Chapter 19

Waiting in the cavern for Athena to return, anom began to question Arges. “You realize that this could have gone very badly. Why did you not warn me ahead of time?” sighing with exhaustion Arges began to speak, “If I would have told you who you were meeting would you have come? Not only this, but if I told you everything, and you fled, everything would have been destroyed before the fight even began."

"After thinking everything through I chose to take the chance and bet on your intellect and understanding. I believed you to be able to pick up on our discrepancies, unearthing our true motives, and thankfully I was right. If you fought with Athena here, it would have been almost impossible to keep it hidden. However, if it did not work for some unforeseen reason, I was, and still am, willing to sacrifice myself for our cause."

"Zeus is a monster, the amount of people he has killed could fill entire worlds. Not just a city, or a country, or even the seas, not even a single world, but multiple worlds! Do you understand how much blood that is? I have seen him get offended from a local tradition practiced in a new world he had recently captured that was supposed to show humility and understanding of the locals and the new ruler."

"However, Zeus found the whole practice and its people, “Disgusting” and literally wiped out the entire town from the face of the planet. The whole city got fried because Zeus didn’t like his food dish being served to him in humility and understanding and expecting the same from him in return.

Athena finally returned quite noticeably as she brought her heavenly aura with her, brightening everything around her wherever she went. Moreover, she was not by herself this time, as she pulled a lead rope, moving towards us, until, from around the corner, appeared the head of a massive, beautiful cow. This cow was stunning, looking much taller and longer than even him. This cow also appeared to be translucent in a strange way.

This did not make it invisible though, nor did it allow you to see into its body. Its translucence was more like a gateway, or passage. Where exactly it lead to, he did not know. However, through its body, one could see a multitude of stars, galaxies, and nebula. Planets and asteroids abound, in her coat, with breathtaking plumes of dust of all colors, red, orange, yellow, and even green. Space dust colored the black canvas, creating a breathtaking view of the colors of the universe.

This phenomenal looking cow had massive black udders that produced four cosmic milk streams. They udders appeared pitch black, with different stars and galactic views, changing consistently, while it moved. The strangest part was the udders from the cow were constantly pouring out new milk into four strange portals, and then disappearing. The cow had shaggy pitch black fur, that absorbed almost all the light in the area, making her silhouette very difficult to see. The cow would have resembled a highland cow, if not for its cosmic markings and powers.

It looked adorable, with its bright green eyes, and bright purple striped tongue. As she walked the cow towards him, he noticed the beast’s hooves carving into the stone of the floor, as she walked, leaving a trail of warning, purely from its weight, and the hardness of her hooves. This could be a very dangerous animal, if it wished to be.

Finally stopping in front of him, Athena waited for his surprise to subside. Anom stared at the heifer in front of him, being led by a tiny, miniscule human, barely reached his shins, and couldn’t help, but chuckle. It looked almost comical and bizarre that she could even carry its chain and had enough strength to direct the cow.

If he were a human again, it would probably be like seeing a mouse leading a big dog down the street. It would probably look pretty strange. Looks can be deceiving though as even now he remembered his old battle with that captain, on his griffon, smashing his head with his mace, and doing real damage to him, in the battle to regain the high-necks.

Happily, Athena spoke up. "This is the Audumla. He is the only one of his species. Audumla is a primordial cow from the Norse pantheon. Audumla went missing directly after Ymir drank from her in the very beginning of their pantheon and ever since then she has disappeared, until Gaia found, and captured her, bringing her here for you."

"This heifer was a big reason Ymir, “the king of all giants and jotnar” was so powerful and known as their strongest jotnar. Unfortunately, oden was jealous and plotted to kill Ymir using his own family against him so he could not fight back, lest they be destroyed. Using Ymir’s body, they built the nine worlds and the Yggdrasil tree. The reason I have brought him here is to have you drink from his four udders and become how you were meant to be. However, once you do this Zeus and the other gods will surely feel your presence and attack in full force. That is why Gaia and I will give you three things to guide you in your journey."

Pulling out a dark leather pouch, she untied the top strings and pulled out three items. The first item was a bone obsidian knife. Its blade was razor sharp and pitch black, strapped into a deep blood red bone as a handle. The knife seemed to be from many thousands of years ago, and its presence alone exuded the ageless time of the universe.

Watching me examine the knife Athena gave out a warning, “Do not cut yourself with it, no matter what you do. The knife does not work on every single person it cuts, but if it does cut you, it is better to amputate the limb, if you are so lucky to be able to do so. If you cut yourself somewhere that can’t be cut off, then my condolences. Fortunately, most of those whom the blade cannot cut are titans and gods."

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"So, there is a small chance it won’t affect you but let’s not try to find out, ok?” Startled, I put the knife back into its leather sheath, exhaling nervously at the thought of the insane knife, crippling him for life, because of his own stupidity. "What the hell is this knife even? Is it poisoned or cursed or what? I really need to take this more serious, if I don’t ill end up dead without knowing why." Anom thought to himself.

