"Hm... It is weird."
Jay muttered the words under his breath, his brow furrowing as he looked down at the blazing black chalice held within his palm.
The Black Grail hummed with a steady rhythm as the flame dancing along its rim fed him the information he needed. Using the soul information gathered from the surrounding area, Jay attempted to use the grail to pinpoint the exact coordinates of the Supreme God Aten. He used the multi-layered divine barrier that enveloped Heliopolis as a catalyst, hoping the Grail would trace the energy back to its source.
However, the only answer that pulsed back into his mind was a single cryptic sentence.
He is here.
'That did not help at all,' Jay thought, his thumb tracing the rim of the Grail.
What exactly did the Grail mean by He is here? Did it imply that Aten was omnipresent within the boundaries of Heliopolis, or that Heliopolis itself was part of him? There were still many questions that needed to be answered, but at the very least, the Grail had not been a total failure today.
'But at least I know that Lavinia, Kuroka, and Glenda are not here...' Jay thought, letting out a weary sigh of relief.
After using the soul information to search for the three, the Grail confirmed that they were currently in Romania, specifically in Valeyra. The thought that they were safe allowed some of the tension he was carrying to ease from his shoulders.
Though they were likely searching for him in the human world right now, and were probably worried about him.
Jay then looked up at the shimmering, runic ceiling of the fake sky.
'I cannot teleport to the outside world from within this realm since it was blocked from inside, but it seems teleporting inside should not be a problem, since I arrived here via hijacked teleportation magic in the first place. Still, let's hope they do not come here to search for me,' Jay thought.
He still did not know the true extent of Aten's power. However, judging by Rossweisse and Freya's words when speaking of the Sun God, he knew that he was incredibly strong. He could not risk the lives of the people he loved by letting them stumble into this death game while searching for him.
Jay stood firmly on top of the massive plated head of Draghignazzo.
The crimson dragon glided through the desert sky as its rhythmic wingbeats scorching the air around it. They were heading toward the towering obelisk on the horizon, the only landmark of significance in this sea of shifting dunes.
Behind him, on the broad expanse of the dragon's back, Freya and Rossweisse seemed to be enjoying their dragonriding experience, especially the silver-haired Valkyrie.
'And it seems like the battle between the one that had the draconic aura and the two divine auras earlier has ended... I cannot sense their aura anymore,' Jay noted.
Freya, noticing Jay standing like a statue at the dragon's prow, tilted her head with an expression of curiosity.
"Was the searching ability you mentioned earlier able to find Aten?" Freya asked, her voice carrying easily over the rushing wind. Jay did not mention anything about having the Sephiroth Graal, and only told Freya that he had a method he wanted to try to locate Aten.
Jay sent a sharp glance over his shoulder. The Black Grail vanished into thin air as he turned to walk back toward the two Norse women.
"Not exactly... It only said that he is here... Which I assume has something to do with the nature of his power or his authority over this realm," Jay said truthfully.
"That is indeed vague," Freya muttered, tapping a finger against her chin.
Her attention was quickly diverted as she looked at Rossweisse. The Valkyrie's eyes were flickering with a suppressed, childlike excitement as she gazed down at the endless golden desert passing beneath them.
Freya's lips curled into a mischievous smile.
"Oh~ Does Rose-chan really enjoy riding a dragon that much?" Freya teased, her voice dropping into a playful lilt.
"A-Ah! Freya-sama! It is not like that! I-I am just scanning the surroundings in case an enemy is approaching us!" Rossweisse stammered, her face flushing a deep crimson that rivaled the Draghinazzo's flames. Even her northern accent slipped a bit.
The silver-haired Valkyrie straightened her posture, trying to regain her professional dignity.
"Heee~ Is that so?"
"Stop teasing me, Freya-sama!"
Jay watched the exchange with his arms crossed over his chest, his gaze lingering on Rossweisse's flustered reaction.
"Is dragon riding not common in the North?" Jay asked, his curiosity piqued by their reactions.
