Chapter 135: The Princess That Sought Freedom
(Listen While Reading: Army of Fears Theme
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“Anubis’ Dark Matter Veil… It’s gone?!”
Akhenaten was shaken, seeing as his Dark Matter Veil was destroyed and absorbed by Yanisse’s bare hands, Anubis, even though still powered by his Golden Bloodline Ability, had now grown much more vulnerable without its near invincible protection.
“It looks like you aren’t as invincible as you thought.”
Yanisse’s cold eyes pierced through Akhenaten’s soul. The prince had never faced someone capable of manipulating such an energy as void itself without the help of a Mechanical God.
“The humans of this world… They don’t need Machines to control the elements of the world…!”
His eyes widened as he quickly attempted to attack Yanisse. He gritted his teeth, swinging Anubis claws against her repeatedly, unleashing a barrage of slashing waves made of Dark Matter.
SLASH! SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!
Yanisse quickly flew away, evading the attacks as she gathered more Void in her hands, dividing it into several spheres of deep darkness, her eyes glowing with purple cosmic light.
“I simply have to buy some time…!” Akhenaten thought. “Dark Matter is naturally produced by Anubis. In a couple of seconds, his veil will be remade!”
He quickly gathered Dark Matter from Anubis claws, which produced it as naturally as the rest of the Mechanical God body.
“I still have the advantage of Ma’at’s Insurance! I can do this!”
Confident that he could pull through this, Akhenaten clashed against John, Francisco, and Yanisse at the same time. The power of his Golden Bloodline Ability allows him to not fall behind in terms of power even when fighting all three.
“Hm…”
And above all, Yanisse was rather surprised; her Void Essence had somehow grown weaker out of thin air, a strange curse-like force chaining her strength and weakening her.
“Is this related to that number over there?”
Although she was dealing great damage to Anubis and was rapidly spreading cracks through its “indestructible” metal, things suddenly slowed down once she fell victim to Ma’at’s Insurance.
“What’s wrong?! You’re growing sluggish!”
Akhenaten laughed, clashing against Yanisse.
CLAAASH!
Yanisse sighed.
“What a troublesome power...”
Yet, despite how she looked slightly annoyed, she couldn’t help but smile lightly.
Through Bing Xue’s training, Yanisse has grown to like fighting a bit.
Especially fights that pushed her to her limits, where she could develop and grow the most.
“She sent us and isn’t directly helping us for a reason.” she smiled. “I won’t disappoint you, Katherine.”
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(Listen While Reading: Pain and Sorrow )
Merneith found herself trapped in endless darkness, in a cage made by her brother through Anubis’ Dark Matter Manipulation. She felt alone, desolate, and exhausted. This cage slowly began to sap away the energy of Ra, which was sunlight, and rapidly weakened her Mechanical God.
“Ra! Please respond…!”
She kept trying to call the Mechanical God, yet Ra wouldn’t respond as he always did. Among all the Gods, Ra was the most vocal of them all. Since she was a child, the Mechanical God would glance at her eyes and make little bird-like sounds; it was a friendly machine.
Most other Mechanical Gods were silent and cold, like a machine was expected to be. Yet there was something special about Ra—a connection between him and her mother, which passed down to her as well.
“Ra…”
The light of the machine’s interior rapidly began becoming dimmer as Merneith caressed the cold metal, tears falling from her eyes.
As the Egyptian Princess felt alone and powerless, she sighed, glancing at the darkness beyond her machine’s exterior.
Her golden eyes grew sadder as she recalled many memories of her life so far.
Of the loneliness she felt and of how it felt like she didn’t even belong in her family anymore.
Since her mother died and Ra was taken away from her, everything has become dim and dark in her life.
Before that, every day seemed full of life, possibilities, and hope.
Her family loved her, and her mother was there for her.
Yet…
“Well, this place... It doesn’t feel so different than back then, huh?”
The Egyptian Princess smiled bitterly.
"Since my mother died, everything has been so miserable…”
The love her father showed her disappeared every time he would glance at her with a cold expression on his face, as if she wasn’t even his daughter anymore.
Ra, who would bicker and talk with her all the time, was gone, forcefully taken away despite her having inherited the Mechanical God, and now used by her aunt, Akhenaton’s mother, who was an abusive, mocking woman.
She wasn’t even a warrior like her mother, and she used Ra simply to show off how amazing it was without ever using him for anything meaningful.
