Chapter 84 - Athena And The Hero - Part 7

While Athena was sulking that Ella was useless and didn't know weather control spell to get rid of the blizzard, the dragon and the hero talked with smiles on their faces.

"A summoned hero from another world... This is the first time I've seen one in person." Ella said with eyes full of curiosity. "How strong are you?"

"I think now I could kill Mammon, the demon lord, with the strength I have, but..." Hercules looked at Athena who was playing with a lock of her hair. "She already killed him..."

"Eh? Athena killed a demon lord? Really?"

"Hm? Yes. His existence annoyed me." Athena muttered without telling the whole truth.

"Wow! Demon Lords should be strong as a dragon..."

"This claim is wrong." Athena said. "Dragons are physically stronger and their spells match demonic spells. So they're only as strong as a dragon when it comes to magic."

"You're beautiful, rich, strong, smart and what else?" Hercules asked.

"I'm hot!" Athena replied with a smirk.

"Ah..."

***

"'Kill them,' she said... Kahahaha!" Lord Ewllen scoffed.

Even after the order, the knights did not move. Over their heads, a faint black cloud hung, and in Ewllen's hand was a purple crystal he'd taken from his coat.

A crystal that glowed a hideous dark light.

Mifa, with an expressionless face, looked at the crystal.

She couldn't see the mana, but after so long studying magic every day, Mifa could feel more clearly what kind of mana was close to her.

Since Ewllen entered the room, Mifa had already identified the existence of something bad among the nobles, and that wasn't the nobles.

Mifa was perplexed. She expected someone to make an attack and not an attempt to usurp the throne.

"And now?" Mifa asked without moving.

"Now you're going to die here for bringing me to take such an uncivilized action." Ewllen said and looked at the kneeling nobles. "Rise up my friends, we don't need to follow the orders of a dead queen and now that the empire is gone and the kingdom of Mizha on our side, we can make Basilica into a nation as sublime as it was a hundred years ago!"

The kneeling nobles looked at Ewllen and then at Mifa and bowed their heads, making Mifa smile smugly with satisfaction.

"They're smarter than you..."

Mifa stood up, her loose hair fell to her knees and hung like a curtain, she tied it in a ponytail and disappeared.

Everyone there knew of the woman's feat in the brief war where the armies of the allied kingdoms were massacred.

Some refused to believe it and said it was because the knights of Athena were with her and others preferred to be cautious in case it was not just a rumor.

Ewllen was from the denial group who arrogantly blinded themselves and dismissed the possibility of the truth. In other words, they were careless.

"Huh?! Where did she go?" Ewllen asked and then everything spun.

Suddenly Ewllen saw Mifa and five headless people kneeling around her. One of the people was holding a crystal just like the one he was holding.

But the crystal no longer emitted light and where his head should have been, blood was pouring out.

"Veron had to act that way… No, maybe it was his king…" Mifa monologued in the hallway which led to Serien's room. "I hate this job..."

In the bedroom, Veron had two of his children in his arms. He looked at the children with eyes full of love while feeling apprehensive.

After being threatened by Mifa, he sent a letter to the king and received orders to act as soon as possible.

(They should have already finished...)

Veron thought that when the door opened.

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A/N: Now let's just talk about Athena. Everything else will be for later. Sorry to those who are curious about what would come after the door opened and about Fotiá and Edrik. I want write about love!

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Another four days passed and Athena, Hercules, Ella and the children were still trapped inside the cave.

During this period, Ella helped Athena, or at least tried to help. They tried to bring the remnants of powers that Athena once had to the surface, but Athena couldn't find anything.

Athena had reached her core and there was nothing but what she was.

She didn't have the Reaper's power, she didn't have anything from the Tormentor, she didn't have anything from the Ruler, nor were there any traces of her having been a Death Knight.

"This won't get you anywhere. I don't have those powers anymore!"

"But how? I don't understand! Did you lie to me?" Ella was annoyed. She couldn't accept being wrong.

"I didn't lie! I was everything I said!" Athena frowned at being accused of dishonesty. "Maybe it's because my soul is not of this world..."

"Huh? You didn't say that before!"

"What did you say?" Hercules asked.

""Nothing! Stay out of it!"" Athena and Ella said.

"Wow! Sorry, I just wanted to help!" Hercules grunted in Odeonian.

"What did he say?"

"Nothing important... What do you mean your soul is not from this world?"

"Ah! She is reincarnated." Hercules said in Odeonian, trying to join the conversation.

