Chapter 4

At the moment, the Greek faction didn't bother you, Ether decided to spend a while in the place where he had rescued the Dryads since he had used to meditate through there.

On his trip, he can feel the presence of someone familiar to him, but he pretended it was nothing, so as not to cause a scene in the middle of the Flight.

Shortly after the plane landed, Ether headed for an isolated alley, knowing that if "old acquaintances" followed him to the scene.

Suddenly, a group of intense smoke spread around Ether, and a total of five men in dark clothes and white masks were present around him, and immediately summoned ethereal chains, who trapped Ether's arms and legs.

Seeing as they were all getting out of hiding, he can only assume they thought that they were safe since they have captured him,...I really don't understand their thought process since there are plenty of people that can fight quite well without hand movement or have enough strength to break through the chains.

He turned slightly to his right, and saw a hooded man with far more intricate designs on his robes, he will now assume that there leader, the assumed group leader at that moment decided to speak, "rejoice, brothers, we finally captured who was able to thwart our plans to revive our almighty Patron, we discovered something much more effective...,"

He was the tallest of the hooded men, who he assumed to be the leader of the group, "exactly…we, the servants of Cthulhu discovered, that this man has high levels of the energy needed to achieve it ... Moreover, now that he is trapped in our Circle of Binding, you will not be able to fight against us," Said the cultist raising his voice, thinking they were free from danger.

He can practically hear the smugness coming out of him, for doing something that isn't all that impressive to begin with.

"So that's your great plan?" questioned Ether, when the magic restraints all began to spontaneously fail, were the dryads he saved from these guys the original component for this...plan.

Also...Cthulhu?, why the living hell is lovecraftian beings here?, or is this something else entirely, ...he is going to severely hope it is the latter, he loved his barely-clinging-onto-him sanity.

At this very moment, after slightly rubbing his wrist, he grinned savagely at his current prey "luckily for me, after my last meeting with you guys, I managed to receive certain upgrade to my arsenal," as he said this a bright flash of electric blue light briefly appeared, shimmering around his body.

And when the light show ended, in its place was a long black cloak, which looked positively divine in its texture, with golden details and patterns all across it, materialized on Ether's head and at this moment, blocked his vision.

{King's Order:The Pelt of the Divine Beast}

Ether announced, his thundered across the field, surprisingly, he wasn't turned blind, though he wasn't currently seeing with his eyes, he can assume [Eye of the Mind] was at work, as he doesn't actually see anything.

However it was still extremely inconvenient to keep it in his physical shape, as he could easily be mistaken for some madman, which astonished the cultists who were cautiously moving back.

Ether then did a huge somersault, and posed conveniently at the corner of a building, put on a much more serious expression, which it starts to get a bit straining even to his Servant face.

A set of blackened fireballs formed like a halo on his back. { HINOTAMA DARK SOULS } said Ether, when the fireballs were kinetically fired towards the cultists.

ETHER POVS

Combining my knowledge of anime with what I learned in this world, I had finally managed to create my own semi-original technique, based on the energy of [All the Evil in the World] that resides in my new body and in a famous card game.

It had taken a whole year to develop and perfect this technique, now I was finally able to use it in battle, and I must say...it worked exactly as expected, those hit by the flames, would have their bodies charred instantly, and if they survived, they would have to deal with some uncomfortable curses, among the deafening sound in their minds, coming from the cry of all the children for whom they were abandoned and killed by their mothers.

A powerful migraine, stemming from the anger of all those who were in some way wronged and finally, but not least, the inability to have ideas, from which all those dreams were destroyed.

Incredible as it may seem, the cultists had survived, but now they were all under the effect of the curse, but that wouldn't make me let my guard down the last time face these bastards, they had somehow overcome me with these strange artifacts capable of deny the use of some NPs that were already accessible to me at the time.

