章節 109: Between Saints - Love, Hate and Revenge
Before being forced to come to this world, Hercules was an ordinary boy. He didn't have many friends despite being quite popular at his school because of his above-average appearance. He came from a relatively wealthy family and had a younger sister who was very attached to him.
That was all in the past. He was in a strange world, chaotic and full of dangers for which he had been selfishly summoned. That day Hercules cried for the first time since he understood himself as a person.
Fear, anxiety, anger and homesickness were common things that anyone would feel in his place. He was depressed for days, weeks or maybe months. He didn't know what to do and couldn't even leave the room. But then, one day a sweet, loving voice was ringing in his ears.
For Hercules, someone who didn't have a home, friends, or if anyone wants to know something, the Princess of Odeon was his salvation and safe haven. She soothed his heart and helped him adjust. It was she who opened his eyes, gave him friends and wings to fly.
She was everything to the young man, who didn't even have the hope to return home, and even though he knew she was married, Hercules couldn't stop himself from loving her.
The kingdom- No. The world was facing a great crisis called "demons". The infernal beings were taking over the world and the humans, not just the realm of Odeon, were on the brink of extinction. Hercules was convinced that he was the only one with the power to change that.
With that confidence, determination and love for the princess, Hercules learned everything he had to learn about spells and skills. He couldn't use magic, but his skills, on the human standards, were indeed powerful.
His existence soon became something that could not be hidden from the kingdoms that were enemy of Odeon.
Trying to use the advantage of the kingdom being weakened by the death of the king, who had summoned a hero, the other kingdoms wanted to kill the hero and steal the kingdom's few fertile lands.
With several assassination attempts in various forms, the kingdoms put their plans into action and each time they were somehow frustrated, but they never stopped trying.
However, when Hercules finally stepped onto the battlefield and demonstrated his power, all the kingdoms that kept their watch on Odeon soon drifted away. It would be foolish to go up against someone who could slay ords of demonic creatures with the swing of a sword.
Hercules fought day and night, slaying lesser and greater demons, hunting monsters five times his size and killing soul-devouring infernal creatures.
He was undefeated, always leaving the battlefield stained only with the blood of his enemies. This precociously caught the attention of beings who should be "The Bosses" of that world and in one day he lost everything he had in this world. That included the woman he loved, who he never declared himself to.
In his grief and fury, he struggled for days as he blamed himself and screamed insults at himself. When his fury subsided, not even tears streamed from his eyes and he vowed to get revenge.
He hunted monsters and grew strong, killed demons and grew strong, killed humans and grew strong and repeated it again and again, until he was sure he could rip the head off of one of the fearsome demon lords.
But fate is something strange and the unknown future was cruel.
He had spent two years hunting for the location of one of the demon lords and when he found it, his target wasn't there and instead of killing, he saved on that day. But that ended up bringing some quiet to his revenge-darkened mind.
The next day it happened again. With children following him, he ambled to the next target, willing to kill or die for his revenge, but again he saved someone.
And it is here that the gears began to adjust to one another and the path of another misfortune in his life was traced.
Two years after saving the woman and children, Hercules, who had delayed his revenge, experienced one of the true powers in that world and discovered that what he had called "power" was nothing more than a beautiful (or not) illusion. .
Athena had shown an overwhelming power that not even Azazel, the strongest of the demon lords he had ever met, could match.
She opened for him the doors of a vast world and showed him that with his current power, his revenge was nothing more than a dream.
Hercules felt terrible at the harsh reality Athena had shown him, but still grateful because she had also shown him that it was possible to grow stronger and earn his revenge as he wished.
At first he admired Athena in such a way that he even began to deceive himself, thinking he was falling in love with the woman, but no.
It was different, it wasn't intense and it didn't take her breath away. It wasn't the way he felt for the princess.
He thought he might never feel like that again. A pure and intense feeling of love for someone. He thought he only had that hatred for demons left, but once again he was wrong.
Red-yellow curly hair like the flames in a furnace, a thin, delicate face with freckled cheeks, blue affectionate eyes and a radiant smile. This was the form Lunnia had assumed since before they met Lobana in Veand.
It took Hercules to realize such beauty. It had been days since they met, but he only noticed her the day she started teaching him how to handle the sword in a more skillful and refined way.
However, until then, she was just a pretty girl teaching him swordplay. Hercules had spent a lot of time alone, he was young and full of vitality, so any pretty woman who approached him was a target for his stupidly precocious feelings, but not with Lunnia. Intriguingly, she did not arouse the lust of an inexperienced young man.
