She had ordered Uranus castrated because he kept sealing away their offspring within Tartarus. Gaia cared little for sides and politics when it came to Heaven and Earth. To her, all creatures and creations had their place, if only for a short time. To her, species battling for survival was simply natural. She didn’t take sides, but she did sometimes take umbrage to the mistreatment of her creations or children. Not often, but occasionally, and the results could be disastrous. As Uranus had learned.
Not that she had freed them from Tartarus, nor had he. He never concerned himself with what was sealed away in his realm. He had never really concerned himself with the Surface either and not ever concerned himself with Heaven. But there had been one specific exception which was why he had summoned Hypnos.
He turned to face Hypnos, who watched him with worried eyes. It was good for the Gods to be worried of the Primordial Gods. There might not be many of them left, but they truly were the primordial forces of creation and destruction.
“You summoned me?”
Tartarus shifted from ill-defined shadows to the form he had once worn for a time so many eons ago.
Hypnos studied Tartarus for he had never seen this form before. He was almost humanoid but still ill-defined, power flowed from him, and he seemed incorporeal. He was black as usual but within the shadows of his form glowed magma and most surprisingly flashes of green sparks flowed through his form. Yet his face was well defined, not Human or Godlike but ancient and feral. Like the spirits who had first populated the Surface.
Large glowing green eyes, his pupils were magma. His smile was also crafted of magma, as was the mane of hair surrounding his head but it was deeply infused with the green he recognised from the Lifestream.
It was a most unusual form for Tartarus and one he had never seen before.
Strangely he spoke out loud “You have felt a strong call, a desperate need that you are going to answer.”
How in the name of Gaia did he know that? “I am going to the source but whether I shall answer is yet to be decided.”
His smiled dropped “answer it.”
“You know the nature of the call?”
“I know the need that must be answered. You are the best to answer the need.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Let us say I have a vested interest in this bloodline.”
“Why?”
Nostalgia and sorrow passed across his face, a face remarkably expressive for a Primordial “because I started it” He reached out to Hypnos and held his face in both his hands, or where they paws? “Will you answer the need for me?”
He was being asked for a favour, how strange “I will.”
Tartarus did the most surprisingly thing he had had ever done to Hypnos, he leaned forward and kissed him. He had never been kissed by a Primordial, it was daunting the amount of power he felt behind those lips. It was even more daunting to feel some of that power flowing into him as they kissed.
He pulled away and looked at Hypnos with those strange magma and green eyes “you are the custodian for this gift, it will automatically pass on when the need is met. See me once you have completed the task and I will give you your own gift.” With that said he became a formless shadow that diffused up into the smoky sky.
Hypnos was left staring out over the bleak landscape. He could feel an ancient power stored within him, but he could not trace where it was within him. What a strange discovery, he felt sure that even Nyx and Erebus did not know that Tartarus had fathered the Fae with Avalon, for they had only recently learned that they had been lovers.
Chapter 42
Today was the day for vengeance.
Violet magic spread through the sky encircling the almost invisible shield. The net was getting tighter, and they weren’t even aware. When their barrier was torn apart, they would seek to escape, but her shields would keep them in. They probably thought as Underworld Gods that they were safe, that they always had that escape route.
But they were wrong.
She knew her spells and magic very well. Her shields inhibited all forms of teleporting, no matter the destination. That wouldn’t normally stop Underworld Gods for they could open their gates in the ground itself but they had forgotten something very important, something many Underworld Gods and most other Gods had forgotten. Someone like Hecate would have known instantly for she straddled that line between Earth and Underworld. Hera felt sure most of the Chthonic Gods would not have forgotten that the Earth belonged to the Mother Goddesses.
Underworld passages could not be formed through the Surface when the Mother Goddess in control of the land prevented it. This earth obeyed her like no other, well except Gaia. For it was she who had claimed these lands. It didn’t matter that Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl had once ruled these lands. They had never bonded with them in only the way the Mother Earth Goddesses could. The fact that these had once been their lands would aid them none now that the lands belonged wholly and utterly to her.
They would learn just how much they had to learn. And then they would die.
She signalled her armies, and it began.
Row upon row of Myrmidons started to advance. They marched in orderly rows, their weapons raised at the ready. She had encased every one of them in sapping spells. As they marched through the barrier her thousands of spells assaulted it again and again. To Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl it would seem that they were being attacked by thousands. Which was true, but not quite in the way they would expect.
She sent raw blasts of power against the meticulously crafted shield. The more subtle and refined the spell the more vulnerable it was to raw power. And she had plenty of raw power fuelled by anger. It blasted against the shield like a sledgehammer through a crumbling wall.
It took almost no time at all for the barrier to collapse. The field was now hers and her trap had sprung. She felt some attempts to pierce her shields, none succeeded. Then she felt the power turning inwards against her armies. She was there to meet power with power.
Above the rows of advancing Myrmidon erupted a magical battle. Their combined powers were no match for her in her empowered state. She had the faith of millions of mortals to supplement her naturally vast powers.
