Chapter 78
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 78
Chapter Title: Zeus's True Intentions
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Ares, god of war and battle. Eris, goddess of strife and discord. Nemesis, goddess of retribution and justice.
Even the bountiful lands blessed by Demeter could be turned into barren wastelands devoid of a single blade of grass in an instant by these gods of calamity.
At least Nemesis earned as much reverence as fear due to her impartial nature.
But the gods of war and discord, who appeared as one wherever conflict erupted, now brazenly declaring they would perform divine acts in this forest?
And to top it off, they sent a permit stamped with Olympus's seal, authorizing it in the names of Zeus and Hera. Chiron's fury reached its absolute peak.
"Zeus, Zeus, king of the gods. The prophecy has come to pass. Does it truly not matter what becomes of the other children?"
The sage who inherited the blood of the Titan God-King Cronus.
He had rejected divinity and thus never ascended to godhood, yet his power and authority inspired awe even in Olympus's Twelve Olympians.
The prestige he commanded by uniting the savage centaurs in his brother's name rivaled that of any earthly king.
The mighty warrior who once faced the hordes of outlaws flooding the land during the war against the Titans had faded into the mists of time.
But the three gods present here vividly remembered the power of Chiron not as the sage of old, but as the warrior.
"Oh... indeed, no matter how much time passes, the Mad Horse King who stood against Menoetius's legions is still the same wherever he goes."
Facing Chiron's earth-shaking rage head-on, Ares's eyes sparkled as his hair whipped wildly like flames in the wind.
Before they knew it, he was clad in gleaming golden armor and a steel helmet scarred from countless battles, wielding a spear flickering with flames in one hand and a shield blazing with divine power in the other.
"Lord Ares. Can we take this to mean you truly intend to see this through to the end?"
"Chiron, I've never had the chance to clash with you, who galloped across battlefields alongside your father. Reason doesn't matter—what's it to me?"
The clash between an ancient warrior, Greece's greatest sage, and the war god who had presided over every conflict and struggle since time immemorial.
Warriors would cheer, the people would groan, and kings would scream at such a powder-keg situation. Nemesis's closed eyes twitched.
"Ares? Chiron? There seems to be a slight misunderstanding..."
Catching an unexpected powder keg igniting before her eyes, Nemesis felt a familiar headache creeping in but tried to intervene anyway...
"Hahaha!! This is exciting! A fight! Who do you think will win~!!"
Her little sister, thrilled at the peak of her own divine act's explosive danger, was jumping around and egging on the brawl.
As if she'd completely forgotten why they had come here in the first place.
Though gods were free from all illness and affliction, the chaos unfolding before her made Nemesis's neck stiffen.
"Chiron, as atonement for our rude intrusion into your sanctuary, and as respect to you, the great warrior of the Titan War. You may choose the battlefield and the terms."
"Kihahaha! Exciting, exciting, so exciting~! Winners are our side. Eh~? If Chiron wins, does this whole area turn into a Dionysian festival bloodbath? Eom! Totally my taste!"
As the fair and resolute Nemesis hesitated amid her chronic headache...
Ares, ever the warmonger, twisted his handsome face into a ferocious snarl to provoke Chiron.
And her damnable little sister was splashing oil on the flames with her hyper antics.
"....."
Watching silently, Nemesis slowly raised her hand.
Her delicate hand, impossible to believe belonged to the stern arbiter, twisted the air, summoning a pure white sword blazing with radiant light.
If the Sword of the Scales delivered fair judgment and verdict, this lower white blade executed the sinners accordingly.
The goddess of the white sword, who governed justice and retribution on this earth—untouchable by any force or power—had revealed her divine presence.
"Huh? Sis?"
"...Lady Nemesis?"
"...Wait, no, big sis!"
Eris, who had experienced that power most frequently and intimately, screamed first.
Next, Chiron's eyes widened; he had witnessed Nemesis's judgments several times before.
