The Field of Truth, once dreary and lifeless, was now bustling with unusual activity.
One after another, members of the Oneiroi tribe, each bearing black wings, shifted into various forms, human, object, and beast alike, nervously combing every inch of this plain covered in underworld asphodel flowers.
Leading them were the three great Dream Gods: Morpheus the "Shaper," Phantasos the "Illusionist," and Phobetor the "Terror," all three bruised and battered, clothes in tatters, their eyes darting about with paranoid suspicion.
At the slightest sound or movement, they instinctively pressed their backs together, summoning their divine weapons, bracing as though facing a great enemy.
Clearly, this was a stress response from having been thoroughly beaten.
Before long, realizing this was yet another false alarm, the three exchanged awkward glances, shuffled apart slightly, and silently cursed a certain notorious criminal of the underworld with every insult they could muster.
At first, when Morpheus the "Shaper" and Phantasos the "Illusionist" arrived on the scene and saw Phobetor the "Terror" looking so disheveled and grimy, they laughed at him mercilessly.
But before long, the two Dream Gods, having grown overconfident, found themselves in exactly the same sorry state as their brother.
And even after they became more cautious, they still could not escape the fate of being beaten senseless.
That bastard fought dirty and schemed even dirtier.
The moment he saw numbers against him, he fled immediately.
Then, once they spread out and gave chase, he would turn back and pummel whichever one had been left alone.
This forced the three lead Dream Gods to avoid splitting up, keeping themselves clustered together as they searched the asphodel plain sector by sector.
Though this clumsy approach slowed their progress considerably, the strategy of advancing layer by layer was gradually narrowing the suspect zone, cornering that slipperier-than-an-eel figure into a limited area.
And this time, there would be no easy escape.
The three Dream Gods glanced back at Hypnos, the God of Sleep, hovering in the air behind them, and felt a surge of confidence.
They turned forward again, waving their hands to signal the three thousand Oneiroi to sweep the final suspect zone.
At that very moment, hidden within a patch of tall grass using concealment magic, Lorne and his two companions watched the encircling forces close in from all sides, cursing under their breath.
The divine twins of the underworld, not only bullying the weak with numbers, had actually brought every last one of their Oneiroi subordinates along.
This was truly going too far.
"What do we do now?"
Thetis paused her buff and recovery spells, glanced at Lorne, then her eyes drifted involuntarily to the person behind them.
They had been dragging him along this whole way.
Shouldn't a certain someone finally make himself useful?
Sisyphus, who had been vigilantly scanning the surroundings, felt a sudden inexplicable chill run down his spine.
"It's not time yet..."
Lorne shook his head, cutting off Thetis's idea of throwing their companion under the chariot.
They had only just arrived at the Field of Truth.
He did not even know where Adonis was yet.
If he was so eager to throw away his trump card now, what would he use as bait if an even more dangerous situation arose later?
While thinking about it, Lorne looked at the Oneiroi steadily advancing toward their hiding spot, as well as the three Dream Gods and Hypnos monitoring the entire field from the outer perimeter, and quietly tightened his grip on the Nation-Forging Spear, his mind racing.
Hypnos, as one of the divine twins of the underworld, also held the achievement of having put Zeus himself to sleep.
His combat power was roughly on par with several of the less combat-oriented major gods of Olympus.
In a direct confrontation, Lorne could not be sure he would win.
But just because he could not overpower Hypnos did not mean everyone on the field was Hypnos.
Whether the three Dream Gods or the rest of the Oneiroi, in Lorne's eyes they were nothing more than elite soldiers and common foot soldiers.
As long as he was not bogged down, breaking through their encirclement would be easy enough.
With his mind made up, divine power surged within Lorne.
The immense strength of the Bull, the destructive force of the Boar, and the godlike speed of the Goat all ignited simultaneously within him.
The surging tide of power roared through him like a monstrous beast awakened from the depths as he charged with ferocious momentum directly toward Phobetor the "Terror."
Watching the monstrous silhouette rapidly expand before him, the latter, bearing the full brunt of the charge, felt his scalp go numb with indignation and fury.
'What the hell, why is it always me?'
Had Lorne been able to hear him, he would certainly have explained.
Well...no choice there.
In a fight, one always pick the softest target first.
After all, you all taught me that yourselves.
"Stop them!"
Seeing there was no way to avoid it, Phobetor roared and charged forward with his Oneiroi subordinates.
And then...
And then he and over a thousand Oneiroi were sent flying in every direction.
But at the same moment, Hypnos reacted and led the other two Dream Gods, moving to encircle them from all sides toward the center.
"Run!"
Lorne, however, had no intention of prolonging the fight.
He immediately grabbed Thetis and Sisyphus and broke through the torn gap in the encirclement.
He was here to get things done, not to fight the gods of the underworld to the death.
As long as they broke through successfully, that counted as victory.
Hypnos, having once again grasped at nothing, showed not a trace of anger on his face.
