap out of it! We are having a situation here!”

“Ow! Au!” Angrod drops his glass, allowing it to shatter on the ground. He proceeds to slap at my hand until I let go of him. Then he quickly corrects his outfit and gets to his feet. “I am alright!”

“Good! Then we should probably try to find out how she got away!” I point at the spot where the leader of the Tuor has been just a few seconds ago. “I thought we blocked the pathways and this whole building is warded against teleportation!”

“I am afraid that her escape is my fault,” Warden's voice drones through the room, sounding sombre. “I failed to anticipate this.”

“How!?” I raise my head, looking at the ceiling.

We forbade Warden from interfering with the negotiations in any way, ordering the AI to stay silent for the entire party. But this is an extraordinary circumstance, so guess it can be forgiven.

“The Ascended had a few selected artefacts which were able to bypass most security measures – even the ones which are installed in this building. They are essentially one-way teleports to a pre-determined location.”

I throw my hands up into the air, feeling as if I am about to blow a casket. “How did you fail to mention this!?”

“I didn't know that any of them were left, much less that someone found out how to activate them,” Warden explains.

Angrod places a hand on my shoulder. “Hold your horses, dear. Before we blow the trumpets of war, we should first summon our friends and learn what they found out. Now that Elsaria is gone, she is likely to return to her base. Given what we learned just now, I don't want them to cross her path by chance.” He raises his voice. “Warden, please contact our spies and lift the teleportation restrictions for them. Tell them that their window of opportunity expired. They have to drop everything and to return right away.”

***The Crystal City***

***Angrod***

It takes less than a minute for Tanja, Sandra, and Iris to arrive. Rose takes a bit longer, but soon the four women are arrayed in front Celes and me.

“Report. What did you find out about the Tuor?”

“Nothing much in my case,” Sandra admits grudgingly. “I've wandered the world which they use as their base of operations. I didn't go after any of their members intentionally and just kept a low profile while suppressing my aura. The world, in general, seems fairly low-key. The mortals there are in the industrial age and there are several different political factions which are mostly decided by continental barriers. I didn't notice the Tuor influencing them in any mentionable way.”

The bunny girl finishes her explanation and turns her gaze to Rose, who bows upon noticing that the ball was passed to her.

“I managed to suck up to a lesser deity, a member of the Tuor,” she explains. “The man wasn't the brightest guy. He was totally infatuated with Elsaria, their leader. I managed to pull the location of their base out of his nose. They created an underground city beneath one of the larger oceans. A slightly disturbing thing is that they are using mortals to maintain it. I didn't get any further than that, but I handed the location to Tanja and Iris who infiltrated the place.”

Tanja bows to us, stepping forward. “We got into their compound, but we only snuck around a little before Iris almost got us caught.” The female ninja throws a heated glare at her companion.

Iris only rolls her eyes. “I told ya that I am not the sneaky type. I can't dive into the shadows like you.”

“You were supposed to be backup,” Tanja complains. “Your job was to sit at the coffee shop and to wait for my signal to cause a ruckus. Instead, you get yourself into a sticky situation with one of their guards!”

Iris's eyes widen and she gasps. “Hush! I did nothing of the sort! I am a married woman! He was hitting on me and I tried my best not to make it obvious that I don't belong to their cult! You know yourself that I have a happy family of seven… eight,” she quickly corrects herself.

I raise an eyebrow... wasn't the child she recently gave birth to already number five? Including herself and her husband that should be seven. So she is already pregnant again!?

My friend Steven is a marked man with a wife like that one.

Tanja huffs and returns to her explanation. “Anyway, the whole city is like some single, big monument to the greatness of Elsaria. There are statues of her everywhere and the people keep drumming lunatic slogans about her greatness. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would have never believed that a person can be that taken by herself. An hour longer, and I would have had to beg you to wipe my memory of it.”

I frown. “How many people does she have?”

“Several thousand gods and deities at the very least. This is a rough estimation. I’ve mostly interacted with their mortal servants, but quite a few deities were running around on the streets and judging by the size and population of the city I can’t believe that I am far off the mark,” Tanja replies with a grave voice.

I scratch my chin, considering the situation. “I guess we will have to wipe out that world…”

“Angrod!” Celes admonishes me with a stern rebuke in front of the gathered ambassadors.

“What?” I offer her my open palms. “We’ve talked about a scenario like this one. Should we commit our troops to hunt and root out a few thousand enemies just to save a few innocents? The fate of the whole multiverse rests on our shoulders. It’s impossible to commit ourselves like that at this point in time. There are still who knows how many followers of the Council out there. I bet that’s something they are waiting for like scavengers.”

“Still,” Celes pulls a face. “What about the mortals on that world?”

I shrug and point out, “They will reincarnate. Had you been a little bit quicker and caught Elsaria instead of taking your time, maybe running instead of walking…”

She looks down at her black gown which is stitched with patterns of golden and silver thread. “But I like this dress. The piece is a unique item that was crafted by one of the best tailors I know. I would have torn it had I run.”

“Who is more important?” I ask. “Our people, who are our subjects, or some mortals?”

Celes lets out a deep sigh. “Do what has to be done.”

“Okay.” I gesture for Tanja and the others. “You guys are with me. I don’t want to get the wrong world.”