Mana Mutation Menace (Journey to Chaos Book 3) (30 page)

Kasile struggled to stay in control of her emotions and
project serenity, but it was a losing battle. This was an enforcer; a fragment
of Order himself. As a divine being, it ranked two orders above her ancestor, a
full nature deity. She stained her petticoats with her fear.

“You
are neither divine nor a queen. Your spirit is weak, flesh runs in your veins,
and your so-called ‘divinity’ is merely genetics. Your queenly composure is a
façade and you are easily swayed by crisis. You rule through fear and
manipulation instead of charisma and the rule of law. The only proof of your
royal claim is your so-called Sacred Fire and yet, as proven by Zettai
Centurion
, that can be faked. You are a fake
and therefore have no authority here.”

Kasile stood up and did her best to be calm. Judging from
the looks and whispers, her best wasn’t good enough. She reached for the part
of herself that connected to her divine ancestor and declared, “I am queen by
virtue….” She cleared her throat, took a cleansing breath, and tried again.
Nothing. Her divinity was gone! “You’re doing this! Just like you do to elves!”

“This
is a creation of Law. Its nature is to suppress Chaos and false power. If your
self-proclaimed divine magic fails you in the presence of this, then it is not
legitimate.”

She pointed her finger at Lunas and shouted, “Call off
your attack dog!”

Lunas shrugged. “Order is this thing’s master. I can no
more control it than you can.”

“Fine!”

She reached into the bow behind her back and pulled out a
sheath. Out of the sheath, she pulled out a dagger. It was nothing more than a
cold iron blade with a wooden handle. Yet despite the lack of ornamentation and
simple construction, the enforcer hesitated.

“That’s right! This is a
chiem
; a dagger infused
with chaotic power! Get out of my castle or I will destroy you!”

“Ignorant
child
.”

Ignoring the dagger completely, it reached inside of her.
It bypassed her gown with its runes and her skin with its heritage for the most
sacred part of her being. Fear unlike anything she ever felt gripped her mind.
A frigid hand grabbed her soul. She threw the dagger at the enforcer, but it
dodged it effortlessly. She grew pale and cold as the hand pulled her essence
from her body. All the delegates were horrified, save Lunas.

“Now this castle is mine,” he whispered. “Send the rest.”

Portals opened all over the castle: the kitchens, library,
clerical offices, castle town, and more. From within walked bestial four-legged
monsters, screeching winged monsters, and disciplined humanoids alike. All of
them wore the same style of ordercraft armor. They moved quickly to corral
locals, block doorways, patrol the skies, and otherwise control the area.

The royal guard wasted no time gaping in astonishment and
immediately counterattacked. It was only then that they noticed the Order
Domination Field. It empowered the invaders via their armor and weakened the
defenders, oppressing them with intense gravity while draining their personal
mana and cutting them off from the new mana coming in. As a result, they
quickly tired. In one gallery, a single guard remained both alive and
conscious.

“Fire burn it!” she shouted while parrying a pike. “What
the Abyss is going on?”

She head-butted the soldier to break the parry and then
brought her sword down in a swipe that bit into her opponent’s neck. In
response, her opponent wrenched her helmet off, exposing her to the full effect
of the Order Obelisk. She fell to her knees at once and her opponent raised
their pike to kill her. Another pike, shimmering with golden light, killed it
instead.

A woman with long, golden-brown hair and pointed ears
floated over its corpse. Her eyes were red as blood and glowing with battle
light. Her skin was a contrasting pale white, like someone who stayed inside
all day knitting. She was garbed in feminine armor from neck to toe. The
phrases “Ye Guilty” and “Ye Innocent” were inscribed on it. Sewing needles and
thread rested in pouches at her waist alongside pouches containing nooses and
poison. Around her neck was a knitted scarf. The pike that felled the Latrot
soldier was her middle finger.

 “Belldandy!” the royal soldier cried.

“That’s me.” Every hair on her head became a spear and
impaled every hostile in the room at once. “I’m not the only one either. We’re
having a family reunion.”

