In Loki's Honor

Five years have passed.

The southern peninsula of Pekothas, a region the size of Africa, was at war.

[King] Himmel was assassinated (not by Apricot or anyone related to us) without a heir apparent and the Kingdom split into three factions.

The Royal Supporters were those nobles who wanted to put the former king's (the one murdered by Apricot) nephew on the throne, a Centaur that had nothing in common to the wiry bodybuilders that came from the Barbarian plains.

The Exalted Reformists, a group of Nobles backed by the Church who wanted to install a theocracy and "rescue" the [Saintess] from her captivity in Clovehaven.

And finally, the National Defenders, a noble faction led by Margrave Hamilton that wanted to install a democratic Monarchy awfully similar to the United Kingdom. The Royal Supporters could agree align with the Defenders only if they could put their six-limbed half-horse puppet on the throne. Of course, putting an idiot on the Throne would fix nothing but the first faction was only interested in immediate gains.

Also, most the National Defenders, a faction Clovehaven was part of because of previous agreements, was mostly Northern Houses. We were in the southern third of the peninsula, surrounded by enemies.

Clovehaven's peace had stood so far just because we had six fourth-tier powerhouses, one [Saintess], and me. The Halflings never bothered to have a standing army, or even a garrison. Their idyllic and Mana-deprived valley was left alone by everyone from monsters to bandits to neighbors.

Not anymore.

*

*

Barbara stood on a flying slab of crystal, her diamond staff shining upon a constellation of tiny crystal shards that swirled around the implement's head. I was open on her other hand, a dozen ribbons extending four feet out of my covers. At the tip of each ribbon, something looking like a bunch of grapes but with white orbs. Each of those orbs was an eye.

Ahead of us, about four thousand soldiers, priests, and mercenaries in total. Levels and ranks unknown. The fact I had priests coming after us made me sick. If I had Pandora here with me, they would all be smitten down by golden lightning right where they stood.

Like all institutions left to their own devices with no oversight, the Church of the Matriarch had become almost completely corrupt. They eschewed their divine mandate in exchange for secular power. It was, in no small part, my fault.

I had five years to fix it, one hour at a time. I could've used my daily charge of [Suppress Curse] to work on that. I chose not to do that. Mom, my full self, also chose not to. The reason was that anything I did would be nothing but a stop gap measure. Surely it would fix things in the short term, but what about the centuries ahead?

"Baroness Ambrose!" A voice augmented by magic shouted. "I am [Archbishop] Decanteus of the Pekothian Continent! Release the [Saintess]."

I created a mouth underneath the bunch of eyes and talked to our passenger.

"Kasumi, can you please strip those idiots of their Classes?"

"Not all of them," the fox-kin said. "They convinced people to stop praying for me. My SP recovery rate went to shit."

I knew that but it still hurt me to hear it. If the faithful decided to ditch a [Saintess] – especially if the very Church who should support her decided to run a smear campaign – she would be slowly stripped of her powers until she would be a [Saintess] in name only.

"Barbara, let me deal with them," I begged. "We are long past the point of amicable negotiations."

I didn't fault her for lacking the strong hand needed to rule. None of her incarnations so far wished to be one yet it was often forced on her.

It was mighty nice of our enemies to gather and attack in one unified front. If they decided to invade from all sides, we'd be fucked. The Aspects would eventually eliminate the invaders but not before they could cause chaos on our land. Windemere had hundreds of miles of enchanted walls for one very good reason.

Also, magic back then was less developed. Nowadays, Windemere's walls might've been a white picket fence made out of cheap, mundane wood with cute signs saying, "no trespassing".

She closed her eyes for a moment. Next, she steeled her face. "Do it, Nethe. I order you to protect your people."

Reluctant though she was, Barbara had her heart in the right spot. "I'm a Goddess, you don't get to tell me what to do, master," I chuckled.

Her hand squeezed my spine as the corners of her lips turned up minutely. It was a delight.

"Go."

"Turn off your System notifications," I warned Barbara.

