Logout Error: My NPCs Now Worship Me

Archbishop Thallan's shriek echoed across the bridge, a discordant note of madness that shattered the last vestiges of reason. For the knights of the Holy Crusade, it was the point of no return. An order from their supreme commander, blessed by the Church. To disobey was heresy.

With a collective, soul-less roar, the front lines of the ten-thousand-man army lowered their lances and charged. The ground trembled as thousands of tons of steel, horse, and fanatical fury surged forward, aimed directly at the small, terrified mob of villagers blocking the bridge.

The villagers screamed, a sound of pure, hopeless terror. They were about to be trampled, a footnote in a mad priest's holy war.

Seraphina's heart shattered. "NO!" she cried, pulling on her reins, trying to wheel her horse around to intervene, to stop this madness. But it was too late. She was one person in a tide of ten thousand. The charge was already underway. She was forced to watch, a helpless passenger in a chariot of slaughter.

On the walls of Oakhaven, Kaelus stood motionless, a silent observer. He watched the shining knights become a wave of death. He watched the villagers brace for an impact that would obliterate them.

He had given the kingdom every chance to choose peace. He had shown them his power. He had offered them a clear, simple choice. And they had chosen annihilation.

So be it.

He did not raise a hand. He did not speak a word. He simply sent a telepathic command, a single pulse of intent, to the Guardians he had positioned for this very moment.

Now.

As the charging knights were halfway across the bridge, their lances just yards away from impaling the first line of villagers, the world beneath them erupted.

From the murky depths of the Amber River, two colossal forms burst forth in a titanic explosion of water and mud. Boom and Blast.

Boom, the Shield of Nexus, landed on the far side of the bridge, his massive tower shield slamming into the ground with the force of a meteor. The stone of the bridgehead cracked and buckled. He was an immovable mountain of adamantine and fury, completely blocking the Crusade's retreat.

Blast, the Spear of Nexus, landed on the near side, right between the charging knights and the terrified villagers. He didn't even look at the villagers. His back was to them, a silent promise of protection. He leveled his humming energy-lance at the oncoming charge.

The lead knights, their eyes wide with shock at the sudden appearance of the two demigods, had no time to stop. They were committed.

Blast's response was a blur of motion. He didn't fire a single massive beam. Instead, his lance unleashed a torrent of smaller, fist-sized bolts of pure kinetic energy. [Spear Art: Meteorain]. Each bolt flew faster than sound, and each one struck a charging knight squarely in the chest.

The result was not an explosion. It was an implosion. The knights' heavy plate armor, which could turn aside a sword blow, crumpled inwards as if struck by an invisible giant's fist. Man and horse were pulped instantly, their momentum carrying their now-lifeless, crushed forms into a messy pile at Blast's feet. The first hundred knights of the charge were annihilated in less than three seconds.

The rest of the army skidded to a chaotic, messy halt on the bridge, a clog of screaming men and panicked horses.

From the far side, Boom let out a guttural, joyous laugh that was amplified by the runes on his armor. "NOW IT'S MY TURN!" he roared. He slammed his massive warhammer into his tower shield. [Shield Art: Resonant Cataclysm].

The shield, covered in explosive runes, glowed a brilliant, angry red. It didn't unleash a projectile. It unleashed a wave of pure, devastating sound. A sonic boom of such intensity that it shattered the very air.

The wave tore across the bridge. The knights caught in the blast didn't even have time to scream. Their eardrums burst, their armor vibrated itself to pieces, and their bones liquified in their bodies. The first thousand men of the Crusade simply… fell, their bodies collapsing into heaps of broken armor and gore. The stone of the bridge itself groaned and cracked under the phenomenal pressure.

Panic. Absolute, soul-shattering panic.

The mighty Holy Crusade, the pride of the kingdom, had lost ten percent of its number in less than ten seconds. They were trapped on a bridge between two unstoppable monsters.

"FALL BACK! GET OFF THE BRIDGE!" a commander screamed, his voice full of terror.

But there was no retreat. And the assault was only just beginning.

From the high cliffs overlooking the river valley, another figure appeared. Flora. She smiled her sweet, gentle smile as she looked down at the chaos. In her hand, she held the [Seed of the World Tree] Kaelus had gifted her.

"Grow for me, my darlings," she whispered, dropping the seed into the earth. She then placed her hands on the ground and poured her own potent, terrifying life-energy into it. "And feast."

The ground began to tremble. From the riverbanks, titanic, thorny vines, each one as thick as a tree trunk, erupted from the soil. They were not green. They were a sickly, blackish-purple, and they moved with a horrifying, serpentine speed. They swarmed onto the bridge from both sides, weaving through the stone arches, encircling the trapped army.

