Hello, everyone, I hope all is good and well with you so far.
First things first, some review answers!
Zabaniya: Oh I hear you loud and clear. No, she won't join Hestia Familia, nor will she join Loki for that matter. I have my own set of plans for her within Orario, once she goes there that is.
Haziq Saffari: Remains to be seen :D I won't spoil it
Triscythe59: Who knows? ^_^ maybe it will happen, maybe it will not. I won't spoil these things because I am a little piece of shit lmao
Now that the reviews with questions have been answered, enjoy the reading my dear... well, readers!
"Talking"
"Thinking"
"Monsters, Gods with Arcanum etc. talking"
Premise:
Kaida has to deal with an unexpected guest in Telskyura, and the consequences of driving her out...
Since the Press Conference, two more months had gone by.
Months that were, for lack of better wording, a complete bore.
Kaida spent the majority of her time getting more and more used to fighting, because even though her body was a naturally made force of nature incomparable to mortal prowess, she as a person was not desensitized to violence of the extremes that is common in this world. She had finally gotten around her fear of killing and successfully began striking down surface monsters they caught and used for training.
It was a mentally exhausting exercise, but one that was necessary for the survival of this world. After all, if you can't kill monsters, what good are you as a fighter? As an adventurer? As a bearer of the Falna? Not much is the answer. And Kali was abhorred towards the idea of non-combatants bearing her sigil, her blessing on their back. She would rather go back to tenkai, and the sheer seriosity with which she said that showed she wasn't kidding. The day she gives someone approval to be a non-combatant is the day she gives everything over to someone else and goes back to heaven.
Needless to say, Kaida did NOT want to repeat that conversation anytime soon, if at all. It was a headache and, in all of her honesty, a bit scary as well.
Today however she did not need to think about that, because today was an unusual day for her. The gate-wardens of the northern wall of the Capital City had reported that a goddess and her entourage had come visiting from far away, and they were here to visit the 'World's Strongest Woman' as per their own words. So Kali and Kaida were gathered at the throne hall within Kali's castle, waiting patiently for the guests to arrive.
As the gates of the throne halls parted and the Amazon Guards made way, Kaida laid eyes on someone who was highly unusual, but the divine aura that surrounded them was no joke. It was leagues stronger than Kali's own.
The deity was dressed in a regal white dress that balanced perfectly between simplicity and nobility, closely resembling ancient greek design from what Kaida could tell. It had golden buttons at the shoulders and at the hemm of the cleavage keeping everything together with some fine, silken strings which served as the binding and the balancer of the dress. It had an open back, displaying her smooth skin and chiseled back muscles. The dress had no sleeves, so shoulders and arms were visible with fairly toned built, nothing too extraordinary yet clearly well trained. A woman who was fit yet did not skip out on nobility in appearance, Kaida concluded.
She had shoulder-long, waved chestnut-brown hair which was adorned with a small thorned crown of pure gold with 6 jagged teeth going upwards in symmetrical pairs of 3 right above the temples. She possessed piercing, sharp brown eyes with golden rings separating the irises from the pupils.
But that was not the most striking feature of her. No, it was the pair of shield and spear on her back. A circular-shaped spear that, based on its coloring and the surface texture, was made of an Adamantite-Orichalcum alloy, a combination that can only be achieved by divine smiths due to its natural, nigh-indestructible nature that is only rivaled by the Durandal trait. And the spear, made of an Adamantite-Mythril alloy with a tip that pressure-sharpened diamond, possibly one of the sharpest tools known to mankind in the modern era, Kaida remembers. A weapon that is designed not to fight, nor to kill, but to cleave so cleanly and pierce so truly that it has no enemies. A spear of spears, a weapon fit for a divine being.
In short, the guest appeared looking both regal and ready to throw it down if necessary.
"Ah, its just you..." Kali began with a less than enthusiastic tone. "What brings the strongest female god to descend to my humble home... Athena?"
"Always a displeasure, Kali" She spoke, her thick accent bleeding through every word she spoke, a tone of arrogance following her talking. "Now then, I don't want to waste my time getting your blood-crazed stink on me, Kali, so I will make this very short" she added, which earned her a few mean looks from the amazon guards, but since it was a conversation between deities, they could not interfere due to this world's natural reverence for the gods forbidding acts of great disrespect. "I want your new toy, the level 8 who caused a storm during her interview."
"HELL NO!" Kali shot back right away and leaned forward on her throne, agitated and furious that she would just barge in here and demand Kaida out the get go. "If you think I am just handing over my strongest member and a trustworthy confidante simply because you say so, then by all due lacking respect, go fuck yourself with a dull cactus!"
Athena's expression visibly soured at the choice words hurled at her, but she turned her head towards Kaida and scoffed at the sight of the taller, more muscled up woman. "You, come with me. We are leaving"
"DID YOU NOT HEAR ME JUST SAY NO!?" Kali shot at Athena.
However, Athena responded in a manner Kali could not refuse no matter what.
She began leaking what tolerable amount of Arcanum she could without getting a warning from Ouranos, who's voice could reach any god anywhere. Kali felt the oppressive force rain down on her, an Arcanum that was on a whole other league than what others she had experienced. Athena was the strongest Deusdea when it came to battle, and her divinity mirrored it by being high pressure and heavy on all who are exposed to it.
The reason why Kaida did not buckle underneath it was because the sensation of pressure was familiar enough to her due to Conqueror's Haki, which she used to off-set the effects with a counter-force.
