Chapter 58 - 54: The Twin Gods pt.2

Pan stayed staring at John for a while, wielding his black blade ever so tightly. John didn't necessarily scare him, but the sight and aura of his weapon did. After all, it was a weapon that sent chills down his spine.

They both watched for the slightest of movement from each other. Neither John nor Pan made a move. Pan knew that John wasn't as weak as he seemed as he did hold off Delia before the Goddess of darkness came to his rescue. Although neither he nor the other gods have seen Delia or her body for a while, they just ȧssumed the Goddess of Darkness had dealt a critical blow to her, and she was in hiding while recovering. 

John had stared on at Pan with curiosity as he was sure there was supposed to be a twin somewhere, Agreus. In mythology, they were depicted as somewhat inseparable. Like an older brother and little brother whose bond was a little too deep, but then again, John just chalked it up for their deep love of keeping the balance of light and dark.

John ran the scenario in his head that the perpetrator of manipulating him and the other gods could be Agreus, but that was soon tossed out the window as that seemed highly improbable since mythology tells of each knowing what the other is doing.

Feeling that his time was unnecessarily being wasted, John decided to make the first move by banging the bottom of his staff and conjuring a trail of {Shadow Spikes) that proceed to move toward Pan. John knew this would most likely not work, but he still needed to test the waters a bit before attempting to finish this quickly. 

As the spikes headed toward Pan, he quickly dodged them to the left with a flap of his metallic wings, but just as he dodged, he noticed another set of {Shadow Spikes} coming from the very direction he dodged toward. This time he decided to dodge by flying backward, but his attempt was bȧrėly successful as a shadow spike that came from behind him this time pierced through his metallic wings and feathers. 

Although his wings weren't real, this still hurt Pan's pride as he was sure he was being led and played with by a being lesser than him. It's not that Pan was like most of the other gods who so eagerly looked down upon the lives of the mortals that live upon the trinity of worlds; it was the fact that one was on par with him in both combat and strategy. It was more concerning than scary to Pan and a few other minor gods who still believe he could be redeemed. 

Feeling as if he'd need to forget the ideology that John was just some weak mortal, he needed to employ different tactics. Although he didn't really like them for their devious ways, he knew that he needed to finish this up, or else he feared humanity in this world would truly become extinct.

As Pan continued to dodge and maneuver around his way around John's {Shadow Spikes} he decided that the time was right for a counterattack as after avoiding the last {Shadow Spike} John conjured from under his feet, he proceeded to make his way closer to John who stood still as if waiting for him to fight back.

It was increasingly difficult the closer Pan got to John, but nonetheless, he had gained ground and was within striking range and proceeded to swing from the ground-up with a diagonal direction, but was met with the back-end of John's scythe as if he was an experienced fighter with it. Although his attack was blocked, Pan knew this was where his less favorable tactics came into play.

John knew that even though Pan, a minor god, was not as powerful as one of the major Gods, he was at least the wisest. This was not based on his current encounter with the god but on his past encounters with them. The Goddess of light Delia was someone who was dignified, headstrong, and ċȯċky, while the Goddess of Darkness, whose name he still didn't know, was more knowledgeable and with a pinch of sadistic aura that foreshadowed something about her that John couldn't quite put his fingers on. Throughout all of this, he knew when someone had a trump card and was hiding it. Only if he knew just how right he was. 

It wasn't just a hunch that John had as he could clearly tell that the power difference between him and Pan was minimal at best as right now their strength was oddly equal for him to be a minor god.

Just as John had was about to commence his counterattack with which was consisted of using his {Darkness Manipulation} to conjure a {Shadow Replicant}, something he had thought of before after almost meeting his end by the hands of Delia, but just as was about to commence his counter Pan shimmered white for a mere millisecond before disappearing without a sound.

John knew that something wasn't right as soon as Pan disappeared, his senses blared warnings of danger and that it was far too late to dodge to safety, so the best option he had was to prepare for the inevitable damage he'd take by quickly covering his forearms in darkness and guarding his head. And Just as if his prediction came true to the tee, a purely white sword with a black hilt had been thrown with deadly precision toward his head. Still, it was blocked by his forearm wrapped within his {Shadow Gaurd} and was deflected upward into the air while John was knocked back with a considerable distance between him and the area he was standing.

{Shadow Gaurd} was a technique he had developed when he realized that although his decayed skin was capable of withstanding a barrage of bullets and being hit by a blast of light comparable to that of a tank round, it did little to protect him from the brutal onslaught of Delia when she came after him. Although {Shadow Gaurd} looked like it was purely a skill made from his {Darkness Manipulation} it was actually a combination of both {Shadow Manipulation} and {Magic Manipulation}, the latter is what is responsible for the hardening and ease of deflecting. Although it did wonders with deflecting the sword, the hardening aspect of the skill needed improving as the thrown sword was still capable of piercing it and leaving a two-centimeter incision on his left forearm.

