The Gigantes' Onslaught (2)
As I hurried toward Mount Olympus, I could already see countless Gigantes swarming endlessly toward the divine palace above the clouds. I was looking for an opening to join Zeus when an intense flash of light and a deafening roar erupted. Part of the horde surging forward like ants was blasted away.
Boom! Crash!
“Groooar!”
“Is this the thunderbolt Mother spoke of?!”
The attack that had just hurled dozens of Gigantes into the air was Zeus’s thunderbolt, Astraphe. Above us, the image of a massive brazier overturning and spewing scorching heat could only be Hestia’s authority. And the way grass and trees suddenly burst forth, binding the Gigantes like something out of a ninja manga from my previous life, that was Demeter’s power.
“Hahaha! Your resistance is rather impressive!”
“Go on, struggle some more!”
Individually our side held overwhelming superiority, yet the overall battle remained deadlocked. Their sheer numbers and the fact that every last one of them was a divine being played a part, but there was something more. It wasn’t the individual entities called Gigantes, but the collective known as the Gigantes race that seemed guided by a single ‘flow.’ Because of that current, the gods couldn’t easily bring the fight to a close despite their superior strength.
On the clouds, the golden-haired god Zeus frowned as he prepared another thunderbolt. I sent my thoughts to him.
Hades: Zeus, can you hear me?
Zeus: Brother Hades, what about the Underworld? Why have you come all the way here?
Hades: The Gigantes that reached the underworld have already been dealt with. I’ll take the western side of Olympus, so don’t throw Astraphe in this direction.
Zeus: Thanks. These bastards have incredible regenerative and recovery abilities, so be careful. Olympus expresses its gratitude for your assistance, brother.
Zeus… When did this cheeky youngest brother stop using polite speech with his eldest and switch to casual? Fine. You rule the sky, after all.
I shook off my thoughts about the insolent youngest and quickly scanned the battlefield. Focusing on slowing the Gigantes’ recovery with the power of death and shattering their formation, their lines crumbled almost immediately.
“There’s something here! Gah!”
“An assassin whose presence cannot be sensed—the god of the underworld, Hades, the one Mother warned us about!”
“Does that mean all our brothers who went to the underworld were defeated?!”
As more and more Gigantes suffered wounds from an invisible attacker, they finally noticed me. To crush their morale I deliberately removed my helmet and offered a cold smile. They reacted like die-hard fans meeting a celebrity, practically dying of excitement.
“Hades! I’ll kill you!”
“You rat bastard!”
In return for the passionate cheers the Gigantes were sending my handsome self, I raised one hand in acknowledgment, then slipped Kynee back on. The moment I vanished and leaped aside, a burning oak tree slammed into the spot where I had been standing.
“He disappeared again!”
“Come out, you coward! Aaaargh!”
They had no patience, simple minds, and nothing but raw regenerative power and strength. Yet the reason we still hadn’t won was most likely fate. In Greek mythology, whenever something strange occurred, fate was almost always the culprit.
I’d have to speak with Zeus once the battle ended. Unlike the ones we fought in the underworld, these creatures refused to die easily. I considered unleashing my authority to sweep them away en masse, but this wasn’t the underworld; the effect wouldn’t be nearly as potent.
“Guh!”
In the end I had to cut them down one by one with my blade. Leaving a Gigantes spraying blood behind, I chose my next target, circled behind it, and drove my sword through its chest. For a long while I swung my blade in a trance.
The Gigantes swung burning oak trees and hurled massive boulders, but none of it was beyond my ability to dodge. I severed snake-like legs, stabbed arms raised to throw rocks, and slipped away from those trying to pinpoint my location…
Just as the stalemate was beginning to bore me, another shift occurred on the locked battlefield.
“What the…? The ground is shaking!”
“Is Mother Gaia furious?”
Rumble… Craaack.
A small fissure at the edge of the battlefield widened steadily. Only then did the Gigantes, lost in the heat of combat, sense that something was wrong. The tremors grew from slight vibrations that moved loose stones to violent quakes that uprooted colossal oak trees. The earth shook with increasing fury, now thrashing wildly as if trying to fling off everything atop it.
“Uahaha! I have arrived, Zeus!”
“Poseidon! You’ve come at the perfect moment!”
An earthquake of this magnitude could only come from Poseidon’s Triaina. The sea god had finished off the Gigantes that had spilled into his domain and come to aid Olympus. His hearty laughter after driving the trident deep into the ground echoed across Mount Olympus, and the Gigantes began to panic.
“Aaaagh!”
“My body’s sinking into the earth! Retreat for now!”
“Damn you, Zeus. This isn’t over!”