In every wing of the castle, tricksters emerged from their
hiding places. There was Krank, the god of matchmaking and marriage counseling,
disguised as a statue. Minerva, the goddess of brain surgeons, flew out of a
painting. Sophie, the goddess of bookworms, quietly came to life inside the
castle library. Virtu, the god of manly men, burst out of a can of hair spray. Larry
Dante, the god of idiots, was in the kitchen cooking bacon (incidentally, he
had no idea what was going on). Together with other siblings, they slayed
monsters, smote anti-mage soldiers, and redirected portals. Then they reached
the end of their worlds.

Belldandy was stuck in the gallery with the soldier she saved.
Every one of its doors and windows led back into the room. The same was true
for her siblings. Lunas was prepared for their arrival and programed
instructions into the Order Obelisk to counter them. It split the castle into
separate dimensions. From the minute he arrived weeks ago, Lunas marked their
boundaries. When the Order Domination Field came up, it partitioned the tricksters
into their own pocket of space. The only exception was the greatest trickster
of all: Tasio.

He pretended to be a snowbank in the castle courtyard,
figuring it to be the most likely place to drop an obelisk. Thus, he was
ideally situated to turn himself into a cannonball and shatter it. He launched
his attack, but a giant golf club appeared in his path. It shouted, “Fore” and
smacked him into the Order Domination Field’s ceiling. He stopped himself
before touching it and was back in an instant.

The golf club transformed into a middle-aged human man.
His ears were long and pointed like Tasio’s, but his hair was black. If Tasio’s
glow was the sun, then his own was the void of space. Between his reading
glasses, breastplate, running shorts, tap shoes, and various other add-ons and
equipment, he looked like the sum total of a middle school’s extracurricular clubs.

“Well, if it isn’t the self-proclaimed ‘Patron of Humanity,’”
Tasio drawled. “What are you up to this time, Alphfy?”

“
Aphelion!
” the other trickster insisted.
“I
will not allow you to destroy this obelisk. The humans do not need your help to
do that, nor do they need elven help for curing mana mutation. Chaos and Order
will fall away and the reigns of history will transfer to Hand of Man!”

Tasio glowered. “Alphfy, don’t make me spank you like I
did in the Conversion War.”

Aphelion blushed. “That only happened once! I’ve been
training while you were goofing off! I’ll win this time!”

As the two tricksters argued in the sky, humans were
indeed on the move to counter the obelisk’s theat. In their custom made
barracks on the castle grounds, the Royal Ordercraft Security and Compliance
team scrambled to deactivate it.

The power of the Order Domination Field thrummed in their
minds and in their souls. It altered their perception of reality, both physical
and theoretical. It whispered, “Order’s will be done” in their ears in a
continuous loop. Kimberly saw her soldiers wavering and called a halt. Grabbing
her badge, she held it up above her head and declared,

“One cannot serve two masters! For they would love one and
despise the other! We swore loyalty to Her Majesty Queen Kasile before we were
given this power and then again afterward. She put you under my authority. I am
your immediate superior. Obey me.”

Taylor
Jones shook her head. Then she grabbed her badge and held it above her head.
“Fire’s will be done!”

Jasmine
St. John shook her head. Then she grabbed her badge and threw it to the ground.
“Greater Order is coming! The world will be pacified!”

The two of
them punched each other and caught each other’s punch in their other hand. This
led to a mercy match with both their physical and spiritual power.

Thuy Kwan
raised and lowered her arm, neither able to bear it proudly nor throw it away.

Daniela
Cranston fell to her knees, clutching her head and saying nothing.

Kimberly Johnson grimaced. “It’s a good thing Fairtheora
insisted we drill for times like this. Where is he anyway?”

In a hallway leading to the castle courtyard, Fairtheora
the Lawkeeper, Royal Sentinel of Roalt, lumbered through the Order Domination
Field. It could not affect his mind or spirit because of his orc immunity to
ordercraft. For the same reason, it was more hostile to him than either humans
or elves. Order never forgot a transgression.

“Order! I will do my duty, for queen and country! You
cannot stop me!”

A cloud of magical dust
poof
ed in front of him. The
presence he felt inside it stopped him; it stopped him cold. It slowly
dispersed to reveal a fairy. She had pink hair to her waist, and it rested in
four tails over an immaculate silver-grey robe. Her skin was pale and her eyes
blank. The Eye of Order was tattooed on her forehead.

