Chapter 75: The Holy Maiden

  Zeus' tholos, it turned out, was not a tholos at all. It certainly was a circur temple structure but unlike a proper tholos this one cked a roof. It was a marble floor ringed by marble columns, a ring of stone connecting the columns from above. And thanks to the ck of a roof we could clearly see that dawn was breaking, the first rays of red light tinging the entire structure in a bloody light.

  The temple structure itself was enormous, much bigger than those of Poseidon and Hades. The center of the structure held a raised dais with two thrones on it while the lower area was filled with a congregation of the Bck Goat. These cultists didn't look as messed up as the ones we had encountered in the Temple of Zeus, not even as mutated as the ones we'd fought on the pteau leading to this tholos. They looked like people, without any grotesque mutations beyond the eyes. Though I did not make the mistake of thinking they were less dangerous because of that. After all, Wilhelm was with them. But the army truly was secondary compared to what was on those two thrones.

  One of the thrones was much smaller than the other. The smaller throne was overgrown with a mass of bck goo, out of which reached Hera's face, brown hair framing a pretty face. Except right now a mass of bck goo was stretched over her mouth, preventing her from voicing her compints with the situation.

  Right next to the small throne was a much bigger throne, so much bigger that it was abjectly ridiculous for a single person. It was easily enough to seat two people and given Zeus' reputation I was fairly certain I knew why it had been designed that way. And the reason I could clearly tell that it could seat two people was because it was.

  A lump of bck goo had overgrown this one as well, though the lump itself was off-center, leaning against one of the armrests. Out of the goo only two things emerged. One was Zeus' mouth and nose, the rest of his face still covered in the stuff, and the other was his prick. Even turned into a ball of goo by a group of insane cultists the fucker had a hard-on simply because a woman was near him. And that woman, the other person on that throne, was the Holy Maiden.

  All it took was a glimpse. The sight of her crashed into me and I understood. In an instant I understood why Wilhelm was so obsessed with her, why two bastards like Bres and Ares would work together for her.

  She was radiant, utterly radiant. Nothing existed but this woman. Her hair was so bck it drank up the light, her skin pale as the moonlight. Her eyes were a glowing purple hue and her lips the red of freshly spilled blood. And I knew that a single smile from those lips would be all it would take to unmake me, to inspire utter devotion in...

  I bit the inside of my own cheek, hard enough that I could taste the metallic tang of blood in my mouth. Yeesh. It had been a while since I'd run into a gmour strong enough to give me pause.

  “Yume,” I said through gritted teeth, “please do something about that gmour.”

  In my peripheral vision I saw the little fox shaking herself out of it, telling me just how ludicrously strong the Holy Maiden's gmour was to have affected her. A moment ter a blue haze rose up around Yume before shooting out and sailing across the space to smash into the Holy Maiden.

  The woman shook herself, clearly feeling the disconcerting sensation of her gmour shattering, and then gred at us. And finally I could see her for who she really was. I knew because I had seen the annoyed expression on her face dozens of times before. After all, she was Syr.

  Or, more to the point, she had control of the body that must have once been Syr's.

  Oh, she looked quite like the sweet girl taking refuge in my mind, but there were distinct differences. She was tall for a woman, easily five foot ten. Her curves were generous, with wide breeding hips and rge, full breasts that sagged far less than their size would suggest. Her hair was long and straight and bck, falling all the way down to her navel if she stood up straight, and her eyes were a startling shade of purple. All of that was what Syr actually looked like.

  But instead of Syr's pin white sundress this woman wore a garb that straddled the line between extravagant priestess robes and a wedding gown. The dress had a plunging neckline and long cloth gauntlets, fastened with golden rings to her middle fingers. And she wore a bridal veil fastened to her horns.

  Whatever the Holy Maiden had done to Syr's body had resulted in two curled ram's horns growing out the sides of her head. They looked quite pretty on her and despite the ck of other animalistic features she could probably have passed as a goat-kin or something, except Syr didn't see it that way.

  What did she do to me?, she asked, horrified.

  I couldn't say anything in response. This version of Syr didn't look worse or better to me, just different, but I could also see how someone would be horrified to find their body altered to this extent.

  Although the true reason I could not respond was the thing to the right of the Holy Maiden on her throne. A gateway, simir to the one in Hades' tholos but much rger in scale, was built up right next to the two thrones. And it was active.