"Well, you could say that," Freya explained, turning her attention back to him.
"Because most of the dragons in the North are quite hostile to others or simply do not care for a company. They are more similar to primeval monsters than something to be mounted or kept as a pet... Like Midgardsormr, for example."
"Hm. I did not know that," Jay muttered.
"By the way, sorry if I offend you, but you are a human...," Freya began, her eyes narrowing as she inspected the demonic Crimson Dragon beneath them.
"And this dragon is probably one of the strongest I have ever encountered. How were you even able to tame such a creature? He seems to listen to your every word as if you were his creator." Freya said with curious tone.
Even Rossweisse sent a glance toward Jay. To her, he looked like a young human who could not have been more than twenty years old, yet he commanded a beast that radiated a malevolence she had never felt before, not even from the monsters she had fought back in the Norse realm.
In her eyes, Jay was simply an enigma.
But before Jay could offer an explanation, he suddenly felt a tremendous surge of divine aura erupting from the horizon. He spun around as his eyes locking onto a distant point in the desert.
Freya noticed it a fraction of a second later, her playful demeanor vanishing instantly.
"Hm... A battle?"
***
On the burning desert floor, a man stood alone amidst the carnage.
His long, fiery red hair flared behind a golden Olympian helmet that encased his head. He was bare-chested and barefoot, wearing only a white linen wrap from his waist down. His golden eyes burned with bloodthirsty light as he surveyed the battlefield in front of him.
And to his right, a woman of transcendental beauty floated in the air. Her dark green hair fluttered in the dry wind, and a pair of magnificent green wings beat slowly behind her, keeping her aloft with effortless grace while she looked down at the red-haired man with a calculative gaze.
To his left, another woman sat perched on a jagged stone spire. She wore a daring bikini crafted from pure gold as her fingers tracing her lips in a feline gesture. Her dark teal hair was adorned with a feline head ornament, and a predatory smirk played on her face as she watched the tension escalate.
In front of the man, the sand was painted green by the blood of dozens of gigantic sandworms and desert snakes, splattered across the dunes. All of them were high-level divine beasts, now lying slaughtered. Their massive carcasses formed a grotesque mountain of scaled flesh and gore.
Behind this wall of corpses, a man in a bird-helmet crouched, his hands trembling.
"Hahaha! It is boring! Why don't the three of you just attack me all at once instead!" the red-haired man screamed, his voice booming across the dunes.
The man in the bird-helmet gritted his teeth as his eyes darting toward the woman in the gold bikini.
"Sekhmet! Why are you suddenly betraying Ra-sama! Your own father!? Stop watching and help me kill this Greek bastard!" the bird-helmeted god, Thoth, screamed.
Sekhmet merely shrugged her shoulders, her expression one of utter indifference.
"Come on, Thoth. You know I have not betrayed anyone. I am just trying to fight this guy here, of course by myself... Alone." She pointed a gold-clad finger at the red-haired man.
"And right now, I am just waiting for you to die already. Of course, if you and the snake still want to survive and help my pathetic father, then I suggest you retreat and back to your hiding place... Shoosh~" She waved him away with a mocking gesture.
"You... Do you think that because Ra-sama has been lenient toward your rebellion, your actions will go unchecked? Do you wish to be deemed a traitor like that bitch over there?" Thoth shouted, pointing a finger toward the floating, winged woman.
"Isis? She is simply loyal to her husband... Maybe it's time for you to get a wife, you noisy bird," Sekhmet replied, her voice dripping with mockery.
Isis did not join the bickering.
Her emerald eyes remained fixed on the red-haired man, her mind working through a thousand different combat scenarios. She knew exactly who he was.
Everyone here knew about the man.
One of the strongest gods of the entire Greek faction, the God of War himself.
"Ares... He must have a massive amount of Kill Points on his head," she muttered to herself.
Seeing the banter between the Egyptian deities continue, Ares's smile vanished.