New deals were made with the vassal Roman Empire, and even though her father had promised Merneith she could marry anybody she wanted, he ended up arranging a marriage between her and some Roman man she had never seen in her entire life.
“Merneith, in a year from now, you’ll be marrying Julious,” her father told her. “You will undergo special training to become a complacent and submissive woman. You will also go live with him on the vassal empire, and you must have a child within the first year of your marriage. Understood? It is all part of our contract. To keep relationships peaceful with the Romans, you will contribute to our Great Empire of the Sun’s prosperity. The gods will bless you with many children.”
“W-What…” Merneith couldn’t believe what her father had told her before. “What nonsense is this, father?! Y-You promised me I could marry anybody I wanted, that I was a princess, and that I could-”
“SILENCE!”
“Eep!”
Her father’s tall figure glared down at her. The Pharaoh was a strict man, albeit soft to his children… Yet now, he was just as cold with her as anybody else.
“Don’t speak back to me,” he said. “You will do as I say.”
“B-But… I don’t like men-”
“Nonsense! Every woman must love a man, and every man must love a woman,” said the Pharaoh. “You’ve played enough since you were a child, Merneith. Now you’re an adult. You will give me grandchildren! This is what your mother would have wanted of you.”
“N-No…! Mother wouldn’t have wanted this!” She kept crying. “Mother was a warrior… She said I would inherit Ra and become a warrior princess, protecting the Empire… You promised me I could marry anyone! Yet after her death, it is as if... as if I am not even your daughter anymore. You lied to me. You betrayed my mother’s words... and you took Ra from her!”
“This girl…” the Pharaoh grew impatient, sighing. “Take her away from my presence! I have no time to be paying attention to the bickering of a spoiled brat.”
“Yes, Great Pharaoh.”
The guards forcefully took Merneith back to her room, throwing her there and leaving right afterwards.
Despite being a princess, they treated her so roughly…
“Ugh…” Merneith cried over her bed for the whole day, thinking about her mother all the time. “Mother… Why did you leave me?”
The more she thought about her mother’s death, the more it felt like it wasn’t just because she was sick or something.
Her mother before everything happened seemed so fine, yet from one day to the next, she grew sick and pale, her skin growing purple in color.
And then, a day later, she died.
“Did they poison her? Did someone... plan her death?”
Her eyes grew furious at the thought. She had grown protected by her mother and her father before he became cold to her, unable to truly grasp how dangerous it actually was to be a member of royalty, even more of such a huge imperial family.
When the Pharaoh had so many women to sire many children that could pilot the Mechanical Gods, it was obvious that envy and jealousy would fester between such a huge family.
And that they would begin targeting one another, especially the more talented and most preferred ones of the Pharaoh.
“My mother… They targeted her because her father loved her more than any other woman,” she sighed. “But now that she’s gone, that love for her, which he also gave to me, is gone… He never loved me, only my mother…”
She stood up in the middle of the night, glancing at the beautiful imperial city, countless flying vehicles moving everywhere, and futuristic, tall buildings made of gold glistening brightly below the sun.
A gigantic Oasis rested in the middle of the city, which was built around it. Large golden pyramids surrounded the city, forming a huge protective barrier.
This enormous futuristic metropolis—the place her mother wanted to protect, the home her mother loved—means nothing to her now.
“A family that kills each other… A father who doesn’t truly love his children…” she clenched her fists tightly. “This entire place is rotten… This empire, once glorious, has fallen… Disgusting!”
She gritted her teeth, her resolve growing stronger.
“Merneith, you’re free to do as you want, my daughter! The world is yours to visit as you fit, meet people, visit places, learn new experiences… Don’t let others force you to become part of their plans. You’re yourself, and the only one who has any say over what you’ll do with your life... Is yourself!”
The words of her mother resonated within her heart as Merneith did the impossible. With her little talkative robot, she stole Ra, who responded automatically to her call, and broke through the barrier around the city, escaping into the Vast Deserts.
[Princess! Are you sure this is the right thing to do? You’ll become a persecuted criminal! Ra is too important to the Empire; they will not stop until they find you!]
“I don’t care! I’ll do whatever I want from now on… And I won’t let anybody tell me what I have to do with my family! Giving birth to the children of some ugly Roman? In your dreams, father!”
As the princess boasted her control over her own destiny…
RUMBLE!
The sky and the earth shattered apart, the empty air twisted, and as space and time itself opened and shattered, a giant, gray-colored portal emerged in front of her.
