Pandora finally let out a breath of relief at the news.
She was different from Athena. Born from the power within Pandora's Box itself, she had always feared Zeus, and so she had spent her days shut away in the maze rather than risk his notice. Now that she'd been freed of it, she felt nothing but genuine joy.
The divine power that had washed over her had stripped away the dull, lifeless pallor her skin once carried. She looked, now, like nothing so much as a happy young girl — a purple-fringed long skirt, short purple hair to match, every bit as dreamlike a sight as Athena herself, and no less striking for it.
Liu Che had assumed, going by the aesthetic of the God of War games, that these goddesses would look rather plain. Only after actually meeting them did he understand otherwise. A game's art style was just that — a game's art style. It had nothing to do with the real world behind it. Athena, for instance, was a textbook Western beauty: hair with the faintest curl to it, eyes a deep, icy blue. And the three goddesses of destiny carried themselves with the bearing of mature women, their figures and temperament needing no further comment.
Athena, Pandora, and the other three women went off shortly after to find their own quarters, eager to familiarize themselves with their surroundings and their new duties.
Liu Che turned and made his way back to his own palace, where Yan Ling Ji and Xue Nu had been waiting for him for some time.
"My lord, have you finished handling things?" Xue Nu asked, having just finished bathing, hurrying over to greet him. Yan Ling Ji was quick to follow, not to be outdone.
The two of them were opposites in temperament — one all ice, the other all fire — and their divine attributes reflected it just as clearly. Today had been meant as their turn with him, but the business with Kratos's sacrifice had delayed things a while.
Liu Che slipped an arm around each of their waists and walked them both inward, smiling. "It was only a small matter. How has your cultivation been coming along lately?"
Yan Ling Ji answered quietly. "The laws of the fire attribute run deep and wide. I'm still a little short of breaking through to godhood."
"I'm even further behind," Xue Nu admitted, a touch bashfully.
Neither of them had been here very long, and though each carried her own law and bonus attributes, their pace of cultivation was still slower than most. Only with the other sisters' help had they made it this far — otherwise they'd still be stuck at the strength of an eight-star goddess.
Liu Che nodded, well aware how hard they'd both been working. If they hadn't been, the God of War wouldn't have arranged for them to come here in the first place.
"Let me give you both some pointers this time. It should help close the gap a little..."
—
Meanwhile, in the world of Journey to the West, time had passed quietly around Wuyue Mountain without further incident, which came as a relief to Tathagata and the rest of his circle. They'd concluded that whatever disturbance had passed through earlier must have been some great god merely passing by, one who'd been in a foul mood and happened to run into a few unlucky fools along the way.
As long as it didn't interfere with the westward pilgrimage, that was all that mattered to them.
Supreme Treasure lay sprawled on the ground with a blade of grass between his teeth, the very picture of harmlessness. In truth, his spirit had already gone searching for the Bull Demon King. The old brute really was something else — for all his talk of brotherhood back in the day, once Supreme Treasure had been reincarnated, the Bull Demon King had still sent someone to keep watch on him.
"Hmph... this time, I'll finish you for good."
Supreme Treasure's expression twisted into something strange as he transformed into one of the Bull Demon King's own underlings and offered him a cup of cursed wine.
The underling beside the Bull Demon King asked, "Your Majesty, when will Monk Tang be arriving? There's been no word yet from our men on the front line."
"Hmph, what's the rush? The day hasn't come yet."
The Bull Demon King drank the wine without a second thought. Then he turned to the underling and asked, "And my wife? Any sign of her?"
"Your Majesty, no movement from her for now."
"Good. That woman's nothing but trouble whenever she stirs."
Hearing that Princess Iron Fan hadn't moved, the Bull Demon King relaxed. He had no idea the news had already reached Supreme Treasure's ears.
In this life, Supreme Treasure had been little more than a common thief before taking up the cultivation of divine law, and his true spirit had never fully reassembled itself — his memories from before remained incomplete. Still, fragments of them lingered in his mind, and among them was Princess Iron Fan's remarkable beauty. If he could deceive her properly, offering her up as a sacrifice would be no small prize.
The thought of the lovely Princess Iron Fan brought a private smile to Supreme Treasure's face. Keeping up the pretense, he swapped places with the real underling and slipped away at last.
Princess Iron Fan, at that moment, was naturally back at her own cave estate. Supreme Treasure's primordial spirit moved swiftly and arrived there within moments.
Sure enough, there she stood at the mouth of the cave in a gown the color of pale jade, sighing to herself.
"That wretched old ox knows perfectly well he's out gallivanting day and night. I may follow the ways of the Rakshasa, but we're still husband and wife, even if we've never once shared a bed.
But without the strength of my Rakshasa clan behind him, how would he have ever cultivated to the level he's at now?
Ah... and even the monkey's dead now. What a fate this all turned out to be..."
Supreme Treasure froze at her words. He'd assumed Princess Iron Fan would no longer be of pure yin body — after all, five hundred years had passed. Surely even that stubborn old ox couldn't have held back that long.
But thinking it over carefully, something about it didn't add up. This Princess Iron Fan was as lovely as any flower in bloom, with the strength of a true immortal to match. And yet, for all that, the Bull Demon King had never much cared for her — if anything, he seemed almost afraid of her.
So that was how it was.
Supreme Treasure could hardly contain his delight. What luck he'd had today. Princess Iron Fan carried the protective power of the Rakshasa within her, power the Bull Demon King couldn't get anywhere near. An offering like that — pure, untouched, and powerful besides — was almost too good to be true.
"If I hadn't come looking myself, I really would have missed out on this..."
A cruel thought settled over Supreme Treasure. He pressed his palms together and began to work his sorcery. Whatever tenderness and loyalty he showed his friends, he showed his enemies none of it — none at all. Which was, in the end, exactly why the deity he'd chosen to cultivate was one of secrecy and shadow: capable of cursing, of weaving illusions, and of casting hypnosis powerful enough to bend a mind entirely.
The spell completed, a beam of light fell over the unsuspecting Princess Iron Fan.
Shoo.
Darkness swallowed her vision, and she crumpled straight to the ground.
Supreme Treasure hurried to wrap her in a gust of divine wind, then searched through the cave until he found a gourd meant for storage.
"This will do. Wouldn't be safe leaving her out in the open otherwise..."
He used his divine power to fold her into a working array, sealed her inside the gourd, then turned himself into a clean breeze and flew off toward Wuyue Mountain.
...
Thousands of miles from Wuyue Mountain, at that very hour, a strikingly beautiful woman sat lost in thought over her own life before mounting up and riding toward the land of fate. She had no idea that an immortal's mark had been placed atop her head, no idea at all that she'd become part of someone else's design. Not long after she departed, Bai Jingjing, her junior, quietly followed after her.
...
Deep within the belly of Wuyue Mountain, a handful of monsters under the bandits' control were hard at work building an altar, digging away in the light of midday. They were minor creatures, all of them, and with the surrounding watch posts already under the second-in-command's control, no one paid them any mind at all.
"How's the altar coming along?" Supreme Treasure asked his subordinates once his spirit had returned to his body.
The blind man among them grinned. "Another two days and it'll be finished. We'll still need a full day after that to polish the details."
Three days.
Plenty of time.
———
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