Bloody Judgment

Ariandel Crypt, Remains of Atlantis, Costa Rica

I took his head and threw it against the corner of the wall, it took me three hits for it to break, staining the place even more crimson. The next one came with her spear, I twisted my hand around it having more grip than her, and with it, I lured her companion behind her to kill her so that I could then impale its bearer with the same spear she was still holding. The last victim was in panic watching me, terrified that no matter what she did, she would be unable to stop me, like a lamb to the slaughter she waited her turn, and her life ended with a shotgun blast to her face, spreading her head all over the hallway and becoming just another corpse among all those in the hallway.

I could hear them shouting and giving orders in the next room, trying to create a plan to stop me, but that didn't catch my attention. I was more busy looking for the one responsible, the one who calls himself Father. He must be in one of these rooms, hiding,  and trying to organize his defenses, and he was also responsible for my sister's kidnapping. His plan must be bigger than this, he must be doing something big, something that would endanger everyone, I could not allow it, not after so many lives sacrificed in Atlantis.

Ariandel's castle was actually a crypt, far from the cities, near the lower guards' hall, the Atlanteans buried in it their best warriors, those who gave their lives for the welfare of Atlantis. Although it was not a castle for the nobles, it still had to be decorated with high luxuries and beautiful details for the resting place of these warriors. But none of that was present before my eyes, now it was sadder than a desolate cemetery, for it was assumed that the living now inhabited these walls, halls that were once bathed in gold were now filled with bare stone, majestic corridors full of elegance and opulence were now in ruins and rubble, the tombs of heroes had been looted. The great windows with their hundreds of colored glass panes were now gone, and the chandeliers of light crystals burned out. The only thing still standing were the trees of light, unique to the continent of Atlantis, which seemed to have stood the test of time well. And the only reshape was my hand staining the halls red with the blood of its inhabitants.

Behind me, several meters away was Levia, who could only follow me and mourn the loss of her companions that she was witnessing. More than one guard asked what she was doing, and she could only reply that she was sorry. It didn't matter to me, if she really see the horrors they committed in the past for sure or of her own origin she would even help me. Father was trying to open a sealed room in this castle, if it has remained that way for so long it means that its contents should not be revealed. I have to know how to get to it before he does and destroys its contents. My advance is slowed again by yet another ambush, several strange fish had camouflaged themselves among the stones, they swam towards me trying to hurt me, they were not a threat, but so predictable of the mermaids, it was just to distract me while they got behind me to attack again. Ten girls attacked me, but only five complete bodies will be found. These mermaids had lost their spark, their tactics, their wit, their spontaneity. It was as boring as re-watching a  bad fight a hundred times choreographed exactly the same every time.

I had been down here for quite some time, my resources were already running low. My rifle had run out of ammunition, and the shotgun only had a couple of rounds left. I didn't use the laser knives to keep them as a surprise. But my enemies were not decreasing in numbers, so I had to get creative to keep going. A rock could break a skull, a stick could stab with enough force, pieces of glass could cut deep, and a useless ladder underwater was a perfect object to kill several by throwing their heads against the ladders one after the other.

When I reached the innermost part of the castle there were some gigantic stairs. They seemed to be the main hall of the castle, but the remarkable side was that they led to a second floor where the sea water did not reach, a place with air. I was able to stand up in quite a while, I did not take off my helmet, because I had no way of knowing if the air was breathable or poisonous, Levia also got out of the water and crawled a little inland, with great difficulty because she could only use her arms to move her big body.

"So you've managed to get here, you damned invader!"
"Your sacrilege against this sacred place I will make you pay"
"All your acquaintances will be with you later" I heard a man's voice on the other side of the large room.

The room was much better preserved than the rest of the place, but not by much, it was still looking as tenuous as before, they had not even value to pick up the debris that fell from the ceiling. At the end of the room there was a small chair, stupidly decorated with scratched fabrics and carved stones without art. to the right it is a pair of perfectly preserved doors in jade green, a symbol of the Emperor, something that means serious business. There was also a very strange machine, it was like seeing a fan next to a golden box and a lead furnace, disgusting to look at. Before all of the above was a man looking at me. He was about two meters tall, a slim and slender figure, with long blond hair, and blue eyes. A perfect specimen of the Aryan race as a couple of horrible people from the past would have called him, I didn't know him but I'm sure they shared the same point of view. The most important feature of all was its ears, it was clearly an Atlantean is in front of me. He was wearing poor armor that was quite battered and bent from old blows, there were also feet that did not fit and were held in place by straps. It was distressing to see an opponent in such a clearly precarious state.