"It's done. Do what you must, Nethe."

I spent a minute issuing orders to the Aspects, then floated away with a basic Wind spell. Then I became invisible and shifted to the Ethereal, a dozen miles above the ground. There, [Suppress Curse] unlocked my full power.

*

*

*

*

I opened my eyes and looked at my hands. My ears twitched atop my head. I was Haru once more. For some reason, this was the form most closely related to the idea of my Goddess self.

I had only one hour to do what I had to do. Start to fix two thousand years of neglect. The small army at our borders was a sobering call. This world depended on me. The people elected me out of a whole pantheon of invaders to protect them. Pandora or not, I still wielded power strong enough to fool mortals into thinking I was the real deal.

I few above the army and crossed out. All my twenty-odd tails flowing graciously behind me, extended to their full length. I converted my body into its Light Elemental form. I shone like the Sun.

"Decanteus, you disappoint me!" I shouted, my voice carried for dozens of miles thanks to my magic and Proficiencies. "This is your Divine Judgment!"

I dumped ten million al-Mi’raj on the army. Most of the horned rabbit monsters died from the fall but their soft bodies cushioned those above before they poofed out of existence. Every one of these zealots knew the legends. Today, they would learn new ones. For ten or so minutes, they fought and killed the rabbits. I did no effort to bolster my summons I just wanted to get their blood pumping, shake their resolve.

They gazed upon me. A few arrows and spells flew my way. I ignored them. With all eyes on me, it was time to put the fear of the Goddess in their hearts. A gigantic red torii gate appeared. I flew through it.

My paws shone golden, partially masking the flames covering my fur. My Hoshi no Tama floated before my forehead. I did not shift my head, leaving me in the basic Kyuubi form except for the Pegasus wings and unicorn horn. Barriers of Force magic sprung to box the army in. Snowdrop and Arista locked the space, making it impossible to escape through any movement power or teleportation.

"Know this!" I barked, making sure people two fiefs away could hear and see me clearly. "The corrupt Church disgusts me. I was forced to rise from my healing slumber to deal with your iniquity. All of you were judged by me and found wanting. Kneel and pray that you might find forgiveness in your next life."

I dropped like a meteor of light and flames. My Kitsunebi had trouble following me, instead trailing behind like a comet's tail after my own, a colorful rainbow.

They tossed everything they had at me. The Manastorm unraveled their magic.

The truly faithful were few and far between even for me. My own [Saintess Magic] was rather hard to replenish. But already I could feel a trickle of power from those in the nearby settlements, witnesses to the miracles herein.

I was far from the pinnacle of my power. Netherbane's level was too low. [Homeland Defender] boosted me. The combined Perks kept my Attribute values from sucking too much. I spent most of my [Saintess Magic] to cheat too. I forcefully borrowed 20% of all the Attribute points of the [Priests] around me for half an hour. That included Decanteus's own points.

Boy, falling twelve miles surely took a while even when one was actively flying downward.

By the time I came into range, the whole army was in disarray. Most were kneeling and praying for mercy, fueling my [Saintess Magic]. A few were fruitlessly bashing against the barriers erected by the Aspects. The corrupt [Priests], led by Decanteus, desperately tried to kill me. With the combination of [Titan Body] and [Eye of the Manastorm] reducing the damage caused by three orders of magnitude, it felt like children throwing popcorn at a drake.

They came into range. [Multicast] created a dozen magic circles in front of my meteoroid form. They spun and multiplied as the very circles wrote the remainder of the spell, the magical equivalent of functional programming. They were now one main circle with two others superimposed, one in the front and another behind. My Mana drained at vertiginous speeds.

This was all an act. A show of force way above what I could really bring to bear.

I was never one for diversity of tactics. Some called me boring but this was real life. So long you survived, it was good enough. Once I found something that worked, I used it as the proverbial hammer to drive down all the proverbial nails in the world. Today it was no different.

