The mont the shadows cleared the view, all the Dungeon Raiders but Uriel had also disappeared from sight. He was the only one who stood his ground despite now being surrounded by enemies and while it may have appeared as though he was cornered, the opposite was true. It didn't matter if the gods were infinitely more powerful than Uriel, now that he was presud to be immortal as long as he had enough flux energy to activate his repentance skill that would have been enough to reflect the damage he received to his target.
Aphrodite clicked her tongue repeatedly, but she knew attacking him was nothing but a waste of ti and she had already lost the chance to grab any hostages, which was the only reason why she ordered the gods not to kill anyone.
"You should have listened to , sister," Athena shook her head. As the goddess of wisdom, she had a few things to say about Aphrodite's soft approach. "letting them go was a mistake, we should have killed them on sight the mont they showed their faces."
"You're just saying that because you hate that woman's lineage." Aphrodite clicked her tongue so more and then all the gods voiced their opinion in rapid succession. It was a myriad of voices that stuck in the air and Aphrodite as their appointed leader had to listen to them all as was tradition. To her, it was no different than children pouting because the task asked of them was too difficult which reassured her that she made the right choice when she decided not to challenge Zeus for the throne in the Olimpieion.
After all, even though the position ca with many perks such as a bigger share of the souls reaped from humans, larger sacrifices and access to all the artifacts in the divine vault. The gods were selfish petty creatures and listening to their wants for eternity was more a punishnt than a responsibility.
When that brief mont of confusion ca to pass, the gods found themselves surrounded on all sides by rebel humans who opened fire at their position indiscriminately. Bullets that wouldn't hurt the lesser of them bounced off their skin and they laughed at the flimsy attempt, confident in their godly power. But the rain of bullets did not stop for a second, the sources were many from varied distances and the hunters pulling the trigger remained hidden behind windows, over rooftops and even from distances that left them astonished. Just astonished, though, not hurt, as even the flux infused rounds were akin to mosquito bites.
At least that was the case until the zeppelins showed up. About twenty ships of varied sizes, two from the Dungeon Raider's side and the rest from the Hathaway conglorate opened fire the mont the Celes tower was on sight.
"How did they bypass the security asures? I thought this city had an automated defense." Athena pondered, yet she was not too much concerned by the presence of the ships and only thought about it out of curiosity. Even if they were the pinnacle of human technology, it was outdated technology when compared to the mysterious technology guarded by the gods on the Dungeons.
"Take them down." Aphrodite ordered and the gods around her mustered their authority with their respective domains to fire all sorts of projectiles charged with enough flux to make a holy rank hunter pass out. However, the result was much different from the imdiate crash they expected.
Instead, a sacred barrier was lifted on each ship, even the small ones. Causing all the projected energy to be deflected into harmless hazes of light after colliding with what was for all purposes a force field.
"Keep going, they will run out of energy soon enough." Athena insisted, then she imbued a sizeable amount of flux energy into her spear before hurling it causing one of the small ships to beco still in the air. It didn't crash, but the point was made that their barriers were nurous but weak.
In response, the Pegasus shot several flares encircling Uriel to make sure no harm would co to him, then a plasma round was fired where Sam calculated it would cause the most damage. The ensuing explosion did precisely that to the gods and them not being accustod to experiencing pain after hundreds, sotis even thousands of years of not possessing a physical body, the gods writhed in pain, but the worst had yet to co when several containers were dropped in the vicinity.
Ares, as reckless as he was coward, decided to prevent the containers from touching ground and threw a nearby car at one of them in an attempt to change its trajectory. What it caused was a chain explosion when the substance inside the containers was released.
"Chlorine Trifluoride, nothing can survive that." Said Luna from the Pegasus' bridge then proceeded to cackle when the fire ignited in the city lit up her pupils. The gods ran in circles trying to put down the fire as they shouted curses and cries to the smoldering air and Luna patiently waited until things cald a little before sending the next compound in her list of the most hazardous substances humanity had ever created.
They didn't cause as much damage to the gods as they caused to the city and the citizens that foolishly enough had decided to side with them, the substances stuck to their vessels skin making any regeneration impossible.
"You should have retreated when I gave you the chance." Uriel laughed rrily with both hands in his waist as he watched Aphrodite's skin lting away and the goddess sprawled on the ground. Whether it was a miscalculation on his part or if that was precisely the intended purpose, Aphrodite decided it was the best mont to give back the reins to Tina Celes whose consciousness woke up to the worst pain she had ever experienced in her life.
Following her suit, all the gods present did the sa and the cries of pain and horror filled up the scene as the victims of divine possession woke up to the worst case of chemical burns and poisoning ever experienced in humanity. Worst of all, as hunters possessed by gods their bodies were enough to survive even though they wished they were dead.
Ti passed and so of the gods returned to the scene, though most of them had decided to remain in the mystical realm for a long vacation. So of them had only t humans for the first ti in their life as they were born in the tis when other sentient species ruled the earth and decided they did not like humans at all. Not even Aphrodite's promise to be worshiped again by sentient beings was enough for them to overco their fears and return to earth for as long as humans remained.
But that was not the case for all, as many of the gods had prepared precisely for this mont. So out of duty, others for personal gain, others just out of boredom. Even if the pain was unbearable, they could always resort to leaving the body and returning once things were better.
"Is that your best? Did you finally understand you can't win?" Aphrodite said from Tina's body, bearing a serious expression despite Tina's tears still wetting her cheeks.
"There's more." Uriel said, seemingly unbothered by the heat and the flas, by the chemicals in the air and the cries of the hunters that were just abandoned by the gods that possessed them. At that mont a shiver ran through Aphrodite's spine, not because of the pain she had to endure or the damage it caused. But because Uriel seed to be completely unbothered by the pain of his own species.
Even so of the gods showed genuine rcy for humans when they faced hardship and they extended their hand to help, though they lost most of their good will towards humans after the humans turned their backs on their beliefs and forgot about the very gods that helped them in the past.
The gods braced themselves for a new attack by the zeppelins, but the ships were already retreating from their position and instead a single human showed up. There was nothing particular about his appearance as he seed to be a teen with unremarkable features that despite his energy signature being almost at the heavenly rank was far easier to picture him behind a desk than at the front of a battlefield.
"Hi, my na was Lewis," He stuttered in front of the goddess of beauty as she was indeed as beautiful her domain implied. The fact that he introduced himself in the past tense was not missed by Aphrodite and she tilted her head in confusion, unable to speak a word which allowed him to continue. "and I'm here to destroy this city." Atomic placed his hand over a tallic sphere and started channeling flux to manipulate the particles.
His trait allowed him to expel radioactive energy from his body and during his lifeti he had never done anything similar to what Soulfire asked him to do, which was to control the atomic energy outside his body. He could have refused helping as it was the first ti he t Soulfire and had nothing to gain by doing it, but Soulfire knowing his na was enough for Lewis to agree on the spot.
"Let be clear," Uriel cleared his throat before speaking. "this person can cause a nuclear explosion right here, right now."
"See if I care, do it! That's not enough to kill us." Aphrodite said with a smirk, ready to abandon Tina's body for a couple weeks before returning to the city.
"You are not the target, everybody else is."
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