“You have gone mad! The Protectors will torment you for an eternity for this!”
Major’s eyes went wide as he realized the betrayal.
Don grinned mockingly. He turned around and tapped the two destroyed constructs with his feet. Suddenly, an invisible force washed over the two pieces of wreckages and compressed them to shreds.
Scarlett frowned. She recognized the move. It was a way of folding space. The wreckages were folded into each other so many times that they simply collapsed in the atom level.
“The Protectors? The Protectors will never punish me for my betrayal. You know why? Because they can’t even protect themselves.”
The five Voyagers felt their hearts sink. What was he talking about?
“You’re delusional!” One of the Voyagers suddenly spoke up. He was one of the quieter ones, but against something as shocking as what Don just said, even he couldn’t remain silent.
“Am I?” Don shook his head in disappointment. “Look at you. Voyagers of the Infinite Realms. You have the power to be god kings and supreme conquerors, yet you willingly give your lives to serve the Protector Corps like loyal hounds. You’re so pathetic that you didn't even consider the chance that the Protectors might be losing.”
Don glanced at the door. Outside, mercenaries who heard the commotion were trying to enter, but they were stopped by an invisible wall. Don didn't want his declaration to be disturbed.
“A month ago, well, it’s a few hours ago in the Infinite Realms, but you get the point. A month ago, three legions of Aggressors and hundreds of legions of their supporters ambushed a Protector battalion in a world called Akhansia. Took down half the Protector battalion.”
Scarlett smirked.
“And what was the price?”
“Well, at least a hundred follower legions were wiped out. Two of the three Aggressor legions were destroyed. Akhansia was erased by Protector reinforcement, but that’s irrelevant. Don’t you see it? The Protectors have lost their dominating might. They are no longer invincible. In the Battle of Akhansia, they bled, which shows the entire Infinite Realms one simple fact. Protectors are mortals too. When being attacked by overwhelming numbers, they die just like everyone else. Even a fool could tell the number of worlds joining the Aggressors would grow exponentially after that.”
“The Romans sent a messenger through my portal, and we made a deal. After this world falls, I would join them on their conquest of other realms. Instead of being expendable foot soldiers, we can be lords and emperors.”
The five Voyagers were silent. No objection appeared. Can you blame them? They were mercenaries. They were bred like mercenaries. They were trained like mercenaries, and they were treated by the Protector Corps like mercenaries. Their loyalty to the Protector Corps was limited. If the Protectors could no longer offer protection, then…
“Now!”
Simultaneously, all five Voyagers activated their powers. Four constructs warped in around Don and struck down at once. An invisible energy ripped across the room, triggering countless Space Traps. That was the work of Scarlett. A ball of purple fire came out of nowhere and dashed toward Don. One of the Voyagers disappeared in a puff of smoke. He appeared short of destination, but he was still mere meters away from Don. The fifth Voyager pulled out his Voyager rifle. It didn't seem so menacing, until a green energy blast was fired.
To put things into perspective, a single green crystal powered Jean’s entire Worldship, which had a CAS of over a thousand.
Don has made a decent suggestion. If the Protectors were indeed losing this war, then the five Voyagers would be happy to turn to the winning side, but that didn't mean they have to work with Don.
Inside the room, Don was dominating, so what do you think his offer would be? Would he hold the lives of the five Voyagers in one hand and hand out a fair deal in the other? No. He would force the five Voyagers to submit to him. The only reason he tried to reason with them was because he felt like he could get more out of them alive than out of their corpses.
Even if they would join the Romans, they wouldn’t do so by serving under Don.
“You maniacs!” The attack was sudden, even for Don. In the back of his mind, he didn't realize the other five Voyagers would be so determined. From his perspective, he saw no need of bloodshed.
But despite being taken by surprise, Don was still a decent fighter. A portal appeared in front of the fireball and consumed it. The next moment, the space in front of the assassin Voyager twisted, and the same blast came back out. The assassin was forced to go for cover, giving away the best chance he had at claiming Don’s head.
The four constructs, on the other hand, were right on top of Don, but he wasn’t concerned. The Power of Space condensed in his hand and formed a long sword. With a single move, he severed the head of two of the constructs and cut the third one across the arm. Major’s constructs were protected by both armor and runes, but the Power of Space didn't care about any of those. Space blades did damage by creating a displacement in space. In other words, when the blade hit the constructs, a part of space that contained the constructs was literally removed, along with the portions of the construct inside the region. No amount of physical armor could prevent that.
Well, Voyager armors could, but Voyager armors weren’t exactly conventional armors. Hell they could even deflect psychic attacks.
The fourth construct moved forward fearlessly. It wasn’t programmed to show fear, which sounded oddly familiar. Unfortunately, in this case, fearlessness couldn’t account for the difference in power.
Instead of destroying the construct, Don pointed at it. The next second, the construct was transported to between the Space Smith Voyager and an incoming green blast from the fifth Voyager.
The blast went through the construct, but it was delayed long enough for Don to dodge to the side.
