The creature called Eris, was in front of him once again. He did not call it here, alas their agreement allowed it to contact him, should it need to. Even if it did come at an unfortunate time since he was busy with a different project while thinking about how to acquire that small being named Nike.
"Sir, Ares has been severely punished by our father, would it be possible for you to free him?" the creature asked.
"You came to bother me with this? Get out of my sight!" he raised his voice at the idiotic proud creature.
"Sir! I'm begging you! I will do anything, but please save my brother!"
"Anything you say?"
"Yes sir!"
"Wery well. Then bring me Nike, alive! After that, I will free your brother,"
"Thank you, sir! I will not disappoint you!"
If the creature wanted something from him, it would have to first fulfill his orders. And if it somehow managed to bring this Nike to him, then better. At a minimum, it should have an easier time tracking the uplifted human, than him, since they were both made by Gaia.
For now, Persephone proved herself to be harmless, she was given plenty of opportunities to do something unreasonable and attack me, Medusa or my troops. Yet she was only accommodating, even going that far, as causing herself discomfort, to revive my troops, while also answering a plethora of my questions. Which led me to understand some of the rules of this world more.
My initial idea was that this world had the exact same rules, as the world of my second life, given that magic was a thing. Meanwhile Being X sent me to the distant past, where no modern medicine, technology or other comforts were available. But then the god-pretenders started to appear in my life, while also transforming me into a monster.
If Being X ever wanted to turn me into one of his followers, it would have been at that time, more than three hundred years ago. Yet he did not. I welcomed this silent treatment, but based on the information, provided by Persephone, I was just being wilfully ignorant. I, a modern person who prided herself in being rational and logical, was anything but. If I was still an HR manager or military officer I would have to fire myself for incompetency.
But I had no intention to stay ignorant any longer. There in front of me was a well of knowledge in the form of a god-pretender, or more precisely an Olympian, as their kind called themselves, and I would use it well, as Persephone was more than willing to answer my questions, Therefore I decided to query her further.
"What is the extent of your or Olympian's abilities and how do they work?" first I need to establish a base for what there Olympians were capable of doing, and how dangerous they could be to me.
Persephone did already mention, complex calculations, which I suspected to be similar to my own. But more importantly, I needed to know how much they compared to Being X, if they even knew about him.
"As I already mentioned before, to revive your retainers a complex calculation is involved. Anything has its own formula, that when calculated, can be manifested into the effect. But I suppose you already know that, given that spectral beam you fired earlier," she started her explanation.
Persephone was not wrong. I knew the principle behind manifesting phenomena into the world. The only difference was the fact, that I knew only those formulae which human scientists could come up with. Moreover, only some formulae were available during the first half of the 20th century, since scientific advancement was necessary to increase human knowledge and the subsequent amount of available formulae.
"Anyway, There is a good amount of known formulae. I suppose there is an infinite amount of them if you think about it. But the most important ones are for transportation, defense, offense and miraculous ones, which serve as means to awe humans," Persephone began taking.
"What about specific abilities," I had to interrupt her again before she could go on an hours-long rant, her kind of person was just prone to leave the main topic of conversation.
"Ah! Yes! Teleportation can take one's body to a specific location, for which specific coordinates must be known. You saw my shield formula. Then there is a spectrum beam, which you are an expert at, unlike many others who find it useless and rather engage in melee fights, or use explosions, the bigger the better. Idiots. Then there is transformation, which is used to temporarily change one's appearance. Not exactly comfortable to use for a prolonged time. After that, there are various illusions, for example optical, sound and smell. Simply, all kinds of illusions for different senses. Biological formulas can change the processes in bodies, there belongs the rejuvenation formula, which I am an expert at. And also the uplifting formulae, which are more complicated, because they also deal with a soul," she put together a list of abilities.
"How does the uplifting formula deal with a soul?" I asked because I was unaware of the little fact that the curse that Athena used on me also manipulated my soul.
"Nothing bad I swear! It just slightly upgrades the natural workings of the human soul. It does not change anything," Persephone backed slightly, hurling out the short answer.
I must have acted too impulsively, after learning that my soul has been violated once again by so other entity pretending to be a god. Which was quite unprofessional of me, especially towards my potential colleague, who had a seniority status over me.
"How exactly?" I asked as calmly as possible, to smooth out the potentially bad impression of my irrational behavior.
"Ehm... This might be a slightly lengthy explanation, though," the dread queen said, looking at me with anticipation.
"I have time," I answered, giving her a place to play the scientist, who overexplains everything, while she feels clever.
"In that case! First, human souls are similar to the Olympian core, in that sense that they have all the memories, personality and consciousness. But unlike Olympian cores, souls are not physical objects, in this regard, they are more similar to what primordials are. Yet unlike primordials, human souls cannot function without a body, in this, we Olympians, are more similar to humans," Persephone started.
Of course humans cannot function without their bodies, they would not be humans then. Although the comparison to the Olympians was interesting, this gave me a potential advantage over Olympians. Simply destroy their body and then their core, before they can regenerate it. Alas, the similarities with primordial beings, were surprising.