He calmly reassured his battered and disheveled Oneiroi subordinates.
"Do not worry. They cannot run far..."
* * *
Several hours later, Lorne raised his head from the grass and looked up at the pale violet sky above and the dense, drifting phosphorescent lights all around him, feeling a throbbing headache coming on.
Somnus.
The great barrier laid jointly by Hypnos and three thousand Oneiroi, capable of blurring the boundary between reality and illusion, drawing people into sleep and eternal slumber, leaving them at the mercy of its casters.
Lorne possessed the protection of his Sixth Avatar, the Flame, which was enough to help him and his two companions resist the relentless waves of drowsiness washing over them.
However, it could not carry them out of this asphodel plain blanketed by Somnus.
So although he had broken through the encirclement, he was still running for his life.
A divine being capable of influencing Zeus was indeed no easy opponent.
He had miscalculated.
Lorne knocked his forehead in mild frustration, clearing the fog of grogginess rising in his mind, then slowly turned his gaze toward Sisyphus beside him.
Maybe...
"Achoo!"
The son of the wind god, who had been yawning endlessly, jolted violently awake, all drowsiness vanishing, and sneezed loudly.
Never mind.
If he used his ultimate card against someone at Hypnos's level, what would he do if he ran into Hades the Underworld King himself, or his ancestral goddess Hecate?
What hand would he have left to play then?
Lorne shook his head and stamped out the impulse to sacrifice his companion, focusing on replenishing the divine power that had nearly run dry inside him.
The consecutive high-intensity battles, including one instance where he had stacked three divine powers simultaneously, had left him nearly depleted.
Beside him, Thetis was also casting healing and recovery spells, diligently restoring HP and MP for the main carry of their trio.
Sisyphus, whose talent lay entirely in running away and whose offensive contribution was essentially zero, could only stand guard voluntarily outside, serving as a lookout.
However, the relentlessly pursuing forces of the underworld were clearly not going to give them a comfortable window to recover.
In less than half an hour, Sisyphus sensed from afar that Hypnos was leading the three Dream Gods, tracking them down.
"Quick, they're catching up!"
Even as Sisyphus cried out in urgent warning, one gateway after another swung open in the pale violet sky above, and Oneiroi warriors clad in armor, gripping swords and shields, bows and arrows, and javelins, poured out in an unbroken stream, filling every inch of the surrounding space.
Legend had it that the realm of dreams had two gates.
Those that emerged from the Gate of Ivory brought false dreams, while those from the Gate of Horn brought true dreams.
Evidently, to gang up on Lorne, this one wandering elite target, the entire might of the dream realm had been fully mobilized.
While silently cursing that pig-headed God of Sleep in his heart, Lorne's eyes shimmered with a sudden, quiet gleam.
If he remembered correctly, the future lawful wife of Hypnos was one of the three Charites, the Graces.
During the most brutal phase of the Trojan War, the goddess Hera, seeking to aid the Greeks, had ordered Hypnos to put Zeus to sleep.
At first, Hypnos did not dare to cast sleep upon the King of the Gods.
However, when Hera promised him that upon success, she would give him a young Grace as his wife, this guy immediately obeyed her command.
In the end, after enduring a savage beating from Zeus as the price, Hypnos had won his bride.
"Oh, so you insist on coming after me with everything you have, do you?"
Watching the overwhelming dreamland army bearing down on him, Lorne roused his flagging spirit, prepared to fight his way through the encirclement once more, all while grinding his teeth and silently sending Hypnos a very special Minoan Minotaur blessing.
"One of the three Graces, is it? Your future wife, gone!"
"Hmmm!"
At that very instant, a deep, muffled rumble rose from beneath Lorne's feet, and all three figures tumbled down into a pitch-black fissure that split open in the earth.
Moments later, the soil shifted and writhed, the crack sealed itself shut, and even the broken flowers and grass grew back, restored as though nothing had ever happened.
The Oneiroi who arrived shortly after stepped across that patch of ground without noticing a thing, pressing steadily forward.
All was as if nothing had occurred.
* * *
Meanwhile, deep in a pitch-black underground passage, Lorne raised the Nation-Forging Spear and pointed it warily toward the corner ahead.
"Who's there? Come out!"
"D... don't be afraid... it's... it's me..."
Accompanied by a halting, muffled voice, a towering figure bearing black horns and a body corded with dense muscle emerged from the dark corner, dragging a long-handled battle axe.
Those beast-like crimson eyes stared vaguely at the ground, betraying the kind of awkward embarrassment a child shows when caught by an adult.
At the sight of the figure standing before him, Lorne blinked in faint surprise and called out the name.
"Asterius?"
(End of Chapter)
.
.
.
P.S: Sorry everyone. I'm busy dealing with things coz my bro will say goodbye to his happy life in three days. I've scheduled a few chaps but it seems a few got shuffled.
.
.
I'm talking about Marriage ok.