Godslayer Lysette: Chapter 262 (Patreon)

Chapter 262: Diversion of the Fliori

Lysette continued her work in relative silence compared with the other eight, each of whom was socializing and making smalltalk off in the distance.  For her, there would be a time for that later.  She promised herself that she would stop alongside them for a lunch break shortly before noon.  At least, she told herself as much after relenting to Mirae’s incessant mental prodding.

Mirae had made a good point with their request.  The best way to try to move beyond her baser instincts was to do what she had done in the beginning, back in Domark, and had stopped doing more recently.  To spend time among ordinary people, both Cultivators and not.  Away from battle and training and combat and war and death and suffering, to see people as people outside of the context of warring gods and battles for the fate of the world.  The time for that would come soon enough.

In the interim, Lysette was the only one who could clear the trees in any reasonable time period.  She had given the plant manipulation technique to both Jules and Katie, but neither of them could use it to the same extent that she could.  Either one of them might move a tree on their own per half hour, and it wasn’t the sort of task that would see any benefit if the two of them tried to move a single tree at once.

Progress wasn’t as fast as Lysette would have liked.  Though she could command four trees at once, albeit with some strain, it still took five to ten minutes per tree.  Neither uprooting them nor moving them were too time consuming.  But it took quite a bit of time and mental effort per tree to help each replant itself without damaging either them or any other trees or plants in the area.

On account of the high density of trees, including a handful of towering monstrosities easily a century old, they were only advancing at about a hundred feet an hour.  It turned out to be a good pace for the others as well; the human Cultivators could move faster when all working together, yes.  But they each needed time to rest and hydrate and occasionally head back to town for a bite of food or to relieve themselves.

All in all, it wasn’t so bad.  Aurie stopped by midmorning with some walnut cookies.  They were good— sweet, but not too sweet, their nutty flavor augmented by hints of… vanilla?  How she made them or where she got vanilla flavor or who did either of those on her behalf remained a mystery though— despite Lysette’s asking, Aurie refused to budge.  For some reason— more a gut instinct than any evidence-based hypothesis, though, Solanna was at the top of her list of people likely responsible.

Noon came sooner than Lysette would have liked.  The others, with the exception of Mirae, were all nearing their limits and starting to grit and moan and drop like flies on the cool grass beneath their feet.  Beatrice was the first to give out, with her brother only lasting about ten minutes longer.  Jules and Katie decided to stop twenty minutes after that in what must’ve been the most perfect timing.  Aurie, together with Solanna, Serrena, and Rayleigh arrived not a minute later with quite an array of sandwiches, crackers, cured meats, and other assorted finger foods.

Lysette took a couple of pieces of one of the cheeses.  Definitely one of the better flavors she’d had in Ciricu.  Not overly complex, but well aged and went down smoothly despite the decent bite.  She wanted more, but abstained at least until the others had had their fill.

Speaking of, they were all talking amongst themselves in-between stuffing their faces with food and drink when she arrived over to join them.  Though she herself was feeling the fatigue as well, it didn’t take that much additional effort to construct a makeshift long table and pair of  benches out of small branches and leaves.  Not the most comfortable designs, she added as she sat down, but it was a lot more convenient to eat off the table than the ground.  Fewer bugs crawling around on the table as well.

The others gathered around, with Lysette sitting in the middle of one of the benches.  Mirae sat to her right, and the others gathered around in a fairly predictable pattern.  Jules and Katie sat across from Lysette and Mirae.  Serrena sat between Solanna and Rayleigh, with the former of those two sitting next to Lysette.  Lilia sat next to Mirae, Gerald and Amalia sat across from Lilia, and the two newcomers sat across the table to Lysette’s left.

“Lyse, was it?” Rolf asked after a few minutes of casual conversation amongst the others.

Lysette nodded.  “Something you need?”

“I know the Colonel said so herself back a few months ago, but I still want to hear it from you directly.  Did you do something to us that separated us from our Cultivation abilities?”

Lysette took a long breath.  “I did.”

“You rat-faced bastard!” Beatrice screamed.  “How dare you!  You–  You–”

“Calm down, Beatrice,” Jules said.  “You are making a fool of yourself.”

“How can I be calm when this…  This… asshole just admits to stealing years of our time and energy and I don’t even want to think about how many thousands of gold that each of us had to spend on Essence crystals.  You three are the ones acting shameful, sitting here and eating alongside such a monster.”

Lysette opened her mouth, but Jules again cut her off.

“Sergeant Zakai, you will be seated.  Whatever has happened has happened.  We fought with honor for Terea and she defeated us.  By all rights, she had every right to strike us down in battle.  And yet she chose this path, and we’re all here enjoying lunch together.”

“But–”

Katie swallowed.  “Sergeant, look around you.  What do you see?”

“Way too many trees.  So many trees I think I’m going to be sick.  That, and an empty riverbed that we’re building.”

“Look at the village.  What do you see?  And more importantly, what don’t you see?”

“It’s just an ordinary village.  Houses, people, kids playing, small stores, farms.  It’s like every other small village in Terea.  I’m not seeing your point.”

“Again, what don’t you see?”

“Tall buildings?  Or, I guess, large buildings?  Other than the prison where they lock us up.”

“You can leave at any time,” Katie said.  “Lyse has been quite clear on that.”

