Capítulo 111: Felix Megistus - Chapter Eleven
Upon seeing my conjuration, the agents switched their magazines and cocked their rifles.
"Guy," I called out calmly.
Before any of them could fire a single shot, Guy had laid a round through the chambers of twelve of the men. Their rifles disintegrated upon contact with the bullets from the betrayer's revolvers, his weapons smoking slightly after a crisp neutralization.
Nice, they still have not developed a way to counter those.
"Disassemble," I commanded softly.
In response, the remnants of their firearms clattered into pieces, metallic components scattering across the ground like the bones of vanquished enemies.
"You are trespassing on sacred ground," I continued, stepping forward, my boots crunching on the gravel. "Remove yourselves before I do it."
"Hit them with Keraunos," one of the agents called out bravely.
"Mortals cannot hold it, let alone wield the damned thing," I retorted, a smirk playing on my lips. "So stop bluffing and leave while I am still feeling the leftover generosity bequeathed unto me by Azazyel."
"Do I look like a man who bluffs?" the leader of the agents called out, he checked his watch and sleeved his hand back into his pocket.
I glanced up, squinting against the brightening sky, and felt a cold shiver trace down my spine. The atmosphere crackled with a strange energy, an ominous foreboding that I couldn't quite place but unmistakably felt. It was as if the very air was charged with a silent chorus of warnings, heralding something far beyond mortal machinations.
"Looks like you brought more than just guns to a sorcery fight," I said, turning back to the agents with a raised eyebrow.
A low rumble echoed through the air, growing in intensity—a sound both ancient and terrifying. The ground beneath our feet vibrated with the force of the disturbance.
The sky split open like a wound, revealing a blinding light that seemed to pour forth from the heavens themselves. The light coalesced into a shape, a form too massive and powerful to wave off—the master thunderbolt.
"Foolish charlatans," I muttered under my breath, watching as the brilliance drew closer. Turning to Liora and Guy, I added, "We need to move, now. This isn't something you two can live through."
I looked at her, then at Guy, and back at the thunderbolt.
"We're not just going to stand here and watch." My mind raced, calculations and strategies forming and discarding at breakneck speed.
"Be still," I commanded.
Nope.
"Μείνε ακίνητος," I tried in Greek, hoping for better luck.
Well. It did slow down some.
"Guy, you remember how we handled the Tlanusi-yi back in Knoxville?" I asked, turning to him.
"Redirect it? Felix, are you mad?" Guy exclaimed, his voice laced with incredulity. "The only thing that's ever redirected Zeus was a hot woman—or man!"
"But I would wager your youth that that thing isn't being driven by a lustful hand," I countered.
"My youth—" His face shifted from disbelief to exasperation. "Mon ami, now is not the time for this."
"Fine. I was not saying redirect it. I was saying redirect us," I clarified.
"What... You've gone mad," he replied, stunned.
"Perhaps," I conceded with a shrug.
I reached into the strings of reality and stitched together a hole into my pocket realm. As I stitched the hole into reality, binding the normal world to my will was now just as easy as doing it in my otherworld.
"Felix, you can't be serious," Liora hissed, her voice laced with both awe and fear. "You want to jump through a portal with that thing coming down on us?"
"Exactly," I said, finishing the last of the sorcery.
A innocuous puddle of water leaked up from the earth at my feet.
"Be not afraid, only flesh, fiber, and friendly artifacts can pass through here," I reassured them.
Guy looked from me to the portal and back, shaking his head with a resigned chuckle. "You have a way with words, Felix."
As the agents behind us shouted in confusion and the ground trembled with the impending arrival of the thunderbolt, I grabbed Liora's hand and nodded to Guy. "On my mark."
"Three, two, one—now!" I shouted, and with that, we leapt into the portal.
The sensation of passing through the portal was like diving into a river of molten glass—hot, fluid, and disorienting. Reality warped around us, the fabric of the universe bending under the weight of the arcane forces I had summoned. For a moment, everything was a blur of colors and sounds, a chaotic symphony of the cosmos.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the tumult ceased. We emerged on the other side of the portal.
Guy stumbled beside me, catching his breath, his face a mask of exhilarated shock.
"I'll never get used to that," he muttered, dusting off his jacket as if he could brush away the residue of our cosmic journey.
"So, who remembers where Chyme's Codex is?" I asked, turning to them with a half-smile.
Guy and Liora exchanged expectant glances.
"Oh, come now, don't tell me you're not enjoying the adventure. Besides, we've dealt with worse. Remember Crete?" I prodded, trying to lighten the mood.
That got a chuckle out of Guy and even a slight smile from Liora.
"How could I forget?" Guy said, rolling his eyes. "You had us running through that labyrinth like headless chickens until Manon figured out the string trick."
"But really guys, where did Azazyel say the codex was?" I pressed, looking between them expectantly.
Liora's expression darkened slightly, and Guy rubbed the back of his neck, looking between Liora and me with a furrowed brow.
"So none of us actually remembers where the Codex is?" he asked, his tone a mix of frustration and disbelief.
I shook my head, my own frustration boiling beneath the surface. "No, we don't. It's like trying to read a book—half ripped out, half redacted."
