GUARDIAN OF THE END

"A certain goddess?" Erebus questioned. "Which goddess are you talking about?"

"Weren't you keeping an eye on me?" Jason raised an eyebrow.

Before Erebus could reply and make an excuse, he felt someone entering the place forcefully.

It was none other than Hestia who had come to talk to Jason as well as see who his patron god was.

The empty black sky suddenly had an array of stars popping all around. They looked like the light of a candle illuminating a dark room.

"Hello, Jason." A feminine voice entered both Jason and Erebus's ears as a beautiful woman appeared in front of them.

The woman had long curly brown hair that fell down to her waist alongside blood red eyes that reminded Jason a lot about Aiden.

In addition to this, the woman had two long horns protruding from the front of her head, each of them obsidian black.

Hestia was wearing a plain blue dress that went down to her knees and showed her curves in modesty. Jason had to admit that older woman had a charm that younger ones couldn't posses, even if they were centuries old.

Erebus, however, had recognized who the woman was and was looking at her in shock. His mouth was slightly open, which for a god of his caliber, must have been a truly shocking event.

"Hestia…" He muttered her name as the goddess looked at him with surprise.

She took in his appearance and tried to figure out who he was. Hestia racked her brain to search for his name yet no matter how hard she tried, she realized that she didn't know his name.

"Who are you?" Hestia asked slowly as she had been expecting herself to know the man's name.

"Of course you don't know me." Erebus mumbled before replying, "I'm Erebus."

Erebus extended his hand forward for Hestia to shake yet she didn't lift hers. Hestia's entire body was frozen as she looked at Erebus's face with a slightly open mouth.

"You are… darkness…" She mumbled as Erebus rolled his eyes.

"No, I am not. Well not anymore." He sighed. "I'm the god of shadows nowadays as well as a part time bartender guiding the lost souls."

Hestia didn't know what to say as she looked at Erebus as though he was some kind of historical legend, which in a way, he was.

"Jason, maybe you should have told me that your patron was Erebus…" Hestia murmured as Jason shrugged.

"It didn't seem relevant at the time. After all, we were mostly fighting the entire day." Jason replied as Hestia looked from his face to Erebus's face.

[ Maybe you both should give her a few minutes to digest this. ] The system said inside both of their minds.

'I guess you are right.' Erebus replied as both Jason and the system was able to hear him.

'Ere, why is she behaving that way though?' Jason inquired as Erebus sigh exasperatedly.

'Well its due to the myths surrounding me. I'm supposedly one of the first five creations thrown out of something called chaos. To her, I'm like the hidden sect ancestor everyone fears and admires.'

'But are those myths true?'

'No one can tell what myths are real or what are fake. Some are true and some are just a figment of imagination that some living being promoted.

In the end, the gods themselves can't tell the truth. Memory loss becomes quite common once you've lived for this long and every one likes praise until you have stories going around in which you cheated on your sister-wife a thousand times.'

'I thought you guys had some kind of passive ability that helped you remember stuff better.' Jason mused.

'I mean we can remember anything that we want to remember by focusing a bit hard. We just don't have instant recall or perfect memory or anything like that.' Erebus shrugged as the two of them then looked back at Hestia.

She had finally managed to get over the initial shock as she looked at Jason with a surprised look.

"So which one of those divinities is yours?" Hestia asked as Jason suddenly remembered that he had two divinities inside him too.

'What the hell happened to those two?' he asked the system as he remembered that neither of the two divinities had made an appearance and hadn't given him any powerups either.

[ They are currently dormant and the only passive ability you gain is protection from slavery and bad contracts also a slight amount of increase in charm. ] The system replied as Jason sighed audibly.

"Ere, how am I supposed to use the power of the divinities inside me?" Jason asked aloud.

Erebus shook his head before replying, "you can only use their true power after experiencing a tearjerker incident. If the incident relates with either of the two divinities, you will be able to unlock their true power."

Having explained the means to use their powers, Erebus turned his gaze towards Hestia.

"Neither of those divinities are mine. One of them belongs to Sancus while the other one…" Erebus's voice trailed off as he knew who the golden ring belonged to.

Yet even he didn't want to take the person's name due to certain reasons. There was a chance that things could go terribly wrong if the owner of the divinity herself appeared on Clover.

"Then what have you given him as a patron?" Hestia inquired while observing Jason from head to toe.

"I have given him a system." Erebus shrugged.

"A system…" Hestia suddenly seemed to fell deep in thought as though she was remembering something from the past.

"Though this discussion is nice and good, can anyone please explain me the concept of guardians and what worlds they come from?" Jason asked as his words pulled Hestia back to the present.

"Ahh right…" she pulled her thoughts together. "Guardians basically refer to the strongest people on a realm. There could be around ten to twenty guardians on a single realm."

"Clover is interconnected with nine such realms, all of which can only be accessed from Clover," Erebus continued. "All these realms have numerous guardians who can come to Clover by choosing people below the age of eighteen. These people are called vessels."

"You are my vessel, Jason," Hestia added. "Before I chose you as my vessel, I was surviving inside the body of that goat but that restricted my powers by ninety five percent. That was why I couldn't communicate with you or anything like that."

"I remember that you eradicated Otis and his group in the past using your powers." Jason commented as Hestia nodded in acknowledgment.

"Now Clover has numerous vessels due to the guardians wanting to come here. The reason is because Clover has much more powerful natural manner and we can benefit from that."

"You don't have to lie to him," Erebus snorted. "Jason is smarter than you give him credit for."

Hestia seemed to pause for a second before continuing, "well the real reason most guardians come here is so that they could ascend to godhood. Most of us have already reached your maximum potential back in our home worlds."

"Wait, aren't you already a goddess?" Jason interrupted in confusion. "And as far as I remember, Hecate is a goddess too."

"Well… we're both goddesses and not goddesses at the same time." Hestia replied as Jason raised his eyebrows in response.

"In simpler terms, they were once goddesses but due to some reasons, they ended up as demi-gods from other realms." Erebus explained.

"Those aren't really simpler terms. Its more like you are leaving things to my imagination." Jason muttered loud enough for both of them to hear his words.

"You wanted to learn about guardians and we will explain that to you. Anything other than that isn't really important at the moment." Erebus replied calmly.

Jason looked from his face to Hestia's before sighing.

"Then can I ask one last question?" Jason asked while looking Hestia right into the eyes.

"As long as its something we can answer, sure." Hestia replied, feeling slightly confused.

"Then all I want to know is… why me?"