  The image of what was on the other side was still somewhat hazy but it was clear enough to let me know that if we didn't do something soon then we were fucked. Arrayed on the other side of the portal was an army.

  The soldiers were cd in armor that looked like carbon steel though the patterns of the armor were more intricate than anything I had ever seen. The visors had something like turquoise gss where eye slits would normally be and I could not help but question that. The gss would certainly stop dust or other particles getting into the soldier's eye but if it were shattered the gss shards would gouge out their eyes, would they not? Either way, glowing lines of simir turquoise drew patterns onto the armor, though the glow looked nothing like the illumination of active runes. It looked rather like the armor provided its own source of illumination.

  Each soldier was holding onto a halberd and wore a sword sheathed at their hip as well as something that, to me, looked like a miniature version of a dwarven musket, made of some kind of matte bck material I had never seen before.

  The soldiers looked unnaturally uniform, their full-body armor not betraying a single hint of individuality or personhood. And far behind them, still so hazy I could barely make it out, sat a man on a throne.

  The man had long, dark brown hair and his chin was resting on one fist, seeming almost bored with the army arrayed in front of him. And to his right stood a tanned man cd in a shockingly mundane bck toga, his curly gray hair long and his gray beard full and neatly trimmed. And even through the haze of the portal this man in the bck toga inspired utter terror in me.

  I averted my gaze, nausea threatening to bubble up at the sight of the man, and in an attempt to center myself my gaze came to rest on the Holy Maiden. And she was looking at me. Her gaze crashed into me and a simir sense of dread overcame me as our eyes met. This woman, no, this creature, was no mere lich, I was sure of it now.

  “Be welcome in Our sanctum, honored guests,” she said as she stood, her voice so eerily like Syr's but with a self-assurance and cruelty the real Syr simply wasn't capable of.

  “Your sanctum?” Poseidon demanded, storming forward until he stood shoulder to shoulder with me. “Begone from this pce, witch. This pce belongs to Zeus, King of the Olympians.”

  The Holy Maiden blinked, momentarily forgetting that her gmour was gone and she couldn't simply beguile people. Then she caught herself and let out a small chuckle, then reached down to give Zeus' erection a proprietary pat.

  “Of all the people who could take offense with Our presence here, We assure you the King of the Olympians is not one of them. His desires are far too base, his lust too easily quelled.”

  “Did you make him open that portal for you?” I demanded.

  “In a manner of speaking,” she said. “All it took was a little...” she made a lewd pumping gesture with her hand, “encouragement and he obliged Us. The ruler of this pantheon is quite docile if handled correctly.”

  Gods above and below, we were in danger of being overrun by an army from another world because Zeus couldn't keep it in his pants.

  “But be that as it may,” she continued, “it appears all of you are here to stop Us. However,” she gestured at the cultists around her, “We do not wish to waste the lives of Our followers in a needless conflict. We would much rather come to an accord.”

  “Lady, you're trying to bring an army from another world into this one,” I said. “There's nothing to discuss here.”

  “So you say,” she said, “but sweet Wilhelm tells Us that your ideals do not differ much from his. You, too, are tired of being a pything to the gods of this world.”

  I gritted my teeth. There is was again. “Yes, they suck. Or most of them do. But they're still preferable to all of us becoming creatures of Shu—“ The word died in my throat.

  Her smile widened.

  I tried to say it several more times but I could not bring myself to say the word.

  “What's the matter?” Wilhelm asked as he joined the Holy Maiden on the dais. “Cat got your tongue?”

  “What is this?” I growled, mainly to assure myself I hadn't gone mute.

  Do not try to say the name, Syr said in my head, with emphasis. I don't know why but it feels like bad things could happen if you say it in her presence.

  Were you stopping me from saying it?, I asked.

  Not the first time, she replied.

  I swallowed, then asked: “So, what should I call you? I'm not calling you the 'Holy Maiden'.”

  Said Maiden smiled. “We have had little need for names in this cycle,” she said. “This vessel once bore the name Syr.” My teeth ached from how hard I was grinding them. “But if you must name Us then for the time being you may address Us as Echidna.” The mother of monsters, huh?

