Chapter 87 - The World Below - The Dream In The Darkness

After two hours of sermon, even Athena was tired of her voice.

Athena swam in that darkness, where she resisted the negative feelings that assaulted her over and over.

However, despite those feelings assaulting her incessantly, it's intensity was less. Hatred, sadness, rancor and all other feelings, were further weakened.

That's because these feelings had an owner.

After all, no one can feel the pain with the same intensity as someone else is feeling.

What Athena felt was just what was left of those feelings.

"Come on, Faena, show up!"

"You said you want my powers..."

The voice came from behind Athena's back, but when Athena turned away, Faena wasn't there.

"...You have no idea what it's like to have my powers..."

"Here it comes…" Athena frowned again. "I'm not interested in it, fuck all your bitterness!"

"..."

"If you won't give it to me, I'll take it!" Athena said and began to devour the darkness as it merged with her soul.

Athena's soul that was clean began to have stains at the ends and a swirl of darkness began to circle it.

It wasn't even half a percent of what Faena had and it didn't bother her. That's until Athena starts taking mana along with the darkness.

"Wait! This mana shouldn't belong to anyone but me! My mom gave it to me, it's mine!"

"Get out of your hiding place and come stop me!" Athena said in a crazy laugh. "I've barely started and I feel so much power!" Athena laughed theatrically like a cheap villain and then she had an idea. "What if I mix it up?"

"Huh? Mix what?"

"Mine, yours, the sword and the dragon. I will mix and assimilate all the mana I have! How did I not think of that before?" Athena complained to herself.

In fact, that was a very good idea, and it was what Ella had in mind after making Athena regain what she had lost.

Athena focused on the mess that was her mana and began to tangle everything into a single tangle.

The mana didn't have to be and it wasn't uniform.

Athena's mana naturally had several elements, even the dark element, it was common for mana not to be uniform and this was not necessary.

Athena just didn't know how to deal with the strange mana that were in her body and this caused a disorder preventing her from using her mana.

But that problem was solved the moment everything was mixed rather than linked.

Not that linking like the way Athena did was wrong, but it was ineffective for someone like Athena who wasn't a deity.

"Imagine how much power I'll get!"

"I won't allow it!" Faena screamed, and this time the scream echoed sharply.

If Athena had been made of flesh then, her eardrums sure as hell wouldn't have supported and burst, but that wasn't a problem Athena had to face right now, in a soul form.

Faena first appeared to Athena. She was like the thing that attacked Athena in the temple of all the gods, a tenebrous tangle of darkness.

Athena was skinless, but she still felt goosebumps when Faena reached out toward her.

"Get out of here!" Faena said in a voice filled with fury and Athena opened her eyes, staring at the crystal.

"You going to be like that?" Athena asked with a smile and started to absorb the mana that was still passing through her body.

She had no idea what time it was or how many days had passed, but she noticed the changes in her body.

Her hair was completely black and her skin was as white as snow.

Athena clicked her tongue and saw that her claws were also black and bigger.

"It's time for you to get out of there!" Athena gritted her teeth and inside the crystal she twisted her hands, gripping Faena's slender arms. "Come on! I'll give you some light!"

Faena had a complicated expression, she couldn't speak from inside the crystal and couldn't warn Athena.

(I must not leave!)

She tried to say, but those were her thoughts, her voice wouldn't come out and no one would hear her.

Athena backed up on her heels and pulled away Faena who was futilely trying to resist. Faena's hands came out and with them a wave of dark mana which Athena absorbed into the core of mana she formed within herself.

"I'm going to get all your power for me and then I'm going to get Lhia's!"

Athena pulled a little more, and Faena's entire forearm was out of the crystal.

Athena could already feel her mana returning to how it should be and a powerful new mana mixed with it.

She was starting to want to cast a spell or skill just to kill the longing and in that moment of distraction, Faena sank back into the crystal.

"Hey! Get back here!" Athena put more force into her pull. "Let's see if you're going to stay in there for longer like that, [Fortification]"

An orange light glowed around Athena's body and her muscles got bigger and then relaxed harder and stronger.

Athena laughed, squeezed Faena's arms in a way that if she were out of the crystal, she would scream in pain, and pulled the girl out of the crystal at once and into her arms.

""What did you do?"" Faena asked with a devastated expression. ""How could you break the seal like that?"

Athena frowned at the sound of Faena's voice that was quite different from before. The girl's voice was now distorted as if there were two of her and the two were talking at the same time, and that was horrifying for the way she was now.

