Ch. 152: In The Face Of Overwhelming Power
“Hades, please… SAVE ME!!”
I looked down at her trying to find something in her eyes, something still left saving. I pressed my hand down on her head and spoke with my voice carrying intent. “Tell me, what does he do to me?”
She broke into more tears, I could feel her conscience tugging at her as she was about to speak. “He… Use…”
Apollo rose up from the rubble and cried out with blazing fury. “Artemis don’t you dare say a thin—”
Before he could progress further Hecate and Aphrodite appeared behind him and clamped down their hands on his shoulders holding him down.
“Don’t even think about moving from here.” Hecate said in a fear instilling voice. “I will not hesitate to cut you down regardless of who you are.”
Aphrodite’s eyes showed a fury I had never seen in her eyes before. “I suggest you comply lover boy.”
Apollo’s stayed in place and looked at me with disgust. “Why you– you know this is blasphemy.”
I spoke with authority at him. “Blasphemy? It seems you don’t know the hands of power has switched in the game.”
He froze in place already percieving the depth of my power. I turned back to Artemis and bent down till we were at eye level. “Now tell me what the problem is?” Perhaps her response would help me with the current problem I was facing.
I had never seen a more screamed eyes, I was no doctor or professional of any sorts but I could tell— she was traumatized.
She started to trembled even more I pressed my hand further on her head and used one of my abilities that allowed me to share with the pain of the dead. On the living the effect was much weaker but sharing in her pains made me realize how traumatized she was deep down.
She seemed to relax as she sighed in relief as if I had just taken from her burden. “Apollo has been using me for years, feeding off my energy to get stronger. To keep himself looking more like the pompous bastard he’s been for all this time. He made me a— slave, took away my free will. They used me.”
I stared deeper into her lost broken eyes and said. “They, you mean the circle?”
Her eyes lit up, “Y– yes.”
“They placed a curse on you?” My muscles tensed at the thought of it.
She cried even more. “Every week he abuses me, using me to charge himself up. It was horrible knowing I had become my own brother’s plaything. It sickened me but I could not go against his will, against their will. I wanted to die, I wanted to shut everyone out, I cut off everyone from my life. Please save me, let me die in peace.”
My stomach sank into icy waters. That explained her weak aura, she was being fed on, to think the god of perfection would do this to his own twin.
“Does this mean, Apollo abused you immorally?” I gnashed my teeth.
She cried even more.
“You monster!” Aphrodite yelled at him.
Hecate hissed in disgust.
Apollo unable to keep his pent up rage contained ran forward in a desperate attempt to punish Artemis. Around his body the dark coils of the curse formed and his speed increases beyond what he should have been capable off. On activation of the curse a similar one formed on Artemis causing her to cry out in pain as she held her chest.
“Please save me!” She cried again.
I rose to my feet and let my hands drop to my side as I spoke in a cold tone. “Fine, I’ll save you.” I turned and watched Apollo halfway to us, his face mixed with rage.
I walked to meet him but his body moved very slowly like that of a snail, but it was not that he was moving slower I was simply moving faster than anyone in the room. All my rage, I quenched it to keep my soul at a state of balance.
I palmed his face in one swift act and lifted him up in the air before bringing him down to the ground with great force.
There was a huge shockwave that broke the foundation of that floor, a huge gust of wind the furniture flying away.
“Do you think you can just do what you want because of a little power coming your way?” I spoke in a slow tone that resonated with a rage that was neither hot nor cold.
By the time, Apollo caught up to the time I had made my action he screamed out in pain. “Urgh. What are you –”
I raised him up again and squeezed his head tighter and said. “You don’t get to talk bastard.”
I threw him across the room and into the pillar there, the curses mark on his fades out as he screamed out again. “Ack!!”
But I wasn’t done yet or to be much clearer, I had not even begun. I approached him and heard him scream. “What are you doing? Please stop! I won’t allow it.”
