Chapter 90: The Betrayal and the Iron Tomb

The flight back to the Holy Capital was the longest journey of Anise’s life.

She did not fly with the Vanguard.

She left them behind in the ash and flew alone, propelled by her golden Level 100 mana.

Her heart was a lead weight in her chest.

She had to explain.

She had to make them see that the "demons" were just farmers and children.

THUD.

She landed squarely in the grand plaza before the Citadel of the Holy Temple.

She expected guards. She expected a tense political standoff with King Valerius the Pious.

She did not expect the plaza to be overflowing with tens of thousands of citizens.

MURMUR. WHISPER.

The massive crowd parted as she walked forward. But they were not cheering.

They were not throwing flower petals like they had when she first reclaimed the borders.

They were staring at her with pure, unadulterated hatred.

Anise slowed her pace, her golden staff feeling heavy in her hands.

’What is happening? Why are they looking at me like that?’

She reached the massive marble steps of the Citadel.

Standing at the top, flanked by a hundred heavily armed Royal Mages, was the Supreme Pope. Beside him stood High Priestess Isolde.

"High Priestess!" Anise called out, stepping up the stairs.

"You have to stop the Vanguard! General Vance is slaughtering innocent civilians! They are just families!"

Isolde did not rush forward to greet her.

The beautiful priestess whose tears had convinced Anise to fight a ten-year war simply looked down at her with cold, terrifying disgust.

"Do not speak to us with that tainted tongue, traitor," Isolde stated.

Her voice was magically amplified to echo across the entire plaza.

Anise froze. The golden aura around her flickered.

"Traitor?" she whispered.

"We received General Vance’s magical transmission hours ago," the Supreme Pope boomed, his voice dripping with righteous fury.

"He reported your treachery. He reported how you turned the Absolute Light against our own holy paladins to protect the demonic filth!"

"They were murdering children!" Anise screamed, her voice cracking.

She turned to the massive crowd in the plaza, desperately searching for a sympathetic face.

"They were burning unarmed villages! The crusade is a lie! It is just a slaughter for resources!"

CLACK. CLACK.

The Royal Mages at the top of the stairs slammed their staves against the marble in unison.

"Lies injected by the dark!" the Pope roared.

"The Hero’s mind has been corrupted by the very beasts she was sent to slay! She has fallen to the demonic seduction!"

"No! Listen to me!" Anise begged, stepping toward the crowd.

She spotted a familiar face near the front of the mob. It was a young woman holding a small boy.

Anise recognized them instantly. They were from Oakhaven.

She had personally carried that boy out of a burning tavern five years ago.

"Echidna," Anise pleaded, reaching a hand out toward the mother.

"You know me. I protected you. Tell them!"

The woman from Oakhaven stared at Anise. Her eyes were filled with absolute, terrified revulsion.

She reached down into the dirt, picked up a jagged cobblestone, and threw it with all her might.

SMACK!

The stone struck Anise squarely on the forehead. It did not hurt her Level 100 body, but the impact completely shattered her soul.

"Demon sympathizer!" the mother shrieked, covering her child’s eyes.

"Monster!"

WHIZZ! THUD! SMASH!

The plaza erupted. Tens of thousands of people, the very citizens she had bled for, the people she had sacrificed her life on Earth to protect, began hurling stones, rotten food, and garbage at her.

"Kill the witch!"

"Burn her!"

"Traitor!"

Anise stood frozen on the stairs.

The garbage and stones bounced harmlessly off her divine armor, but she felt like she was being torn limb from limb.

’This is it,’ she thought, a suffocating, hollow numbness swallowing her heart.

’This is the humanity I traded my soul for. This is what I get after .’

"Subdue the corrupted weapon!" the Pope commanded.

FWOOSH!

A hundred Royal Mages cast heavy, glowing magical chains that shot through the air, wrapping tightly around Anise’s arms, legs, and throat.

’What will they even do to me? The Rulers will have to appear themselves to put a dent on me.’

With her Level 100 power, she could have snapped the chains effortlessly.

She could have unleashed a shockwave of holy light and leveled the entire Citadel.

She could have slaughtered everyone on those stairs.

But she looked at the angry, hateful faces of the children in the crowd.

She refused to be the monster they claimed she was. She refused to shed human blood.

CLANG.

Anise dropped her golden staff. It rolled down the marble steps.

She fell to her knees, completely surrendering her spirit to the void.

She didn’t fight back as the heavy magical chains dragged her into the dark dungeons beneath the Citadel.

