“This is what I want,” she said as we finally pulled away from each other. “I want this. Every day.”

“I think that might prove to be a much more demanding task than going up against my father,” I said, running my hand over the side of her body.

“I consider this demand just as important as the first of our business arrangement,” she said.

I noticed my caresses were giving her goosebumps.

“What if we’re involved in a long and bloody battle?” I asked. “What if we’re being pursued by minions of my father?”

“Then you’ll have to make it quicker,” she said, pushing herself up.

With a swirl of her wrist, a small stream of water made its way from the sea up into the air. The water surrounded her body, removing all signs of sand and fluids, and leaving her completely clean and fresh in a manner of seconds.

“Care to send some water my way too?” I asked, pointing at the mess of sweat and sand all over my body.

“Gladly,” she said, and this time waved her whole arm in my direction.

A wave at least seven feet tall came rushing at me before I had the chance to even pick myself up. I was thrown backward with force, the water claiming my clothes and pulling them away as it returned to the sea. I rushed to pick them up, momentarily glancing at Aphrodite who was smiling at the sight of a naked god chasing his clothes into the sea.

“Do not ask me to wash you again, Zeus,” she said with a smile that seemed meant to amuse as much as to warn.

I thought her display of defiance was completely uncalled for, especially as I hadn’t meant it that way, but made a note of what she’d said regardless. As soon as I managed to secure my clothes, I took my sweet time in the sea, washing off the sand and sex. I only wished I had a dry set of clothes to use but I guessed it couldn’t be helped. I’d have to spend the night naked.

“Are you going to take much longer?” Aphrodite shouted at me from the shore.

“Do you have somewhere to be?” I retorted.

It was her fault I was taking so long after all.

“No, but I thought you might want to know about the place where you can escape your father.” she said, as if it wasn’t the most important piece of information I was after.

“Tell me,” I said, as I ran out of the sea. “Tell me.”

“Mount Orthys is a huge mountain. I have no doubt you believe it’s the largest in all the Greek lands,” Aphrodite said.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

“Of course it’s the highest mountain,” I said. “Come on. You got my clothes wet and I don’t have any more.”

“I understand you were raised with this idea in your head,” she continued, “but there is one mountain that reaches yet closer to the skies than Orthys.”

“Where is this mountain?” I asked, my interest piqued, even if I doubted there could be a mountain higher than Orthys. “Does it have a name?”

“It is a few days travel north of Orthys,” she replied, “but it does not yet have a name.”

“Is it unclaimed territory then?”

“I don’t think there are many unclaimed territories anymore,” she said, looking beyond the seas, “at least not so close to civilization. But if it’s only monsters who have claimed it, you can still take it for your own ends.”

“A mountain higher than Orthys would be able to hide me from my father,” I admitted, “but what good is a mountain to me otherwise?”

“Oh, but it’s not only that,” she added, with wonder in her voice. “Every rumor I’ve heard whispered about this place talks of its peak being a place of power. One that has never been claimed by anyone.”

“Can this be true?” I asked. “A place of power that has just been sitting there for millions of years? Can you imagine the amount of concentrated mana?”

Places of power were areas on junctions of the mana ley lines of the Apocosmos multiverse. These junctions generated and stored mana that could be used, once the place was claimed, for all kinds of purposes. Most of the places of power were used to create bases of operation, guildhalls, castles, cities, and the likes.

Others would craft dungeons around them. The principle behind it was simple. The place of power generated a valuable item, such as an elemental crystal for example, then monsters were attracted to that place and traps were set. Once adventurers moved through the dungeon and cleared it, the Dark Energy would reward the owner of the dungeon with XP relative to the difficulty of the dungeon that had been created and cleared. It was one of the best ways for deities to earn passive XP and I knew my father ran at least a few of them.

However, unclaimed places of power were few and far between, much less so close to Mount Orthys. Whereas claimed places were drained of all of their accumulated mana to build things and conduct research, which were in turn destroyed and forgotten about in faction wars. A still unclaimed place would have an immense amount of mana just waiting to be used. Even without any mana generators, the available pool of MP in such a place would be massive.

“This is all rumors, of course,” Aphrodite warned, “but the truth is that since that mountain is higher than Orthys, it is technically between the skies and the earth and thus should hide you from your father.”

“At least long enough for me to build some sort of defenses,” I said.

“It probably also means that the place will be infested with monsters,” she said. “You’d better bring your best if you want to make it.”

“Don’t you mean if we want to make it?” I asked, and focused on her reaction.

“I will do my best to help you, Zeus,” she said, her voice steady and honest, “but I’m not the one being chased by a titan. I can just return here if all else fails. You cannot.”

“You need not worry about me,” I said, with too much confidence for someone who was naked and using a sharpened branch as his main weapon. “My skills and levels have not let me down. Only my equipment.”

“Perhaps we can do something about that,” she said, and signaled me to follow her. “You can leave your clothes here. You won’t need them anymore.”

I did as she bid me but kept my spear with me in case anything jumped out at us from the darkness. She walked straight into the thick of the jungle and I followed her, watching. This woman was out of this world. If there ever was someone worthy of becoming the goddess of beauty, it would be her.