The Arcane Archer - Chapter 55 Goddess Of Nature

Making my way back to base from the weird journey that was exploring the city, I made sure to buy and eat some food while making my way back. While doing so, I did the complicated thing of turning around multiple corners, going through the sewers, and eventually finding the ladder to descend further into the ground.

But as I was doing that, I heard something call out to me. I looked around to find the source of the voice and walked around a bit but no matter where I was standing, the voice always had the same volume. Casting Mage Armor on myself just in case there was a fight, I got prepared to pull out my bow and fire at an enemy if need be.

“Hello?” I called out.

Nothing responded back as I did that, so I walked forwards a bit before a felt a spike of pain shoot through my head. Looking around once again to try and identify the source, as I took a step back, I noticed that I stepped on a bug where I got the random spike of pain. Kneeling own, I got close to the bug to see if there was anything special about it that might’ve caused the spike of pain but from what I could tell, it was but a simple bug.

Just as I was getting up from the ground, a bit of dust from the ceiling fell onto me which caused me to look up and see bugs. Hundreds upon hundreds of bugs. As they fell from the ceiling onto me, I would’ve probably been horrified if I didn’t have a skill which helped me with my fear of spiders and other bugs.

“You…” A feminine voice inside my head said while I was covered in these bugs. “You are not an Elf.”

“That I am not. Though I have met and befriended the elves.” I said out-loud as I attempted to moved and get out of the bugs.

“Befriending them doesn’t matter, you humans are all the same and probably tricked the elves somehow. Though that doesn’t answer the question on how you emit the aura of an Elf.” The voice continued as the bugs slowly started contracting and dwindling my health down. “Answer me or you shall receive the fate as all other humans have.”

The bugs continued to get tighter and tighter around me until I was finally able to grunt out, “I… Helped them… Form a barrier and got their blessing!”

From that, the bugs stopped contracting.

The bugs slowly moved off of me, but all stayed together. After another couple of seconds passed as I gathered my breath and thought about trying to escape, the bugs slowly formed into a weird humanoid bug like form.

“I am the Goddess Cryssal, Goddess of Nature and bugs. Those elves you helped are the only thing keeping you alive, otherwise you’d be dead where you are. But since you’re here, I have something I need you to do mortal.” The Goddess said inside my head.

“And what do you need me to do Goddess Cryssal, as not to be rude, but as a Goddess, why are you entrusting whatever you need to a mortal like me?”

“Like you wouldn’t know what your false God has done.” Cryssal said inside my head with disgusts and anger. Though, after a second passed she said, “Oh, you don’t know.” with genuine surprise.

The humanoid-bug figure of her took a step forwards and grabbed my hand. Forcing my hand open, she put a weird bug into my hand and then told me to eat it.

I opened my mouth to ask a question of why I had to but when I did, she swiftly picked up the bug and shoved it into my mouth. Gagging at both the taste and action of it, I fell onto my knees to try and throw it back up but by then, the action was done.

In my head, I saw a Vision of Cryssal and what I think was Aetius, fighting each other. Aetius who had these massive pairs of wings was burning everything around him with a holy looking fire while multiple humans were chanting and casting magic to make chains surround Cryssal.

From there, other humans who were wearing full plate armor were running up to Cryssal and attempting to tear off her limbs. A few minutes passed with Cryssal killing a what seemed to be thousands upon thousands of human to escape her bindings while also trying to keep Aetius at bay with nature and bugs but he eventually got close enough to somehow grow bigger, and bite her head off. From there, he spit the head out and released a roar of what seemed to be anger.

“Aetius… Killed you? But you’re still here so he didn’t actually kill you? I am so confused.” I questioned.

“Aetius tried to eat me and steal one of my Divine sparks but as a Goddess of Nature, that wouldn’t be as easy as he thought. He tore my physical body apart and left me as nothing but a spirit of the world, forced to use bugs as a carrier. But even though he couldn’t take my spark, he still has the limbs of a Goddess which hold divine power inside them.”

My decently high wisdom was by now able to figure out what she wanted, and the system helped prove that idea by giving me a quest.

[Quest (The Body of Nature)- The Goddess Cryssal want you to retrieve her Divine body from Aetius’s troops before they’re able to turn her own power against the world and its inhabitants.

Reward- Natures Blessing and the Assistance of Cryssal when needed.]

“So, you want me to go find these pieces of you and make sure that Aetius doesn’t use them for whatever a new god would use them for?”

“Hmmm, you’re close but no. I want you to make sure that Aetius doesn’t give his men the power the kill Gods when they themselves are mortal. Though I am willing to make this worth your time as you see, even though I’m unable to control the pieces of me as a spirit of my former self, I can make it so that they’re able to be used by those I deem worthy.”

“Then can’t you just make it so that Aetius’s troops can’t use them?”

“If only it were that easy. Aetius is doing something to them that’s slowly turning the power in them into something that’s not mine. Something that goes against nature itself. But whatever he’s doing is taking some time to do which means that there’s time for you to find them and bring them all together.”

With a sigh, I accepted the quest and watched as the bug figure of her gave a weird smile.

“Then to prove that this won’t be for nothing, I will give you the one thing I was able to save from Aetius’s grasp. My eye.”

The bugs then started to move and rush towards me as they all grabbed my arms and brought me down to my knees. In the center of the previous bug version of her was a giant white eye that appeared to resemble that of a spider’s eye.

