Chương 32: Spear Boy VS Huntress
(Wood Clone Cao Cao POV)
My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined.
These were women whose entire deal is to hunt and trap, yet they are falling for the oldest trick in the damn book! The plan I made was simply to show a "trail" to them and have them follow it. It was like a fish swimming to every coin it could see.
As I watched them from a tree using concealment, I heard their conversation, and their morale was bad, to say the least.
"Lady Nightshade, are you sure this is the same God Slayer? It feels wrong or too easy. Maybe we should report this to Lady Artemis." One of the huntresses asks, to which Zoe, who was sharpening her knife, looks up at her.
"No, we shall not. I had already embarrassed myself against him. A mere child! I shall find him and hang the interloper by his Zeus damned entrails! Now thy shall speak of this no more. We are close. I can sense it." The huntress backs down but seems hesitant to do so.
Another huntress then asks a very pertinent question: "Lady Nightshade, while I admire your will and drive this "child" slayed a god of war and his entire army on his own. While you may be strong, I am not convinced I will succeed." Before she could say another word, the girl had a knife to her heart as Zoe seemed almost crazed.
"Speak another word, and I shall report this treachery to Lady Artemis. Now, enough chatter, we continue the hunt." The girl then raises her hands as her eyes show no fear, just acceptance. Its almost sad at how they accept such commands, but with their immortality on the line, they have little choice.
It's stuff like this that makes me admire The Monkey King as he realized that serving a god would give him nothing, so he gave himself immortality in multiple ways so that he was not beholden to anyone.
Especially the version of The Monkey King from the god of high school series now that had some badass martial arts. I wonder if the Jade Emperor looks similar to his other version?
Things to investigate for later, but now let us commence with the plan. Following them, I used my telepathy to separate all the huntresses from Zoe and then knock them out. Not all of them are men haters, as some simply joined out of fear or were in a bad situation. I kept Zoe alone, but I tricked her mind into thinking that she had people behind her.
And then, as she came to a stop, I jumped from the tree I was in, and as she looked up, I smirked and said, "Hello there," Zoe immediately got her knives out as we began to circle each other.
"God Slayer, you show yourself at last." As Zoe "sees" her fellow huntresses, she looks at them and says, "Back away! I will deal with this vile man myself!" They then disappear, but she is too blinded by rage to notice as I stoke her emotions.
Lifting up my arm, I gesture for her to approach like Neo as I say, "Your move." She smirks as she rushes me. I then used haki to reinforce my hands and grabbing her knives, I threw her into the air and, using telekinesis, slammed her into the ground, but she was on her feet in mere seconds.
"You are a fool. I have been training in combat with Lady Artemis. You should never have crossed the gods." She really is angry, huh? I can see her mind split into rage and fear and a bit of relief as she believes I will let the others go if she holds me here, but all of them have already been knocked out.
Brandishing her knives at me, she yells, "Defend yourself, God Slayer!" But something seemed to happen to her while she was not noticing something was lending her power as her overall strength shot up from low high class to ultimate class in seconds.
The confusion on my face made her smile as she slashed at me rapidly, but to me, her moves were telegraphed by minutes thanks to my eyes and observational haki, yet as the fight continued, the thing supplying her with strength continued to do so as she was now peak ultimate class.
Sending out every single type of my senses, I tried to find whatever was feeding her power until I then looked into the air and saw three old crones watching the fight as they glared at me with the the threads of fate in their hands glowing golden. Oh, I see what's going on.
"You seem surprised at my strength, male. Are you ready to accept your fate? If you surrender now, you will only be killed and not tortured. You and I both know that is a lie and as she continued to slash at me, I simply grabbed her knives and tore them from her hands.
"You have no power here. Everything you are was given by someone else." I then grip her hands and break them, and as she shouts in pain, she tries to break free by headbutting me, but I remain unphased. Soon enough, she begins to stop as I begin to squeeze her until I hear a breaking sound, and she falls to the ground, unmoving.
Yet, as I walk over to her, I continue, "Your strength was given by your heritage. Your position was given by a goddess, and this extra power was a gift of fate. You are nothing, Zoe Nightshade, but someone unable to move on. And while this may seem hypocritical of me to say since I am here myself, I'm only doing this to defend myself as I know that you and your band will never stop hunting me. All of you are simply annoyances. Look around and see how pointless this is."
