The Lonely God (Rosekook)

11

Immediately when he dropped down out of the air in the temple's courtyard, divine guards descended upon him.

"I demand an audience with Zeus immediately!" Jeongguk barked. His nut-brown hair was unkempt and full of twigs and leaves, his clothes dishevelled and foreign, his gaze wild as his eyes flitted restlessly from one guard to the next. He had been too disoriented to fly and kept crashing into trees.

The guards weren't taking him seriously and he was proved right a second later when they pounced upon him.

But Jeongguk quickly dodged.

"SALTAR!" he shouted. He leapt clear of the guards' heads by a good few feet as his magic allowed him to sail over them and land, taking off immediately.

He ran madly, using his magic to blast guards out of his way, dashing towards the golden doors of the Great Hall and bursting in yelling at the top of his lungs.

"Zeus it's an emergency! Eris, she's gonna bring war to Olympus you gotta stop her she's controlling—"

He was cut off with a loud angry roar. "Seize him!"

"No!" Jeongguk screamed as a swarm of stony-faced guards surrounded him and pounced in a pincer movement, holding him down as he kicked and swore and recited spells but to no avail—within minutes, he was tightly bound and trussed up like a sacrificial animal.

Once the magical bonds were on him, his magic was useless, he'd been in this situation before.

Maybe he could try cutting himself free?

"How dare you interrupt the Assembly? " Zeus rumbled like a volcano before it erupts, his beard floating in an powerful draft as the air crackled with charging energy.

"Because it's an emergency and everyone's in danger," bellowed Jeongguk, eliciting mumbles and mutterings from the divine spectators. He had their attention now.

"We're well aware," Zeus snarled, "monsters are wreaking havoc in the cities here as far south as Busan AND also in the world you were supposed to be serving your banishment in! But by some cunning deception you came back, ripping a hole in the fabric of the essence that is holding everything in place!"

"Excuse me, but isn't that what you did in the first place?" Jeongguk fired back. "Dumping me some place like my no-good parents did the moment they set eyes on me?"

"Do not disrespect me!" Zeus thundered. "Watch your tongue!"

"Me? Disrespect your mightiness? Why I'd never! I'd rather live my life here for a little longer, thanks."

Zeus' face bulged red like a tomato. "Guards, throw him out!"

"No no no no hear me out, just hear me out, you're all about democracy and whatnot so just listen to me!" Jeongguk yelled, changing tact urgently, "Eris is out to overthrow Olympus. She opened a portal and connected Tartarus to the Unmagical Seoul and she intends to do the same here!"

"Eris can do no such thing, she's not one of the deities in charge of dimensional travel, she doesn't have the capacity." Athena pointed out. "Only Hecate and the Big Three are capable."

Jeongguk closed his eyes. "Yes but....she used...the blood of two demi-gods from the alternate Seoul.... and it...worked."

The hall erupted in furore: Gods turned to their neighbour deity and started conversing and debating with frantic urgency, their faces alternating between perplexed, stunned, outrage and distaste.

"The blood of demi-gods?"

"But that is against the rules, that's dark magic from before the Primordial Ones!"