Countless thoughts passed through Phoebe’s mind in an instant, as even somebody as experienced as her struggled to digest the shocking events she’d just witnessed.

  Strictly speaking, the strength of the cloaked figure wasn’t worth mentioning to a demigod – let alone a titaness. Even if Percy managed to reach the Clear grade himself, the power of a paragon was more of a threat to weaker gods – not those who had mastered several concepts and climbed even further up the cosmic ladder, as she had.

  That said, that was more of a testament to the boy’s lower grade, not an indictment of the spell’s quality. Phoebe couldn’t help but imagine the Ultimate Art wielded by a fellow deity one day, the notion giving her goosebumps.

  ‘I should probably avoid telling him that I was willing to let Micky die…’ she decided.

  Turning her attention back to the collapsing figure, her eyes carefully scanned the information in the Lone Wanderer’s Status, taking a moment to absorb the changes. Sometimes, her Decree chose the most bizarre names to give to new spells – though it was its first time renaming a person.

  Phoebe didn’t question that too much, since she understood better than anyone how the Status worked. It was deeply rooted in the minds of its owners, taking several things into consideration when registering a new entry – from its broad database of similar spells across Remior, to the person’s preferences and magical knowledge.

  The new mutation and upgraded domain didn’t surprise her too much either. As impressive as they were, they were just the logical evolutions of abilities that Percy and Micky had already demonstrated. What she found more concerning was what had happened to the two mortals, though she would likely have to wait until they regained consciousness to learn more.

  She was about to swoop in to rescue them from the swarming bugs, when she realized that the creatures showed no sign of aggression.

  ‘I wonder what that’s all about…’

  It was no secret that the Starry Queen was as intelligent as a person – more so than most people, in fact – though that didn’t explain what the creature wanted from the boy. Phoebe decided to let the scene play out, curious to see what the wasps were going to do.

  That was when she realized that there was a small problem.

  Too many layers of dirt, colourful minerals, and dense ambient mana would interfere with her senses, preventing her from observing the mortals. Consequently, she was forced to descend to the surface of the planet, shrouding herself in a veil of mind mana to conceal her presence from everyone’s senses as she followed the army of bugs into the hive, ready to intervene if they tried anything funny.

  Waiting for Percy and Micky to wake up was pure agony of course.

  Even a few centuries were normally nothing to Phoebe – let alone a couple of hours – but not when so much was at stake. Depending on what had happened to the boy, he might become even more important for Remior’s future, or this might mark the end of his promising journey.

  As soon as they regained consciousness, Phoebe watched with bated breath while they explored their new condition inside the crystal-lit chamber. They certainly appeared healthy enough at first glance, causing her to finally exhale in relief.

  The crow’s shapeshifting ability wasn’t anything to scoff at either. It looked about as convenient as she’d imagined it would be, turning Micky – or half of the Lone Wanderer’s existence, at any rate – into a creature made almost entirely out of living mana!

  Sadly, she couldn’t peer directly into their mind to know what they were thinking, but she could still infer the gist of what had happened to them.

  ‘Their souls and minds seem to have merged completely,’ she concluded, creasing her brow.

  This was a good thing for the most part, as it would make them stronger and grant them a wide assortment of new abilities. However, she could see how weird this would feel on a personal level. They’d essentially lost their individuality and muddled their personalities, turning into a jumbled mess of memories.

  ‘Well, that’s not a huge problem. It should be easy enough to fix – assuming that they want it fixed.’

  She shrugged.

  Phoebe was more than happy to help them separate and segregate their thoughts again later. For a titaness who had mastered several mind concepts, adding a few mental gates in their head that could be opened or closed at will would be a piece of cake.

  The fact that they already bore her Decree would only make this simpler. With their permission and cooperation, integrating a robust feature into their Status to allow them to freely shift between their merged and separated states would only take a couple of days.

  Not that she was planning to reveal herself to them anytime soon, of course. Acquiring an Extreme spell at Yellow – or Green, depending on how she looked at it – was far earlier than she had expected, but they still had plenty of room to grow before she brought them into the fold. For now, they’d have to get used to their merged mind by themselves.

  Before long, Percy and Micky were done playing around with their new bodies, causing Phoebe to perk up. It was finally time to see what the Violet beast had brought them here for.

  “Seriously?” she asked, clicking her tongue in annoyance as Percy established a spectral connection with the creature, though she should have probably seen this coming. Had their link been forged with mind mana, she might have been able to intrude in their transmission, but soul mana fell squarely outside her expertise.

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  Regardless, most of her questions got answered as soon as the oversized bug led Percy and Micky to the next chamber, showing them the inert eggs.

  ‘Royal eggs? Did something happen to the Queen’s successor?’

  Suffice to say, the hive’s innerworkings were well understood by the Divine Order. They knew about the limitations in the royal line’s procreation, and about the jelly they excreted, though Phoebe hadn’t realized what a precarious situation the bugs had been in lately.

  ‘Just who…?’ Frowning, she turned to her daughter, reaching out to her using the mental link that they kept available for convenience. ‘Athena!’

  ‘Mother?’ the fellow goddess responded, clearly startled by the intensity and suddenness in Phoebe’s voice.

  ‘Did any mortal above Violet step anywhere close to the Fungal Spire in the last century or so?’ Phoebe asked, knowing that her daughter tended to pay more attention to such matters.

  Athena appeared to ponder the question for a moment before replying. ‘Hmmm… if I’m not mistaken, Machaon – the current leader of House Asclepius – briefly studied alchemy in the Guild a few decades ago. Why? Did anything happen?’