An expression of deep annoyance settled over his rugged features. Suddenly, both of his hands were enveloped in a flaring crimson divine aura, which immediately caused Sekhmet and Thoth to tense and turn their attention toward him.
"Can all of you just shut the fuck up and fight!"
And in a fraction of a second, the terrifying divine aura suddenly solidified into a pair of thirty-meter-long greatswords.
Monstrous slabs of pure divine energy that seemed to tear through the very fabric of space with even the slightest movement.
And with a violent, earth-shaking swing, Ares roared.
"Enyo!"
BOOM
A massive explosion rocked the desert as the twin greatswords slammed into the ground, as if hundreds of tons of explosives had detonated at once. A gigantic crater was carved into the dunes, while a scorching shockwave of heat and sand swept across the battlefield for hundreds of meters.
Sekhmet's figure disappeared in a blur of blue as she dodged the violent strike, reappearing atop a distant stone spire. Her eyes widened as she took in the devastation caused by a single swing of Ares' attack.
"Wow! What a sword!" Sekhmet exclaimed, leaning forward with renewed interest, a playful glint in her eyes.
But then, like a flash of red, Ares' figure suddenly appeared in front of her. Sekhmet's eyes widened in disbelief at the God of War's speed.
'That speed… my divine eyes can't even follow his movement,' Sekhmet thought. And before she could even react, Ares was already upon her, and without waiting for her body to move, he unleashed another violent slash toward her head.
But suddenly, Sekhmet's blue eyes ignited violently, and-
BOOM
Her figure vanished just as the blade shattered the stone spire and the surrounding dunes in an instant, creating a crater that pulverized the rock into fine dust and sent a shockwave that shook the entire battlefield.
"Tsk," Ares clicked his tongue, annoyed that he had only managed to hit the goddess's afterimage.
As he searched for her, Ares suddenly felt a massive influx of divine aura from behind him. And then, a beautiful, haunting whisper echoed across the silent battlefield.
"Heka."
FHUUUUUUUNG
A blast of familiar crimson energy, identical to the one Ares had just used, his Enyo, erupted from the air. It was a perfect copy of his own attack, aimed squarely at his back to obliterate his body.
But Ares did not even look surprised.
He simply turned casually, his eyes cold as he spoke.
"Deimos."
And suddenly, his crimson aura flared outward, instantly manifesting as a multi-layered, intricate shield of pure divine energy in front of him, and then-
BOOM
The collision erupted like a detonation and sent Thoth flying backward from the shockwave. After observing everything happening so quickly in front of him, he could not even react to the sudden attack from Isis.
But before he could be thrown any farther, a giant desert snake suddenly appeared from beneath the sand dunes and caught him, coiling around his body to shield him from the shockwave and the incoming sandstorm created by the clash between the attack and Ares' shield of Divine Aura.
After the impact subsided and the sand snake moved away, Thoth stared at the floating woman, Isis, with terrified eyes. Even though they had been on opposite sides ever since her husband, Osiris, betrayed Amun-Ra and chose to stand on his own.
Isis had once been his friend, his best friend, someone who walked the path of magic alongside him. Together with Thoth and Ra, she was among the only ones to reach the pinnacle of ancient-egyptian magic, Heka.
Heka was a special ability possessed only by the most proficient magic users within the Ancient Egyptian faction, a power that allowed gods to draw upon their divine aura to shape reality, command the elements, heal, protect, and even defy death. And since there were only three users of Heka, Thoth knew Isis' Heka very well.
"The Heka of Imitation… It is still as strong as ever, isn't it, Isis?" Thoth muttered. There was a profound sense of nostalgia, regret, and sadness in his voice, a sadness born from the fact that he could no longer stand side by side with his best friend to fight the Greek bastard who dared to step onto this holy land, their holy land, Heliopolis.
But it could not be helped. Aten had to be stopped, and the only one who could stop him was neither Osiris, Seth, nor Anubis.
'…It's Ra-sama,' he thought.
