Chapter 648 Impasse (Part 3)

Roley's followers reacted to the woman's desires with sheer instincts. Rage, arrogance and indignation broke through the barriers of nature, and emerged from their cores like the most natural of feelings. Their Goddess had been crossed. It did not matter who had done so, whether it was a stranger, an enemy, or the one they had followed until just minutes ago-Such an offense could not go unpunished.

A natural calamity. The fury of nature rushed ahead in the shape of a horde of elemental might, coming down on Roley's figure like a rainbow-colored meteor shower. Comets of elemental nature that glowed under the odd influence of dancing light and darkness. A terrifying sight that could only be associated with the apocalypse, but that still failed to bring worry to Roley's relaxed features.

He had no intention of harming those whom he considered his companions. Those he fought for, and had made his goal to protect from the cold and egotistical nature of mortals, but he also did not wish for the trillions of cultivators, beasts and mortals that surrounded him, brainwashed by the system of devotion, to perish at the hand of his people. Not if he could avoid it.

"Mhm." he scoffed gently as the fingers wrapped around the small glass-like treasure rotated it by ninety degrees, causing his body to disappear.

The woman's eyes flashed open once more. Just like that, he was gone once again. No ripple, no portal, no excess of power. Just gone. A small feat, in a world where most cultivators were apt to some level to the use of spatial essence, and yet, an enormous feat for those who made spatial essence the core of their expertees. After all, not even an aspect of existence could mask their appearance and movements to this degree.

When Roley reappeared, virtually the instant that followed his disappearance, he was standing in the midst of the charging elementals. Clouds of power that, to a traveler of the multiverse, reminded the obnoxiously large and impressive sight of a nebula. Plump with colorful gasses, destined to drift into space for eons to come. 

Inside of it, Roley felt like a fish in the sea.

The first to notice his presence was a small cluster of wrist-sized vines, whose charge his appearance had brought to a sudden halt. A low-tier wood elemental who, hours ago, would have squirmed with the utmost respect at the sheer mention of the name of the Lord of the Elementals, but that now, attacked him like a soldier ant eager to fight to the death with an elephant in the hope of stopping its march over its ant hill, killing its queen.

With blind instincts, the elemental spread its vines, aware of its inability to kill his enemy, but still willing to sacrifice its life in the hope to at least stall him long enough to allow a more powerful elemental to deal a more effective blow. Its rope-like body sprawled around the man's body like a net, but as its shape came to several feet from touching it, it soon started to dry out.

The moisture that had made its vines nimble and flexible was almost immediately extracted, turning its body brittle and weak, but still alive. Unable to continue its attack, or even move for the matter, the low-tier wood elemental drifted past Roley's body untouched.

A second elemental, faster and bigger than the previous was next to act. A column of multicolored flames that, surrounded by smaller wind elementals intent on feeding it with the most combustible of gasses, accompanied it in its attack. A mid-tier fire elemental whose power could have easily brought an end to a small mortal city, turning it into a pile of cinders, but that in contact with the sheer residual aura that surrounded Roley's body, was extinguished by a thin, yet extremely dense layer of vapor.

After two failed attacks, something seemed to change within the army of enraged elmentals. Their training and experience, unaffected by the powers of the devotion system, forced them to reconsider their approach. Lower level elementals, rather than acting on their own accord, swarmed around higher tier ones, supplying power to the latter's attack, or outright forming combinations of incomparable destructive power.

Tsunamis of glowing-red molten rock and metal, storms of cold winds, ice shards and thunder, formations of blinding light and abyssal darkness. One after the other, the attacks clashed against Roley's body, exploding into colored fireworks that put the most fantastical of celebrations across the multiverse to shame, yet inevitably stopping shy of his body by a few feet, always countered by an elemental power, or mixture of thereof, that opposed the attack perfectly and without waste.

"I do not believe you can last forever." The graceful champion of destiny gloated, once again proud and aloof, as if her deepest desires were still a secret yet to be divulged, and their conversation had only been a dream.

As these mocking words reached Roley's ears, he could not help but agree. While he doubted that she could perceive such small changes from hundreds of miles away, he was very aware of his powers. His power was being chipped away at, slowly, by each attack he blocked. Each time bringing the sphere of protection imperceptibly closer to his body. Yet, he did not panic. He still had time. Enough for what he and Der had planned. Der, the mortal whose presence was so small and inconsequential, that the woman had failed to notice his disappearance.. Or ignored it altogether.

-----

A few minutes earlier.

After failing to dispel the brainwashing enforced to his people by the woman's golden bell, Der had forced himself to maintain his composure. His throat was dry, and his mind was heavy, a natural consequence of the will of the Warlord he had to bear whenever he used it on such a large number of creatures. The single attempt had consumed most of his mental power, forcing him into several minutes of rest before he could try again.

"This isn't going to be easy." His deep voice emerged from the depths of his helmet, carried by a wisp of sound essence that only his companion could hear.

"More than you think." Roley retorted as his senses spread across his planet, as well as the closest components of the flotilla. He had noticed something that had made him tense, and annoyed.

"What do we do, then? Got any ideas?"

Roley's expression turned pensive, as his hands clasped his waist. His gaze occasionally shifted from the woman's figure, to the large golden bell that lingered on top of her, showing worry, but no particular interest in either of the two. "When I spoke to Daniel about the workings of the systems, he told me something that, at the time, I did not find useful." He said. "The system does not create consumable accessories, and each item is unique, and physical."

