Myths Reawakened

Two minutes later, Corte lost the wrestling match and ended up pinned to the ground by Wayne, her eyes blazing with golden light.

The projection of the Goddess of Sun raised one hand, and a golden spear of light took form. Its tip glinted with a metallic luster as it plunged straight down at the two tangled bodies.

Corte dissolved into light and vanished, while Wayne dodged the spear ungracefully like an old man diving under the blanket[1].

Corte panted heavily from a distance, demanding, “Impressive, Demon. You have extraordinary fire affinity and such incredible power. Tell me, who exactly are you?”

Wayne didn’t bother answering the question. With a flash of his thoughts, he tore away his jacket and white shirt. “You’re not bad yourself. I can’t beat you without taking this off.”

He curled his fingers at her. “Continue.”

Fine, let’s continue!

His shirtlessness didn’t intimidate Corte. She seemed eager, if anything, cracking her knuckles and preparing for round two.

A beam of white light intercepted her. Silver moonlight formed an arced bridge, taking Galen to Corte’s side. She forcibly claimed a significant part of the space with her vitality field.

“Galen, it hasn’t been five minutes!”

“Stop pushing. You’re the Holy Maiden of the Church of Sun at the end of the day...” Galen’s expression darkened. As a fellow Holy Maiden, watching her fake friend roll around with a demon made her feel tainted by association.

A Holy Maiden wasn’t an ordinary mage. She should be graceful and composed. Corte’s style of charging in headfirst, allowing her emotions to get the better of her, was something Galen could neither endorse nor tolerate.

“I’ll fight however I please,” Corte said defiantly. “Mind your own business.”

“You idiot, the demon is taking advantage of you. What if he drops his trousers next? Are you going to keep brawling with him?”

“I won’t be scared of him even if he drops his trousers!”

“...”

Fine, but I’m scared!

Galen reached Corte with her thoughts and said, “Your divine art won’t hold much longer. I don’t want you to become a captive and a liability. Let’s take him down together. Once we learn what we want to know, you’re free to do whatever you want with him.”

Corte huffed. She had exhausted too much of her thoughts to be stubborn. She grudgingly took a step back and agreed to let Galen steal the kill.

Silver moonlight spread across the sky. The night deepened, and the stars retreated. The pure, bright moon alone hung in the sky, pouring soft, tranquil radiance upon the world.

Within the radiance, the projection of the Goddess of Moonlight quietly descended.

Her silver hair flowed like the Milky Way, and her robes fluttered softly. Her face was unperceivable. Her figure became obscured and ethereal, projecting a serene holiness that sheltered all things in the world.

Simply looking at the luminous form was enough to cleanse one’s mind and bring about peaceful acceptance, compelling one to give up fighting.

Wayne shook his head to dispel the illusion. When he looked up again, the Goddess of Sun radiated golden light on the left, while the Goddess of Moon projected a mysterious quietness on the right. Being caught between the two phantoms of divine arts made his mind wander.

It had been pure coincidence for him to run into the two Holy Maidens in Palis... or had it? Was it arranged by the two goddesses? Just thinking about it gave him a headache.

The Goddess of Darkness had taken matters into Her own hands, leaving him paranoid. Now, two more goddesses made their moves. He would never sleep soundly again.

He hoped that it was all in his head, that the coincidence was nothing more than a coincidence, and that the Holy Maidens had come to Palis to investigate the local churches rather than sent by the goddesses to come for him.

Then he noticed the divine light flickering in Galen’s eyes.

“Oh?”

Wayne studied her with surprise. When she took off her hood and loosened her robe, her platinum blonde hair fell free. It was the exact same color as Kristen’s hair.

The resemblance didn’t end with the hair. The Holy Maiden of Moonlight had skin as fair as snow and ethereal facial features that resembled Kristen’s. When she stared at him coldly, especially, she looked like Kristen in her ice-queen mode.