  After bringing her daughter up to speed, Phoebe worked with her to recall anything suspicious that the White-cored man might have done in recent history. Sure enough, it didn’t take them long to remember that the cunning mortal had made several strange – if seemingly unrelated – moves in the past few centuries.

  About two hundred years ago, he had caused quite a stir by suddenly deciding to build a grandiose garden for himself, in some remote forest, leading many people to wonder whether the unforgiving march of time had eroded the man’s sanity.

  Even the gods had found it a little unusual, though everyone had eventually forgotten about it after seeing that the White’s hobby hadn’t really affected how he handled his responsibilities as the head of the Great House.

  Going even further back, hadn’t Machaon asked the leader of House Etna to let him enrol in their runecrafting academy about six hundred years ago?

  All of that could be – and had been – chalked up to the man’s eccentricity – an innate curiosity to study various aspects of magic, perhaps, or a desire to fend off the boredom that came with his long life. In hindsight, his intentions appeared a lot more sinister.

  ‘That sneaky bastard!’ Athena cursed. ‘He’s played us for fools all along! Just how long has he been planning this?!’

  The realization sent a chill down Phoebe’s spine. As much as she wanted to blame Machaon’s greed, she had to acknowledge that this was ultimately her own fault. After all, no mortal would have managed anything of the sort if not for her own negligence.

  ‘First Percy, and now him…’ she thought.

  At first glance, the two mortals couldn’t differ more – one was a treasure for Remior, the other a silent catastrophe waiting to happen. However, they both served as living proof that she hadn’t paid as much attention to the low-borns as she should have.

  Their grades and shorter lifespans might limit their power and potential, but clearly not their ambitions or their cunning. Left unattended, anyone could apparently alter their world’s fate irreversibly. Two of them had done precisely that, coincidentally in the span of a single generation.

  ‘Do we know where the garden is?’ Phoebe asked, vowing internally to pay more attention to everyone from now on. Athena sent a nod back, prompting Phoebe to continue. ‘Go. I need you to check up on the Starry Princess. But don’t say a word to anyone just yet.’

  It only took her daughter a few minutes to contact her again with some results. ‘It’s just as we feared. The creature is trapped inside a massive enchantment, and it’s not looking good. It’s still at Green!’

  Phoebe swallowed hard. Only two advancements in twenty years? That was unheard of for a Starry Princess. It spoke to how difficult it was, even for the leader of a Great House, to keep the bug sufficiently fed without drawing too much attention.

  ‘What is he even thinking? The wasp will never live long enough for him to reach the Clear grade!’

  Even if Machaon managed to incorporate the royal jelly into the Aurora Dew to further accelerate his advancement, and even if he could keep the bug healthy and well-fed the whole time, its lifespan was far too short. To make matters worse, the Princess definitely wasn’t healthy at the moment, and the Aurora Dew hadn’t even existed while Machaon had formulated his insidious plan.

  Was he planning to have the Princess reproduce, continuing to bleed the creatures dry over multiple generations, ignoring both the hive and the rest of the planet as everyone got starved of elixirs?

  The odds of that working were laughably low! Even if the first wasp made it to Violet, would it be in any condition to reproduce? Granted, the creatures did so asexually, but the process required a lot of energy that the wasp would surely lack! He’d have to repeat the process more than just once or twice too, without any of the royal wasps dying under his watch or failing to reach maturity!

  Machaon wasn’t just selfish – he was a complete lunatic!

  Not only was he going to destroy everything, he was going to do that without any guarantee of success. That bastard was willing to sacrifice all of Remior on a desperate gamble, for merely the slimmest chance of becoming a god!

  ‘What should I do?’ Athena asked again, breaking Phoebe out of her thoughts. ‘I can have the wasp back in the hive and Machaon’s head on a spike in an hour if you want,’ she snarled, failing to conceal her fury.

  ‘Wait…’ Phoebe said as Percy and the previous Queen prepared the chamber for their looming operation.

  It wouldn’t be entirely risk-free, but something good could come out of this mess if they played their hand right.

  ‘For now, keep everything we’ve learned to yourself. I want you to closely monitor the Princess’s condition, and to secretly feed her as much food as she needs. I don’t care if you have to snatch every Green beast that House Ypnos owns – just make sure the creature gets its fill from now on.’

  Returning the kidnapped beast to its habitat would have been better, but having a goddess personally attend to its every need was the next best thing. By focusing entirely on the creature, and without worrying about anyone’s opinion, Athena should be able to stabilize its condition.

  If Percy failed or the current Queen died, they’d have no choice but to bring the Princess back immediately. And even if he succeeded but something went wrong with the familiar later, it wouldn’t be too late to do so in a couple of decades.

  Most importantly, Phoebe struggled to contain her curiosity. Seeing what Percy had done for a common crow, she couldn’t help but wonder what he might do for one of Remior’s most important creatures.

  A wave of confusion naturally flowed through the connection, as Athena wasn’t privy to Phoebe’s thoughts. That said, the goddess ultimately chose to keep her doubts to herself, instead asking about something else.

  ‘What about Machaon? Are we just going to let him get away with this?’

  The notion caused a mirthful pang of laughter to escape Phoebe’s lips. ‘Get away? After nearly bringing our entire world to ruin? That piece of shit will get his due, one way or the other. I’ll see to that personally,’ she spat, but she wasn’t done.

  Her eyes landed back on Percy, who was getting ready to shove his soul into the egg. Only then did she add, ‘but not right now. Don’t let Machaon know that we’re onto him just yet. He might still be of use to us for a while longer…’

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