Vol.5 Ch.22.3 – The Holy Maiden III

Before I could even worry about Wilhelm attacking us he flash stepped once again, back to the Holy Maiden's side, leaving his dagger stuck in Ares' rib cage.

Gods damn it all. Killing Ares was just about the worst thing they could have done to stop us. Not only had they ruined my plan of keeping Ares incapacitated so Yume could take her revenge on him, they had also made sure their greatest fighter would be back momentarily.

Or maybe not.

By the time Wilhelm appeared at the Holy Maiden's side once again she was weaving some sort of spell, dizzying afterimages of black and red and purple trailing behind her fingers as she cast... something. And it was then that I realized I had never actually seen an Outsider worshiper casting spells.

Oh, they had certainly conjured up beams of Darklight and tentacle portals but it was always just those, codified uses of their vile Outsider force. But what the Holy Maiden was doing was different. She was actually casting a proper spell, something that did not adhere to those strict guidelines. And before I could even think about doing something to stop her spell she let go of the ball of energy she had gathered. Ares' body flickered, about to vanish into motes of light, when the Holy Maiden's spell arced through the air and slammed down into it.

All of us jumped back from the spell at once, worried about some kind of attack, but clearly the spell hadn't been intended to harm us. The dark energy exploded into a tangle of black tentacles that wrapped around Ares' body right as it vanished, then cinched shut like a fisher's net, trapping the motes of light inside, shimmering behind the weave of slightly translucent tentacles. A moment later the tangle of tentacles blasted into the air and then shot off into the distance.

“What was that?” I asked as I turned back to regard the Holy Maiden.

“We shifted his respawn coordinates away from Olympus,” she said. I had only ever heard that word in the context of dungeon monsters reappearing after a set amount of time but I supposed it made sense that the way gods revived could be called the same thing.

“I got that,” I said. That ball had clearly gone somewhere else, much farther away than Ares' tholos. “But why? He's your most powerful fighter, isn't he?”

She tittered. “He is needed elsewhere,” she said. “Out of courtesy We gave him one chance of fighting his fellow Olympians here. He squandered that chance. Now he has somewhere else to be. And so We sent him away, so that he might not attempt to go against his orders.”

At least she had as much faith in Ares' ability to follow orders as I had. Although... “You must be pretty impressive if you can order gods around.”

She tittered again. Clearly she thought so. Though now that I thought about it, there was one more loose end I was curious about.

“So what was that thing with the Dark Lord about?” I asked. In response she tilted her head, the motion oddly bird-like despite her horned head. “You know, you anoint a Dark Lord and Ares sends a Chosen One to kill him. What was that about? Was that his last-ditch effort to thwart you before you recruited him? He didn't tell anyone about it so it clearly wasn't to keep up appearances.”

“Oh, that?” she asked. “Ah yes, Wilhelm did mention that you had been the ones to slay that Dark Lord.” She paused, then explained: “It is quite simple. That was a game. A little wager between him and Us. If Our Dark Lord wins, We get to order Ares around. If his Chosen One wins, he is in control of Our forces. And in the end his Chosen One not only died, he did so after betraying his god.”

“And yet you attacked Olympus for him anyway,” I said.

She waved my point away. “Necessity. We had the option of invading either Tir na nÓg or Olympus and, unlike Bres, Ares actually knew of secret passages into this realm. You should have seen how Bres seethed over that decision.” She tittered again. She was quite fond of that. Then again, she thought she was about to win.

And, just as I thought, it meant she wasn't the kind of genius tactician Hades and Athena had worried she might be. Because if she was she would have realized that there was no reason for me to be stalling like this unless I was trying to distract her.

And just as I thought that a dagger made of sapphire slammed into Hera's forehead. Hera had still been bound to her throne by black goo but if we could free her we would gain another powerful ally right in the middle of our enemies. The best part was that Hera was gagged by the black goo and thus didn't let out even a sound of pain so the first thing the Holy Maiden knew of what had happened was when I allowed myself a small smile just as Hera's body was about to vanish.

And then that smile withered on my face as Hera's body vanished into motes of light, reappeared on top of the throne full of black goo and then tentacles shot out of the black goo to immediately restrain her once again.

“I told you we made sport out of collecting Hera's severed heads,” Wilhelm said, his tone so smug I thought he was about to 'tsk' me. “Did you really think we would do something stupid like that if we didn't have a way to capture her immediately after she respawns?”

