(3rd Person POV)
Mephista couldn't make sense of the energy in the air. Even at the height of her power, she wouldn't have been able to; it sat far above anything she could reach.
"So you're awake, Mephista," Arthur said. "How do you feel?"
She turned her head toward him, slow and curious. "Who... are you?"
"Lady Mephista, you're finally awake!" Vermillion bounced where he sat, straining against the divine bindings as if they weren't there at all.
"Vermillion?" Her eyes sharpened, focus returning to them. She felt the restraint on herself, and moved.
Keanu and Kaiser didn't even see it happen. One instant she lay on the altar; the next she was crouched at Vermillion's side. A snap of her fingers, and the divine bindings around him fell away like cut thread.
"M-my lady!" Vermillion bowed his head, tears streaking his cheeks.
She patted him, the way one pats a favored hound.
Keanu and Kaiser had gone stiff, sweat beading at their temples. That single movement had told them everything: she could have killed either of them where they stood, and neither would have understood he was dead until it was done.
Their eyes went to Arthur. He hadn't so much as shifted his weight. He tracked it, they realized. He saw the whole thing, and it didn't rattle him for a second. The gap between him and them sat there in the silence, plain and humbling, and both of them looked away from it.
"What's going on here?" Mephista straightened, sweeping the three of them with a cool gaze. "Who are these deities?"
"L-lady, that one's Enyalius, and—" Vermillion squinted at the second figure, then his eyes flew wide. "That one's Kaiser! The God of Wealth who betrayed Lord Aides!"
Kaiser's shoulders tensed, a defense already halfway up his throat. He braced himself to face the beautiful monster in front of him.
"Peace, Vermillion." Mephista's mouth curved. "Kaiser never betrayed anyone. He was Aides's man the whole time. He sold the lie of turning traitor so he could sit at the conquerors' table and pass word back — and keep the demon race breathing while he did it."
Kaiser let the breath go all at once.
"So. Enyalius and Kaiser, I know." Her gaze slid to Arthur and stopped there. "But this younger one, I don't. I'm certain I never met you before." She studied him, wary now — she'd already marked that he stood level with her, if not far past it, which should not have been possible. He was also the one who'd broken the «Eternal Sleep» laid on her. "Which Pantheon do you come from?"
Arthur inclined his head. "I greet the Ancestor." He gave a small bow. "Arthur Pendragon. God of Entertainment, Wealth, and Invention."
Her eyes widened. "Three Authorities?" She had never heard of such a thing. No wonder the danger rolled off him in waves. Then the rest of it caught up to her. "Ancestor. Did I hear that right?"
"You did." Arthur smiled. "I'm of the Demon Race."
"Are you." Surprise flickered through her. She circled him slowly, taking in the horns, the cast of his eyes. "...I can feel it. The demon blood runs in you, true and deep. You really are a descendant." Her smile returned, edged with wonder. "But for a descendant to grow this strong — does that mean my husband finally cast down the Three Known Deities? That Aides won us the room to rise again, enough for one of us to reach as far as you have?"
Even Vermillion leaned in for the answer.
Keanu cleared his throat and stepped forward. "About that, my lady — Arthur is something of an exception."
Between them, he and Kaiser laid out the shape of it: the only new deity to rise in the mortal world in an age, lifted there by his inventions and by the entertainment the mortals had come to love and praise; how that rise had drawn the eye of Solarus, and how the Sun God was now coming himself to burn the whole world down.
By the end, the light had gone out of Mephista's face. "I see. So that's how things stand." Her eyes settled on Arthur. "Which means Aides still hasn't returned to finish what he began."
She didn't say more, but she didn't have to. The worry for her husband sat heavy and unspoken — his whereabouts unknown all this time. He might be somewhere out in the vast dark of the universe still. He might have died out there, alone. And if he had, then the only hope left standing was the young man in front of her. Her descendant.
"I am Mephista Morningstar," she said. "God of Beasts. Through me, my followers can bind a beast to themselves — a true Master-Servant contract."
That gave Arthur pause. Morningstar. It had been his own name once, before he'd traded it for Pendragon.
So the line ran straight back to Aides and Mephista. He turned the thought over, then let it fall. It changed nothing.
"A pleasure," he said. "I'm hoping you'll be a great help against Solarus."
"Indeed." She nodded — then her expression clouded over. "But... I can feel that my strength has gone still. I have no followers left in the world; not one. What I carry now is only what I banked as a goddess before the sleep, and it will run dry in time. Against an army of Solarus's making, I can't promise I'd hold." Her jaw tightened. "Forgive me."
Arthur waved both hands. "No, no, none of that." He grinned. "As it happens, I can get you followers."
Hope lit her face. "You can?"
"Haha — you see, my lady," Keanu put in, "Arthur holds enormous sway over the mortal world. Everyone knows his name. Even Solarus's own servants can't lay a hand on him — that's precisely why the Sun God has to come down and do it himself."
She nodded slowly. Influence, yes. But influence was his. What would move his people to willingly bow to her?
"Join my Pantheon, Ancestor." The offer landed, and every head in the chamber turned. "I'm calling it the Hellfire Pantheon. And I'll be its King."
"You're certain?" Mephista blinked. "If your followers pray to me as well, you'll be splitting off Faith Energy that would otherwise be yours alone."
"Doesn't matter," Arthur said. "It's the better play. And Faith Energy won't count for much to me, in the long run."
The words settled wrong. Mephista's brow furrowed — and so did Keanu's, Kaiser's, and Vermillion's. Every deity alive needed Faith Energy; to grow on, to survive on. Even Solarus lived and died by it. And this one waved it off as though it were pocket change? *Who does he think he is?*
None of them said it aloud. Arthur caught the doubt in their eyes anyway, and let it pass.
They didn't know about the Om — the deeper, stranger power that outstripped every energy the universe had a name for.
While they were still talking, Mephista's head snapped up. Somewhere far off, she'd felt the gate to the Nether Realm wrenched open by force.
"The gate — it's open!" she called out. "If the beasts pour through, they'll tear the mortal world apart!"
Everyone moved at once. "I have to reach the gate before they do." She was already turning — but the distance was vast, more than she could cross in time.
"I'll take you," Arthur said. He laid a hand on the air, and the two of them were simply gone, standing at the mouth of the gate an instant later.
Mephista stared at him. Teleportation, here, inside the Nether Realm — it wasn't supposed to be possible. But there was no time to marvel at it. She turned to the surging dark beyond the threshold, reached out with her power, and began to still the beasts, bending them back under her hand one by one.