“And you actually believe her?”  Beatrice slammed her hands on the table, though, with its construction, the small branches which comprised it absorbed the impact, causing only minimal noise and disruption.  “Sure, she says we can leave, but I’m sure that she or one of her goons will kill us the moment one of us is stupid enough to try.”

Mirae’s hand tensed on their thigh, but Lysette calmed them with a gentle stroke underneath the table.

“Do you see any soldiers?” Jules said.  “Any military installations?  You should’ve known that Ciricu only had a standing town guard of four people because it was never believed that an army was going to try to scale the Spire Mountains.  The people had to rush together and build our complex because they didn’t even have a jail that could hold more than five people.

“Most notably, and this is the part that I wanted you to notice, have you seen any facility that could hold a Cultivator with an Essence coefficient of over a thousand?  Let alone three or four thousand.”

“No, but–”

“But what?”

“But that monster moves so fast it’s like she can teleport.  And you saw that she cut down every one of us without breaking a sweat.  I just–  I don’t understand why she stole all our Cultivation, and worse, now we’re all sitting here right across the table from her and you’re trying to justify her actions!  What in the Infernal realm is wrong with you?  Shouldn’t you be even more pissed off than I am?”

Beatrice stomped off toward the village, grunting and muttering obscenities under her breath.  The rest of the table went silent, with Jules and Katie in particular looking at Lysette.  Lysette lowered her head and sighed.

“I did what I thought was best at the time.  But yes, I couldn’t take all of you as prisoner as you were.  I might have been able to subdue you if necessary, but could I have stopped you from taking a hostage or potentially harming one of the villagers?  I doubt it.  And if I needed to leave for any period of time, well–”

Rolf was the one to break the silence.  “I understand.  But my sister is… frustrated.  I said earlier that we’re proud Earth Cultivators going back centuries.”

Centuries?  Are they descended from a deity like Serrena is?

Lysette wasn’t the only one who drew the possible connection.  Solanna had her head down as well, deep in thought on the matter.

“What’s your family name?” Solanna asked.

Rolf stuttered.  “It’s… Zakai.  I’m not sure-”

“Does that name mean anything to you?” Lysette messaged Solanna.

Solanna didn’t respond to the telepathic question.  “Does the family name Blariosa mean anything to you?”

Rolf’s eyes opened.  “Not ours, but our grandmother’s brother had that name.  Maybe our grandmother’s parents as well, but I never met either of them.  They both died before I was born.”

“And they were Earth Cultivators like you and your sister?”

“I don’t know much about them, but I’d presume so.”

“I’d say that just about confirms it.  Zoltan Blariosa was indeed the name of Goleo’s child from about eight hundred years ago.  Farris was his descendant in my time.  Incredibly talented Cultivator and just as stubborn and immovable as Saffron.  Just as much of a pain in the ass as her, too.  But for reasons that are his own, he chose not to awaken his divinity.”

“I wonder.  You think it was because of Saffron already being alive and awakened?  It sounds like he would have embodied a Domain too close to hers.”

“I–  It’s certainly possible.  Can’t believe I never considered that as a possibility.  Omnia’s system wouldn’t permit two demigods with the same Domain.”

“But it would permit two demons at once, even though we embody opposition to the system?”

“In different ways.”

Lysette linked Mirae and Serrena into the conversation.

“Serrena, Love, Solanna is pretty confident that both Rolf and his sister are the same as she and Serrena are.  Only, descendents of Goleo, God of Earth”

“Again,” Solanna interjected.  “I’m not certain, but if they are telling the truth— and I have no reason to believe they’re lying— I’m maybe… ninety percent confident in my assessment.”

“So, are you going to tell them?” Serrena asked.  “If you’re asking me if you should, I think they have the right to know.”

Solanna nodded.  “I agree with Serrena.  I respected Sandra’s wishes to not tell Sara, and Sara’s wishes not to tell her about our bloodline, but if it were me, I would want to know so I can make that decision for myself.”

Mirae waited for nearly a minute.  “My concern is that, once you tell them, they will be dragged into this war and aren’t going to be able to extricate themselves no matter what.  If you tell them, you are going to have to put whatever happens to them on your conscience.”  Their tone noticeably sharpened.  “That goes for all three of you.  If they know about their divinity, they will be a target.  Best case scenario, they become allies.  But Beatrice doesn’t like you already and there’s certainly a possibility that she will betray you if you tell her.”

“And if that happens…”

Lysette didn’t want to mention the possibilities.  Beatrice could betray them.  Sell them out to Terea.  Stab them in the back, or any other degree of treachery.  If that did happen, Lysette knew that the next confrontation would be to the death.  A deific Beatrice bent on their destruction would be too dangerous to be left alive, and as Alan’s death had confirmed, draining a deity completely meant killing them.

But there was one concern that trumped the others.  They had the right to make their own decisions.  If Lysette didn’t want to be a hypocrite, didn’t want to be just as bad as every other deity, that meant she had to stick to the principle of sharing power with all.  Even with those who might one day take up arms against her.  If that did happen, she’d just have to let the pieces fall where they may afterwards.

She sighed.  “Risks or no, I think we have to tell them.”

Chapter 261: https://www.patreon.com/posts/115424812

Table of Contents: https://www.patreon.com/posts/101896170

Chapter 263: https://www.patreon.com/posts/115536759