As my knights quickly left and, with Wong and his portals' help, dispatched the Enforcement Knights, I too stood up from my throne.
Since everyone was busy, I walked alone, slowly making my way up the stairs of the great tower of my castle, the highest point not just in Camelot, but in all of Albion.
One step at a time, I ascended beyond the roofs of my people, beyond the highest trees and towers, and soon enough, I stepped out onto the open platform that rested at the top.
Up here, there was not a cloud in sight; I was both above the clouds and under them. From here, I decided whether there were clouds or not.
I was, after all, the Lord of Storms.
And a mighty storm was brewing in my chest, but I forced it down, not allowing it to manifest in the world, instead focusing my thoughts on the world below.
From here, I could see all of Albion laid out before me.
My eyes, enhanced by divinity, were able to take it all in.
I could see the smoke rising from burning towns in the distance.
I could see the columns of evacuees stretching down every major road, a river of desperate humanity flowing away from the coast.
I could see the flashes of light where my knights were now fighting, each flash a small, hard-won victory in a war that had already cost so much.
I could see it all.
The entire country was a battlefield.
I had spent my life fighting for this land; I had fought many different battles, but this was still different.
Those wars, those battles, had been for land and for people; a lord didn't kill unless forced to, because the reason he fought at all was for the people living on the land he was conquering.
Land itself was good and all, but no matter how rich it was in resources, how fertile the soil, without people to farm it, without people to mine it, it had very little true value.
Few lords could stop their armies from raiding villages, but I had never allowed such things; where my army went, there was never any of that suffering.
It was because of that that I so easily won the hearts of the people, because not only was I a knight, I demanded my entire army fight with the honor and nobility of knights.
The Sentinels, however, were beyond horrible; they cared not for land, not for people. They didn't want conquest; they sought only slaughter.
And perhaps worst of all, they didn't even take pleasure in it.
I had fought my fair share of villains who took pleasure in death and suffering; it was wrong, but it was... human.
But Sentinels were truly inhuman, unfeeling machines, though they were good at mimicking human behavior.
As I stood there, watching them, I saw something unexpected: teamwork.
There was a world of difference between coordination and teamwork; it might not seem like it, but there was.
A team could unleash far greater power than the sum of its parts, whereas coordination was just allowing each part to unleash its full power.
Teamwork required far more. It required a connection, a bond that went beyond just knowing one another, beyond even trust.
Teamwork required belief.
Could a robot believe?
I remembered Merlin; he often spoke about how experience was the best teacher, and difficulties the best whetstone.
Was this what I was seeing here? The struggle of the Sentinels forcing the AI to improve so much that it was evolving? Going from mere code into something with a soul?
It was ridiculous, an idea that I would have scoffed at before; but after this battle in Hell, I no longer dared to scoff at ridiculous ideas.
Because they might just be right.
Even so, even if this was some form of evolution, some miracle that granted a machine a soul, it didn't matter.
It was my people they were slaughtering.
And I would not allow that.
As I stood up there, watching my lands, my people, suffering, I made a decision.
This fight had gone on long enough.
-----
I raised my right hand and reached deep inside. I felt my heart pulse, like a slumbering dragon awakening, and winds picked up my hair and cloak, whirling around me.
All at once, the sun dimmed; it didn't set, nor did clouds cover it. Instead, it seemed to dim because another brilliant light filled the skies, a noble and sacred light.
With a pulse of my dragon core, my mana flooded me; my divine ether called forth this natural phenomenon. A god made her presence known, and the world itself responded.
From my raised hand, light flowed endlessly as my fingers slowly closed around the hilt of my divine lance.
"It is time to awaken, my spear."
A flash of golden light erupted as the tip of my lance revealed itself. It was like no other lance, no other spear, because it was no mere spear, no mere weapon.
Interwoven bands of light, formed of pure divine ether, covered it, starting from the tip and growing outward toward my hand, hiding the true appearance of this pillar of the world.
