At the same moment, inside the Elysian Fields where every season felt like spring, the sky darkened abruptly.
Lead-grey storm clouds gathered in the air above, churning into a great vortex.
The terrifying pressure bore down on all four of them with a crushing weight, sending alarm bells screaming through their minds and dropping their hearts straight to the floor.
Trouble. Someone was coming.
And whoever it was, they were powerful.
Seeing the brand on Adonis's forehead growing ever brighter, Lorne understood at once what had drawn this calamity down on them.
Without time to think it through, he grabbed the young man by the collar and hauled him roughly back inside the Elysian Fields.
As they moved away from the gate leading to the outside world, the splitting pain in the Kypriot prince's head eased considerably.
But the hand gripping his collar pressed him down onto the grass of the Elysian Fields and showed no sign of loosening.
"Buy me time!"
Thetis understood immediately.
She drew on the water flowing through the Elysian Fields and called on her greatest skill, illusion magic, condensing several groups of water phantoms bearing the four of them's forms and a trace of their aura.
Then sent them streaming through the gate of the Wall of Lament, scattering in all directions, to confuse the approaching enemy's perception.
"You, hold him down!"
Sisyphus, hearing this, wasted no time sprinting over and clamping Adonis's four limbs firmly in place.
The anxiety and unease gnawing at him settled somewhat as he had something to do with his hands.
Calm down. There was still a way out.
"O radiant and powerful flame, mightiest among all origins, I offer verse and wine in your name!"
At the same time, Lorne's expression drew tight and grave.
With his other hand he reached into a completed magical array and withdrew a great golden cup, the words of an invocation pouring rapidly from his lips.
"I am the shepherd of the lamb, that he shall want for nothing.
I make him lie down in green pastures, I lead him beside still waters.
I restore his soul, and guide him in righteous paths in my name.
Though he walks through the valley of death's shadow, he shall fear no harm, for I am with him.
My rod and my staff, they comfort him.
Before his enemies, I set a table for the faithful.
I anoint with oil and seal with a mark, that my cup may overflow.
Fill, fill, fill, fill, fill.
With mercy, look upon this soul!"
Within the Elysian Fields, known by names such as Ouranos and the Isle of the Blessed, the shepherd sang his fitting verse and raised the golden cup aloft.
Green grapevines surged up beneath his feet at a reckless pace.
The aether saturating the air, dense enough to feel almost solid, transformed into rich and sweet wine, then guided by the grapevines, poured down into the cup, settling into a swaying, deep-red nectar.
"Open your mouth if you want to live."
Accompanied by that cold, clipped murmur, and the gaze of those deep eyes fixed upon him, Adonis opened his mouth on instinct.
Lorne saw it and immediately pressed the sacred cup to Adonis's lips, forcing every last drop of wine down his throat with no ceremony whatsoever.
In an instant, golden Flame spread from Lorne's arm across Adonis's body.
The Cypriot prince was engulfed in fire from head to toe.
The body he had taken on flesh within the Elysian Fields hissed and crackled under the heat, splitting and bursting open before their eyes.
At the sight of this, Adonis could not hold back his panic, terror flooding his eyes.
"My body, my body!"
"Shut your mouth."
Lorne's grim stare silenced the man in an instant.
Then he glanced over at Sisyphus, who was grimacing through the flames licking at him and yet holding Adonis down without releasing him for even a moment. A faint trace of approval passed through Lorne's eyes.
The old swindler was slippery, no question.
But when it mattered most, he could be counted on.
"It is supposed to hurt. Did you think the food in the underworld was safe to eat? Drink this."
Lorne gave a cold snort, raised his hand, and tossed the refilled sacred cup to Sisyphus, who caught it, tilted his head back, and downed the deep-red wine in one go.
With the preparation complete, Lorne drove the Flame, Avatar of purification, to its absolute limit.
At once, golden fire roared up from Adonis's body, leaping several meters into the air.
The scorched flesh and bone were carbonized layer by layer under the ferocious heat, breaking apart and drifting away as ash on the wind.
But both Adonis and Sisyphus, once they steadied themselves, discovered to their astonishment that this seemingly brutal punishment of fire brought them not a single shred of pain.
On the contrary, it was like standing before a hearth inside a warm home, filling them with a deep, spreading comfort.
Or like a lantern burning in a cold night, driving the chill from their bones, lighting the darkness before their eyes.
