Godsforsaken

 

Chapter 44: The Temple Of Zeus

The Temple of Zeus loomed over us, its open gates like a gaping jaw waiting to devour us. At any other time, in any other situation, the temple merely looked overly gaudy and pompous but in the blood-red twilight and knowing what awaited us it instead looked foreboding.

Still, as one we entered it, Selene and me walking ahead of the others just in case. Nothing jumped out at us, which unfortunately meant that there was nothing to distract us from the temple's vile decor.

The entrance hall was enormous, bigger than most full temples, a long rectangular space that led to an enormous statue of Zeus and the way to it lined with smaller statues.

Zeus was a handsome bastard, I knew, but the sculptor of that giant statue had clearly taken an almost fetishistic delight in portraying his virility.

Zeus was tall, his chest and abs rippling with muscle. He had long, curly hair and a full curly beard to go along with it. Combined with his bushy eyebrows it gave the impression of his face staring at you out of a thundercloud. And the statue portrayed all of that perfectly.

It was hewn from gray marble and it showed Zeus sitting on an enormous throne decorated with thunderbolts made of solid gold. The statue wore its toga open, to better show off his muscles. The real Zeus was a vain enough bastard that he oiled up his muscles to glisten in the light but the abs and pecs on the statue were mercifully matte. The statue itself had a few golden decorations placed all over it, such as a golden broach and a golden laurel wreath, both things the actual Zeus wore.

The statue's most prominent feature, however, was the very noticeable tent in the toga that hinted at an erection at half-mast.

The statues we walked past, meanwhile, were much more blatant than just showing a clothed erection, each of them showing Zeus performing some feat of sexual prowess.

One showed Zeus surrounded by young women, some kneeling and clinging to his legs as they stared up at him adoringly, one standing by his side and passionately making out with him, his tongue halfway down her throat, and three more were kneeling in front of him and worshiping his manhood.

And I will admit that I felt a bit of satisfaction knowing that even with the possibly exaggerated proportions the sculptor had given the statue I had an inch and a half on Zeus.

Another statue showed Zeus bent over a kneeling, extremely effeminate young man, rutting into his ass, the young man's tiny dick fully erect and his mouth hanging open.

These statues, while somewhat distasteful, were still rather harmless, so long as you ignored that the men and women depicted in them looked just a little shy of the age of majority. But as we walked the statues got weirder.

One had a plaque that read 'Conception of the first Minotaur' and showed a woman with her head low to the ground and her ass high up in the air, being fucked by an enormous bull with a golden laurel wreath balanced on its horns.

One showed a woman on her back with her legs spread wide for an enormous white swan with a tiny golden laurel wreath on its head.

Another showed a woman on her hands and knees while a huge dog with a golden laurel wreath on its head rutted into her mouth, her jaw locked wide open by its knot.

“This is just vile,” Alisha commented and our entire party agreed with her.

“Welcome to the Temple of Zeus,” I deadpanned. “It only gets worse from here.”

“What could be worse than this?” Yume asked but by that time we had reached the huge statue of Zeus on his throne and so I decided not to say anything. She would be getting her answer momentarily.

Unlike every other marble statue I had ever seen, this one did not have blank eyes. Instead the eyes were fully detailed, with distinct pupils and irises. And the moment we approached the statue these eyes panned over our group. When it was done there was a momentary flash in those eyes and then, with a sound of stone grinding on stone, the tent in the statue's toga grew by two feet.

“Did someone seriously enchant this statue to get a boner when people approach it?” Selene asked.

“Not for just anyone,” a weasely voice said and we looked over to see a priest approaching us. “Our god's towering manhood only stands tall for the most nubile of young does and the loveliest of young bucks. Praise be to His immaculate taste!”

I fucking hate this place, I thought but didn't say out loud. We needed something from this guy after all.

“And as the god recognizes the beauty of these fine ladies I welcome you all to the Temple of Zeus,” the priest said and continued before we could get a word in. “How many of these lovely ladies do you wish to register? Do you wish for the god to stay in his human shape or should He take a more beastly appearance? Any preferences? And do you wish to be present during the mating or would you prefer she be delivered back to your home after the seeding? We offer special trash cans to make the experience especially humiliating.”

Alisha, who had been trembling with rage ever since the statues had started featuring beasts, finally lost it. “I can't believe this shit! Is this the temple of a god or some kind of divine stud service?!”

The priest barely managed to squeak out a bewildered “Both?” before I said very clearly:

“These women are mine and whoever tries to 'seed' them will be bludgeoned to death with his own arms after I rip them off him.”

“But why would you enter the Temple of Zeus if you have no interest in His gifts?” the priest asked, genuinely shocked that we would find his 'faith' as disgusting as it so clearly was.

As I said, I fucking hated this place.

“We have important business in the back,” Athena said, her voice brooking no argument. “Step aside, cleric.”

“In the back?” he squeaked. “I'm sorry, but the clergy has informed me that the back of the temple is currently undergoing renovations and is therefore off limits for the time being.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. As much as I would have liked to pin his disgusting faith on the corruption of the Black Goat his behavior was perfectly normal for this cult. This was just how these people were.

