Chapter 323. The Goddess of War
"Who is this?" Gilgamesh asked, his voice a deep rumble as he tilted his massive head toward the stranger standing beside Ajak. His eyes, usually filled with a gentle warmth, now flared with a flicker of protective curiosity.
Ajak stepped forward, a faint, graceful smile touching her lips. "This is Noah," she introduced, her voice carrying the calm authority of a leader. "A friend of mine from among the mortals. It was he who brought me across the wastes to this place."
Noah offered a short, practiced nod of greeting. "Hello," he said simply, his gaze steady as he sized up the legendary Eternal.
"A friend of Ajak is a friend of mine," Gilgamesh replied with a boisterous grin that crinkled the corners of his eyes. He seemed to radiate a physical heat, a stark contrast to the biting desert wind. Then, his brow furrowed as he scanned the horizon, where the shifting sands met the bruised purple of the twilight sky. "Something feels... off. You said he brought you here, but where is your craft?"
Gilgamesh knew the world of men. To reach the heart of this desolate, unforgiving desert, humans required thundering engines, steel plating, and vast reserves of fuel. They did not simply appear out of the shimmering heat haze on foot.
Ajak let out a soft, melodic laugh, shaking her head. "Gilgamesh, Noah is no ordinary man. He possesses a strength that defies the limits of his kind. We did not crawl across the dunes; we took to the skies."
"Truly?" Gilgamesh's skepticism was plain, his thick eyebrows shooting upward. To him, humans were fragile things—beautiful in their brevity, perhaps, but brittle as glass. He knew of the armored billionaire and the master of storms from the flickering images of the television, but those were men bolstered by gears and high-tech plating. "The small folk have mastered such power?"
"They have," Ajak stated, her tone turning uncharacteristically sharp, almost boastful. "Even Ikaris found himself unable to overcome him."
Noah remained silent, his expression an unreadable mask. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest, his posture relaxed yet coiled like a spring. His attention drifted past Gilgamesh to the modest dwelling behind him. Through the half-open door, the orange glow of a hearth fire danced against the interior walls, and the scent of slow-simmering spices wafted out into the dry air. Gilgamesh was wearing a stained apron; he had clearly been interrupted mid-meal.
"What? You must be joking!" Gilgamesh barked, a laugh of pure disbelief escaping him. The idea of Ikaris—the sun-chaser, the most arrogant and powerful of their warriors—being bested by a mortal was a tall tale too grand to swallow.
"I will tell you the details later," Ajak said, cutting through his astonishment. Her eyes clouded with a more pressing concern as she glanced toward the shadow of a withered tree nearby. "How is Thena? Is she finding any peace?"
At the mention of her name, the jovial light in Gilgamesh's eyes vanished, replaced by a heavy, soul-weary shadow. He looked suddenly older, the weight of centuries pressing down on his broad shoulders.
"Thena..." He shook his head slowly. "She's had another episode. A bad one. She's out there now, lost in the fog of her own mind. I thought it best to give her space, to let the storm inside her settle before I try to pull her back to us."
"Is it getting worse?" Ajak whispered, her brow knitting in a painful frown.
Without a word, Gilgamesh turned and led them toward the skeletal remains of the great tree Noah had spotted from the air. Its branches were bleached bone-white by the sun, reaching upward like the desperate fingers of a drowning man.
Underneath that canopy of dead wood sat Thena. She was a vision in white, her robes fluttering in the breeze like the wings of a trapped bird. All around her, the sand was littered with parchment—sheets covered in frantic, jagged charcoal sketches and incomprehensible symbols. She sat with her back to them, her slender shoulders trembling with a rhythmic, unsettling intensity. She was still drawing, the scratching of her lead against paper the only sound in the sudden silence.
Noah, keeping a respectful distance, could hear her voice—a jagged, melodic whisper, a stream of consciousness that made no sense to the conscious ear.
