Attack
‘Mm… Waukeen, Tyr, Mystra, they’re pretty much all here… huh?’ Leylin was surprised by an unfamiliar organisation amongst them. Their armour was spotless, with red capes attached. On the breastplates and capes were the symbol of a large golden eye, seemingly never closing. The armour was threaded with gold and had gems embedded in it, making it look dazzling.
“Armour with the Eternal Light spell, as well as that symbol… Are you priests of Helm?” Divine force flashed, the powerful massacre domain causing everyone’s expressions to change.
“False god!” one of Helm’s priests spat out, and layers of light emanated from the eye at his chest. It was clearly on equal ground with Leylin, perhaps even overpowering him. Helm was the God of Protection, and his church was built to crack down on faith in false gods. Naturally, they had experience in dealing with divine beings and even demigods.
“Our mission is to crack down on the belief in false gods, purifying the origin of the world!” The priest looked pious, as he prayed with the rest of Helm’s warriors and priests. They each took a step forward, their eyes full of fervour as if they were heading to church.
*Rumble!* A surge of power whistled out, and a golden eye appeared in the air. It locked on to Leylin, showing an inverted reflection of him.
[Beep! Host has been marked by the God of Protection. Divine force locked, domains weakened by 20%. Host’s location will be relayed every 3 hours. Remove?] the A.I. Chip’s voice sounded, and Leylin turned grim.
‘As expected of a church that deals with false gods. They’ve made ample preparations…’ Leylin was still smiling confidently, and he ordered in his mind, ‘Prepare to remove, but wait for my order. Remain in observation mode.’
Leylin was not surprised that Helm’s church had surrounded him. After all, the God Of Protection’s mission was to deal with false gods. As long as news about Leylin was revealed, the zealous priests would come join in on the fun, bringing their own rations along with them.
‘Still, I never thought I was being lured into so many enemies. It looks like the gods are afraid of me… Or were they alarmed by some divination?’
“You’ll have to explain this later, Jeffries,” a priestess of Mystra said as she walked out. She had silver hair, and her eyes glinted gold. She was looking at Leylin like he was a dead man.
Jeffries answered with a cold snort. All legendaries had their own pride, so how could he bow down to someone else? On top of that, Jeffries served Waukeen, and he had nothing to do with Mystra.
“I stand by my request. If you win over me, I shall leave immediately.” Jeffries pointed his spear at Leylin, causing the priestess to turn red in her fury.
“Forgive me, but before that can I ask who planned this out?” Leylin interrupted.
“It is the will of our god!” the priestess admitted. She looked flushed.
This slightly exceeded his expectations. He wouldn’t have found it surprising if Helm’s church had been the ones to identify him, planning an attack. The same went if Waukeen was coveting his lands and wealth, or even Benedict who just hated evil. However, none of this had anything to do with the Goddess of the Weave. From how it seemed, she was the person who feared him most.
‘Are the prophetic abilities of the gods that great?’ Leylin immediately recalled his rank 12 arcane spell, Karsus’ Avatar. He himself wasn’t even as strong as a lesser god, and was unable to deal much damage to them. This spell, though, defied logic. One use of it would give him control of the Weave’s power, causing Mystra to fall.
On top of that, the destruction of the Weave would release the conscients of the numerous ancient Magi from the core, causing the ancient Final War to once again rock the World of Gods.
‘Is she afraid of what I can do if I develop further? I could become a huge threat to her, so she’s making the first move?’
It was impossible for Mystra to know the existence of Karsus’ Avatar. The only possible explanation was that she had a premonition that Leylin would bring great danger to her. When an ant threatened them, most people would just end it with a stomp.
This was obviously Mystra’s own course of action. But since much of her strength was stuck in the north, she’d roped in quite a few other helpers. In such a situation, it was likely that Leylin would fall.
‘Things would’ve been troublesome had I not made preparations…’ Leylin ran through his thoughts, and came up with numerous possibilities.
‘If I’m at my wit’s end I’ll definitely risk using Karsus’ Avatar. That’ll give me a chance of survival… But that means Distorted Shadow could also have something to do with this…’ Leylin had a strong feeling that Distorted Shadow had leaked his location, as well as the degree of threat he posed.
After all, he was an ancient peak rank 8 Magus, equivalent to a greater god. How could the conscient in the ruins be the only thing he left behind? It required no effort to use the power of distortion to show the ‘truth’ to the goddess, or even just give her some clues.
If the process itself was much too complicated, then one could find the truth by looking at who would benefit by the result. Thinking everything over, Leylin believed that the most likely case was that Distorted Shadow had played his hand from behind the scenes.
‘If it’s him, I won’t be able to use the ghost city as I wish. So I have to abandon plan 3…’
“So, who’s going to be first?” The pure gold Blazing Sceptre emerged, and powerful spell energy surged out. It caused everyone’s expression to change.
“Our church has arranged a spell formation specifically to subdue false gods. He can’t use the power of his domain completely! The channel of faith from his worshippers has also weakened greatly, and our Lord has marked him— AH!”
The priest of Helm soon cried out in pain, covering his eyes. Leylin had commanded the A.I. Chip to remove the mark, and it caused the golden eye in the sky to fall apart. It seemed to have affected these priests.
“Haha, good! This is the kind of opponent that I want!” Jeffries burst into laughter. He’d let go of everything in his mind at that moment, only focusing on his opponent. He let loose a sudden attack, and faint black lines appeared around the holy spear as it crushed the space around it.
Benedict seemed to be operating some spell formation as well. Large beasts the size of hills crawled out of the mist, and the legendary wizard nearby seemed to be preparing some legendary spell.
“This is what I’ve prepared for you…” Benedict now had an unnatural flush on his face. A few of the giant beasts roared as he waved a hand, the thorns on their backs emitting a chilling glint as they attacked Leylin. “I’ll let them play with you first.”
Four churches had joined hands here. Even a small attack could cause the entire prime material plane to gape. Still, Leylin’s expression did not change in the face of this attack that could almost kill gods.
*Chiu! Chiu!* He tossed the sceptre out and the flaming bird totem appeared, bashing into the giant beasts.
“Sacred Spear? Is that considered amazing?” Leylin stared at the spear that seemed to be moving in an instant, as if dealing with it was beneath himself. Two spells were cast simultaneously with a wave of his arm, striking the tip of the spear and the black cracks surrounding it.
Greater Disjunction! Shattering Palm!
Jeffries’ spear crumbled instantly against the disjunction spell, and the gigantic golden palm sent him flying. His chest caved in, and blood spurted out of his mouth.
‘He can instantly cast legendary spells?’ The legendary wizard that had come with Mystra’s church noted the spells Leylin had cast, and then at the large number of materials in his hands with the spell he was halfway through preparing. His expression grew extremely dark.
“I don’t care anymore!” As a wizard himself, he understood how powerful Leylin had to be to cast legendary spells instantly. After weighing the pros and cons, he immediately made his choice.
A teleportation gate open, and the legendary wizard immediately took his apprentices and hid away. He showed Leylin a few signs, a declaration of peace amongst wizards.
“You…” Mystra’s priests saw the legendary wizard leave and suddenly twitched, on the verge of coughing up blood. Although they’d known wizards lacked faith, they hadn’t expected it to be this bad!
Truth be told, there was little they could do about him. At the very least, he’d come all the way here. With his connections, attacking the legendary wizard would cause chaos within the church.
“Damn it. If the goddess’ avatar were here, nobody would dare do that…” The female priest gritted her teeth, but there was nothing she could do.