Chapter 146
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 146
Chapter Title: Oedipus, the Heavenly Calamity Incarnate
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Once the heavenly patterns have been unveiled by eyes that pierce a thousand li, they remain open even if the body changes, and those awakened spirit eyes can pierce through all things if one can only interpret their traces.
From a human face, their birth; from human palm lines, their life; from human natal charts, their destiny.
Most orthodox martial artists, even if their spirit eyes open, aren't taught the minor arts to avoid getting lost in them, so they can only vaguely sense qi presences or human dispositions.
But having taken as master the greatest practitioner of those minor arts left in martial history, I'd mastered physiognomy and natal readings far beyond my station, and now there was no fate I couldn't read if I set my mind to it.
So what did this Heavenly Calamity Incarnate look like to me?
Like a professor stumbling upon ancient script from Jurassic Park in a seafood market?
The direst of dire calamities, shunned even by the heavens and earth that Shakyamuni seeks to save with boundless mercy, untouched by the hand of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva who would pull it from the depths.
Fortune-tellers and prophets whisper if it truly exists, but witnessing this Heavenly Calamity with my own eyes filled me with genuine awe.
'How the hell is this guy even alive?'
Dispelling the grotesquely twisted physiognomic fate, the man's face beneath looked a bit older than mine now.
His eyes brimmed with sharp intellect, his hands thick with calluses from both pen and sword; his noble features radiated heroic spirit—he had the look of a prince.
'What a waste. Such a shame.'
Were it not for the Heavenly Calamity he was born under, he would have become a wise king leading his nation to an era of peace and prosperity.
The problem? If he led the nation, Calamity Star and Void would overlap, toppling it from within and without; the Sheep Blade would turn his surroundings against him in a frenzy of self-destruction.
A reign that would turn a sage ruler into a tyrant through the era's curse.
"Y-Yes! Lord Dionysus's prophecy was true!"
"Dionysus?"
That god of wine?
The special guest today had made a prophecy?
My face twisted at the sudden divine name, and Oedipus winced, hastily straightening his disheveled clothes and bowing his head.
"I am Oedipus from Corinth. Guided by Lord Dionysus, unworthy as I am, I have arrived at Chiron's sanctuary as a pilgrim."
"Oh..."
Oedipus.
The hero whose name meant "swollen foot"—I knew him well.
In Greek myths where even kings and heroes dropped like flies under absurd misfortunes, he was the one with the most wretched fate, appearing endlessly in myths, folktales, even philosophy as the protagonist of tragedy.
His very epithet was "Tragic Hero."
'Damn... yeah, to get recorded in myths and history, your fate has to be this twisted.'
Yeah, honestly, at this level, he deserved fame even in death.
Otherwise, it'd just be too unfair.
But why was the sacred mission in my heart stirring, reacting to this tragic prince with his hopelessly tangled fate?
It felt like dealing with him was my first trial...
"Indeed... Lord Dionysus's prophecy was true. You see my...!"
"Pardon? What did you just say?"
-Thud!
Oedipus, who had been staring blankly at my face, suddenly dropped to his knees before me.
Then, like a drowning man grasping at straws, he seized my hands with desperate fervor and wouldn't let go.
"Please, please save me!"
"Wait, hold on..!"
Despite his friendly-looking face, his grip was like a hydraulic press.
Oh, right—he was the guy who'd beaten his birth father and guards ten-to-one.
"Let go first... then we talk. Yeah?"
"Promise you'll help first—give me your word! I won't let go until then!"
"How can I promise to help when I don't even know what's wrong!?"
He was the direst calamity incarnate, a living disaster bearing the Heavenly Killing Star.
Even if this was the first trial my sacred mission reacted to, charging in barehanded was like trying to stop nuclear fusion with your fists.
His qi, as shown in my spirit eyes, was a bizarre, otherworldly monstrosity unlike anything I'd seen.
I felt dizzy, like a cosmic tentacle monster was wrapping around my arm, dragging me into the abyss.
'Aaaahh...!!'