  “Alright, Echidna,” I said and I could see Wilhelm bristle at how casually I was speaking to his Holy Maiden. “I have a counter offer. You close that portal, send your congregation home, give back that body you took to its rightful owner and in exchange we won't sughter you all right here and now. Bres has already fallen so you're down one of your traitor gods.”

  “But aren't you forgetting about the other one?” Wilhelm asked smugly and at just that moment one of the Royal Guards sailed through the air to nd between us and the Holy Maiden's congregation. The poor fucker was almost bisected, only a few inches of tissue still holding his two halves apart.

  I spun to see Ares standing on the bridge of light, his sword resting on his shoulder.

  Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

  My eyes flicked back to see the image in the portal steadily growing less hazy, then back to Ares.

  “We don't have time for this you treacherous bastard!” I yelled.

  But he didn't waste time answering. Instead he raised his enormous sword high into the air and intoned: “Bcken the skies, Genocide Rain!”

  Instantly the tentative glow of the sun's first light was drowned out by myriads of arrows, all of them coming down to bury us in a storm of steel arrowheads.

  Athena rushed to interpose herself between the Royal Guard and Ares and as she ran she intoned: “Stand Tall, Aegis Shield!”

  A dome of defensive energy exploded out from her, snapping into pce just in time for the arrows to crash into it and bounce off.

  “Go!” I shouted at the Royal Guards as I rushed past them to join Athena. “Attack the cultists!”

  Thank all the gods, they did. They charged forward, weapons drawn, to engage the Holy Maiden, leaving the fight with Ares to us.

  “You've gotten better, cuz,” Ares said, his voice somewhere between genuine admiration and utter contempt before the contempt won out. “But not good enough. Obliterate, Outer Gate-Breaker!”

  Over the course of my life I had seen Chosen Ones perform Ares' Battering Ram miracle countless times but this was the Battering Ram miracle, the one all the others were pale imitations of. A column of force so dense it was a physical thing rushed towards Athena, who was still projecting her shield. And I knew a direct hit would kill her, shield be damned.

  I drew power into my legs and shot forward in a Qi Burst, crashing into Athena and knocking her out of the way of Ares' miracle. The column of force shattered Athena's shield into a million pieces and then rushed past us, dissipating before it hit anyone standing behind us.

  Even on the ground Athena kept up the fight, reaching out her hand and intoning: “Charge forth, Paldion!”

  Apparently Ares didn't like the idea of that hitting him because he dropped his sword and crossed his arms over his sternum. In any other situation I would have thought him insane for that but I knew that his bracelets were the closest thing to indestructible I had ever even heard of. And, sure enough, when Athena's miracle struck those bracelets it managed to rock him back a step but nothing more.

  Except I didn't let the opportunity pass me by. With his arms crossed over his chest and his attention diverted I charged up a Qi Burst yered onto another Qi Burst yered onto a Qi Dash and, while he was still reeling from Athena's miracle, I bsted forward fast as a speeding arrow and rammed Eleftheria into Ares' stomach.

  His armor was at least a legendary item, if not a mythic one, and it was likely tough enough to defend even against a cannonball but that didn't matter. The sword sank into his stomach as if the armor wasn't there, one inch... two inches... three inches...

  The moment I saw Ares preparing to backhand me I pced a foot on his thigh and kicked myself away from him with another Qi Burst and even that only just managed to save my life.

  His backhand reached me despite the backwards momentum of the Qi Burst and I could feel bones cracking under the impact of his knuckles even though I knew the brunt of the force had been taken out of the blow.

  I skidded across the floor, thankful for my cloak, and just stayed there for a moment, summoning forth Qi to mend myself, trusting Athena and then others to keep me safe while I was vulnerable. Before my Qi could even answer me, however, I felt Alisha's Heal miracle settling into my flesh, not the minor one but the proper one, the one she so rarely used these days. But right now she had access to all the miracles she could use so of course she could splurge.

  And the difference was like night and day, the miracle mending my shattered sternum in the time it took me to take two shaky breaths. When I was whole again I got up to see Athena and Selene working in tandem to block Ares' attacks while Yume pressured him to keep him from pulling out any more miracles.

  With everyone united I was sure we could do this. And this time we wouldn't simply kill him. We would incapacitate him, make sure he wouldn't simply revive and come after us again. And once we were done with this mess I would take my time with him.

  ChrisLensman