Chapter 391

391 Do Not Forget, Thine Goddess... Never Forget

From the shroud of darkness, a man emerged ever so slightly illuminated by the glow from the moon lotuses. His face was one that clawed at Katie’s sluggish memory. The hunter struggled to find the name of the man she’d only seen moments ago. Her deep unconscious state seemed to affect even the most recent of acquired memories.

Fortunately for her, the memory surfaced this time, much faster than her previous attempts to remember something. This man was named Cirrus, the brother of the king of Lycaon. ‘Yes, Cirrus, that’s the name... yay...’ the girl chided herself for following the story, but the chills that ran down her spine sent these brief feelings of triumph fleeing to the depths of her soul. Something about this man rubbed her the wrong way. In her ghostly form, she could only hiss at the man like a cat detecting danger. The goddess from the past, however, could not see her and so her attempts were all futile.

Celeste looked up from the handsome sleeping figure in response to the disruption, “So you’re the reason I haven’t left this place yet,” she observed, casting a withering smile at Cirrus.

The man was quiet for a while before taking a few steps forward, unknowingly passing through ghost Katie’s wispy body. He stopped walking when his eyes landed on the man lying before the goddess, then scanned the rest of the field as though in search of something else, “Where is the goddess of the moon?”

Katie was stunned by this statement. She’d heard the other royals comment frequently that something was amiss with the goddess’s appearance, but she’d thought that only had to deal with her expressions... and, as recently mentioned, the absence of her bow, but now that this man was present, she had a feeling the change was much more pronounced... ‘From now on, you will call me, Celeste,’ the phrase returned to her.

‘Huh, a memory when I wasn’t even trying. Convenient,’ she thought to herself. Could it have been that the moon goddess actually looked profoundly different before meeting the human that was currently lying before her? Katie banished the thoughts when she realised the flow of events was not going to pause for her to think.

“I’ll overlook that just this once,” the goddess replied gracefully, “What are you doing here, Cirrus? I summoned your leaders and not anyone else. Last I checked, you are not the King of Lycaon and neither are you the Queen of Sirius.”

“I came here of my own volition. When the king said where he was going and how he thought you’d been acting, I just had to see it for myself. I don’t see your bow or any of your hunting tools, my Lady. If you are the goddess Artemis, then perhaps you’re not feeling well,” his voice rumbled.

It wasn’t just his voice that sounded completely bossy, but his whole posture was wrong as well. Instead of kneeling before his patron goddess as the royals had done before him, this man was standing upright without a hint of respect in his voice. If there was anything in his posture that showed some sort of emotion towards the goddess, it was his look of contempt towards the goddess’s current form.

.....

“You walk in here and forget your manners completely, then expect to order me around and demand I answer your questions. Have you lost your way, Cirrus? This is not like you. Perhaps you hit your head and wandered in the opposite direction of your capital. It’s common for warmongers like you,” the goddess’s voice dropped in gentleness. The air changed pitch slightly, signifying her slight irritation with his behaviour.

Calmly, the royal replied, “You don’t know anything about me. All you know is what you order me to do. You’ve never let us keep our free will, so you think we are exactly what you think of us.”

“You know that’s not true. It might have been true the first time I sent Lycaon and Sirius out to purge all of humanity, but I’ve long since abandoned that kind of rule over my creatures,” her voice came cold this time. The royal before her emanated only malevolence. No matter how she tried to look past it, there was no hiding his intentions. He wasn’t here simply talk to her. He wasn’t here to ‘receive orders.’ He was here to have previous orders withdrawn and changed. Before his goddess, all was laid bare for her to see, “Where have you been hiding this hate for them?”

“I have not been hiding anything, my Lady,” Cirrus said with a mock bow, “The wolves that I command have claimed the most humans in the history of the empires and will continue to do so. I will be the one to finish the job you gave us years ago. I will bring the human race to its knees and have them begging for their lives. I will exact your vengeance more spectacularly than you could have dreamed even at the peak of your rage.”

‘Evil...’ a familiar feminine voice resounded through Katie’s mind. The girl recognised this voice all too well. It was Ashley’s voice. The wolf was finally awake... and she was watching this as well.

“I think you’re mistaken. You will do no such thing. Instead, you will apologise for it all and help your brother bring peace to the two races. There has been enough bloodshed already,” Celeste bellowed. Her fists trembled in anger and the blue mist rolling off the flowers swirled around her. No matter how angry she got though, she couldn’t directly harm the human. There were divine rules against this sort of thing... otherwise, the human race would have perished long ago.

'

“I won’t forget, my Lady. You might have forgotten, but I won’t. I’ll never forget it. The king before me cast his memories unto me... and I saw it all. The brutal massacre of your sisters on that fateful day. They were brutally murdered and I will never forget what I saw in those memories. The grief, the anguish. It’s partly the reason why I rejected the throne in the first place.”

“Enough,” Celeste shrieked, covering her ears. Storm clouds rumbled overhead in resonance with her anger. A furious wind began to swirl in the air, tearing away the calm peace that had taken over the Origin, “You won’t rekindle old hatred by springing up memories of the past.

Those are ghosts, ancient visages of a nightmare long past while the future lies ahead of us. I wouldn’t pick a world of destruction when peace stares me right in the face... Not again... Never again... My sisters were sworn to serve me until they die in battle... and that is what happened.”

“So now you choose to hide from the past. To sully the memory of your dying sisters with a false hope of peace. What’s peace going to do to bring them back? Calling their deaths ‘the past’ doesn’t make their deaths any less cruel and unjust. I stand before you with a blue shimmer in my eyes, not because I wished it, but because you did. All of this is for you... and we will fulfil your wish,” the man remained calm even when the goddess seethed in rage before him.

Finally seeing her anger as futile, the goddess forced herself to simmer down. Cirrus was unshaken by her display of power and wasn’t going to change his mind regardless of what she did. That didn’t wipe away the anger she held towards his foul words, but it did force her to resort to different methods of expressing herself.

Celeste took a few deep breaths and Cirrus watched the storm clouds leave and the howling wind settle. When the goddess opened her eyes, the warm smile returned to her. Her tone, however, was borderline insane, “I can see you’re already too far gone. For that, I apologize.”

“Something’s not right here,” Cirrus narrowed his gaze at the goddess, “What are you plotting?”

“You will not harm the humans,” the goddess spoke with a steeled expression. Her kind facade was gone and replaced by something else entirely. This wasn’t a suggestion, but rather an order and the moment she said it, it took root in the royal before her. Cirrus struggled with the pain in his mind, but the goddess’s power was already taking effect.

By the time the painful ringing had quieted down within his head, all the hate he’d born towards the humans had seized to have an impulse on him. He didn’t notice it then, but his hate still had an effect on him, one he was bound to realise soon.

Cirrus felt empty and everything about him felt cold. His eyes were lifeless, void of all the drive that had driven them before. He’d spent so much effort trying to fight the humans that he’d never noticed what he was without this mission. Without the mission to kill the humans, he was nothing... He knew nothing else. His whole life until this moment had all been about revenge in the name of the goddess, but now even that was gone leaving him nothing but a husk, “Now, doesn’t that feel better?” the goddess asked him, her smile returning to her face.

‘He... he can’t do anything, right?’ Katie internally asked herself. She’d watched the man get completely drained of the will to keep on fighting, but then... why did she feel like this was not over...

‘I’m not sure, Katie. Something feels very wrong,’ Ashley echoed.