30

O(I)O(I)

Baragon just stared quietly pondering to himself the reasons he should be a demi-god and the reasons he couldn't and shouldn't be a demi-god. While he was busy thinking to himself the blue dog was busy pushing him through the astral bridge over the giant blue bottomless pit and into the realm of the gods.

They walked to what looked like the homes of Gods. They looked like slivers from afar but moving closer to the homes he could see the gods residing there. First there was a god with red hair freckled yellow in the midsection near his forehead and he was chopping up sausages in a house that spurted flames from the ground. After him was another male god with crop black hair but a grey tuft appendage sticking out of his head. He was dabbling that appendage in a vial of black ink. At first it looked like he was trying to use it to draw something on a sheet of paper or a wall but instead he touched it with his finger and then traced it around his white robes. And finally there was a house with a pink haired girl with amply large bosoms drinking from a barrel of what could be ale, and on that barrel was another barrel followed by another barrel. She was holding five barrels together all at once. And when she finished the barrel fell off so she could continue drinking again.

"Can I be honest about this place?"

"We've flitted through the open houses of every minor god. Go right ahead."

"None of these gods look like their trying to help anyone and I know lots of people who could use their benevolence(s)."

The big blue sarcastically clapped his hands together while kicking Baragon with his left heel.

"Such as the way you mortals know right and wrong we gods know when to and not to utilize our powers for such trifles and quarrels such as using the blessing of Mimume to hurt your brother."

Baragon looked at his feet reminiscing about that demur part of his life. And then—he had the gull to make a joke about it.

"Heart of bronze us dwarves are, but you gods are on a much-"

"We are higher than even your most wondrous mortals. Would you like to see how we get stuff done in the Hall of EnneaGON?"

Baragon put on a smile before banging the prominent hilt of his halberd on the celestial purple clay floor. They moved to a building reminiscent of a spire that appeared during the days Niaz Ooal Gown first came into power.

It was blue with nine white insignia's of nine different beings of gods including ones holding two flamethrowers in their hands, one towering over a volcano and another going through a portal to steal fish from a cook.

When Baragon got to go inside he was amazed at the brightly blue lighting meshed with the violet walls and the nine large thrones that were circled around the spire. But instead of being greeted by nine gods...there were only three.

There was another pink haired bombshell of a woman sitting on her throne. She was cladded in a white toga with a blue squirrel holding the buckle together of her toga; it seemed she didn't have a pin to keep it together. She was peach skinned and her eyes were a very dark shade of green.

Then the other was a hazel skinned gentleman with a blue toga with a triangle where the collar should be, gray eyes, auburn hair and a very chiseled chin. Lastly there was a dwarfish looking one with a green and red checkered suit all over his body, a strange metallic backpack with two pumps protruding from it, a yellow and black handkerchief around his black hair and crimson eyes with a small set of goggles over them. He had a foot long brown beard flecked with a grey lightning bolt.

Even with Baragon's footsteps sounding like a Tizheruk on a floor of broken glass, the gods never gave him an inkling of concentration. The goddess with the squirrel on her toga was too busy pecking at a blade that appeared to be rotting and then returning to completely removed of any dirt. . The god with the blue toga kept looking through a blue circle with a window showing him girls arm wrestling or decapitating goblins. As for the dwarfish god...he was too busy looking at the goddess to notice Baragon.

Baragon may have been a demi-god but genning his name in this room was as hard as a mouse swimming faster than a snake.

"Excuse me...excuse me. Does anyone know how to find the exit in this cloud city?"

Baragon recognized that voice. The god with the foot long brown beard flecked with gray showed attentiveness to that voice as well looking at him. Saitama looking around the room like a beefcake male actor trying to find his trailer.

The way he spun around was the same way Rocky Balboa spun around. He stopped, started talking.

"I was in a fight..."

Flashback:

Saitama arrived too late to save Baragon but he crushed the root with his fists in one quick punch.

His one-sided victory was short lived; the tree contorted and growled until it was completely reformed.

"Guess it has to be punched in a very specific spot."

Saitama tapped his foot on the ground—the floor completely crumbled and he fell into the underground. He was now plummeting down creating a tunnel in nothing but dirt and rocks.

He didn't fall for long. He fell until a giant grey tree with an eerily scary giant skull in the trunk appeared under him. Even if the creature had a scary face that made it hard to see an impression on it, Saitama could tell by its low guttural sound that it was scared of him.