With the appearance of my lance, my divinity was fully unleashed; the shadow that was still human was bathed in divine light and hidden away, rendering what remained of me pure god, the Goddess Rhongomyniad.
Human emotion slowly drained from my face, leaving me to appear rather indifferent to the suffering of my people.
But that wasn't the truth, far from it.
Anyone who knew anything about gods, such as the Greek ones, understood one thing: gods could be petty and vindictive. They might appear uncaring, but they always cared about their pride.
And to attack my lands, to harm my people, was an insult of the highest order; it was an attack on my pride.
To them, it might have been a logical decision.
To me?
It was a slap in the face.
And for that, they would all pay.
I raised Rhongomyniad, the great spear that connected the planet to its reverse side, a weapon that could fully unleash divine power even in a world without divinity.
It wasn't a weapon designed to fight a single enemy; it was one that could change the very nature of the world, and its power could be adjusted, from merely destroying a nation to destroying the entire world.
I wouldn't do anything that extreme, but even a small fraction of its power was more than enough to deal with this war.
This weapon held many mysteries, but its most basic ability was a simple one.
It fired light.
The mightiest lance on the planet fired light at its enemies.
A simple but effective attack.
It could be fired like a beam, or as a wide-area explosion; or many smaller beams could be unleashed.
I could adjust its power, but the effect was still the same.
Light.
As I held my lance, I connected to my kingdom, the people, the very land itself, and saw all the enemies through it.
"Light, be released from the ends of the world!
Beyond the skies, upon the far side of the earth,
awaken, O wedge of light that stands at the boundary of creation!
Split the heavens! Tether the earth! Bind and silence the raging storm!
O anchor that fastens the world, shine forth from the furthest horizon—
Rhongomyniad!"
-----
From the heart of Albion, from the great tower of Camelot, a new sun appeared, as terrible as it was magnificent.
It shone brightly, as if trying to outcompete the faraway star of the solar system.
Then, it unraveled; it seemed to explode into thousands of fragments.
Except there was no grand explosion, no loud sound or shockwave, only light, stretching out far and wide, shooting across the sky like thousands of shooting stars.
These beams of light, each one the size of a great tree, traveled across the entire nation.
They crossed the length and breadth of Albion in a single, silent, glorious instant.
Down below, a Sentinel raised its arm to strike a downed mutant.
It never completed the motion.
A beam of light descended from the heavens and struck it, and the colossal metal construct vanished without a trace. There was no explosion. No debris. Not even a lingering speck of dust.
Its existence was simply... erased.
Another Sentinel charged across the countryside, chasing a convoy of civilians. Its processors were tracking every person, every vehicle, calculating the optimal path of destruction.
Then, a pillar of light fell upon it.
It, too, ceased to be.
The beauty of the display was matched only by the unrivaled power contained within.
The people of Albion all raised their eyes to the sky; they had seen this light before, once when Arthuria herself conquered this land, turning England, Scotland, and Wales into Albion.
Another time was when aliens rained down from a wound in the sky.
And now again, they understood the devastating power contained within that brilliant light.
And more importantly, they understood what its appearance meant today.
Now, even those who hadn't yet heard about the appearance of the missing Knights of the Round Table on the front lines understood one truth.
They all understood that their King was back.
Arthuria Pendragon, the Once and Future King, the Goddess Rhongomyniad, had returned to her home, and she was angry.
Yet to the people, this anger was a balm to their souls, as they knew this anger wasn't directed toward them; it was for them.
Their suffering had caused this anger, and this anger would avenge them.
Countless people fell to their knees and wept. Not out of fear, but out of relief, out of sheer, unadulterated joy.
For weeks, they had lived in fear, their homes destroyed, their loved ones lost, their future uncertain. They had fought, they had fled, they had survived.
They had waited, waited day and night for this to happen, and now, it finally had.
Those who remained standing began to turn back, retracing the roads along which they had fled.
No order had been given. No announcement had declared the land safe.
None was needed.
Their King had returned. Their god had raised her Lance over Albion.
What more could they possibly fear?
(End of chapter)
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