Artemis stared in shock and fury at how Ana had split her in half without the slightest difficulty. Her silver eyes shone with rage before the Irish goddess’s clear superiority. Her shock was so great that her body was unable to join itself back together.
“Are you gonna talk now, or do you want me to torture you until you do?” Ana asked with a grim, tired look as she stared wearily at the Hellenic goddess.
“Ye damned primitive barbarian! Don’t ye dare speak to me that way! Ye filthy bloody bitch!” Artemis shouted furiously while raising her left hand, the one that was not holding her bow.
“Kynēgoi, pros éphodon (Hunting dogs, attack)!” Artemis shouted while keeping her left arm raised and her body separated.
A pack of dark dogs appeared as though they were a phantasmagorical vision. They seemed to have been made of shadow and darkness. There were hundreds of them, and in all of them, their red eyes and white fangs could be clearly seen, though their bodies looked distorted.
“My hounds! Devour that savage!” Artemis shouted furiously, just as her body joined itself back together.
The dogs then leapt rabidly toward Ana, who quickly made her two dark wings appear, and by turning her feathers into knives, riddled the illusions of the dogs that lunged at her.
Despite the attack, the dogs seemed immune to Ana’s abilities, being more like spirits. They immediately bit the goddess’s body: her nape, her arms, and her legs, while she remained standing and tried to shake them off by moving her limbs.
“Forget it, barbarian. These hounds will never stop biting ye. They’ll eat ye alive!” Artemis shouted triumphantly as she took up her bow again and, drawing an arrow from her quiver, placed it in her weapon and aimed at Ana.
The arrow then lit up like a beam of white light.
The dogs had finally knocked Ana to the ground while, with their phantasmagorical jaws, they crushed her body. The goddess wore an afflicted expression under that attack. While that happened, Artemis aimed at Ana’s head.
“Those hounds were created by the power of the dark side of the moon,” Artemis confessed. “Yer dark power is like a feast to them.”
Ana then smiled cockily.
Artemis, who was still aiming at Ana, looked at that expression with disbelief.
“Do ye find this funny, barbarian?” Artemis asked, annoyed.
Ana shook her head.
“Just watch,” she said.
The Irish goddess then invoked Excalibur while still keeping Gram in her left hand. Her totema changed once again to its white and purple colors, while a ray of light covered her body and pulverized Artemis’s dark dogs.
The Irish goddess stood without difficulty, while her ichor quickly healed the wounds caused by the dogs. On her back, her two wings appeared, one dark and one white. Ana smiled triumphantly.
“What is this?” Artemis asked, confused, while continuing to aim at Ana. “Have ye combined the Sacred and Darkness elements?”
Ana nodded.
“Exactly, Artemis,” the Irish goddess replied. “And I think you should know what happens when someone makes a cut with the two most incompatible elements that exist.”
Ana immediately gave a malevolent smile and said quietly:
“Not even your ichor will be able to heal it.”
Artemis made a horrified face and, by reflex, fired the powerful attack she had charged in her bow while shouting:
“Mégas katastrofeús (Great Destroyer)!”
But the Irish goddess, using her two swords, deflected the attack without difficulty as she approached Artemis at full speed, while the goddess did not know what to do. But just as Ana was about to split her in two, the figure of a woman embraced Artemis and took her away from there.
Ana stopped and turned to look at Artemis, who was now sitting on the ground after the mysterious woman had saved her. It was a blond woman wearing a rectangular crown.
“I couldn’t feel her presence,” Ana thought, puzzled, as she watched that girl stand.
“Phew!” exclaimed the woman with the crown. “I always arrive precisely on time, thanks to my good fortune.”
Artemis immediately stood and thanked the woman with a bow.
“Great Empress, ye saved my life, and I thank ye for it.”
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The woman with the crown shook her head.
“When I returned to Constantinople, I could not feel your presences, so I assumed you had hidden yourselves within an alternate dimension. By my good fortune, I guessed correctly that you were near Rus,” the woman said.
Then Ana looked at the woman with disdain and shouted:
“Who the heck are you?!”
But the woman, as though she had teleported, slapped Ana with her right hand. The goddess fell seated on the ground.
“A foul primitive such as thee may not address an empress in such a manner,” she said with disdain.
At that moment, Ana was stunned. She knew she had seen that face in engravings. She knew that woman was someone important. Her attire, her crown. There was no doubt. That woman was the living image of the one who had once been empress of the Eastern Roman Empire.
“You… are you Empress Irene?” Ana asked in surprise, realizing that her face matched the ancient absolute ruler of Byzantium. The only woman who had managed to become empress of the most powerful empire in the present world.
The woman was blond, with blue eyes and white skin. Her hair was styled in two ponytails that ended over her chest. Her crown was square and adorned with jewels, emeralds, lapis lazuli, and rubies, stones that also composed her elaborate earrings.
The garment she wore was a long dress called a loros. It was crimson and had several golden patterns with crosses and gems. In her right hand, she carried a curious golden sword, since its hilt seemed to have the shape of a horn.
“Do not address Us with such base familiarity, thou filthy savage!” the empress shouted furiously as she kicked Ana.
