Chapter 35
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 35
Chapter Title: Bloodline of the Protogenoi
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Hermes saw it.
The golden lightning, mirroring his father Zeus's divine power, coiling around Heracles's fist.
The excuse Zeus had flaunted while rottenly cheating on Hera.
The moment that claim—to create a human hero to prepare for the Gigantomachia—proved true.
Countless heroes of Zeus's bloodline had shaken all of Greece up to now, but none before or after Heracles had awakened the blood of the gods in their demigod bodies to manifest divine power.
...That line of thinking shattered in just one second.
Even to Hermes's eyes, the terrifying golden lightning hammer. As Dianes tried to block it head-on with both arms, pitch-black divine power akin to the deep night sky manifested there.
But what was even more astonishing was that, unlike Heracles who had merely manifested it in his fist, Dianes wielded his divine power with such proficiency.
The divine power cloaking his arms instantly turned into a pitch-black hole that devoured everything, sucking in the massive golden divine power entirely.
Of course, the backlash was no small thing, and the black-haired hero collapsed, bleeding from all over his body.
From Hermes's perspective, it was a monumental event: two great heroes capable of manifesting divine power emerging in a single generation.
He was just about to take flight to inform his father Zeus as quickly as possible.
"Hermes."
"!? Q-Queen Hera!?"
Hera, the queen who always presided over Olympus's grandest temple, commanding the sea goddesses and queens.
The only one who sat her throne alongside the king of the gods, Zeus—and, astonishingly, the great aunt who had nursed and raised Hermes herself.
Such a figure gazed down at him from atop the clouds, slowly beckoning him closer.
No matter how much Hermes roamed Greece like a wild rascal, he obeyed that gesture meekly.
"Ha, hahaha! Hera! To meet you so suddenly like this. It must be the reward for all my hard work running around for the gods. What luck to chance upon the most elegant and beautiful queen in the world!"
Hermes landed lightly on Hera's cloud and bowed at the waist. Hera gave a soft smile and a small wave of her hand in response to his jovial greeting.
"Your greetings always delight my ears, Hermes."
"Even a rock tumbling down a mountain would become a bard at the sight of you, Hera."
I couldn't help but praise your noble grace!"
While his mind raced through 1,475 possible answers to 'Why is the queen here?' and calculated the ensuing uproar each might cause,
on the surface, Hermes beamed, praising the queen of the gods as if thrilled by this chance encounter.
And so, the queen of the gods gazed upon her messenger, the charming trickster, and spoke.
"Where are you rushing off to in such a hurry?"
"Pardon?"
"....."
A silent smile asked: Do I need to waste more words?
It weighed heavily on Hermes's shoulders.
"Uh, w-well... you see, Hera..."
"....."
"It's just... I owe Chiron a bit of money..."
"....."
This was bad.
The reason Hermes was sweating bullets while scrambling for excuses
went beyond the hottest topic on Olympus, Heracles—it was that the worst-case scenario he and Chiron had feared had become reality.
Good heavens.
The pure bloodline of the Protogenoi had reappeared on this earth.
Born at the world's beginning, they would exist even after its end—absolute beings even the mighty Zeus could not defy.
And one prime example of the Protogenoi's progeny was Typhon, the storm giant who had once toppled Olympus itself.
The colossal giant born from Gaia of the earth and Tartarus of the abyss obeyed his mother's command,
rising from the underworld to judge Olympus.
When he raised his head, the stars shattered and pounded the earth; when he spread his arms, tsunamis and earthquakes ravaged the world.
Even his famed Talaria wings tore apart against the storm he wore; when his eyes, burning hotter than the sun, glared at Olympus,
the great twelve Olympians all sensed doom, and even mighty Zeus fell to him, suffering the humiliation of having his sinews severed.
Yet through Hermes and his son Pan's cunning, Zeus regained his strength, received a mortal fate from the goddesses of destiny, and finally pierced Typhon with lightning, sealing him beneath Hephaestus's volcano.
Up to here, it would have ended as a tale of 'all's well that ends well' with applause.
But Hermes's mind still burned vividly with that day's memory.
When he tricked Typhon on Mount Arima to revive his father Zeus.
Those eyes glaring at him.
Forged from all the world's destruction and rage, those blazing eyes left an indelible scar in Hermes, one nectar could not erase.
Whenever the messenger of the gods closed his eyes for rest, those eyes found him.
The giant's roar of fury, those blazing eyes staring him down.
But in his dreams, Hermes had no winged sandals Talaria, no father Zeus to protect him.
Crouched like a helpless child on the mountainside, screaming, the furious giant mocked him,
crushing him like a bug to end the nightmare.
He begged the god of sleep Hypnos to escape the pain, pleaded with Apollo for music to knock him out cold,
but it was all temporary. That day's memory clawed back into his dreams and held tight.
"Hera."
"Yes."
"You... saw it too, right?"
He didn't know why the queen of the gods had come to this school for young heroes.
But surely she had witnessed the divine power Dianes displayed.
"This... Father must be told at once."
If that black-haired hero awakened to his blood and ascended to godhood,
the world might face a second Typhon.
"Father's oracle was true. The great hero of the Gigantomachia is born, and the Gigantes will come. But if that boy sides with the Gigantes and Titans...!"
Like a frightened child, Hermes knelt before the queen, clutching his head.
Typhon's nightmare resurfaced, crushing the gods' merry trickster.
"Hermes."
Sensing something amiss, Hera reached out, but Hermes, huddled on the ground, trembled violently like he was ill.
"Those eyes are still glaring at me huge arms grabbing my neck feet smashing the earth crushing my legs the mocking laughter echoing the mocking laughter mocking laughter resounding endlessly endlessly in my head..."
Hermes's condition was worse than thought.
Seeing the pure Protogenoi bloodline again must have revived his Typhon's trauma.
Hera's face hardened in concern as she gripped his shoulders firmly, pulling him up to meet her eyes.
"Hermes!"
"...Gasp!?"
A warm, mighty divine presence yanked Hermes back from his sinking memories to reality.
Drenched in cold sweat, he panted heavily, facing his great aunt.
"H-Hera... I-I, what in the world..."
"It's our failing. Forgive me."
Hera gently wiped the sweat from his brow with her own shawl draped over her shoulders, speaking softly.
"Because you're always so cheerful and lively, no one—not even I—realized you carried such a deep wound. As your great aunt, I should have tended to the scars you bore facing that mighty Typhon to the end."
With every touch of the queen's hand on his forehead, Typhon's phantom flames faded before his eyes.
With every sweep of her calm voice over his ears, the giant's screams echoing in his mind quieted.
When the goddess of beautiful eyes smiled faintly into her sweat-soaked shawl and met Hermes's gaze again,
Typhon's nightmare that had gripped him was gone clean away.
"Feeling better now?"
"S-Sorry... for such a disgraceful display..."
Hera giggled to lighten the mood, patting the unusually sheepish, mumbling Hermes.
"Hahaha! Enough of that. It makes me doubt if you're the same sly boy who pretended to be Ares to steal my milk."
"Ugh... Hera..."
She was always sharp-tongued over Zeus's infidelities, but Hera laughed easily like this and enjoyed meeting others.
Facing her adopted son with such mirth after so long, she seemed more benevolent than ever.
"I know what worries you. But leave Dianes to me—and don't tell Zeus."
"What?! B-But even if you favor the boy..."
"Hush, it's not that. Calm yourself."
She wasn't entirely without such feelings, but Hera wished to keep Dianes's true nature from Zeus.
"...You're not the only one scarred indelibly by Typhon."