Every dark thought in their minds was swept clean away, and boundless courage erupted from somewhere deep inside them.
Throughout this, the wine that had flowed into their bodies served as kindling, guiding the Flame to incinerate every last trace of corruption from Adonis's flesh and every impurity from Sisyphus's body, preserving only the original purity and unblemished state beneath.
At last, somewhere in the unseen depths of things, the sound of a chain snapping rang out.
Two tendrils of dense black death energy, exposed and inescapable, crumbled and dissolved under the Flame's searing heat.
Adonis, his true soul stripped free from the body of flesh, collapsed to the ground and gulped in air with the deep relief of a man who had survived something terrible, his eyes full of gratitude.
Equally, Sisyphus, scoured inside and out by the Flame, could not keep the lingering fear from his expression.
He was deeply grateful he had only drunk a few mouthfuls from the Elysian rivers and stolen a few fruits on the side.
If he had taken much more, he would have been in serious trouble.
"Pfft!"
At that moment, a muffled grunt came from ahead.
Thetis, who had been holding the line, lurched as though struck by lightning.
Her face drained white, and a thread of gold-red divine blood seeped from the corner of her mouth.
Lorne's heart clenched at the sight as he lunged forward and caught Thetis before she fell.
"He is here. Move now!"
At Thetis's warning, the young man gave a sharp nod but did not rush straight for the exit.
He turned to look at the Elysian Fields around him, with their hauntingly beautiful scenery and their blank-faced, drifting residents, his eyes narrowing.
He began the invocation again, refilled the sacred cup, and then poured it out again and again over the land that called itself paradise.
At the same time, the Flame of his Sixth Avatar blazed fiercely, following the wine as its kindling, and ignited the surrounding plants, the rivers, and even those dazed and wandering residents of the Elysian Fields.
"It hurts, it hurts so much..."
"What is happening to me?"
"Who am I? Where am I?"
One after another, the residents of the Elysian Fields, their flesh splitting under the Flame, began to shake free from the fog inside their minds.
Clarity and bewilderment surfaced in their eyes one by one.
Due to some unknown suppressive effect, they remembered only that they had been sleeping for a very long time, as though trapped inside an endless, beautiful dream.
And now, it seemed, that dream was breaking.
"Hmmm!"
At the same moment, black clouds rolled across the sky above, and a surging wave of death energy came crashing in.
"The one who locked us in here is coming. Run!"
Somewhere in the crowd, someone shouted it out.
The people came to their senses all at once, their minds not yet fully restored, but filled in an instant by a single word.
Flee.
Whoosh!
Then four water-blue figures shot through the open gate in the luminous barrier at a speed that left no time to react, scattering in different directions and vanishing into the distance.
With that lead given, the residents of the Elysian Fields snapped to attention and surged as one toward the single exit.
The moment each of them crossed through the gate, a needle-sharp pain stabbed through their minds, as though trying to block them from going further.
But if anything, it only hardened their resolve.
If this truly had been a paradise of bliss, why would it be warning them and controlling them in this manner?
And as the golden firelight clinging to their bodies continued to rise and flicker, the pain inside their heads seemed to ease, and proved bearable after all.
Escape.
The same thought branded itself into every mind in that crowd without anyone having to say it.
Stream after stream of light poured through the open gate in the Wall of Lament, scattering in flight across every direction.
In an instant, the entire underworld shook.
"Hmph!"
Accompanied by a low, grim snort, a pillar of black light descended from the ink-dark clouds above.
The radiance faded, and a tall, upright figure of a middle-aged god came fully into view.
His face carried none of the imposing power one might expect of the Titans.
His appearance was remarkably ordinary.
Upon his head sat a magnificent helmet engraved with dim divine markings, causing the space around it to distort faintly, his form growing somewhat translucent.
The ordinary-looking longsword he held loosely in one hand dragged along the ground as he walked forward, carving a furrow reeking of death energy in its wake.
Every flower and blade of underworld grass along the way withered and died.
"Trying to flee? Stop where you are."
The death-energy-wrapped blade swung out in four directions with a casual, unhurried motion, carrying the sharp crack of cleaving air.
Slice, slice, slice, slice.
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
In an instant, the four figures racing ahead at the front of the fleeing crowd were cut cleanly in two.
Then a sky full of water droplets scattered and fell like rain.
The middle-aged god raised his head slightly, looking at the four shapes dissolving and fading in four different directions, and at the faintly blurred curtain of rainfall surrounding them, a dark expression creeping slowly into his eyes.