The darkness made her hair seem alive and her mana came out of her body like black smoke, her skin was paler than Athena's in her eyes the darkness had intensified.

"Does it really matter how I got you out of there? Even I don't know how... I just did." Athena said with the girl in her arms. "Ah! Wait! You helped me."

""Huh?""

"If you hadn't turned the crystal into jelly, I wouldn't have been able to get you out of there. So it's absolutely all your fault." Athena said, freeing herself from the guilt Faena was throwing at her. Athena smiled at the sinister thing she hugged. "Now... It's time to give me everything you've got!"

""Huh? Urgh! What are you- Aaaargrrh!!!!!!""

Athena enveloped Faena and herself in a cocoon made of slimy green mana and began to absorb everything Faena had.

After a few hours the cocoon turned completely black and Faena fell unconscious out of it.

But even for Athena, it was too much power and darkness.

Inside that cocoon, Athena began a fight against all the impulses that Faena's powers and mana caused.

Some time passed and Faena woke up.

Her hair was white like her eyes, she didn't feel the despair she felt and tears involuntarily ran down her pink cheeks.

She was free, but now who was facing everything that until moments ago she faced, was Athena.

Faena felt her legs so weak and couldn't use any of her magics.

She was completely powerless now.

She had become a homunculus even more useless than Eun and Neu, her older sisters, but she didn't care, she was free.

Faena crept closer to the cocoon of black mana and tried to see and hear what was going on inside, but she couldn't see or hear anything.

...

....

.....

Athena was floating in a fetal position as she held her head in both hands like she was trying to protect herself from something.

In her mind, Athena was back to being Arthur.

Whether it was a dream or a nightmare, Athena couldn't tell.

It was morning, Arthur woke up with his dog jumping on the bed.

"Hi boy!" Arthur patted the black-haired dog's ears and looked away.

There was the most perfect ass he had ever seen in his life.

Luana was sleeping beside him in her panties like she always did.

"Hot as ever…" Arthur commented to the dog and then filled his big hand with Luana's tanned ass. "Good morning my love."

"Hrm... Art, what time is it?" Luana asked in a sly voice after a slight moan.

"Hm... It's time to wake up." Arthur said, kissed the woman's bare back and suddenly everything changed.

The happiness that Athena was feeling was distorted in another scene and now Athena was Athena and beside her was Mifa.

However, it wasn't morning and there wasn't a bed. There were bodies everywhere and Mifa was just another one of them.

"Forgive me... Forgive me please!" Athena cried and looked a little farther away. "Anemus... Fotiá..."

Anemus was over Fotiá and both were impaled by several weapons.

"I didn't mean..." Athena looked up at the red sky and again the scene changed and the spring night filled Arthur's eyes.

He was together with Luana, Rodrigo and his best friend's girlfriend.

The four were camping on a mountain that allowed them to see the sky as it really was.

A sea of ​​stars and the immensity of the universe made Arthur see the beauty in his little life.

There he was sure he wanted to spend his whole life with the love of his life and his best friend.

They didn't say anything, at that moment they didn't need to.

Arthur laced his fingers with Luana's, in turn she laid her head on his shoulder and the scenario changed.

The scenario has changed.

The scenario has changed.

The scenario...

The scene...

The...

Athena couldn't take it anymore.

Her heart ached, tears ran wildly down her face and without realizing it she screamed.

"That's enough! I don't want this anymore! Please! I'm tired! Someone save me! Someone kill me!"

Those words were never heard, that's because it were never spoken.

She was still trapped in that torment.

That was a moment before the column of darkness ascended from the hole to the sky.

"Athena, wake up. It's your turn to take care of her." Anemus said.

Athena rolled over in the bed, hugged Mifa and groaned. "Isn't it Mifa's turn?"

"I went yesterday…" Mifa's voice came from under her gray hair.

After a little more insistence from Anemus, Athena threw herself out of bed, feeling her breasts heavy and went to a crib in the corner of the royal room and picked up the dark blond haired baby who was crying.

"Hi my cutie." Athena said in a husky voice and smiled at the girl who stopped crying as soon as she saw Athena. "Are you hungry, my love?

Athena pulled her left breast out of her nightgown and placed her nipple in the tiny, toothless mouth of the baby who then closed her eyes as she sucked Athena's milk.

"I still can't believe we had a daughter..."

"We are waiting for you." Mifa said while looking directly at Athena.

"Yes, we are." Anemus reaffirmed and for some reason Athena felt lighter.

"Yes, I'm on my way.." Athena smiled and darkness exploded.