World of Women-Chapter 25Volume 5 –

“I’ll be stepping forward.” I declared.

I gave Brianna my orders. She looked like she wanted to stop me, but she didn’t seem to be able to come up with the right words.

“Come on, girls, we need to go.” She responded, gathering everyone up.

Raven seemed to snap out of her shock. “What? What is daddy doing?”

Brianna looked at me reluctantly, biting her lip. “He’s buying us time.”

She picked up Kemala and threw her over her shoulder, and then with Syph’s help, dragged my daughters away. The officer narrowed her eyes. She seemed to be determined to capture me. The others were less important.

I unraveled the barrier between us. It had been set up by Syph, but it wasn’t difficult for me to undo it. The Triloran soldiers didn’t expect that. Normally, barriers need to be destroyed. This was a technique I had never shown to the world. For as many techniques as I had sold to the populace to protect Valiant, there were just as many that I had kept secret. If these women hadn’t been concieted fools, they might have realized the value I maintained went far beyond my DNA. Thankfully, there was an advantage to being universally underestimated.

I didn’t wait for them to react. I attacked immediately. I didn’t bother with the girls behind me. As soon as I jumped at the enemies, I put the barrier back in place. A few panicked soldiers fired their weapons, but their bullets ricocheted off it, causing pandemonium within the stairway. I didn’t hesitate to kick the leading woman down the stairs, causing them all to fall like dominoes. I leaped on top of them and then jumped over them, landing in the hallway. Countless more guards were waiting for me there.

“Don’t let him get away!” The officer’s voice came out from the pile of women I had just stepped over.

I wasn’t going to give them the chance to react. I raised both my hands and summoned forth two dozen clones. The hall was suddenly filled with copies of me. The soldiers began to panic, firing randomly. I realized that they weren’t bullets, but some kind of electrified projectile. As soon as they struck the person on the other side, their body began to violently shake. The clones had no corporeal forms. They were simple projections, so the bullets continued forward and hit the people on the other side. In an instant, the hallways cleared out with a dozen women convulsing on the floors.

The soldiers weren’t stupid, but they also didn’t know who they were fighting. Their training was focused on taking on women with limited magical abilities. They couldn’t imagine someone could fight like me. Even if they could, they were unaware of the spells that could be cast. That ignorance would be their undoing. The clones disappeared as quickly as they came. At this point, the officer and the women from the stairway had finally managed to stand. She pulled out an electrified baton, a look of pure fury on her face.

“Seriously?” I asked smugly.

She began to race down the hallway at me. I lifted my hand and created smoke, causing the sprinklers to trigger. She lunged at me, but I grabbed her wrist and slammed the baton into her. The water made it spark even more, and her hair nearly stood as her body cooked itself. I kicked her back into the women who were charging behind her, sending them all falling to the ground. Many of them ended up joining in being shocked, whether it was the electrified ammo from earlier or the baton, the water seemed to send sparks everywhere.

Worried I’d get shocked myself, I jumped through the window. On the first floor, the wall had been lined with glass instead of wood, so I was able to jump right into the parking lot. As I walked out of the motel, there were a dozen vehicles with their lights blazing. They had come during the start of the commotion, but they were being held back by the special forces. Most of those special forces were now unconscious. These were the first responders. One of them held up a gun, shouting something at me in their native language.

“You guys probably don’t have tasers,” I predicted out loud.

The woman shouted again, probably the equivalent of ‘freeze’ in their language.

I didn’t wait. I lifted my hands and a wall of flame erupted between me and the cars. I then created a barrier that would block high-speed projectiles only. It came up just in time because I heard the sound of gunfire, as well as the pinks as it bounced off an invisible layer. I wasn’t satisfied with this though.

Since the barrier blocked fast-moving projectiles, it’d do nothing against slow-moving projectiles. One-way barriers didn’t exist. This is why I had to pull down Syph’s barrier earlier. However, conditional barriers could exist, but to them, it’d look like a one-way barrier and freak them out. I lifted my hand and sent out a fireball. Since it was slow, it slipped right through and slammed into one of their cars, causing it to explode. They returned fire, but it all bounced away. As I sent out my fireballs, more cars exploded, some close enough that stuff hit the barrier, but it was all blocked.

