The Villain of Ancient Greece

”Achoo!”

On a lush island that resembled paradise, Artemis sitting by the lakeside felt an inexplicable chill and let out a heavy sneeze.

’Who is talking about me behind my back?’

The Hunting Goddess muttered to herself, casually swept away the magical formation diagram flickering with sun emblems on the ground, and turned to look at the tall girl behind her with red hair and a golden crown on her head.

The girl’s red long hair was gathered into a beautiful bun at the back of her head.

Her skin radiated a healthy vitality and she wore clothing of a unique style woven from soft fabric and leather. Her entire body emanated an energy in all directions, her height approaching two meters, and her every movement carried an indescribable sharpness.

Artemis lightly twirled the silver strands of hair at her shoulder and asked with a faint smile.

”Hippolyta. You heard the message Apollo just sent. What are your thoughts?”

”Goddess. The Amazon tribe is willing to become your spear and sword, to heed your commands and fight for your glory!”

The girl raised her hand and struck her chest, giving a solemn reply.

Hearing this, Artemis nodded with satisfaction.

The Amazons, a nation of women.

But they were not the conventional kind of women who depended on men with gentle charm.

They were fierce and martial female warriors, and conquering them was a dangerous dream that every Greek hero harbored.

According to actual geographic location, the Amazons lived on the banks of the Thermodon River in Asia Minor.

Their territory had both vast plains and dense jungles, both crystal mountain ranges covered in snow and ice and long flat coastlines.

The complex terrain and environment cultivated the Amazons’ nature of conquering the wild and their fierce and warlike character.

Here, the usual roles of men and women were reversed.

The nine sisters headed by Queen Hippolyta ruled the entire Amazon tribe.

As the children of the War God Ares and the moon priestesses, they were born with extraordinary gifts and abilities, and the women they represented held absolute ruling power in the Amazon tribe.

In ordinary times, the women lived by plundering.

They learned combat and killing from childhood, grew into warriors as adults, and campaigned in all directions.

To breed offspring and produce superior bloodlines, they raided or traded for men, brought them to the Amazon tribe for reproduction, and discarded them afterward.

If the offspring born were male they were killed or made into servants.

If female they were kept and raised to become warriors just like themselves.

Given this tribe’s powerful combat capability, both the Moon Goddess and the War God wanted to spread their faith here.

After several rounds of confrontation, Artemis gradually gained the upper hand.

The Amazon’s newest queen Hippolyta, the red-haired girl by the lakeside, had already pledged her loyalty to the Hunting Goddess Artemis.

She was the most beloved daughter of the War God among the nine sisters, the most courageous, most steadfast, and most wise among the female warriors, and had been gifted a new [War God’s Girdle] by Ares as a symbol of power and glory.

In Amazon legend, she could draw Apollo’s divine bow, pierce armor forged by the God of Fire, ride Poseidon’s dragon, and pass through Zeus’s lightning formation.

When she came charging in a blood-red battle robe driving a bronze chariot, everyone seemed to see the War God descending to the world in a woman’s body.

Hippolyta’s taking of a side essentially declared that the Amazon tribe’s faith affiliation was settled.

And at her clean and decisive declaration, Artemis felt deeply pleased as she waved her fair hand and spoke in a deep voice. ”In that case, go to Thessaly on my behalf.”

”As you command, Goddess!”

Hippolyta gave a solemn nod and under Artemis’s gaze turned and walked out of the dense forest, striking the Amazon moon temple’s assembly bell.

---

Several days later.

The gates of Arcadia.

Medea stood by the roadside cradling her staff, pacing as she waited.

Only when the sun was high in the sky did she finally see a familiar figure hurrying over.

”Senior apprentice brother

Did we not agree on morning? Why are you so late?”

”Ahem. Perhaps too many official duties lately, too much strain, and

I accidentally overslept.”

Lorne answered with a dry cough, his gaze somewhat evasive.

’Handling official duties until there were scratch marks and bite marks on his neck?’

Medea’s gaze swept over a series of incriminating evidence left on a certain someone’s body, blinked, and smiled impishly. ”If things are not yet settled, why not stay in Arcadia a few more days?”

”Let us go! Right now!”

