“The Knights of Eden had never suffered a defeat before that day, but with the help of the Guardians, the Equillian Federation had dismantled our ground forces in a matter of minutes,” The Goddess said solemnly. “In the end… it was all up to me.”
In a flash the Guardians scrambled like hornets darting out of a recently broken nest. The Goddess unleashed a ferocious roar as She threw Her hands before Her, sending a powerful wave of energy pulsating from Her smoldering force field. Several of the machines were destroyed upon impact but the majority of them were able to absorb the attack as they activated faint yellow force fields of their own. The Goddess continued to unleash powerful waves of Her energy, however the remaining robots were completely unharmed and they continued to scramble and close in on Her as She tried in vain to destroy them. I watched in horror as Her force field suddenly began to shrink and the swarms of Guardians latched onto Her fiery aura in such great numbers that She completely disappeared amongst them.
For a moment it seemed as though all hope was lost, and then suddenly slivers of bright blue light poured out from within the swarm of deadly machines. The Guardians were suddenly blown backward as The Goddess’ blistering blue aura suddenly expanded in an instant and exploded into a massive ball of blackened orange and blue fire. Nearly a fourth of the machines were destroyed by the explosion but almost a thousand of them still remained, and as they regained their balance they instantly set their sights on the Goddess who was still hovering in mid-air amongst the chaos.
The Goddess’ silky waves of midnight hair flowed in the wind behind Her as She spread Her powerful arms and unleashed a ferocious roar while the droves of Guardians rocketed toward Her from all directions. Even the ground below us trembled and shook as the Goddess slammed Her open palms together and sent a powerful shockwave ripping towards the approaching Guardians. Nearly half of the machines were instantly crushed into nothing by the attack but as the smoke cleared and the remaining Guardians regained their balance it was clear to see that hundreds of them still filled the air.
Another crack of thunder rang out as the Goddess slammed Her hands together once more. However, this time the resulting shockwave was harmlessly absorbed by the Guardians’ faint yellow force fields as they relentlessly rocketed towards Her. Several knots twisted in the pit of my stomach as I soon realized that the machines were somehow adapting to Her every attack.
The Goddess quickly reactivated Her flaming blue force field as the swarming Guardians began to rapidly fire red energy beams at Her from small retractable cannons that were mounted on their shoulders. The red beams were harmlessly deflected away by the Goddess’ sweltering aura, however Her attempts to retaliate with blasts of Her own energy were also absorbed by the Guardians’ force fields.
Soon, the swarm was threatening to overwhelm Her once again, but the Goddess managed to create a bit of space by swatting hundreds of them away with a single swing of Her right hand, as if Her hand was somehow wielding an invisible weapon that stretched for hundreds of miles. She continued to bat them away with Her telekinetic powers but with each swing of Her fists the machines would charge back toward Her with even more speed. Still swatting at the relentless Guardians with Her right hand, the Goddess threw Her head back and roared at the sky above as She reached towards the clouds with Her left arm.
Suddenly a great lightning storm infused with the blistering blue power of the Goddess struck out of the clouds above and hordes of the machines caught within its path were instantly incinerated into nothing. The Goddess’ thundering roar shook the ground below and She threw both hands toward the clouds while the blazing lightning storm raged on. The yellow force fields that surrounded the handful of Guardians that remained trapped within the storm suddenly started to pulsate and instead of struggling to keep the Goddess’ lightning at bay, the yellow force fields now seemed to become stronger as they absorbed the energy from the raging storm.
The Goddess’ eyes widened with surprise and rage as giant red death rays suddenly hammered against Her force field as thousands more of the giant circular spaceships from before once again shimmered into view in the distance. The nearly forty Guardians that survived the lightning storm scrambled toward the approaching spaceships as they moved to coordinate an attack against the Goddess.
The Goddess’ eyes suddenly ignited with white hot flames of energy as the fleet pelted Her aura with countless waves of their red death rays. The blazing force field that surrounded Her began to rapidly expand as She began to grow in size at a rate of fifty feet per second. Before long She was as tall as a sky scraper and the swarm of Guardians and flying saucers that surrounded Her looked more like a swarm of bees that were scrambling around a ferocious yet equally beautiful giant.
A planet shattering roar shook the skies as the Goddess threw Her head back and embers of Her fiery blue energy boiled over inside Her throat. The skies were lit ablaze as She stepped forward and spewed an inferno of blistering power from Her mouth. The fleet of enemy spaceships was completely devoured as the scorching wave of energy tore across the horizon, but as the smoke cleared and the gigantic Goddess gasped for breath, I was devastated to see that the Guardians remained unfazed. Not only had the Goddess’ attack failed to destroy them but their force fields as well as their menacing visors now glowed with hints of the same fiery blue power that She had used against them.