Normal POV

Suddenly, one of the cultists opened a strange book, which absorbed the flames of the attack and then four of the five cultists were also absorbed by the book. After that, immense energy was released from it and this was devoured by the cultist leader.

In a little more than a few seconds, the cultist grows to gain another half meter in height, his skin turned red, a bio armor formed around his body. With his transformation complete, the monster that the cultist became, raised an arm up and said

- Vulthoom vines -

Suddenly, several small dimensional gaps formed around Ether, from these portals emerged what looked like vines and vines, extremely resistant and flexible.

Ether, thinking that this would not harm him because of his NP, who acted passively, decided to ignore the vines, and simply attack the cultivator, or whatever it was that he had become.

He thought it couldn't harm him, yet he deflected, and got rid of as much possible, after all, he didn't want to risk another incident like that of years ago, with another group belonging to the same cult.

Which he now discovered that they worshiped, the greatest Lovecraftian abomination ever imagined by the human mind the monster best known of Lovecraft, Cthulhu. And he was sure that Zelretch had something to do with it.

Hoping that Cthulhu didn't really exist in this world, he still had to stop his self-proclaimed servants, but as they survived all of their accessible attack NPs and cultists became some kind of monster he didn't have many ideas at the time, but then, he felt some more magical signatures around him, but this time they were not hostile towards him, in fact they seemed very known.

{Swords of Telltale Lights.} said one of the voices, and then swords of solid light were fired at the cultist monster, driving itself into the ground around it. The cultist monster tried to absorb the magic with his book, however the magic did not seem to work.

"I see that you have been training in the use of your sacred gear... really didn't expect to find you here... Tosca," aid Ether when recognizing the presence of one of the children he had rescued years ago.

Although, child, it was no longer the correct term to refer to her, Tosca, now she had a more adolescent appearance, her hair had grown long, and now she wore rollers in the style of a ladybug-themed jojo, she now wore what looked like steel armor that glowed ever so slightly with magic.

Which could easily be mistaken for the look of a British soldier, "yeah, I've been training, but enough talk, we have to stop this one, this...whatever the hell this thing is," said Tosca, while he used his sacred gear to create a sacred sword which radiated small voltages of lightning.

As soon as she finished creating his sword, Tosca ran towards the monster making three strokes with her sword, a vertically, a horizontally and a cross-sectional cut, as electricity was the element used for the creation sword, all three attacks that has hit the cultist charred him black with high levels of voltage and disintegrated into dust.

"Fatality flawless victory," said Ether when he saw an opponent exploding like the bloody finishes of one of his favorite games, suddenly, the cultist's various pieces froze in place and began to go back to where they previously were.

As all the dust came together the cultist reformed back into his body, seeing this, Ether decided to use another variation of [king's orders] one in which the original owner of this body would refuse to use it to its full potential.

But his hatred was not that divine beings were divine beings, his hatred was simply for those who, being gods, acted as spoiled children, and he was a follower of the philosophy that no power is essentially evil, but those who use them for evil purposes.

In short, for him the power can come from god or from his polar opposites, that as long as he could benefit from it without his spirit being claimed by the origin of said power, he would be fine with it, {King's Order: God's Military Sash} he pronounced when an aura of power enveloped him giving an increase in his physical and magical statistics.

With his power amplified by the noble phantasm [God's Military Sash], Ether concentrated much of this extra energy in his hands, releasing it on the floor. Within seconds, this energy soon took the form of an infernal dog the size of an elephant.

{ King's Order: Cerberus Watchdog from Hell} as soon as it finished materializing, the giant cerberus immediately went towards the cultist monster, while spreading poisonous gases with two of its three heads.

When the cultist was completely surrounded by poison gas, the main head fired a ball of fire, which consumed all the gas in an explosion worthy of the arts of deidara of the akatsuki.

When all the smoke and gases caused by the explosion ceased what was once a Cthulhu cultist, it was now just a beautiful exotic statue.