The eye was about the same size as my head and the bugs were slowly moving it closer and closer to my face until it was pressing up against my left eye. The entire time I was trying to escape whatever Cryssal was doing but the bugs kept me in place. All of a sudden, the back of the eye opened up like a mouth and bit into my eye.

Instead of a feeling of pain and taking any damage, all I felt was instead the emptiness of my eye being eaten. Then, the emptiness was replaced with the sensation of normality as if nothing ever happened in the first place.

The bugs that were forcing me in place backed away and let me drop to the floor. Immediately, I moved my hand over my eye to cover it as I felt the eye moving inside the socket. The weird thing about that was I could see through it as well, even though it wasn’t physically connected. And just like that, it was done.

The eye stopped moving and was in place like a normal eye. I was able to move it around like a normal eye and felt exactly the same as my previous eye.

“Interesting.” Cryssal hummed with interest. “For a human, you’ve somehow integrated a part of me into yourself as if it were meant to be. I’ll be keeping an eye on you human.” She continued to say as the bugs started to disperse.

About a minute later, I was alone in the corridor and looking at my eye with the mirror I had in my inventory. Looking at my eye, nothing seemed to be different except that every now and then, it would split into two pupils before merging back into one.

Stowing the mirror back into my inventory, I rushed back to the base so that I could report what just happened. Hopefully, they would be able to figure out if I would transform into some weird bug hybrid because of the eye implanted into me.

Eventually I got to the door to the base and just as I was about to open it, I thought for a second that I saw a mug being thrown at me by a still drunk Ava. Seeing as the door was closed, I assumed that I was just hallucinating and opened the door just like normal, only to get hit in the face by a mug thrown by Ava.

“Leo, you’re back!” Ava said drunkenly. ‘What’s wrong with your eye?”

My left eye which was the one eaten or traded with the eye of Cryssal, was irritated as if there was some dust was in it and I was rapidly blinking as to try and get whatever dust was in it out.

“Well a whole bunch of stuff just happened less then an hour ago and it’s probably a good idea to make sure that my eye doesn’t have some weird god infection or something so I’m going to go visit a cleric or something if I can find them.”

“Ok, I’m going to continue partying. Have fuuuun~.”

From there, I asked around a bit and eventually found what could be classified as a doctor. After explaining to them the situation of how my eye is no longer my eye but the eye of a goddess who not physically here anymore, I was eventually given an ice pack as they didn’t really know what to do and told me to go find someone who knows more about gods then them.

This lead me down a weird rabbit hole of trying to find more information about Cryssal and trying to figure out if I got any weird god infection from the entire thing. Eventually, as the universe is, I found knowledge from an unlikely source.

“Cryssal you say? I haven’t heard that name in quite a long time.” Private Taylor said.

For those who don’t remember, Private Taylor was that fangirl who woke me up and brought me to the General the day of the mission. She was Weird to put it simply but she still got her job done.

“Cryssal was a minor Goddess of Nature and Bugs. She was killed a few decades ago by Aetius and was said to have been torn apart to have her physical body turned into a weapon, though we know that that’s impossible. Since she was only a minor god, she wasn’t that well known and was said to have had few followers, though she still held great power.” Private Taylor said in between bites of food. “Then again if you’re asking about it That must mean there’s something special about it!”

“No, was just a name I heard in passing.” I tried to advert but her eyes was already sparkling, and she seemed overjoyed upon hearing me say this.

“If Cryssal is still alive that means we would have another ally on our side! I must tell everyone!”

Just as she was about to run off and talk everyone’s head off, I grabbed her by the arm and stopped her from running.

“Please, just keep this between the two of us, ok?”

Her face became red and you could almost see smoke coming out of her ears because of what I said and because I was holding onto her arm. She slowly nodded to no one, stuck inside whatever fantasy she was currently having as I just slowly let go and backed away.

Even as I was doing that, I continued to watch as she stayed stuck inside the daydream. The power of being their idol or whatever you want to call it was weird. Though thanks to her, I was able to get a bit more information, even if it was only a small amount.

She was a Goddess with few followers but still had lots of power. Her body is being turned into a weapon and you can apparently use them if she allows you to and by having them take over the position of that part on your own body or something.

I held my hand over the eye while doing this and shivered slightly at the idea of recovering every part and using them. Just having the eye inside me was weird and made me not want to get anymore.

Leaving the room, I started slowly making my way back to my own room while thinking about how to find the next piece of Cryssal. Getting an ally that had divine powers was something that would help in the end battle against Aetius if I ever got there but at the moment, it felt like something quite a ways off.

Once at my door, I reached for the doorknob only to see an explosion. My left eye was twitching and felt like it was on fire, so I released the doorknob and took a step back. A minute later, I reached for the doorknob again but felt nothing.

Not wanting to risk it after what happened with the mug thrown at my head, I decided to cast a spell which would summon a weird ghost-like servant for me. This servant is an invisible, mindless, shapeless force that’s able to perform simple tasks for me until the spell ends (1 hour). It has only one health and can’t attack but is still able to interact with objects which makes it great for little things like this.

Backing 60 feet away from the door which required me to go around a few corners here and there, I had the unseen-servant open the door for me and prepared for a loud explosion or some sort of heat to appear. But as a second passed, I only heard what sounded like a pin being pulled. Then came the explosion and a bunch of heat as I felt what seemed like enough fire to go around one or two of the corners that I was hiding behind.