“When was the last time Zeus showed up here?” I asked.

“Don't take His name in vain,” he squeaked out but there was no real heat behind it. He was lost too deep in thought. Finally, with a trace of horror in his voice he said: “Months. He has not graced us with His presence in months. Oh, great Zeus, have you abandoned us?”

I nodded. “Do you honestly believe the stories about renovations?”

“I... You learn not to question certain things if you work here long enough. But it did strike me as odd how no workers ever showed up.”

“Listen up, then. Your cult has been taken over by worshipers of the Black Goat in the Woods with a Thousand Young.”

“Impossible!” he blurted out but as he spoke his face grew paler and paler. Finally, after a long pause he muttered: “But they have not been worshiping regularly and I did hear some of them talk about a goddess rather than a god...”

“And you seriously never questioned this?” Alisha demanded. “Are you expecting us to believe you weren't complicit?!”

I laid a hand on her forearm to calm her with my presence and then took a moment to appreciate the irony of me having to calm her down for once. When she wasn't trembling with rage anymore I spoke to the priest: “It's scary to think that the people you look up to abandoned the faith you hold to, isn't it? Much easier to close your eyes and pretend you can't see it.”

He nodded meekly, clearly ashamed.

“As much as your faith disgusts me, I can tell you genuinely love your god and your work,” I said. “So, step aside, hide while we root out this Outsider cult and maybe there'll be a congregation left for you to lead by the time this is over.”

He stared at us for a long moment, then ran out the temple as fast as his feet could carry him.

“You were pretty nice to him at the end there,” Alisha commented.

I sighed. “I try not to shame people for how they get their rocks off. This particular kink disgusts me but this priest was just a pervert, not a bad guy.”

“I still don't get what exactly he was asking you there,” Selene said. “Like, I got the gist of it, but what the fuck is this faith?”

I sighed even deeper. “You know how I said these people worship a particularly vile version of Zeus?”

She nodded.

“They believe that they do not deserve to procreate with mortal women. So this is a faith exclusively for couples. The men register their women here to get fucked by Zeus until they're pregnant and then they care for and raise Zeus' bastard offspring. Cuckoldry elevated to religious doctrine.”

Selene made a disgusted face. “And that stuff about taking a beastly form? You mean those statues were...?”

“That was all Zeus in animal form,” I confirmed. “If asking a god to impregnate your wife for you because you're not man enough to do it yourself isn't quite humiliating enough you can ask Zeus to take the form of an animal. Gods, even in animal form, are capable of producing hybrid offspring with mortals so you can show off to everyone how much of a degenerate you are by raising your wife's centaur son.”

“I'm not sure I want to save the Olympians anymore if they're all like this,” Selene said.

“I assure you, father is a unique case,” Athena said. “Even most of our kin don't approve of his... lascivious nature. But it was easier to get him to stop Prometheus' torture than it is to convince him to stop sowing his seed wherever he goes.”

“That's a very nice way of saying that he'll fuck anything with a pulse,” I said, then told the others: “If we meet him, remember not to turn your backs to him.”

“He's not quite that bad,” Athena insisted. “Just... don't approach him if your clothing is torn up.”

I shook my head and indicated that we should keep going. The others followed and we made our way deeper into the Temple of Zeus, past the enormous statue.

We hadn't taken three steps past it when Melinoe asked: “So I'm one of your women, am I?”, referring to my earlier declaration.

In all honesty I had simply forgotten about her when I'd said that. I had seen red when that priest had asked me if I wanted to participate in his vile faith. But what I said instead was:

“I did say it was your last chance to back out, didn't I?”

I didn't look back to see her reaction but she didn't make any further comments.

**

After leaving the entrance hall with the giant statue behind the temple became far less pompous and also far more eerie. A long hallway stretched out before us, rows and rows of doors on both sides. A quick check revealed that the rooms those doors led to were bedrooms, some containing only beds, some containing cages, some containing metal bars for a large animal to rest its weight on so it wouldn't crush a woman beneath its bulk. Half of the rooms had a tiny little wardrobe or closet in them, each with some way to observe the rest of the room from inside.

Under normal circumstances this hallway would have been vile enough, rooms where women would wait for Zeus to come and lavish attention on them while their husbands watched. In this situation, however, the hallway was far more unnerving. It had become abundantly clear that a cult of the Black Goat had in fact infiltrated this temple and so we all knew that eventually we would find bedrooms that weren't empty.

And we did.

There had often been a kind of twisted sensuality to the creatures of the Black Goat we had encountered. Jabberwocks and the Dark Lord had had wings that were reminiscent of female genitalia in shape, texture and even scent. The Holy Maiden apparently strengthened cultists by breast-feeding them. The cankers that her cultists carried often centered on their chests and crotches. Even the more grotesque creatures like the Dark Young had sensual sides, as we had learned that the Holy Maiden traveled while cradled in their slimy black tentacles.

