Chapter 4: Chapter 4: The Cultist

As Athena slowly made her way out down the street, she quickly noticed all the things different than usual. There were no pedestrians walking on the sidewalks, nor children playing in the backyards. The sound of screaming and gunshots from neighboring areas have mostly quieted down, but from time to time there would suddenly be a burst of noise. 

Athena slowly approached her neighbor’s driveway where a girl would always be playing. She was a polite little girl, always saying hi to Athena whenever she walked by. As she got closer, Athena quickly discovered that despite there being some toys on the ground, the girl wasn’t there. She turned to the house and realized the door was open. She could distinctly see some spots of red blood on the open door. 

What happened was almost implied.

Athena sighed and slowly walked into the house. The moment she entered the building, she saw it. Laying on the ground was her neighbor, a single mother in her thirties who worked two jobs to support her daughter. Now she was dead, and crunching on the flesh of her stomach was her own seven year-old daughter, having been reduced to a mutant. It was so engulfed in feasting on its mother that it didn't even notice Athena’s presence.

“Kill it.” Athena silently summoned the hoplite and gave it a simple order. The Greek soldier, who seemed quite horrified by the sight of the mutated girl, nonetheless obeyed. With a single cut, he beheaded the little girl, a merciful end. 

The moment the hoplite did his job, Athena sent him home immediately. The hoplite was paid based on time, not work, so the greedy capitalist that she was, Athena would gladly extract as much value from him as possible. 

As the hoplite disappeared once again, Athena looked down on the body of the little girl. She briefly summoned the Sacrifice Altar and was informed the body of the mutant was a Class F+ entity. 

Assessing the power level of targets was one of the few free services from the Sacrifice Altar. It was almost as if the Altar was encouraging summoners like Athena to find out how valuable an entity was. After all, the more the summoner saw, the more likely they would kill and sacrifice the entity, and the more likely the Altar could get paid a commission fee.

The body of the woman, on the other hand, was a Class F- entity. 

A pair of Class F mutants wouldn’t make a good sacrifice. The most she could get was an Equal Pact with a pair of Class F entities, and she had no need for that. However, if she could collect dozens of even hundreds of Class F bodies, then perhaps she could summon a much stronger entity. 

Giving the house another look, Athena got back on her hunting trip. 

Two bodies were on the driveway of the next house down the street. They were killed by a Class F+ mutated squirrel which the hoplite quickly handled. Athena dragged all three bodies back to the neighbor’s house. 

On the other side of the street, a minivan had smashed into a jeep parked on the curb. The door was open and it looked like the driver fled down the street. She didn't make it far, as Athena discovered her body being chewed on by another mutated human. Once again, the mutant was killed and both bodies were retrieved.

In another house with the door open, Athena discovered a pair of bodies. A human man and a mutant who looked to be his wife. It looked like the man was able to kill the mutant with the AR15 assault rifle he kept in his house for some reason, but not before being disemboweled by the mutant’s claws. Athena happily added the assault rifle to her list of weapons and dragged the two bodies back to the house.

Of course, most houses were still locked, and Athena didn't have the time or the need to break open the doors. There were more than enough easily-accessible bodies to collect.

After spending half an hour collecting over a dozen bodies, Athena decided to summon once again. She knew she might not get anyone too powerful, but she knew she couldn’t carry all these bodies with her and always returning to the house would take too long. She might as well spend the bodies on getting something now. 

She piled all the bodies, mutants and humans alike, together and started making the necessary preparations. Soon, the familiar form of the Sacrifice Altar appeared, once again just large enough to hold all the bodies surrounded by the symbols. 

Once again, a figure solidified across the Sacrifice Altar from Athena. This time, instead of being an ancient Greek warrior, the figure was a young woman who wore a rather exposing outfit that barely covered a third of her body. Athena’s eyes landed on the bare skin of the woman and she frowned, not because she was physically attracted to the woman, but because these areas of skin were covered in scars old and new. As someone who had ordered and witnessed many tortures, Athena could tell these scars were likely self-inflicted. 

Who the hell did she just summon?

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The answer came quickly for Athena. 

