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[ Chapter Size: 2855 Words. ]
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In a room in the top part of a ziggurat, five women were kneeling down.
The room is dimly lit, with the only source of light being the fire burning bright.
The room had a high ceiling and a stepped platform in front of the kneeling women, with a huge rectangular altar in the middle.
Each side of the altar were offerings, fruits and jugs of wines.
Out of five women kneeling, the middle one was looking at the altar and with her hands raised high and chanting, while the other four had bowed towards the altar with their heads touching the ground.
There room had a solemn and respectful atmosphere, as if they were praying for the blessings of some deity.
The women in the middle, about 50- 60 years, her eyes filled with a sense of wisdom and experience, looked towards the altar and she began chanting.
" Lord of Fertility, "
" lady ruler of the heavens, "
" one who roars like a lion... "
The altar began to glow, yellow particles and light lighting up the runes on the altar.
A human body appearing out of thin air on the altar.
The chanting continued.
" Save us from our hardships. "
The yellow light became brighter.
" Grant us your glimmer. "
The chant was complete.
The light suddenly became so bright that all the women had to shield their eyes.
[ A / N : I think some of you can already guess from where this is! ]
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In another space separated from the normal world, a goddess was going about her task as usual.
But she suddenly stopped what she was doing and looked into the distance with an intrigued look.
' I can hear the prayers of some mortals ? Asking to be saved ?'
She decided to that she would go and see the situation outside and answered the prayer.
Just as she opened a portal and was about to send a part of her consciousness over, everything froze for a second.
The portal in front of her turned from blue to a dull grey.
Before she could even do anything, a sudden pull from the portal made her stumble into it.
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[ Successfully found a way out, a spatial distortion to find a power source and a time distortion for the time required to find a power source. ]
[ Success in connecting to the source of power "Root" from another world. ]
[ Trying to extract the required power from the 'root'. ]
[ Space distortion forcibly closed by the other world, only a drop of mana from 'root' was successfully extracted. ]
[ Another variable was also brought in through the spatial distortion, variable ignored. ]
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Falling into the portal, she felt the very source of power of the world for just a moment.
In the next moment, she felt herself falling into another portal and then everything went black, only the echo of her screams resounding.
...
'Hiss my head hurts' was the thought going through the goddess's mind as she stood up from where she was lying and looked around.
"Wah!! What happened ? Where am I ? Who were the ones who summoned me ? And how did I end up getting pulled into the portal ?"
Waving her hands around wildly, the goddess spoke her thoughts out loud with a panicked look on her face.
Looking around and seeing lush green trees towering all around her did not help her situation whatsoever.
She who had never set foot outside the underworld was really flustered and panicked.
...
Taking some time to calm down, she looked around trying to see if she could recognise the place she was in.
But unable to recognise the area, the next thing she did was try to use her abilities.
" Such pure mana!!! "
Feeling a sense of wonder at the purity of the mana in this place, the goddess couldn't help but exclaim out loud, swiftly forgetting about her crisis.
" No, no, how can this be! " The excitement was soon replaced by a sense of loss, a void as she used her powers.
She could not feel her connection to the underworld which she had presided over for tens of thousands of years.
...
' No need to overthink about this, I need to first look for a place and see if I can find anyone nearby. And find out more about my situation. '
After trying various methods but still failing to connect with the underworld, she tried to at least find out where she was, but that to was for naught.
Her divine abilities did not give her any answer.
She tried to calm the down the feeling of dread rising inside her.
The only positive thing in her situation was that she could summon her weapons and she felt that she was stronger than before.
'Hah, staying here won't help me.' Letting out a sigh, she started walking in a random direction to see if she could find anyone.
...
After walking in the forest till the sun set and feeling tired, the goddess picked up the twigs fallen nearby and lit a fire.
She had been walking for almost half a day and she was still not able to see the forest change.
Still the same towering trees all around her, and the addition to it, some small animals and bird sounds from time to time.
...
A few minutes had passed since she had started the fire, when she felt a presence drawing near to her.
The goddess pretended to not notice it and was just sitting on the ground, all while waiting for the other party to come closer.
Not knowing whether it was a threat or not, as soon as the presence drew near her, she instantly summoned her sword and turned towards the newcomer.
Only to find a bow loaded and pointing towards her.