Lorne heard this and without the slightest hesitation summoned the bronze chariot, pulled Medea straight onto it, and without a word of explanation cracked the whip, ordering the divine horses to set off at maximum speed.

That desperately eager appearance was exactly like someone fleeing a den of demons.

Only after the chariot had traveled several kilometers did Lorne dare glance back, looking at the now blurry outline of the Arcadian royal city with lingering fear in his heart.

In just a few short days, he thoroughly experienced just how terrifying a feline creature in heat could be.

Not only like a perpetual motion machine, she also had a particular fondness for thrilling and daring ways of playing.

For instance, pressing her teacher down in front of the moon temple while praying to her worshipped Goddess for offspring...

To be honest, Lorne was not afraid of ordinary intimacy after all, his lovers had too many quirks to count, but playing like that right under Artemis’s nose was really a bit too stimulating.

He was really afraid that his moon-affiliated girlfriend might cast a casual glance down one day, catch him and Atalanta in the act, and in a fit of rage activate chaos mode, rush over from Paradise Island to hunt him down.

For the sake of his blood pressure and his heart, Lorne decided it was best to run first.

So all along the way he drove the horses hard, rushing urgently toward Thessaly, desperately eager to throw himself into the great cause of protecting humanity.

In just a few short days, the two of them reached Thessaly’s border.

The speeding chariot passed through the rugged mountain roads of Thessaly and continued forward.

However, when passing through a dense forest, the clear sound of metal clashing faintly drifted out from within the trees, causing Lorne to tighten the reins, as he looked toward the source of the sound.

”Looks like centaurs?”

Medea pointed at several dozen distinctive hoofprints on the side of the road and offered this reminder.

Lorne gave a nod, stored the bronze chariot back into his magical formation diagram, and brought Medea into the dense forest.

”Come. Let us take a look!”

At this moment, inside the dense forest, a tall female warrior with wheat-colored skin, holding a spear and shield and wearing silver armor, was fighting alone against a group of centaurs.

”Ptuh! You four-hoofed animals, how dare you run wild on my territory and pull this kidnapping stunt right in front of this lord.

Does Thessaly have no one left?!”

The female warrior cursed as she swept a charging centaur off its feet with a flying spear strike, planted her foot on the centaur’s head, and spat on the defeated enemy before her.

At this point, more than a dozen centaurs already lay around her.

Her crude and hot-tempered behavior, combined with her referring to herself as ”this lord,” created a rather jarring contrast with this exceptionally beautiful female warrior’s appearance in terms of gender.

The centaur leader wearing a bronze mask and holding a giant axe stared unabashedly at the female warrior’s exposed skin and taunted her in a low rumbling voice.

”Battlefield... women... step aside... you only belong.. on the bed, sticking your ass out!”

”Ha ha ha ha. You really said something interesting there.

Try saying it again. I will cut your head off before you open your mouth.”

The female warrior erupted in fury, stomped the centaur’s head on the ground to pieces, her face twisting into a ferocity completely at odds with her beautiful features.

She raised her spear and shield and charged toward the centaur leader with aggressive momentum.

”You dare look down on me? I’ll fucking kill you!”

Seeing this, the centaur leader immediately pulled out a bronze javelin from behind him and fired it at the charging female warrior.

The latter swung her round shield and easily deflected the javelin, letting out a disdainful cold laugh. ”And you think you can take me down with that?

Did you skip meals? You four-hoofed animal!”

Then she flung the spear in her hand, driving it through the centaur leader’s body with savage force and pinning him to a tree.

”Looks like mine is still harder and bigger.”

The female warrior, having landed her blow, activated mockery mode again, crude jokes rolling off her tongue without restraint.

Then she stepped forward, reached out, and tried to pull the spear out of the centaur leader and tree trunk it pierced clean through.

However, the moment she raised her hand and grabbed the spear shaft, a bizarre red-black mudflow surged out from the centaur leader’s wound, winding up the female warrior’s arm like coiling serpents.

’What the hell is this?!’

The female warrior’s heart lurched as she prepared to release the spear and step back, but an intense heaviness surged up from her feet without warning.

She looked down and found both legs had at some unknown point sunk deep into a pool of red-black mud.

Some indescribable icy chill spread from her arms and legs through her body, making her limbs go weak and her head spin.

