Chapter 891: The Overgod's Dead Heart
"Welcome to my humble abode. Hope you find it relaxing." Hati said with a grin, lying on her large pillow bed and staring at Arad, Mira, Isdis, Roberta, and Merlin. Tina and Lyla were playing with Ignis and Serin in the back, they can't help with the coming conversation so they are getting the best of their time here.
Arad's eyes slowly looked around their room. It was a large wooden building brimming with magic, twenty of Hati's daughters were sitting beside the walls, each holding a strange item in her hands. One held incense, another a fan, one even carried a skull of all things.
"This is a shrine." Hati said with a smile, her eyes shifting to look at Arad, "And I'm it's Miko." She waved her hand, and a faint whistle surged through the air. Her long nails stopped pointing at the skull held by one of her daughters.
"The dagger your friend Jack got, the holy wakizashi of Amaterasu. Its first owner was a rogue called Daraku, this is the resting place of that man's wife. The shrine maiden Miko. That's her skull, a holy artifact of the age of the gods." She pointed at the ground, "Her body rests beneath this shrine. Amaterasu entrusted her body to me since she still held a massive amount of Amaterasu's divine power."
Arad looked closer at the skull, "That thing holds power equal to Korah, no. it's even bigger." Arad could sense the bursting divine magic in the skull.
"Miko was a normal girl, orphaned at a young age, she holed up in an abandoned shrine of Amaterasu, raising other orphans and caring for them. Daraku was a thief, but he stole to feed them." Miko waved her finger and divine magic started rushing out from the ground, "This woman has been dead for over five thousand years, this woman had kickstarted the whole of Amaterasu's religion. Amaterasu had sworn that she'd drop the sun to the face of the earth if someone dared to insult Miko's corpse." She sat up and looked at Arad, "It's not just Amaterasu, with me being neutral, a lot of the gods leave their precious artifacts with me to safeguard them for all eternity."
"We came here to free Zephyr." Arad looked around, "Does telling me this relate to that?"
"You should be able to guess. One of the gods had agreed to let you use one of his artifacts. If...you can harness its energy." She waved her hand and pointed at the closed window. One of her daughters immediately rushed in and opened it.
"You'll be freeing Zephyr there. The artifact is sealed at the core of that mountain." She giggled, "Can you tell what's in there?"
Arad looked at the mountain for a second, and he started sweating, "The hell is up there? It's like nothing I've ever seen in my life." He gasped, terrified at the massive amount of magic condensing in the mountain.
"It's the overgod's first heart. As a divine being controlling the world, he has billions of hearts and brains working as a massive hivemind to calculate all of the universe's needs. We call that the Collective Consciousness, her name is Aria, the archon controlling the system. She and the overgod are one and the same, she's just his brain and heart." Her eyes slowly gazed upon Arad's terrified face.
"That heart had long since died, it never beat in the past five thousand years. The over god says you can use the magic still rushing from it to free Zephyr. And...I quote, directly from him. Not mine, don't get angry at me." She cleared her throat, slightly moving her head forward like an old man. "Eat it if you can, Lizard. Either die or grow older and stronger from it."
is.
Arad slowly turned toward Merlin, "When will you get ready?"
"I'll tell you when I am..." She looked at her hands, "I need to make sure everything is perfect. It'll be a day or two."
"Take your time, make it a week. We can't mess this up." Arad looked at Kayden, "A week's time, is that enough?"
"No..." He replied with a passive face, "A thousand years would be barely enough for me to train you on the basics. But..." he stood, "I'll do my best to make sure you learn as much as
possible."
"Use my training ground, but I'll skin both of you alive if you damage it." Hati stood and opened her palm, pulling a thing glass-like blade from it. "You ladies can head with my daughters; they'll guide you around and make sure you're entertained."
"Will Arad be all right?" Mira looked at her with a worried face.
"He'll be fine..." Hati replied, but at the same time Kayden said, "No..."
"Stop scaring her!" Hati gasped.
"You're the one who scared them by telling them I was here in the first place." Kayden intended to only speak to Arad alone, never to get his wives involved or have them know about this whole thing. It was Hati's idea to tell them as well.
"Wives deserve to know what their husband is doing or going through, believe me. I know
that best..." She shook her head and pulled her fan, "Off we go." Covering her face, she slashed the air with her sword and opened a portal.