Chapter 248
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 248
Chapter Title: Prove It, and I Shall Prove
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Prove it, you say? Then I shall prove it.
"In Erytheia, they observe the custom of xenia in a rather unique fashion, don't they?"
The custom of hospitality, xenia.
Even before the supreme god Zeus, back when time and the heavens ruled this Greece, it was an inviolable sacred rite observed by everyone from impoverished peasants to mighty deities.
Literally, it demanded that one lavish utmost hospitality upon any guest who entered one's domain.
Though its origins were unclear, it was held in the highest reverence alongside oaths sworn on the rivers of the underworld, including the Styx. Those who violated it could never be forgiven by any god and would receive no blessings whatsoever.
I had already heard the tale in the Heroes' Grove: the downfall of a stingy village that once failed Zeus's test, contrasted with the sole old couple who upheld the custom.
Yet the god of law who oversaw xenia was none other than Zeus himself.
So I had wondered just how the giants and demigods of this Erytheia—who despised Zeus—might carry out the rite of hospitality.
Never did I imagine it would be like this.
"Hahaha! And yet your face shows nothing but satisfaction."
Antaeus and I faced off in a colossal colosseum vast enough to hold four or five soccer fields.
A massive sacred fire blazed at its center, illuminating the night sky like broad daylight, while the surrounding stands overflowed with cheering giants, demigods, and otherworldly races.
-Antaeus! Antaeus! Antaeus!
"...You're a beloved ruler."
"Far more than I deserve."
The roaring crowds and the fiercely burning sacred fire.
As I took it all in, my eyes fell upon hundreds of skulls gazing down from an altar made of them.
Yet despite being an altar of skulls, it evoked no sense of menace or horror.
That was because every single skull was a masterpiece forged from pure gold.
What to call it?
Less a barbaric savage's altar, more a radically avant-garde, mysterious work of art.
"Is that the famous Altar of Golden Skulls?"
"Haha, indeed. Every time a challenger fell to me, I crafted them personally as offerings to my mother and father."
Fashioned solely with fire and his bare hands, without any tools—these golden skulls.
Shaping the offerings as skulls was surely a way to reject Olympus in every form and challenge it outright.
"They aren't real bones, are they?"
"Ah! The first twelve there? I personally severed their heads and plated them in gold. They were Zeus's assassins who dared invoke xenia to enter my domain, slander my kin, and defile our sacred rites with the tools of that petty god."
The rest were merely sculpted from gold.
Even so, Antaeus added, it would be unbecoming of Poseidon's son to crucify those who entered his lands honorably to challenge him.
"Perhaps today, I can claim all of Erytheia alongside those golden skulls. Geryon's cattle and Orthrus will be part of it, of course."
"To do that, you'd have to defeat me first?"
"Naturally."
Make blood that won't flow to run, and sever what cannot be cut.
To verify that, blood would have to spill and bones would have to break, naturally.
From our earlier talk in the cabin and the ominous atmosphere, I'd sensed it would come to this.
But never did I expect to face Poseidon's offspring back-to-back.
Still, I don't mind.
Antaeus's shock at the sight of me was matched only by my own astonishment at him.
This guy's the real deal.
For all that he was mythologized as a mere villain who died pathetically under Zeus, he was far too fine a warrior to be reduced to that caricature.
That ferocious aura he'd unleashed earlier was sharp and ruthless—higher even than Apollo's divinity, judging purely by level.
And the spirit that shook the earth surpassed Ares without contest.
His steps were as steady as mountains yet light as butterflies, proving he'd independently reached the pinnacle of martial ascension even in this ancient era before martial arts were formalized.
Calling him the Martial God of this age—one who transcended even Athena's arts—would be no exaggeration.
I thought this was a frail era just learning to walk... yet here it is.
To think that even in this mythological age, amid the terrifying trials that daunted the gods themselves, such a hidden dragon lurked.
That's why traveling this era is such a thrill.
The ones being pushed aside and forgotten in this time.
Like the demon folk who languished in the barren divine lands of old.
Mortals called them monsters that sucked blood and devoured children, but in truth, they were the proudest and hardiest warriors of the demonic path.
The giants of myth before me were no different from those I once led.
"Then let's see the depths of your strength."
-Whooooosh...!
As our auras steadily intensified, the towering sacred fire swayed, and a chill wind swept through the feverish arena.
"Ho! As expected!"
At last, I'd surpassed the realms I'd envisioned in my past life—not mere apparitions, but true incarnation.
After endless training in wait for the chance, I'd finally found a worthy opponent to unleash it upon.
"Could it be... the challenger isn't you, but me!"
Antaeus, sharing my sentiment, grinned with delight as he raised his own aura.
-Roooar!
The massive sacred fire—three stories tall—standing between us trembled perilously in the clash of our presences, like a candle in a gale.
The stands, once chanting Antaeus's name in frenzy, fell deathly silent, with only the fire's precarious shaking echoing.
-Boom!
Splitting the pristine white flames, a blue fist hurtled toward me.
* * *
How to overcome Olympus's authority and the thrones of the Twelve?
It was a question Antaeus had pondered endlessly.
Born with divine might, bolstered by mortal faith and offerings, inheriting ancient thrones from the Protogenoi.
Even as he and his siblings endured in the sea of trials, forgotten, those villains of Olympus grew stronger by the day. How could they surpass them?
Antaeus saw the answer in humans.