“Huh?”
And with a pulling force so strong she couldn’t fly away, she was pulled into the enormous wormhole, landing in a similar yet completely different desert.
And this is where everything truly began for her—after she met the people of El Cairo, after she helped them, after she earned their trust and love.
But even then, at the end, she was caught.
“What I’m going to do now...” she sighed. “Is everything just... over?”
[It indeed is princess Merneith! I told you that this would bring a great disaster! You should have listened to me when I told you to!]
The annoying pyramid-shaped little robot by her side kept annoying her.
The truth is, he was her only friend, a guardian her mother gifted to her when she was only three years old.
He had been taking care of her ever since and only wanted the best for her. As a robot, he knew that the best thing for her was to survive and live prosperously.
Marrying that Roman Prince, giving birth to his children, and maintaining the peace between both Empires was something that would lead to her surviving and living without many problems.
Yet… Merneith went against this “logic” and this entire time, the artificial intelligence has been unable to understand why she did this.
“Don’t you get it?” she sighed. “I don’t want to. I would rather die… Than do what my father wanted.”
[B-But why! Princess… I was programmed by your mother to…]
“I know, and thank you for taking care of me so far, but...”
Merneith smiled bitterly.
“I think I’ll just accept my death... I enjoyed this little time. I did what I wanted, and now... I’ll just die.”
Her words were shocking for someone who was so cheerful to readily accept her death.
Did she even value her life?
[Princess… I’m sorry. I wish… I wish I could have the power to change anything, but I am simply a robot—a small, assistant robot at the end…]
“I know your company here is enough; thank you for always being by my side.”
[Princess…]
Merneith hugged her companion as she closed her eyes and simply waited for her incoming death.
Yet…
FLASH!
Ra suddenly began glowing.
“Huh?!”
And Merneith noticed something, within her entire body, golden particles started to emerge, rapidly expanding like an aura of glistening light.
“This is…?!”
[Princess! T-That’s… Your Golden Bloodline! It is resonating with Ra!]
“But how?! I’m fairly sure that I... Unless?”
Yes.
Merneith’s body exuded the power of her Golden Bloodline for a reason.
Her powers emerged, rapidly encompassing the Mechanical God.
Each golden particle was a small nanobot produced by her own body.
The truth behind the Golden Bloodline was something her mother had once told her.
“In the past, this family was fed the blood of the gods. Hence, we developed the Golden Bloodline. Not only giving us the power to pilot the Mechanical Gods… but also to develop special Abilities.”
The ability of her brother [Ma’at’s Insurance] was one of them.
Her mother, too, had the ability…
“CRYAAAH!”
The cry of a hawk echoed as Ra started moving again, as if it had regained its energies completely out of nowhere.
“My body is… exuding sunlight?”
The fuel for Ra’s body.
Sunlight.
“This is my mother’s…”
[It’s your mother’s ability, princess!]
Both Merneith and her little robot gasped.
“[Horus’ Domain of the Sky]”
Horus, the Great Grandson of Ra.
According to Mythology, he was the son of Osiris and Isis, the God of the Sky.
It was said he had some resemblance with Ra, and that he would become the true inheritor of Ra’s throne, eventually.
The God of the Sky, who naturally governed not only the weather but also sunlight itself.
Merneith’s ability developed, giving her the power to release sunlight and feeding Ra with infinite energy.
The same occurred with Merneith…
Yet perhaps even stronger than that.
RUMBLE!
Winds gathered around Ra, water, and cold; everything began breaking through the orb made of Dark Matter.
And at the same time, suddenly, Dark Matter began to tremble as a giant blade of light slashed through it all.
SLAAASH!
“Huh?!”
And then Merneith met her—someone who had come to personally free her.
“It looks like you’ve awakened, princess,” she smiled. Her glistening rainbow eyes and her body, made of light, sent shivers down the spine of Merneith.
Never had she seen such a beautiful woman.
“Are you a goddess?!”
“Oh? Hahahah!”
The woman laughed as she quickly broke open the entire sphere of Dark Matter, freeing Ra and Merneith.
“I suppose some call me that,” she said, as the winds made her long, silvery hair flutter. “But my name is Bing Xue... Nice to meet you, princess Merneith.”
And this was the moment that Merneith’s entire life changed.
“Merneith! I’m so glad you’re okay!”
And little Sara was also at Bing Xue’s side.
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