I gritted my teeth and got closer to him, much to close for his comfort. The energy of my aura leaking with the stench of death, so powerful that it shook him to the bone. “You don’t get it. You have no rights in my domain.”
I reached out and grabbed him by the neck. “Your glib tongue and cocky attitude. You were strong as it was but you sought even greater power, perhaps that’s why they used you because you are blinded by your own ego.”
I summoned the power of my black flame , a flame said to burn in the underworld. But the correct term was the nether flame.
“What are you doing?” Apollo struggled pointlessly against me but it was futile.
I brought my flames closer to his face and sounded the death call. “I will burn that beautiful face of yours, a mark that you will never be able to heal.”
Moments later the room was filled with the bone rattling shriek of Apollo as I burned half of his face with my nether flame, I used high intensity and made him suffer. When I was done I left him to fall to his knees and fall into despair.
“My face, my beautiful face, you scarred it– you!” He cried, his anger dissipating to fear and regret, he was broken. Now that was one down.
“Now look what you did to yourself, and just when we were making the final preparations.” My senses were at alert at the flooding of a malicious aura that made even my skin crawl.
Hecate and Aphrodite pulled back away from the figure standing by the window, a young woman with pale skin and her hair in two halves, one white and the other black. Her eyes were souless just as Talos had said.
She looked at Apollo then back at me and said. “Now why is the ruler of the underworld here outside of his domain? Your presence here has complicated things, I cannot let you harm Apollo he still serves a purpose.”
She did not seem to have any fear of me, so this was the being that had been behind the calamities. Does that mean that killing Pandora would save Olympus from it’s fate?
“Pandora, tell me can you lift the curse?” I asked as I stood with my hand over Apollo in a threat.
She was plain without any resonance to my word as she responded after a while. “It seems you want to lift your curse Lord Hades. If that is the case I might comply if you meet my terms and hand me Apollo without harming him any further.”
What she said left a mark on me but I dated not show it. What did she mean by that statement, did that mean I was cursed too? But I had not showed any symptoms of being cursed so it had to be a trick. But she did not seem like one to lie.
“I want the curse between Apollo and Artemis severed this instant.” I boomed. This was more of a priority.
Pandora nodded and I watched as black mist of smoke came off their body and fell on the ground like ashes, both of them collapsed on the floor afterwards. “It is done, I will take Apollo into my possession now.”
I raised my hand and said. “What if I kill you here?”
Pandora looked at me and said. “Killing this vessel will put a hold to my plans but I can switch with a more suitable vessel. Whatever choice you make I can not lose.”
I looked at her unsure of what to do now. “And what is your plan by the way, to cause chaos?”
Pandora responded after a little while. “It seems you think I want to create chaos without reason which is against my own goal. I wish to be free of this world and to do that I have to create situation that are unfavorable enough to create someone strong enough to defeat me.”
I raised an eyebrow. “That’s a sick way to putting a goal. Why not just asked to be killed.”
She shook her head and snapped her fingers, a black smoke consumed Apollo and a second later he was by her feet. “I servemy purpose as a harbinger of chaos and destruction and from it a champion strong enough must rise to defeat me.”
Did she practice sorcery too?
“And if no one stops you?” I asked.
She snapped her fingers again and a mist of black smoke started to consumer her and Apollo. “Then you will watch your world delve into an inescapable cage of despair of my making.”
And like that she was gone, my first confrontation with Pandora. The story was coming to an end, that I could tell, and I had to be the one to bring it to an end.
I tuened and walked across the rubble over to where Artemis lay on the ground— unconcious. “Hecate, is she okay?”
Hecate approached me and looked at her,her eyes gazing at the soul of the goddess of the hunt and she said. “She’s still weak but she’s no longer losing her life force. You saved her.”
I raised my head and said. “This confrims it, Pandora can take awasy a person’s curse.”
“So what do we do now?” Aphrodite asked me as the tended to Artemis.
I looked at my fist and said. “What else, we prepare for war.”
Please give me golden ticket
If I revive a magic castle I will mass release 10 chapters
