New Chapter for the Highest Tier (June 2021)

***********************

Vampire King Apollyon

***********************

"You have no right to take the glory away from me!"

Hecate looked over her shoulder and glowered at the bright ball of light energy forming in Princess Sapphire's raised hand.

She didn't give it up despite Hecate's presence between her and Hephaestus, and that might put the Goddess of the Underworld in a bad mood.

Apollyon shook his head in disapproval.

Princess Sapphire didn't trust the goddess to protect her.

It made sense that Hecate had taken it as an insult.

Apollyon's sweat trickled from his brow as he pressed his lips together.

He feared for his half-sister's life in the presence of these two powerful beings with no one to guide her on how to deal with either one.

"Dissolve your weapon, girl." Hecate whispered in a cold, ruthless tone, and Apollyon wondered if this was how she communicated with his wife.

Strict.

He didn't like that.

Princess Sapphire matched Hecate's death glare with an arrogance that only a child who believed she had the upper hand and continued holding her weapon up.

Apollyon admired his sister's audacity to disobey the goddess… but that would get her in trouble. God's blood! She was more stubborn than his wife!

The goddess only smiled at her display of defiance.

Shadows swirled around the arbor as she cast a sudden bolt of darkness on Princess Sapphire's fireball.

Pitch black clouds swallowed the light energy, and it vanished in an instant. "Don't test me, darling, or I might control your beloved werewolf, Xerxes, and take him to the Underworld with me."

"I—I apologize, Goddess." She immediately backtracked at the mention of the werewolf, "Please keep Xerxes out of this."

"Only if you are good girl, Princess Sapphire. Trust me and I will handle this one." Hecate reassured her when his sister's behavior turned docile. "Those weapons will not have any use against your father."

"My father?" Her countenance was the epitome of disgust.

"Yes." Hephaestus's voice softened to soothe Princess Sapphire's visible distress. "I am your father and you belong to me. I will train you to become my apprentice. I am the God of Fire, Hephaestus, and I can teach you the art of making weapons." He promised her, but he made no move towards her. "If you train with me, you will be invincible among all the Summer Faeries."

"I don't have a father who is a killer!" Princess Sapphire's face was red with anger as she yelled at him, If you are really Hephaestus, then you must be the one who is responsible for the deaths of the innocent tonight! Why did you do it?!"

"Was it to get back at my mother for marrying another and leaving you behind?" The intensity of her voice raised with every question. "Did you think it through before you dropped your stone? Did you really think I would love you for this?!"

"You didn't ask me for what I want." She repeatedly rubbed her hands against Xerxes's fur for comfort.

There was audible stress in her posture and tone. " If you are really my father did you take into consideration where I want to stay and where I want to be with!"

"I have heard your prayers every day the moment you wake up and every night you cry yourself to sleep." Hephaestus said.

Sapphire's lips parted in shock as a myriad of expressions were shown on her face. "How did you—"

"I'm here now. Come with me to my home, my child, and I will give you all the love I could give you more than what your heartless mother could give. What more could you ask for?" Hephaestus reached a hand out to her.

Yet, it was only a mere gesture since Hecate had created a shadow of impenetrable shields every time he stepped out of line.

"My freedom." She said with conviction. "Take your mask off and let me see your face."

"I don't care what you think of me if I wouldn't reveal what I look like." His lips pressed into a white slash. "I will abduct you if I have to."

"Hephaestus." Smirking, Hecate tilted her head at him as she rested a hand on her hip. "What made you think that I would let you?"

With a slight wave of her hand with murmurs of dark incantations in her scarlet lips, hundreds of ghastly winged monsters appeared out of nowhere as if they were hiding in the shadows for a long time waiting to be summoned by the Goddess of the Underworld.

Why did Luna have the exact abilities as Hecate?

He recalled how his wife called out the trapped souls haunting the Solitary Fae's territory to distract the Spring Militia.

Both of them assumed she could do it because Luna was an Archdemon.

Did she unwittingly became Hecate's High Priestess despite not being a virgin because she had the Mark of the Triple Moon Goddess on her chest?

"Don't make me animate the dead people you killed in the wildfire, Hephaestus." Hecate smiled, revealing straight pearly white teeth.

Apollyon almost forgot that she was also the Goddess of Necromancy. "It wasn't the aristocrats' fault that Princess Ourania cased you aside when you have no use of you anymore, only to be replaced with a poor Knight."

"You think I would be afraid of you?" Hephaestus pulled out a small white egg underneath his tunic and dropped it.

Apollyon thought it was another firestone, and he flinched when he heard an inaudible 'clack' when it landed on the ground, expecting an explosion.

But that would be impossible since Hecate was there.

The goddess wouldn't let the children die. And if the God of Fire valued Sapphire as his daughter, he wouldn't allow anything to harm her.

Nevertheless, Apollyon's eyes fell shut, and he ducked his head just in case.

There wasn't any mighty blast of a supernova.

When Apollyon opened his eyes again, a dragon with bronze wings, golden scales, and giant rubies for eyes roared loud in the full moon, showing its razor-sharp teeth.

It was an automaton made by Hephaestus himself.

The bronze dragon's whole body was on fire.