For the next fortnight, Arthur drifted between a dreamless sleep and a trance as he laid in the bed. It was just too surreal for him to wrap his head around. He would eat when prompted by Granny Ferdinand and would go to sleep when it was dark, but his eyes reflected that he had given up on the world. He had the eyes of a dead man or in his case woman.
Granny Ferdinand could only look at the girl and shake her head in resignation. Ever since the child acted up and yelled out her name multiple times, she had become mute. She never responded when asked anything, nor did she ever showed any expression on her blank face. Although the girl’s wounds were healing at an incredibly rapid pace, it seemed that her heart had died. The only thing Granny Ferdinand could do was let Janna tend to the girl, because it seemed that the girl responded only to Janna.
Janna was a good child. She was kind and gentle, so when she saw the delicate girl that Granny Ferdinand was treating, she felt some pity and pain for the girl. Although she sympathized with the girl, Janna was still worried sick for Arthur. It’s been a month since he had disappeared and aside from his pack the hunters have found a few days travel north, they couldn’t find any tracks of him. When the hunters brought back the terrible news, Janna had angrily denied their conclusion and begged for them to search for Arthur once more. How could these hunters not know the relationship between Arthur and herself? They could only search for him one more time, at least to appease her sorrow.
On their second search, they had found tracks of their most feared predators: the wintervale wolves near the village, just a few kilometer’s past the Black Gorge. This was serious news that they cannot hold back on, so they decided to cut their search short and quickly return to Buono by taking the Black Gorge bridge. That was how they found a woman covered in blood and wounds from head to toe laying down in front of the collapsed bridge on the northern side. With no hesitation whatsoever, these hunters quickly carried her and delivered her to Granny Ferdinand’s in the middle of the night. Ever since these events passed, the first snow of winter had fallen and any chance of finding Arthur was lost.
On one particular night, Arthur was having another night of dreamless sleep. Ever since his deal with the mysterious voice, he had never had a refreshing sleep. However, on this night, it was different. Arthur was walking along the darkness. Just like the abyss, he could not see anything; the only difference this time was the only person he could see was himself. As he continued to wander the darkness, a mirror appeared within his sight.
He wasn’t given as choice as his body moved over without his control. Only after arriving in front of the mirror did he notice the peculiarity between himself and his reflection. In front of him was a naked woman. She was the same height as him. Her eyes were clear and deep as they seemed to stare off into the far beyond. Her hair reached all the way to her waist. Her body was thin and lithe; it stuck out where it should and sucked in where it shouldn’t. All of this was bare in front of him and yet he didn’t have any desire from seeing this heavenly body. After all, that body was himself.
“Don’t you think it’s enough?” The reflection asked in annoying as she crossed her arms propping up her bountiful chest even more, “Or do you want to continue pouting like a child?”
“She doesn’t know that I’m not dead…” Arthur dejectedly murmured.
“This is the price you must pay in order come back from the brink of the abyss.” The girl answered back, not daring to meet his eyes as if feeling a bit of guilt.
“Then what was the point of returning?!” He screamed! “Just how can I live on if my reason for living no longer exists?!”
The guilty girl’s eyes turned cold before she answered, “Are you truly that stupid? Can you truly say that you no longer have a reason to live just because the relationship between you and that girl has disappeared? Relationships can be fixed and be brought back, but a life cannot.”
Arthur was slightly taken aback and did not respond.
“You have to understand. Even if you want to die, you will no longer be accepted in the Underworld. You are a person who has escaped the wheel of fate and have tied yourself with a Divinity. Your fate with the world of the living has ended when you fell into the abyss. If I hadn’t given you another chance and tie your fate with mine, you would’ve died and entered the Underworld, forever losing your chance to meet that girl ever again. And now that I’ve given you this once in an eternity chance, you decide to throw it all away, just because what once was will no longer be? How laudable. Hmph!”
“What do you mean ‘decide to throw it all away’? When did I ever try to end my life?” He weakly refuted.
“Do not try to play games with me, boy! While you are me, I am also you. I know what you think and you know what I want you to know. Don’t try to fool me. Over the last week, you have contemplated taking your life more than once. And to that, I say you are truly a foolish man. I have made a mistake when I thought you were the one.”
“…”
“Since you have nothing to add. Then go ahead and do it. It was a mistake to tie my fate with yours. I will receive my punishment for my mistake, so go ahead and get it over with.” She began to rant, the glare on her face was terrifying as she began to poke at all his selfishness.
“What happens if I were to go through with it…” He weakly asked. He truly could not imagine how he was supposed to live like how he was currently.
“Are you daft? Naturally since you’re no longer part of the wheel of fate for mortals and are not also a Divinity, then you will naturally cease to exist.”
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Arthur’s mind shook at her final statement. He wasn’t a firm believer of faith, but with what had happened so far in the past few weeks, even an ardent non-believer would change his ways. “Is there truly no other way… To return to who I once was?” His heart was filled with sorrow when he thought of Janna.
The girl was part of him, she knew what he was thinking and understood what he felt. Her expression softened upon hearing his question, “There is a way.”
“Really?!” A light of hope graced his face.
“When I tied our fate together, you had to pay a price. A life for a life… Before I get into that, let me tell you a bit about myself.” She snapped her fingers and clothing quickly appeared, covering both their bodies. “I am Artemis. Goddess of the Hunt. An Olympian Divinity. Unbeknownst to all mortals, there are Gods in this world.”