"Hey Ether, did you just summon cerberus?, how did you get that as a familiar?" Asked Tosca, thinking of the cerberus in question as some kind of familiar, can't exactly blame her, that is usually the only thing people use when it comes to magical creatures.

"more importantly, how did you get lord hades' permission, and why didn't their spells work on you?" She asked, not caring that the enemy had been petrified as a result of an explosion.

"ah...about that...well, I kind of saved one of them, and he became loyal to me," it was the best lie Ether can come up with at the moment, "Now, about my spell immunity, it is because of this," he said pointing at the gigantic cloth made from Fate nemean lion skin on his head.

"I didn't know you had sacred gear," said Tosca, when she analyzed the cloth by the one who saved her years ago, "hmmm, as I will explain this in a coherent way, I hope that right," Ether thought until he had an idea, "ahh, well it is not a sacred gear, but more like a conceptual weapon that I won by doing the seas rapist a favor,".

"excuse me, but who is a rapist of the seas?," she says this, with clear concern and disgust of the name.

"Oh sorry, I mean Poseidon, but don't let him know that," Ether said while giving an internal laugh, and hoped that she would, it would be annoying if he heard this, he can already imagine the tantrum.

"ahen, continuing, the mission involved safeguarding the Nereids who were being kidnapped by some stranger, In the midst of this I had my first meeting with a group of these cultists from Cthulhu, and I have to say, this group is dangerous, even though we have defeated these five with relative ease," Ether said, confirming to the girl who helped him of the situation.

"group, how so? She was not a single individual?," she asked, from what i'm guessing, she was thinking that this was but a single entity.

"ah, I see, you must have been affected by thier realistic illusions... It turns out they were five people who later merged into the monster there," he said, motioning to the statue that was now located in the alley way they fought in.

"interesting, but you could tell me about this adventure, you know, so i would know how to face these guys if i run into them on any mission again," she requested, sounding fairly casual.

"sure I will tell you then, it all started when I met Thetis, who would help me with the mission to find her sist-"

Flashback 2 years ago

continuation of the last chapter.

"So can you tell me how it is that you're able to track your sister Thetis?" Ether said to Thetis as they continued the trail through the forest as Thetis turned to him with cold eyes.

"It's simple, we are the children of Nereus and Doris, all of us residon the Aegean sea, which was less polluted by humans, my mother Doris the sea goddess gave me the ability to sense my sisters if they get lost or kidnapped, I am also the leader of my sisters" Thetis explained to Ether as she turned back to walk as Ether followed her.

"I see, wait I thought Amphitrite was the leader of the Nereids since she is the wife of Poseidon?" Ether asked Thetis, a bit perplexed.

"Some would say that she WAS the leader of the Nereids a few thousand years ago but since she married Poseidon she gave up the title to me since she needs to tend to Poseidon and Atlantis," Thetis answered to Ether as they neared out of the forest.

"Hmmmmmm then how-" Ether stopped when he saw something that not any humans can see, perks to one of being in Alcides body, [Eye of the mind], which would have the capacity for observation, refined through training, discipline and experience.

A danger-avoidance ability that utilizes the intelligence collected up to the current time as the basis in order to predict the opponent's activity and change the current situation, This is not a result of talent, but an overwhelming amount of combat experience, "Shit!" he said before abruptly grabbing the leader of the Nereidas in his arms while he was making a huge jump.

While gravity did its work, a powerful explosion occurred just in the place where they were, scared thetis looked at Ether and asked, "How did you know that would happen,".

While the adrenaline was taking care of the pain and reaction, he gracefully landed on the ground after taking thetis out of the bridal hold and onto the ground, he faced the direction where the explosions came from.

Ether responded, "observation, refined by means of training, discipline and combat experience, not counting survival instinct," Materialised, his quiver jointly with his bow, Ether positioned one arrow in his bow and fired the huge arrow towards the direction of some trees.