"So you are Father"
"I thought a man would be the leader for such a matriarchal race"
"But now it makes sense, after all, there is no mermaid queen now"

"!!!!"
"That voice!"
"Nanami?"
"The Emperess!"
"You survived, are you still alive?"
"Impossible! Atlantis has fallen a long time ago"
"What happened to you?"

What he said was not going to save him, but it still caught my attention. The name Nanami, and confused by my appearance was a rare thing, even for those loyal to the Ancient Emperor, for my introduction as Elise was announced in front of the many survivors still left in that damn place. It was strange that he did not recognize me immediately. He knew Nanami, but not Elise. It was something important.

"More or less"
"Didn't you get the notification?"
"I guess not, it's hard for a messenger to swim all the way to here"
"...."
"How lonely is your life?"

"Not as much as you think"
"I've had a lot of time off"
"Enough to get back to the same level as in my teacher, so I went back to researching my real area of development"

"Excellent"
"How long did it take you?"
"Ten thousand years, a million years?"
"That's a long time to hide in a hole for a coward and idiot, so deserving of you"

"And what do you know, you fucking bitch!"
"This is all that stupid Jared's fault and yours for not supporting your father!"
"Do you know how much my goal has gone backwards?"
"I was about to  become a master professor, I would also have had the opportunity to create one God for Atlantis too!"

"Gods my ass"
"You guys didn't even get it right once!"
"Your Masters deserved the execution they received"
"The only thing that  worked was the fucking pervert parts!"
"The only one thing that  succeeded was this awkward body!"
"This body is their fault!"

"Oh, right, your father tried to fix the error but it was beyond repair by then."
"I bet you never knew who you really were, but the truth is evident"
"It's amazing that you made it this far without your body developing into a just two giant boobs"
"You are a breeder after all"
"Surprised by the shocking fact? No matter how hard you fight back, you can't change that."

"I already knew it!"
"I've known it for a long time!"
"Why I'm here is because of her!"
"That girl over there"
"She was originally a human!?"

"Are you more surprised by her?"
"Yes, she was a human so what?"
"There are millions of humans, no one will notice if one or two are missing"
"Why not use them to re-establish the greatness of the Atlantean people?"
"The superior races should have the right to live on the surface, and the duty to govern the inferior ones"

"Father?"
"Is that true?" Levia said from the water's edge.

"So that's where all the riches went?"
"You spent all the gold in this palace to make alchemy, a sacrilege to your ancestors"
"You stole from humans for centuries to keep trying to create princess mermaids."
"And yet your two best creations are a box that keeps you alive down here and crippling an innocent girl for life?"
"No wonder no one ever noticed your absence"

"Damn Fox"
"If you think that being your father's daughter will save you, you are very wrong!"
"Behind this door is the great weapon of the crypt! Leviathan!"
"With it neither the humans nor you will be able to defeat me!"
"I will restore the empire that weak people like you led to its downfall!"

"YA BASTA!" Only one voice was heard,  so powerful that its booming sound was heard several times by everyone. It was that of a sovereign with powerful authority, myself.

The room fell silent, everyone looked at the ruler in fear, waiting to hear his word. Knowing the enormous difference that separated them from me.

"You're getting pretty cocky you little piece of shit!"
"Emperors of Atlantis have asserted their authority by crushing the heads of their enemies that could be compared in power, people like you would just stay under our feet."
"Do you have even the balls or the power to affirm your own words?"
"Do you think you can snatch the title of Empress from me?"
"I will answer you in advance"
"No"
"Neither my father nor his father's father could."
"Neither could  the rest of the True Dragons nor could the Overlord."
"If I ordered that Atlantis should fall, heaven, earth and hell obeyed my order."
"And if I say that your miserable life is worthless, then that is exactly what it is worth in the eyes of everyone else"
"Do you think what's in that door will save you?"
"I'll open it for you myself so you can die with a face of despair that I want to see"

I took a single step and looked at the door with my eyes.

