NOVEL SIMPLE 64: An Unsettling Appearance
Since nothing could be done until the ritual finished, Solomon neatened up a little and stepped out of battle. Meanwhile, Rainier and Joanna caught a few moments of rest to recover their divine energy. Sylvia and Estelle, on the other hand, leapt into battle and began mopping the floor with the various cult higher ups.
Capturing one after another, Sylvia and Estelle waltzed through the city while being helped by a few quick responders from the three major factions.
Astrid and Valencia, though, perked up from their relaxed positions on the couch as the emergency sirens began sounding.
Valencia, feeling her phone buzz, looked down to see an urgent text from Solomon. Looking up and making eye contact with Astrid, Valencia leaned over and kissed her while sweeping her off her feet. “You said you wanted to come, right?”
“Of course, as long as I won’t hamper you,” Astrid answered while looping her arms around Valencia’s neck to stabilize herself.
“You’d never,” Valencia laughed while leaping off. “I’ll fight harder to not disappoint you, okay?”
Flying through the city, Valencia carried Astrid to the outermost ring before setting her down. Making a quick trip to the Library of Truth headquarters, Valencia pulled a couple doors off their hinges and just punched her way through the others to get to her hammer.
A couple very destructive minutes later, Valencia flew out to the ocean with her gargantuan hammer in hand to join Rainier and Joanna. “Nice to see you all, friends. Hope you’re doing well on this fine day.”
“Sure. Well enough.” Rainier answered with his eyes closed. “Whatever the ritual summons, I estimate, will be here in two minutes.”
“Dang, no seconds estimation?” Valencia teased while putting on her blindfold. “Too bad Solomon isn’t here. He’d have an estimation down to the seconds.”
“Just shut up.” Rainier groaned while snapping his fingers to create an ice floe on the surface of the water below. “It’s coming.”
Getting into battle positions, Valencia took the lead position. She was, after all, the most rested out of the three because she hadn’t been fighting. Spread out across the oceanic area just outside of Marcen’s Cliffs, the three deities watched as the last of the original three Cataclysmic Monsters disappeared in a flash and a final scream.
As for the fourth deity watching, Astrid, she tried to not let people crowd her too much as other bystanders began congregating to the outermost ring. Looking at Valencia, Rainier, and Joanna flying though, Astrid had a sudden realization.
Shouldn’t she be able to fly as well?
Looking down at her hands, Astrid began trying to circulate some energy through her body. Partway to her goal, Astrid put the experiment on hold as a huge spike of energy began building up in the middle of the ocean.
With a glowing ritual circle appearing in the sky, it began rotating while spreading out further and further. Accelerating bit by bit until it could almost be mistaken for a disk, the circle began descending from the sky while unveiling the form of a huge scorpion.
“So... Scorpio,” Astrid murmured to herself while walking away from the crowd beginning to form. “They really do follow the zodiacs. That’s kind of... weird.”
Not a moment later as she began craning her neck, Astrid flinched as another figure descended right in front of her. Raising an eyebrow, Astrid backed up a few steps while preparing to run.
“Wait, wait, I’m Solomon,” the younger man reassured before motioning towards his face. “Valencia should’ve told you we can reverse our age.”
“... Oh,” Astrid trailed off before making a few cautious steps forward. “Why are you here?”
“Just to move you to a better viewing place. Valencia wants you somewhere safer so she doesn’t have to worry about you being kidnapped.” Solomon explained with a few self-assured nods. “She doesn’t know the best place though, so here I am to take you there.”
“This feels exactly like a kidnapping,” Astrid pointed at Solomon with a suspicious gaze. “... is there any way you can prove your identity?”
One tense exchange later, and Solomon managed to convince Astrid by showing the five Library of Truth badges he had. Grabbing Astrid’s hands, Solomon began circulating his energy into her body. “Follow this path with your energy and just... leap into the air with the belief you’ll fly.”
After a couple awkward jumps where she just fell back to the ground, Astrid managed to begin hovering a fair bit above the ground. Following along behind Solomon, she kept her speed a little lower to not run into any light poles.
One weird trip later, Astrid settled back down in a viewing room provided by the Library of Truth. Ignoring the handful of assistants provided to attend to her needs and keep her safe, she settled onto a couch while trying to not press her face against the window.
The battle hadn’t begun though, as Valencia and the others circled the massive scorpion. With a gleaming jet-black carapace, the massive scorpion punched through Rainier’s ice field as its legs, and half of its body, sank into the ocean.
Yet, unlike the other Cataclysmic Monsters, this one took on a few more... unconventional characteristics. With faint strands of fur peeking out from under the Scorpion’s carapace, slight sparks of electricity could be seen jumping between various parts of the body. Take the fur, then add on an extra large pair of claws, and a pair of horns and the Scorpion was beginning to take on more of a... chimera-esque appearance.
Pulling her hands closer to her chest, Astrid felt a bit of a shiver run up her spine as she began noticing a few more unsettling features on the scorpion. Having a few extra pairs of eyes didn’t bother her too much, except this scorpion, instead of the usual two main eyes and a couple auxiliary pairs, had close to twenty active eyes roaming around all over its head and torso.
Out on the battlefield, Rainier and Valencia couldn’t care less about the extra eyes though. To them, extra eyes were just extra weak spots. They cared more about extra tentacles branching out from the Scorpion’s legs and mouth.
“So, why does it look like that?” Valencia sighed while furrowing her eyebrows. “It looks kinda disgusting. It’s lacking some of the same... perfection the other Cataclysmic Monsters had.”
“Probably some stray monsters got caught in the ritual. The other detritus the fog wall spits out like to congregate around the Cataclysmic Monsters after all.” Rainier spat while throwing his sword forward. “Makes it look revolting.”
With the blade burying itself deep into one of the Scorpion’s eyes, a couple huge lightning bolts began striking down onto the Scorpion. Re-strengthening the storm to ease the energy burden of each individual lightning bolt, Rainier ignored Valencia and Joanna’s words of protest before rushing back into battle.