Perhaps the resemblance was an illusion caused by the same hair color, but their figures were a perfect match. They had the same slender frame and pronounced assets, with identical proportions. Kristen had divine blood and had become a moonlight elf after her divine blood awakened, showing her close ties with the Goddess of Moonlight. Following that logic, Holy Maiden Galen...

Kristen, I found your sister.

Wait, no. Kristen was too young to be the Holy Maiden’s younger sister. Galen was old enough to be Kristen’s grandmother.

But that wouldn’t make sense, either. How did a pure Holy Maiden have a granddaughter?

Wayne settled on the theory that they were relatives, considering them cousins for now, or perhaps distant aunt and niece. That would make for a better, more engaging story.

His intrusive gaze infuriated Galen. She raised her silver longbow and shot a mana arrow at his forehead.

With a blank face, she waited for Wayne to catch the arrow.

It was a trap. Though the arrow wouldn’t explode, it would split. Once the demon grabbed it, he would end up catching nothing while the divided arrows pierced his eyes.

To Galen’s surprise, Wayne raised both hands and, anticipating the split and the split arrows’ trajectories, intercepted the attacks.

“I know the trick,” Wayne said, trying to prove his identity. “Darienne taught me.”

“So you’ve fought Lady Darienne before.”

“Fine. Whatever makes you happy.”

Wayne took a deep breath and gave up.

The two phantom goddesses closed in on him, and Corte faced him with her golden spear. Wayne decided against wrestling with her, raising both hands to convert his mana and conjure a longbow of moonlight.

He was quite good at archery. Back in the Frozen Land, he had spent most of his time training in archery with Darienne.

Whoosh!

A mana arrow shot through the air with a silver trail, flying straight at Galen’s face. She drew a curtain of clear moonlight with a wave, easily blocking the shot. At the same time, Corte came charging in with her spear, her aura impressive.

Wayne quickly shot an arrow at her. Once she was in his space, he blocked her spear with his bow while drawing a longsword of moonlight, taking one step forward and swinging the blade at Corte’s slender neck.

Silver and gold collided. The moves Corte was so proud of were full of flaws in Wayne’s eyes, and he had experienced and even used the same trick of transforming into elements.

Wearing Valkyrie, he had pulled similar moves with her support. It was even easier to become light with Dawn Doctrine. Though he hadn’t learned to do the trick on his own, he could tell where Corte would reappear.

When she was fighting Wayne alone, she had managed to reach a stalemate with him by utilizing her long legs and impressive raw power. Wayne barely had an advantage. Once Galen joined, however, Corte found the two of them completely outmatched. She even needed Galen’s ranged support just to buy herself some time to rest.

One plus one was somehow less than one. Corte wondered if Galen was secretly working for the demon.

Light and shadow flickered as more clashes took place. Corte, wrapped in phoenix fire, didn’t fear physical injury, but sustaining the divine art had drained a substantial part of her thoughts. The passive regeneration from the phoenix fire was nowhere near enough.

She was spending more than she was recovering. Slowly, she lost her momentum, and the phantom Goddess of Sun became noticeably dimmer.

Clang!

Wayne caught the great spear with a hand and raised an eyebrow. “Getting weak. Are you starving?”

Furious, Corte unleashed a tide of rippling fire. The phantom phoenix swelled in an instant, its speed and strength surging, forcing Wayne to back away. Galen tracked them and locked onto Wayne with her thoughts, but she hesitated to make an attack. Every arrow she had shot had been easily countered. Some even ended up directed to Corte. Anyone watching would think she was on the demon’s side!

Corte’s forceful attacks suppressed Wayne for less than thirty seconds before she lost her momentum. Her arms and legs grew weak, and the phantom Goddess of Sun seemed ready to collapse. She had nearly exhausted her thoughts. She couldn’t hold on much longer.

