Chapter 301
Chapter 301
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 301
Chapter Title: Zeus's Remnant
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Beep-.
A persistent ringing echoed in his ears.
The moment he grasped the lightning, Soo-hyuk was engulfed in blinding white light. His vision, his hearing—everything was devoured by that light.
No, it wasn't mere light that enveloped Soo-hyuk.
It was lightning.
The spear-shaped weapon had wrapped around him.
'Did I pull it out?'
He remembered gripping it to draw it, but everything after was a blur. It had all happened in an instant.
He looked down at his hand, but nothing was there. The spear he thought he'd grasped had vanished without a trace.
Soo-hyuk glanced around.
It had clearly been a temple moments ago, but now it was an entirely new place.
Yet, strangely, it didn't feel unfamiliar.
Where was this...
Soo-hyuk soon recalled a similar location.
'Feels like the place where I met that guy.'
The personified lightning, a faceless being.
Soo-hyuk always met it in spaces like this.
Pure white nothingness, or skies raining thunderbolts.
Was it calling him again this time? At this pivotal moment of claiming the lightning?
As that suspicion crossed his mind...
"Not Heracles, huh."
A voice came from behind Soo-hyuk.
The voice was clear. The lightning's voice he'd always heard was toneless, genderless.
Turning to the youthful timbre, he saw a man who had just shed his tunic, sitting cross-legged on the floor.
"A human I've never seen before. And not my son, either."
Heracles. My son.
And above all, that striking golden hair.
He looked young, but Soo-hyuk recognized him immediately.
"Are you Zeus?"
"Oh, how'd you know? Guess a handsome face gives it away every time."
Zeus boasted shamelessly, laughing heartily. Seeing that laugh made the reality sink in—that this youthful face belonged to a god who had lived tens of thousands of years.
Was Zeus like this before death? Or had he rejuvenated here after dying?
"No need to be so formal. I'm no king of Olympus now, no great sky god. Just another rotting corpse after death—fair game for all."
"Doesn't look like hell to me. Mind if I ask what happened?"
Zeus laughed boisterously at the question seeking clarification.
"Hah! Right, not hell. I'm dead. What else could it be? A lingering thought body."
"Lingering thought body..."
Lingering thought body (死念體).
A non-corporeal existence formed from soul, thoughts, and lingering desires. No different from a ghost.
Soo-hyuk's gaze swept the surroundings after Zeus.
Suddenly, a realization struck.
If Zeus's lingering thought had summoned him here, then perhaps the lightning he'd met all this time was also someone's lingering thought.
Soo-hyuk shook off the fleeting idea.
Now was the time to focus on the Zeus before him, not that entity.
"Were you waiting for Heracles, not me?"
"Close, but not quite. It wasn't waiting for Heracles so much as thinking no one else could come but him."
"Heracles is dead."
"He's dead? Ah... Big bro Hades' doing, then."
Without having witnessed it, Zeus grasped the situation instantly. In his mind, only Hades could have killed Heracles.
"Were you planning to pass the lightning to Heracles from the start?"
"Did it seem that way?"
"Why him, of all people?"
At Soo-hyuk's successive questions, Zeus grinned and tapped the floor.
"Come sit first. Neck's getting sore looking up."
Soo-hyuk approached Zeus. Sitting across as suggested seemed the way to get the conversation going.
Just as he moved to sit before Zeus...
Grrr-.
"No."
A growl from behind, and Zeus's eyes flashed yellow.
Flash-!
Zzzzt-.
A bolt from his hand grazed past Soo-hyuk's head. Turning in alarm, Soo-hyuk spotted another Zeus.
Grrr, grrr-.
This other Zeus glared at Soo-hyuk with feral madness, somewhere between beast and monster.
"This guy's causing trouble again."
Tsking his tongue, Zeus half-rose...
Bam!
He subdued the mad version of himself in one strike.
Grk, grrrk-.
Zeus sat comfortably atop the other. The bizarre sight of identical men, one pinning the other, was surreal even to witness.
Wondering what viewers would think, unexpected chats scrolled up.
Meeting Zeus here apparently wasn't being broadcast to viewers.
Such pauses happened occasionally. Some viewers understood, while others grew curious from repetition.