”She cannot move!”

”Finish her! Finish her!”

The surrounding centaurs noticed the abnormality and could not help shouting with excitement.

”Come on then! Watch me tear you four-hoofed animals apart with my bare hands!”

She gritted her teeth and roared furiously, her face full of fierce killing intent.

The centaurs, having witnessed this woman’s ferocity firsthand, were suppressed by her momentum and dared not step forward.

Just as the scene fell into a standoff, one relatively clever centaur’s mind turned and it called out loudly.

”Cut down trees! Cut down trees!”

The centaurs heard this and their eyes lit up as they swung their weapons, pushing one after another felled tree toward the immobile female warrior on the ground.

Faced with the constantly falling massive logs, the female warrior who could barely move was knocked to the ground, her entire body almost completely sinking into the red-black mudflow beneath her feet.

She barely propped up her body and cursed with furious indignation.

”Damn bastards! What kind of ability is using dirty tricks? If you have the nerve, let me out and fight properly!”

However, centaurs were obviously not creatures that followed the rules of honorable combat.

Seeing their attacks taking effect, they continued pushing more felled trees toward the female warrior on the ground.

Faced with the constantly increasing trees piling on her body, the woman gradually lost strength.

Half her face sank into the inexplicably appearing red-black mudflow on the ground and her breathing grew more and more labored.

Seeing herself about to be crushed to death alive under this pile of trees, the deeply humiliated female warrior endured the dizziness of the red-black mud entering her mouth and let out a furious roar of unwillingness.

”One on one! A proper one on one fight, damn it!”

In response, the centaurs sent back a tree trunk requiring three people to wrap their arms around.

Accompanied by the trembling sound of splitting wood, the ancient tree that was pushed over by combined force crashed heavily down toward the female warrior on the ground.

”BANG!”

At the most critical moment, a figure fast as thunder split through the air.

A fist crashed into the falling tree trunk and the entire log was instantly smashed to pieces under the savage force, turning into splinters that shot off in all directions.

The caught-off-guard centaurs were pierced all over their faces by the flying splinters and could not help covering their cheeks, letting out one miserable scream after another.

”Finish him! Finish him!”

Accompanied by furious roars, the centaurs swung their spears, shields and axes, charging toward the intruder who disrupted the scene, preparing to cut him to pieces.

However, before they could rush to the person’s side, dozens of purple-red streams of magical power fired from the dense forest, instantly blasting through the heads of more than a dozen centaur companions in a single strike.

This one blow instantly shocked the raging centaurs back to their senses.

Fear rose in their hearts as they hastily retreated, wanting to flee this bloody battlefield.

But the moment they turned around they saw dozens of silver-grey skeletal figures holding sword and shield walk out from the other side of the dense forest in formation, completely cutting off their retreat.

Faced with attacks from both sides, the centaurs turned their not-very-sharp minds, gritted their teeth, and charged toward the nearest uninvited guest.

’Take him hostage first!’

Seeing the centaurs’ choice,

Medea in the distance raised her small hand and covered her eyes with compassion.

After a familiar round of flesh-tearing sounds, Lorne shook off the remaining meat paste on his hands, bent down, lifted the last log, and pulled out the female warrior buried underneath, asking in a low voice.

”Hey. Can you still hold on?”

”Not... not dead yet...”

The female warrior, half her body leaning against Lorne’s shoulder, opened her mouth and answered without strength.

Lorne nodded and continued asking.

”What is your name? Where do you live?”

”Caenis... Thes... Thessaly person...”

The female warrior struggled to produce her last answer, then could no longer suppress wave after wave of intensifying dizziness in her head.

Everything went dark before her eyes and she passed out directly in Lorne’s arms.

’It is her?’

Lorne glanced at the wheat-skinned, exotic-featured fierce beauty in his arms, then looked at the gradually fading smear of red-black mud on the ground, turned his head toward the flattened grass in a certain part of the dense forest, and furrowed his brows slightly.

Thessaly.

Something here seemed not quite right either.

(End of Chapter)

.

.

P.S: To read Chapters in advance, join my Patreon. There’s like 60+ advance Chapters here at: Patreòn.com/abhi28.

Use o instead of ò.