Novel23 Book 4: Prologue
Book 4: Prologue
Prologue
“What do you mean? This was handled hundreds of years ago when we first made it to the ascendant lands. Longer even.” Belinos waved his hand dismissively at his sister, the Goddess of Earth, Eripo.
The goddess rolled her eyes in return, “You think I come here to waste my breath? Belinos, I tell you that something is coming, something has changed. Beldia has stirred in her tower.”
The God of Fire paused as he heard the last line. The Goddess of Light, in her illuminated tower, pausing her grief filled cultivation? That was indeed a change. He turned to Eripo fully then, sitting back down on his red crystal throne.
As he connected his being with the ruby seat, the room around them began to brighten, and the temperature rose considerably. The Seat of Inferno was part of Belinos’ cultivation technique, and just sitting up it created rolling waves of heat that would have melted any Sage Tier mage that was inside the room.
For Eripo, a sixth tier cultivator, the Goddess of Earth, the heat was nothing more than a pleasant warmth. She remained standing at the base of the staired dais where Belinos’ throne dominated. She continued looking up at him with calm eyes. Although she was shorter, and standing a few feet below him, her stature was not at all lower than his.
“What did she say? Our sister?” He finally asked.
“At first? She lied,” Eripo said. “Claimed she noticed some common worldstriders appear. But something about her actions made me suspicious. I went to Irianna, and the two of us confronted our sister together. That’s when she admitted it.”
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Belinos leaned forward then, his attention now fully on her. The crystal beneath him began to glow brighter as his emotions changed. The throne hall, the immense room in which they stood, started to heat even more. The white stone columns and floor tiles, all crafted carefully from Celestial Tier natural materials, began to grow red from the added heat.
“She admitted it? She has proof?” He asked.
Eripo shook her head. She still stood in the blazing heat unperturbed. “No. But she was connected to him in ways that none of us ever were. If anyone can detect him, it’s her. I trust her judgment in this matter, as clouded and biased as it may be.”
“I know these things just as well as you, sister, please don’t lecture me.”
The Goddess of Earth smiled slightly. She had somehow missed her brother’s fiery temperament. As a cultivator of Earth, she was always far more… grounded, than he was. She turned around, her hands folding behind her back, her robes swirling about her form. “I know brother, apologies, nothing to get heated about.”
“You try me, sister.” The temperature went up another notch.
“Apologies, again. My tongue becomes a stone rolling upon a mountainside sometimes. It gets away from me.” She turned back to him with a smirk.
“Get back to the topic. What do you think? Is it true? Do we need to worry?” Belinos finally leaned back on his throne once more.
Eripo thought about her answer for some time. She knew what answer she wanted to say, and which answer she wanted to be the truth. Those two were not the same, not in the least. And she hated having to admit her worries aloud, preferring to calcify them away under the timeless march of her cultivation.
This was not one of those worries that could be buried down under a tectonic slab, though. It would not stay hidden, and it would burst from under its prison and spread destruction over existence if she tried.
She sighed heavily before finally answering.
“Yes, I think it is true.” She said. “I think that somehow, in someway, Arnan has returned to Aetherios. He’s back.”
The white columns of the room began to melt shortly after.