Chapter 222
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 222
Chapter Title: Nine Serenities Gate Opening
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Heavy rain pounded the earth.
The battlefield, where even ragged breaths were drowned out by the downpour.
A momentary silence descended upon the clash between the giant and the hero, drawing the eyes of all Arcadia.
"Kuh, krahaha! We will never die!"
"W-We won't die! We won't!"
Zeus's thunderbolt that shook the foundations of Greece.
Even the full-force aura inherited from that bolt failed to fell the Aloadae.
"D-Damn it...!"
"Persistent bastards like goddamn bulls...!"
"We are the Aloadae! Sovereigns of Boeotia who shake the earth's axis!"
"Zeus's so-called great hero? We'll crush him and toss him into Olympus's front yard!"
The heavens and the oceans.
Lightning and earthquakes.
The ancient feud passed down from their fathers had ignited into a war of heroes, blazing across this land.
Heracles had unleashed his full power for the first time since facing Dianes, intent on ending it in one blow.
Yet Atalanta and Heracles alike were stunned by the twins, who rose again after taking his attacks head-on. Just how much did Poseidon cherish these brats?
'No, how the hell did they survive that?'
The technique had been developed with Dianes in mind, yet they were unscathed after taking it full-force.
To Atalanta's eyes, they seemed like monsters, unfazed even by a strike evoking Zeus's thunderbolt.
'No, unscathed might not be right...'
Though they forced themselves up with boisterous laughs, the twins looked as battered as the weary Heracles.
'...Blood!'
For the first time, blood flowed from Otus's arm that had blocked the attack and Ephialtes's shoulder that had grazed the blow.
"Huh? W-What's this?!"
"B-Blooood?! We're bleeding?!"
Only after Heracles pointed it out did the twins notice, erupting in panic. But Heracles couldn't afford optimism over mere bleeding.
Without a moment to catch his breath, he'd expended his strength in one go, leaving him struggling to move. The Aloadae, meanwhile, had only shed a bit of blood despite his full assault and remained physically fresh.
"Damn it, what a humiliation...!"
-Crunch!
How many times had he been forced to his knees in these scant six months?
Heracles ground his teeth.
"Our turn now, right?"
"Going in? For real?!"
Zeus's son, the next great hero.
Blessed by two goddesses before setting out to slay the Cithaeron lion, a hero fully prepared.
For such a one to fall so helplessly...
"Krahaha! Now we're the true great heroes!"
"Kill him! Kill! Daddy... no, long live Poseidon!"
Cruelty as pure as a child's.
Armed with that savagery, the Aloadae charged at Heracles.
They were said to be mere children not even ten years old, yet possessed such absurd strength and bodies...
"Heracles, get back! I'll handle..."
"Shut it, bear cub! Step up with that body and you'll really die!"
A sense of utter powerlessness unlike against Dianes.
It was the exact emotion others had shown in their eyes when looking up to him.
Unwilling to stand by, Atalanta tried to shield him, but Heracles forcibly summoned his strength to block her.
'Tch, did the others feel like this when they looked at me?'
"Ha...!"
What regret, what sorrow gnawed at him so?
Unable to name it, Heracles could only let out a hollow laugh.
-Thud thud thud!
"Me first!"
In that instant, Otus's fist came hurtling toward him, blood spraying.
He'd sensed it before, but that fist alone was barrel-sized.
'...This is cheating.'
As Heracles bitterly smiled, mulling words others must have repeated hundreds of times upon seeing him, and Atalanta gnashed her teeth...
-Swoosh!
"!?"
A cold air, distinct from the storm, swept through all directions.
'The air?!'
'...The air's changed?'
Chilling, sharp, razor-edged.
It felt as if honed blades sliced through the air, sending shivers down Heracles and Atalanta's spines unbidden.
And amid the pitch-black rain clouds blanketing the sky, a voice pierced the torrent.
"Able to be small, then able to be great."
"W-Who goes there?!"
"Sh-Show yourself!"
Without warning, a voice cut clearly through the thick rain.
As casual as stepping out for a neighborhood stroll, it made Otus retract his fist, while Ephialtes hesitated and backpedaled.
"What trips a man striding forward is not a towering mountain, but a mere pebble. Only by attending to the small can one aspire to the great."
Like wolves retreating before a mountain beast's arrival, or backing away from the lord of the hundred beasts.
Instinctual fear crushed their momentum, forcing even titans like them to retreat.
Indifferent to them, the voice offered calm praise to the weary fallen heroes.
"I withheld the path ahead from you thus far out of hope you might forge it yourselves—and caution against overconfidence in your realm leading to hasty falls."
Through the raindrops loomed a chilling darkness, and within it, a man shinier than the shadows revealed himself.
Jet-black hair gleaming even in the gale.
A stark white face shining palely between those locks.
A single sword at his side seemed odd, but it was unmistakably Dianes—Atalanta's lover, Heracles's master, the Black Sword.
"You...!"
"Dianes!"
Like moonlight emerging from solitude apart from the world, the dark man appeared.
With a blade darker than shadow in hand, he stood before them with his retinue.
'....?'
'Is that... Dianes...?'
The black-clad man stepped forth before them.
He was undoubtedly the Dianes they'd left at Acrocorinth just two days prior, yet changed.
Heracles admired him inwardly, Atalanta loved him fiercely—it was him, yet their sharpened senses, honed alongside their auras, detected he'd advanced another step in that fleeting moment.
"My heroes. Well done, all of you."
"My heroes. You've all done well."
Dianes sheathed his sword and patted their shoulders.