Not just Poseidon's children—Greece teemed with demigods discarded and exiled by those haughty gods for failing to please.
Gathering the forsaken and pooling their wisdom, Antaeus reached one conclusion.
Relentless training.
Ants hauled stones dozens of times their size with tiny bodies; snakes brewed venom over ages that could fell gods.
Then if Antaeus and his kin shed blood in pursuit?
Could the blood of gods fail to grant power to topple Olympus?
Baited with tantalizing offerings and sweet renown, Antaeus and the Laestrygonian giants welcomed ever-stronger, novel foes, honing themselves ceaselessly.
Erytheia grew mightier by the day.
And today, after long anticipation, Antaeus and his siblings beheld the fruition of their path.
"Raaargh!"
With a roar that shook heaven and earth, his blue fist cleaved the sacred fire.
"Earthquake! Shake all creation!"
-Rumble!
Antaeus and his siblings sought answers from their primal origins.
One brother from their father, a sister from their mother's emissaries.
They framed their power from the incarnations of the mightiest gods.
But Antaeus went a step further, infusing greater might into his frame.
Imbuing his steps with the earth's wrath, his fists with the authority of quakes.
-KABOOM!
"Here I come!!"
Antaeus charged, shaking the ground without restraint.
No need to hold back power or mercy now.
Gaia's foretold omen stood before him.
He would unleash everything—the culmination of his long wait and bitter trials.
"Megás Klydōn!!"
Earthquake steps, followed by the surging fury of a boiling sea.
"Raaargh!"
A colossal tidal force swept all, leaving nothing unscathed, relentlessly battering his foe.
-Thud thud thud!
Endless barrages of devastating power pursued.
Each strike blazed with murderous intent toward the gods and rage at the world, roaring to pulverize all before it.
-Ooooh!!
Dianes yielded groundlessly under the ferocious onslaught.
As the crowd cheered Antaeus's impending victory, the giant's face hardened.
How... not even a change in expression?!
Dianes retreated ceaselessly yet parried his fists with calm eyes and deflected his kicks without a flicker of disturbance.
"Ho, splendid!"
Antaeus inwardly reeled at the admiration in Dianes's gaze, but rage soon followed at the perceived condescension.
-Grind!
"Even if prophecy marks you as the one...!"
Antaeus.
Kin of Gaia, son of Poseidon.
Lord of vast Erytheia, sovereign of giants and demigods.
Better to crush him overwhelmingly, snap his neck, and hurl it into the fire.
To toy with and look down on him like this was the greatest insult to one who had knelt for millennia awaiting this day.
"I'll shatter that leisure in one blow!!"
Unprecedented divine power surged through his fist, capable of pulverizing century-old trees to dust.
So intense was the momentum that space itself seemed to warp along its path.
-Whoooosh!
"This...!"
For the first time, the son of darkness paled at the wailing of the air itself.
"Yes... a strike honed across ten thousand years solely to topple those lofty gods!"
Astonishment, surprise, a hint of peril.
Antaeus smiled faintly at the black eyes finally showing fear.
-Whoooong!!
Ptōsis Koursaros.
Onslaught of Demise.
Antaeus's ultimate technique, forged only to fell Olympus.
The blow that once erased a mighty hero—Zeus's own son—without trace now sailed toward Dianes.
"Take this!!"
-BOOM!!
A massive quake shook the earth as if the air itself trembled, cowering the entire arena in shock.
Through the billowing dust, only Antaeus stood firm on two feet.
Before him stretched a deep trench to the distant wall, ending in a crater of devastation.
-Woooah!!
The crowd erupted for their leader's overwhelming triumph once more.
"...No."
Yet Antaeus couldn't move a muscle.
Not from disappointment that prophecy hadn't manifested, nor joy in another crushing victory, nor despair at more waiting.
Fear.
That gripped him.
Me... I frozen in fear?
When receiving the spear from father Poseidon, or facing mighty primordial Gaia herself, he'd known no such thing.
And now he feared, rooted in place?
[Splendid.]
"?!"
As he stood stunned by the unfamiliar emotion, a voice emanated from the trench's end, beyond the lingering dust.
[To independently reach such heights in this vain era of gods drunk on glory and splendor.]
-Thump! Thump! Thump!
His heart pounded as if resounding from Tartarus's depths, blood boiling through his veins with every word.
[A warrior worthy of the title Martial God, one who cannot simply fade as a villain.]
-Shiiiing!
"?!"
Something sliced through the dust toward him.
Antaeus hastily raised his arms to block.
-KABOOM!
"Guhk!?"
But contrary to its faint presence, the force within was utterly ferocious.
Like a landslide, the impact sent his massive frame flying through the air.
"Urk?! W-What... is this...?"
No sorcery or spell.
No invoked blessing or manifested divine power.
Pure, overwhelming might.
That slight presence bore power even he couldn't resist.
-Thud! Thud! Thud!
Clutching his heart now threatening to burst, Antaeus rolled and lifted his head.
There stood a god.
"Ah...!"
Not some lofty idol of pathetic Olympus, but a true almighty, omniscient entity—like his mother Gaia—embodying omnipotence in flesh.
A genuine great god, with a three-faced visage surveying the three realms and twelve arms wielding twelve authorities, had at last descended before Antaeus, who had waited eons, to heed his earnest wish.
[Prove it, you say? Then I shall prove it.]
The god's incarnation—who felled Gaia's son with a mere flick and dominated giants, demigods, and beasts by mere presence—took his first step.