The world's sunset, the twilight of the gods?! And it was only ten days away!
Samael's pupils contracted sharply, and he immediately pressed Ana for the source of the prophecy and how certain it was.
But after frowning and thinking for a moment, Ana only shook her head again and again. Clearly, in the process of descending as a Divided Spirit, some kind of force had interfered with the integrity of her memories.
Even so, she was absolutely certain that the ten-day crisis was coming.
The Ancient Serpent frowned deeply, feeling as though some invisible thread was linking everything happening now.
"Forget it. If I can't make sense of it, there's no point forcing it for now. You came at just the right time, though. I've got one piece of good news and one piece of bad news. Which one do you want to hear first?"
After thinking it over several times and still failing to grasp the key point for lack of crucial information, Samael gave up on dwelling on it. Instead, he relaxed and looked at Ana with a smile, his expression mysterious and teasing.
"The bad news..."
Ana thought for a moment. Out of habit, her pessimistic streak made her instinctively choose the worse part first.
Samael let out a long sigh, shrugged, and spoke with helpless resignation.
"The Third Greco-Persian War is here. Thermopylae is in danger, and the one guarding it right now just so happens to be an old friend of ours, Leonidas..."
"Will Leonidas be in danger?"
Ana's little face tightened at once. Her hand unconsciously clenched Samael's arm, and she bit her lip lightly, worry plain on her face.
"So you're not going to hear the good news first?"
The Ancient Serpent flicked the smooth center of the girl's forehead with a bent finger, his expression openly amused.
"The good news is..."
Little Ana instinctively lifted her pretty face and looked at Samael nervously.
Because this Spirit Origin had been made using the form she once descended in back in Mesopotamia, and because she had copied it directly in order to arrive ahead of the others, her personality also leaned more toward the Little Ana of the past.
For Samael, that made teasing her particularly entertaining.
Still, when faced with Little Ana's sensitive, fragile gaze, what little conscience the Ancient Serpent had began to ache. He held out only a few breaths before raising both hands in surrender and honestly explaining everything, putting the young goddess at ease.
"Don't worry. On my way back to Athens, I ran into big sister Quetzalcoatl and Jaguar. I already asked them then to head to Thermopylae and support Leonidas. By this point, they should be almost there."
With Samael's assurance, Ana finally relaxed and patted her chest in relief.
"And one more thing. I also met old man Ziusudra in Mesopotamia, and I've already invited him to come to Greece and visit. It shouldn't be long before we see him too."
The Ancient Serpent's eyes brimmed with a smile as he continued sharing news that made Little Ana even happier.
"Also, I'm speeding up the integration of the Greek city-states' forces. We'll be ready to depart by the day after tomorrow at the latest and rush to Thermopylae. Then we can go see Leonidas together. Once the Persians are beaten back and the [Gate] opens, we can call Gilgamesh and the others over too and have a proper feast and celebration."
"Okay!"
"The must-order items are butter cake and lamb chops, right?"
"Mhm!"
"And since it's so rare for everyone to be together, we should definitely have a few drinks too. Otherwise it won't feel complete."
"No problem!"
Little Ana nodded hard, her violet eyes shining, her lovely face filled with delighted nostalgia and contentment.
But then, an odd sense of something missing quietly stirred in her heart, leaving behind a trace of strange confusion.
"Are we forgetting something?"
"What could we be forgetting?"
"Mmm. Maybe it's just my imagination."
Little Ana frowned and thought for a moment, then let it go and nodded. She and Samael exchanged a smile, both of them filled with happiness and anticipation.
Achoo!
At the same time, somewhere high atop a tower in the sea of stars, a certain friendly big brother with white hair and long ears suddenly felt a wave of sorrow and cold for no apparent reason, and sneezed violently.
"Ana, the 'disinfection work' in Athens isn't stopping anytime soon. I'll take you somewhere to rest first so you can recover your strength. Once everything's ready, we'll leave with the fleet the day after tomorrow."
After chatting for a while, Samael led the young goddess by the hand out of the great hall, through a marble corridor carved with exquisite reliefs, and past the mass-produced Valkyries standing guard along the way, before settling her into a room that had already been prepared.