Finally, Ares startled at the memory of judgments at war's end for wartime atrocities, hastily lowering his spear.
Thus, Chiron's office plunged into a sudden standoff.
Yet the divine power of the judgment sword in her hand showed no sign of waning, and as anxiety peaked among the two gods and one immortal...
"Hup!"
The white sword swung decisively, warping space itself as its strike lashed out at the sinner.
"Huh? W-Wai—Gak!?!"
-Thud!
The white blade's judgment, which even war gods could barely track with their eyes.
The sinner struck directly was the maiden of discord, who had been prancing irreverently between the sage and the war god.
Perhaps out of sisterly mercy.
Or because her offense was too minor for the full authority of judgment.
She didn't smash through the ceiling like a pink meteor streaking across the sky or vanish without a scream.
She merely tumbled from the ceiling like a pigeon hit by a slingshot, rolling across the floor.
Golden ichor trickled pathetically from between her enchantingly shimmering pink locks, but Chiron and Ares were speechless, as if doused with cold water over their heads.
"You two?"
"Yes! Sis!"
"Ahem! We are... listening attentively."
Nemesis's eyes, kept closed to avoid bias from visible circumstances, opened wide, emitting a pure white glow.
No one present was ignorant of what that stern white gaze signified.
Chiron, who bowed to no one save the three highest councilors, and Ares, who repeatedly defied even his father Zeus, instantly became meek lambs and fell silent.
"...From this moment, I shall convey the command of the lord gods and the will of our ancient Night Mother.
Should any dare interfere, it shall be deemed defiance of Olympus's king and queen, Zeus and Hera,
and of Nyx, the primordial one seated among the Protogenoi.
In the name of Nemesis, goddess of retribution and justice, I shall enforce prohibition."
Her white gaze pierced the now-silent trio, declaring divine will and heralding the end of the farce.
The pinnacle of lofty Olympus.
"Oh, my goddess, my queen. Fairest Hera. To think you would come to me first. I am overjoyed."
From that perch overlooking all creation, Zeus, who gazed upon the world, welcomed his consort who had sought him out for once.
His golden hair shone brighter than the sun, and his eyes gleamed with the pride and authority of a monarch, sparkling with joy at his long-separated wife's visit.
"...."
Facing the supreme god's welcome, which no other goddess or woman could receive, the queen of the gods and lady of the heavens merely stared in silence.
"....Uh. Hera?"
"...."
Whenever Hera sought Zeus first, it was usually one of two reasons.
Either she had discovered one of his secret nymph or mortal lovers and come to interrogate him,
or she was furious that Zeus had rescued her punished paramours and come to lash out.
Especially lately, with Heracles, hidden in the forest of heroes, now grown too large to conceal even with Hermes and Zeus's combined efforts.
Unable to harm Heracles in his sanctuary, she often came personally to grill and torment her adulterous husband instead.
'...I haven't even bragged about Heracles lately.'
After the incident where, in rage over her attempt to harm the child of prophecy, he hung her from the world's edge with an anvil chained to her feet, Hera had treated Zeus like a non-entity.
She hadn't even entered Olympus's halls, wandering the mortal realm instead, repulsed by the sight of him. So when she returned, Zeus's delight surged.
But scanning his long divine life and marriage, he'd never seen this reaction from her. Anxiety began to rise in Zeus.
"Hera, my love, my queen. About that last incident..."
"What are your intentions?"
Unable to endure the prolonged silence, Zeus spoke first, only for Hera to cut him off and ask.
"Hera, intentions? I apologized for being too angry that time..."
"Not that. Sending Ares."
Ares, who roamed all Greece, forever haunting battlefields.
Though others pointed fingers, calling him a war maniac or barbarian,
to his mother, he was a precious son who never hid his respect and affection, and who raged against his father's infidelities even more fiercely than she did, opposing his father fiercely.