Immediately after the shot, the huge arrow crossed a total of three trees before the log of another, which after that, a small group jumped out of the trees, "hey, look where you throw these things," said who seemed to be leading the group.

That the other figure revealed whether with a similar appearance to Thetis, which meant that those were fake one, the nereids have the same appearance, or some of them were twins.

But thanks to the [eye of the mind], Ether had already noticed that it was actually the third one

"…someone with metamorphic skills, you can change how you look," Ether said to who seemed to be the leader of the group, "that's right," said the other figure, revealing himself with a similar appearance to Thetis, which meant that either the nereids look the same, or some of them were twins.

But thanks to the mind's eye, Ether had already noticed that it was in true your third option ... someone with metamorphic abilities.

"Don't trust them, they're shapeshifters," said Ether in a whisper, "no can't be ... no they are my sisters," Thetis said, his instincts were now warning him, "are you sure?, because as far as i'm aware they are shapeshifters, and even when you have that ability and they are really your sisters, I was warned that the kidnappers could even be traitors to the Greek faction, don't get me wrong, but as far as I know some of your sisters may be behind it," He said while still pointing the arrow at the group of Nereids ahead.

"How...how dare you, my sisters would never do that to their peers," said Thetis to the archer, "as I said, don't get me wrong, but I can't trust someone without someone giving me a reason other than intimidating me so that I can trust this one," said Ether, when one of the supposed Nereids approached Thetis.

- come sister, come with us we know a better place to stay. - said to the supposed Nereida whispering in Thetis' ears.

"A...better place," repeated Thetis, who was following her supposed sisters, though her voice wasn't actually giving away an emotion, as right now she seemed to speak in a monotone voice.

Luckily, Ether carried the [Prometheus chains] that were borrowed by Poseidon. He considered this ironic, since these chains already had properties similar to one of the NPs of a golden bastard that he loved to hate in animations and novels of fate / stay night, except that his anti-deity properties only worked on minor deities.

Anyway, they were perfect for the current situation, which consists of keeping Thetis trapped in chains while taking care of those who tried to kidnap her, whether they are imposed, traitors or even under mental control.

After all, he had the power to do that, it is different from Emya, he had what could be considered a failure in the matrix, or maybe not, who knows what Zelretch was planning while he was entertaining the crazy old man.

In a sense, zelretch and many of the mythological gods were similar in their ways of asking others to do tasks just for their own unhealthy diversions, At least Zelretch did not rape everything he saw ahead like some mythological gods.

Seeing this, the beings that had assumed the form of Thetis again changed their appearance, this time they were green-skinned humanoids, and octopus tentacles where their beards should have been.

"What the fuck," cursed the protagonist seeing the appearance of the creatures that seemed to come directly from the mountains of madness, "I just hope they are not what I'm thinking ," whispered the protagonist as he dodged some rays of energy, probably coming from magic or senjutsu / ki from their peculiar adversaries.

"Hmm, interesting it seems that this one has some cognitive abilities," said who looked like the greatest of creatures, when suddenly he saw that Ether positioned one more of his arrows in his bow.

The creature quickly activated some defensive magic thinking it was normal arrows, To his surprise, silver energy flows in the same seconds before it is fired. {King's order: stymphalian birds} he heard his opponent pronounce when shooting the arrow.

The other creatures quickly decided to intercept the arrow with their own spells, which would have worked, had it not been for the fact that in the last second the arrow multiplied into dozens of others and soon turned into iron birds, similar to the skarmory pokemon, who flew voraciously towards the creatures.

Fortunately for the creatures, some kind of magical barrier had erected just in time, which ended up canceling the effects of the NP.

"damn, I had them cornered, but it seems that they were already prepared for something like this, almost as if they were prepared for me...no, it's not that, it's more like they were prepared for conceptual weapons in general ...or maybe something I still don't understand," analyzed Ether, while trying to think of a solution to defeat these unknown creatures.