My spine shivered at the eerie chill of the Reverse Horse Calamity slathered in every foul aura.
My teeth chattered from the razor-sharp chill of the Sheep Blade caressing like a blade.
Nausea rose from the murky, poisonous swamp of the Flower Cover Calamity.
And crucially, the writhing, crawling horror of the Void Calamity nearly made me pass out.
Honestly, if not for that last thread of reason, my reflexive punch would've ended Oedipus's tragedy before it began.
I was just about to pry him off by force when...
"You've already seen it all! Even Lord Dionysus said so.
You'd spot it at a glance and try to run, so he told me never to let go!"
"What do you think I've seen...!"
Dionysus?
What nonsense had that patron of drunks spouted to make this cosmic horror latch onto me?
As I hesitated, the dark prince's eyes gleamed, and he swung from my hands to cling to my waist, bursting into sobs.
"Waaah! I've wandered all Greece to escape my heavenly punishment, but every prophet and mage turned away, saying there's no way. If not you, then I, I...! Waaah!"
"Uwaaaah!!"
To outsiders, it looked like one dark-skinned hunk weeping on another.
To me, it was a cosmic slug wrapping tentacles around my waist, dripping slime.
Honestly, I nearly fainted—or made him faint, or worse.
Maybe just severing head from body would let his doomed fate end peacefully?
"Hero! Please take pity on this cursed soul! Waaah!"
"Fine, just let gooo!!"
Only after I surrendered first did the ordeal end.
* * *
"Sniff, thank you, thank you..."
"Hey, a big dark guy sniffling doesn't look good at all? And stay ten paces back!"
Shoo shoo.
Begone, you cosmic slug.
To talk properly, I dragged the cosmic slug (Oedipus) out to a secluded path.
Tree nymphs were gossiping everywhere, and with wind spirits and harpies gathered for the morning hero tournament, it wasn't the place for this.
"Thank you, thank you..."
My sacred mission was reacting, sure.
But was the first trial this hellish in difficulty?
A test to somehow handle a Heavenly Calamity not even worth counting among martial history's worst?
The issue was how to deal with this hopelessly twisted-fate Oedipus.
As lord of trials and adversities, did I save the hero facing unjust hardship?
Or as master of dreaded fates, did I push him toward his inevitable doom?
Even asking the sacred mission that had synced with my spirit eyes to pierce the calamity got no answer from that tiny speck.
Prodding it with inner energy only made it greedily suck it up, silent as ever.
'What do you want me to do?'
I asked over and over in frustration, but the pea—sacred mission or burden?—just quietly occupied space in my heart.
"You went to a fortune-teller for a prophecy, right?"
"Yes? Oh, yes! Not a fortune-teller, but the oracle at Delphi's temple..."
"Tell me exactly what they said. Word for word."
Since Nerys had snatched the Trojan War trigger meant for that sister, and the butterfly effect on myths was unknown, grasping the situation came first.
"It was..."
"No, never mind."
But I changed my mind right away.
This was mythic Greece—Chiron's sanctuary, swarming with gods and heroes.
In a forest where trees have ears and rocks have mouths, this wasn't the spot to start.
"Come with me for now."
"Wh-where to?"
"..."
Setting aside my spirit eyes, Prince Oedipus cut a likable figure.
A gentle-faced hunk a bit older than me.
Purely by looks, a prosperous prince— if not for the divine calamities he was born with...
'Ugh...'
The cosmic slug's Heavenly Calamity slithered around the handsome prince, making me shudder and hurry away.
"I'm busy right now. The war, the festival mess I started..."
"Ah! I saw it. Your overwhelming might against those great heroes alone! To think Lord Dionysus's prophecy was literal, not metaphor!"
Ah, great.
One more god to visit later. Damn.
Like a fanboy idolizing his crush, Oedipus approached through his cosmic-slug calamity, eyes sparkling.
"How did you gain such power? Must've been grueling training, right?"
"Stay more than ten paces away.... Sigh. Should've kept quiet."
Shivering at the tentacle-slime presence up my spine, I pushed through the underbrush in disgust.