One of the hovering Guardians suddenly flew straight upward and zoomed away from the battle as the Goddess prepared to attack them once again. The fleeing Guardian accelerated to an unbelievable speed and rocketed away into space as the Goddess once again showered the rest of the machines with the flames of Her power. The soft blue glow of their once yellowish force fields became stronger as the Guardians absorbed more and more of the Goddess’ energy while they made their way toward Her. Soon the group of Guardians broke through the Goddess’ onslaught of smoldering energy and began to fire blasts of Her own power back at Her.
“No!” I cried out as the Goddess stumbled backward in pain while the Guardians’ powerful energy blasts continued to break through Her force field and slam against Her massive body. As the swarming Guardians continued to pelt Her with beams of Her own energy, The Goddess threw Her hands before Her and telekinetically blocked some of the blasts while rapidly shrinking to Her normal size so as not to give them such a huge target.
Before long the Goddess resulted to zipping around the sky faster than my eyes could see, and She attacked the remaining Guardians with devastating right handed haymakers as she picked up more and more speed. She momentarily regained the upper hand as Her punches reduced several of them into scrap metal but as She continued to zoom around the sky, the robots suddenly developed the ability to match Her speed.
Tears welled in the corners of my eyes as the swarm finally cut off the Goddess’ path and completely surrounded Her. The trapped Goddess hovered amongst the machines as thunder rang out in the distance and Her long hair fluttered in the strong wind behind Her. The menacing visors of the surrounding Guardians glowed intensely as they aimed their cannons at Her in unison. The Goddess’ entire body suddenly began to violently tremble and small bolts of bright blue energy sporadically rippled up and down Her body as the group of Guardians slowly tightened their circle around Her. As Her trembling intensified Her hands suddenly burst into bright blue flames and She cried out in agony as the flames completely burned Her hands away. The fire that had reduced Her hands to ash then spread along Her forearms until everything up to Her elbows was burned away into nothing. Jets of white hot energy mixed with the bright blue power that surrounded Her entire body spewed like geysers from the ends of Her charred elbows as She set Her sights on the Guardians that beset Her.
By the time the Guardians fired their cannons at Her they were already too late, because She had become a blazing tornado of deadly power as She continually spun around in mid-air causing the jets of energy that were spewing from Her arms to create a massive vortex that was pulling the remaining Guardia
ns in against their will. The Guardians ignited their force fields with all their power as they tried desperately to keep themselves from being destroyed, but in the end the vortex that they were all trapped within was simply too potent. With one glance I could tell that the white hot energy that was spewing from the Goddess’ arms was much more than the bright blue energy that She had already used against them. This was the same energy that made up the spectral eye form that She had taken when She initially appeared before me—this was the very essence of the Goddess. Many of the machines were instantly destroyed as soon as they entered the vortex but the last few that remained were only able to delay their inevitable doom for a few minutes. Their adaptive force fields glowed brightly as the unyielding torrent of the Goddess’ flaming essence corroded their energy away. Soon, their numbers dwindled to almost nothing, and it finally looked as though the Goddess would be victorious—but that was before the flash.
My heart skipped a beat as a blinding flash of white light ignited the skies overhead and the Guardian that had flown into outer space earlier in the battle suddenly descended from the heavens at nearly the speed of light. Before the Goddess was able to react the streaking Guardian zoomed down the eye of the storm like a comet and slammed against Her body with the force of a meteorite.
Buildings and trees along with everyone and everything else on the ground below were instantly leveled as a massive ball of white-hot fire erupted in the skies above. I watched in frightened awe as the rising ball of fire momentarily collapsed onto itself but with another blinding flash of white light the wreath of heavenly fire exploded outward once again. The ensuing wave of fiery destruction consumed everything in sight, with many of the people and objects within its path being completely incinerated before the fire had even reached them.
When the smoke finally cleared and the dust and rubble had settled there was nothing left. No signs of life, no signs of the Guardians and no sign of the Goddess. All that remained was an enormous crater in the ground that was easily the size of Alaska. And in the sky above the great crater, only I remained, floating above the cinder and frozen in disbelief as I struggled to find words for what I had just seen. But there were no words. There was nothing I could say after witnessing a loss of life to that magnitude. Before long even the skies began to turn to ash and the entire world around me blew away into nothing as it faded into the darkness.
20. FEAST OF SOULS
MONICA:
“I WAS DEFEATED,” THE GODDESS’ ENCHANTING VOICE declared as I once again found myself surrounded by that otherworldly blackness and fog.
“Then how are you here? How can you be talking to me if you were destroyed?” I asked as I peered into the darkness before me.
“Those who were lost in the explosion on that day are the reasons for my salvation. With my physical form destroyed, I needed to quickly flee the corporeal realm, lest my true form cease to exist as well. Fortunately for me, the simultaneous deaths of the billions that had been caught within that explosion opened a gateway big enough for me to pull what was left of my essence back into the spiritual universe from which I had come.”
