Angelica, the lady of burning rightfulness.
It was a name that hadn't been said out loud for eons, and as all of the Heroes who were reading the lips of the King in the meeting room of the Order reached the same conclusion regarding just what he had uttered, an uproar was caused, and surprisingly, it was started by the Head, himself.
"The… Artefact of the Emperor! So that's why he took it!"
Saying so, he collapsed back into his chair almost as if the tension he had been feeling when he saw that hawk break through and seem like it was going to impale the king was too heavy, but even before his words died down, many shouts began to be heard in the cavern.
Most of them displayed the utter disbelief that the Heroes were feeling on seeing such an ancient weapon unleashed, and there were even a few who were left so stunned that they could only sit, speechless, while shaking their heads as if they just could not come to terms with what was happening.
It was only very few, like the Mother of Healing, who smiled as if it was something that they should have expected from the king, but as a change come upon the battlefield that had been created inside the Artefact of the Church, all of them fell silent and once again focused their gazes on the display trinket in the middle of the cavern.
The sword finally stopped growing in size after it had enlarged to be at least 12 feet tall, and even for the giant form that the king had taken on, it was too large.
A mad smile suddenly came on his face as he made a few Heroes fly from his leg to his hand in order to make it big enough to hold the hilt that had also grown to be a fourth of its height wide, and in response, the Hero whom they all had never thought would defect finally spoke, after mockingly clapping his hands.
"Well done, king. Like those tricksters in villages who only use baggy coats to hide their pathetic stunts, you're pulling out one after the other, almost as if you believe that they will help you to stay alive today. It is something to be commended, and I'm slowly understanding just why the Church tried to recruit you so much before taking the decision to end you, and scatter your ashes in the air of the new world that is to come. Go on, then. Keep pulling them out. Keep entertaining us. But the way that this day will end…will not change."
He was positively fuming at this point, so all those who had known him before could clearly tell that the king had definitely touched a nerve.
After all, he couldn't even be blamed: what else could someone who prided themselves on their perfect calculations do if they saw their plans being upended time and again by the same person?
The response by the king was far less articulate- he simply took off from where he stood after bending his legs for just a fraction of a second.
A visible shockwave erupted from that spot, as he managed to pass the sound barrier not even a few seconds after his departure from where he had been standing. Such was the raw strength that could be expected from a Holy Bison's leg, but if it weren't for the Jaguar's foot which he also used, he would not have been able to control his ascent as well as he was doing now.
The importance of this control became all the more apparent as he approached his enemy, who was still enshrouded in the bubble formed by the Artefact.
For once, Vohler had taken the decision to just stop and see what the king would do. He stood there, watching the king come closer and closer, and even though he had just lost his temper, he had already controlled himself, so much so that he looked straight into the king's eyes as he came nearer and nearer, as if challenging him to break through and kill him, if he could.
For a little bit of time, it looked like that was exactly what the king would try to do, even though it would be futile as the strength of the Artefact had already been displayed, and was bared for all to see who could use their elementary vision to study the blinding complexity of this precious object that had found its way to Angaria on the behest of the Church.
Yet, at the last moment before the impact, the king stretched forward the Jaguar's leg, and even though he was going at such a high speed, he managed to just slightly tap on the bubble and propel himself over and behind it, without losing any of the immense momentum that he had gained on his way to his target.
The roar of a dragon suddenly burst forth from his left hand, and even before the Heroes inside the bubble could turn around, a loud scream was heard from a point behind them.
Raising his eyebrows, Vohler turned around to see the tip of the crystalline sword somehow poking through the barrier he had made using the Artefact, and exactly at that point was a Hero whose face was constricted in an expression filled with immense pain.
With haste and gathering shock, he checked the Artefact only to see that the point of entry of the sword had been the weakest point, as a result of being formed so quickly after pulling out resources from the rest of it, which had been reinforced to the fullest so as not to let the king out.
He had had one chance to attack, and he had used it to take out a Hero.
This one happened to be one that hadn't raked at the top of the group in terms of power, but he was still a valuable addition to their team.
He looked with horror at all of them before collapsing onto the transparent barrier they were standing on, and a moment later, his eyes began to smoke, much like the Hero who had fallen off the king's body before.