The Return of the Storm
Lately, Polyphemus had begun to think that his situation was actually a blessing in disguise.
Whenever he thought of the still-beautiful Galatea, his mouth felt as bitter as if he had been chewing on bile, but even that pain was slowly beginning to fade.
And the reason was simple...
“Dammit! I’m too busy to even breathe!”
Without even a moment to lament to his father, Poseidon, Polyphemus had been spending his days in a whirlwind of activity.
“Fire! Keep firing!”
“Thud-thud-thud-thud!”
In his hands, he gripped a massive shield, tightly bound and sized perfectly for his giant frame. A cacophony of metallic clanging rang out incessantly against the steel, which resembled the gate of a fortress.
“Centurion Polyphemus! Are you alright!?”
“Do I look alright to you!?”
As Polyphemus gritted his teeth and held the shield firm, a mixed unit of humans and demigods stood behind him, watching him with expressions of pure awe.
“Damn it... there’s no turning back now...”
Though he had fallen for Dianes’s schemes and made the blunder of letting Acis strike his eye, Polyphemus was a being of a different caliber than the current generation of demigods. He was a true divine spirit, born between a god and a nymph.
Unlike other spirits who lazily wasted their time in their own domains, he had long ago participated in Dionysus’s eastern expedition and had been bestowed with an epithet by the god himself. Even among the Cyclopes, he was a warrior known to all as "Polyphemus the Rock-Thrower."
Even if he had felt intimidated by Dianes’s divine authority and the heroes who had ousted his half-brothers, the Aloadae, and had quietly joined their ranks, his inherent strength and martial prowess had not vanished. Before he knew it, Polyphemus had found himself charging across the battlefield as a centurion of the Arcadian army.
And in the distance, a tall human fortress stood as the prey for Polyphemus and the rest of the Arcadian forces today.
“Vwooooom!”
“Hm? What’s this?”
Amidst the whistling sound of the arrow rain that hammered against his shield like a downpour, Polyphemus sensed a different sound.
Something much larger, much heavier...
“Don’t tell me?”
His single eye widened, and as he peered through a small gap in his shield, he saw a massive boulder plummeting toward him.
“Damn it! Everyone, raise your shields!!”
“Yes, sir!”
At Polyphemus’s roar, the century following him moved in perfect unison, shifting into a tortoise formation to defend. Polyphemus busied himself by pulling out the club he had strapped to his back.
“Hahaha! You think you can take on the son of a god who brings earthquakes with mere rocks?!”
“Kwah-kwah-kwang!”
As Polyphemus swung the club in both hands with a flamboyant flourish, the massive stone that had been flying toward him began to hurtle back toward the place it had come from.
“Huh? Uh, oh? Dodge it!!”
Perhaps they hadn’t expected him to strike back a projectile launched by a catapult; screams erupted from the fortress in the distance, and the fierce rain of arrows ceased in an instant.
“Hahaha! Charge! Today, all the humans in that fortress will be our dinner...”
“Centurion...?”
“Lord Polyphemus, are you suggesting cannibalism...?”
Oh, dear.
He had gotten carried away and spoken just as he did when leading the Cyclops legion. Seeing his subordinates recoil in horror, wondering if he truly intended to eat them, Polyphemus realized his mistake, but...
“...will be eaten in hell!! Hahaha!”
His years of experience serving the son of Zeus had not gone to waste.
“Aha! That’s right! I’ll send you all to Hades!”
“The son of Poseidon, the sword of Dionysus, leads the way!!”
With a quick wit, he smoothed over the situation, and as Polyphemus charged ahead, his subordinates followed, their spirits soaring as they raced across the battlefield.
“Run! Run! We can’t lose to those other swordsmen!”
“You are right, sir!”
“The Phesacaines units have been fierce lately, but!”
“Our unit, led by the one-eyed great warrior, will not fall behind!”
The soldiers advanced valiantly, cutting through the arrows. Watching their prowess, Polyphemus felt inwardly satisfied and darted his large, single eye around, spotting the other units racing across the battlefield.
“Damn! Have they already caught up?”
The target of this operation was Salmone, a small coastal city in Elis. Atalanta and Iason, having been promised the blessing of his father, Poseidon, wanted to gradually expand Arcadia’s ports. They were thirsty for a glorious battlefield where they could make a name for themselves and boast of their martial arts, especially since they wanted to test the new techniques Dianes had imparted to them.
In the midst of this, fools who ignited Queen Atalanta’s fury had appeared simultaneously in Achaea and Elis.
The leader of Elis, the high priest of Olympia, had insulted Atalanta, calling her a shameless sinner in response to her proposal to revive trade routes in the Peloponnese. After she had rehabilitated Thespios, who had been brutally killed by a giant iron anchor, and granted independence to Thespiae, they had threatened her to step down from the Arcadian throne and repent at the Temple of Zeus in Olympia for the sin of a woman daring to challenge male authority. They even added a threat that if she did not, Zeus would strike her down with divine punishment for breaking the laws!
An envoy had approached Heracles with a secret proposal. If he were willing, they would help him take Atalanta and ascend as the ruler of Arcadia, provided he sent half of Arcadia and Messenia’s monopoly rights and beautiful female heroes to Olympia. They accompanied this with a blasphemous curse that if he refused, his father, Zeus, would abandon him.
A messenger had also gone to Iason. Reminding him that his great-grandfather, Salmoneus, had founded Salmone of Elis and that his bloodline still ruled there, they threatened him with a curse: if he did not follow Olympia’s orders, he would be cast out like his great-grandmother, Tyro, and die wandering the earth forever, instead of receiving the glory they offered.