The woman’s name was Cara. She was a cultist in the Tormentor Cult, an organization that focused on the worship of Karydus, the Goddess of Agony and Suffering. Cultists of Karydus showed their loyalty to their Goddess by exerting pain over both themselves and each other. In addition, the cultists would often kidnap civilians from their world and sacrifice them to their deity by torturing them to death. In return, their deity would give blessings to the cultists that would grant the cultists health, power, and longevity. The stronger the sacrifice, the greater the blessing. 

The cult was infamous within their world, and cultists were usually killed on sight. Even so, the influence of the cult ran much deeper than the public knew. Many government officials and provincial governors who condemned the cult in public were secretly cultists themselves for the simple reason that the reward was way too tempting. 

While gods did exist in their universe, most gods had more demanding requirements when it came to giving their blessings. Few were as easy to appease as the Goddess of Agony and Suffering. As far as those with great influence saw it, carving up a dozen homeless was a small price to pay for ten more years of healthy life. 

The Altar informed Athena that Cara was a Class F entity. Even in the cult, she was at the bottom of the power pyramid. As a young woman who never received her god’s blessings, she never got to sacrifice anyone to Karydus. She could only show her worship with masochistic activities, but that just wasn’t enough. 

Athena had never dealt with the Tormentor Cult before, but she could tell she was in a much more dominant position toward Cara than she was with the hoplite. In addition to being stronger, the hoplite, as a warrior, would hold a decent social status in Greek societies. Cara, well…she didn't seem to have too many options. A dozen Class F bodies would be quite valuable to her for whatever purpose she had for them. 

As the negotiation started, Athena made her demands clear. She wanted to sign a Superior Pact with Cara. The pact meant that, in exchange for the sacrifices, Cara would be permanently indebted to Athena. There was no option for Cara to break the contract. She had to answer whenever she was summoned and do everything she was told. This would only end in the death of either side in the pact.

Cara, as expected, didn't like this proposal one bit. Yes, she was in a weaker position, but even a sadomasochist like her didn't necessarily like the idea of being a slave forever. If she agreed to the Superior Pact, she wouldn’t even be able to quit, no matter how much she was willing to give up. 

Athena was ready for this, and she upped her offer with promises. She quickly informed Cara that if the cultist followed her, she would give the cultist a significant amount of sentient beings to torture and sacrifice to her own goddess. Athena assured the cultist she had no reason to lie, because as she was now, the cultist offered little value to Athena. The more sacrifices the cultist made and the stronger she became, the more useful she was to Athena. 

This would be a mutually beneficial agreement. 

Cara was clearly intrigued by this offer. Like Athena thought, she wasn’t doing too well back in her own world. Cultists like her had a tendency of dying randomly for various reasons. Being enslaved forever was bad, but there were so many worse fates that could befall her. Even living as a slave was better than death.

After a while of thinking, she agreed to the Superior Pact. Athena secretly suspected her own appearance also helped. If she was an older man, maybe Cara would think about it a little longer, but serving a decent-looking young woman was a much more comforting option. 

As the pact was finished and the sacrificed corpses disappeared, Athena immediately summoned Cara into her own world. Unlike with the hoplite, there was no time limit to how long Cara would fight for her. 

“Do you have a weapon, Cara?” Athena asked her new underling. 

“Yes, my mistress.” Cara let out a small smile and pulled a knife out of a holster hidden behind her revealing outfit. Athena took a look at the knife. The blade was covered in runes she didn't recognize. It was likely forged by magic and given to each member of the cult. 

“Don’t call me mistress. It will draw unwanted attention.” She handed the knife back to Cara. Some people might enjoy being referred to that by a beautiful woman, but Athena wasn’t into that. “Call me Athena.” 

“As you command, Athena.”

Athena got Cara to put on a jacket over her skimpy clothes. Cara tried to protest, claiming extra clothing would make it more difficult for her to fight. Athena insisted. It wasn’t like she was trying to rely on Cara’s current combat skills. Cara was a long-term investment. In the end, Cara obeyed, but the disappointed look in her eyes was clear. 

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