To her he had respect above all else, so came admiration for her abilities and a slight grudge for her strenuous teachings and exaggerated physical punishments. Gradually, as they spent more and more time together, he began to see her with new eyes.
It hadn't even been two weeks, but every time he was with her, his heart would pound wildly like someone with an arrhythmia and his pupils dilate like a drug addict. It was the same feeling, the same overwhelming feeling taking over his mind to the point where he could only think about her every day.
Those two weeks were like a paradise for him, making him see a new hope in that world. And even if he couldn't return to his world, he was confident that he could live happily if he was with her.
That is, until he saw the crystal which imprisoned what could be a goddess and remembered his promise of revenge, awakening the sparks of hatred that quickly took hold of his mind again.
Fate once again played a cruel trick on him, reminding him of the eyes of the demons that had taken everything from him.
When he saw Lunnia's yellow eyes, her horns... When he saw the true form of the woman he had come to love, his feelings turned to a messy turmoil, she was clearly a demon.
He felt hate, sadness, love, anger and when thinking about saving her, he felt disgust for himself, but he also felt pain when thinking about killing her.
Hercules felt his knees trembling and losing strength, and he sat down beside the open door of Lunnia's room. He held his head in his hands and squeezed his own throat in agony as he pounded and kicked at the ground until he made a decision.
The young man stood up and drew his sword, which he had received from Ella to kill Athena if she had become an evil being, and strode off in the same direction Lunnia had gone.
Halfway through, he passed a stone statue depicting Athena and looked at the sword in his hand. Hercules bit his lip and looked away from the statue, feeling judged and ashamed of his decision, but again, seeing Lunnia from behind, that whirlwind of hate and love, anguish and sadness, anger and revulsion, came back with a vengeance and flooded his mind which could not break free from the chains of revenge.
Without saying a word, Hercules approached Lunnia and stabbed her while he shed tears.
"I'm sorry but..." Hercules said through his teeth. "Demons must die! I'm sorry! I..." Hercules was about to declare himself, but then he realized he had no right. "... I will accompany you soon."
Hercules pulled out the sword he had buried in Lunnia's body and the woman fell on her pool of blood. He stood there, standing beside Lunnia's inert body, shedding tears filled with various feelings, and then he heard.
"Tell me. Why?"
The man with long purple hair was staring at him with a confused expression.
"Huh?"
"Why did you kill her?" Gion asked again with a puzzled expression. It was obvious to him that the two were in love, for Lunnia, just before her last breath, was wearing an expression equal to that of her murderer. Gion, who spent millennia trapped in a love he didn't even know would return, could not understand that act. "She loved you and you killed her.... Tell me why you were so cruel."
Gion, in addition to not understanding, he could not accept. The saint took a step forward, towards Hercules.
"W-why?" Hercules pursed his lips and looked down at Lunnia's body again, feeling a lump in his throat prevent him from speaking. But when he tried to force his voice as he faced Gion, Hercules saw dozens of fireballs fly towards him.
Fotiá did not hear their conversation and even if she had, she would still be in the state she was in at the time, a being of fire and fury.
Athena had disappeared after a fight with Anemus and Lunia, in addition to Anemus, had become one of the few family references for the nymph. Lunnia was her teacher, friend and aunt in her point of view. Witnessing her death, filled Fotiá, a sweet and kind girl, with sadness and hatred.
Afraid of what the nymph had become, Malana quickly fled with the other children and watched from afar, in a safe place near the gates of the imperial gardens which had become a sea of fire around Fotiá, who had become one with fire and was like a raging spirit from the flames.
She didn't even mind the presence of Gion and threw fireballs towards Hercules who dodged some and paired up with other fireballs, making the fire spread everywhere.
However, he soon got tired. The place got too hot too quickly and the oxygen was quickly consumed by the fire, that constantly haunted him.
Gion was still in the same spot, staring at Lunnia's body as he wondered why. He protected himself with a shield around himself and the dead body of the knight, and pondered why kill someone loved. He even thought of the right possibility, prejudice against her race. But that didn't make sense to him, as he thought love could overcome anything.
Gion actually had a fanciful vision of love. For him, who had spent so much time loving practically a corpse, love was a powerful feeling that could surpass even death. He couldn't understand that and as the questions arose, the reason he was there started to fade in his mind.