However, so far this twisted sensuality had always been overshadowed by their killing intent. There had always been the notion that some of these cultists began their worship out of a twisted sense of desire but by the time we met them they had degenerated to the point of no return and were focused on killing us.

Now, though, we got to see these grotesque creatures engaging in less violent but infinitely more disturbing behaviors.

The first occupied room we found held a man lying spread-eagle on a bed with a creature sitting astride him. The creature was disturbingly sensual, with large, full breasts and a soaking-wet slit impaled on her partner's manhood. So enraptured were the two of them in their grotesque activity that they did not even notice our presence.

The creature was pale and its face looked like the emaciated head of a goat or deer, with a sash of cloth wrapped over its eyes like a blindfold. But none of that was the disturbing part. There was a gaping wound in the man's chest and the creature's mouth was smeared with blood. His expression was nonetheless one of rapture, as if this creature gorging itself on his flesh while riding him was the greatest bliss he had ever experienced.

The creature's taloned hands were on its abdomen, which held a huge gash from bellybutton to pubic bone. There was no blood coming out of that gash but nonetheless its abdomen was open and its talons held the orifice open, revealing a collection of small, pulsing cankers where the womb would have been on a human woman. One of the claws reached into the orifice, grabbed one of the cankers, and then dropped it into the man's open chest cavity, where the ball of twisted flesh started to spread out roots. The man seemed to be in utter bliss at the process and my stomach turned. Was this how these cankers were grafted on?

I stared at the morbid spectacle a moment longer before I drew Helios Edge, charged up a Qi Burst, and carved vertically through both of them. White-hot flames shot over both of them in an instant. I very seriously considered letting the fire consume them until there was nothing left but eventually decided against it. We were in the middle of the temple district, after all, and while I wasn't opposed to the idea of a few of those overly pompous temples burning down I didn't want to risk causing a fire large enough that it would spread over to the other districts.

And so I waited only long enough to be sure the Black Goat's taint was burned away before I said: “Alisha, could you please smother the flames?”

“Of course,” she said and her hand glowed gray-green as she waved it over the bodies.

**

And so we continued, opening doors and finding more scenes of grotesque sexuality. Sometimes the... lovers... noticed and attacked us, sometimes they didn't, but by the end we had seen things mortals just weren't meant to see. A satyr-like man with a tangle of thin pink tendrils in place of genitals holding a human woman down and planting something like a seedpod inside her. Something that was more goat than man was hunched over a bent-over woman, rutting into her from behind. A man in the throes of ecstasy with two goat-like women tending to him, one working his backside, the other kissing him deeply, and judging from the motions in the man's stomach their tongues were meeting in the center. A goat woman, her body sliced open from throat to crotch but still horribly, rapturously alive, attempting to pull a young man into her empty body, all the while working his shaft with one hand.

We torched each of these vile displays but I just had to wonder. If things were this awful here in the capital, how bad would things get once we reached the realm of Olympus, where the followers of the Black Goat were even farther away from prying eyes?

And then, once we were past this horrid hallway, a dozen rooms filled with corpses behind us, we reached the real clergy of the Temple of Zeus. Or what was left of it.

From my dealings with this temple I knew that most of the priests of this temple had been like the man we had met earlier. Utterly devoted to their religious cuckoldry but genuinely good and helpful people outside of their bedroom preferences. I had always assumed that the highest priests of this temple were on some level aware of how grotesque their faith was and were milking the visitors for all their mun but when you had a temple that was actually frequented by a god it was easy to overcharge ridiculously for your services.

But what we found as we entered the inner halls of the Temple of Zeus bore no resemblance to any faith of the Theos Agathos I had ever heard of.

This part of the temple had a large hole in the roof, as was rather common for this kind of temple. Directly beneath the hole stood a tree, or at least it must have been a tree at one point. Now it looked more as if a Dark Young had settled down and taken root. The once tall and proud tree, likely an oak, was streaked through with black veins, some of its branches morphed into undulating tentacles and some of its knotholes turned into gaping maws full of teeth. The entire thing reminded me uncomfortably of the corrupted boss we had fought in the dungeon, Hebba. And while this thing was no dungeon boss, I had no doubt these tentacles would make for terrifying weapons if the creature became aware of our presence.

Among it were priests of Zeus, their once white robes stained with blood and the black tar-like substance that the Dark Young were made of. None of them were facing us, all their eyes on the horrible ritual taking place before the tree.

Someone had dug a hole near the base of the tree, with their bare hands if the glistening red stains in the dirt were any indication, and the hole led directly down to a gaping maw in the tree much larger than any I had ever seen on a Dark Young. A few yards from the tree was an altar, where three newborn children were lying on their backs, crying for their mothers. And as we watched in silent horror the man I took to be the head priest, for he wore the biggest hat balanced on the largest set of horns, took one of the children, brought it to the hole in the ground, and let it tumble into the tree's gaping maw.

“No!” Alisha shrieked in horror as the tree's teeth tore into the babe, silencing its cries before they could even truly begin.

And in reaction to her cry the entire congregation turned to face us.