But just as the Ancient Serpent finished getting Little Ana settled and was about to leave, the young goddess, standing behind the door, raised a hand and caught his forearm again, hesitation in her eyes.
"Samael, Leonidas's original fate was to die at Thermopylae, right?"
The Ancient Serpent lifted his hand and gently stroked Ana's head with a smile, his tone calm and soft as he comforted her.
"With big sister Quetzalcoatl and Jaguar there, there's nothing to worry about. Those two are chief gods of the Maya, after all. There aren't many who can beat them."
"But what if something still goes wrong?"
Little Ana's eyes burned with worry. Her habitual pessimism still left her uneasy.
"There's no such thing as that many what-ifs..."
Samael chuckled and tried to soothe her on instinct, but his voice slowly trailed off, and a ripple passed through his eyes.
In the next instant, those serpent-like vertical pupils narrowed again. Samael kept his expression unchanged and patted Ana on the shoulder.
"Alright, stop overthinking it. It'll be fine. Be good and get some rest."
After hearing the Ancient Serpent reassure her again and again, Little Ana gradually relaxed, nodded obediently, and turned to go inside.
What if...
As the lamp in the room was blown out, Samael murmured under his breath. The figure of a certain pink-haired fox rose in his mind, his gaze flickering faintly as his brow slowly knotted together.
By this point, they should have arrived too...
...
At the outer edge of the Thermopylae front line, in the occupied zone of the Tempe Valley.
Boom! Boom!
With two shrill explosions, a raging Ether tide tore through the area like a category-twelve storm, ripping nearby trees and brush up by the roots, cutting off the stream that ran through the valley, and gouging radiating cracks across the rock face.
In an instant, smoke, mist, and shredded plant matter swirled together chaotically, turning the whole valley into a hazy blur.
Hummm! Hummm!
But the next moment, golden flames surged upward and burned away the murk, leaving darkness nowhere to hide. They were like a blazing sun, bringing warmth, light, and heat to all things. Beside them, twisted black mist spread outward, reeking of bestial frenzy and savage corruption.
As the two forces intertwined, the surrounding vegetation burst into wild growth, and lush green shade spread across half the valley in an instant.
Sizzle... sizzle...
Yet the phenomena born from those Authorities stopped dead at the halfway point of the valley, unable to advance even an inch farther.
"You two. This road is closed. Please turn back..."
Standing on a slab of bluestone, the red-haired boy opened his eyes with one hand resting on his sword and spoke in a quiet, solemn voice. There was not the slightest trace of worldly heat about him, as though he and the surrounding world had merged into one, ordered and perfectly still.
"Vishnu, ever since you started acting human, have you gotten this annoyingly chatty? If you want to fight, then fight. Why bother with all the nonsense!"
The blonde beauty with twin horns bared a mouthful of sharp teeth in an irritated sneer. Then she lowered the spear in her hand and pointed it toward the writhing, violent mass of black mist, licking her lips with excitement.
"That one's to my taste. It's mine!"
Vritra, the Asura King, stomped forward and charged. Every muscle and joint in her body, every drop of blood, every cell, cried out with joyful hunger.
The Asura were a race born for battle. They lived to fight and would not rest until death. And their greatest pleasure was conquering one opponent after another.
"Tch. Don't go looking down on Jaguar here!"
Dressed in a mascot suit, Tezcatlipoca, the berserk god among the Four Pillars of Mayan Creation, ground her fangs, every hair on her body standing on end. Swinging her hooked claws, she swept forward, and a crisscrossing roar split the sky. Terrifying sonic booms, driven by surging Ether, rolled outward for a hundred miles.
Amid the flying sand and shattered stone, the gold-clad and crimson-clad figures wreathed in blazing light remained standing completely still, staring at each other from afar.
Kukulkan stood rooted in place, her brows tightly knit as she looked toward the distant pass, worry filling her eyes.
The Persian Evil Dragon, the Asura King Vritra, and Vishnu, one of India's supreme triad of gods, the god of order!
To run into opponents of equal strength here of all places. Thermopylae was in serious trouble now!