The countless Gigantes who had displayed terrifying regenerative power and combat endurance on the surface… once the massive earthquake made fighting nearly impossible, they withdrew for the time being.
After the fierce battle with the Gigantes finally ended, I approached Zeus as he wiped sweat from his brow and caught his breath. I wanted to know exactly what Mother Gaia had created to drive us out and whether he had any further information about the situation. Standing before Zeus with Poseidon beside me, I asked the questions on my mind.
“There was actually a prophecy, older brother.”
“A prophecy… from the three goddesses of fate?”
The three goddesses of fate—the Moirai—were daughters of the night goddess Nyx. Clotho governed the past, Lachesis the present, and Atropos spun the future into existence. The three crone-like goddesses wove a fate so absolute that no god could defy it. When Clotho drew out the thread of fate, Lachesis measured its length and wound or wove it, and when Atropos cut the thread, life was reaped.
The gods cannot triumph in the coming war without borrowing the strength of great mortal heroes.
“It said we would lose the war unless we borrowed the power of great human heroes.”
“Humans…? Was there ever such a race?”
“If the race called humans doesn’t exist, we simply need to create them. We should order Prometheus—who has surrendered to us—to fashion humans in our image.”
“No wonder the ones that reached the sea were so confident. The prophecy must have been influencing them…”
“And those Gigantes were conceived by Grandmother Gaia from the blood that spilled when Uranus was castrated by Cronus. They are divine beings.”
“They lack true immortality, but they wield the power of gods. We must remain vigilant.”
“Hmph… Still, they cannot compare to us Olympian gods.”
We all took seats within the Olympian palace to discuss detailed countermeasures. Suggestions ranged from visiting the three goddesses of fate once more to ask them to slightly twist the prophecy, to seeking out Grandmother Gaia for persuasion.
“Let’s create these humans first and decide after that.”
“We could also create other life forms besides humans…”
“The number of gods is far too small. At this rate we will only be defeated.”
“We don’t know when they will invade next, but they will surely come in numbers that dwarf today’s force.”
Was this around the time when the still-rational Zeus would begin transforming into a mad rapist? The prophecy concerning human heroes, the experience of war, the insufficient number of gods, the need to bolster forces… Still, please, just stop with the incestuous rape.
The meeting dragged on. After exchanging a few words with the other gods, I prepared to return underground when someone caught my sleeve.
“Hades, this way for a moment.”
I turned at the small hand tugging my collar and found a petite goddess. It was Hestia, goddess of the hearth and home, whose light-brown bobbed hair suited her perfectly. She stirred the pile of firewood inside the brazier with a poker while watching me. She had sat quietly in a corner throughout the gods’ meeting without offering much opinion—what could this be about?
I glanced around once, then carefully sat beside her.
“Would it be impossible to create a hearth in the underworld as well?”
The underworld and a hearth—an utterly mismatched combination. Setting aside personal taste, this was an act of encroaching on another god’s domain. The Hestia I had observed was neither thoughtless nor rude. To place the symbol that protected the home in the underworld… what was she thinking?
When I looked at her with puzzled eyes, she spoke shyly.
“It’s just… you said we would create life forms other than ourselves gods, didn’t you?”
That was true. We needed human heroes to win the war. To sustain those humans, many other living creatures would be made as well.
“Zeus dislikes having his authority challenged, so the newly created beings will lack immortality, right?”
Of course. He was the one calling himself king of the gods who ruled the heavens and acting as our leader. I had little interest in power, but Poseidon seemed to have accumulated quite a bit of dissatisfaction.
The new life forms would most likely be created as mortals without immortality—beings incapable of threatening Zeus’s authority. Since that was how it went in the original myths, things here probably wouldn’t differ much.
“Then from now on your subjects will increase. I want to offer at least a little comfort to the poor souls who reach the underworld trembling in fear.”
We gods do not experience death. Greek deities are not perfect absolutes, but we are at least eternal and undying. Yet she was a warm, gentle, benevolent goddess. Closer to reward than punishment, to compassion than indifference.
Hestia, who had shown sympathy for the trees swept away by Poseidon’s earthquake, seemed to have turned her thoughts to the death of living beings.
“Even if it’s only the entrance… couldn’t something be done? They lose all their memories at the River Lethe, but the fear of the underworld must still be engraved upon their souls.”
When I showed signs of hesitation, the benevolent goddess clasped her hands together in earnest plea. Well, if it was only the entrance outside the castle walls, there shouldn’t be a problem.
When I slowly nodded, a rosy flush colored her cheeks and she smiled brightly.
“Thank you for accepting my request. Next time I will visit the underworld myself and create the hearth.”
The underworld might not end up as dreary as I had imagined.