"Next, thing is that human souls are actually kind of fragile. For example, there were several accidents when the primordials first arrived here, when they came in direct contact with humans, the human soul spontaneously combusted, along with the human body. That was the main reason why primordials developed proxies like Olympians and Titans," she said.
Unsurprisingly, humans were at the bottom of the food chain, when it came to the durability of one's soul, or soul equivalent. Though a spontaneous combustion, was unexpected. If I remember correctly, there were some freak cases of this happening in my first life, with no scientific explanation, at least not by the time of my untimely death under the train.
"Thirdly, this comes down to why myself and Hades are in charge of recycling human souls. By their nature, human souls will eventually cycle into new bodies and this works without any problems, in most cases. But sometimes, very rarely, the human soul can retain some of their previous life's memories, when entering a new body. And that is a problem because it can cause brain damage and untimely death. That is why, the recycling process, includes the removal of these memories, so the soul can start with a clean slate," explained Persephone
This strangely did make sense. For a soul to cycle in a world if no one intervened in the process, which made it somewhat similar to a water cycle on the planet. No interference of self-proclaimed gods was needed.
"And I know that this might seem to contradict, after what I said about Hades reading memories of Miss Meuda's friend, but you have to include a time into the equation. Souls do retain memories of their previous life for a certain time, but the longer time passes, the fewer memories are retained and the soul will eventually become a clean slate and then it goes into a new body. Of course this process takes a lot of time from a human perspective, we are talking here about thousands of years. As such Hades and I, are able to hasten the process, while also making it more reliable, resulting in the human population growing, since there are more clean souls available!" at this point, the dread queen was talking loudly with shining stars in her eyes, this much she was into it.
Come to think of it, didn't Being X mentioned something about having a deal with homo sapiens? Alas, he never explained it in detail, but with the knowledge I now possessed, about the human soul cycle, I was inclined to believe, that this was exactly what he was talking about. But why would he require a fait though? To stroke his ego, or perhaps to feel better about himself.
"But back to the explanation of the uplifting process. There is a physical part of the process which changes the body, to be practically indestructible, unless a great force is used, while the body can regenerate in case of injury. Of course, with just the physical part, it would make one only a demigod at best. It also allows someone to use magic for great feats of power and other various things. The physical part is the main reason, why my version was a failure, I'm so sorry," Persephone managed to bring herself down by remembering her wrongdoing.
Her demeanor was so much different from all other god-pretenders I had so far encountered and mostly she seemed to possess some sense of conscience, given her apology, so much so unlike Being X who lacked any shred of self-reflection.
"And the other part? The one that deals directly with the soul?" I had to direct back to the topic if I wanted to ever receive the answer, I was after.
"It doesn't! Or at least not in the sense of changing the soul itself. Rather than that, the process wraps the soul in the form of a cocoon, or perhaps it would be better to say it dresses up the soul in armor. This armor keeps the soul safe and protects it from losing its memories over long periods of time. In the case one's body is completely destroyed it provides power for the body to reform and in theory, as it was not tested yet, prevents potential brain damage, should the souls enter a new human body," she said.
The process she described heavily reminded me of what Being X did to me. At least the part that deals with a soul. No, it was not just similar, this was practically the same thing. This was what that bastard did to me, since my first life, having memories from my previous life without any negative consequences for my new body. One thing that had a negative effect on me was that cursed Type-95, which was trying to alter who I was. Another thing that had the most negative impact on my body was Mary Sioux, who could instantaneously heal from almost any wounds, much like the god pretenders of this world.
There was one thing though that surprised me during Persephone's lengthy explanation, and that was that Aphrodite used to be Gaia. That Gaia was reduced from a primordial, whatever that was, to a lesser form. A primordial which is such a thing that cannot interact with humans directly needs a proxy to do so. This also heavily reminded me of Being X, but without confirmation, this would remain barely a basis for a theory.
"Tell me. Do you know of a being, that can stop time, talk through humans or inanimate objects, take away human will and create unkillable monsters?" I asked once I formed my thought into a sentence that could easily, yet precisely describe Being X in general.
This way I should be able to detect, if Persephone knew something about Being X, or if he was puppeteering her the whole time. In the worst case, he would now reveal himself in front of me, gloating about his own greatness. This was a situation, in which I could only gain and lose nothing.
"What you are describing here, Miss Arachne, sounds like a primordial at its full power, at least from what I heard. I never met one in a person, at least not when they were complete, since Aphrodite can be barely counted as a primordial after she reduced herself so much," she answered.
"How do you kill a primordial?" I asked without much thinking, the dread queen, since she in a sense just confirmed that Being X was one of those primordials.
"I don't know if it is possible to kill a primordial... I know that they can be reduced to a lesser being, by stripping away their powers, to the point they can come into contact with humans, without spontaneous combustion, but at that point, they are barely a shadow of their original self," she said lowering her head.
Her answer was not ideal, but it was more than enough for me, as I had no intention to go and kill Being X, even if he deserved it. Moreover, I did not know if Being X was somewhere around, in the first place, since I already established that he would have already directly interfered with my life if he was around. What I knew though, was that, in order to get rid of him, he would have to be cut into the pieces.