Her son had finally returned home after so long, yet Zeus hadn't properly welcomed him before sending him back to the mortal world.
Tacked onto the matter his sisters had requested permission for, no less.
"Ah, that. Ares is well over a few thousand years old now. He can't wander battlefields forever.
So I told him to spread faith among the young demigods directly..."
"Still dodging even here?"
Zeus desperately tried to deflect, inwardly sighing that the moment had arrived.
But Hera closed her eyes in disappointment at his response and turned to leave.
"H-Hera! Wait!"
"...."
If she'd come nagging and clawing at him as usual, he might have let her go with a sigh of 'here we go again.'
But this was the first time since the world-end suspension that she had approached him first and spoken. The teardrop glistening in the silent goddess's eye made even the supreme god leap to his feet.
"Sigh... alright, I apologize. But this isn't something I can easily speak of..."
"What is it?"
Not just Zeus felt puzzled by his consort's reaction.
Normally, with matters involving his mistresses, Zeus wouldn't grovel like this.
He'd sigh in relief as she turned away wordlessly. Trying to explain yet hesitating was rare.
"My queen, what you requested must surely concern the new creation of Lady Nyx, who has recently appeared?"
"So you knew?"
He had strictly ordered even Hermes to keep it secret, but Zeus's eyes and ears spanned all Greece.
And with his wit surpassing even Hermes, few things in Greece escaped him.
"Yes, exactly. My sisters Nemesis and Eris wished to teach that young brother—who has already shown divine power in a mortal body—how to wield his strength properly and righteously."
Having honed himself over a mere century or so, engraving years into his soul.
A young god in human form, wielding magic and martial arts that awed even divinities.
Still called by a mortal name, but Hera had no doubt he would soon gain a new name and divine domain.
Even as he eyed her with greed, his gaze ignored the goddess's beauty and queen's authority, seeking only the wisdom and knowledge she had amassed.
Despite his own powers and knowledge, the young god hungered for higher wisdom like a starving beast.
How could a child qualified to crave what she once sought from the great gods end his life as a mere human?
"Commendable, unlike today's youths."
"Aha! So that's why you've been so quiet lately..."
"...."
"Sorry."
In any case, whatever the future held, if the child gained a divine domain and ascended Olympus, or at least became a hero of demigod might, she pondered sending him to Hecate for initiation into her mysteries.
When Nemesis and Eris, whom she hadn't heard from in ages, requested to teach him, she had readily approved.
But slipping Ares in among them?
"What scheme is this, Zeus?"
"Urgh..."
Even for Hera, permitting gods' entry and divine manifestations in a sanctuary consecrated by her and the Twelve Olympians required Zeus's consent.
Unless she bore him extreme ill will, Zeus had sent an ultimatum demanding agreement.
Yet he had tacked on a bizarre clause and rushed it through without her knowledge.
"Hera, will you swear upon Styx?"
"A Styx oath?"
Her eyes questioning if she'd heard right, Zeus nodded gravely.
"Yes."
"Zeus, you..."
"Even for you, I can't say more. If you insist on leaving, I'll bear your resentment gladly."
At his sunken golden gaze, Hera forgot her rising fury and fell silent.
The usually frivolous Zeus speaking with such weight, even invoking Styx?
But seeing those eyes, Hera resolved to uncover the supreme god's true intentions right then.
"The queen of the gods, goddess of goddesses, daughter of Cronus and guardian of sacred oaths, Hera, swears upon the underworld river, the fork of fates that all cross and all shall cross, Styx.
I shall not divulge the secret my consort, king of the gods Zeus, now reveals to me."
-Boom!
The river goddess deep underground accepted the queen's oath, and celestial nebulae recorded it.
An unbreakable pact bound both their hands, heavier than even they could defy.
Frowning at the weight yet eager for answers, Hera's gaze prompted Zeus to heave a heavy sigh and begin revealing the secret.