While Gion was too busy with his unanswered questions, Hercules was about to be burned to death or suffocated. Fotiá didn't care what happened first, because all she wanted was to get revenge, kill him, make that bastard's existence disappear and maybe that way, Lunnia would wake up.
In the midst of all that madness, fury and fire, a surprised and frightened voice could be heard, but no one really heard.
"Fotiá!? What- Lunnia!?"
Anemus appeared as lightning ripped through the sky in a thunderous boom, which was weird since the day was sunny, but there were more important things to take care of right now. She called for Fotiá, but she wasn't sure if that was really Fotiá.
The mana was the same, but that couldn't be her little sister, Fotiá was pure fire. A single being with the flames, a blaze alive and full of fury.
Without hearing Anemus' call, Fotiá waved her arms, sending a wave of fire to the four corners of the garden, it was then that Anemus realized that Fotiá was out of control.
Fotiá, who had never dealt with grief, sadness and anger all at once before, her mind was turbulent to the point of affecting her powers which, reflecting her mental state, went into berserker, which was very worrying for Anemus, who saw Fotiá's mana quickly disappearing.
With each spark Fotiá expelled, her mana diminished and for spending so long in seclusion before Athena arrived, she still didn't have an abundant amount of mana and if Anemus took any longer, Fotiá would literally burn down to the last remnant of her existence, taking Athena with her.
"Fotiá, calm down!"
Anemus tried to smother the fire with her wind, but it only spread further. She didn't give up, it was her duty as an older sister to protect Fotiá, so she continued to cast wind and water magic to calm the fire that never seemed to cease.
"Fotiá-!?!?" Anemus was about to fly to Fotiá and try to calm her down, but something passed her at a speed she couldn't keep up, creating a pressure of air, dragging her to the ground that no longer burned. "Huh...?"
"It's alright my little girl, calm down, mommy is here." Athena said as she hugged Fotiá's flaming body. "It's gonna be okay..."
***
Before all that had happened at the palace, moments after Anemus flew to Basilian, Lucifer was eyeing Ella curiously. The dragon who was supposed to be Athena's friend didn't do anything to help the person.
Well, not that Athena really needed help, but Lucifer wondered if it shouldn't be common to help a friend in times of need. At least, the mortals from the other world thought so.
"Aren't you really going to help her?"
Ella didn't look away from Athena, who was starting to glow more intensely with her runes marking her draconic body.
"Why should I? Athena will wake up soon. I don't want to miss it."
"After all, what is your goal?" Lucifer asked with a puzzled look.
"Hmm…" Ella crossed her arms in front of her chest and tilted her head thoughtfully. "'Distract me' would be the most common answer, but..."
"But?"
Just as Ella was about to respond, lightning ripped through the bright blue sky, scattering branching lightning across Basilian's sky with the thunderous intonation of the thunders.
Ella quickly looked up at the sky, unable to avoid having her gaze drawn to that presence. "A young blue..."
In the sky above them, hovered a woman with long straight hair, wearing blue and in her face, an odd expression of someone who had just found the greatest treasure in the world.
"Ah...! He's so..." Theikós clasped her hands to her chest, as if holding something precious and her expression melting into a passionate smile. "Magnificent!"
"Tsk!" Ella clicked her tongue and pursed her lips. She hated the blues. "What's a blue one doing here?"
Theikós looked down, directly at Ella, and an ominous smile came to her lips. The hatred between blue and white dragons was not personal.
From ancient times, the dragons of the two clans had rivaled each other as they were both in the lowest line of power among the draconic species. Whenever a white dragon and a blue dragon met, it was certain that a battle would occur and only the victorious would emerge alive.
Ella and Theikós stared at each other and the tension rose to the point that part of the meadow around Basilian froze to a sea of white grass under the effect of Ella's mana, and in the sunny sky, rays spread like a spider's web to all sides, without ever touching the ground.
"Why, a white one.... I thought you people had already been extinct because of your natural stupidity." Theikós teased as staying above Ella, where she could look down at Ella. "I came to see my husband. I didn't expect to find a white dragon of little intelligence beside him."
Ella frowned, unable to understand what Theikós was saying and Lucifer only took a few steps back. It was not interesting for her to get involved in a fight between foolish dragons, as observing the changes in Athena was more important.
Athena's scales were no longer platinum or any other color. It was as if she had become a being of intangible aura with a shimmering light in azure blue, gold and abstract violet.