The escape from her father went, with almost no problems, she listened to her teacher Hecate after all. Her teacher who was a god cursed into the form of a fleece. Although there were some minor complications, which when looking at them now, could have caused the utter failure of her and her teacher's escape, luck was on their side. And tricking clueless young men also helped, since they were more than accommodating.
There were only two real problems as of now. One of them was the Olympian, but she could be easily dealt with, once her teacher fully awakes. The second problem was the fleet of her father following her. And Colchian ships were fast, very fast. Not too long after they they first spotted them on the horizon they were upon them. Even if the Argonauts were rowing with all their might. She did not know how she solve this.
"Y̸o̴u̴r̵ ̶b̴r̷o̷t̷h̴e̴r̸ ̷i̸s̵ ̵o̴n̵ ̴t̴h̵e̶ ̷f̸l̴a̶g̵s̵h̸i̸p̴.̸ ̶T̵e̷l̵l̵ ̸h̷i̶m̸ ̵t̸o̴ ̸c̷o̶m̶e̴ ̶t̶o̶ ̷p̷a̷r̵l̴e̶y̵ ̷o̸v̸e̴r̷ ̶h̵e̸r̴e̵,̵" her teacher whispered to her.
"Of course teacher," she answered barely audibly.
She then went to explain her plan to Jason and the Olympian. The Olympian was against it, as she always was against her plans. But Jason was more than willing to listen to the plan and as it was, he managed to argue with the Olympian, persuading her to go with the plan.
And so, the Argo soon found itself near her father's fleet's flagship, where her brother awaited. He demanded his sister and Golden Fleece be returned and the thief's lives be submitted to him. Yet she, who herself wanted to be free, told her brother, that she was in love with Jason and wanted to desperately leave with him, and that her brother should not stand between her and her happiness.
This caught her brother slightly off guard since he did not expect to hear such a thing. It also caught Jason slightly off guard, but unlike her brother, he managed to keep his face straight, even if his mouth was slightly twitching, wanting to break free into the stupid-looking happy grin.
Her brother then of course demanded an explanation and so she told him to come over to Argo, that she would explain everything to him. He listened and went to Medea with only a light guard of two other people.
"M̷a̸k̶e̴ ̸h̵i̴m̷ ̷c̵o̴m̷e̸ ̴t̴o̴ ̸m̸e̷ ̵a̶l̷o̸n̸e̸.̶ ̵T̸e̶l̸l̶ ̸t̵h̵e̵m̷,̶ ̴t̵h̴a̵t̴ ̴y̴o̸u̴ ̷n̵e̷e̵d̶ ̸p̷r̴i̸v̴a̵c̸y̷,̶ ̵t̴o̴ ̴e̸x̵p̸l̷a̸i̸n̵ ̸t̷h̸i̸n̶g̴s̸ ̷t̴o̶ ̵y̶o̵u̶r̴ ̶b̶r̸o̸t̷h̶e̵r̷,̸" her theacher rustlend only to her ears.
Medea barely nodded in acknowledgment and asked to be left alone with her brother as she felt embarrassed to tell more out loud in front of so many people. The argonauts agreed without problem, the Olympian just raised her eyebrow and her brother's guards were ordered to step aside. After all nothing bad could befall him from his own sister.
Soon, she and her brother found themselves near the chest, where her teacher was locked away, her brother demanding an explanation, now that they were alone.
"S̵t̴a̷b̸ ̸h̷i̵m̷ ̶t̷h̷r̸o̴u̵g̴h̷ ̴h̸i̷s̸ ̸h̶e̴a̴r̵t̵h̶.̴ ̷I̶t̴ ̵w̵i̶l̷l̵ ̴b̷e̸ ̵q̷u̴i̸c̴k̷ ̴a̷n̶d̵ ̷h̴e̷ ̶w̴o̷n̸'̵t̴ ̸s̴u̸f̴f̵e̵r̶,̸" ordered her teacher.
She did hesitate, but only for a blink of an eye. And then drove her knife through her brother's heart, his blood blood running all over the chest her teacher was locked in. Her brother's eyes were wide, in shock and fear, but he was not in pain. At least no longer. Suddenly her knees felt weak and she fell sitting on the ground, her brother's body collapsing near her, face down.
She expected his blood to pool beneath him, but it was flowing up, towards the chest where her teacher was hiding.
"You did well my student. I'm very proud of you," said Hecate.
"Thank you, my teacher," she said while her bloody hands were still slightly shaking.
"No need to thank me, you did exceptionally well. And as you can hear my voice clearly, I'm now fully awake. Although I feel slightly peckish," said her teacher.
"Should I bring you more?" she asked.
"Not yet. I can bear with it a little bit longer. But soon our time will come, be prepared," Hecate explained.
"Of course," she said
"Now, go and scatter your brother's body into the sea, so your pursuers will have to recover it, lest they want to meet the same fate at the hands of your father," her teacher ordered.
And with renewed vigor, she went to fulfill her teacher's next orders.