FALSE GODS

05 Divine Intervention

Niobe’s cry for help radiated from her like a tidal wave, resounding throughout the forest and reaching ears faraway.

From the citadel on Mt. Radomir, a static pillar of light shot into the sky.

The amputee goddess, not having witnessed the spectacle, prepared to have her life taken. She raised her face to the executioner of her lover. Up close, she realized it was indeed a lava golem, but sentient enough to do another’s bidding.

A mindless creature animated with dark words.

It would be harmless if not for the miasma bubbling inside it.

“What are you?” she demanded frantically. “Who is your master?”

The monster, with its trap opened wide, scooped out a fistful of the red ooze. It meant to blather its victim’s head with the bane.

“I serve the nectar of a true god,” it explained fluently. “False god,” it added, pointing a rock finger at her, “Must die.”

Niobe had lost the will to resist. She was a false goddess indeed. That the gods were immortal had been proven a lie. She closed her eyes.

‘I am joining you on the other side soon, Felix,’ she thought bitterly.

The monster extended its arm for the deed, but stopped halfway. It looked up to the skies and then jumped back twenty paces.

Niobe opened her eyes, perplexed by her assailant’s behavior.

The sky rumbled tumultuously without clouds.

“Oh,” she realized. “You are here, Your Providence.”

A thunder crack sounded, and a sheer bolt of lightning zig-zagged its way into the meadow. The ground rippled and cracked where it landed. Temperatures rose, and a halo flooded the area.

Goddess Elektra emerged from the rubble and flash. She stood to her full height, surveying the area.

About seven feet tall, she was one of the four titans reigning over Theikos.

Spiritually connected to members of her House, she had heard Niobe’s prayer for help and arrived in the crack of time.

The titan surveyed the clearing with riveting attention. Her eyes were vortices of ghastly light. Streaks of blue-white sparks crackled throughout her body. She donned an armor of platinum-gold. Her hair, white as day, almost stood on end, charged by the energy coursing through her body.

Elektra walked to Niobe and placed a hand over her head.

“I am here, child,” she reassured her ward. ”Your prayer was heard.”

Niobe started sobbing hysterically. “It killed Felix, Your Providence! It has this red miasma that took my hands!”

“Justice will be served, my dear,” Elektra said with finality.

The titan faced the lava golem and raised a finger to the sky. There was a rumble without clouds again.

The golem began to speak, “False gods must-”

A bolt of lightning fell from the sky, shattering its body into a million pieces. The explosion scorched half of the clearing.

The miasma within it fell to the forest floor like a blob and escaped into the woods.

Within no time, several pegasi arrived, and the area was swarming with gods- princeps, priors, and a prime. A group of healer priors urgently attended to Niobe, shearing off the miasma-affected flesh and administering her restorative draughts.

Electra released the divine form, and her eyes turned green. The energy coursing through her dissipated, and the armor vanished with hollow cling-clangs. Her hair descended from its flight and wrapped into a braided bun by itself.

Elektra was a giant of a woman, muscle-bound and powerfully built. She towered over the rest of the gods, who looked like children in her presence.

The titan walked toward the pile of shattered rocks where the golem had been. She sniffed the air and waved a hand through nothing, as if feeling for an invisible entity.

God-prime Estevan approached Elektra. He was the prime of her House, her highest-ranking soldier.

“Your Providence. Scouts have returned after a reconnaissance of the area. There are signs that someone was controlling the golem from a distance. We lost the culprit’s trail.”

He handed Elektra a vial sample of the miasma collected from Niobe.

“This sludge seems to move by itself,” Estevan posed. “I have never seen such a thing before. If Your Providence may shed some light?”

“It is corruption, Estevan,” Elektra explained. “Corruption that has come seeping from the underworld after a century.”

The titan was over three hundred and fifty years old and had seen most of history unfold through her eyes. She sighed, suddenly nostalgic from the flood of memories. However, resolve returned to her face soon.

“Send an urgent message to our naval fleet in the Gulf of Stratos,” she ordered. “We need Marcus Petromax to return immediately.”