"Sorry, lady Athena, but as you have heard my current patron goddess, I must humbly refuse your offer" Kaida spoke, carefully polite not to set off the nuclear bomb that was Athena's clear lack of patience. Kaida could tell right away, Athena was not someone who gets told No a lot of times, and this would no doubt blow up in their faces one way or another.
"Hn, you dare reject me?" Athena began, her voice raising itself little by little. "Me, who is the most wizened, most powerful warrior goddess of the entirety of Heaven? Me, who can train you in ways not even mortal's wildest fantasies can begin to conjure?" She continued louder and louder. Then, she suddenly calmed down and returned to her normal demeanor from before. "I see, then it seems I must take drastic measures into account..."
Kaida did not like that at all, the way it sounded, Athena clearly came prepared with a backup.
"Then, as the representative of the Magic Capital of Altera, I cease all trade with Telskyura and henceforth enact a prohibition on products being sold to any amazon that is not already a registered Alteran citizen."
Kali grit her teeth in sheer fury and balled her fists to the point veins were visible on the back of her hand. Altera was one of the biggest suppliers of literature and textbooks that fostered growth of mages as well as grimoires. Almost every mage in this world who studies textbooks on meditation, mind control or concurrent chanting is studying from writing that originates in Altera, and a complete end to all supply meant that Altera effectively rejected Telskyura any literature to grow their mages and would cripple the growth of all of Kali's spellcasters monumentally. It was a blow severe enough to be on equal terms to a declaration of war, and the only reason it is not treated as such was lack of official announcements for the intent.
However, Kaida made a choice. A choice that could be damning, but...
She reached with her right arm for her Bagua and dashed forward, taking a swing at Athena.
The Goddess of Wisdom and Battle drew her spear and took the hit with a perfect block, deflecting the strike and creating a shockwave that echoed across the entire throne hall, her expression wide-eyed and clearly shocked at such audacity.
"No, Lady Athena. You will do no such thing. You will leave here amicably or I shall send you back to heaven with these mortal hands" Kaida spoke, her own tone heavy yet with conviction to be convincing enough. To send a deity back to heaven as a Mortal was one of the worst, gravest sins imaginable, but Kaida suspected that since her soul was property of the higher ones, she won't have to worry about ending in Danmachi's afterlife, therefore she won't suffer a literal eternity in torment for her actions on this day.
"You... you dare!" Athena howled and struck with her spear with several jabbing strikes, each blocked and deflected with the use of the Haki-coated Bagua. Yet, even with the armament hardening, the weapon took damage via multiple shallow punctures that caused tiny but evident ripples in its structure.
Wanting to avoid a complete destruction of her weapon, Kaida took a big downward swing which Athena blocked, but the sheer pressure behind it caused her to fall to her knee and grit her teeth in frustration. She swung her arms up as hard as she could and made Kaida retreat a few meters before suddenly stabbing her spear into the ground. "ENOUGH!" She roared and released more Arcanum than was permitted to emit pressure.
Kaida countered by releasing her strongest pulse of Conqueror's Haki, only barely capable of fighting back the overwhelming, oppressive weight of the Deusdea before her.
Then, suddenly, small thunderclouds began to form themselves at the ceiling and a familiar, elderly voice spoke. "ATHENA! CEASE YOUR ARCANUM!"
With an unprepared suddenness, the overwhelming pressure disappeared and Kaida's Haki leaked through at full force with the counter-force suddenly missing, causing black lightning to bounce all over the hall while a powerful wave of intimidation radiated across the entire palace, causing non-divines to slowly pass out one by one.
Athena eyed Kaida with a sharp expression and clear hostility conveyed in the exchange before turning around, taking her spear and returning it onto her back. "This is not yet over. I will have that level 8, or I will take her from this world so no one else can have her. That is my ironclad vow" She spoke loud enough for the ones that remained conscious to hear it, then left the premise and returned to her own escort to leave this nation.
Kaida slowly calmed down and exhaled a deep sigh. "Damn, I did not expect such a hectic day"
"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING!?" Kali roared and whacked the massive woman over the back of her head. "YOU JUST THREW HANDS AT FUCKING ATHENA AND LIVED!"
"Of course I did. She may have some of her base strength, but she can't match me in power"
"Doesn't need to, she can kill you with precision and technique" Kali shot back. "Athena is the most powerful for a reason. There is no skill, no technique, no ability with a weapon beyond her knowledge. She could have used any of those and bury you then and there. She went easy on you"
"Didn't feel easy" Kaida answered back swiftly before inspecting the damage to her Bagua, sighing out loudly. "The smiths will have to fix her up again... damn, I still haven't paid down the last repairs"
"Eh, listen, Athena may not have looked like it but she has not outright rejected your demand which means she accepts it. You showed your worth to her and I think she may respect you a little"
"Hell of a way to show it, vowing to kill me if I don't join her and all"
"That's her way of showing it. Athena is the greediest of the gods. What she wants, she gets one way or another, but she's not an impulsive little child. What she wants is often things she admires or respects. Strong warriors, new skills and knowledge she has yet to find, everything that is rare, exquisite and has to do with fighting is her type" Kali explained before sitting back on her throne with a heavy sigh. "We averted a national crisis thanks to your stupidity, though. No shortage of magic-strengthening books after all. So... thanks"
"Heh, you are welcome"