Ether took another of his arrows and placed it in his bow, but this time without using the Noble Phantom to see if the normal arrows would be capable of anything.

Just to be on the safe side, he reinforced his arrows by imbuing them with his ki.a little trick he had discovered while performing some tests with this energy based on the reinforcement magic of the fate series, as well as the reinforcement capacity normally shared by various energies supernatural from different animes.

Seeing that Ether would fire more of his arrows, the creatures soon prepared another of those barriers, unfortunately for them, the giant reinforced arrows were able to cross the barrier, and broke as if made of glass.

{king's order: Shooting hundred heads} Ether said while shooting a second reinforced arrow, but this time what was an arrow became two, two became four and so on.

While the strange humanoid Octopus monsters least expected a shower of gigantic reinforced arrows to fall on them, thanks to [mind's eye] Ether knew, the bastards weren't defeated yet.

But were distracted enough that he was able to launch the arrow, which until then was his biggest asset, so far. {king's order: mares of diomedes} summoning four mares that, following the will of their master, galloped wildly towards the lovecraftian monsters.

To be sure, Ether paid attention to everything around him, so that [the mind's eye] could detect any kind of surprise. With that he realized that the parts of the creatures merged to form a strange creature with one eye in the center, and a total of eight tentacles surrounding it.

"damn it, I hope it's just the appearance…. I don't know if I'm prepared for something like Shuma fuckin Gorath," said Ether while shooting a giant arrow into the creature's eye, but just as predicted the creature intercepted the arrow with one of its tentacles.

Ether then arched several arrows at once, charging them with silver energy {King's Order: Stymphalian birds} this time, Ether was prepared if his arrows were deactivated again, so he quickly fired a set of reinforced arrows at the monster's eye.

Surprisingly, the monster intercepted not only the reinforced plates but also the gigantic iron birds, which its other arrows had become by firing rays of energy from each of its tentacles, as well as from its eye.

Almost out of energy, Ether decided to appeal to the extra energy provided by the variation [god military sash] of the Noble phantom [orders of the king].

With the variation of the Noble Phantom fully active, Ether felt an invigorating increase in energy, and with that he proclaimed, "a beast appears that guards the gates of hades, burns its enemies with the scorching acid {Kings Order: Cerberus watchdog from hell},"

As soon as Ether ended the song by calling the name of the Noble Phantom, a huge crack appeared on the ground just in front of him, above it, a red magic circle formed and soon the fissure was filled with fiery magma from which emerged a huge three-headed dog armed with a red saddle.

The gigantic cerberus ran towards the creature with the appearance of Beholder type while firing scorching acid puffs at you.

The creature tried to defend itself by firing rays from its eyes and tentacles, unfortunately the acid besides being scorching was also flammable which resulted in a powerful explosion, but unfortunately the creature was unharmed, it was then that the central head of Cerberus fires a torrent of Black flames.

The Black Flames caught the creature in the face, which, because it believed they were normal flames, did not even defend itself and that is why it was burned alive.

A few hours later, the mind control effects had drained from Thetis who had finally been released from the [Prometheus chains] and had barbecue with the monster's meat.

"Ugh... what happened?" Thetis said while putting her hand on her head while receiving a huge headache as if she went to a party with the Mad God' wine.

"I see your back to your sense Thetis, the job would've been harder if you were captured by them." Ether said to Thetis as he pointed to the dead corpse of the enemy as she looked in astonishment.

"What...was that thing?" Thetis said as she looked at the corpse, with long life, came with an immense amount of knowledge, she hadn't even heard of such things.

"It wasn't easy I tell you, these guys were so annoying that they turned into this type of...squid or aberration monster but I managed to deal with it." Ether explained to Thetis as she looked at him with shock before asking.

"How were you able to know that they weren't my sisters?" Thetis asked Ether as he then was silent before answering.