"Gate! open yourself!"
"Obey your master!" I finished the sentence with a snap of my hand.

The big gates opened immediately at terminal velocity. The blast was such that both of them dismounted and fell to the floor.

*CLANG*

The violent sound of two metals colliding was heard. With my other hand, I had summoned Avalon to my side to defend myself from Father's attack. I didn't even bother to look at him.

"Too Fucking slow"

The miserable man showed his confusion, the attack he launched while he thought I was distracted had failed miserably. I  started to walk toward the camera myself, to show the bastard his own ignorance.

Inside the sealed room you could see how perfectly preserved it was, it was adorned to the high standard that Atlanteans put into their work, most of the time. Everything was covered with a golden impulse, the light crystals were lit one after the other, revealing the hidden contents. A huge golden throne stood in the middle of the room, decorated to the extreme, every detail revealing a story of the past, how that chair was won. Its owner was still using it, for he could never be removed from it. A skeleton was nailed to the throne, you could still see the face of pain with which the bones were left, but they revealed that it was not a human, because from the waist you could see how what should be his legs were fused and then followed by what was clearly seen to be a huge fish skeleton. In the chest was seen the origin of his death, a huge spear had pierced and embedded in the golden throne. It had been thrown with so much force that the back of the throne had also broken partially, a throne created with the best materials and protections that the Atlanteans could afford. The simple spear was made of tungsten coated with carbon fiber that was showing signs of deterioration, It was a weapon of a low-ranking Atlantean soldier, one who would never have accomplished such a heroic feat. Finally, behind the throne, the golden wall was decorated with a huge sea serpent, its head ready to devour the throne at any moment, its head was red jewels, and silver decorations surrounded it, symbolizing armor, and more colored jewels followed the rest of the body, possibly its weapons. But with it, I understood what happened, the events that occurred, and what it meant.

"HA HA HA HA HA!"
"There's no fucking way!"
"This is so stupid!"
"I can't believe it!"
"Have you really been down here trying to open this for this crap?"

"What is all this?"
"Where is Leviathan?"
"Where is the treasure!"
"And the weapon that was stored here?"  The Atlantean was beginning to despair, just as I had predicted.

"HA HA HA HA HA"
"There is no limit to how ignorant you can be"
"You weren't a scholar, you were a simple grave robber all along!"
"And me lowering myself to talk to you!"
"HA HA HA HA HA"
"The treasure is right in front of you"
"This was what was here guarded and sealed away"
"Your quest for power only led you to an old skeleton"

"But what does this mean!"
"It was all a lie?"

"Which lie?"
"This is a crypt! A cemetery!"
"A place to bury the dead!"
"What did you expect to find?"
"The real treasures that were here you spent trying to open this door!"
"For your greed for more, you will leave with nothing"

"Father?"
"Is this true?"
"Was all this just a money grab?" Said Levia, which had taken her a while to crawl up here.

"NO, of course not"
"According to the books, there must be a secret weapon here!"
"A powerful warrior!"
"One capable of destroying an army!"
"With it, we would destroy the humans!"

