Chapter 76: A Bad Motive

  Ares' bde once again bounced off of Athena and Selene's shields and I supposed I had to give the guy some credit. Selene was quickly becoming one of the physically toughest mortals I had ever met and Athena with her unbreakable shield was even tougher than her but Ares, big stupid Ares with his big stupid sword, was so powerful that both of them were needed to block his attacks. I was sure Athena would be able to block the swings themselves on her own so long as she had a constant stream of healing magic fixing her arm after every swing but Ares' sword, the oversized Bde of Deimos, had a fire enchantment on it simir to that of Helios Edge, meaning that every one of his swings was accompanied by a plume of fire hot enough to scorch Athena's clothes and scald her flesh.

  But that was where Selene came in. Selene's buckler, the one she'd been given by Freya, had an intricate snowfke design etched into its front and that design wasn't just for show. It allowed the two of them to weather not just the force of the blow but also the heat that followed it.

  And as Ares' bde once again bounced off Yume was there to take advantage of it, jumping in and hacking at Ares' extended arm. Or rather, she tried to, because Ares swung a backhand at her at the st moment. Yume jumped back, aware of how devastating those swings could be, and only managed to draw a single line onto his arm, golden ichor blossoming from the wound.

  He drew back his bde, intending to charge up a devastating horizontal ssh, but before he could swing I dashed in, intending to ram Eleftheria into his bicep. The moment I reached him, however, I had to jerk back to save myself from the punch he threw, momentarily letting go of his bde to fend me off.

  Finally he completed the swing I'd tried to stop, sending out a wave of fire we all had to scramble back from. Much worse than the heat, however, was the way the fire obscured our vision. A savvy opponent would use that to unch...

  I tackled Alisha and Melinoe to the ground right as Ares came rushing out of the fmes, his sword before him in a mighty thrust. When he realized his attack hadn't worked he simply swung down at me and I unched myself up, smming his sword away with a Qi Burst. Gods above and below he was strong, strong enough that I needed Qi Bursts just to successfully block him at an angle.

  He gritted his teeth and jumped back, then came at me again, his attacks far more reckless now. He knew as well as we did that all he had to do was to stall us for a bit longer but he was enough of a bastard to want to kill a couple of us before the time was up.

  I fended him off, backing away and knocking his bde aside, trying to buy myself or the others enough time to chop off his limbs. His vitals were completely exposed but that didn't help us. A killing blow would only buy us so much time. He'd probably be back with some bullshit movement miracle if we killed him right in the middle of a fight.

  Gods above, looking at the giant piece of death steel he swung around I wouldn't have been surprised to learn that he could just throw his sword somewhere and then jump on top and ride it to his destination.

  But while a killing blow wouldn't work, dismembering him wasn't working, either. His swings were too fast, too aggressive, too erratic. He didn't give us the time to line up proper swings. Was he doing it deliberately?

  “You all think I'm an idiot, don't you?” he growled, then confirmed my suspicions. “Did you think I wouldn't notice you trying to cut off my limbs? It's a good trick and I'm sure it works on dumb animals, but not on me.” He was getting into a rage now, spittle flying from his mouth and his face turning red. “I mastered the art of war while you apes were still killing each other with rocks!”

  I highly doubted that but I decided not to say anything.

  “What I wanna know is how you're this fucking strong,” I said, trying to get him to focus on me. “You barely have worshipers and most of those fucking hate you.”

  “The Spartans may hate me but they would never think of betraying me,” he said, still swinging at me but sounding much more reasonable. “An entire great city, utterly loyal to me. That's how I taught them, after all.”

  “How you taught them?” I asked, trying to distract him in the hopes of one of the others finding a way to stop him but also genuinely curious.

  “Sparta, an entire city governed by ws I wrote,” he said proudly. “One: The god's word is absolute! Two: The god's will is interpreted by the High Priest and the King! Three: The High Priest is chosen through trial by combat, one against the current High Priest and one against the King, just to make sure my High Priests aren't frail, prissy clerics!” That was extremely useful information I made sure to file away for ter. Because even if Ares somehow got away, there was one more way I could screw him over. If I took away his worshipers then he would wither into a mere mortal.