I could hear more alarms sounding as more and more vehicles arrived. It looked like I had their attention now. I could hear airships flying overhead. The city was buzzing with people. They were regularly testing my barrier and would soon figure out its secret. I took a deep breath and then unleashed my spell.

“I call upon the powers, to cause destruction and death. Fire Rain!”

This was the big one. I had never cast this spell before. It had only ever been theoretical in my mind. The mnemonic was mostly there to help me remember the details of the spell. Long ago, I had considered what I called apocalypse spells. These were spells of mass destruction, intended to be launched on enemy cities in the case of war. I had been told when I became ruler of Valiant that every country had such spells. They were elaborate formations usually kept hidden within their places of power. When they were threatened, they’d use the formation, unleashing a horrible spell that would obliterate their enemies. It was this world’s equivalent of the nuclear arsenal, never intended to be used by always available to deter others from invading.

Most of these alleged weapons were probably fairy tails, and not only did they require countless magicians countless hours to construct, but even casting them took a dozen people. When I was in my twenties, I grew fascinated with the idea of an ultimate spell, and thus I started to develop one. I had one that I had constructed on Valiant, but this was one of the easier ones… the only one small-scale enough that I could memorize it and possibly cast it myself. It wasn’t at the level of the doomsday spells with only my mana, but it certainly used my ability to the peak.

The sky began to steadily turn red. Clouds began to collect and boil. The air above started to shimmer and twist, much like heat coming off the road. At that moment, fire started to come down like rain. Every dry surface immediately caught on fire. Trees, buildings, signs… nothing was saved. The fire was like napalm, sticking to whatever it struck. When that was a person, they erupted in flames, screaming as they rolled on the ground. If this had been cast in a crowded stadium, the death toll could have been catastrophic. However, this was only localized over the motel complex where they had taken and imprisoned my family.

I watched for a moment. There was something surreal about watching a hundred women run for their lives, screaming and crying as the building next to them fell. Hopefully, my girls had already escaped out the back, a path I had made earlier and warned Brianna to take. They were supposed to escape in the commotion. This wasn’t the first time I had killed anyone and it was hard to feel bad for these women after they tortured my people and even tried to turn me into their stooge. They were part of a system that had enslaved my gender. If the tables had been turned, they’d have been doing the same thing to me. Still, seeing people in pain wasn’t the most comfortable thing. That was the other reason that I sent the girls away.

Airships that had gotten too close were struck with fire and were crashing. This was causing more damage to the city than my spell. I knew this would be an international incident, but I couldn’t bring myself to care too much. They had brought this on themselves. As the spell concluded, I felt a strong weakness overtake me. I had overdrafting my mana. Even as powerful as I had grown over the years, this spell reached my limits. I stumbled slightly. There wasn’t anywhere to run. The motel behind me was completely on fire now, collapsing more with every second. In front of me was a wall of flame. It was starting to shrink, allowing the surviving responders to inch forward.

Although they could reach me now, they were all afraid. The scene earlier had caused them to hesitate. That took me a little time. Just as I fell to my knees, I heard the sound of an airship flying overhead. Considering the last three had crashed, I thought that this person must have been insane to fly here. Although the fire rain had stopped, they had no clue if I could create another one, or even take out airships one at a time. As I stared up at the airship vacantly, trying to remain conscious, a rope ladder was thrown over the edge, landing in front of me. I stared at it blankly.

“Clyburn! Grab on! We got you!” A familiar voice spoke.

I reached out for the ladder, feeling a bit dazed. That’s when I was suddenly tackled. It was only after I fell to the ground that I realized it was the officer woman from before. Half of her hair was cinders, and she was covered in burns. She had an enraged look on her face.

“You’ll pay for what you’ve done!” She declared in a broken common tongue.

I chuckled lightly, looking up at her. I knew I had no energy to fight her anymore. That fire rain had taken everything out of me. She reached behind her back and pulled out a knife. Grinning sadistically, she kneeled next to me.