"We're stumbling down stairs in the dark," Liora finished, her voice soft but firm.
"So much for easy. We start here, with what we have," I decided, trying to rally them.
Liora nodded, her analytical mind already turning over solutions. "We'll catalog every artifact, every spell, every creature. Anything that might lead us back to the Codex."
"And I'll reach out to contacts that haven't forgotten owed favors," Guy added, his tone grim yet hopeful.
"You're getting rusty in your old age, Megistus." A cold voice called out from the arrival platform across the otherworld.
I turned sharply towards the voice, my heart sinking as I spotted the intruder. The agent stood confidently, flanked by a squad with fresh rifles.
"Rusty? I prefer 'seasoned,'" I retorted with a smirk.
Guy stepped up beside me, his eyes narrowing at the newcomers. "You should have stayed in your world, agent. This is not your domain."
The agent smiled, a humorless curve of his lips. "On the contrary, wherever there's a breach of the order, it becomes our domain."
He looked around, the very air turning hostile against them as I wished for them to no longer be here.
Liora, positioning herself on my other side, added, "We didn't invite you here."
"But here I am," the agent replied smoothly, tapping a device on his wrist that glowed ominously.
In a blink, several flashes heralded more agents materializing around us. I would not stand idly as the sanctity of my realm is violated. My fingers twitched, expanding the space between us beyond any possible range of firearms.
"You think you're able to intrude into my haven and dictate terms?" I asked, my voice rising with the storm of energies I felt swirling inside me. "Jonah, meet whale."
I extended my hand, and the air crackled with power, the fabric of my realm bending to my will.
"Exsilium!" I commanded, my voice echoing with the force of a god.
"Quite the contraption you've brought into my home," I sneered.
My gaze fixed on the device as I pivoted the world around it, analyzing its structure and the symbols that adorned its surface. Each detail I noticed only confused me further. I need to know how they could defy a god in their own domain.
"You wouldn't happen to be selling those?" I asked, half-jokingly.
The agent responded with a smirk. "Not a contraption, Megistus. The pinnacle of science interfacing with bleeding-edge thaumaturgy. I think Emil called it the Divinity Emitted Variance & Interference Limiter, but I like to call it Achilles' Heel."
"Good that I wasn't dipped in the Styx," I muttered under my breath, turning back to face the agent.
I raised my hands, drawing deeper on the latent energies of my realm. The ground beneath the DEVIL device began to glow, sigils and runes lighting up in a complex pattern around it. I focused, channeling every ounce of power I could muster.
"Corrumpere machinam!" I intoned, the words of power distorting the air between me and the device.
For a moment, the DEVIL faltered, its lights flickering as the runes siphoned off some of its energy. But then, with a surge of power, it stabilized, the hum growing even louder, more defiant.
The agent laughed, a sound that grated on my nerves. "Did you really think it would be that easy? This is the new age."
Liora stepped forward. "And what age would that be? The age where men think they have power they barely understand? Act without regard to consequence?"
Guy had been silent, observing the device's reactions.
"This isn't just tech. It's driven by something. Something... alive," he noted.
I paused, taking in his words. My gaze shifted back to the device, peering at it not just as a machine but as a cage. Something within it, a captured essence or a connection to a far place, was powering this abomination.
"Alive, you say?" I murmured, a plan forming in my mind.
With a new focus, I outstretched my thoughts, this time not to destroy it but to communicate.
"Who are you?" I whispered.
The scenery around me dissolved, and I was enveloped in an expanse of unending white—a realm of pure possibility that felt simultaneously alien and familiar.
In this blank landscape, a child sat cross-legged on the pristine ground, absorbed in the simple act of stacking wooden blocks and maneuvering a carved wooden horse around them. His hair stretched infinitely, to the edges of this reality and beyond.
This was his consciousness and his soul, like how Azazyel communed with me. I now intruded upon another god.
"Hello there," I ventured cautiously, my voice echoing slightly in the emptiness.
The child turned its head slowly, hollow voids where eyes should be glared back at me, and his mouth was sewn shut with threads that shimmered like silver light, pulsing with a soft glow. Despite the lack of eyes, I felt its gaze pierce through me, reading my intentions, my fears, and my curiosities.
"Why have you come, Felix Ripley Evander Tresmegistus?" The voice was both ancient and childlike, filled with a sorrow that echoed through the ages.
I steadied myself, focusing my thoughts. "I came to end a threat to my life. But now, seeing you like this... I need to know who did this to you and why."
"They fear what I represent—possibility, change, the unknown. Much like how they fear you."
"They use you to power their anti-god tech?" I asked.
The child nodded slowly, the movement sending ripples through the void. "Yes, and each day they tighten their grip, believing they can avert destiny. They are mistaken."
"Yes, they are." My voice was firm, my fist quivering. "Hey kid, a solid for a solid?"
The child's hollow gaze seemed to soften, the air around us warming slightly as if in gratitude. "I await that day, Felix."
The realm faded. I returned to reality.
"We surrender." I declared, throwing my hands above my head.
"We WHAT?!" Liora and Guy aggressively asked.
Status de energia semanal
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Poder 
-- Pedra de
Poder