"Y-You can't be able to do this; what are you?!"

Saitama roiled back until he was under the undead root.

"I'm a guy who won't hold back anymore against you. Actual. Serious. Punch."

He punched so hard a strong turbulence of wind cleaved through its spire form crumbling it as a thunderous roar echoed through the dirt laden abyss.

And then-a white door throttled towards him.

Flashback End:

Saitama's presence caused the other gods to quibble. Baragon was surprised by Saitama's sudden appearance even more than the gods he heard so much folklore about but he was even more conflicted with seeing a god that resembled him to a tee only for that god to not even look at him.

His feelings were hurt but not scathed enough for him to stand all frozen and dumb remembering his past—just a little seethed.

Although it made Baragon morose to see the dwarven god give Saitama all the attention, he listened to what he asked the bald hero:

"Is it your wish to return to your own world-if not we have to be honest with you. You are not welcomed in here. We don't want a repeat of the last summon who appeared in our world."

"That's good to know," Saitama replied nonchalantly. "I just want to get back to where I was before being dragged here, and help Nolb and Gava cast that resu-"

"Wait...Gava?" The female god gasped. "GAVA?"

Saitama didn't see how her name could mean anything—he nodded.

All that sparkling lustrous skin faded to an almost human level of vivaciousness.

"A-Are you telling me you've left the grimoire of spells so high tier they could bring about the end of the world in the hands of an iz'ba like Gava?"

O(I)O(I)

Nolb felt it was too soon...he wasn't given enough time to recover. When the goblins pillaged, cleaved and murdered he was holding his arms out to protect his wife much the same as he was right now. There used to be loud howling noise coming through the door—then two popping sounds—and now things were absolutely quiet.

"Dear... if there was ever a time for us to help Great Hero...now would be the ideal time."

They turned their attention to where the grimoire laid. It had a lustrous sheen on its black cover. Nolb stroked the spine before looking at his wife, her effervescent smile giving him all the consent he needed. He tried prying it open, but the cover was jammed.

Nolb hefted on the corners of the cover with all his might only for the book to weigh as much as a horse—a dog he could carry like a sheep ten yards but a horse was impossible. He eventually gave up after his wife put her hand on it.

She bathed the book in a ray of holy light. Her body started to move on its own like a roiling wave of ants was just beneath her slender, sexy, and all Nolb's feet. What she was doing was analyzing the grimoire.

"This book cannot be opened by humans..." Her eyes twinkled with sorrowfulness. "Please don't be mad."

A sharp U-shaped horn wormed its way out of her head. Her eyes glowed a refulgent crimson red. Her tunic shrunk microsized into a skimpy black bikini with skimpy black underwear to go with it and her elbows and ankles were covered in black organic material, armor.

Embedded in her hair were reddish crystals that sparkled like rubies and her lips were more pink than what many plebian women could afford to show. She stood stolidly, let the reminiscent of her true form drill into her hubby's memory, and then she finally spoke:

"I hope after all these years this form doesn't have me look weird."

If she was born in the world of leering men such as Saitama's world she wouldn't feel so shy.

"I find nothing wrong with you as a normal woman or as a iz'ba—your still my beloved wife—my dearest Gava."

Gava took a moment to express how his compliment made her feel ebullient—enough of that though; she managed to open the cover of the book. Her eyes quickly transfixed to the page as if they were a succulent meal. Nolb could see it written all over her face: temptation.

"Gava...we only need to help Great Hero bring back his friends. Are you okay keeping in a spell inside you?"

She pursed her lips fleeting her eyes from him to the pages.

She skimmed without hesitation. She gripped the corners of the ancient paper while her free hand pressed a nail on a scrawled line. She took a deep breath shortly afterwards the ink on the paper was absorbed into her fingernail.

"Brid." She enchanted.

A kindle of fire erupted from her finger that consumed the paper in roaring fire. The grimoire burned with a burning purple with a sheen of blue no other book would burn, but eventually crumbled into flakes of charred paper. It happened the way Baragon wanted, only the resurrection spell no trying to keep the other spells.

The couple looked at each other, turned their heads at the pile of crackling black chips and back again.

"Let's go find Great Hero and Baragon—tell them it all went smoothly."