The final memory was a hazy, freezing nightmare.

She was locked inside a massive, hollowed-out crystal pod. High Priestess Isolde stood outside the glass, her face a mask of religious zealotry.

"You are too powerful to execute, and too dangerous to keep," Isolde murmured, pressing her hand against the crystal.

"So we will erase you from history."

"Why?" Anise sobbed weakly, the freezing stasis fluid slowly rising around her ankles.

"I gave you everything."

"You were a weapon, Anise," Isolde replied coldly.

"A weapon does not have a conscience."

"Are you seriously thinking of sealing me? Do you think I cannot escape from these flimsy seals?" she asked.

"No. I believe you cannot. Because if you do, the Oakhaven children will die. But if you keep your promise, no one has to die." Isolde said with a smirk.

"Well, you did swore the Oath on the God you believe and the mana that makes you. That was quite not so you promise from you." Anise chuckled as she said.

"It’s your empathy that makes you fragile. You chose to save those children. The children who you saved turned your backs on you the moment they were told a few promising lies. So tell me... what does it feel like to give up your life for those who never valued it?" mocked Isolde,

"It doesn’t matter whether they believed in me. I believed in them... and that was enough. Where will you seal me, though? You would not keep me on the Human Continent as a living bomb under your house, would you?"

"Of course not! We are not fools. You will be locked in The Great Iron Labyrinth. You’ve heard about it, right? I taught you myself, of course." said Isolde.

"I know! My powers shall be sealed. Sealed by the specialized effects of that Labyrinth itself. You thought through it." Anise paused.

"But I believe you have forgotten that I am the Hero. I am not to be taken lightly. I-"

Isolde interrupted her, "What will you do, huh?!"

She closed in and said, "You are nothing! You cannot do anything. You failed as a Hero. You will be forgotten. Whatever you have prepared will turn to dust under the power of light!"

"Anything else you want to say, HERO!"

Anise looked dead into her eyes, "Every one of you will pay, once I am sealed in the depths of the Great Iron Labyrinth! And especially, you shall not die a horrible death. You shall wish you could die than to live the miserable life you are given. The beauty you are so proud of will fade away and everyone close to you shall embrace the light before you. These ten years were fruitful. Goodbye, priestess!"

"They sure were, Hero. Sleep!" said Isolde without a hint of sympathy.

The freezing fluid rushed over Anise’s head, flooding her lungs and forcing her into absolute, suspended animation.

Through the haze of the stasis, she felt the pod being moved.

She felt the rocking of a massive ship crossing the ocean.

She felt the heavy, suffocating darkness as they buried her deep within a rogue, pre-industrial mechanical dungeon on the Monster Continent.

They buried her in the Great Iron Labyrinth so no human would ever accidentally find her. They left her there to rot until the end of time.

Anise’s words were taken for nothing more than the final, desperate cries of a dying soul. And that would be their biggest mistake. That is the story for another time.

---

HISSSSSSS!

The deafening hiss of highly pressurized air shattered the eternal silence.

The freezing, absolute dark of the stasis dream was suddenly pierced by a blinding, brilliant golden light.

GLUG. SQUELCH.

The magical fluid that had filled her lungs for decades began to rapidly drain away.

The thick frost covering the glass of her prison melted instantly.

Anise fell forward as the heavy crystal lid of the coffin groaned and slid open.

"Haah! Haah!"

She gasped raggedly, her chest heaving as she sucked in the stale, dusty air of the Labyrinth vault. Her eyelashes fluttered weakly.

She was free.

She slowly forced her heavy eyelids open. Her hazel eyes were completely unfocused at first, adjusting to the dim, glowing light of the ancient room.

She looked at the stone ceiling. Then, she turned her head weakly toward the front of the pod.

A figure was standing right in front of her.

He was towering, easily six-foot-five. His skin was a dark, hardened olive green. Intricate, black arcane circuit lines pulsed across his broad neck and chest.

A massive, heavy brass-plated mechanical arm was bolted securely to his left shoulder, venting soft plumes of white steam.

He was a monster. A terrifying, apex predator of the continent she had been sent to destroy.

But as Anise looked into his glowing, deeply sorrowful red eyes, a profound, impossible shock pierced right through her lingering trauma.

She recognized those eyes. She recognized the way he stood, the way his jaw clenched when he was trying to hide his pain.

She stared at the fearsome Goblin Lord, her heart completely stopping in her chest.

Her lips parted. Her voice was barely a fragile whisper in the silent vault.

"Robert...?"