The dozen diagrams spewed a hundred spears of Force magic each. These spears were ten feet in length and had visible dark lines running all over their otherwise mostly transparent form. They caught my own light and shone like the prisms they were, casting rainbows all over the place. A breath later, they shot. They split ten times. Then they split again ten times again. And again. My M.I.T.H. Force Javelins outpaced my terminal velocity falling form, three hundred homing projectiles for each target underneath me.

They were not evenly split. The foot soldiers had only a hundred aimed at them, with the remainder focused on the leadership. Decanteus had ten thousand.

My enemies were not still. The moment they saw the magic circles, they started attempts to unravel, dispel, or run interference against my magic. At least in this regard, I had a major advantage. Attributes and levels and the size of one's MP pool could only get them so far. What really mattered in a magical duel was skill. Proficiency. That I was sure I had more than they did, in spades. I held the title of [Master of Magic]. Though my Proficiency was reset during Tinnarturner's life in the scavenger Gnome (literal) shit desert adventure, I had a few lives to fix that since then.

One of the reasons Nethe did nothing to fix the church and I totally supported my mimic incarnation's decisions was that the book dedicated all available time to help Barbara grow. Help the Halflings who had any interest in magic learn. The grimoire did what grimoires ought to do, and that was transmit knowledge. It came with its own rewards in the form of precious Proficiency points.

The forerunners in the Swarm of Force Javelins found their marks. Kill notifications ran up in my sights. Hundreds, thousands. The smart Javelins didn't waste efforts on dead corpses. They veered and eagerly drank the lifeblood of the nearest enemy. Thousands shattered upon golden domes that sprung around the group of priests. They shattered, Force magic against Force magic, the Manastorm feeding off the excess power and even siphoning some from my enemy spells and the aspects' barriers so I could pump more MP into my Force constructs to keep them going despite the impacts.

In that I also had an advantage. My Force magic had a multiplier in efficiency. Each MP I spent to keep my constructs from breaking under impact was multiplied several times. It was a battle of attrition that took mere seconds. But a battle of attrition, nonetheless.

And yet, Netherbane was still weak. Most of the layered domes were destroyed but I kept an eye on my resources and planned my next moves. I cut the MP feed into the diagrams and let them exhaust their reserves, the Force Javelins bouncing fruitlessly on the last few domes. They had spiderweb cracks all over them but they held even as the last hundred Force Javelins ran out of fuel and sputtered out.

"Ha!" Decanteus exulted.

Too soon, asshole.

The cracked domes were crushed by fifty tons of flaming fox.

Like a wild animal driven by keen intellect, I bit, clawed, and lashed with more than two dozen tails at the [Priests]. They were weakened by my [Saintess] magic and were spellcasters. Very few [Paladins] among them. It made no difference. I triggered [Ice Elemental Form], spread frost all over the battlefield, then shifted back and spread my Kitsune flames. Despite the magic of this world, material science was still a bitch.

More kill notifications flooded my view.

I was not done. The souls around me were sorted by level, and everyone under forty was allowed to go to the Angel express visit Pandora wherever she was. The winged bastards wouldn't tell me, calling me bad names like "mortal". Still better than "anomaly", I guess.

Changes to my Perks forced me to use Divinity to revive people nowadays. I burned [Saintess Magic] Instead, bringing Decanteus and his cronies back to life.

The DAO of Murderhobo evolved through sacrifice. The sacrifice of my enemies upon the altar of Level grinding, that is. If Netherbane was weak, all I had to do to fix that was to farm some quick Exp for the little book and their mistress.

That's why Netherbane asked Barbara to turn off her Notifications.

Never die twice. Decanteus would live and die by this motto. I raised him and those above sixty a third time and bit their heads off. Then one more time for good measure.

I checked Netherbane's level. This little scuffle brought the book all the way to the cusp of their next evolution. But my time was over. One hour of fun, then back to sleep under the heavy blankets of the Brood-bitch curse. Wherever she was, floating through the void in search of a new planet to colonize.

I might pose as a Goddess, but I could only solve one problem at a time.