Entering into the fray were columns of Mantids and Arachnians moving with incredible speed and lethal intent. While the Myrmidon surrounded cities, the Arachnians slipped through the dead jungles to assault the various ancient temple sites scattered around the region. They scoured through the sites with ferocious intensity. Webs sprayed across ornately dressed priests and their intended sacrifices alike. They were all sacrifices now.
With each location secured and all hostiles removed the Arachnians settled down to dine, just like spiders on their live prey.
As the priests were slaughtered the Gods’ powers faltered further. Their shields around their cities withered against the onslaught of thousands of Myrmidon. Some new Myrmidon had taken to the air, revealing their wasp ancestry. They cast spells, fired shotguns and arrows, and even dropped bombs on the shields until they faltered. They simply started picking off people as the hordes swarmed in.
The people had no chance. They had been living in fear of the brutal reign of the priests and their Gods. They had been terrified by the slaughter, the endless sacrifices, and the occasional cannibalism but they much preferred that to the inhuman horde of insectoid warriors pouring through their cities without mercy.
Also unleashed were the Mantids and their brutal talents. They swarmed among the Arachanians and Myrmidon intent on their specific targets. What priests the Arachnians did not kill they did. When their tasks were done, they too began to feed.
Citizens ran screaming through the streets of Merida as the inhuman horde broke through the protective barriers that had originally kept them in. But everywhere they ran there was the enemy and when the enemy killed, they feasted. Giant Mantises ripped the heads off of priests with their scythe-like forearms before delicately raising the heads to thei
r gnashing mandibles. Giant spider creatures reached down from above with legs and webs to ensnare unsuspecting victims. Their choked screams filled the air as they were wrapped up and bitten. The venom filling their bodies did little to affect their lungs or vocal chords which gave voice to the utter agony they endured as the venom liquefied their bodies readying them to be drank. Giant wasps also lurked above, swooping down to sting victims before lifting them up into the sky. The streets filled with giants ant-humanoids that were ruthlessly efficient in their ability to hunt down every last person in the city.
Yet they were not the most dangerous thing walking the streets of Merida. Hera walked through the main streets homing in on her intended targets. She could feel their failing powers, their flaring shields and the blasts of their powers as they fought off her army.
A path automatically cleared for her as she walked through the streets slick with blood and gore. It bothered her none to walk through the gore or to have it splattered on her. She had overseen many a conquest, she had battled for her very survival before. She might not be a warrior in the mortal sense, she used no weapons but her own power, but she was a brilliant general and more than capable of killing. Blood and carnage bothered her none, to her it was a mark that her enemies feared. A beautiful woman covered in gore was an unsettling sight especially when shrouded with her power.
She stepped over bodies and crushed bone beneath her sandals as she strode through the city. With each step she got closer to her prey, new shields had grown around the city with the same intent as the old barrier. To trap what was within. She could almost taste their fear in the air as she sensed them trying to create an Underworld passage and kept failing.
Within her lands her rule was absolute.
She approached the blast zone with no change of pace. She had no idea what had originally been in the area but they had been completely destroyed by the Gods in their desperation. Huge craters pockmarked the ground and streets where they had failed to create their Underworld passages. Burning corpses splattered the area, the remnants of all races scattered high and low. Crumbling ruins and chunks of rock and earth lay in mounds. At the very centre was a blood red dome, within which stood the two Gods battling against the swarms of Arachnians throwing themselves mercilessly against their shield. Each time they did so the shield flared as her spells lashed out against it.
She had done very little but because she had planned well and laid her spells with great care all was going perfectly.
She knew her enemy. She had studied Hades’ vase and the latent power within it. She had come to recognise every nuance of their powers. She had studied the barrier cutting off the Yucatan Peninsula from her. She knew how to discreetly syphon power off of spells while leaving them completely intact. In doing so, she could study their spells and how their powers worked with each other. There was a reason why she had risen so high in the ranks of Heaven. Unfortunately for her, Zeus had always been one step ahead of her. Otherwise, she would have killed him long before the Angels had.
She studied her enemy through their haze of failing magic. They were grotesque, deliberately so by design, as had many of the Mesoamerican Gods been. Such a strange pantheon. The Divine were beautiful by nature, even the Monsters had their own unique beauty and grace. Yet they had recrafted themselves into all sorts of horrific images. They were everything the Gods had feared would go wrong when the Egyptians had recreated themselves. But they had deliberately desecrated their bodies.
Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl were skeletons, they had stripped the flesh from their bodies and faces. They had removed their eyeballs, their tongues, and their internal organs. They were but bones with a metallic sheen, the only hint to their true Divinity. They wore elaborate headdresses made of feathers and they also wore feathered cuffs around their wrists and ankles.
They were just so strange.
They turned glowing red eye sockets towards her as she continued to stride forward. It was ridiculously easy to sever their barrier in half and wrap them up in spells while allowing her minions to assault Mictlantecuhtli.
