Chapter 609: The Enraged Artemis
Laz was tired, but he was still Laz. He avoided her attack and rolled out of the way while Aphrodite was stunned, not having expected this.
"Sister. Be at peace. He saved your life and your path..." Aphrodite pleaded, but Artemis wasn’t listening.
What she did do was worked herself up more than she had expected, causing her to drop to all fours while she began to dry heave, as though she wanted to vomit.
"NO! The vitality with his juice will be very beneficial to you. You must digest it all since even a single drop is a waste," Aphrodite begged her sister, but hearing what she said just made her heave more.
"Well... maybe this is a good time for me to go..." Laz said, standing up while pulling his pants up.
"NOT ON YOUR LIFE!" Artemis charged again, her power flowing freely as the godhood she now possessed flared to life, a massive green ball of energy coming straight for Laz. Expecting this, Laz dodged to the side, allowing the ball to fly past him and hit the barrier just a little ways beyond. Turning back from the destruction of the trees and foliage, Laz saw that Artemis didn’t break off her attack but was aiming to strike him in the face.
Sighing, Laz dropped to a crouch and twisted, grabbing her wrist and bringing her entire body over his, shifting her forward momentum in such a way that she lost her footing and went flying, heading straight into a nearby tree before striking it upside down.
It was enough to knock the wind out of her, but not stem her rage. She righted herself and charged at Laz again, to which he responded again.
After the twelfth attempt, Artemis no longer got up and charged straight in, finally figuring out it was pointless.
"I am a god so tell me.... why can’t I beat you?" She said, her rage calming for the first time since her transformation.
"You’re strong, but not stronger than me. You do have more energy however, but even that isn’t enough if you lack control. As for fighting... well... have you ever actually trained how to fight? And I’m not just talking about learning to shoot a bow or how to swing a sword. Even if you consider what a battlefield consists of, that only ends up being about tactics and survival, not really how to fight. I’ve never been on a battlefield before, but I have a lot of experience fighting both humans and non humans."
"So I lack training? And that’s all it takes to get to your level?"
"Training and experience with what you learn. How to use it, how to mold it to each changing situation. There is no way to train someone to be good in any experience, but with enough experience and the most basic of training, fighting will just become natural," Laz explained, calmly. He was happy she was finally calming down.
"I’d ask for my clothes back, but I doubt you brought them..." Artemis said, looking over at her sister Aphrodite.
"I did not... no... but..." Aphrodite said before waving had hand, covering her sister in a flowy green dress with a slightly low neck line and dual slits up both legs, allowing for only a strip of fabric to be covering her front and back bits.
"To think that as a goddess I need my sister to dress me," Artemis complained.
"We each have our own strengths and weaknesses my dear," Aphrodite laughed.
"Since I can’t beat you or kill you, I suppose I should say thank you," Artemis said, turning to address Laz for the first time.
"I would ask how you managed to avoid my sister’s charm seeing as how your not a raging lust filled maniac, but it’s pretty clear that this whole thing was her idea," Artemis then added.
"Yep. I just agreed to help," Laz said back, looking around having sensed something.
"I still don’t know why this was so important to you though? Are you afraid I wouldn’t have been able to make the leap myself even though you had already done it?" Artemis then asked her sister.
"Its’ not that. It’s just... something has been bugging me for a while and I was only sure about it once I made the jump, like you did."
"What do you mean?"
"Would you have survived and succeeded if it wasn’t for, well... you know... the help?" Aphrodite said as delicately as possible.
Although Artemis glared at her, she didn’t bring it up.
"No. I guess I wouldn’t have. Had I not passed that hurdle, even if I lived, I would have been reduced to nothing more than a broken shell," Artemis admitted.
"That’s what I thought. So tell me... what has father been doing all these year, encouraging us to become gods when the result is that we can’t. At least, not here. Wouldn’t he have known that? Or at least known of the risks. But why is it that he has never said anything about it?"
"Wait... what are you getting at?"
"Tell me sister... do you really think all of those brothers and sisters of ours have died at enemy hands over the years? Do you really think they are strong enough to kill so many of us gods, even if we are just shell gods? Or they were?" Aphrodite asked.
"Then what happened to them? If they weren’t killed in battle and taken... how could their bodies just disappear? Once we subjugated the south, we found our two brothers in the basement of their palace, just rotting there. They had drained their bodies of their godhood and left nothing but the ragged remains to be feasted upon by the worms and maggots. And yet you think someone else had something to do with it?" Artemis asked her back as her anger soared.
"And yet the south had not a single shell god to stand against us. Even the great king of the south, the monster that parents used to scare their children into obedience, was nothing more that a Void Lord. Can someone like that really kill two of us, drain are bodies and have nothing to show for it? And I also ask... was he the first one accused of such a crime over the past several hundred years?" Aphrodite then pointed out, to which Artemis was about to rebuked, but then stopped.
She couldn’t argue with what they both knew was true.
"So then what is the answer? What is happening to all of them? The war with the North was based on the reports that our current oldest sister is being held captive in the snow fields of the wastelands while they try to get her to submit to their will. Are you telling me that is a lie as well?"
"If what you’re both saying is true, then it probably is a lie," Laz spoke up for the first time, interrupting them while reminding them of his presence.
"And what would an outsider like you know about it?" Artemis questioned, the hostility still deep in her eyes.
"Nothing. But... It seems like finding the bodies down south was a big break in proving that what you have been told is true. But if their godhood was stolen and yet is nowhere to be found, that seems to have raised some questions, correct?" Laz asked, deep in thought.
"Well... yeah."
"And did the decay of the bodies match how long they had been missing?"
"What do you mean?"
"From my understanding, god’s bodies are pretty durable. So how long would the bodies have had to have been sitting there for them to be in that condition? And why weren’t the bodies hidden in the first place? Or buried? The basement of a palace in enemy territory just seems like someone didn’t think highly of whoever would be investigating this incident," Laz pondered.
"That would have been me... actually..." Artemis said with a slight blush.
"Ah. No insult intended. But I can assume you don’t have much experience with such things?"
"Yeah... I don’t.... I too was surprised I was asked," Artemis responded back.
"Right. And if they wanted to hide the evidence, then putting an inexperience person in the lead was a nice touch. Remember though, all this is based on if what you told me is true."
"So you’re saying it’s a set up?" Aphrodite question.
"Yes. Bodies dropped off just to make them seem guilty. Guilty enough to ravage the entire country before moving on to the next war, right?"
"SO.... Does that mean?"
"If everything up till now is true, then that means that finding another drained and old body would only cause more suspicion than anything else. So if your sister is missing, she should be alive for the time being. The only point you should be worried about is if the war is going to come to an end soon, she will be killed then and her body staged, just to blow things up more," Laz concluded.
"OH NO!" Artemis said, suddenly standing straight up.
"What?" Aphrodite asked.
"Over there..." Artemis pointed to the edge of the barrier that had been exposed thanks to the fight earlier. Although not clear at first, if one got close enough to the edge they would be able to see within the next boundary for whichever siblings domain was close to her own.
And there, piled on the ground, right next to the edge, were dozens of bodies.
