Beautiful activities proliferated amidst the feast.
Stages hosted performances by minstrels and sacred poetry, with the neopentecostal movement shining through recitals and soirées.
And, as was customary, without interruption, balls of shit were thrown at those performing.
INNOCENT IX
The songs, with instruments out of tune from being filled with shit, echoed through all the streets.
And the pilgrims slept atop one another while the newcomers continued nonstop, still arriving in the city.
It was an expected ritual, the Pope had the duty to disguise himself and walk among the common people, throwing shit at them.
However, if he were discovered, everyone would have to throw shit at the Pontiff until he ran back to the Celestial Square and entered through the Sacristy gates.
And so it happened, with Cwenburg running and leaping over houses, using water magic to make the Pope slip in the middle of the immense obelisk square.
And from there, Æthelflæd used an alchemy that multiplied the shit in an explosion, with the crowd throwing shit at the Pope until he jumped through the window, fleeing to the sacristy.
Everyone celebrated, except for Leofwynn:
— Stop the two of you! This is insanity! Let's get out of here! Please, Cwenburg! Æthelflæd… — Leofwynn thought better and added to Cwenburg. — I can immobilize Æthelflæd, let's leave together! Call Godwyna…
The serpent-keeper looked down and shook his head, flying high, far away from the chaos.
Leofwynn took a shit-nut right in the middle of her face while waiting for a reply.
She began to cry and walked away, taking more and more shit-balls.
Cwenburg and Æthelflæd would not insist further and, with heartache, said goodbye to the festivities, accompanying Leofwynn, using their own bodies, completely covered in shit, to protect their friend, also dripping.
LEVEL 20
With his skull hitting the ground until he escaped, crawling away, Īsern-clomm knelt.
Gryre-Lāc remained where he had been assaulting the fallen immortal.
Both unable to move their wounded bodies.
On skin covered in blood, the blackening of cuts and bruises. On the stone body, blood and cracks.
— See, with this power we can unite the Monster Continent, return here with an army. What do you, who are so strong, fear? Do you fear the Demon King? Or is it just a conditioned reflex that drives you in folly?
— You're still spouting this crap? Union? Union of what? Do you think the guild rulers are different from us? Life is a battle royale where there are no allies, everyone is an enemy.
The immortal listened to Gryre-Lāc and remembered his own master.
In the Monster Continent, a dragon was Īsern-clomm's master. He had the black clouds of the sky as his nest and lived for over two thousand years.
Frūm-gār, the Green Dragon, taught his servant:
— As vast as the waters are fears. And this is the north of the weak and the strong. The one who will free this cursed land will not be me. My fears make me devour those who approach.
— You didn't devour me, Frūm-gār. — Īsern-clomm was still a child and played sliding down the wings of the creature, almost a hundred meters tall and more than double that in the wingspan of its four pairs of wings.
— I can't even see you… — The green dragon laughed, and the boy laughed too. But after many years, Īsern-clomm realized that Frūm-gār did not see existence in him.
There were no deeds.
There was no glory.
There was nothing, just a boy.
The immortal closed his eyes and measured the remaining aura within him, it was the calculated reserve for the final spell. If the enemy survived this, the immortal would certainly die:
— What I wouldn't give for a peaceful solution.
— Pacifism is the coward's excuse. And that I am not. — The legendary octopus-orc-gargoyle took a defensive stance for the first time.
Approaching the enemy, planning in silence.
One of his greatest assets was being judged as an idiot, for acting, expressing, and speaking like one.
But Gryre-Lāc did not think like an idiot.
Īsern-clomm's hands pointed to the heavens and the earth, and danced in the air until they opened in conjuration:
— Nullification! — The negation of existence, in the form of lightning, shot forth from before the immortal, aimed at the enemy.
Wherever the bolt passed, nothing could ever exist again.
It was a cut in reality itself, a crime against existence, the forbidden magic that represented, to Īsern-clomm, the price for freedom, and that price was everything.