Chapter 206
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 206
Chapter Title: Bald-Headed Goddess
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All truths are revealed from the highest place.
Podalab, the founder of the Wave-Breaking Art, had said that to me back when I still hadn't grasped the knack of qi cultivation.
As expected from someone hailing from Podalab, the origin of all martial arts, a thread of truth was hidden within those cryptic words.
The truth she bestowed upon me at the end of that ancient history pierced even through the era of the oldest myths since time immemorial.
Right like this.
"...That's everything I know!"
"Hmm."
"Really! I swear it on Olympus—no, on Father Poseidon and Supreme God Zeus!"
"So please spare me..."
Desepina—no, the magician I should call Despoina—spilled every last thing she knew, true to her oath.
From her true identity to how she became the High Priestess of Aphrodite's temple, and how the current mess came about, she laid it all out in detail.
At first.
"You know who I am! Even in this state, I'm the High Priestess of the Great Aphrodite Temple and a great magician!"
"I'm Despoina, daughter of Poseidon and Demeter, the alchemist who created the great love potion! I won't forgive this rudeness!"
She was full of bluster like that.
But then.
"If you remove the third brick from the top above the laboratory statue, you'll find all the money and jewels I've stashed away!"
"Not only that—later, I'll show you the ecstasy of the over thousand priests that the Acrocorinth Grand Temple is famous for!"
She turned into a magician ready to hand over liver and lights if I so much as hinted.
"As expected, Master's teachings are profound."
-Smack!
Satisfied, I smacked the tree beside me.
The impact made the tree shake majestically, as if it might topple over at any moment.
"Kieek! I'm falling! I'm falling!"
I'd hit the tree—so why was this pathetic stone-headed magician screaming?
The reason lay in the magic technique that turned that stone head into a perfect, obedient sheep.
"Atalanta, watch closely. When you rule Arcadia as queen someday, hordes of liars and swindlers will try to sweet-talk you into their schemes. Do this to them every time, and they'll spit out nothing but the truth."
This so-called Height of Truth interrogation method was astonishingly simple.
A sturdy tree growing atop a cliff of just the right height.
Tie a rope to a suitable branch extending over the edge, then bind the other end to the ankle of your subject.
"Hang them too long like this, and blood rushes to the head—they could die. Just make a small incision on the crown or temple, and they can last much longer."
"Eek! That far?!"
"...I hope you're not serious."
Despoina clutched her head, while Atalanta shook hers in disbelief.
Not serious? This method was effective, reliable—no blood spray, no needless internal or external trauma, no ear-splitting screams.
"Anyway, you know nothing about this phenomenon?"
"E, ehehe! Y-yes! I just... just touched it a tiny bit!"
...This stone-headed hothead.
"Ah, annoying."
-Smack!
"Hieeek!"
Anger surging, I kicked the tree. It swayed perilously, and Despoina's body whipped around like a balloon doll caught in the wind.
"So. Everything was neatly wrapped up and done—then your little stunt forced me to come rushing here like a madman. Right?"
"Th-that's not it, but Corinth is in such chaos right now—even if it wasn't me, anyone would react to something that strange and powerful..."
"..."
"Y-yes! I'll shut up!"
So let me down already!
One more word, and I might really drop her—perhaps thinking that, Despoina clamped her mouth shut, her eyes sparkling desperately.
"Agh..."
"Hey, Dianes? Why the long face?"
"Ah, Atalanta. I haven't explained yet, have I?"
The Heavenly Death fate isn't some mere human destiny or even in the realm of divine calamity.
It's born from ancestors' sins, disrupted heavenly order, vicious land energies—all the world's cosmic injustices pooling their power.
Even the God of Divination could only hypothesize about Heavenly Death.
It's a fate that manifests with odds lower than hitting the lottery 108 times in a row.
"At least prophecy reins in its flow. Without that, even I wouldn't have dreamed of averting annihilation."