I sighed and drew Eleftheria again. Even through our little chat the remaining cultists had kept on fighting the gods and Heroes. I had been somewhat comforted by the fact that whatever empowerment the Holy Maiden had granted Wilhelm it hadn't made him strong enough to perform two flash steps in quick succession without needing a moment to breathe afterwards and that moment had allowed our side to gain a lot of ground against the cultists but they would still need help.

But instead of blindly rushing in I first took stock of the situation. All in all there were about a dozen cultists left alive and those were clearly the cream of the crop, capable of holding off gods and Great Heroes. My earlier assessment that they weren't as horribly mutated as the cultists we'd fought before was also called into question as I looked them over. They were all clearly more in command of their mutations as the others but that didn't necessarily mean they didn't have any. Even as I watched one of them pulled back the sleeve of his cultist robes to expose an arm that looked perfectly normal up until the moment it unfolded into a dozen tendrils tipped with blades.

Half of the cultists were standing back, shield bubbles like the one Wilhelm had used in our first encounter encasing them while they cast their... well, after seeing the Holy Maiden casting actual Outsider magic I couldn't very well call these spells anymore, could I? Incantations, I supposed. The other half of the cultists, including the one that had just folded out his arm, had shimmering half-dome shields that moved with their left arms while they attacked with whatever they were holding in their right. For two it was claws, for one it was a tangle of tentacles and for the other three it was weapons. Whatever they were swinging, it was encased in a thin layer of Darklight that would make blocking worse than useless.

But even all of that wouldn't have mattered given that they were up against gods and Great Heroes, except they were also fast and smart. They didn't move quite as ludicrously fast as wendigo but they were still pretty damn fast and unlike wendigo they weren't dumb as a sack of rocks. The Great Heroes were able to catch them off-guard with feints but that was clearly only because each of them had centuries of experience when it came to fighting, most of that acquired posthumously while sparring with other Heroes.

I was about to join in the fight when I chanced a look back at the Holy Maiden and saw that I might have underestimated her after all. Because while I had been busy looking at the cultists she had clearly been doing the same to us.

“Sweet Wilhelm?” she asked just as Wilhelm had summoned an alexandrite sword to fight us with.

“Yes, mistress?” he asked, not fully turning away from us but still shifting to face her.

“The young cleric has the eyes of her goddess upon her and can cast limitless miracles,” she said, staring at Alisha. “As such, it is only fair for you to be able to do the same. For the duration of this battle you may call upon My Everything as you will.” That sentence would have made no sense if Syr hadn't already informed me that 'My Everything' was how she referred to the Black Goat. Although it posed interesting questions about her vocabulary. Because while 'My Everything' was a strange way to refer to one's goddess, in this case it was even stranger because it was the first time I'd heard her not refer to herself in the plural. I wondered if there was some sort of significance to that.

She speaks in the plural because she claims to speak with the authority of the Black Goat, Syr explained in my mind.

So the 'we' refers to herself and the Black Goat?, I asked.

Yes, she said.

I paused for a long moment before I asked: Are you alright?

No, Syr replied. I... I don't want you to risk the world for me. If killing her is the only way to stop..., her astral projection wasn't next to me but I could still feel her indicating the portal, ... this, then I'd rather you kill us both before you doom everything.

Syr, I said very clearly. You heard Poseidon. Killing your body wouldn't even help. With how crazy Wilhelm is about her she would probably just possess him and continue where she left off. So just trust me. We will exorcise her and then shut down the portal. You'll be safe and free and everything will be fine.

I... I want to believe, she said. I... no. I do believe you. I just wish I could do more to help.

If you want to help then please do your best to insulate my mind, I said. That glamour was far stronger than I expected. If she can cast any other mind or illusion spells I'll need your protection.

That I can do, she said, the uncertainty leaving her tone. I've been training hard after that thing with Yume and her Chosen One.

I smiled. Then let's do this.

She took a deep breath and then appeared next to me, the white tendrils of mind magic swirling around her astral form, ready to stop whatever the Holy Maiden threw at us.

Except the moment Syr's astral body appeared the Holy Maiden broke into a radiant smile, her gaze fixed on me. Or rather, fixed to the point of empty air next to me that Syr didn't really occupy.

“Ah, my sweet Syr,” she said. “I had wondered where you kept running off to.”