"At least you know how to read Atlantean, right?"
"Or did you only see the drawings?"
"...."
"HA HA HA HA HA"
"You are such an idiot"
"And me spending time getting ready to die in combat!"
"I was ready to die today, and this is what I find?"
"This place fell from atlantis even before Union arrived at the Celestial forge!"
"Your ignorance is effectively a mark in time, a before and an after!"
"Leviathan was not yet dead when this happened."
"...."
"You know I'm going to feel bad about myself if I don't explain to your little mind what happened"
"I hope you have the brains to process it."
"This skeleton you see here is the mermaid queen!"
"She was directing little fishes from her little hideout in the lower guard room"
"She, unlike you, was capable of putting up a fight!"
"Union went up to her to defeat her, but they were annihilated!"
"Among the commanders of the expedition was the son of Gaenbald the Abysswalker"
"When the news of his death arrived, the Grand Campaign General took the spear from one of his soldiers and hurled it from his camp, across this very floor of Atlantis"
"The spear traveled through the sky with overwhelming speed, striking the mermaid queen, who was still on her throne, killing her"
"Here is what you are seeing"
"Union was later able to take the place, but fearing that because of her regeneration ability the queen would revive, they left the spear and moved the whole throne here instead."
"Nanami sealed the place so that no one could open it or she could get out"
"And the weapon you are looking for is that thing over there"
"The golden sea serpent"
"This was a prototype of an automatic golem"
"She is protecting the site from invaders"
"The dragons managed to steal the design and mass produce it"
"This here is nothing more than a common enemy that Union had to deal with on a regular basis"
"..."
"This is all so stupid, you're not a clown, you're the whole circus"
"You know, I would like to return to my family as soon as possible so I will not bother to fight you, you are not worthy."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Golden Guardian, rise at my call"
"Kill everyone in here, destroy the place, then destroy yourself"
"Obey your master!"

*Snap*

A brutal roar shook the entire room, the beast's gnawed jewels began to emit light, the creature began to move. And it shot a powerful laser beam from its mouth right after. It destroyed the golden throne and Father instantly. Confirming that there was no more dawn, I go to Levia and lifted her onto my back, and began to move back into the water. The monster followed me patiently, obediently, he did not attack the mermaid next to me as he surely considered her my ally, it was good to see that the Dragons did not manage to overwrite him.

When I started to swim, the giant snake came forward and began to devour everything in its path, with brutal fury, clearing the way for me. My work was not yet finished, I still had to find out who was controlling the mermaid maidens. She must be an important person so she was probably hiding too. But it didn't take long to find them, in one of the rooms I checked I found them. In a large room there were several giant fish, horrible, as I had never seen before, but giving birth to more ugly fish, which would be the lesser mermaids. At the bottom of the place, I could see three more mermaids, all wearing black veils, next to them balls of crystals, in each of them you could see the face of a girl, in one of them that of Maria, you did not have to be a genius to know what they meant. I killed them with my bare hands without much trouble, and in doing so the glass balls exploded one after the other, thus breaking the spell. Before I left, disgusted by the sight before my eyes, I ordered the walls to collapse. When the huge stones impacted the breeders, all the water in the castle filled with blood, making it very difficult to navigate. Although I searched, I did not see any other mermaid princess, I asked my companion and that was when she finally told me that she was the only one, something that I already suspected.

The rest of the place also began to undermine, the walls now fragile from the golden machine, the machine began to shoot solid beams of lasers and began to spin, making a multi-colored festival of death in its path. When I arrived at the entrance the serpent retreated into the ruins, to execute his last order, his final duty, to finish with the last remaining of the cursed kingdom. The return to the surface was much less exciting because unlike the mermaid I needed time to decompress and to be able to return. The most exciting thing was hearing the great explosion below us, when the sea serpent blew itself up. It took me almost several hours of waiting, some of which were quite boring and increased my hunger, Levia just stood there next to me without saying anything, she was clearly sad because it seemed that she did not know what to do now.

By the time I returned to the surface it was already dark. It took me quite a while to get the mermaid back on the ship, but unlike the first time, this time she cooperated with me. She continued quite quiet the rest of the way, looking at me sadly, reflecting on herself, on her life so far. I apologized for everything that I made her go through until now and I told her the reasons that led me to commit such actions. I wasn't looking for her forgiveness, just for her to see my point of view of the story.

When I arrived at the beach, several angels were waiting for me, who made a military salute when I passed near them. Miguel the Archangel, the head of the Celestial Security Section, disguised as another human tourist, came out to congratulate me for my efforts and for freeing the kidnapped girls and gave me a list of where they found each one and how they planned to return their parents. After that, he offers me transportation by car to the hotel where my family was waiting. This time, aware of any situation, they had also brought a couple of things for Levia, a couple of long gothic clothes, with which she could more or less hide her mermaid tail, and a wheelchair, strong enough to support her weight. but also comfortable, so it would be a little easier to hide her real appearance. After a short trip, I was able to reach the room. When I opened the door I found my mother hugging and crying with Maria in her arms.