Soo-hyuk's gaze returned to the two Zeuses.
Seeing the subdued mad one, a scene flashed in his mind.
Thor, first met in Asgard.
Consumed by thunder and Mjolnir, turned into a raving lunatic—the image overlapped with this Zeus.
"Interrupted suddenly, but this makes talking easier, at least."
"I've seen one before."
"What? Me?"
"No, that."
Soo-hyuk referred to the monstrous Zeus as "that."
Meaning something else dwelled within, not Zeus.
"Met Thor, then."
"Quick on the uptake."
"Wasn't always. Comes with the position."
Zeus nodded and asked.
"So, how's Thor now? Still held by that friend Odin?"
"He regained his senses. He's with me now."
"With you?"
Zeus's surprised expression shifted to a piercing stare at Soo-hyuk.
"Thanks to you, I suppose."
"Yes."
"A shame. If you'd come a bit sooner to me, we might've met somewhere better than this."
Said casually, but unmistakable sadness lingered on Zeus's face.
Suddenly, Thor's words resurfaced in Soo-hyuk's mind.
"Before becoming that monster, I had a chance too. To end my own life."
His guess was correct.
Zeus had taken his own life. Before turning into that monster.
It wasn't simply a difference in mental fortitude between Zeus and Thor.
Odin and Tyr were by Thor's side. They had the power to restrain him even if thunder consumed him.
But Zeus was different.
The absolute ruler of Olympus, acknowledged by all. If he went mad from lightning, who could stop him?
Zeus had no choice. Before leading Olympus to ruin with his own hands.
In the end, Thor, with a bit more time, was saved. Zeus ended himself.
"Will I end up like that someday if I take the lightning?"
A thought since first seeing Thor.
A god devoured by thunder, trapped in dreams of slaughtering Asgard's people with his own hands.
Without Odin's intervention, it might have become reality.
And now Zeus too—couldn't ignore it.
Fortunately, Zeus shook his head.
"Who knows."
"Didn't you...?"
"Don't you know too? Lightning was originally for humans."
Zeus's eyes narrowed. Having wielded it half his life, he recognized Soo-hyuk bore both lightning bolt and thunder.
"We gods coveted too much. Thunder, lightning—they weren't ours. The price of greed, all of it."
"Because you're not human?"
"That's what I think. So I hoped Heracles would be the next master."
Propped on his chin, sitting atop the pinned Zeus, he eyed Soo-hyuk.
"Well, you're not bad either. Looks like Asgard lost their thunder too."
Even in death, he worried for Olympus. Feared Asgard exploiting their weakened state without king or lightning.
Soo-hyuk felt it anew.
This man, who laughed foolishly and philandered, what he meant to Olympus.
Olympus existed because of him, sustained by him.
'Seeing you, I can imagine how messed up Olympus outside is.'
Hades killed Heracles out of greed; other gods bloodshot for the lightning.
More greedy than regretful Zeus, repeating history.
They sought not his will, just his power.
"Did I... obtain the lightning?"
"What're you asking? You came certain you could from the start."
Zzzzt-.
The surroundings began crumbling.
White walls cracked black like spilled ink. Zeus's lingering thought had no strength left.
"It's yours now. No idea how you'll handle it."
Kzzzt-.
A spear gripped Soo-hyuk's hand. The lightning once embedded returned.
The spear-form lightning shifted, coiling up his arm around his body like armor, seamlessly vanishing without gaps.
Soo-hyuk inspected his palm and body.
"I really got it."
"Suits you well."
Zeus grinned.
"Well, you've just got it. Took me ages to master."
Soo-hyuk chuckled at the implied "good luck suffering."
True. Mastering lightning was far harder than obtaining it. Still struggling with bolt and thunder, now lightning too—the burden grew heavier.
But fortunately, something to lighten it existed.
"Where's the heart?"
Zeus's expression changed instantly.
How do you know? His eyes said.
Zeus opened his mouth at the question.
"The heart..."
Then, his voice cut off.
The world collapsed. In that brief exchange, white turned pitch black.
It was over.
No.
[Scenario – Trial of Fate]
[Escape Olympus.]
Now, it began.