Guardian Of The End

"Amber, what threshold do you have to break?" Jason casually questioned. "Its fine if you don\'t want to answer."

"Its to activate something," she replied. "I can\'t tell you what it is."

"No problem. Mine is to connect back with Hestia." Jason replied before looking around.

Using his vision control ability, he could see the changes in the mana particles. Someone was setting up traps all around the forest and none of them were normal traps.

[ Those guys from the church thing are not responsible for this. Its either some guy who is interested in you both or it is a smart beast. ]

\'Or its you know who. Its pretty obvious that strange things only happen due to strange guys who want me for some goddamn reason.\'

[ One, you are a half demon, which according to my knowledge, are quite rare. Two, you have three divinities inside you, including me. Three, you have an apex guardian as your guardian. I don\'t see why people are attracted to you. ]

\'All right, there is no need to be sarcastic.\'

"Where do you think we should head?" Amber questioned while looking at the hole in the ground.

"No idea. What do you think?" Jason shrugged. As far as he could see, the entire forest was a danger zone for them.

Unless they exited it, there wasn\'t anything they could do about it.

"How about heading to the center? In the story books, the center of a place always has something that will help the person in their quest or that\'s where the lair of a villain is located." Amber suggested.

"Let\'s go there," Jason agreed. "We will have to be on the lookout for traps though."

Once he had warned her, the two of them started their journey towards the center of the forest.

***

"Tsk, one of them already went back. Maybe you shouldn\'t have told him his threshold."

"There\'s no need to be this upset," Veritas, the goddess of truth pointed out. "He will come here, Cerberus."

A beast sitting near her legs, grumbled. It was at least five times bigger than Veritas yet the goddess didn\'t looked the least bit terrified.

"I just want to go out. Phobos will be released soon. I want to get out as well!" Cerberus grumbled.

"We will get out chance to go out. Don\'t worry, I will make sure that we go out as well." Veritas promised. "We require just a tiny bit of that boy\'s divinity. Same for the girl."

"As you say, Veritas." Cerberus. "I swear that once I get out, I am going to smack those Greek gods with my paws."

"I can help you in that." Veritas grinned. "After all, I hold a grudge with them too."

***

"Why does someone even need to dig these many holes?" Amber asked with a baffled expression. "Its clear that we will never fall in them once we have learned our lesson."

"Some people never learn there lesson. I once knew about a group of three who dug multiple holes to trap some people. They succeeded most of the time." Jason sighed.

Both of them had resorted to flying since walking on the ground was fatal. The number of traps they encountered had been reduced by a lot.

"We are about to reach the center soon." Jason commented while looking towards the east.

His eyes could see two concentrations of… power?

[ That\'s not mana. ] The system said slowly. [ That\'s divine energy. ]

\'Does that mean that two divine beings are waiting for us in the middle of the forest?!\' Jason asked with a baffled look.

Amber looked at him with a confused expression but didn\'t ask anything. She knew that Jason had some ability which helped him sense either mana or living beings.

Such an expression only meant that he had discovered something shocking.

[ Potentially. Though divine energy is something that no one under the level of a demi-god can see. That energy is too less and weak to belong to a proper god or goddess. ]

\'You are forgetting that pseudo-gods or demi-gods aren\'t beings we can fight, much less gods!\'

[ You can confirm things for yourself by reaching the middle of the forest. Maybe Hestia will awaken then. ] The system argued with a pointed that shut Jason up. [ Or you can go back and remain inside this place for who knows how long. ]

\'How did you get so good at arguments?\'

[ By pulling out youtube videos from your memory. ] The system snorted. [ I just used valid points. ]

Jason sighed and gave up. He turned to look at Amber and said, "want the bad news or the super bad news?"

Amber anxiously looked around to see whether a deadly trap had just sprang up. Once she was assured that nothing was wrong, she replied, "give both one by one."

"The bad news is that  we will mostly be useless in a fight once we reach the center. The super bad news is that if we do end up fighting the things in the center of the forest, we will die."

"What are the chances of our death?"

"Ninety nine point nine nine percent," Jason replied with a grim expression. "We might win if we don\'t have to fight them but if we do, the zero point one percent isn\'t really reliable."

"Flamey, can you smack him for me?" Amber suddenly questioned.

Jason blinked in confusion but before he could say anything, the magma salamander jumped on his face and smacked him with her tail.

Flamey jumped back on her vessel and wrapped around Amber\'s neck. For some reason, Jason could tell that the salamander had a smug expression on her face.

"I have already been in too many near death situations that it has become a normal thing for me. My definition of bad now includes torture or such things." Amber said with a pout.

"I guess there is no need to say anything then." Jason muttered before advancing towards the center.

"Indeed. Let\'s just get done with our quests," Amber smiled. "Who knows? We might be able to complete our quests by putting ourselves in a dangerous situation."

"Jason looked at her with a surprised expression.

\'Is she a prophet?\'