Prologue
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(Note from the writer)
Please tell me if there are wrong grammars or spellings, as well as contradictions in the story such as wrong character in play or events. This will help me make the story better for future readers. You can mention it in the comments. Thank you.
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(Minutes before the detonation of thermonuclear bombs)
Stomping her every step, Aurelia is walking away from the group of people that are circling around a strongman game. Her face is crumpling like clothes straight from a spin dryer. Her sister Mila is pulling her by the hand, taking her somewhere else. It is evening but the bright lights from the lanterns give brilliance to every corner of the festival. The sisters are wearing their traditional yukata. Black for Mila and gold for Aurelia.
“I can't believe it!” blurts Aurelia with a face of annoyance and disbelief. “Why am I not allowed to play that?! Don't they know I'm the second seater of Olympus Mons? Jeez!”
With a sigh before an unamused face, Mila looks over her shoulder to look at her sister and say, “If they did, you would've destroyed that brittle machine. Even I, with my raw strength, can destroy it. How much it will be if it was you?”
“I will do it gently! So, let me go and let me get back there!” She struggles from her sister's grip but Mila tightens her grip even more.
“No, you don't need to do that, you've already proven your strength in the Tournament.”
“It's not that! I want to have fun!”
Suddenly it is, that Mila stopped to face her sister. “What's fun about hitting a pin and making a stupid iron ball go up in a tube?”
“You wouldn't understand because you don't know how to have fun!”
Gritting her teeth, Mila looks down to the ground. She growls, “You're wrong…”
Aurelia folds her arms with her other eyebrows. “How so?” she questions.
“I just don't have time for that,” sighs Mila with her face turning back into neutral. She faces forward and walks. Her sister feels that she should not have said that. She follows behind her without another word.
A sudden tingle disturbs both of them. At that moment, Aurelia uses her powers to see everything so slow. She looks back to the mountain and can see the ground of the mountain slowly lifting like it is cracking from underneath. It is like the sun is breaking out from under there. The rays are so hot and bright that they light the night sky. The clouds are getting disintegrated like burning pieces of cotton. She knows that it is something dangerous.
“Lady Aurelia!” Eleanna shouts as she passes by. “Save everyone!!” Even with this slow perception of time, Eleanna is so fast. Aurelia catches up to her.
She asks, “What is happening?”
“No time to explain! Save the women, children, and important people first! Take them away from the blast as far as you can!”
“Okay!”
There are no further words that need to be said and they just proceed into saving everyone as fast as they can. There are thousands of deities in this festival and they can only carry two people each time. First, Aurelia grabs her sister which looks like a statue. On her way away from the mountain of Olympus, she grabs Guiria from Darius's embrace. He must have sensed this explosion coming. It takes a little while to get to the wall that surrounds the forests of Olympus. And when she starts to fly in the sky, her eyes widen after swallowing as she sees hundreds of fireballs slowly expanding from every direction.
“What the hell is going on?” she mutters.
Her chest starts to beat faster before bursting into a faster speed. She picks a place where she thinks will be survivable for all of them. It is in the middle of the lake in Poseidon District. It is also a good place to avoid the burning light from the explosion. She even feels her back will burn if she stops going away from the explosion. In fact, everywhere she faces, fireballs are giving out light like small suns. At this speed, diving into the water will be like diving into hard concrete. Then she looks at the sky.
“That's it!” she exclaims to herself.
She flies high enough and throws both of them higher than Olympus and away from other explosions. Although, they will burn but not enough to gravely injure them. No one will be surviving this without a scratch anyway. Eleanna does the same. With a bursting speed, they go back down. The fireball is expanding fast. Those who are near the mountain are already been vaporized by the hellish fireball. The explosion is too fast.
“We can't save everyone,” says Eleanna with a dreadful voice, gritting her teeth.
Now, they have to choose who lives and who dies. It is a terrible position to be in. Aurelia, as naive as she is, knows this too but grabs everyone she knows who is important. The first on the list is Aiko, being the only seater who is a woman then she grabs Santos. Next up are the seaters of Olympus Mons. Eleanna helps, so they managed to take all of them to safety. Next are the women and children. The children take priority first so both of the goddesses exert all of their energy to save hundreds of children, including Leo and Darius. Most of the women are rescued but others are already been engulfed.