"I trained senjutsu with some wood nymphs when I protected them after my mission was finished, It was then Poseidon who called me and assigned this mission to you since your sisters were missing so yeah they didn't had the same aura as you and thanks to Senjutsu I was able to protect my mind from the mind controlling effects." Ether lied to Thetis as he knew how he can see how they were her sisters as Thetis accepted his answer before getting up.

"I see… thank you for that Ether you have my gratitude I will repay this one day." Thetis thanked Ether with a sincere tone as Ether looked at her before turning back.

"You can thank me later Thetis, right now let's find your sister." Ether said to Thetis as she nodded before following him.

End flashback 2

"And then after we saved her sisters, not only we found them but a bearer of a sacred gear who those cultists were torturing him in order to get his sacred gear, but I managed to save him." Ether said to Tosca as she was sitting across her saviour as she listened to his story before nodding.

"I see, but what happened to the sacred gear user?" Asked Tosca wanting to know if he buried him or not.

"Oh, when I saved him he was already injected by some kind of poison called the hydra poison, as he was on his deathbed he told me to find someone who is a worthy wielder of the sacred gear he possesses before he died. When he died I buried him so that I can respect his wish." Ether said to Tosca, finishing his story as she nodded again before asking.

"What was the sacred gear called when he gave it to you?" Tosca asked as Ether then put out his arm as he glowed in golden color before a little golden colored lion came out of his hand.

"It's called Regulus Nemean, a Longinus." Ether revealed the sacred gear to Tosca as she was in shock before returning to her neutral look.

"I see, that makes you its new wielder." Tosca said to Ether as the golden Lion shaked his head.

"Yes and no little girl, he is only my temporary wielder as I did not completely bound my soul to him before I could accept him, you see I only occupy him as long as he wants until we find a worthy host for me." the lion said to Tosca as she looked at the lion before she looked at Ether.

"Well that was a good story about your mission Ether." Tosca said to her saviour as he nodded before he looked at the clock before realizing the time.

"I'm glad you heard that Tosca but right now let's go to sleep it's starting to become late now." Ether said to Tosca as the sacred gear then went back to his soul before preparing for bed

"Alright Ether have a good rest."

"You too Tosca."

The next day, Ether woke up early and after his morning needs he decided to do something to eat before leaving for the home of Thetis, where she would spend time.

"Why didn't you tell her the truth?" Regulus asked in his mind. "for the same reason that you also didn't tell him that in truth it is only a fragment that has connected to my soul, and that conveniently serves for one of my assets to be active" Ether replied to a fragment of Regulus that was now part of his Np

"True, and it wouldn't be worth it either, see that many of them wouldn't even believe us," said Regulus. "Exactly, even among the supernatural world, many would not believe us, unless we could prove our story with precision. For now this will be a secret that only we, and your other part and that guy Sairaorg will know." concluded Ether as he finished to prepare the morning snack.

As soon as the snack was over, Ether was able to hear the sound of running water in the hotel shower, meaning that Tosca would be taking a shower at the moment. As the bathroom was in the bedroom, Ether decided to wait for the girl to get ready.

In a little less than half an hour, Tosca had finished his bath and had cleaned up. When she left, she had changed her hairstyle, and together with the clothes she wore, she looked like a "saber face" meaning she was the washed face of the feminized version of King Arthur from the Fate series.

As they finished up what they were doing, they went to a local coffee shop as Ether decided to order a coffee while Tosca went to a local dress shop to get herself a new dress.

As he was drinking minding his business he heard someone sitting across him as he took a look at some pictures on his smartphone. Sensing that someone's powerful aura, Ether was able to deduce that he was a demon, specifically one of the highest rank, no less. He sincerely hoped that this did not belong to the faction that allied with Hitler in the middle of the Second World War.

"I see you noticed my presence, Modern Heracles," said the demon drawing the attention of Ether. "So, this is what they are calling me in the supernatural world?" Ether blurted out loud " anyway, what's your game sir? "it was Ether's cue, for the devil to inform him of his name.