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The Sun God had gone.
Once again, the moon in the heavens was swallowed by shadow.
This was the work of the Brash Goddess.
She no longer needed to guard against the watchful gaze of her kin, but she still had to be wary of the other gods. Those were the true dangers. After all, her interference in mortal affairs was, in its own way, a violation of divine law.
"Just what kind of secret are you hiding?" The Brash Goddess's curiosity burned bright. 'What exactly was the secret Ian carried?'
"Uh… the secret's not important." Ian, still woozy, shook his head at her question but offered no answer. He had his own guesses, of course, but there was no way he could casually share something like this.
It was tied to his origin, his deepest, most closely guarded truth.
"Let's check on Tom first," He said, steering the conversation elsewhere. It wasn't the smoothest of diversions, but with Riddle lying there in a state between life and death, it was at least plausible.
"I didn't know you cared so much about that guy." The Brash Goddess shot him a measuring look, her mind still unsettled by the wounds her father had suffered.
"Merlin as my witness, do you not know he's my elder brother, Tom? We grew up in the same courtyard!" Ian put on an exaggeratedly grief-stricken face and began slapping Riddle across the cheeks.
The young Dark Lord's face, already puffy from the blows, showed no sign of stirring from unconsciousness.
"You're actually telling the truth!" The Brash Goddess clearly had the means to sense lies, which was why she looked so taken aback. Elder brother or not, this was still the same man who had chased Ian across two thousand years?
'What sort of over-the-top, love-and-hate, cross-millennia feud was this supposed to be?!'
For the moment, at least, Ian's misdirection had worked.
"Of course I'm telling the truth. Otherwise, when he's in trouble, would he come to me for help?" Ian took shameless advantage of the fact Riddle couldn't argue back. Even breaking his nose with a punch failed to rouse him.
"So this is one of those righteous-versus-evil, black-and-white entanglements?" For all her brashness, the goddess was still a woman, and juicy gossip was well within her domain. She was already imagining something straight out of an English drama.
"No, no, no. He and Potter, Harry Potter, are the ones destined for that kind of mess. I'm just… a chaotic interloper at best." Ian quickly corrected her.
"What kind of interloper? Tell me in detail."
Just as her eyes began to gleam with anticipation, she noticed Ian pulling a pair of scissors from somewhere.
"What are you doing with those?" She asked with a surprised look on her face, as he tested their sharpness with a few quick snip-snip motions in the air.
"I was thinking… if love is the greatest magic, then maybe taking away someone's ability to love could also work a miracle." Ian spoke his thoughts plainly.
He was seriously considering pain as a way to wake Riddle.
"Uh… I don't think he'd appreciate that." The Brash Goddess, being Greek, was hardly innocent in her thoughts, she understood him all too well.
"I don't care what he wants. I care what I want." Ian didn't actually plan to strip Riddle, but he did lift the Dark Lord's robes and roughly gauge a certain… position.
How to put it…
Whether the cut was small or large, it would hardly matter.
As long as the pain reached the bone, it would do.
Watching him toy with the scissors, the Brash Goddess felt her scalp prickle and a chill run down her spine.
"I think we can just leave him be. It's not like he can be used against Herpo. Let him sleep here, and we'll deal with him when it's over."
In the end, she couldn't bear to watch such mortal suffering and tried to dissuade him earnestly.
"You said the Silent Mists can alter history, right? Honestly, Tom's life itself isn't as important as the history he's tied to. If his childhood gets changed, it could end up affecting me too."
"If anything happened to Wool's Orphanage, I'm afraid it would have a huge impact on my own history as well."
Yes, that was precisely why Ian wanted Riddle awake.
He didn't want trouble spilling over onto him because of Riddle. Even if their personal history was thin, Wool's Orphanage was still a crucial link between them.
"Don't worry, you really don't need to be concerned about that." The Brash Goddess chuckled softly, shaking her head at his words. Her gaze drifted down to the pale-faced Riddle lying on the ground as she spoke in a gentler tone.
"He's just a very, very ordinary wizard. The Silent Mists can't draw much from him. Only when the host is strong will the Silent Mists grow strong as well."
"If it wants to twist history, it would at least need to parasitize someone legendary."