The newcomer was a slender woman with green eyes and long blue hair with two long bangs, two strands on the sides.
She was wearing a white and pale blue outfit, long brown boots with a light brown design, a belt which she kept a piece of white cloth, a pair of gold bracelets each on her upper arm and her wrists, and gold hair accessories.
The woman or goddess, as she could sense the divinity in her opponent, was holding a bow with a arrow loaded and it's string drawn against her with a focused look on her face.
...
"Where is this place? Who are you? "
Seeing that it was a person similar to herself, a goddess with divinity, she unsummoned her spear, put her hand on her hips and questioned the new comer in a haughty manner.
Seeing the goddess opposite her putting away her sword, and finding no hostility in the red eyes of hers, the blue haired goddess, Artemis, too lowered her bow.
" It's the first time I'm seeing a new goddess just born, but don't worry, I'll let you know everything about this place."
" By the way this place is called Tenkai and you can call me Artemis. "
Artemis who was on one of her regular hunting trips, had found a fire source deep in the Evergreen forests.
This was a forest which most gods do not visit, as there was nothing but trees and small animals, but was a perfect place for Artemis to hunt.
Going towards the source of fire in the distance, she saw a yellow - haired goddess sitting near the fire.
She was surprised for a moment at the swift actions and the sword pointing at her, but looking at the goddess's face, she was sure that the person standing opposite her was a new goddess, one recently born, as she had never seen her face before.
Because for an eternal being with an infinite lifespan like her who had nothing to do except pass time, memorizing the names and faces of all the gods and goddesses on Tenkai was not a very difficult task.
...
Even though the person opposite her was speaking in a language she had never heard before, being a goddess she could understand it, but the meaning of the words the goddess who called herself Artemis spoke were out of her understanding.
" A newly born goddess ? Tenkai ? What the hell are you talking about ?" The goddess had her head full of doubts.
She was at the very least tens of thousands of years old, and yet the goddess Artemis in front of her was calling her a newly born goddess.
And she had never heard of a place called Tenkai.
" I know you're confused, but let me explain..."
Artemis had confused the other goddess for a newly born divine being who had just been born and did not even consider the idea that someone could sneak into Tenkai.
...
After learning about the place called Tenkai, the goddess stuck around with Artemis for a few more years at the insistence of Artemis, who wanted to teach her about Tenkai.
In the few years they had spent together, she had pieced together an incredible truth, she was likely in a different world.
Here there were a variety of gods, but with various backgrounds and with stories widely different from what she knew.
An excellent example of this was, the 'goddess' Loki, who chased her for two entire months, when she had asked Loki why she was wearing the clothes of a female when she was a male and was she really the son of Odin.
Also during her stay in Tenkai she had noticed something, she was also slowly but surely growing stronger by absorbing the pure mana prevalent everywhere.
She was also able to become proficient in hieroglyphs, the language of the gods in just a single year.
She had gotten to know Athena, Hestia, Aphrodite, Hera and the other goddesses through Artemis.
The first few years were gone in the blink of an eye.
The next decade, the goddess did not think about anything and enjoyed being under the sun for the first time.
Twenty years later, she was feeling homesickness, she wanted to try to and see if she could find any information about her world or anything related to it.
But no gods here knew anything remotely related to the city of Uruk or even Kur.
They did not even know about the holy grail.
The goddess Loki still tried to chase her wherever she appeared in front of her.
...
Forty years from the goddess arrival in Tenkai.
A vast plain spread out as far as the eye could see, with a yellow haired goddess standing in the middle of it.
She was holding a sword and seemingly concentrating her powers on the sword, making it emit a red halo around her sword.
*swish* *swish*
In the next second, the goddess made a horizontal slash and a vertical slash, coming together to form a plus mark, which directly cut through space itself.
The slashes seemingly cut into the very fabric of space, as just a moment later, the plus mark expanded into a portal, emitting a bright blue color.
" Huff, this is the tenth time, I can't find a way for me connect back to my world, the portals I create always connect to various other places. "
Pouting with frustration, she let out the breath she has held.
Her tenth try had failed.
She had tried creating portals, but it always lead to anything other than what she wanted.
...
The next hundred years the goddess tried to create more portals, except for her experience in creating portals which grew at an exponential rate, she was not able to create a portal to her world as she wanted.