“When I tortured your bitch, I was hoping I’d get to cut you open one day. I fucking hate men!” She declared.

“Yeah?” I responded. “Too bad, you’ll never get what you want.”

Her eyes flashed in rage, and she lifted the knife.

Boom!

Her head exploded, and she fell to the side.

“Daddy!” A familiar voice shouted.

I looked up to see Raven and Lexy climbing down the ladder. Up above, there was a glint of a lens as someone pulled back a rifle.

“Daddy, are you alright?” Lexy asked, throwing her arms around me.

To my surprise, Raven did the same. I was barely conscious, but I found that being hugged by a sobbing woman was a guilty pleasure of mine. I just wished it didn’t have to happen so often.

“Daddy, you didn’t have to risk your life… not for us!” Lexy sniffled.

“Don’t leave us again! Please, Daddy.” Raven added.

I found myself thinking that this wasn’t all that bad at all.

“What are you two doing? Get him up here now! I would have sent the bodyguards if I knew you too would be so foolish!”

I smiled slightly as I heard Kemala’s voice. The two girls finally realized we were in the middle of the enemy currently, and it’d be less than a minute before we were surrounded. They helped me to the ladder, and Lexy went first with me in the middle and Raven behind. I summoned up all of my remaining strength to climb that ladder. That’s how I learned a few things. First, I learned that Lexy wasn’t wearing underwear. Second, I learned just how much farther willpower could push a person. Third, I learned my daughters did love me.

As I reached the deck of the ship, I collapsed like a sardine. I immediately was hugged, not by Lexy or Raven, but by someone else who meant the world to me.

“You guys came.” I smiled.

Mia smiled back at me. “You silly, still risking your life?”

“That magic spell wasn’t that bad.” Lilith huffed.

“Already, all aboard! The next thirty miles are going to be a bit bumpy!” A woman shouted out at the wheel.

“Captain Angela.”

These were the three girls I had sent a message to as soon as I saw things going south. However, I didn’t know how close they would be and I didn’t know if they got my message. I was originally going to make them meet me at the border, but I updated my coordinates when I decided to go on a rampage. I didn’t expect them to arrive so quickly. As she said, we were about thirty miles from the border. The only way they would have reached us so quickly was if they had already been heading there despite my original orders.

“I know you too well,” Mia said as if she understood what I was thinking. “Things never go according to plan.”

“Thank you for coming.” I sighed, trying and failing to get up.

“You don’t need to worry about things any longer. We’ll take care of this.”

“You’re in an enemy nation. They’re honed in on me.” I continued to try to get up, but she put a hand on my chest, easily pushing me down.

“We have experience with this kind of thing. This isn’t the first time we’ve had to leave a country in a hurry. We know what we’re doing. Why don’t you just rest.”

Lexy and Raven had lay next to me, and both of them were now sleeping. Their fear and worry must have made them more tired than I realized. They looked so peaceful and happy snuggled against me. Kemala, Syph, and Brianna were all safe as well. I looked up at Mia, who was smiling down at me as I used her lap as a pillow.

“I had dreams… dreams you fell into a trap,” I admitted.

“We’ve been taking care of ourselves for decades. We’re alright. Dreams are sometimes just dreams.”

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I wasn’t so sure about that, but I was far too tired to argue with her. The dreams I had were something different, but I was glad to see they were all safe and didn’t prematurely enter the demon lord’s castle.

“I suppose you’re going to be taking me to the next place on my tour?” I offered.

“We’ll stick with you until the end.” She responded. “You know where the final demon lord’s castle is, after all.”

“What about? After that?” I asked, feeling the exhaustion overtake me.

She looked up thoughtfully. “Once we’re done, Lilith’s mission will be over. I suppose, at that point, we won’t need to travel anymore.”

“Maybe… we should all travel… peacefully, together.” I was finding my words harder and harder to get out.

She smiled, stroking my hair. “I would like that.”

My eyes finally grew too heavy to deny, and I fell back into another deep sleep.