Rathal activated the unique skill he had just used to 'end' the tenth finger and a few other skills at once as he gazed at the woman who had suddenly appeared behind him.

She was walking around the crater that he had made when he killed the tenth finger, with a hand on her chin and a pensive look on her face.

Possessing waist-long light green hair with a gentle shine and pale limbs which would undoubtedly shine white even in darkness, the woman had long pointed ears and a small crown of flowers that rested on her head.

Her emerald green eyes gave her a mysterious atmosphere while her long white dress revealed her simple yet feminine curves.

With each step she took, the barren ground at her feet regained its vitality right before Rathal's eyes, with small grasses growing and flower buds spouting from the earth.

The moment Rathal met her eyes, he deactivated his skill and withdrew his energy, as he understood two things.

One was that she had zero hostile intent towards him, and the second was that fighting her was futile.

Just like how the now deceased tenth finger understood that fighting Rathal was futile, Rathal understood that if he was to fight this woman, he would lose even if she didn't retaliate.

Her appearance was an appearance that not many humans were familiar with, but a great majority of the Elves were aware of.

"...goddess of life, nature, the forest and the elves, Aphine."

Hearing Rathal's mutter, the woman stretched out her arm towards the crater and clenched her fist as the ambient magic power trembled lightly before replying.

"I'm quite lost, what could possibly make you think of me as a goddess?"

Her voice was like a melody to Rathal's ears, with each word releasing causing a wave of calming aura that spread out from her person. It even made him forget about the fact that the goddess had just done something to the space around the crater.

Rathal felt like his soul was being cleansed just by listening to her voice. He shook his head for a moment before answering.

"Your appearance is exactly like the statues in the temples depict you to be. Besides..."

"Besides...?"

She tilted her head to one side, causing some locks of hair to fall over her face, however, as if someone else was present, the hair was lifted off her face and tucked behind her ear.

Rathal didn't need to be a genius to understand who was responsible, he could see with his eyes exactly who it was.

'A spirit.'

He didn't have the Loved By Nature title like Evan did. He was simply just strong enough to see the immaterial spiritual bodies of the spirit race's members.

His eyes darted around for a second and he was able to confirm that at the very least, there were a hundred high-ranked spirits present, with thousands of mid-ranked and tens of thousands of low-ranked spirits crowding around in the area around her.

And the number was increasing by the second.

He took his mind off the spirits as he continued his earlier statement.

"Besides, there's so much divinity pouring out of your body that you couldn't possibly be a mortal."

"Oh..."

That was the reason why Rathal had concluded that fighting was futile, the sheer amount of energy she was passively emitting was more than a dozen times greater than that of all the members of 'The Five' combined.

And that was what she was just passively emitting! He couldn't even fathom just how much energy she actually had inside her body.

"...True, no mortal could possibly hold this amount of energy without imploding."

,m She replied as she picked one of the cat-shaped fire spirits and petted its head, occasionally petting a few of the other spirits that nuzzled against her.

The goddess Aphine was one of the other gods who were worshipped on Aidos besides Artemisia. The race where most of her believers came from, was none other than the elven race.

The Elves lauded her as the guardian of nature and the forests, as well as the creator of their race. However, the last part wasn't truly correct as creating entirely new races wasn't exactly something that was within the domain of the gods.

She was only responsible for bringing the first elves to Aidos, and she did so on Artemisia's orders. However, those elves had mistaken her as their creator and passed this information down to their descendants, thus the myth about her being the creator of the elves was born.

Rathal stared at the goddess who was chatting with the high-ranked spirits while having a bright smile on her face as he wondered why she had come to where he was in the first place.

'It isn't because I killed an elf, right?'

He was about to ask when she beat him to the chase and explained the reason for her presence.

"Well, I personally don't have any business with you Rathal, however, 'My Lady' is the one who wishes to speak to you."

As soon as she spoke, the atmosphere around her changed and became heavier. More divinity spread out of her body, enough to give Rathal a hard time just standing as it took his all to not forcefully drop to his knees from the pressure.

Suddenly, the pressure disappeared as if it was never there, along with all the divinity emitting from her body.

Rathal looked up and noticed one major difference.

'Her eyes!'

Her formerly emerald green eyes were now a bright gold colour as she looked around with an unfocused gaze.

The spirits surrounding her all unconsciously retreated momentarily before jumping back towards her with even more fervour, with some directly transforming to their full human forms and hugging her tightly.

[These little critters...]

An exasperated voice rang out as the goddess pulled off the spirit on her head and turned her gaze to Rathal.

[Give me a moment.]

Rathal then spent the next few minutes witnessing how a goddess coaxed a few dozen thousand spirits and somehow got them to leave her alone.

[Finally. They weren't this clingy when I came here last time. Or is it because I was in a mortal's body?]

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by lotustale.com