"I'll just call you Noah," Gilgamesh muttered, leaning closer to the young man. His voice was low, laced with a warning. "Be careful. Thena is... unstable. Her mind is a battlefield right now. Do not approach her too closely." Despite Ajak's endorsement, Gilgamesh still looked at Noah with a hint of doubt, wondering if the mortal truly understood the danger of a goddess in the throes of madness.
Noah gave a curt nod, his eyes tracing the odd arrangement around the tree. Charms carved from bleached animal bones hung from the dead branches, clattering softly like wind chimes of the grave. At the base of the trunk, a perfect circle of jagged stones had been meticulously laid out.
To an outsider, it might have looked like a piece of avant-garde performance art or a primitive ritual site. But Noah, recalling the lore of the Mahd Wy'ry—the sickness of too many memories—realized the stones weren't just a circle. They were a map. A silent monument to a world that no longer existed, a planet she had seen burn in a previous life.
"I saw the carcasses of Deviants not far from here," Ajak said, her voice tight as she reached Gilgamesh's side. "Did they trigger this?"
"Yes," Gilgamesh growled, his jaw tightening. "Those vermin are still crawling out of the dark. They found us, and the hunt brought everything back for her. The fight broke her focus, and the memories flooded in. This is the result."
"The Deviants are returning," Ajak mused, more to herself than the others. "They are hunting us again. If they found you here, the others are surely in peril."
Gilgamesh nodded solemnly and took a tentative step forward.
"Hey, Thena," he called out, his voice dropping to a soothing, honeyed tone he used only for her. He approached as one might approach a wounded predator. "Look who's come to visit. It's Ajak. Give me your hand, Thena. Come back to me."
He reached out, his hand trembling slightly. Over the long, lonely centuries he had spent as her guardian, he had developed a routine. He would coax her, wait for the storm to break, and eventually, her eyes would clear.
At the sound of his voice, Thena stiffened. Her pen stopped mid-stroke. For a heartbeat, Gilgamesh thought he had reached her. Then, with the speed of a striking viper, she spun around. Golden light erupted from her palms, weaving into the shape of a lethal, shimmering spear of pure cosmic energy. She lunged, the tip of the weapon aimed straight for his heart.
Clang!
Gilgamesh was ready. His arm snapped up, encased in a glowing, translucent gauntlet of golden power. The spear struck the armor with a shower of sparks that lit up the darkening desert.
"Thena! It's me!" he shouted, trying to pierce the veil of her delirium.
"Everyone on Centuri-6 will die!" Thena screamed. Her voice was no longer her own; it was a choir of a billion dying souls. She clutched the spear in one hand while a jagged golden dagger flickered into existence in the other. "It's too late! We can't save them! The sky is breaking!"
Noah looked at her face. Her eyes were no longer the piercing grey of a warrior; they were washed out, the pupils eclipsed by a terrifying, milky white—the hallmark of the Mahd Wy'ry.
The words she shrieked were ghosts—shards of a life lived millions of years ago. Centuri-6, a world wiped from the stars to give birth to a new Celestial. She wasn't just remembering; she was reliving the moment she realized her entire existence was a lie—that she wasn't a protector, but a harvester of death.
As Thena pulled back for another strike, her movements fueled by a desperate, holy rage, a sudden flash of amber light reflected in her white eyes. She froze mid-swing, her golden weapons flickering like a dying candle.
Gilgamesh blinked, spinning around in confusion.
Behind him, Noah stood with one hand extended, his fingers spread wide. In the center of his palm, a sphere of brilliant, pulsating yellow energy throbbed like a heartbeat. The air around him hummed with a frequency that felt ancient and absolute.
Before Gilgamesh could demand an explanation, Thena's posture slumped. The spear and dagger dissolved into golden dust, drifting away on the wind. She blinked, the milky veil over her eyes receding like a fog under a rising sun.
"Gilgamesh?" she whispered, her voice cracking. "And... Ajak?"
--------
You can read up to 200+ advanced chapters and support me at patreon.com/raaaaven
Daily +2 chapters updates