I then gesture to my sides as she sees my shadow clones holding the unconscious bodies of her comrades.
To which she tries to move as I step on her stomach and slam down hard, causing her to spit blood. The strength she was receiving did not enhance her healing Factor, so she is stuck unless she receives ambrosia or nectar.
She did manage to shout out in a garbled tone, "What do you know! You are just like him! Lording your strength over inferior females. What makes you different from them?!" I take my foot from her stomach as I lean down close to her.
"Do not try to make this about you and your little soiree with Heracles all those centuries ago. Was it not you who fell for a son of Zeus of all people? And you did not expect him to betray you? The man was in a dedicated relationship before he even met you! He did not even use his strength. You were just an idiot who believed the lies of a demigod and could never get over it. You speak of me being the same, but who started this conflict? I did not trick you in any way, yet I was hunted by your pantheon."
My words seemed to resonate somewhat as she asked, "What did you do to them?" Looking over to her comrades, my clones lay them down.
"They are unconscious as I did not want to hurt those uninterested in hunting me. When they wake up, I will offer them a choice to leave in peace, have their memories erased, or die if they continue this farce. I am not unreasonable. My only target was Artemis after what she did to Celestine."
That name caused her eyes to widen. "How… How do you know about that?!" Looking up, I saw that the fates had already disappeared, but it did not matter. By just being in their presence, my protection against fate grew.
"How do you think? Celestine resides within my spear. Nearly every user is in here, as are all their grudges and stories. And one day, I heard a person whom I had come to treasure for their advice, presence, and unique personality had had her life stolen away and her family killed right in front of her. Why do it? Anger? Greed? Sexism? What was it?"
Zoe looked down as she said, "The events of the past were a mistake as we were younger then and prouder too. Lady Artemis felt insulted that a powerful woman wasted away in raising a family. She could have lived forever in our lady's service and been happy forever, just like the rest of us! But Celestine refused, and in our rage and pride, we took our wrath out on her family. It was my worst memory. Lady Artemis, while angry at Celestine's refusal, had left and that event she never knew about."
That was impossible, but I don't think Zoe knows that Artemis knows and truly did not mind and kept that nugget a secret to ensure Zoe's loyalty. Truly a Greek tragedy. Even I would know if not for Celestine telling me of her presence before she died.
"You still did not answer the question. Why go so far?" Zoe, in complete pain, groaned as I slammed down my foot to keep her awake.
"We, as huntresses, could never understand why she would give it all up for family, of all things. I was jealous of her happiness that I could never have, as well as some others wronged by the world. Even we huntresses can fall to jealousy, so we took our anger and envy out on her. We sought to bring her to our level and see the darkness of the world. But she found us, and we were forced to kill her using poison of all things."
I could feel Celestine in my mind, tears slowly falling as she remembered that day to which I simply remained silent. Zoe's wounds continued to cause her immense pain, and as she begged me to fish her, I sighed.
"No, you do not deserve an honorable death, but for now, you are coming with me as you can be useful for something. Now be silent thot." I then slammed her face into the ground, knocking her out.
Looking to where my original was, I picked up Zoe using my telekinesis and made sure to hit a bunch of trees on the way there as she deserved every moment of agony.
"Is this enough, Celes? I ask, to which she says (Yes, it was, but it won't bring them back. All I could hope was that my family lived in heaven as they did not commit any crimes other than my husband, of course, who had the worst fashion sense for the time.)
After laughing at her joke, all I felt was hollow. I frowned and made sure to use my telekinesis to make Zoe hit more trees. Although I can't say I am having fun tree running as they did in Naruto as the Precision and necessary chakra control is a great way to train and also a way to torture your enemies as I can simply use my telekinesis to make sure they hit every single obstacle or tree in the way.
Looking up to the sky, I see the moon turn red within the mirror dimension and smile as the plan seems to be moving forward. Although, this act will bring us another enemy, as the moon will always give way to the sun.
But for now, my clones and I stop at the edges of the dimension, waiting for the signal to enter the dimension, as when you commit an act, you have to have the right presentation for it. However, a small part of me felt a gross sense of satisfaction as I could not dissuade her that she was entirely wrong.
As my strength increases, I find that I enjoy being stronger than my opponents.
I am truly a hypocrite in my own way.
But my thought is irrelevant as I see the original give us the signal, and we head into putting on a show.
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