chapter 65

Rhea’s POV

“I have the exact coordinates of the demon lair. When shall we attack them?” Artemis asked. She looked ready for the hunt. She was the Goddess of the hunt, after all.

“We should wait and plan properly. I think we should ask Mercy to join us. She is extremely powerful, and having her on our side will help us win against the demons. If she is okay with it, we shall plan the attack at twilight because after that time they would get out of their lairs and lurk in the streets. We have to catch them before they go out,” I said. 

I frowned when I saw Adrian and Artemis both looking at me with identical expressions of disbelief. Were these two long-lost siblings or something? And why were they looking at me like that? Did I say something stupid again? I thought over what I had spoken and didn’t feel anything wrong with it.

“What?” I asked in exasperation. 

“Are you fine, Rhea? Did you hit your head somewhere?” Artemis asked me.

I didn’t bother to respond to her silly question. I turned to Adrian and looked at him expectantly.

“Well, it is the first time that you acted as the sensible one among us. It is so not like you to think about waiting and planning. And you even thought of asking Mercy for help instead of marching alone into the middle of the demons. Definitely not normal… at least for you,” Adrian said.

I didn’t know if he had just complimented me or insulted me. So I settled on glaring at him. He didn’t seem to notice it as he continued speaking.

“And asking Mercy is actually a good idea. I wonder why I didn’t think of it myself. There is no shame in asking for help when you need it,” Adrian said, finishing his thoughts. 

I had to agree with them that it was out of character for me to plan something and ask for help. So far, I have been a wing it type of girl. So far, it didn’t work out well for me. I had always ended up losing and needing help. Maybe that’s why I decided to change my strategy? Or maybe the meditation sections had some effect on my thought processes? Whatever it was, I knew that my current approach was the better one…

“Yes. Even as Nemesis, you were always impulsive. This is definitely a big change for you,” Artemis said. 

She looked confused whether the change was good or not. On one hand, she seemed to appreciate my suggestion, but on the other hand, it was unlike the Nemesis she knew. She must be feeling as if I was getting further and further from who I was…

“This is the coordinates of the location of the demon lair,” Artemis said. Then she uttered some random numbers that seemed like gibberish to me, but I saw Adrian nodding at her. Well, if he understood, it was good enough for me.

“Let’s meet there before twilight. Bring your friend with you if she is willing to help us,” she said. 

I waited for her to disappear the next moment because this would be the point she does that every time. But she seemed to notice my expression, and a slight smile formed on her face. 

“See you before the big fight,” she said. Then she gave a small wave and the next moment, she vanished.

Well, my Goddess friend was finally learning some manners…

I turned to Adrian and raised my brows at him. 

“So, who is calling Mercy? You or me?” I asked him. 

“Definitely you. She has declared you as her new best buddy,” Adrian said. 

Then he whistled merrily and walked out of the room.

I shrugged and went ahead with my task of calling Mercy.

She picked at the first ring itself.

“Hey! What’s up?” she asked.

“Are you up to roast some demon asses?” I asked without bothering with niceties.

“You have to ask? Just tell me when! I love such adventures and it would be like Christmas coming early for me,” she replied excitedly.

“Great! Meet us here at five. We shall go together and Artemis would meet us there,” I instructed her.

“Artemis? The Goddess Artemis?” she squealed.

“Yeah?” I answered, and it came out in a questioning tone.

“I am going to meet a Goddess!” she squealed.

“Well, you already met me…,” I informed her.

“You don’t count Rhea…,” she replied.

Ouch! Even she had started to insult me. Great!

“You shall meet a real Goddess in the evening then. See you later,” I said and rolled my eyes even though she couldn’t see it.

“See you,” Mercy said before hanging up.

Hours later, we all stood in front of a dilapidated building that looked nothing like what I expected a demon lair to look like. I guess I was expecting a spooky-looking castle or something. But this was just an old building that looked abandoned. I would have doubted if we were in the right place if I hadn’t been able to sense the demonic energy from miles away.  The place was swarming with demons, and their energy was like bugs crawling all over my body. So disturbing!

I looked at my companions. A Goddess with an attitude problem, a dangerous supernatural guy whose species I was yet to find, a powerful but eccentric witch and a Goddess who lost her memories… What a team!

“We have to capture at least a few shadow demons. They are a relatively new breed and so far, we had only killed them on meeting them. Never had anyone tried to capture them, and I don’t know if traditional containment methods work on them. We shall hope it does or it will all be for nothing,” Artemis said.

For all our sakes, I too hoped that the containment spells worked on the shadow demons. If not, we would just have to kill the demons and we wouldn’t be getting any answers. 

“Wait! Shadow demons can’t talk, right? Then how would we get any information from them?” I asked. So far, I had been focused on finding and hunting them that I didn’t think about questioning them. 

“Glad to see you haven’t changed totally. I was worried if you had a total change of personality,” Artemis teased me. I ignored her as usual and waited for Adrian to speak. 

“The shadow demons do have a language. We could understand them with a language spell,” Adrian answered me. 

I thought of the weird hissing sounds they made. So that was a language?

I nodded at him. So we just had to capture a shadow demon. Easy! Wasn’t it?

I looked at the building emanating demonic energy and narrowed my eyes. Let’s just see how it goes. Easy or not, we had to win. The fate of the world depended on it. 

“Let’s attack!” I declared.  And we did…