“It's getting too hot!” screams Aurelia but carried on.
Finally, they pick out the high-ranking members of each family. Only a handful of them was safe from the blasts. They could not save everyone as their powers start to weaken because millions of their devotees already died from every part of the Realm. Aurelia knows many deities that she even considers her acquaintances. Almost half of them died and this puts weight on her heart. She weeps before returning to the sky where the other hundreds of survivors are. Eleanna is stoic like a trained soldier and did not let herself worry about her family back in Asgard. She maintains a reasonable mind as she and Aurelia gather the remaining survivors around the Demigod Districts. Mila creates a large dark cloud beneath them so the burning light did not hurt them.
Meanwhile, on the balcony of the Castle of Ra, Sayuri summons a gigantic wide sword under them before the blast. They fall flat on the sword as they explode away into the sky. The force is not the only thing they have to worry about. This blazing heat is survivable for those who have Olympian Strength but not for humans who are Hiroki, Prisha, and Steven. The sword breaks into pieces so the force ripped apart their bodies. Hyun uses all of his power to heal all of them until Sayuri summons more swords to make a sphere. His healing starts to overtake the damage they receive. All of them feel pain and do not have the spare time to think if all of them are saved.
They are flying in zero gravity inside the sphere of swords. The light enters through the slits in between the swords. Grunting in exertion, Sayuri gently slows down their speed. The gravity is back so they slam on the hard floor made out of swords. Darkness swept in as the light from the slits died down. Hyun collapses after expending all of his remaining power to save them. They still have bruises and wounds but not that serious. Groans and grunts of pain echo inside the sphere.
She opens the sphere starting from the top. The clouds in the night sky are lit up red. The stars are crying and the air is screaming. When the swords finally make a flat floor, they witnessed everything.
“What… the…,” exclaims Jasper as he is on his knees, looking around.
He blinks once and twice to believe what he is seeing. The smirk on his face is more like a smirk of amusement. His eyes reflect light from the red flames. Dozens of huge blazing craters and mushroom clouds spread throughout the Ra City strip. Buildings have been flattened. His comrades are petrified and he scratches his head when he realizes that they lost another comrade.
Sitting on the ground in Hiroki's embrace, Prisha asks, “Where is Steven?”
With a frail voice, Hyun says, “I'm sorry, Prisha. I couldn't save him.” and falls unconscious.
“No!” she cries.
Hiroki could not say anything as for the moment, his shock gets in the way of his words. With her around his arms, makes him feel a little better.
“Crap,” muttered Jasper, not showing any signs of mourning. He is walking around, looking at everything down below. “So, that's what it was!” he curses but then returns to his composure.
Sayuri's eyes glow violet as she grips the hilt of her sword. She growls, “I will go and find out who did this—”
“In another time, my lady,” says Jasper. She glares at him. “We need to get to safety and heal our wounds.” She looks at Hyun—who looks weightless after spending his blood to save them. “I will help you kill who did this but we need to settle so we can do it. Also, the air and radiation are dangerous for our bodies.”
“Tch,” she spits as she lets go of her sword.
“Is Jack fine?” asks Hiroki, still comforting Prisha in his arms.
Jasper sighs. “I don't think so. What he detected must be one of the bombs and he is near when it exploded.”
“No, he must've survived! Let's find him!”
Squeezing his hair in his hand, Jasper grits his teeth. He says, “We can try.” and that is what Sayuri is doing right now.
They fly to where they think Jack was, hoping that he miraculously survived.
On a floating debris in the middle of the sea, Hilde is kneeling and touches the cold face of Alina, the Goddess of Light, one of the Fourth Seaters. She is already dead. Hilde just noticed that Alina's head is bleeding like a cracked glass bottle. Cracking her knuckles covered in Alina's blood one by one, she stands up, turns, and glares at the three deities in the distance. The cracks of her fingers disturbed the waters around her.
“So you want war?” she taunts raising her chin and lifting her upper lip. “Then you have come to the right woman!” The masked deities lower their stance to prepare.
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