Illusions.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
At the same moment, gate after gate of ivory appeared in the sky above.
Hypnos, who had arrived belatedly, and the three Erinyes looked at the middle-aged god standing on the field below, his expression far from pleased, and at the Elysian Fields in utter chaos around him. Embarrassment crossed their faces.
"Lord Hades, we..."
"Enough. I do not need explanations. Bring back every soul that has escaped immediately. Whatever the shortfall, figure out how to make it up yourselves."
As Hades's dark eyes swept across the air around him, the three Dream Gods and the three thousand Oneiroi standing watch all felt a simultaneous chill pass through them.
If there truly was a shortfall, the senior figures overhead might not end up getting thrown into the Elysian Fields as decorative plants, but for those below, it was far from certain.
Realizing the impending trouble, the Dream Gods hurriedly scattered, rushing towards the escaped souls in all directions, beginning a massive capture operation.
With the Oneiroi and the underworld guards dispersing in all directions, Hades turned his gaze toward the negligent Hypnos and the three Erinyes still standing on the field.
He had half a mind to erupt, but in the end only pressed his brow into a cold frown and issued a warning.
"I do not want to see those rats in my back garden again. Is that understood?"
"At once! You will not need to concern yourself with this again!"
Hypnos and the three Erinyes bowed their heads quickly in reply, their manner respectfully deferential.
Seeing his subordinates respond with at least a reasonable degree of sense, Hades gave a satisfied nod, turned, and walked back toward his own temple.
He still had a bonsai arrangement to finish, a gift for his beloved queen.
With their nominal superior gone from the scene, the three gods of major underworld standing let out a long breath of relief.
Hades was often obsessed with using various methods to please Persephone, the queen of the underworld who rarely paid him any attention.
As a result, this somewhat reclusive king of the underworld rarely involved himself in specific matters, had an almost invisible presence, and functioned more like a piece of furniture most of the time.
But his power and standing were absolutely not something any of them could afford to provoke or challenge.
Three damned rats.
The four major gods of the underworld, having all been dressed down in front of their superior, each cursed the culprits roundly in their hearts.
If those blind fools had not crept into the particular corner of his domain that Hades actually cared about, he would never have walked out of that temple himself to make his position known and apply pressure to them all.
When they were caught, there would be suffering waiting for them.
Hypnos, flute in hand, and the Furies, wielding their viper whips, flew towards the sources of unrest, relentlessly suppressing and capturing the fugitives
* * *
At this very moment, inside the Elysian Fields, which was barely recognizable anymore.
With a great rushing splash of water, four figures burst up from the muddy riverbed and dragged themselves up onto the scorched black riverbank.
Sisyphus patted his chest, his expression still shaken, looking toward the direction beyond the Wall of Lament where that dark figure had disappeared.
"That just now was... Hades, King of the Underworld?"
"What else did you think?"
Lorne shot back without patience, drying the water from his clothes with a flicker of heat, and glanced sideways at Sisyphus, who was waving his arms about wildly.
"Brother, you are something else.
You actually thought to send all those souls out as cover and hide right here on the spot. That was genuinely something."
"Mm?"
"Brilliant! I mean brilliant! Your wisdom puts even Athena to shame!"
Sisyphus caught the unfriendly look being directed his way and immediately switched to shameless flattery with a dry laugh.
Lorne could not be bothered entertaining the swindler's compliments.
He swept a glance at the chaotic situation outside the Elysian Fields, then immediately dropped his voice. "Stop babbling. While no one is watching this spot, we get out now, under cover of the chaos."
The most dangerous place was, after all, the safest place.
But he had already used the principle of hiding in plain sight once to outwit Hades and the gods of the underworld.
There was no guarantee they would not notice something once they had a moment to think.
And once the other side had rounded up the escaped souls, they would inevitably be returned to the Elysian Fields.
When that happened, staying hidden here would clearly no longer be an option.
With his thinking clear, Lorne concealed his presence without hesitation, activated the godlike speed of the Goat, and broke through the gates of the Elysian Fields.
Sisyphus, still on the field, looked at the two figures vanishing into the distance, then looked at Adonis lying limp on the ground beside him.
In the end, he could only grit his teeth, hoist his unfortunate buddy onto his back, and frantically channel his wind god bloodline to follow them.
(End of Chapter)