Even common ill fates like Reverse Horse or Peach Blossom Death have no fixes in the martial world—you just accept your lot. Heavenly Death is on another level entirely.
It's the crystallized malice of the entire universe.
Honestly, if the God of Prophecy hadn't insisted it was possible—and if the clue to the next realm wasn't tangled up in it—I never would've poked it.
'No telling what blowback touching it might bring.'
I'm no full-fledged diviner like the God of Divination. Best to pretend vicious things like that don't exist.
But somehow, I'd lucked into it—straight path to divine feat blooming, no complications.
'Then she ruined it all.'
-Whish!
"Kyak! Ow, that hurts!"
"..."
"Hup!"
Irritated, I kicked a stone at her. Despoina wailed, but realizing one more might snap the rope, she pursed her lips again.
"To sum up: we extracted the ultra-dangerous toxin, Oedipus disposed of it perfectly."
"But this hothead fished out the dregs and scattered them everywhere."
"Ah..."
And the result? This hellscape blanketing Acrocorinth.
"Blood of Poseidon and Demeter, huh?"
"Huing... Y-yes..."
"Later, thank Mother and Grandma profusely for sparing you. Bring hefty offerings."
Athena said nearby spirits lent their power.
But this Heavenly Death forged history's worst tragedy.
Detonated near a major leyline—yet instead of ravaging the area, it auto-isolated to the Otherworld?
Athena's might plus local spirits? The math doesn't add up.
'Only one answer.'
Her mother Demeter—and the Goddess of Earth herself—must've scrambled into action. Far more convincing.
"Gods keep piling on as this drags out..."
Greek proverb: Those loved by the gods have hard lives.
Confucius said: Speak not of monsters and freaks.
Daily entanglements with divine dramas left my head throbbing again.
"Anyway, gotta handle it somehow."
My task hadn't changed, even if it'd gotten trickier.
Just shifted from one person's vicious fate to a mountain-spanning toxic sludge polluting everything.
"Someone else handles that."
-Shing!
"Eek?!"
"D-Dianes? Why the sword...?"
"Ah, need it for something."
Gripping the heavy black sword, I grinned coldly. Despoina's eyes shook wildly.
"W-wait! Hold on! I did everything you asked!"
"Yeah, true."
"Th-then why the sword?! Why draw it?! Why come closer! What's with that smile?!"
"Hey, hold still. Might nick your leg."
-Swish!
Atalanta jolted in alarm, Despoina flopped like a shrimp on a hot griddle, both screaming.
But a thrust sword never retracts.
-Snap!
"Eh?"
That crisp snap—was it the rope breaking?
Or Despoina's heart dropping?
Lifeline severed, Despoina answered Gaia's call and plummeted.
Last sight: her face gone deathly pale.
...Would've been.
If things went as planned.
"Waaah! Too mean, too mean, too mean!"
"Ah~ shut it."
"How can a hero act like that?! Tying a goddess to a cliff—and without a second's hesitation..."
"This hothead goddess... One more word, and I tie you back up?"
The pitiful goddess death Atalanta and Despoina both expected—cause: fall—didn't happen.
"Hing! D-do whatever! You said you need me to fix this land's curse!"
True enough.
To tie up loose ends, only Despoina—the one who'd ripped open the void teeming with fierce spirits and unleashed Heavenly Death into the leyline—could restore the site and recall the freed calamity.
So I'd cut the rope to give her a scare, but my waiting familiars below snatched her up and hauled her back.
Yet upon hearing my explanation, this insolent hothead forgot her earlier pants-wetting terror, got feisty, and doubled down.
"Don't care! Apologize now! For insulting and threatening a goddess! Kneel and beg—or I do zilch!"
"All Poseidon bloodlines this shameless?"
Had she snapped completely? Displaying full-blown infantile regression, she sprawled out starfish-style, kicking and flailing.
Lurking behind her: the one-eyed thug who'd enlisted from Assy just recently.