  Of course, a lot of that I'd already known. The city of Sparta was ruled jointly by the High Priest and the King, with the King taking care of mundane matters while the High Priest was concerned with spiritual matters. Technically the King of Sparta was referred to as the High General outside of Sparta because the Trismegistian crown took umbrage with anyone else calling themselves King within their territory. And while ruled autonomously, Sparta was still part of the kingdom, even if the Spartans often loudly compined about that fact. But if they were as strong as they often bragged then they wouldn't have had to negotiate their state of autonomy back when the Trismegistian kingdom had been founded.

  “Alright,” I said, “so you do have worshipers after all. Then why do all this? Are you the same as Bres, upset that people didn't like him enough?”

  Ares' face twisted into a sneer. “Don't you dare compare me to that fishy little goat-bitch.”

  I was about to mention the fact that that fishy little goat-bitch had beaten him in open combat but before I could taunt him any further he continued:

  “This kingdom is smothering me. Freya and the fucking Morrigan have other roles so they don't feel it as bad as I do but this kingdom is just...” He began hacking at me, each word punctuated with a swing of his bde, “too... fucking... peaceful!”

  I scrambled back, baffled as much by the attack as by the words. “All of this because things are too peaceful for you? I demanded.

  “It aches,” he growled. “Mortals love their little conflicts, their little wars, but this kingdom smothers conflicts. It makes people soft, makes them weak. Makes is so that, when the Outsiders come, they're too weak to handle it.”

  “So you just joined the Outsiders to make it even worse you stupid bastard?” I demanded, finally pushing back against him, locking swords with him and somehow, impossibly, giving him pause for just a moment.

  But he simply shoved me back and sneered. “For centuries us gods have pyed our little games. Someone raises a Dark Lord to toughen the people up. Another god, in their desire to coddle the mortals, sends a Chosen One to stop him. One of them dies, nobody learns anything, the seasons turn. Again and again. And I tried my best. I pyed along, took part in their little pretend-wars, more than anyone else. Nothing changes. People don't learn. The gods don't learn. My power wanes.”

  Fuck. There it was again. By now it had become a familiar feeling, having my own compints with the gods thrown back at me by my enemies, but, somehow, the fact that fucking Ares was saying something I felt deep in my soul to be true, stung especially.

  “And of course,” he continued, “this kingdom is so coddled that even conflict with its neighbors is impossible. To the north, a nearly impassable mountain range. To the south, a chain of volcanoes. To the east, a desert you'd need a month of provisions just for a chance of surviving. And to the west and south-east, seas full of monsters. So no conflicts to be found there, either. I tried to amuse myself in other ways. For half a century I pretended to be a mortal hero and killed monsters wherever I went. A few times I tried to incite riots against the crown, hoping to spark a nice little civil war to liven things up. A couple years ago I invested in a group of svers to the south, hoping to spark conflict with the southern kingdom.” I gritted my teeth. Those fuckers had taken Yume.

  “So all of this, just because you don't like peace,” I growled. “Have you considered that if the Outsiders win there won't be any conflict anymore, either? Gods above, there won't even be any mortals left to keep you alive you dumb cunt.”

  “Once the Outsiders take over this world I will be free of my aspect,” he said. “The Bck Goat will turn me into an Outsider godling. I will not only be free of this accursed need for war, I will also be free of the need for mortal worshipers. I will have survived this world and there'll be an infinity more of them around for me to conquer.”

  I felt myself go cold, then took a deep breath and clutched my sword tighter. “You know, even after all this, I was hoping for a better motive, one that might make me understand you even the littlest bit. But you really are just trying to kill an entire world out of sheer selfishness. Fuck you, Ares.”

  Once again I charged at him but this time he was ready for it. He threw his arms wide and bellowed: “Raze, Fmes of War!”

  An enormous swathe of fire billowed out from him, threatening to turn everything in its wake to ash. I focused Qi into my legs and leapt high into the air, clearing both the fmes and the intense heat mirage that enveloped them. Of course that left me in the extremely vulnerable position of being up in the air.

  Ares thrust his sword up at me in a mighty, two-handed attack that would nearly bisect me if it nded and I only just managed to twist away in time. Before he could turn the bde and swing upward I pumped Qi into my arms and legs and nded on top of his sword with one foot.