With that, the Brash Goddess lifted her eyes toward the depths of the temple. In that moment, she, like her father, was wreathed in the light of the Sun.
Of course… it wasn't as blinding as the Sun God's own brilliance, but it was dazzling enough to feel like a full special-effects display.
The light she radiated was no mere brightness, it was like a golden tide, wave after wave rolling outward. Every ray seemed to hold boundless energy, like countless miniature suns flickering and dancing in the air, bathing everything in a warm, brilliant glow.
It was light that could banish darkness, yes, but also heal wounds and grant strength to the living. Under its touch, Riddle's injuries visibly knit back together at a startling pace.
"Hearing you say that… I'm actually curious, why would Herpo raise something like that?" Ian frowned, peering around the temple with the help of her light.
Ever since the Sun God had appeared, the place had fallen into an unnatural stillness. The Herpo who had been mocking them moments ago had vanished without a trace, his presence gone from every corner.
"That's something I want to know as well…" The Brash Goddess's gaze swept the temple. Her sight stretched far beyond Ian's, she could see even beneath the temple floor. Her eyes blazed like twin suns, pure and scorching, their light almost tangible.
Wherever she looked, beams of sunlight seemed to pour down, flooding every crack and corner, sharp and thorough as a surgeon's lamp, leaving not even a shadow behind.
To be honest…
If it didn't feel so morally questionable…
Ian might have asked to borrow those eyes as lightbulbs for his home.
"Herpo isn't here anymore." The Brash Goddess, oblivious to Ian's thoughts, concluded her search with visible regret.
"What a shame, I've even got my father's blessing right now!" Her tone was tinged with real disappointment; clearly, this was a rare state for her to enjoy.
"Why not just grant Divine Power to your own followers?" Ian asked. The thought had been nagging at him for some time, surely she had the ability?
…Or maybe she didn't?
Her expression shifted, just slightly. Hesitation flickered across her features.
"Of course I can grant blessings… give Divine Power to my followers… but, you have to understand, I'm the symbol of kindness and peace. I've inherited my father's domains of prophecy, music, and healing."
"So… I'm not particularly fond of fighting or killing. Yes, that's it."
She was clearly terrible at lying. Her eyes darted about, her nose stiffened unnaturally, and her hands fidgeted in the air.
It was the perfect picture of a guilty liar.
"Is it that you don't like fighting… or that you can't?" Ian asked dryly. With Herpo nowhere in sight, he bent down, grabbed Riddle by the leg, and started dragging him out of the damp, moldy temple.
Faced with Ian's pointed question, the Brash Goddess curled her lip. Dropping the pretense, she said plainly,
"I already told you, I'm a proper meat shield. Only with my father's Divine Power blessing can I reach a state where I can both hit hard and take hits."
Her explanation was simple enough.
"I get it. Originally you were just a tank built for defense, but now you're more like a battle tank." Ian nodded.
Of course, that comparison wouldn't mean much to people of this era.
"I don't really get your analogy, but it's probably close enough."
If the Brash Goddess could someday end up as nothing but a skeleton in Ian's time, it was clear she'd had no contact whatsoever with twentieth-century knowledge.
"I thought you were a cold, aloof queen type," Ian remarked with some amusement as they followed the narrow path toward the temple's main gates, only to find them sealed shut. At some point, the once-open doors had been completely barred.
"Am I not?"
She clearly understood the term "queen type," though who knew why.
"The contrast is a bit much," Ian said honestly, reaching for his wand.
But the Brash Goddess was already ahead of him. She stepped forward and delivered what looked like a casual kick to the towering metal gates, over ten meters high.
It might have looked light…
…but the force behind it could have turned a basilisk into paste.
BOOM!
The kick, laced with Divine Power, detonated in a burst of golden light that poured outward like a tidal wave.
The brilliance was blinding, as though the very heart of the Sun had erupted. With a deafening crash, the supposedly indestructible gates exploded into countless fragments, scattering like dust on the wind.
Ian couldn't even find a shard larger than his palm to examine.
"What a waste… ancient magical metal."
He winced at the loss but still bent down to pocket a few of the larger surviving pieces.
The Brash Goddess, apparently unsatisfied with the destruction, gave her greatsword a few exuberant swings.
(To Be Continued…)