...
By the time her stay in Tenkai had reached 500 years, she had lost any hope of getting back to her world.
Seeing the usual arrogant but empty headed goddess looking depressed, Artemis along with Hestia and a few other goddesses tried to cheer her up.
Accepting het fate that she would not be able to return to her old world, the goddess tried to forget about her previous life and acted like she was cheered up by the goddesses.
...
Two thousand years later, she had all but given up even trying to search for a way back, only trying occasionally when she remembered her other half.
She had made peace with her previous thoughts and had forgiven her other self.
She had also gotten notoriety among the gods and goddesses, as she had caught a few male gods who trying to peek at her bathing and tortured them for a whole hundred years, by roasting them.
The truth was that she had forgotten about them after sealing them and only remembered it after a hundred years.
...
Five thousand years from her landing in Tenkai, she once again tried to see if she could reach her home world.
She was sitting in corner of an opening in between huge trees and drawing circles on the ground after once again failing, when she felt a pair of hands wrap around her eyes.
"Guess who am I ?" came the cheerful voice of a blue haired goddess from behind.
" Artemis, what happened ? Weren't you with Hestia and the others ?"
There was no need to even guess, just as Artemis had entered in the radius of 10 meters from her, she was already alerted of her presence.
Turning towards Artemis, she asked the reason for her there.
" Ah, it's no fun if you don't even act surprised ! I heard that the God King Ouranos descended to the Gekai to help the mortals. "
Shrugging her hands and raising them up in a gesture of giving up, Artemis spoke about what she had heard.
" There were also a bunch of gods who wanted to follow the example of the God King Ouranos, but they were blocked by another God King Zeus, from descending, now they are all crowding in front of the Pantheon, asking the reason for not allowing them to descend. "
" I just wanted to invite you to join in the fun and see what happens. " Artemis had the look of someone plotting something on her face.
" No, I'm busy now. " Seeing such an expression on Artemis' face, the goddess politely refused the invitation.
The last time Artemis had such an expression, poor Aphrodite was left with arrows sticking out all over her body and had to lie down for a year or two.
...
Almost six thousand years from her arrival in Tenkai, the goddess was now stuck with another peculiar goddess.
Her first friend Artemis and a few others had already descended to the Gekai a few hundred years earlier.
The goddess she was stuck with was Hestia, also known as Vesta.
She had blue eyes and mid-thigh length red hair, wearing a white purple dress. She was not tall, measuring only 140cm (4' 7"), but her body was well developed, hence her nick name "Loli Big-Boobs" given to her by the other gods and goddesses.
Hestia's friends had also descended to Gekai, making the Loli goddess visit her more to pass time.
" Hestia, I see you're back from visiting the three fate sisters-"
While greeting Hestia, the goddess felt a faint connection to the world she was originally from.
She could feel that a portal had opened by someone connecting this world to her world.
It was almost like a divine intuition, that what she now had a chance for her to go back to her world.
" Sorry, Hestia, I'm a little busy, see you later. "
Leaving the red haired loli tilting her head with an imaginary questions mark, the goddess tried to locate the opening of the portal.
Before, she could even start trying to find, she felt the portal close, severing the connection between the two worlds. But she was able to confirm one thing, the portal was not opened on Tenkai, then it could only mean that it was opened in Gekai.
Deciding her chances of trying to find what or who opened the portal were greater in the Gekai, she went back to inform Hestia that she was also descending to the Gekai and say goodbye to the red haired goddess.
...
" There, there, Hestia, don't feel sad, we'll meet again when you feel like descending or when I come back to Tenkai. "
Placating Hestia who was throwing a tantrum about how she was also descending to the Gekai like the rest of Hestia's friends took more time then she had expected.
But finally, after comforting Hestia, she made her way over to the Pantheon to descend to the Gekai and try her luck on whether she could find a way back to her world.
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[ A / N : Many of you may have already guessed who the goddess is, but I'll officially reveal her name in the next chapter!
Also as there is no info about the Tenkai or how the gods came to be, I wrote it as them being born as full fledged adults in Tenkai, but with no information about their surroundings.
Also attaching the pic's in the comments!
Let me know if you like the interval chaps or if you want me to make them as normal chaps instead.
Some comments and reviews please !!! ]