Chapter 14: Meeting a Friendly Goddess
"Now, who could you be?" a soft, kind voice asked.
Dean turned instantly towards the voice calling out to him.
Standing before him were perhaps a dozen angels, staring at him in astonishment, their eyes wide open.
Each of the angels was a woman.
Every one of them was in the same state.
And there was another person, in somewhat different shape and look.
Standing amongst them was a woman who looked very different from the others: she had no wings, no visible horn, and had hair that was a blend of black and silver, with violet eyes.
The woman was standing in a huge bath.
There was no need to explain how she had ended up in that bath.
Dean immediately turned his head away.
Of course, he didn’t want to be disrespectful.
"I am Dean, madame. A human from the Earth Realm. I was following someone called Mirael, but I took a wrong step," Dean explained.
At his words, every angel except the woman in the bath realised what was happening.
Mirael herself was a very well-known angel within Aether. She was a stunningly beautiful woman who could be described as an ancient figure, holding a high rank even amongst the angels.
She was a being who was nearly fifteen thousand years old.
Over the past two days, a few rumours about this woman had begun to circulate.
It was a strange rumour that this woman was seen out and about with a human.
If this person, this human, was Dean, then the angels were obliged to treat him with respect.
For this reason, one of the angels immediately leaned over to the bath and whispered something into the woman’s ear.
You could see her eyebrows arching in surprise.
"Seriously? That much?" the woman asked, full of curiosity.
When the angel speaking to her shook his head, the woman pursed her lips as if she understood and turned to Dean.
"Is there a reason why you aren’t looking at me?" the woman asked.
"Cough... Madame, I’m not so rude as to look at a lady when she’s naked," Dean replied.
The angels were taken aback by this question, whilst the woman had retorted, "How come? I’m a goddess, dear boy. This is how things work in Aether. Especially with gods and goddesses. Get used to it."
Dean flinched for a split second when he heard the word ’goddess’.
"Goddess?" the young man had asked.
"You... don’t know me?" the woman had muttered.
It was clear she was quite taken aback.
"I’m sorry, my lady. Forgive me for my rudeness, but as I’ve said, I’m a human from the Earth Realm. I don’t know many people, let alone a goddess."
Dean’s words brought a bright smile to the woman’s face as she sat in the bath.
"Come. I am MUCH older than you. I will not be interested in your mortal body anyway. Take off your clothes, join me and let us watch the tournament from here," the woman had said.
Dean didn’t know what to say in response to these words and had asked, "I beg your pardon?"
"Do not make me repeat myself," the woman had replied.
Dean finally turned his head and was able to look at the woman carefully.
The young man was twenty-one years old. Of course, he’d had sexual relations and other experiences before.
It was just that this woman... was a little too beautiful.
Mirael was undoubtedly the most beautiful woman Dean had ever seen.
Even so, she could not compare to this woman standing in the bath.
The difference between them was perhaps as great as that between earth and heaven.
"All right," said Dean, putting his shyness aside; he finally approached the bath, took off his clothes and slowly lowered himself into the water.
The water was neither too hot nor too cold.
"Pleasure to meet you, dear Dean. I am Nemesis. Daughter of the Mother of the Night, Nyx, and the Darkness itself, Erebus."
When the woman introduced herself so abruptly, this time it was Dean himself who was taken aback.
Without even batting an eyelid at the woman’s nudity, the young man turned to her immediately and muttered, "Get the fuck out of here!"
To be honest... he couldn’t help himself.
The woman had introduced herself as Nemesis, the woman who had founded Colosseum culture.
The angels were utterly astonished.
One might even say it was an incredible astonishment.
They regarded Dean as a holy figure, but this was a bit too much.
To look Nemesis, the woman who stood above even the highest-ranking beings in Heaven, who was simply outside the ’food’ chain, and who was of the Creator’s own bloodline, in the face and swear at her was a bit too much.
Yet Nemesis’s reaction would turn out to be the exact opposite of what the angels had expected:
"HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"
Nemesis had laughed incredibly loudly.
A single tear seemed to roll down the ancient goddess’s cheek.
This laughter lasted for nearly thirty seconds before beginning to subside.
"That---that is the funniest thing I have heard in the past thousand years!" Nemesis had shouted.
Dean, meanwhile, had covered his mouth and was, naturally, embarrassed.
He considered himself lucky not to have been killed.
When Nemesis finally calmed down, the smile on her face hadn’t faded; on the contrary, she had said:
"You’re a funny lad. I’m sure Hermes and Odysseus would like you."
Dean didn’t know what to say.
A strange sense of happiness had enveloped him.
Still, he clearly wanted to speak openly with Nemesis.
And that’s exactly what he was going to do.
For ten minutes, Dean recounted a small part of his own experiences, whilst Nemesis nodded in agreement.
Despite being a goddess, and one of the highest-ranking, at that, she hadn’t shown Dean even a shred of disrespect.
"So you’re here to watch the tournament? Makes sense. It’ll be a good place for a human to find ghosts, angels or demons to make a contract with," Nemesis said suddenly.
That was it... that was exactly what would capture Dean’s full attention.
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