“Are-are you saying you come from heaven?” I stammered as the Goddess’ massive spectral eye form suddenly appeared before me once again, casting a soft blue glow into the darkness around me.
“No,” She said, as Her flaming eyes stared intensely at me. “My universe is merely a plane of existence where only spiritual beings exist. In your universe one must possess a physical and a spiritual form in order to maintain existence but once the physical form has ended the spiritual essence must cross over into our universe. Such is the natural order of the multi-verse in which we all exist.”
“But what happens when a soul crosses over? Is it like purgatory or something?” I asked. Several moments of silence passed which made me uneasy. I was just about to ask the question again when the Goddess finally replied.
“It is a bit more complicated than that, my dear. You must understand that there are many other planes of existence besides mine and yours and there are many other beings like me that are native to the spiritual universe in which I was created. We know not who created us nor you but my kind took pride in molding your universe into what it has become today. My people were at one point merely the stewards of the spiritual realm, but we would often reach across the veil into your reality and through subtle influence we were able to systematically improve the lives and viability for all organic life. For millennia we performed as overseers to your universe and there was a time when we would allow the souls that crossed into our world to move on to whatever realm their fate would have in store—but unfortunately, my dear… that time has long past.”
“I don’t understand,” I admitted as Her foreboding tone caused a sudden chill to wash over me.
“The pattern of ascension has existed since the beginning of time and for most of our nearly eternal existence my kind has honored the pattern—but alas, jealousy is not a sin that is only bound to flesh and bone. For eons we have watched over the corporeal realm and helped organics reach their full potential only to watch you momentarily cross over into our realm before moving on to the other planes of existence—but we too covet passage to the other realms. However, there are barriers of unimaginable power that even beings as powerful as us are incapable of breaching. Eons of not having access to the other universes beyond our own slowly turned the love that our kind once had for organics into bitter resentment—and as a display of defiance, my kind began to prevent the ascension of organics in the most heinous way possible.”
“How? How did they prevent them from moving on?” I asked after the Goddess remained silent for a few moments.
“There are still a few organic souls that manage to make it beyond the walls of our universe however most of them are devoured upon entry.”
“Devoured?! Th-they eat them?” I stammered.
“Yes, it was discovered that the consumption of the residual spiritual energy of organic life gives our kind greater strength. Those of us who fed on the souls of organics eventually became more powerful than the rest of us and before long they gained dominion over the entire realm.”
“But I don’t understand,” I admitted. “Why would the others do something like that? Why would beings as powerful as you be jealous of us?”
“We have existed for far longer than your mind can comprehend, Monica. However, we are not eternal and must therefore have a creator. There are those among us who mean to seek out the Creator of All Things by obtaining enough power to breach the impermeable barrier that prevents my kind from venturing beyond the first two universes.”
“Are you saying that they’re devouring souls in order to find God?” I asked.
“So it would seem.”
“But I thought you were gods! Look at how they worship you on Eden!” I cried.
“Organics have referred to my kind by many names—titans, gods… angels. You worship us due to the enormity of our spiritual power, however our power pales in comparison to that of the Creator of All Things. In the end, the Creator is as far beyond us as we are beyond you—and that is what angers my brothers and sisters the most. That is what drives them to consume the souls of organics in hopes of someday amassing enough power to confront the Creator. They envy the fact that your kind is so weak by comparison yet the Creator has shown you favor over us in allowing you to ascend to the other realms whilst forcing my kind to remain trapped within the spiritual universe. I too once wondered why the Creator would forsake us to remain within the one realm, however my love for organics as well as the Creator of All Things would not allow me to partake in the feasting of mortal souls. In the beginning, there were others who felt as I did but they were either quickly consumed by the blasphemers that sought to confront the Creator or they eventually turned against me. I too would have been consumed had the Creator not bestowed upon the ancient Anokians the knowledge of a divine ritual that was capable of pulling my essence across the veil of reality i
nto the corporeal realm. The rest of my kind could not follow me here but that did not stop them from reaching across the veil and influencing the Equillians to seek out and destroy me.”
“You say that this has something to do with my destiny but I can’t see where any of this has anything to do with me,” I confessed as I continued to stare into the great eye before me.
“After my first vessel was destroyed I ventured back across the veil and I have since hid here in the spaces between our realms. It was here that I first heard the prayers of one of your world’s most powerful psychics—and it was here that I agreed to grant her the ability to give birth to you, that she may finally have the child that she had wanted for so long and that I may one day have the vessel that I needed to return.”
“Wait a second—what are you saying?” I asked as my heartbeat quickened with anxiety. “You’re not—you’re not talking about my mother are you?”
“Yes dear… She is,” my mother suddenly answered from somewhere behind me—and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on edge as I slowly turned to face her.
Savior Part 2: Son of Eden (The Savior Series) Page 20