Athena put the eerie knife back into its sheath and pulled out a sea lion pelt. Seeing his confusion, she began to speak, “This is a Selkie king’s skin. Without this pelt he cannot transform back into a sea lion and join his kingdom. I was able to barter this from the tribe."

"You must keep this close and easy for you to pull out." Putting the waxy, smooth and fatty skin back into pouch she pulled out the last item. A human ring made from yellow gold and with a green ruby attached at the top. Looking at it questioningly, Athena tossed the ring into my massive hands where the ring began to expand. "Oh, awesome!"

The ring continued to grow until it was the right size for his ring finger on his left hand. Looking to Athena for potential danger, she gave him a quick nod, when he slipped the ring on. With a mischievous look on her face, Athena told me to imagine any animal in his mind and concentrate in the image.

He quickly tried his best, attempting to concentrate on the image of a small white bunny rabbit in his mind. To his surprise, he saw a flurry of rapid movements and felt the world rapidly growing larger and larger. Finally, once the marry-go-round stopped, he was shocked to see himself as a tiny, white rabbit, looking up to Athena, who before was miniscule to him, but now was massive.

Seeing his shock, Athena couldn’t help but to begin to laugh at him and talk about how, "cute my little chubby cheeks are." Finally having had enough, he figured he would give her a taste of his tiny fury, jumping from the ground to try and slam into her. However, it was at this point when Athena saw him leaping into her, that her face went from happy, and laughing, into horrified, and scared, as his tiny bunny body finally landed on her. Booom!!!

It was a very odd scene in front of him. He was sitting on top of Athena as a tiny bunny and below them was a massive crater, with the area destroyed around them and Athena’s face begging him to get off of her, unable to even speak from his weight. "What happened?" Quickly, he got off of Athena, as she was gasping for breath. "Damn it Anom, did you really think you were transformed into a rabbit?"

Confused, Anom responded. "Wasn’t I? Isn’t that what the ring does?" Irritated, and a little embarrassed, Athena replied. "No, you fool! True transfiguration is an exceptionally difficult magic. If you are not born with the ability a lot can go wrong, and even if you are lucky and know a transformation magic that can be cast on others, putting it on a ring is almost impossible even for us."

"However, that doesn’t mean there are no items like that, glancing over her pouch, but the issue is that once something is transformed into something else they tend to want to stay that way. And I would rather not have our last hope turned into an admittedly cute bunny rabbit."

"The ring does not transform you into a rabbit. It simply causes a mental image inside everyone’s mind mixed with a holographic mirage to trick anything in the area, even animals and non-sentient life can be fooled. The ring relays your senses back into your body and attempts to navigate your original body which is now invisible to cause as little contact with the world as possible."

"It’s not perfect, and you are ultimately not a little bunny. So please be careful if you use this recklessly you could easily crush someone to death on complete accident. Ultimately, it’s an illusion you use only when you truly need it." Embarrassed by his blunder, Anom replied. "He he…. Ya, sorry about that. I really didn’t know."

Looking towards the blushing bunny sitting next to her, Athena decided to have mercy, telling him how to release the illusion. Looking at his hulking figure sitting next to her, he thought, "I’m surprised nothing broke on her. I shouldn’t be surprised though as the new gods were able to defeat the titans and giants. Granted, they had the Hecatoncheries and Cyclops’s standing with them making the fighting much easier."

Pulling herself back together, Athena continued speaking. "These three items will make your journey much easier, but u still have one more thing you will need to complete your task." Athena pulled out an ancient golden coin from her pocket and handed it to him. The metal felt strangely cold, and the coin was so ancient that he could not tell what used to be the design, or, if it even ever had one.

“This a gold coin for carrion. You will only need one for a round trip. Fortunately we had this coin otherwise you would be forced to go through hades to reach your destination. Now, you simply must travel through the river Styx” Concerned, Anom asked. "Where would you have me go? I must return to my tribe and meet up with the elves in preparation for our fight with the Belagos."

Understanding, Athena replied. "I would have you go the old earth. There Aries fought Zeus and won long ago. However, instead of killing his father, he made him promise to never interfere in that world again. In order for him not to be able to find you or know who you are, we need to send you somewhere far away and even if he does find out where you went, he might not have the gall to follow you into his son’s territory, since he made the oath. Once you finish drinking from the Audumla we will have you board carrions boat and set sail to the old earth. There you should attempt to find the Amalthean Goat and find anything left from our time to aid in our upcoming war."

"There are many things that have been left to time, that may prove useful in your desire to defeat the gods, and even your wish to conquer the dragon, who has vexed you, and your people. Do not worry for time, as the lower realms do not operate in the same flow of time as we do. What may take a few hours here might be as long as a year or longer there."

"It’s not a perfect plan, but it has a good chance of working. Hopefully, he won’t even notice you and if he does, he won’t have the time to give chase before the gate closes. So, knowing all that I have told you, do you have the courage to fight against your fate? Staring at Athena, eye to eye, anom called on his greatest determination, as he answered…. “I do.”"