Chapter 26
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 26
Chapter Title: I Will Return
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The overall progression was exactly the same as yesterday.
As the sun slowly rose beyond the horizon, the Colosseum's gates opened with the blare of trumpets.
Heracles blocked the entrance like a mid-game boss from some video game.
And the warriors stomped their feet and banged their shields, shouting my name.
-Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
-Dianes! Dianes! Dianes!
Unlike yesterday, the fifty young heroes formed a tight phalanx at the Colosseum's entrance.
They cleared a path before me toward the villain blocking the way ahead.
The solemnity and sheer power of it—like a scene from that Sparta movie I'd seen in my pre-previous life—made my blood boil on its own.
"This is the wild boar hunting tactic. Finally, getting to use it against that boar!"
"You catch a boar with a boar... What could be more efficient than this?"
"Hey, you there! Voices are getting quiet! Louder! Louder!"
-Uwaaaaaah!!
...if not for the whispering of those two sly rascals amid the soldiers' roars.
"Um, hey Thess? Dianes is looking this way?"
"What are you talking about? Jason, no way he can hear our strategy meeting through these soldiers' cheers..."
Hm, cute. So cute.
As expected of the clever Greek heroes famed for their wits, their no-holds-barred approach to catching the all-time boss Heracles was truly impressive.
Yes, a true strategist never picks and chooses means and methods for the sake of the goal.
However.
Being turned into that means and method myself was extremely unpleasant.
"....He's really looking this way?"
"Hey hey! Why are your voices so damn quiet!! Louder! Louder!!"
Theseus and Jason's faces turned ghostly pale the instant our eyes met, but even so, they desperately raised their voices, chanting my name to somehow pit me against Heracles.
"Cute little things."
I'll deal with you two later.
Using the lord of the demonic path—no less—as a pawn in this farce? They'll pay for it with their own bodies.
Anyway, for now, it seemed I had to play along with their tune a bit.
Those sparkling eyes from the young hero sprouts, that great hero seedling up front—it wasn't a situation to back out of.
Above all, a one-on-one with that Heracles guy was something I'd been wanting too.
Yesterday, after dissipating Atalanta's heart demon, I'd planted a sliver of the Three Disasters enlightenment I'd realized myself into the void it left behind.
At the same time, I'd confirmed once more my own enlightenment and realm.
'My enlightenment is still within me.'
The enlightenment from my previous life, reached by transcending the limits of the body to temper the heart and sublimate qi.
That realm and enlightenment, engraved not in flesh but in the soul, still existed within me.
I'd known it subconsciously while cultivating Ghostless Heart Art and the Demonic Cult's secret arts, but tasting that previous life's inaction and realm again in the heartscape world yesterday had turned it into certainty.
'I'm going back up.'
Somehow, by any means necessary, I had to climb back up.
This wasn't mere need or desire.
It was instinct.
Like salmon battling upstream through treacherous mountains to return home.
Like migratory birds slicing through fierce winds southward.
I had to return to the realm I'd once shattered barriers to reach, to the pinnacle I'd ascended.
The thirst that the beauty of the Aegean and Greece's abundance had made me forget.
It now boiled up again, ignited by the glimpse of my true self briefly reclaimed in the heartscape.
A bit stronger than Greece's famed heroes?
On par with the mythic powerhouses?
Damn it, that was a given.
When had the Heavenly Demon Great Emperor, who toppled mountains and drained rivers, ever been so modest?
Settling inwardly for a mere first-rate realm, fretting over Zeus this and Apollo that.
Had I been subconsciously overwhelmed by the name of gods, the name of myths?
Born human, so challenging gods is folly?
"What nonsense."
That's not what a demon is.
If heaven rejects me and earth refuses me.
Then shatter heaven and trample it beneath my feet, smash earth and scatter it to the void.
That is a demon.
How could I have forgotten it all over something as trivial as being born in a different body?
But haste is the enemy.
A tower built with care withstands even a millennium.
A deep-rooted tree stands tall alone amid a forest ablaze, aiming for another thousand years.
My mind and soul had already reached an unfathomable peak, an immense accomplishment never to be forgotten—so I just needed to temper a vessel to contain it.
I'd known this all along, but briefly experiencing my previous life's body again made my current one feel so unbearably constricting.
It wasn't just simple physical training.
The evolution of the body, gained only through countless brushes with death and extreme ordeals.
The moments when blood and flesh sprayed, breath choked to the throat, every instinct screaming in crisis.
What I needed most right now was exactly those extreme moments.
And fortunately, in this mythic world of gods, monsters, and heroes, I faced the greatest hero ever proclaimed.
The surroundings had fallen silent before I knew it.
In the center of the Colosseum, Heracles and I stood facing each other.