  Credit where it's due, even loaded down with all my gear my weight wasn't enough to make him drop the weapon entirely. It did drop by maybe a foot but that was all. At least until I unleashed a Qi Burst in a kick that smmed his sword into the ground and gave me the momentum necessary to jump over him, nd behind him and ram Eleftheria into his left bicep. I would have liked to hurt his right arm instead but the angle would have made it impossible. Case in point, before I could even find my bearing Ares had let go of his sword and I had to scramble backward to avoid his forearm turning my skull to dust.

  Before he could fully turn around to face me I heard Athena's voice ring out a moment before her Paldion miracle shot out of her arm and into Ares' right thigh, making him howl in pain. It bought me a moment to get my bearings and I used it to look back at the battlefield.

  For a while now I'd wanted to get a look at how the fight between the cultists and the gods, Heroes and Royal Guards was going but looking away from Ares would have been beyond foolish. Now, though, after positioning myself behind Ares I could get a clear view of what was going on without taking my eyes off him entirely. And it let me see that the fight was going well, kind of.

  Two dozen Royal Guards, three Great Heroes and seven gods were a force to be reckoned with. In fact, all of that put together would probably be enough to crush any Dark Lord no matter how long they'd spend gathering troops under them. And so I wasn't terribly surprised by the fact that they were beating back the Holy Maiden's elite cultists. However, the sheer fact that they hadn't wiped out everyone but Wilhelm and the Holy Maiden spoke of just how strong her inner circle of cultists had to be. But right now that wasn't important.

  What was important was Ares, smarting from the wounds in his arm and leg. He knew enough about fighting not to drop everything and nurse his wounds but I could tell that this was getting to him. What got to him even more though was the fact that I was still behind him. He was smart enough not to face the others with me at his back but I still hadn't him to simply turn his back on them and charge me like a bull. His arms were ready to tch onto me and I was certain that whatever he was pnning with me it would be highly unpleasant so I did the st thing he expected. I charged him.

  He was clearly used to people running away from him if he came at them like this so the fact thatI didn't gave him pause. It wasn't a lot but his steps faltered just enough that I had time to throw myself into a slide between his legs, letting me avoid his grasp and getting me back on the right side of the battlefield.

  Before he could so much as turn around Alisha, Melinoe and Anna lit him up. Tornado nces, nces of whatever you would call Melinoe's magic and sapphire shards smmed into his exposed back. For a moment I was annoyed at them throwing lethal magic at someone we wanted to keep alive before the genius of it struck me.

  Ares' breastpte was obscenely tough. It wasn't quite as tough as his impenetrable bracelets but it was still powerful. My Qi Burst had been able to pierce it but I was beginning to suspect that that had mainly been because of the armor-piercing enchantment on the bde. However, even if his breastpte and bracelets were tough, the rest of him wasn't. Yume had used that knowledge to sever his head earlier but it had only just occurred to me that the same applied to his limbs. Attacks that had no chance of harming his torso would be more than enough to harm his limbs and so long as they were aimed low enough not to hit his head they had basically no chance of killing him outright. And that's exactly what happened.

  A magical mulligan smmed into Ares, washing over his armored chest and shredding his arms and legs, red meat and golden blood flying everywhere. When it was over there was scarcely any meat left on his limbs, only what little flesh was hidden underneath his bracelets and bracers staying wholly intact, specks of meat and sinew barely covering his white bones. Somehow, impossibly, he managed to stay standing on those shredded legs. At least until Yume and I carved them apart, making him fall down to the marble floor. Before he could even attempt to raise his arms for some final attack Selene came running and carved his arms off as well.

  I didn't gloat, didn't say anything to Ares, I just dug through my bag of holding for something to completely neutralize him. Even if his limbs were gone, they would grow back eventually. Maybe I could burn the stumps but even that left his mouth. So long as he could speak he could cast miracles so I either had to gag him or cut out his tongue entirely.

  But before I could pull out a torch and a knife I heard the Holy Maiden's voice. It was a single word, spoken neither loudly nor urgently, but it echoed across the battlefield: “Wilhelm.”

  It was clearly a command though for what I did not know. I spun around to defend against whatever Wilhelm was about to do when the bastard fsh stepped right into the center of our group, on top of Ares, and rammed an alexandrite dagger into the god of war's heart.