In contrast, Achaea, which faced Elis on the western border and Arcadia on the southern border, had taken a completely different path. Terrified by the testimonies of the people already returned home by Dianes and the bandit-hunting of the Phesacaines, they had offered five carts full of gold and treasures to celebrate Atalanta’s ascension, and had even been the first to propose the resumption of trade on generous terms.
And the result was what we see now.
The great hero Heracles.
Atalanta of the Red Meteor.
Iason of the Sword Wind.
Warriors, each capable of matching a nation, had driven straight through Elis toward Olympia, while the Phesacaines and Atalanta’s warrior corps led the Arcadian army, conquering the minor states of Elis one by one.
However, as confirmed in the conquest of Thespiae, the Phesacaines’ combat power boasted a transcendental strength unseen in modern Greece, and about a week into the war, it had become a competition of who could break through the gates first and who could defeat the enemy generals faster.
“Boom! Boom! Boom!”
“Hahahaha! I, Polyphemus, shall be the first to hammer down the gates of Salmone!”
As the elder and a newcomer among the Arcadian warriors, Polyphemus could never fall behind in this competition. Because of that, he had volunteered to be at the forefront, taking the brunt of Salmone’s bombardment, but his efforts were not in vain; he was the first among the warriors dispatched to this sector to reach the gates of Salmone.
“St-stop, you monster! Are you not afraid of Zeus’s wrath?!”
“Zeus? Hmph!”
A general, who seemed to be in charge of the gate, trembled and cursed at Polyphemus, but Polyphemus merely snorted as if it were ridiculous.
“You fool! Listen well! I am Polyphemus! The son of Poseidon, who makes even that Zeus humble himself!”
“Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!”
Polyphemus had also been diligently training in the swordsmanship of Dianes, passed down through Iason. However, the wind whipped up by a human and the wind driven by a giant were of a different caliber. As the club in his hand approached, causing the air to churn, the soldiers on the walls were busy fleeing for their lives.
“Tell all of Greece with your deaths! That this fortress is the first achievement the son of Poseidon offers to his father!”
“N-no...!”
“Kwah-woong!!”
As Polyphemus’s club, accelerated again and again, left an afterimage, the seemingly sturdy gate and walls turned into miserable ruins with a deafening roar.
“Centurion Polyphemus!! In the name of Arcadia and Poseidon, I shall take Salmone!”
Polyphemus laughed heartily as he crossed the gate, his single eye quickly capturing a flashy man pushing through the people to flee in a panic, followed by a handful of soldiers.
“You must be the leader here!”
“A-aaah! It’s a monster!!”
If he could just capture this king of Salmone, a pathetic human whose name he didn’t even know, today’s military achievement would be Polyphemus’s alone.
‘With this, I can finally shed the perception that all of Poseidon’s sons are barbaric monsters!’
Just as Polyphemus’s single eye flashed and he was about to rush into Salmone to chase his final achievement, a demigod rushed over and blocked his path.
“St-stop! Polyphemus!”
“Khrung?! Acis!?”
The figure was none other than one of the Phesacaines and his romantic rival. It was Acis, who had earned the epithet Agapius—meaning "the beloved"—for his recent feat of defying death itself.
“Move aside this instant?! The target is escaping!”
“Did you not hear the Queen! Our goal is not the destruction of Salmone, but the capture of the King and the stabilization of the city! If you run through there, the innocent people of Salmone will be in danger!”
“You, you little...!”
Dianes had warned him strictly, but he couldn’t understand why he was so protective of these pathetic humans, who would die if he just flicked a finger, in a kingdom the size of a speck of dust. Polyphemus was just frustrated.
After all, pathetic humans who were neither demigods nor spirits... weren’t they as common as dirt?
“The credit for bringing down Salmone is, in name and reality, General Polyphemus’s! So please, calm down!”
“....Damn it. If that’s the case, I’ll go back and pursue the leader. Happy?”
But he wasn’t just anyone; he was the warrior who had defeated him, and ignoring his request would go against his pride as a warrior. Polyphemus had no choice but to turn his steps toward the harbor, where the King of Salmone was trying to escape.
“Th-thank you!”
“You noisy brat.”
There was no time to argue. No matter how much he had broken the gates, in war, wasn’t killing or capturing the enemy king the greatest achievement? He needed a visible achievement to be a proud son when that terrifying Dianes returned, and to be a proud son to his father, Poseidon.
So, he hurried his steps to the seashore, where he saw humans busily boarding ships below the high cliffs.
“Sniff, there they are!”
“Huff... huff... Polyphemus, sir...!”
“Eh? What is it, adjutant? I told you to stay back if you’re tired!”
“Th-that is not it. Look over there...!”
Following the direction pointed out by the adjutant, who was the only one to keep up with Polyphemus’s storm-like march...
“Uh...?”
Three massive warships were racing toward them!
“Well, were there reinforcements?”
Polyphemus loosened his shoulders, thinking he should show off his skills in sinking invaders for the first time in a while, but once again, the adjutant hammered on his calf.
“At the lead...!”
“What’s at the lead... ugh?”
At the adjutant’s impatience, Polyphemus squinted his eye and looked at the bow of the ship.
A familiar man was quietly watching him, facing the sea breeze.
“Hiiik?! Di, Dianes?!”
The starting point of all these events, who had left Greece for a while.
The black storm that brings chaos had returned.