“Push forward! We can’t let him regroup!” Scarlett knew very well the dangers of a Space Smith. She was able to clear out most of the traps in the room with the outburst, but this was nonetheless his home field. If he was given a few seconds, god knows what he could muster.
“You idiots!” On the other end, Don was getting annoyed as well. This wasn’t what he imagined. He imagined leaving the room with five loyal Voyager underlings, not getting his face slapped repeatedly. He quietly gathered the Power of Space inside his body, ready to show his former comrades who’s boss.
The next moment, he looked into the sky in horror.
After multiple cities were overrun, Jean’s reinforcement finally got into place.
The portals in U.S.N.A. were fine. Jean had triple the guards there as she did in the other foreign locations. When swarms of Equites and legionnaires charged out, she had the Wardens hold them back with firepower before raining down missiles on the warping units. Incendiary missiles. Carpet bombing of shrapnel rounds. Eventually, the Romans decided maybe walking into a flaming hell wasn’t the best way to win the battle.
As long as the Wardens could hold the ground for a few moments, reinforcing firepower could teach the invaders why you don’t mess with Jean Turner, but it were the portals where the Wardens couldn’t delay the invasion that posed a problem.
Take the one in Paris, for example, 8,000 Wardens were swarmed over by 5,000 Equites and the 15,000 legionnaires that followed. By the time help arrived, half the city was destroyed. Purifiers were warped in and the fleet provided covering fire, but the Romans were already in every building and on every street. This meant the Capitalguards could no longer obliterate a dozen invaders with a single well-placed shot. The Swordguards were forced to fight pumped up legionnaires in the streets.
It was hardly the ideal battlefield for the Swordguards. A few long shields could render the rune blasters useless. A wave of javelins could fly over cover and land among the Swordguards like mortar rounds. A Swordguard might turn around the corner and find itself with a knife sticking out its plate armor. It was finally when more observers were deployed to cover the city did the Swordguards trade more efficiently.
Similar attacks appeared all over the seven continents, but among all the attacks, the one in the Paris seemed to be the heaviest, so as only Capitalguards moved to the other portals, Jean came to Paris personally.
This time, Jean didn't use the Power of Death. For one thing, the Romans were too spread out. When she first did this, she didn't have to worry about soulless Purifiers caught in the crossfire, but now, she had to ask herself if it was worth risk sacrificing the soul of millions of locals to get the Romans.
Wraiths were difficult to control. A few of them, fine, but billions? She could only point them toward a general direction. Inside a city as populated as this one, the wraiths would be impelled by their very nature to attack the locals.
Plus, she didn't quite want to exterminate all the Romans...
So she used another one of her cards. She used the Worldship.
Worldship. It was the last addition of Captain Gregor’s reward to her for exterminating the World of the Runes. The Worldship was a 100 km long, 20 km wide, and 5 km tall beast of war. Its power laid in its ability to simulate a dimension. Conventional methods were useless against it while it could transform numerous energy into attacks.
After Jean powered it with a green crystal, its CAS was around 1,300. What does that mean? Jean, as a Reapress, was CAS 880. She could reach 920 after wearing the Mask of the Ice Wolf, but that was all.
The Worldship was meant to be her hidden card, but she really needed to minimize the damage right here, right now, so that card had to be exposed.
But as Jean arrived in the Worldship, she received an interesting report from the observers...a report about what was happening inside a particular hotel.
Jean’s observers were good, but every Voyager at this level had some way of deceiving it. When Don first flipped the table with his true intentions, he kept Jean in the dark by folding the space around the hotel, severing it from the rest of the world. But when the five Voyagers stormed him by surprise, he had to let go of this trick in favor of keeping himself in one piece, unburnt and un-beheaded.
To the mercenaries who were too busy being dissected by the Roman legionnaires, that wasn’t a problem, but to Jean’s keen eyes...
At that point, Jean could personally step in and handle Don. She could send her Wardens and Purifiers in. Or...or she could just have her Worldship rain fire on all the Voyagers below, foe and possible-friend alike.
A giant beam of green energy went straight for the hotel. There was so much energy extracted from the green crystal that, if a Voyager too weak tried to use it, him or her would implode. But the Worldship not only handled the energy but also transformed it into an attack.
Don had no moment to waste on the other Voyagers. Judging from the look of the beam, it could kill all of them and still burn the hotel to the ground.
Power of Space formed a barrier, folding the space between Don and the beam. To be honest, Don wasn’t that weak. Power of Space was at the same caliber as the Power of Death and the Power of Hibernation. But who was using it mattered as much as the power itself.
A Space Smith of a higher caliber might be able to deflect the shot, but Don was not of that caliber.
The green blast washed over the barrier like it was made of paper. Folding space? Cute. But the trick that stood impervious to conventional weapons didn't stand a chance against the sheer brute force of the energy beam.
“Help me! They want to kill us all!”
Don snapped to his fellow Voyagers. He didn't know who commanded that vessel. It didn't look like the Romans, and it was definitely not the locals. If it was the Protectors, he wouldn’t even have the chance to fight back. Maybe Jean?
