Epic of Caterpillar
chapter-888

Baltis, the Goddess of Stargazing Eyes was submerged in disbelief and a feeling of strangeness.

Since she began to use her abilities to see Kireina's actions in the future that she had felt strangely dizzy every time she did, her power over fate was something she could barely grasp and take a look at.

Although she was a goddess that saw the future through her Stargazing Eyes, she was not able to see the true future, but many branches of it.

And through several Divine Techniques, she was able to calculate ad discern which one was the most likely to occur, often with 99% of success.

Amongst the Gods who had a Divinity related to Fate, she was perhaps one of the strongest and most valuables in this regard, her ability to predict the future had saved many lives in the past, ad she planned to use it once more now that she joined hands with Zeus to help him exterminate Kireina for stealing Altani from her.

Altani was her heroine which would become her subordinate goddess in the future. Baltis had planned to make her another Goddess with similar abilities to her, and slowly build up a pantheon of gods that could glance at the future to serve her Master Europa, Jupiter, and the Supreme God of Star Ocean.

She had predicted that Kireina would come here… and just as she predicted, she came.

However, everything went strange, it wasn't exactly as she predicted.

Kireina was immensely strong, she killed dozens of Demigods in seconds, and then almost killed Zeus by exploding.

Many Gods believed that she killed herself to defeat Zeus, but this couldn't be farther from the truth.

She didn't realize it before, but now, she finally realized.

Kireina had completely made her a fool.

Kireina was not even here, she wasn't the real Kireina, but a clone made with her abilities, a disposable clone she sent to explode ad make a distraction… from the real one!

Baltis quickly realized that the real one wouldn't even come down to the Lower Realm in a while…

However, her powers didn't give her complete Omni sense, she was not able to predict nor see everything, and needed proper preparation…

So she was unaware that Kireina was right at the side of the Yggdrasil Branch, but knew that she was somewhere else.

She already saw Apollo carry Zeus damaged soul inside his Divine Realm to heal him, but he needed to quickly tell everyone about it!

She fell out of her Divine Realm and reached Hermes, Artemis, and Dionysos.

"Hermes-sama, Artemis-sama, Dyonisos-sama!" she cried.

"Baltis?" asked Artemis, feeling strange by her expression of desperation.

"Kireina… Kireina is somewhere else, she's still alive!" said Baltis.

"Well, that's already known. We figured that out a few minutes ago… for someone that can see the future you're pretty slow…" sighed Hermes.

"Indeed, we already know, Baltis. However, do you know where she is?" asked Artemis.

"And how was it possible for you to not be able to see the possible future where she went to?" asked Dyonisos.

The Gods didn't know how her powers worked… and thought that she could simply see all futures and have complete control over endless possibilities… but not even the Supreme Goddess of Fate and Destiny had such an overpowered ability…

Nonetheless, she tried to explain what happened politely.

"W-What happened is that Kireina used some kind of ability to manipulate the threads of fate… The stars I glanced at are manifestations of the threads of fate, what I can see and predict is only related to them… If someone capable of manipulating them alters them, I could even end up… glancing at a fabricated future which would even be half-truth…" sighed Baltis.

"Oh…"

The three Gods fell silent as they realized that the Goddess wasn't really as overpowered as they thought and that it wasn't completely her fault that everything went downhill.

"Kireina… can do such a thing?!" asked Artemis.

"I believe so… I can't find another way to explain it," sighed Baltis.

"So she even has enormous power over fate… Just how ridiculous is that monster?" sighed Hermes.

"A shred demon with many powers… We certainly cannot let it live anymore… We must seek it and use all of our power, combining our troops and our strength and annihilating her before things become worse," sighed Dyonisos.

"Is there any idea where she could be?" wondered Artemis.

As the Gods began to think, a sudden alert finally came, the last message sent by Umlena which had taken several minutes to reach them!

Ares was the first one to receive it, but because he was busy, he could not see nor answer it, however, Artemis and the rest suddenly received it within their Interdimensional Merchant Shops!

The message itself was Umlena asking for help desperately as the Gods had never heard her ask before!

Umlena was well known as a Goddess with a lot of pride and strength, she would have never begged for help so desperately if her life wasn't about to end or if something didn't happen to the other Gods she was with!

"Umlena!" cried Artemis.

"Kireina went to the Yggdrasil Branch?!" asked Hermes in disbelief.

"We have to go then!" said Dyonisos.

"She went there?! Wait… don't tell me that she wants to take pieces off the tree?" asked Baltis.

"What? no… Knowing her malice… She would do something even crazier…" said Artemis.

"You mean….?! No, that's impossible…!" said Hermes.

"Yeah, she might be trying to actually take away the entire tree while we lowered our guards!" said Artemis.

"We have to go, quickly!" said Dyonisos.

The gods quickly gathered some troops and took away their Teleportation Stones, disappearing from the place.

Baltis was left in shock and paralyzed, without knowing what to do…

However, a sudden call from someone she recognized immediately came to her!

"Baltis… Please, come to my Divine Realm…"

"Ah! Zeus-sama! You are okay? Right away!"

Baltis quickly flew inside her Divine Realm by depositing it into the spatial layers and then opened a portal through her Divine Link with Zeus, entering his Divine Realm and taking out her Divine Realm from the spatial layers right after.

There, she flew inside the large temple that was Zeus' home, as he found him with Apollo.

