"You can't do this to me!"
He punched the barrier. But his action was mirrored and he received a hard blow to his face that flung him off his feet. He winced on impact as he crumpled to the ground.
Jeongguk tasted blood and impatiently wiped at the stream dripping from his nose. "You're not gonna ignore me again Hecate! I managed to summon you from a magic-less dimension, how's that for power?"
He charged once more, intending to breach the energy pillar around the small stone circle burning with purple flames. In the centre, the three-headed goddess watched on impassively.
"Jeongguk, you're only hurting yourself—"
He slammed into the smooth barrier, his body jarring as though he had crashed into a solid brick wall. He tumbled back, stunned, his head spinning.
"Jeongguk, there's nothing you can do," the goddess' three mouths told him, "it is your punishment—"
"To what? Forget who I am? Forget the power I had? Just be a lowly human again and play nice and say yes to everything? Have you seen the state of this place Hecate? I'd rather die!" he screamed, startling a few crows that had perched on the nearby tombstones, watching in interest.
"I have to go back!" he shrieked dementedly, pounding on the barrier and ignoring the invisible punches and kicks he received, "I haven't even reached my full potential! I don't belong here! I was the best out of them all even you said so, I heard you!"
He was practically blubbering, a pathetic snivelling mess as he screamed and hollered in the empty graveyard.
Hecate never even moved from within the circle of flames. She regarded the screaming boy coolly with her red-orange eyes.
"Crocodile tears won't change my mind Jeon. And trying to convince of me your supposed change of heart using an innocent, unassuming mortal in your cunning plans is frankly...despicable."
"So I'm to stay here? Eternally?" he bawled.
"Oh not eternally," Hecate assured him, "until you live out your mortal life-span."
He stilled, eyes bulging in his head. "Wh-wh-WHAT?"
Without his magic, he was going back to being an ordinary human who died and rotted away into nothingness?
"You can't do this to me! I didn't deserve this, I was only following in your footsteps and expanding on my necromancy skills! Hecate, this is beyond cruelty! I can't die, I'm not a mortal! I'm a magician!"
"Enough!"
The sky darkened as dark clouds gathered directly overhead. An eerie hush settled over their surroundings.
"You insolent, ungrateful child!" Hecate thundered in a terrible trio of voices, "I watched over you, made sure you were well catered for in my own residence, encouraged your talents. And even now, I wanted to give you a second chance at redemption, to start over in a new world without magic. Yet, it seems the greed and lust for power run too far deep for me to remove. You even expected immortality to be bestowed upon you? Such arrogance!"
Hecate raised her bone-white staff, topped with a shiny, oxen's skull and horns. "You can never return."
"Hecate please—"
But she was gone in a puff of purple smoke, the flames vanishing as Jeongguk careened straight into the magic circle he had used to summon the goddess.
Jeongguk dropped down on his knees and screamed, wringing his fist at the dark sky. "I'll get back home Hecate, just watch me, and you'll regret not listening to me!"
"Irse!" he bellowed.
Irse materialised silently, her shadowy form floating like liquid in the air. "You rang, Kookie?"
"Don't you dare use that name again," he thundered. "Show me your plan B. By hook or by crook, I'm getting my magic back and when I do, the whole of Olympus had better be prepared."