"Can you stay out of my business?" Athena said in English.

"Okay, okay! I won't say anything else!"

"I reincarnated in this world after dying in another." Athena said to Ella.

"Hm..." Ella paced back and forth. "This is another thing I've never seen happen..."

"What?"

"A soul reincarnated with memories intact."

"I don't understand and I don't care-..." Athena stopped her speech midway as she remembered what that thing that attacked her in the temple of all the gods had told her. "What if..."

"W-what? Did you remember something?" Ella asked as she stared at Athena very closely.

"I'm not sure, but…" Athena looked at Ella who was just inches from her face. "Do you know where Faena and Lhia are sealed?" Athena asked and narrowed her eyes. "Can you step back a bit?"

"The dolls?" Ella tilted her head without move away.

Hercules stared from the corner of the cave, waiting and hoping for a kiss to happen between the two women and found he had a strange taste or fetish.

(Dolls? Fuck that. Kiss each other!) It was weird, but he accepted the awkwardness with open arms.

"Yes, they."

"I know where they are!" Ella said and walked away with a serious expression. "But why do you want to know? Those things have too much power..."

"I just need to get their powers for myself." Athena said while interrupting Ella. "If I can absorb power from a mana crystal, I might be able to steal their powers."

"Impossible." Ella denied Athena's idea.

"Huh? Why?"

"Because they are creatures and not a solid piece of mana!"

"I'm not a piece of stone and someone took my powers once!" Athena said and Ella looked at Athena with startled eyes.

"Was a god who did it?"

"I don't know what it was." Athena thought about it and felt the terror she felt before pass over her skin and lightly rubbed her trembling arm. "It was a sinister thing. It reached into my chest and took away the power Naph gave me, and she said to go my own way."

"What was this thing like?"

"It was a silhouette of pure and tenebrous darkness."

"Wasn't it Faena?" Ella asked with a dubious look.

"Isn't she sealed? There's no way she could have done anything."

After much talking, Athena and Ella decided to go to Lhia's seal. Ella thought it would be too risky for Athena, who had once been a Tormentor, to approach Faena first.

When the storm passed, instead of flying home, Athena and Ella flew east along with Hercules and the children.

Before the journey to the east, they passed by the thermal lake and bathed. It was the first real bath in years.

It relaxed them and brought back their true colors.

Athena and Elle were surprised by what they saw.

Hercules, before his bath, had a dark and grayish skin and his hair was thick and matted here and there.

But after his bath, his colors were revealed.

He had long black hair, sharp dark brown eyes and white skin. Although it was possible to see his ribs through the skin, the young man had a good physique.

Malana, like Hercules, before the bath had greenish tones on her skin and hardened layers of dirt. Her hair was dark and greasy.

But after the bath, all it was gone. She had reddish brown hair and her skin tone was very light brown.

Kalta even after the shower didn't change much. The boy had a dark brown skin tone, so the dirt wasn't as apparent, but his hair, which was a yellowish gray color, changed to a shimmering silver.

The bath brought the boy's beauty back and even the boy's sad features got brighter with a big smile.

Perhaps Kalta was the first boy Athena found truly beautiful.

However, Idna was the one who most surprised Athena.

The girl's hair was black before the shower, but then her colors changed and she was actually blonde with curly hair, and her skin was naturally a yellowish hue.

As per Athena, her hair remained platinum blond, but her skin, which was gray as if it had bathed in soot, turned pinkish white as it should be.

Hercules was bewitched by the sight of the woman taking a bath.

"Hide it... She might be weak right now, but I bet she could kill you." Ella said upon seeing the young man's stiffened member.

Hercules hid his intimacy and with a red face, the young man looked at Ella. "I think I might have a chance with her."

Ella looked at Hercules in surprise, hid her lips with her fingers and then laughed, leaving the young man confused.

But that wasn't important now. With every movement Athena made, hers stretching and or bending, Hercules felt his blood rush more furiously to his lower region.

Athena was up to her waist in water, and the skin on her back glistened with reflected light. Her rosy breasts seemed soft and firm and it made Hercules' heart race so fast that his lower pulse almost vibrated.

"I... I will..." Hercules said and stood up with his clothes in his arms.

"Where did Hercules go?" Idna asked Ella.

"I don't know either…" Ella replied.

After bathing, they traveled for eight hours non-stop and landed on the side of a gigantic crater with dense forest on its walls.

"She's saddle here."