Athena, Ares, Aphrodite, and Apollo's children went to assist Artemis, Hermes, and Dyonisos the moment they received Umlena's last message and left Apollo to take care of the recovering Zeus, which seemed to have been successfully healed after Apollo used his amazing formation to purify his soul. Apollo was indeed an amazingly talented son, it seemed.

Baltis found Zeus soul materializing into his former appearance, he was already growing a new body through a special Divine Technique named Thunderous Human Body, which let him regrow lost limbs of his body, and to an extreme extent, even his entire physical body, although it would take some time.

"Ah… Baltis…" sighed Zeus.

"Oh, Zeus, I am glad you are okay now…" sighed Baltis.

"Father is now recovering, and he really shouldn't meet more people, but he insisted to meet you…" sighed Apollo.

"I see… Well, let me serve you for now, okay? I can go make you something to eat for now… Oh, do you want tea?" asked Baltis, feeling guilty for Zeus' state and trying to compensate by serving him.

"No… I just want you to be at my side…" sighed Zeus.

Baltis almost skipped a beat as she saw Zeus with pity, she quickly sat down right at his side in the bed he was resting on and held his large hand.

"I see… I am sorry, I was not able to see the future correctly… she… Kireina has some kind of ability to see the future and even change it!" said Baltis, as Apollo slowly walked out of the room, Baltis thought that he wanted to leave them to some privacy.

Zeus nodded slowly.

"I know…" he sighed.

"Oh? Did you figure it out? Is there… a way to fight against it?" asked Baltis.

"There is a way… But why should I tell you?" asked Zeus, his tone of voice suddenly changing.

"W-Well… Eh? W-What did you said?" asked Baltis, feeling weirded out by Zeus' tone of voice.

"You are quite the annoying Goddess… But now that I got you in my grasp, I don't have to worry as much… In fact, I think I could even play around with all these Gods, as they all fall one by one…" said Zeus while chuckling, his eyes suddenly turning… red.

Baltis… felt paralyzed.

She slowly tried to get up, something was wrong, something was very wrong.

"Z-Zeus-sama…?" she asked lightly, as she slowly moved her legs down the floor.

"Do you think you can escape? You're already trapped," laughed Zeus, as a sudden prison made of light trapped him and Baltis inside!

FLASH!

"E-Eh?! A Divine Formation?!" asked Baltis in utter disbelief.

"I've always wondered how a Fate God tastes like… I have eaten so many Gods, yet I have not tasted a Fate one yet…"

Zeus kept talking incoherently as he grasped Baltis's hand tightly, she was not able to run away from his strength, and desperately tried to escape from him.

"What are you even talking about, Zeus?! Have you gone insane?! Let me go! Why is there a formation in here?!" asked Baltis.

"For being a goddess that can see the future, you are very slow…" laughed Zeus, as in front of Baltis, his entire soul began to turn completely grotesque, with many dark colors such as crimson red, wine, black, and dark blue twisting continuously as enormous crimson eyes surged, and a large and gaping abyssal maw…

Many oozy, black-colored tentacles began to expand around the entire room, as Zeus grew in size multiple times, his laughter became monstrous and grotesque, his voice seemed to resonate with an ear-piercing pitch and groans of many beasts agonizing continuously.

"Nnngh…! W-What is this?! WHO ARE YOU!?" cried Baltis, as her eyes shined brightly with the light of stars. She quickly fired lasers of bright yellow light which exploded into cosmic and illusory starry smoke, defending herself against the tentacles, although she was not really a battle-oriented goddess, and her offensive methods were very limited.

"Who am I? Isn't it obvious?" laughed Zeus, as he quickly jumped over Baltis, entangling her entire body with his tentacles as her powers began to be quickly drained out of her body! Even her entire soul felt as if it was being devoured by his very touch!

"No…! Nooo! Y-You are…! It can't be…! Kireina!? Nnnggh…! Nnngraagh…!"

Baltis realized the most terrifying fact of the day, as her entire body began to twist in pain due to Zeus' monstrous tentacle crushing her, her offensive measures were useless against him, and she began to be slowly parasitized and eaten!

"Bingo! Don't worry, you are not going to disappear… In fact, I will happily take over your place too, Baltis-chan!" laughed Zeus with the voice of Kireina, as Baltis began to scream in utmost agony as her entire body was a parasite and eaten alive while being replaced by the eaten parts through a grotesque cycle of constant digestion!

"Nnngrraaaaaggh…! Someone… Please! Save meeeee…! NNNGRRRYAAAAAAAHHHH…!"

Crunch, crunch, crunch…

However, no one came to her rescue, no matter how loud she screamed…

The only thing she heard while her consciousness fragmented into pieces and was taken over was the sound of her soul being munched like a tasty treat.

…

Apollo smiled as he deactivated the Formation, a few minutes after, Zeus came walking out of the room with Baltis at his side as if nothing had happened… in fact, they seemed healthier than ever.

"Is it done?" asked Apollo with a malicious smile.

"Indeed… The first step and second step of the infiltration have been a success," chuckled Baltis as her eyes gleamed with crimson red, her pale-white skin and her long blonde hair seemed the same as ever, but she now held some strange aura.

"It is done… Now, let's wait and see," said Zeus, his eyes gleaming with sharp crimson light.

"Very well…" said Apollo.