“Your moves are flashy, but your spear technique is sloppy. So is your footwork. Your reactions are also slow. Not a single move of yours is clean, and you call yourself a Holy Maiden? You should just find a decent man and settle down with him!”

When Corte fell, Wayne rose. He had played it safe to exhaust her. Swinging his longsword down, he hit the spear Corte had raised to block his attack and forced her to one knee.

“What a coincidence,” Wayne said. “I see an honest man when I look in the mirror every morning. Would you consider me?”

Corte’s temper flared once more. Golden light overflowed from her eyes, shooting two beams of searing heat.

Boom!!

Wayne wasn’t going to back down. He met her heat vision with his own, his red light clashing with her golden one, overpowering it after a brief stalemate.

Corte had chosen a bad position, standing to the left[2].

“Kekekeke—”

Wayne’s heat vision pushed on, reaching mere centimeters from Corte’s eyes. He was one second away from cooking her brain when a streak of white light hit him from behind.

Perfect timing. I can’t keep up the act that much longer!

Wayne was ‘forced’ to terminate his heat vision. Reaching back, he thrust a mana arrow into Corte’s shoulder.

She cried out in pain. The spear of light in her hand dissolved, and she charged straight at the moonlight sword that was swinging down at her. Wayne pulled back at the last second so that he wouldn’t actually hit her. Corte put her confusion aside, leaping up to grab Wayne’s head and crush it against her chest.

Darkness swallowed Wayne’s vision. Then all of a sudden, brilliant golden light lit up. He heard Corte’s exuberant laughter.

The phantom of the Goddess of Sun contracted, and in the last moment before it vanished, it wrapped around Corte to shield her.

In the sky, Galen looked down at the rapidly expanding golden sphere, her expression panicked. She gathered her vitality field to protect herself.

Boom!!

Golden light erupted toward the sky, too blindingly bright to look at directly. The golden fireball ignited like a newborn star. The shockwave rippled out in every direction, generating churning flames like a tumbling dragon. The resulting heat distorted the air in close proximity.

The light consumed the entire sea of fire, and the vitality field returned to black.

After the flames finally died down, the searing heat lingered. Galen spread her vitality field and rushed toward Corte as quickly as she could. She found Corte lying on the ground, clothing in disarray but breathing steadily, merely unconscious. The knot in her chest slowly loosened.

The demon was nowhere to be seen. He had probably been vaporized.

Galen extended her thoughts to scan the area thoroughly, confirming that no trace of the demon remained. Then she deactivated her divine art.

She swayed, overcome with a wave of exhaustion. She conjured a white sheet with her thoughts to cover Corte’s naked body.

Above, white misty foam gathered and fell like rain, hitting the ground. Though the rain fell right into Galen’s vitality field, she didn’t react. Even when Wayne had reconstituted his body and came up to her from the back, she sensed nothing.

“Kekeke—”

“!”

Galen spun around and hurriedly retreated, drawing her long bow with pale hands.

“Too slow.”

Wayne grabbed her wrist to yank her toward him, introducing his forehead to hers in a headbutt. When she staggered but didn’t fall, he grabbed her shoulders to steady her.

Then he headbutted her again.

Galen collapsed backward without a word.

“Tsk, sleeping like a baby. I envy you.”

Wayne rubbed his hands together. On the left was someone who might be Kristen’s cousin or aunt, and on the right was an upbeat woman with long legs. It would be unfair to himself if he did nothing after being falsely accused of being a demon.

“Hey, you.”

Galen’s vitality field had dropped with her. Wayne pointed at Givenchy and said, “Get me a marker. I need it for something important.”

1. The original is literally “He dodged with the trick of ‘old granny diving under a blanket’”, which is a dialect expression for slipping/ungraceful movement. ☜

2. It’s a meme that when two characters come head to head with energy attacks, the one on the left always loses. There are many such cases in Ultraman. In the fight between Harry and Voldemort, Voldemort is also on the left of the frame. ☜