“Gods?” Arthur knew she wasn’t normal, but to hear those words from her mouth left him speechless.
“Yes. The strongest beings in this world are termed Divinities. I happened to come from an era known as the Olympian era, thusly I’m an Olympian Divinity. However, there are other Divinities in this world, such as a Asgardian Divinities from the Norse era. It’s still too early for you to know too much, so all I can tell you for now is that not all Divinities live in harmony. It was because of an attack from a Divinity that caused me to become trapped within the void.”
“Is that where we met? That dark space?”
“You are correct and incorrect. We met in the void, but it wasn’t necessarily the one near your village. The so called Black Gorge is merely a door that leads to the void. Within the void is the bane of all Divinities. Our powers cannot recover nor can we communicate to the outer world. It was only with your help, that I was able to escape from there.”
“So you are saying you took advantage of my situation to save yourself?!” Arthur felt like he had been cheated.
“In a way you can say that.” Artemis guiltily answered, “I did use your soul in order to find the way out of the void, because you truly had died. It was a natural law that your soul must return to the wheel of fate, therefore you would negate laws that the void had to retain your soul in there. The void, after all, is merely a system of the world, thus it still must obey the law of the world. Since your wish to return to the Overworld coincided with my desire to escape, what would be a better way than to grant both our wishes at once? That’s why you are still alive and I have escaped the void.” She calmly answered Arthur like a senior instructing their junior. In a sense, it made Arthur feel a bit of guilt for flipping her good intentions.
“But this still doesn’t explain how I can fix my current issue…” He was referring to himself in Artemis’ body in real life.
“Hmm, what you say does make a bit of sense.” She nodded in agreement, “As a mortal your powers were too weak to reform your body, thus I had to spend a lot of my energy to reform my body. Because of this, it took a while to finally recover enough energy to communicate with you right now.”
Arthur finally understood why he ended up as he was and only felt guilt from finally understanding. “How hard must it be to sacrifice everything to give another person a chance at life? To sacrifice the power of a God and become weak enough to only appear in a dream, Artemis truly had a kind heart.” He thought to himself.
How could Artemis not understand what Arthur was thinking? They were connected the deepest out of anyone; they shared the same fate. She smiled at Arthur after his enlightenment. “Now do you know how selfish you are?”
“Y-yes… I’m sorry.” Arthur dropped his head in shame.
“Don’t worry. This is where the main part of the story begins. You must know that this is only temporary.” She began to instruct lightly, since the mood was getting a little awkward. “Since you have tied your fate with me, you are now considered on the path to becoming a Divinity yourself.”
“What?!” Arthur abruptly interrupted. He could accept Artemis being a God and known as a Divinity, but to hear that he could become one too was a suspension of belief for him.
“You have already passed the final step to Divinity and that is separating yourself from the Wheel of Fate. Eventually, everyone who wants to become a Divinity must complete this step. Which is not easy and rarely would a Divinity offer to help like in your special case. Out of millions who attempt to separate their fate only one would be able to achieve this miracle. So you have to be proud of yourself for this matter.”
“Mm, I guess you’re right. Was that burning sensation like my mind was being torn apart the effect of me separating my fate?”
“Yes, but you also have to understand that you only felt that pain because I protected you and that was only 1% of the amount of pain that would be felt during the process of fate separation.”
“*Gulp*” Arthur couldn’t help it and swallowed hard. “If that was only 1% of the pain, I am thankful for everything…”
“As I said before. Our current situation is only temporary. If you truly want to return to who you once were, you much become a Divinity. That can be achieved in one of two ways. You can cultivate yourself, absorb the natural energies of Gaia and surpass the mortal limits. This method is slow, but steady and this is the method I recommend.”
“You said one of two ways, what’s the other method.” Arthur questioned.
Artemis smirked, “The other would be to steal from others.” Right after saying those words, images began to flood into Arthur’s mind, images of a young woman and man solidifying their love in each other’s embrace. Only… These images repeated over and over with the male figure changing with each image.
“Urp!” Arthur bent over and hurled as he tried to calm himself. “Stop! I refuse to use this method!” He held up his hand as if signaling for Artemis to stop sending those images over.
“What you just witness is truly the fastest method to achieve Divinity, it is harmless and with this body, it wouldn’t be too hard to catch any man.” She groped herself sensually as if to provoke Arthur. “But you’re right. I too despise this method.”
“Then why show me all that?!” Arthur angrily yelled.
“Hmm… I wanted to see your reaction.” The corners of her lips stretched out in a mischievous grin. She was fickle by nature and showing Arthur that was a way to get back at him for angering her.
“…” His expression darkened after being left with no words to reply with.
“Don’t be like that, Arty! I’ll tell you something nice. You can also steal divine power from stronger beings than yourself.” Artemis’ eyes glowed with bloodthirst and excitement from those words. What transmitted over to Arthur was pure euphoria. “The thrill of the hunt. I have truly missed it.”
Somehow, Arthur knew what Artemis meant and couldn’t help but shiver. He shivered because he recalled her title and finally what it meant. Artemis the Goddess of the Hunt. She treated everyone as her prey, she was the apex predator and feared no one not even Gods.
“So with this out of the way, I’ll leave the method up to you.” She reverted back to her calm self and tapped on the mirror. Soon after the mirror began to fade and he felt himself waking up from the lucid dream. “Oh, don’t wake me up if you don’t have to. I’m tired.”
“…” Arthur had huge task ahead of himself and he didn’t know where to start.