"What does that have to do with our situation?" Der asked, slightly confused.

"The bell is clearly a gift of the devotion system. Affects weak and unprotected minds, and enslaves them to the woman's will, but the temple is entirely different. It is simpler, and works from a much longer distance." Roley explained with a matter-of-fact tone.

Der's confusion had reached its peak. "What are you talking about? What temple?" He asked.

"THE temples." he repeated while bringing a hand up to his neck, and mimicking the slash of a sword. "She must have placed them as I came her. She probably knew that if I was there with you, I would have noticed."

Few were the targets of Der's dislike. He was a warrior through and through, born to cut down enemies and lead armies, and death was his dance partner. Yet, one thing that went against his nature, was senseless death. Sacrifice for the sake of bloodshed. Not to protect one's people and country, or to conquer, but to spite. A hatred he discovered the first time he came to the oldest universe of Sacrifice's domain. Or more specifically, when he first encountered the temples. Constructions of pale, almost holy stone tainted by the rivers of fresh blood that flowed and pooled at its base, all hidden under mountains of corpses.

"Those temples," he thought.

Without wasting a moment, Der let out his impressive immortal sense which, thanks to his cultivation at the godhood stage, was well enough to cover the entirety of his armada, as well as Roley's planet. Soon, his attention was grabbed by the hundreds of now familiar temples either hidden within the storages of his ships, or buried under the formless seas and soft earth of Roley's elemental planet.

"Blasted wench!" he barked out in a wisp of sound essence.

"I don't think she knows we are aware." Roley said in an attempt to calm his companion down. "Let her think she has this one over us, it will come back to bite her later."

".. fine." Der muttered with uncertainty, eradicating the desire to go on a personal crusade against these temples from his mind.

Knowing that he had done as much as he could, Roley continued his explanation. "Those temples, they are not individual accessories, but receivers. There must be a physical one, either on her person, or hidden within reach. Probably inside the archives. If we can destroy it before she uses it, it will be one less headache."

"And how do we get to it before she activates it? We don't even know where it is." Der murmured.

Roley did not respond right away. Instead, he focused on the palm of his hand, where a number of elemental essences were seeping out of his skin and converging into a small bead the size of a fingernail. Once perfect in shape, Roley let it float inconspicuously towards Der, whose subconscious screamed for dear life.

He had seen more than one of these beads in use. Weapons of mass destruction, he had come to call them. And while smaller, and much less complete than some Roley had used in the past, their threat had triggered Der's instincts. While scared by it, however, Der allowed for the small bead to gently land onto his glove. Smooth, and deceivingly harmless, not unlike a common bead of colored glass used by children to play their evenings away.

"You tell me. If you find it, use this." Roley said right before Der's surroundings changed. Sidereal space littered with ships, debris and creatures had been replaced by halls of white stones as big as caves. A floor of white marble held his weight steadily, almost making him slip and fall when, unprepared for the sudden appearance of gravity, he turned to inspect his surroundings. 

"You!" He growled under his breath.

-----

Present time.

Bead in hand, Der had explored several of the many cold halls within the cathedral, each as big as a large island, filled with rows and rows of bookshelves filled by tomes of different color, size and material. It was only after he set foot into the tenth hall that he came to the realization. He had no idea what he was looking for.

With a speed only achievable by beings of his cultivation, he picked several books and hastily flipped through their pages. '.. To show respect to the high domain of Horror, passage will be granted to-' *SPA* The book was closed shut and thrown in the air. A second book was picked, wider than the previous, and with a leather ridge marked by words of an ancient language. 

"What is this now." Der lamented as his eyes landed upon the first few handwritten sentences. 'Lord Sacrifice is divine, our lives and means we give. He is mesmerizing and sublime, we adore him without reprieve.' Der's face morphed into one of uncomfortable disgust. "This is a nursery rhyme I did not need stuck in my head." He murmured before throwing this book alongside the other and taking a step back.

If there was a list of conquered factions, this hall was not the one that stored it. 

With a flash, he disappeared once again, darting past dimly lit corridors and unaware custodians at mind boggling speed. All the while asking himself why on earth would Roley send him here without specific directions. After all, while technically a single building, the cathedral was as big as a planet. Tens of thousands of years might not be enough to find the right section of the archives, let alone the right book among the millions each hall contained. But, alas, now was too late to ask.

His search went on for several more minutes, each chipping at his already thin nerves and bringing him to a state of exasperation and anxiousness. Or at least, until he finally stumbled upon a specific hall.

Larger than any other he had been in, this hall had no bookshelves. In fact, it would have been completely empty, had it not been for the enormous white temple erected in its center. A familiar temple, resembling a bell tower that had wished to be a fountain, and a fountain that wished to be a church. Its smooth surface of pale white stone glowed of a faint golden light, which merged into thousands of threads outstretched in every direction. A large number of such threads were grouped together, diving into a wall in the direction where, since a few minutes ago, came the unmistakable sound of battle.

Suddenly, Der remembered about the small bead he had been carrying in his palm. In the past ten minutes, he had gotten used to its smooth surface, almost forgetting about its existence. Now that it was time to use it, however, it felt more dangerous than ever. "I guess this is your turn." He muttered as he moved to throw the bead at the construct, only stopping at the last moment to awkwardly cover his narrowed eyes, twisted nose and pressed lips with his free hand.

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