The knights hacked at the vines with their swords, but their blades just skittered off the thorny bark. The vines were not there to crush. They were there to reap. The thorns, each one the size of a dagger, were hollow. They punched through plate armor like it was paper, injecting a paralytic poison that froze the men in place. Then, from the point of injection, beautiful, blood-red roses bloomed, their roots feeding on the still-living victim.

The bridge became a garden of screaming, paralyzed men being consumed by beautiful, parasitic flowers. It was a masterpiece of horticultural horror.

Archbishop Thallan, safe at the rear of the army, watched in apoplectic disbelief. His army, his perfect weapon of faith, was being dismantled, harvested like wheat. "HOLY FIRE!" he shrieked. "BURN THE DEMON'S CREATIONS! BURN IT ALL!"

The battle-clerics and mages began to chant, unleashing streams of fire and bolts of light at the encroaching vines.

And that's when Gravity chose to act.

She hovered unseen, high above the battlefield, a tiny speck in the sky. She held her [Orb of Starlight], her expression one of cold, academic focus. She did not target the army. She targeted their spells.

As the streams of fire and light flew towards the vines, she made a subtle gesture. [Domain Control: Spell Redirection].

The trajectory of every single spell bent. The holy fire didn't strike the vines; it curved in mid-air and rained back down on the Crusade's own rear lines, engulfing dozens of screaming supply wagons and support staff in friendly fire. The bolts of light, meant to purge darkness, twisted and struck their own battle-clerics, who screamed as their own holy energy turned against them.

Gravity had turned their greatest weapon into their greatest weakness.

Seraphina could only watch, her heart a leaden weight in her chest. This wasn't a battle. It was a methodical, systematic, and cruelly artistic slaughter. Each of these... guardians... was a specialist in a different flavor of annihilation. One was overwhelming force, one was insidious nature, one was untouchable control.

The army was completely broken. Men were throwing down their weapons and jumping from the bridge into the river below, choosing to drown rather than face the horrors upon it.

But there was no escape.

For lurking in the shadows of the forest, Force was waiting. Any soldier who made it to the riverbank was met by the stoic monk. He moved like a blur, a whirlwind of precise, devastating strikes. A single finger-jab to the helmet would cave in a man's skull. A palm-strike to the chest would shatter their ribcage and stop their heart. He was a silent, efficient master of death, ensuring no one escaped the kill-zone.

In less than ten minutes, the Holy Crusade of ten thousand men was reduced to a few hundred terrified survivors huddled in the center of the bridge, surrounded by a forest of screaming rose-men and two silent, waiting demigods.

Archbishop Thallan, his face a mask of utter catatonic shock, was among them.

The vines, the sonic booms, the energy bolts—they all stopped. An eerie silence fell, broken only by the whimpers of the dying.

On the city wall, Kaelus finally moved. He stepped off the hundred-foot-high rampart and floated gently down to the bridge, his feet touching the blood-soaked stone without a sound.

He walked through the carnage, his obsidian armor untouched by the gore around him. He came to a stop before the last huddle of survivors, his silver gaze falling upon the Archbishop.

"You were given a choice," Kaelus's voice was not angry. It was not triumphant. It was the cold, flat voice of a god stating a universal truth. "You chose this."

He raised his hand. The survivors, including Thallan, braced for their end.

But he didn't attack them. He simply clenched his fist.

And behind him, on the city wall, the colossal obsidian golem, the Warden of Nexus, raised its own titanic hand. It pulled its arm back, and then it threw a punch. The punch didn't hit anything. It was a blow directed at the air.

But the force of it created a shockwave, a fist of pure kinetic energy the size of a building. It flew over the heads of everyone on the bridge and slammed into the cliffs miles away where the Crusade had made their camp.

The entire cliff face disintegrated. The army's supplies, their tents, their siege engines, their entire strategic reserve—all of it was wiped from existence in a single, earth-shattering explosion that dwarfed even Kaelus's earlier destruction of Mount Cinderhorn. It was a final, brutal demonstration. Not only have I destroyed your army, but I have erased any trace that it was ever here.

Kaelus then looked at Seraphina, who was sitting on her horse amidst the chaos, untouched by the slaughter, but a prisoner in her own despair.

"Go home, little hero," he said, his voice echoing in the silent valley. "Take these... survivors... with you. Let them be my message. Let them be the story of what happens when mortals mistake their priests for gods."

He turned his back on them, the ultimate victor. The harvest was complete. The kingdom was broken. And from the riverbanks, the villagers who had been saved, who had witnessed this display of horrific, protective power, were all on their knees, their faces turned towards him, their prayers a torrent of pure, unadulterated Divine Power.