They cleared a space around Mictecacihuatl as she walked towards her with a hunters’ stalk. Hera’s hands began to glow violet, a sign that had caused many to scream in fear. Yet these two either did not know the danger or were unafraid. Likely they were unafraid, they were such a strange pantheon.
They were fighters, though, even to the end. She had almost no power left and yet still she tried throwing spells against her. Hera laughed at the pitiful display of magic, even a Human mage could have managed a stronger attack.
“Mercy! We beg clemency” it was an ancient ritual that offered their life completely her. They would be hers to command for as long as she lived, in any way she saw fit.
Hera thrust her hand forward, tearing through the shield, splintering the ribcage before grabbing onto the magical construct that was her core. There was no beating heart, but the core was always in the same place. It flared into brilliant white as her glowing hand encased it. Her other hand wrapped around Mictecacihuatl’s throat while her magic burned through her bones. Bone ash drifted about as she crushed the core within her hands. “I am not a Goddess of Mercy.” Light flared, and she sighed in pleasure as the light splattered across her and was absorbed. The bones fell completely to dust and the lights faded, the very last of it absorbed into Hera as she continued to crush the broken core within her hands.
There was a ferocious roar from behind her as Mictlantecuhtli watched his wife die but he was powerless to defend her or summon her back. He was powerless to defend himself. His shields had faltered, her minions were on him but not being Divine they could do no physical harm to him.
She shook herself off before striding forward. Within seconds, her hand had torn through his ribcage and was crushing his core.
“A curse on you” he managed to spit out.
She smiled, “and death to you.” Her hand snapped shut, and his powers surged up into her. His were slightly different, for he was the ruler of Mictlan, its anchor to the Underworld. It was at this moment that she could claim it as her own. Its king and queen were dead by her hands, the realm would adhere to her will. But it would always bear the marks of its past rulers and would never truly be utterly hers. Nor did she want it. Mother Goddess she might be but Underworld Ruler she was not. She was the Queen of Heaven, and she would regain the full extent of her realm again and drive the Angels forever out of it.
She severed Mictlantecuhtli’s ties to Mictlan as she absorbed the last of his powers. Neither had been strong compared to her, but power was power, and a God could never have too much.
There was a shifting beneath her as the ground started to groan. Then she felt the powers of Mictlan in her hands tear as the realm dropped down out of the Underworld.
It was done.
Across the world, Hades, Persephone, Ereshkigal, Izanami, Hel, Lucifer and Sariel all felt the rippling of power through the Underworld. They were the kings and queens of their realms, the rulers, and co-rulers of the Underworld. It was a rare event for an underworld realm to be lost, but it happened.
Mictlan had lost both its rulers and its ties had been cut. Whoever had killed them had not deigned to seize control of the realm.
With no power or ties left, there was nothing to hold it in the Underworld anymore. The entire realm of Mictlan shifted, the rivers of death that circled them shifted away, and the whole Underworld rippled. It was a realm of ever change, the only consistencies were the rivers’ existences and the realms within it. But their lifespan was not set, and Mictlan’s was at an end.
The Underworld filled with the sound of groaning, as though ropes were straining and rocks were grating. There was a shattering noise and rumble as the last tether lines of magic broke.
Magic flared and burned around the sinking realm as it slowly started submerging. The rivers swirled around the realm, constricting coils waiting for the realm to fully sink. Slowly Mictlan sank, its outer rock walls and
barriers of magic disappeared beneath the swirling surfaces of the rivers of death. A death toll rolled through the Underworld as the realm was lost to the Underrealms below.
Tartarus shifted in his form as he felt yet another realm sink into his. Since the creation of the Underworld, there had always been realms to be lost, to linger in abandonment in the Underrealms. Forgotten but not yet faded or destroyed. To slowly deteriorate over aeons while its inhabitants went mad and spilled out into the dark, horrible realm of Tartarus.
Chapter 43
Sorcha had truly outdone herself this time. The Avalon Palace was alive with merriment. The whole nation was celebrating and by extension, much of the empire was as well. But the heart of the celebrations was in the Avalon Palace. It was where all the most powerful people in the empire had gathered to celebrate many of the recent good fortunes of the empire, the two most important being the birth of Princess Elizabeth and Brigid’s miraculous survival of a nuclear attack.
Word passed along the wire was that the Arch Angel Michael had been stripped of his position and power because of his utterly foolish decisions. The other Angels had fallen quiet in recent weeks, oh they were still out there plotting and planning, but there were no major attacks or developments. And so it was a time for the Gods and their people to celebrate.
It wasn’t just the British that were here to celebrate. Hera had arrived at the last minute but had sent Agrat and Asmodeus in any case. Ereshkigal had arrived with Simurgh, who had taken on a humanoid form. Not a perfect imitation but beautiful nevertheless. More feral than normal she had drawn the attention of many of the Fae, who also had their own feral beauty.
Even Eisheth had come from the Minoan Empire to stand in as an ambassador, though really she just wanted to see her sisters and her children really wanted to see their cousin. Both were very taken with Sariel, just like much of the Divine.
A Gluttony Of Faith Page 42