Chapter 211
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 211
Chapter Title: Night and Darkness
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It felt like a reenactment of a scene from time immemorial, or perhaps just last night or yesterday afternoon.
Just like back then, the child flailed as her breath pushed him toward the surface, and she bid him farewell, anticipating the spectacle her crafted young god would unleash.
[You're sending him back in such a hurry, my love.]
A ancient voice whispered softly around her.
It almost seemed to chide her for sending off the young lad without even a proper reunion, as if mindful of my presence.
[...If you know, then just stay quiet for a bit.]
Night shot back at the darkness with a sullen tone, but the ancient voice pressed on undeterred.
[That child's bones and flesh are Gaia's oldest stone and tears. Yet his heart and the aura flowing through his veins belong to me. I have as much claim to him as you do.]
[No matter how resilient and radiant his soul, how his spirit refuses to yield even after three deaths—boasting a fortitude no current god can match—who could endure facing you here?]
-Uahaha!
The voice let out a hearty laugh for the first time in ages at the sight of Night cradling her young child.
Even Night's eyes widened in surprise at the laughter that pierced through space and time.
She had forgotten he could express such intense emotion, let alone laugh with such mirth.
[You haven't grasped what that soul you fished from the stars truly is.]
[In the end, even you can't help but be a mother, can you?]
[My love, watch your words. As you say, I am his mother. They sound like a threat to me.]
Night, the primordial darkness who had birthed many children like Gaia, who cherished her own blood and reveled in joy and anger, inwardly resented that all her offspring—save Eris—were stiff and unyielding, mirroring no one.
And now, her youngest, the one she had painstakingly sent off last, was rigid to the point of brittleness from her human days. She had been about to tease him slowly and mend their bond when this uninvited guest appeared, forcing a hasty end.
At the voice's words, claiming full insight into the child, Nix's eyes wavered uneasily.
[Oh, don't misunderstand. Like you, I'm utterly fed up with that nauseating light and glory. I hold as much hope for that child as you do.]
I didn't fill his vessel with my breath, as per your wishes.
The voice soothed her face—worn like a mother protecting her young—with the gentleness of a lover calming his beloved, putting Night at ease.
[Haven't you already witnessed that child's exploits?]
[Of course. I couldn't look away.]
Dark Blue.
A name perfectly suited to the hero shielded by the breaths of the ancient night, ancient earth, darkness, and abyss.
The bard who first sang of it promised that even should that soul plummet to Tartarus, darkness and night would grant him rest.
[How that stale tragedy and heroic tale have changed their hue!]
Night lamented so deeply that she should have sent a demigod hero sooner.
Her youngest's actions were utterly unconventional.
[Yes, unconventional! Dark blue! That is the essence of darkness. And that child is already a seeker on the verge of comprehending its true nature.]
The fools who deem themselves wise mistake darkness for rest and endings.
Yet it merely exposes their brief, finite ignorance.
The womb where the child ripened by passion forms is the mother's pitch-black void,
And the place where Chaos first burst forth all creation was boundless darkness.
Yes, darkness.
All begins in darkness, advances toward light, then returns to darkness.
Every origin and conclusion is forged from darkness.
The essence of all existence that gods desperately ignore and humans fear to face.
The truth darkness has cradled and endured will bloom once more on this light-filled earth like a flower.
Through her son, who inherits his breath.
[My love, you're saying too much. He's just...]
[I'll wager on it. Even swearing by a tiny cup of Styx like those current gods, I'm confident. That child from a distant future or fleeting past will pen a new myth with unprecedented darkness.]
In eons of history too vast for the word itself, had her lover ever been this exhilarated?
Not when time and sky vied for supremacy, upending the three realms, nor when time's descendants spilled blood over thrones as her young priestess sought wisdom.
He always maintained silence, whispering faint intent only to her.
If she was the primordial night, he was the primordial darkness.
The sole witness beyond Chaos's creation, the outsider encompassing all through every shadow.
Night's unease lingered as such a being showed such keen interest and fervor in the child.
[Yet what excites me even more is that the child forges his path without divine guidance or oracles of fate.]
[Merely through human enlightenment and legacies. So you didn't grant him more than just repelling the hands of those fate-weavers, did you?]
[Urk...]
Conversations with her lover, the darkness, were always delightful and thrillingly sweet.
But with her father, the darkness, they were profoundly unsettling and fearsome.
Her lover and father, her origin darkness, pierced her innermost thoughts as if laid bare in his palm.
As he said, her youngest needed nothing more from her.
If lacking, he would fill it himself; if desiring, seize it himself.
Thus, born human, he overcame successive deaths and rose as a hero in Greece through her blessing alone.
[This is the prophecy. Foolish humans chasing light per instinct.]
[Even the immortals gods forget entirely, concealing with their own hands that essence and wisdom.]
[The prophecy itself that they will stand before us in the end!]
If she could witness it firsthand, even these eons would pass joyfully.
[Cronus was a fool, believing time could conquer all.]
[His son Zeus is no different, blinded by radiance, deeming gods and heroes eternal in light.]
[But all begins in darkness and ends in darkness.]
Now, all will change because of him.
Darkness is no mere twilight attendant visiting night.
True dark blue brings darkness and engulfs candle-like glory.
A vast curtain to smother all pomp and pretense drowned in glory and light.
And in its wake, true history will roll forth anew.
[Behold, Night. The seeds sown by your child, the traveler who stepped into darkness of his own accord—they're already sprouting.]
Where the darkness gestured, the Greece of the time where the child had just ascended reflected.
[That...!]
[The deep sea. Kin of the ocean that foolish humans have feared since ancient times for being closer to darkness than the sky. They clashed with the warriors raised by our hero.]
Against a backdrop of vast mountains and plains, two colossal giants with wild blue hair rampaged wildly.
Their faces youthful, yet their frames far surpassed any human's.
Such behemoths charged without hesitation, pulverizing trees and boulders ahead into dust.
And circling them endlessly were fifty black shadows.
If the giants were earthquakes and tsunamis, the shadows were like heat haze shimmering in the night.
Reach to grasp, and they vanished without trace; thrash to dispel, and they never retreated—darkness akin to death itself.
Under the guidance of their wise teacher.
Those who once chased light, blindly loyal to the gods' honeyed words, had turned inward to heed their own darkness and risen.
The seeds from Night's son had sprouted, beginning to scatter their fragrance across the world.
[Oh my...!]
[Be proud. Your final creation has fittingly nurtured a splendid history upon this earth.]
He will advance with insatiable greed.
Seizing all he craves, claiming all he desires.
Wealth, women, influence, power.
And history.
As darkness ever does, no existence will evade his grasp.
[The entire world shall know that is the nature of darkness.]
The ancient darkness bestowed blessings upon those advancing in his divine works, then quietly closed his eyes.
Hoping that when he opened them again, the new god who had earned his favor would stand before him.