"Your eyes are different."
"Had some business."
"Did something good happen yesterday, by chance?"
Heracles grinned lecherously, flicking his eyes toward Atalanta behind me.
Well, thanks to Atalanta, I'd recalled old memories, so it wasn't entirely wrong—but not in the way he was imagining.
"...Huh? No reply? For real? You really did it?"
Misinterpreting my silence as affirmation, Heracles's eyes—sparkling with competitive fire—widened in disbelief, mouth agape.
"No way, how strong is your headbutt that even Atalanta..."
"Hey, doesn't your head have too many lewd demons crammed in there?"
This guy too—just like all these Greeks, did they think with their lower heads instead of their brains?
19+ talk popped up at every turn.
"What were you gonna do to a passed-out girl anyway? Asclepius was in the infirmary too."
"Why? Wouldn't that be even better?"
"What a bastard."
What the hell did I just hear?
This was Greece's great mythic hero?
Couldn't tell if "even better" meant because Atalanta was unconscious or because Asclepius was there.
Didn't want to know either way.
"Anyway, shall we start?"
"...Yeah, time to get going?"
Heracles grinned ferociously and leveled the spear in his hand at me.
"They say you're good with all sorts of weapons, but let's play with the spear that matched Chiron my teacher."
"Spear's not your main weapon, is it?"
In the myths, I recalled Heracles mostly using an olive wood club or a bow—never other weapons.
His body itself was a full-body lethal weapon, so he probably didn't need any.
"Oh, how'd you know?"
"Obvious at a glance. You have some spear training, but your stance isn't that of a true spearman."
The Greek spear style I'd seen paired shield and spear in standard formations.
Block enemy attacks with the shield, strike from safe range with the spear's reach.
Without a shield, you'd grip with both hands as basic form.
But Heracles swung his one-handed like a club.
"Heh, yeah, something like that. But since you're using a spear, doesn't it feel fair if I use one too?"
"...What?"
Fair?
What did this fledgling great hero just say?
"I mean, you're using a spear, so I should too—even if it's not my usual. Fair and square, right?"
"Sure."
"In other words, if we don't use spears, you'd win?"
"For reference, my best is pankration. I'm pretty strong, you know."
"So, no spear, and I'd stand no chance against you?"
As displeasure crawled up my spine and my face hardened, Heracles tilted his head in confusion.
"...Hey, hey. I saw you overwhelm Atalanta yesterday, but that's nothing to me."
With arrogant certainty that such martial arts couldn't even scratch him, Heracles smirked and continued.
"I'm born of Zeus's divine blood, nursed on Hera's milk, you know."
"Think you can stand against me in bare-hand combat when I tore the Nemean Lion—Typhon's spawn—with my hands?"
Spear or bow, he'd say.
Deep self-infatuation and confidence.
Honestly, for the mythic Heracles, it made sense.
Since birth, only something like the Nemean Lion—a monstrous child of Typhon—had drawn his blood.
No one could call that confidence arrogance.
Except one person.
Before me, Heracles's confidence was pure hubris, nothing more or less.
Thud. I dropped my spear.
"....."
"Hey, pick up the spear. No spear tip in the world scratches my body."
"Going bare-handed against me? That's just fact.... Huh?!"
One step.
The step needed to enter the interval of Heracles, who stood chest puffed with smug laughter.
Unarmored, his bare torso on proud display, Heracles's body was indeed worthy of admiration.
A body tougher and harder than any armor in the world.
A true great hero's physique.
"But in the end, just flesh and blood of a human."
"Wha... huh?"
In an instant, I closed in, and my five extended fingers touched Heracles's chest.
Heracles blinked in brief surprise, then shrugged with a smirk.
"Hey, what're you doing? Even if my body's tempting..."
"Shut up and mind your breathing."
Or you might end up half-crippled today.
-Whoooong!
Ghostless Heart Art's internal energy, drawn from the dantian, converged at my fingertips alongside demonic qi.
"...Huh?"
Sensing instinctively that something was wrong, Heracles looked down at me with disbelief.
But it was already over.
"The afflictions of the Five Aggregates pierce the heart."
Five Aggregates Plague Art - Affliction Waves Part the Heavens
In orthodox martial arts, when discussing qi arts, Shaolin's Iron Skin Qi and Huashan's Purple Mist Divine Art were top-ranked.
But the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult possessed a demonic qi art to rival them: the unique martial art of Pa Wi-gwi-ma Jong Wi-geol, grandmaster of qi arts among the Twelve Divine Demons, unmatched by any.
Five Aggregates Plague Art—that was it.
And in this instant, the Five Aggregates Plague Art's secret technique struck the body of Greece's great hero.