"AAAAAAAAAAAH~~!"
"DAMN YOU! ERESHKIGAL~!!" a roar erupted from Ishtar. She grabbed her afro-like black hair, completely enraged. "╭(°A°`)╮ Damn it! Don't think you can stop me like this! There's nothing I, Ishtar, can't do once I've decided on it!"
She scrambled to her feet. Even though she had nearly been zapped into a drooling idiot, she had no intention of stopping. She was the mistress of heaven, Ishtar! The goddess of war who governed Venus and destruction! She refused to believe that with all her divine equipment, she couldn't conquer the mere power of the Underworld!
Ereshkigal, watching everything through the stone tablet, had a playful smirk on her face. She was looking forward to the expression on Ishtar's face when she finally reached the lowest level of the Underworld. It would surely be a sight to behold. "Ohohoho~~." [Villainous smile.]
...
Soon, Ishtar, sporting a gravity-defying afro, arrived at the second stone gate. "Hmph~?~!" she snorted, crossing her arms and waiting for the question.
"Answer~ Answer~~. O living one who has fallen into the Underworld, answer the nature of your soul's existence." The second gate reacted similarly to the first, and a deep voice emerged. "The standards of beauty in this world are varied, yet there still exists an absolute. Black can overcome white, the earth can overcome the heavens. I ask you: between Ereshkigal and Ishtar, who is more beautiful? Answer~~."
"Ha~?! What kind of stupid question is this! It's completely different from the last one!!" Ishtar was shocked. The first gate's question was weird, but it was at least within the bounds of fairness. But this second gate... So you're finally dropping the act and openly taking sides, huh?! [Angrily flips table!]
"Guh~~!" Ishtar's lip twitched, feeling a mouthful of old blood stuck in her throat. Although she wanted to curse Ereshkigal for her dirty tricks, she knew that as the ruler of this world, Eresh could ask whatever she wanted. So, she swallowed her complaints.
"Hmph~, does that even need to be asked? The answer is obviously Ishtar!" she declared proudly, lifting her snow-white neck. "One is a goddess of plants and decay, the other is a goddess of harvest and beauty. Even an ant on the ground should know how to choose, right?" She elegantly flicked her black hair. "Heh~, Ereshkigal, a mere shut-in hiding underground, how could she possibly compare to me?"
She had no idea that Ereshkigal's face had turned as black as a thundercloud upon hearing her words.
"Ding-dong~ Answer is incorrect?!"
Before Ishtar could bask in her pride for long, another bolt of lightning descended from the heavens.
"BOOM~—!"
Crimson lightning once again lit up the dim space. Ishtar tried to dodge, but she found her body frozen in place, unable to move an inch. "Aaaaaah—!" Blue magical energy coursed through her body, her figure flickering like a stick man.
A few seconds later, after the lightning effects faded, another puff of black smoke came out of her mouth.
"Pfft, hahaha~." Meanwhile, Ereshkigal, peeking from the lowest level, was laughing so hard that tears were streaming down her face. She was overjoyed, a cute little ahoge even popping up on her golden hair. She had anticipated Ishtar's answer and had laced that lightning bolt with a special Authority to [Strip Divinity]. It was similar to the one Li Lin encountered in the Cedar Forest, but far more powerful and unforgiving. The divinity Eresh took, she would not be giving back.
So, if Ishtar wanted to reach the lowest level, she could only pray she had enough spare divinity. Otherwise, she would become even weaker than she was in the Cedar Forest, ready to be strung up by Eresh and thoroughly "disciplined"!
But Ishtar, consumed by rage, was oblivious to this. Her face was twisted with anger, tears of frustration in her eyes. She pointed a finger at the sky and screamed, "Damn it! I want to report this! This gate is rigged, it's not fair!! It wasn't like this before! This is targeting! Blatant targeting!"
In response, the stone gate offered a classic retort: "If you suck, practice more. If you can't handle losing, don't play." ['Crab hands' pose.] "The past was the past, now is now. If you keep bringing up the past, why don't you talk about when you were just born?"
"Huh? Th-I, you, what the hell is that supposed to mean?!" Ishtar's mouth hung open, her CPU nearly fried by the gate's logic. So it's okay to cheat now, is it?!
She was now certain: this stone gate was Ereshkigal's deliberate attempt to make her give up and leave. But her, the great goddess of heaven, run away with her tail between her legs? Impossible! So what if she was being targeted? Since she had decided to descend to the Underworld, she would not give up until the very end.
And so, she charged headfirst through the remaining five gates. This stubborn girl's personality was truly something else. Faced with the same question five more times, she chose to be struck by lightning every single time rather than admit she was inferior to Ereshkigal.
Finally, after passing all seven gates, having lost all her divine equipment and divinity to the Underworld, she stood there, completely naked, and finally realized:
Oh crap~
It seems... I've messed up at a critical moment again!
P.S. Cute author's butt, asking for tickets.
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