NOVEL SIMPLE 59: City Clean-Up
With five Primordial deities revealing themselves to resolve the situation both inside and outside of the city, Kieran knew his plan had failed. Based on past years, there would be, at most, three of them in the city.
Thus, he had built his plan to account for this fact. In fact, he had added some wiggle room and built a plan for four.
Everything had been going well too! The plan to eliminate the three major factions from having any sort of influence had gone well, the ritual had fired without fail, and the cataclysmic monsters had been summoned without a hitch.
Solomon and Joanna revealing themselves to scout out and take care of the three monsters had been expected. Given he wanted to account for an extra two deities, Estelle and a potential other, he summoned three different monsters.
Valencia, then, as the one he found days before the plans initiation, would have to leave her stupid shop or whatever to help the other two fight the monsters while they, the three cults in the city, could have a three versus one situation with Estelle.
This was... acceptable. Though fighting Estelle was not the best situation, in a three versus one situation where Estelle had to protect the randoms from the three major factions, their chance of winning was... decent.
The more likely scenario Kieran had banked on though, was the one where either Estelle or Valencia were out of the city. Whether because Estelle was visiting Sylvia or because Valencia was taking her girlfriend on a trip, Kieran hoped one would be out.
Because if one was out, they’d have the city all to themselves without anyone to stop them.
Yet... what had happened? Rainier and Sylvia had revealed themselves as well?
From where?!
Crushed, Kieran wasn’t sure where to go now. He was in hiding and was trying to monitor the situation of the cultists around the city. Now, Valencia wasn’t even in the fray, she was backup!
Valencia... of all people, as backup?!
Shaking his head and cursing the heavens, Kieran crushed a nearby rock while peeking at a distant Estella and Sylvia. What a nightmare...
Estelle, to her credit, was having a fair bit of fun. It had been a long time since she had the opportunity to whip out any of her divine artifacts! So, given the chance, she had now pulled out two of them just for a bit of overkill.
Plus, she was fighting alongside Sylvia for the first time in what felt like forever! It was so much nicer to fight with her than against her.
With throwing stars in one hand and a lamp hanging off the wrist of the other, Estelle took on the offensive role as Sylvia took care of the rest. Estelle just zipped around while sending divinity-enhanced throwing stars into any unsuspecting cultist she came across. A single star was enough to knock out anyone who wasn’t a deity.
Doing a mix of flying and running, Estelle leapt from building to building while her left arm moved without rest. Each movement was another star thrown, which homed its way into the back of each cultist’s head before flying back to Estelle.
Laughing, as she slapped an attack back at a cultist with her bare hand like a volleyball, Estelle called her stars back to her with a flick of the wrist. Catching all of them without so much as a thought, she threw them forward once more.
As her stars sliced through the air, Estelle paused as she came across a deity leading a small group of cultists through an intersection.
Seeing this, Estelle decided to take a moment to gather information. Hanging off the side of a building far above them, Estelle took a few seconds to stare at them before she got bored.
Estelle dropped down from the sky, doing her best Valencia impression and slamming into the ground like a small meteor. Debris sprayed out in every direction and incapacitated a fraction of the non-deity combatants. Now in the heart of the opposition, Estelle raised her arm.
One activation of her lamp later and the surroundings began to darken. All the light was gradually sucked out of the area, leaving the small speck of light within itself as the only light source. Estelle detached the lamp from her wrist and let it float in the air while beginning to slink her way through the darkness.
Using her own divinity to augment the lamp to extend the darkness so it covered the entire neighborhood, Estelle began using her throwing stars once more. Now, under darkness, they could show their full potential.
Gleaming like stars in the sky, each shuriken moved without Estelle’s direct control. Burying themselves into the various cultists, each one incapacitated them before auto-targeting to another fighter. Given all the combatants were well beyond the ordinary mortal at the minimum, a little penetration wouldn't kill them.
Anytime a star failed to eliminate a target in one hit though, it looped back around to create an unending stream of attacks until the enemy was done.
Leaving behind a small field of knocked out fighters, Estelle karate chopped the deity leading them in the back of the neck to knock them out as well before moving on.
She would leave the body collection to someone else. That was... uh... Sylvia’s job! She could put them in plant cages and gather them all to put them in an actual prison...
Shrugging off her responsibility, Estelle flew off as Sylvia shook her head in the distance.
Sylvia, unlike Estelle, wasn’t just having fun cleaning up the city. Using a thorny divine artifact that grew through her hand, Sylvia used the blood it drew to strengthen the growth of her own plants. Yet, even though the artifact pierced through her hand, because of her healing factor, she had to reopen the wounds in her hand every once and a while to let the blood keep flowing.
Her job now, though, was to use these plants to repair and support any buildings that seemed in danger of collapsing. Marcen’s Cliffs was home to a fair number of skyscrapers, so if one fell, more would follow.
Beyond being a glorified construction worker though, Sylvia also trailed along behind Estelle with several huge lumbering plants in tow. Each one served a storage plant for the bodies they came across. Whether it was a dead cultist or a tired member from the three major organizations, Sylvia picked them up and sorted them into the correct storage plant.
Giving the tired fighters from the three major organizations a couple energy replenishing fruits for food, Sylvia made sure to give them stern looks while emphasizing the stupidity of their fight.
“Where are all the big players though...” Sylvia murmured while growing a huge vine. Wrapping the vine around a struggling office building, Sylvia continued on forward while pondering to herself. “We have the situation under control but all the higher-ups are nowhere to be found.”
Deciding to actually use her brain unlike Estelle, Sylvia opted to lean into caution instead of just trusting her and everyone else’s power.
Seeding the path she and Estelle were taking through the city with unactivated plants, Sylvia made sure to give each of the seeds a couple drops of blood and some divine energy before moving forward. These plants could be activated by Rainier if he created a storm infused with her divine energy.
And... well, they’d serve a variety of purposes if needed.