“Dannaigh ….What have they done to you?”

“Failure,” she droned. “Failure knight serving a failure
queen. You will be punished.”

 On the castle balcony, a closed pocket of space appeared.
It manifested as a sphere of solidified existence flashing into place. Tiza and
Nolien didn’t notice and it happened too quickly for Basilard to react. Someone
shouted, “By the power of Order: Divide and Conquer!” and three portals
appeared beneath their feet.  

Inside the sphere, the couple had a clear view of the
Order Obelisk. Annala pulled her Death Killer bow from her sash, unfolded it,
and took aim. A magic circle generated underneath her as she chanted holy verses.
Just before she fired, a voice spoke in her mind.

Apostate!

Her concentration broke and her power faded. She shook her
head and altered the bow’s algorithms to factor out scriptural chaos power and
focus on genetic instead. In other words, her inherited Seed of Chaos instead
of her personal pious soul. When it was ready, she fired.

Nothing obstructed her shot. It sailed through a veil of
existence, several monsters, and the Obelisk’s own barrier to penetrate the
Obelisk itself. Then it exploded. Chaotic energy pulled from Annala’s seed
traveled up and down the structure but did not damage it. The only evidence of
Annala’s attack was a tiny hole and scorch marks.

“I shall require a bigger arrow.”

What you truly need is greater faith!

Suddenly, she contorted and fell to her knees. The Order
Obelisk retaliated against her attack by focusing on her. Its presence filled
her; cold, parasitic, and oppressive. She had accomplished nothing but to convince
it that she was a threat.

“Tasio, Tasio, Tasio!” Eric shouted.

The Trickster didn’t appear.

“Abyss take you, Tasio! You’re never around when you’re
needed!”

 Light gathered at the Obelisk’s peak. It was drawing mana
from the surrounding environment, rendering it colorless in the process. When
its charge completed, it fired at the paralyzed elf. Eric scooped Annala up in
his arms and jumped over the railing. He landed on the same balcony and the
Obelisk’s beam swerved to blast him in the back.

Incredibly, his clothing remained intact, but it was the
only thing to do so. The beam vaporized his skin, ruptured his organs, smashed
his bones, and even damaged his spirit. If not for his Seed of Chaos, Razor
Spirit, and monstrous survival instinct, he would have been dead before he
registered that he’d been hit. Instead, he lay on the floor, helpless, in
hideous pain, and wondering what happened.

A portal appeared over him and Nulso dropped out. He was
dressed as he always was, but his suit had shifted. It was no longer clothing
but an exoskeleton. The suit and belt were now as much a part of him as his
arms and neck. The ponytail wrapped so tightly around the latter it was a
wonder that he could still breathe. His skin was as white as a corpse and
pulled as tight as possible over his bones. It glowed dimly with eldritch
light. Everything about him was a sharp contrast to the world around him, as if
he were separate from reality.

Seeing Eric defenseless, he raised his heel to crush the
boy’s skull. Without his brain, Eric would never recover despite his other
advantages. Then two hands reached out of Eric’s pocket and flipped the bird at
Nulso. The ordercrafter put his heel down peacefully. He betrayed none of the
frustration he felt because Order’s power was suppressing it.

 “Clever trickster. If this...I mean...if
I
had the
power and authority, then
I
would eat both of your souls, but this will
have to do.”

He crossed his hands over Eric’s body and generated a
sphere of Orderly power around it. Two hands reached into the body and
identified both Eric’s soul and the wormholes Rojo Genki was using to inhabit
Eric’s clothing. He listed his spell’s requirements like one submitting a
formal work request. Finally, he executed the spell with the words,

 “By the power of Order: Banishment!”

The box of eldritch light shrank around Eric until it was
skintight and altered itself until it took the shape of an “X.” Finally, a
portal appeared beneath him and he fell away.

Annala watched it happen. With the Obelisk’s power focused
on her, there was little else she could do. Her rage and chaotic verses
couldn’t overcome its divine spiritual presence. Nulso stood over her and
leered.