After quickly ȧssessing his situation, John looked toward where the sword came from to only find no one, and in the air where the sword went flying, there was a person who had just caught the sword which looked like Pan in his armor, but it looked as if it was made from white Porcelain with gold trimming. Other than the white porcelain color of the armor, it was exactly the same as Pan's armor. 

Just as John had found the white Porcelain warrior in the air reclaiming the blade, the warrior flew furiously down toward John with the intent to slice through John's {Shadow Gaurd} where piercing had partially succeeded. John wasn't taking the chance solely depending on his best defensive skill as it proved hardly efficient when fighting someone on the level of a minor god, so he quickly conjured swung his scythe, not with the intention of performing a counter but the intention of blocking and deflecting the rushing warrior.

John's idea of blocking and deflecting the warrior's attack by swinging his scythe might have seemed to be a form of counter-attacking, but in fact, it was actually a form of psychological manipulation or better phrased as leading the opponent. By having the opponent perceive your intent as something else, you essentially lead them to either defend themselves or counter-attack. With the situation the warrior is in with their poorly planned rush, it leaves them with only the option to react instead of responding, making John's plan succeed.

As the warrior is under the ȧssumption that John is counter-attacking while he's flying at high speeds towards him, leaving little to no room to either evade or think of a better counter to John's counterattack. With little to no other option, he begins to shimmer with a black aura for a millisecond before disappearing while Pan reappeared on the ground with his ebony black armor and proceeded to rush John from three meters away making John block his blade with the spine of his scythe.

As the blade made contact with the spine of John's scythe, he said, "Oh Pan, this is quite the development here, isn't it? Wasn't that your brother, Agreus? He seemed very agitated to see me despite me not being able to see his face through the helm of his."

"Tsk," was the only thing that came from Pan as he too seemed agitated as that was his only response.

"So let me guess, was that little technique something like a teleportation skill where one hides far away and waits to pull the other out the fight as if it was a tag team fight? No, it would make more sense for the both of you to fight me regardless of whatever rules you are under or honor that binds you. I'm far too big of a threat to you, the rebellious gods, and the other two worlds I'm meant to visit. I can't even see him with my new vision, which stretches very far, nor can I sense a magical signature from him if I might say so. It only means... it can't be...Ha Ha ha ha haaaa." 

John quickly calmed himself as he knew he couldn't currently afford to give away chances to his opponent to quickly end him in the realization of the ironic situation that his foe was in. 

John added a little more of his own weight upon the crossing weapons to add upon even more strategic pressure. It was a sound tactic and to finally put a cherry on top he decided to say, "How does it work exactly? Is it a curse or is it a condition for your godhood? You know not being able to exist within the same domain, or better phrased as not being able to exist within the same existence."

It wasn't hard for John to understand Pan and Agreus's condition as it made sense as to why John couldn't find the other when one disappeared and the other appeared. It's not really rocket science as it was more dependent on Magical Existence Theory or M.E.T for short. A theory that John used to explain why magic was as prevalent as it was in the other worlds as he had heard. In theory, without going into an entire four speech on the ideology and philosophy, it was the idea that there needed to be a balance between the trinity of worlds. A world in which magic was the primary focus of higher enlightenment and life in general, A world where both magic and sciences were the focus of higher enlightenment and betterment of all life within, and the current world that John is situated upon, where only science is the focus of enlightenment and betterment of all life.

In the form of order and stability, it makes sense as there was always the reasoning that chance reigned supreme over the thought that destiny controls all. So once put into the equation and summed up, too much Magic being used could either cause an unprecedented collapse of the trinity of worlds or too much science being used without the integration of magic could cause the trinity of worlds to suffer a backlash of overabundant magical build-up causing what John ȧssumed was a reaction twenty times worse than the Big Bang. All in all the worlds were built flawed, but why? This very question plagued John the moment he came up with M.E.T after attempting to understand the differences between this world and the others. 

Now how does this relate back to Pan and Agreus, well it's simple really. Its related to them because John had realized that whoever was not in the material plane of existence in front of him now, or even within any other plane existence, was incapable of being within the same existence as the brother and vice versa. For where the other went when they switched was a mystery to John.

It was similar to two magnets that both had positive and negative ends and at the moment both Pan and Agreus were positive. John didn't know how this came to be for them but he knew he could use this to his advantage. 

Just as John was about to jump back and jump forward while swinging his scythe upward with a  verticle swing Pan had switched with Agreus in guarding against John and Agreus quickly said, "Yeah well it must've been hard to run out of a burning house and leave your family to die in that Fire!"

John just stood there with his scythe meeting the Blade of Agreus, while somewhere outside of all existence Pan looked mortified at what his brother had said as it wasn't a matter of how he said it as it was a matter of who he had said it too.