Loki's Renard

Arc 4 Chapter 5 - Dark Ages First Clash

Hey guys... been a while, huh? Might be wondering where I was, if work had something to do with it. Nah, not this time. Something serious happened, something that made me really question a lot of things.

Disclaimer: Authors notes from this point on contain a lot of deep and heavy topics. If you don't want to read them, skip to the non bold part to begin reading the story.

Well, I got a girlfriend. I know, probably not what you were expecting, and neither was I. We met through mutual friends, hit it off, and we eventually started dating. I met her a few days after I posted the last chapter, and I felt everything was great. As you can probably tell, it wasn't.

The relationship became abusive pretty quickly. I'm still very very new to relationships, so I didn't see the signs. She would constantly go through me phone, and she wanted to spend every waking moment with me. It was cute at first, but quickly became suffocating. She cut me off from my friends, tried to do the same with my mother and sister, but since I live with them, she was very unsuccessful there, and would constantly yell at me when I was on my phone or playing with someone, accusing me of cheating. This went on for a few months, and with the help of some friends who were checking up on me, I was able to find the courage to break up with her. She threatened to kill herself if I left her, but my best friend said it was a bluff, something he went through with an ex from highschool, and I called her bluff.

She tried to take her life that night, trying to overdose on paracetamol. Her parents were with her, and thankfully got her to the hospital in time for her life to be saved, but she had to go through detox or something, I wasn't there for it. Her dad was quick to get in contact with me, let me know it wasn't my fault. He's a great guy, and her mum as well. But I haven't felt like writing. Still don't if I'm being completely honest. But right now, I need a distraction, and this is probably the best way to go about it. So I'm sorry if the next few parts are of a lower quality, but I'm not okay, and I don't know when I will be. But I love this story, and I love you guys too, I don't want to leave you with nothing, even if that is what I did before.

I'm sorry it took so long, and I'm sorry that it might not be what you're looking forward to, but it's what I have the strength to write.

Please enjoy it all the same.

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Alfia looked at the four hundred year old woman with anticipation. She had heard legends as a child about the Witches of Sin. Seven girls that were cursed with powers that made them into witches, some formidable adventurers, some simply unlucky civilians blessed with Falna. Echidna was one of the ones that was previously an adventurer, a researcher of the Dungeon who had developed the 'Authority of Greed' skill, and had become a servant to her endless pursuit of knowledge, first to the Dungeon, throwing herself into it constantly, growing stronger so she could study more of the Dungeon, and quench her thirst for knowledge.

However, as her strength grew, so too did her curiosity surrounding Falna, and soon, the witch turned her sights from the Dungeon, and focused on the Falna gifted to her by the gods, desiring to unlock all of it's divine secrets. She sought out something that could only rival the absolute hubris of Daedalus in his efforts to expand the Dungeon.

Echidna wished to become a divine being, a god. To break her cycle of reincarnation and live eternally as the goddess of knowledge. She believed that the Falna was her way of achieving that goal, and that by unlocking it's secrets, she could one day become divine herself. It was a story that was among the worst of the seven witches, only topped by the Witch of Envy, who brought upon a second coming of the 'Age of Monsters' when she almost destroyed Orario and brought countless kingdoms to their ruin in search of the love she desired.