For Lucifer, it was incredibly wonderful the way Athena absorbed and took Lhia's powers to herself, but it was even more impressive how Athena was also absorbing mana from nature and everything else around her.
(huh?)
The mana from the environment, from the world, from Theikós and Ella, and even from Lucifer herself, were being sucked and absorbed by Athena.
However, Athena wasn't stealing their mana, she was just absorbing the mana that was naturally expelled from their bodies. That is, she was getting for herself, the mana they threw away and it accelerated the changes in her body.
All Lucifer wanted was to live her eternity in peace since she was kicked out of home and to do that, she would have to get rid of Michael, who was much stronger than her and had always been obsessed with her since their birth.
Lucifer then had an idea. (What if Athena were stronger than Michael and I became subordinate to her? Wouldn't she protect me?)
Lucifer quickly planned what to do to make his idea a reality and calculated how much mana it would take to make Athena stronger and stronger.
Lucifer looked at the two women who were still arguing and exchanging insults. "That's enough, you two. I'm going to need you to collaborate with me."
"And who are you to order a superior being to do something?" Theikós asked in a menacing growl.
Ella looked at Lucifer and then shrugged, not thinking that even Lucifer could handle two dragons, but then...
Lucifer said nothing, she just spread her wings and flew towards Theikós, hitting her in the stomach with a punch and throwing her to the ground in a single blow.
"I am the one who will let you live if you listen to me." Lucifer said with a friendly smile. "Ella, I'm sure you'll like what I'm proposing."
Meanwhile, somewhere in the divine plane, Athena found herself with someone she thought she would never see again.
"Eh?! What are you doing here?" Naph asked as she jumped out of her bed in fright.
The goddess of death wore a long black satin gown that was so dark it seemed to suck in the light, just like her hair. Her voluptuous body wore a white skin flushed with a slight pink and her thin lips were red as blood, but unlike what Athena remembered, her eyes were crystal blue and filled with sparkles like stars.
"I found the key to the divine plane's door with the Akashic Records and thought I'd come see you." Athena responded by taking a seat in a chair that hadn't been there before.
Everything there was in the middle of existing and not existing, even Athena and Naph were no exception to that. Their forms were held only by their consciences that molded that place at will.
"Oh?!"
Naph couldn't understand what Athena meant by that, she didn't know the 'Akasic Records' and wondered how Athena had the power to get in there and support herself without the help of a god.
Seeing Naph's confused expression, Athena laughed and waved her hand. "It's no use thinking too much. It's something I got from someone else, apparently..."
"Who?"
"That's a good question. It could have been your mother or your sister... But there's also that thing that took the powers you gave me."
"My mother or sister? My mother would never give power to a mortal! And by my sister... Who do you mean?"
"Well, your mother gave me powers which I refused so..." Athena shrugged with disinterest in the subject. "And I'm talking about your sister, Uran, the goddess of all end."
The instant she heard those words, Naph frowned and floated toward Athena. "What do you have to do with her?"
"That! That's exactly what I came for!" Athena said and was suddenly on her feet, facing Naph. "What did Uran really do to be punished as if she were the worst being in the universe?"
Naph wrinkled her little upturned nose and pressed her lips together tightly. This was a matter that concerned only the gods, a mortal had neither the right nor the authority to tinker with it. Also, Naph felt a little guilty for never helping Uran when she could.
With her guilt reappearing, Naph wanted to get rid of Athena and forget that the subject had returned to haunt her. But Athena was a strange creature in that world and for some unknow reason, the gods could not do anything against the woman or those directly connected to her, giving her freedom in her actions against the gods.
Naph sighed and turned her back to Athena. "Just go do what you want to do and leave me alone.. Huh!?" Suddenly Naph felt something strange coming from Athena and looked at the woman again. "What..?!" Athena's presence was growing stronger and more divine. "Are you trying to ascend?"
Athena frowned and shrugged. "I have no idea what you're talking about and don't change the subject. You kind of owe me that for messing with me in the past."
"Ha! I'm a goddess, I don't owe anyone anything. Besides, your time here is running out…" Naph pointed at Athena's lower body. "You are starting to get sucked back into the mortal plane."
Athena huffed and then, in an almost worried voice, she said. "Alright... Just one thing, Death. When we meet again, don't get in our way, after all, I like you."
Athena disappeared and Naph lay back lazily on her bed, which reappeared as she think. "Like..." A faint smile appeared and then disappeared from her red lips.
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All_J
All_J Wow, a lot happened in that chapter.
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