Meanwhile, seeing his sword attack copied and turned against him, Ares looked at Isis with a certain glint in his eyes, his usual maniacal smile fading.
"You copied my… sword, huh, woman?" Ares said, his deep voice echoing across the battlefield, his gaze never leaving Isis.
But Isis had no interest in small talk with the God of War. She simply floated there, considering her next move.
As the crimson divine aura shielding in front of him dissipated, Ares whispered once again.
"Enyo…"
And then, crimson divine aura once again enveloped his hands, manifesting as a pair of greatswords. This time, they were relatively smaller, though the aura they emanated was just as immense as in their thirty-meter form.
Ares stared at Isis, while the Goddess of Magic simply waited for his attack, as if inviting him to come at her.
But Ares suddenly grinned, and in a flash of red, his body disappeared.
Instead of appearing before her, Isis's eyes widened as she turned toward Thoth.
'No!'
Thoth, who had no specialty in close-range combat, couldn't even react as Ares appeared in front of him like a god of death rather than a god of war. The red-haired man simply stood there, ready to completely obliterate Thoth with his crimson greatsword formed from divine aura.
'I'm dead...'
Thoth widened his eyes as he stared blankly at the maniacal grin on Ares' face, as if already accepting his fate at the hands of the Olympian God. His killing intent seeped out like that of a malicious demon rather than a divine being. And as the strike was unleashed...
In that microsecond, suddenly-
"Vanadis Chariot!"
A flash of bright pinkish-silver light, like a shooting star, blasted toward Ares and forced him to react instantly. The red-haired god of war disappeared in an instant and reappeared hundreds of meters behind.
The sudden appearance immediately caught everyone's attention. Ares' golden eyes locked onto the impact site as the dust settled, revealing a beautiful woman with a voluptuous figure.
Her pink hair fluttered gracefully as she stood atop a divine chariot with two horses in front of it made entirely of silver. A terrifying pink divine aura radiated from both her and the chariot, and her eyes, usually soft, now stared at Ares with a cold expression.
It was the Norse Goddess of Love and Beauty, Freya.
Thoth, who had stopped breathing for several seconds, finally gasped for air.
"Who..." he wheezed, entirely unfamiliar with the newcomer.
Meanwhile, after staring at Freya with slight relief, Isis immediately looked up at the sky, sensing an even greater presence.
Ares followed her gaze, his warrior instincts on high alert.
And there, in the air above them, floated a terrifying obsidian-scaled dragon. It radiated a malevolent, demonic aura that seemed to swallow the sunlight itself, crimson flames flaring around its massive body.
On its back stood a silver-haired Valkyrie.
However, the person who commanded the immediate attention of both Ares and Isis was the black-haired young man standing on the very tip of the dragon's head.
His dark hazel eyes looked down at them with indifference, as if their divine aura held no weight before him.
But no one could fool Ares. As the God of War, he knew danger when he saw it. Behind that seemingly ordinary human frame, he could sense something that made even him feel profound fear, something he had only ever felt in the presence of Hades.
It was a feeling that made his soul scream at him to run, while his body demanded he charge forward and fight that man.
But Isis furrowed her brows, her wings fluttering as she adjusted her position.
Her emerald eyes looked at the young man and whispered into the air.
"A... human?"
_________________________________________________
AUTHOR NOTES:
What do you think about Arc V so far?
I hope it is not too boring, especially with the introduction of many new characters, some of whom are OCs. I have already finished the outline for this arc, and it will take around 30–35 chapters, so roughly one month of writing, with each chapter being around 3,000 words.
Also, I think some of you might be wondering why I decided to make this arc. The reason is that it is important for Jay's character development. I cannot simply include it in the next two arcs, since they will be closely connected to the canon.
So I hope you are all enjoying it, just as much as I enjoy creating it.
Thank you.
Oh, and another thing, what is your favorite chapter from Arc IV: Underworld and the Books of Solomon? I am curious.