PREVIOUSLY
Time was still. The Mystic Lance disappeared. And only a broken god, and her beloved human remained.
Before she disappeared from the fatigue, she gave the last of her energy to the boy, and intoned, "He who shall bear my protection for a thousand nights."
Similar to the Demon God's crest, her own crest appeared on Willow's left hand, and then that was that. She couldn't even utter a word since she felt her other sister, the one so stuck up on her throne above the myriad realms shift, no doubt coming to see her. So, before she disappeared, she willed the world to return to normal.
The curtains of a time-frozen world started to unveil, sweeping any remains of the battle of gods behind it's curtains. With a stir, the world began to wake up again.
Ivanka looked once more at the boy she had fallen in love with, and as she saw his eyes begin to flutter open, she couldn't help but be reminded of the first day she fell in love with him and how he thawed her frozen heart.
"Be well, my beloved."
And as the boy's eyes scrunched open, the goddess disappeared, leaving behind a moon in the night sky.
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With a gasp, I woke up. Instincts from my training with Ivanka kicked in, and the first thing I did, despite the splitting headache and the desert in my mouth, was to scan my surroundings only to see that I was back in my room, with Raegis gently snoring at my side, while holding my fingers protectively.
Before I could even curse as to the amount of times I had fainted this past week, the migraine got even worse as both my hands felt like they were being bitten by a million ants. I bit my lips to brace for the pain but luckily for me, it only lasted for a couple of seconds before the pain was gone.
It was only a few seconds, but the pain had been so great that my back was absolutely soaked. As I got up gently, while wondering why Raegis hadn't woken up just from smelling my sweat, I grimaced from the subsiding pain in my hands and checked them out.
My expression immediately fell. Memories forcefully replayed inside my head, of the time-locked world, of the Demon God, of how I felt Ivanka's presence, and the immense energy pouring off their fights while he was unconscious. Then, I remembered the feeling of absolute disgust when something vile, no doubt belonging to the Demon God, forcefully entered my body, trying to corrupt me with it's evil energy before a warm, almost milky feeling countered it, making me feel loved and protected.
My eyes opened again. The headache was gone. I checked the Mark of the Demon God, and the Moon Goddess on my right and left hand, respectively. Oh no, I would have far, far more headaches in the future.
The Mark Of the Demon God gleamed a sinister reddish black, and from instinct, I could tell that it's sole purpose was to grant me immense power in exchange for my servitude and corruption. Basically, it would make me an evil Maiden. The Mark of the Moon Goddess, or Ivanka, was a silverish-white color, and something that would protect me from curses and evil as long as the moon was up, and her gaze was upon me.
They both gleamed their respective colors for a couple of seconds, before disappearing into my skin as if they were never there in the first place. The Marks of a deity would technically not be able to impede you in your journey for strength and immortality, but then again, it all depended on how you use it.
I reviewed the battle between me and the Demon God, no, the Demon God's clone. I had gotten cocky, thinking that with my martial arts and my arsenal hidden inside me, I had at least gotten to her clone's level but well, I had been proven that I was severely wrong.
Glancing over to my softly snoring attack-dog, she looked so innocent and sweet in her sleep that no one would really assume this little puppy would grow to become the sharpest steel in all of the myriad realms.
And yet, she had been completely rendered useless the moment the Demon God stopped time. Well at her current level, I didn't really blame her since it was more of my fault for thinking that I had enough time to level her up.
This was the world of gods and monsters so broken, they would make 95% of all fictional worlds look weak. A world where you could be going on a jog one day and disintegrate into nothingness because a god accidentally messed with time in one of his experiments.
A sense of defeat spread within my heart. As a gamer who had basically conquered this world and it's game multiple times, I felt anguished that I had allowed myself to be humiliated to this degree. Sure reality and the game world were different things, but they held enough similarity for me to take advantage of it.
I stared again at the Mark Of the Demon God hiding beneath my left hand, feeling absolutely disgusted with the vile, reddish-black energy. All I could do was let out a sigh, letting go of all of the 'what ifs' in my head, and simply willing myself to look at the future, and to make sure that it didn't happen again.
With the mark of two deities, not to mention very strong ones, I should probably stay away from any churches or temples since I didn't want to trigger a religious invasion. I could already see my head being hung on a pike as onlookers cursed in disdain at the boy who held the mark of the ultimate evil.
A shiver ran through my spine. That was a bad end. I really didn't want to suffer from it.
Although, there were advantages to having a deity's mark or blessing as well. For example, if I ever get near to the high elves or basically, any creature that had a connection with the moon, they would respect me enough to at least consider not killing me, no matter my crime.
I needed power. With but a thought, I pulled out a map from my [Dimensional Storage], a map that I had bought for cheap, detailing the immediate surroundings of this town.
There.
I marked a patch of the forest, just a few kilometers away from the town, 'X', a distance that may seem far but with Aegis as my steed, it was just another number. If anyone looked at it, my mark seemed completely random, but to someone who had played the game a gazillion times, they would know that I had just identified the location which would advance Raegis's power by a couple years again.
What? Since the world was trying to fuck me over with that Demon God's clone appearance, I decided I was going to fuck it over first. Let all that came later be boiled to hell.
If my plan worked, Raegis would have enough power to at least extinguish that clone. If it failed, well, I'd be royally fucked. After all, I was going to forcefully awaken a part of her memories, just a smallllll part that would make her remember who she truly is.