Chapter 157
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 157
Chapter Title: The God King's Dilemma
-----------------------------------------------------------------
‘Hmm, this is...’
While the outsider clad in serpent skin, hailing from some distant future or far-off world, stood in bewilderment, the supreme god concealed beneath eagle feathers before him couldn’t suppress a groan either.
A king recognizes a king.
A king acknowledges a king.
It was his philosophy regarding the sanctity of the throne he had seized by overthrowing his mighty father, Cronus.
The one who reigns above can only be understood by another who reigns, and he himself, ruling over even those sovereigns, proclaimed the truth of his inviolable absoluteness.
Thus, he could tell.
Even without the blue prophecy that Prometheus had quietly whispered, the black serpent before his eyes was undoubtedly a lord of wisdom and authority comparable to his own—perhaps even surpassing it.
‘Hermes said he was just a traveler from afar...’
No, that wasn’t entirely wrong either.
Yet in Zeus’s eyes, this new son of the Night Mother was no mere traveler.
Not a shred of retreat after witnessing his power, his authority and dominion.
Zeus confirmed his instincts upon seeing the figure engage in a battle of wills without flinching at the supreme god’s roar.
‘Yes, he has to be on this level. Only then can he truly be called her descendant.’
Only then did the supreme god feel this personal descent worthwhile, inwardly satisfied.
The primordial gods, the Protogenoi, who had claimed this world’s foundations as their domain and were the foundations themselves.
Their heirs were each and every one overwhelmingly powerful.
Zeus’s advisors, the Fates, granted seats upon thrones like his own.
The stern judge before whom even the tempestuous ocean god begged for mercy.
The maiden of strife whom even the queen of the gods, who could converse with them, could do nothing about.
Alongside Aphrodite’s little angel, the herald of sleep who irked his temper.
And even death with black wings, whom his eldest brother regarded warily.
It wasn’t for nothing that Cronus and Zeus had vied desperately to recruit them on the eve of the Titanomachy.
Hades himself had even journeyed to their abode in dreaded Tartarus, offering gifts and pleading for them to join Olympus.
Not to be outdone, Cronus had proposed marriage to the judge Nemesis, declaring he would offer the same tributes and sacrifices to Nyx’s children and their descendants.
In the end, the exasperated Night Mother had descended to the tribunal between Titans and Olympians, declaring her children would partake in neither the glory of victory nor the pain of defeat, thus ending the overheated recruitment war.
Zeus shuddered to think what might have happened if even one of Nyx’s children had sided with the Titans.
As Greek history attested, Olympus had triumphed over the Titans, Zeus reigning as god king.
And Nyx’s children, honoring Olympus’s covenant, respected their authority, ushering in an era of peace to this day.
The impending Gigantomachy was nearly prepared, thanks to Heracles.
Once they overcame his great-grandmother Gaia’s final trial, nothing would threaten Olympus’s reign henceforth.
At this precarious moment when his eternal rule drew near, the ancient Night Mother had hurled another ripple his way.
The tiny ripple foretold by Dionysus and advised by Prometheus—a capricious variable gifted to the world by the Night Mother.
Pure-blooded Protogenoi kin, unbound by any covenant.
A being who could prove poison to Olympus and Greece, or an unparalleled blessing.
The demigod still called Dianes stirred caution in Zeus for the third time.
‘The silver lining is that this child is quite close to Olympus.’
He mingled with many Olympian gods and shared a master-disciple bond with Hera, much like his other siblings—though that was somewhat unsettling.
Still, that the variable seed sent by Nyx leaned favorable toward them was a great relief to Zeus.
And his temperament, matching his power, even drew admiration from Zeus himself.
Before the war, as he accepted the kings’ oaths firsthand, Dianes’s words to the two heroes carried the wisdom of Chiron.
When his disciple and lover Atalanta confronted her trial head-on and stood before him.
The way he guided her onto Aura’s path evoked memories of the steadfast nymph Aex who had once led young Zeus.
Finally, the grace with which he respected the screaming Jason and his desperate band, naturally sweeping them under his command—it lacked nothing compared to Zeus, the god king himself.
Such a man, and one clearly reigning as an equal from a distant realm, now humbly acknowledged his authority even in the face of the supreme god’s apology. Zeus felt a rare fulfillment at being recognized after so long.
Yet that made him all the more dangerous.
He had personally raised two of Aura’s foremost warriors, counted among Greece’s greatest.
And rallied the land’s top warriors.
His wisdom and knowledge were unique and alien to this soil, and above all, the divine task Hera had bestowed upon him held potential to rival Zeus’s own.
As god king, he could only watch this perilous yet promising situation unfold.
If this alliance with Olympus persisted undisturbed until the secretly prophesied day, him claiming Hera’s divine task might even turn into fortune for Zeus.
Of course, as her husband, it rankled that some fresh young upstart—not just anyone—had swiftly received the gift he coveted.
But he was, above all, the god king safeguarding this Greece.
For Greece’s sake, he was willing to set aside personal feelings for now.
‘But of all people!’
Of all people, to that very being.
Theseus—second only to Heracles among his bloodline, the one he’d pinned high hopes on—had invoked his name to commit this outrage.
“.....”
[.....]
Beneath the night sky, Nyx’s son who had revealed his true form gazed up at him with quiet eyes.
His robes hung in tatters, melted by the poison mist from the explosion.
Yet the man himself stood tall on both legs, without so much as a scratch.
‘Impossible. He overcame Python’s poison?’
The venom of the colossal serpent that had tormented Leto at Hera’s command, against which even Olympus’s twin gods had struggled.
A mere demigod had swallowed it whole.
‘...Dangerous.’
Theseus’s sin was no light matter.
In a feast protected by Dionysus’s blessing and Chiron’s sacred precinct, he had sought to spill blood over personal grudge.
The targets were daughters of the abyssal sea god, under the protection of sky and ocean, and warriors gathered by Nyx’s son.
And the weapon? Crafted from an Olympian twelfth god’s divine relic, a centaur spirit beast, and an ancient monster’s poison.
Utterly blasphemous and shameless.
‘Pathetic—resorting to such a cowardly scheme instead of honorable blade or spear!’
Ares, who prized battlefield honor, would rage to hurl him straight into Tartarus.
Yet Theseus was still his blood kin.
Though thinned over generations, he was undoubtedly a lesser hero bearing Zeus the god king’s blood.
By the laws of the bloodline he protected, Zeus bore the duty to shield his blood descendant Theseus.
Grievous as the sin, failing to protect his kin in peril would make none heed his authority.
But the foe was Nyx’s unfathomable offspring, a powerhouse from a distant world.
In a situation where even Zeus preferred conciliation over enmity, Theseus had thoroughly fouled things up.
‘Uranus preserve us...’
Just as Zeus flapped his wings to descend, trapped in a dead end, Dianes struck first.
“Hoo... Take him away.”
[What?!]
Dianes was in a position to tear Theseus apart on the spot and call it justice.
Yet he was handing Theseus’s fate over to Zeus?
[I-is that truly alright?]
“I may not see new faces well, but those eyes? I’ve seen plenty like them.”
Eyes? What eyes?
The eagle cocked its head in confusion, and Dianes chuckled before answering.
“The eyes of a father with a splitting headache from his son’s reckless rampage?
Or a boss howling in agony over a subordinate’s botched mess?”
[Ah...]
Zeus was deeply moved by the bitter smile and the step back, as if fully understanding.
His judgment had been spot on.
The traveler from afar, another realm’s reigning sovereign.
He alone knew the hidden woes of kingship.