The Irish goddess saw the kick and avoided the attack, but to her surprise, the blow still reached her.
Ana was thrown several meters backward by the impact of the strike, falling near where Menrva still lay unconscious.
“This is incredible,” Ana said, laughing. “I didn’t know how low Lel could fall by putting a deity in charge of a whole empire.”
The Irish goddess stood and held her two swords threateningly toward Empress Irene. However, Irene only had a mocking smile.
“I have not granted thee permission to rise before me, insect,” the former queen of Byzantium said arrogantly, but Ana simply ignored her.
“Do your allies know that you control an entire nation however you want?” Ana asked. “What happened to the law of non-intervention?”
However, Irene moved quickly toward Ana and slit the goddess’s throat. Ana, despite seeing the attack coming, could not avoid it.
“Know thy place in the world, barbarian,” the empress said as she cleaned her sword with a handkerchief.
Ana dropped her swords and clutched her throat in pain. Even though she had ichor, somehow the wound was not healing.
Irene turned to look at Artemis arrogantly and smiled.
“I have already blessed thy arrows, my dear,” the empress said. “Now thou mayest finish her without difficulty.”
Artemis laughed and fired several arrows that lodged themselves in Ana’s body. The Irish goddess then fell to her knees while her wings disappeared.
Although she had ichor, the goddess bled from the multiple arrows that had pierced her chest. The goddess looked furiously at both deities, who had her completely surrounded. She knew that without Empress Irene’s strange ability, she would have been able to finish them both, but she could not do it.
Artemis then kicked Ana, and she fell onto her back while her neck and chest bled out. The goddess coughed and coughed. Then the Hellenic goddess, with her foot, began pressing the arrows in the goddess’s chest.
“Ye said ye were thrown off course when ye teleported,” the Hellenic goddess said. “Tell us, where are the others? Especially the sauroanthropos lad.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ana replied while still agonizing from the attack.
Artemis drove the arrows deeper into Ana with her foot. The goddess screamed, filled with pain, until her voice began to fade because she had lost her vocal cords from the attack on her neck.
“If ye won’t tell me nicely, Empress Irene won’t be as merciful as I am,” Artemis said.
The former queen of Byzantium then threw the handkerchief with which she had cleaned her sword to the ground, approached Ana with her sword drawn, and pointed it at the goddess’s eyes.
“Tell me, foul peasant. Wouldst thou like to lose thy pretty eyes forever?” Irene asked.
But Ana continued staring defiantly at Irene, something that disturbed and disgusted her at the same time.
“Yes, I understand. Thou art one of those who do not fear death,” the empress said.
Then she walked toward Menrva’s body on the ground and pointed her sword at her skull.
“I shall kill this filthy Etruscan instead if thou sayest nothing,” Irene said, making Ana bite her lip, filled with rage.
“We’re going to find them and kill them anyway,” Artemis said indifferently. “So ye’d at least save yer own life.”
But Ana said nothing.
“Very well. I shall count to ten so thou mayest decide,” the empress said, and she began counting in Greek.
“Heis.”
“Duo.”
“Treis.”
“Tessares.”
“Pente.”
Ana then closed her eyes and smiled again.
“Hex.”
“Hepta.”
“Octo.”
“Ennea.”
“Even if we die here, we’re gonna win, because we were blessed by the Universe itself!” Ana shouted with her hoarse, raspy voice, since she could barely speak.
“Indeed,” Menrva replied at the same time.
Irene turned in confusion toward where Menrva was, but she had disappeared completely.
“Thy teleportation shall not work while thou remainest marked by Artemis,” the empress said.
But Menrva appeared right in front of Irene and squeezed her face with her right hand. The Etruscan goddess wore the beautiful golden armor she wore when she assimilated with Bellona.
“Irene the Empress? Do not make me laugh, you shitty impostor,” Menrva said, but it was not her voice. It was Bellona’s.
“That voice is…?” Artemis asked, confused.
“You are about to suffer the worst of luck!” Menrva shouted with Bellona’s voice, and at that moment, a devastating bolt of lightning exploded throughout the entire area.
“Rath Lauchum Usil (Sacred Royal Sun)!” Menrva shouted at the top of her lungs.
The empress’s body fell completely charred to the ground from Menrva’s attack, while the Etruscan goddess stood again after unleashing her powerful lightning strike.
“How could she pierce through Irene’s good-luck power?!” Artemis shouted in confusion.
But it was too late. Menrva had launched two bolts of lightning that obliterated the eyes of the Hellenic goddess of the hunt.
“The marks work through your powers of sight,” Menrva replied, still using Bellona’s voice. “You will not be able to mark again without it.”
Then Menrva teleported toward Artemis and, grabbing her by the skull, the goddess said quietly:
“Caper Hinthialae (Mental Protector).”
Artemis stopped resisting and fell to her knees on the ground. Menrva released her, and she remained motionless with her mouth open. Saliva began to fall from her mouth.
Menrva then teleported to Ana and carried her.
“Let’s go home!” Menrva said with her real voice.
Then both goddesses disappeared as the Etruscan goddess invoked her teleportation.