Not that it matters. Whoever it is has made it clear they wanted him dead.
The other Voyagers saw it as well. They considered fleeing, but they knew escape wouldn’t be in time.
“Buy me some time! I will form a barrier!” Scarlett screamed as she formed psychic energy in her palms.
Major tapped his watch. A look of determination was in his eyes as construct after construct solidified between him and the blast, acting as magically forged shields. Each only stood for a fraction of a second, but it was better than nothing. Thousands of constructs bought him a second.
The fire mage put up a fire shield, which was quickly consumed.
The assassin tossed five daggers into the blast, which quickly exploded. The idea was good. Maybe the blasts could knock the shockwave back a few seconds. But the reality...the explosions barely left a dent in the sea of might.
Within a second, the blast was already right in front of the Voyagers. Major turned to Scarlett, waiting for her show...and that was when he realized Scarlett was nowhere to be seen.
Major, Don, and the other Voyagers forgot something. Why the hell would Scarlett try to save everyone when she could just use the hard bought time to get herself to safety?
That was a mistake that came at a fatal cost.
Don was the first to evaporate. The would-be god king didn't even leave a scream as he perished. His yellow-crystal powered Voyager armor didn't last even for a few seconds after being washed over.
And then was Major. And then the assassin and the fire mage.
The Voyager with the green crystal was the last to go, and his death was the saddest, not because he was such a saint, but because he could’ve lived. He had a green crystal as well that, when put into his Voyager Armor, could deflect the blast. Only problem? He kept his only green crystal inside his Voyager Rifle.
It was too late to switch them.
As the smoke cleared, revealing the leveled hotel and five now ownerless Voyager watches, the backstabber came down from the sky.
She turned to the side.
“Come out.”
From the side, Scarlet slowly walked out. She wasn’t doing well. Blood was dripping out of her mouth. Even at her level, getting herself out of the blast range in a second came at a price. She had to fully exhaust her psychic powers. She knew she wouldn’t stand a chance against Jean’s giant vessel in the air.
If she knew about Jean’s Power of Death, she would realize how right her decision was.
Her tone was shocked.
“Have you gone mad? Killing your fellow Voyagers? The Protectors will have your head! Even you can’t disobey the Protectors!”
Jean tilted her head gently. A distance away, a squad of legionnaires charged forward. Honestly, Jean had no idea what was going on in their head. Did they not see the giant vessel in the air? Then again, the Worldship covered most of the city, so…
Either way, Jean waved her hand and didn't even turn as the entire squad collapsed and died. There was no obvious cause of death.
Finally, Jean spoke.
“The Protectors prohibited us from killing Voyagers and sabotaging the missions for our interests, but tell me. Is killing you sabotaging the mission?”
“Of course! We’re Voyagers!”
“Tell me, Scarlet! Who is contributing more to the mission? The Voyager who single handedly kept this world intact and the mission alive, or the six disgrace who were drinking and partying when their positions were breached? Oh, and one or more of those six disgrace might be working against the Corps. You people are useless. If it’s a Protector in my place, he would make the same decision.”
Scarlett bit her lips.
“I’ll bet you five coins that when the Protectors know about this, they would not only not punish me, they would also reward me.”
“Fine.” Scarlett finally decided. “What do you want to do with me? If you want to kill me, get on with it.”
Jean scanned her from top to bottom.
“You are not a poor Voyager, Scarlet. What is your CAS? 550?”
“570. Passed four missions.”
“Then why did you do next to nothing in this one?”
Scarlet sighed. She knew exactly what the answer to Jean’s question was. For the first few days of arrival, she had plans to do something. In fact, she even had a plan to mind control a Roman and counter-infiltrate the world on the other side. But then she realized something.
Jean has already made Earth a safe haven. Likely, after taking this amount of damage, the Romans have given up their attempt on this world already. The Voyager side of her didn't believe it, but the human side of her wanted to, for one simple reason. If the Romans left this world alone, she could stay in the comfort and safety of this world for who knows how long.
For a Voyager who regularly marches on the balance of life and death, that was her ultimate dream.
This prompted her to go against her Voyager instinct and stay back. The only thing she did was ask Don to find out a way to shut the portals, but she didn't put much attention into even that. That was how Don was able to secretly be contacted by the Romans and strike a deal with them without being discovered.
In the end, she wasn’t defeated by Jean or the Romans. She was defeated by her own weakness...just like Trinity.
Right now, Jean could easily kill Scarlet, but she decided against it. It would be such a waste. Instead, she made an offer.
“I want to make you a deal. Serve under me and obey my command, and I will make sure you will not regret it.”
Scarlet stared into her eyes. Suddenly, she felt such an urge to dig out what was left of Major’s corpse and laugh at it. The entire time, Jean could always slaughter them. The only thing keeping her from doing it was the rules, and the Voyagers doomed their only chance of survival themselves. Now, with the bodies of the Voyagers nowhere to be seen, Major’s attempt to wait until Jean dies and take her forces sounded oddly hilarious.
She slowly nodded.