His clumsy encouragement, like an elder soothing youths, came from their peer and new master.
Yet what was this?
This reassurance felt as if a great god had descended to protect them.
"Wh-When did you get here?"
"A-Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. All is well. Worry not."
Unlike the brief doubt if this was truly him, his familiar smile melted Heracles's tension, while Atalanta lost control of her emotions and threw herself into his arms.
"I-I was so worried..."
"Haha, forgive me. But stories can wait. Step back for now."
"B-But those guys...!"
Giants whose brute strength defied magic, power, even auras.
Sons of Poseidon, undoubtedly blessed by a great god.
No matter who, facing those two alone was...
That dignified word dispelled their worries.
Overwhelmed by his presence, even Zeus's son and the hunt goddess's foster daughter slowly withdrew.
Having soothed them, Dianes passed by and stood before the Aloadae.
-Shing!
A single black sword slowly drawn from the darkness.
With it, Dianes's aura flipped in an instant.
From the mountain blocking calamity, the guardian deity shielding his faithful.
To the abyss devouring all that obstructed him, the merciless demon god pulverizing his foes.
All who beheld it recalled the day he'd overwhelmed Poseidon's coast, though unlike then, he didn't manifest divine might overtly.
Yet the depth within was incomparable—stepping forward felt like plummeting into an abyss.
-.....!!
Beyond the unreachable pinnacle Dionysus couldn't touch, past even Chronos's time to the era's ragged end.
There, they struggled to confine him to mere epithets, too fearful to utter his true name.
Called the World's Supreme.
Or the Grandmaster of Ten Thousand Demons.
In the end, all revered him as:
Heavenly Demon Earth Emperor, Breaker of Falsehoods, Manifest Great Emperor.
The myth of a land stripped of myths.
The demon saint reborn in the land of myths.
Now fully restored, the Heavenly Demon Emperor's reign truly began with his first step upon this mythic soil.
* * *
-Gulp.
Dry swallows echoed amid the roaring rain.
Whose it was—self or clone—mattered not.
What gripped their hearts was the same: fear, binding their hearts for the first time.
"In this Greece, they say Coeitus winds thrice around the underworld, leaving three warnings before irrevocable deeds."
Man? Monster?
Ghost? Demon?
"No way... a god?"
As the black man approached silently, Otus and Ephialtes retreated step by step.
"D-Don't come closer!"
"Wh-Who are you! W-We are Boeotia's...!"
"First, my strategist Jason, voice of my sword, urged you to turn back.
Next, my heroes, my clones as great heroes, warned with strength."
The giants' roars that shook heaven and earth made even rain recoil.
Yet the black man's whisper pierced their ears unheeding.
"Now, the final warning."
The man's steps halted; the Aloadae's retreat did too.
"For the friendship and grace of the Sea God, who opened new paths for me, King of the Vast Oceans.
I tell you, his bloodkin: Withdraw. And never set foot on this land again."
Arrogant, audacious words.
Thus, only he could utter such overbearing decree.
That it came not from themselves but another's lips ignited fury in Poseidon's sons, forgetting their peril.
"You bastard... so cocky!"
"Bro! Kill him! Teach him a lesson!"
As the expected reaction burst forth, Dianes sighed deeply and muttered toward the sea.
"Haa... I've done my part, Poseidon."
"Hahat! Opening!"
Seizing the gap, Otus and Ephialtes lunged like hounds.
The Aloadae's joint assault could crumble even Gaia’s mountains.
An mindless onslaught, trusting in Earth Mother and father Poseidon's blessings, never considering counterattack.
Yet one thing the Aloadae never imagined:
-Slash!
"Huh?"
"Uh?"
All he'd mastered clashed utterly with the blessings of their patron gods.
And like those gods, the oldest, most mysterious deity—from the Earth God herself—had greatly blessed him.
-Splurt!
Like a spring gushing, crimson blood stained the rain.
-Thud!
A pair of massive flesh lumps crashed to the earth, shaking it.
"Wh-What? Aaaargh!"
"B-Bro! M-My, arm! Uwaaaah!"
A massive left arm and right arm sprawled on the ground.
The Aloadae's own arms.
For the first time tasting such agony, Otus and Ephialtes crumpled to their knees.
"No one among gods or men shall dare harm you... was it?"
-Kukuku.
-Huhuhu.
-Hahaha!
Three low laughs echoed as he twirled his blade, strolling casually through their midst.
[Then what am I?]
[What do I appear as in your eyes?]
[What do you see me as?]
The Aloadae.
Poseidon's twins, Otus and Ephialtes, beheld a true god's face for the first time.
Sneering down upon them.
Above the black man's back, rippling from the darkness, a colossal deity unveiled its visages.
A merciful smile from the demon god, softly grinning with wistful longing.
A fierce sneer from the ghost god, frozen in icy hatred.
A savage growl from the martial god, baring teeth in blazing rage.
The three-faced demon god—pitying, mocking, furious—drew blades from the dark.
Twelve swords gripped in countless arms evoking Hecatoncheires.
As those mountain-splitting blades targeted the twins, their spirits shattered.
"A... aaaah!"
"B-Bro! S-Save me!"
Unlike any god, surpassing all, that terrifying form made the twins clutch bleeding wounds and flee.
[To the fool who squandered the final chance, the final mercy.]
[To the fool who lost the final propriety, the final punishment.]
[To the fool who forgot the final reason, the final hell.]
"Nine Serenities Sword Arts—Gate Opening"
⟨ Opening the Gate ⟩
The sixteen hells of eight hot and eight cold.
That endless abyss was unleashed from the sword's tip.