Chapter 95
“……”
“Puhahahaha!! Yes! That’s it! Right there, one punch… Oh, so close!”
“Yes! Punch upwards…! Blocked! As expected of my husband!!”
…To be precise, they were too excited to even close their mouths.
And so, the God of War and the Goddess of Conflict had been cheering enthusiastically from the clouds for a long time in this unprecedented great battle.
“To think it’s a fight against Zeus’s great hero, Hercules…”
Could it be that Eris couldn’t control her temper and caused trouble in the Forest of Heroes?
Nemesis pondered whether to draw the Judgement Sword, but in the end, Eris was merely fulfilling her divine duties.
The strict Judgement Sword remained silent.
“What on earth should I say to Zeus and Hera…?”
Nemesis clutched her forehead, unable to fathom what to do in this situation.
“Hey, Nemesis sis. Stop making that pretty face of yours frown and come over here. Do you think fights this intense happen often among mortals these days?”
“Ares is right, sis~! This is a once-in-a-lifetime fight. And with the oath sworn on the Styx, it’s not every day you see people fighting to the death for real!”
Nemesis summoned the Judgement Sword once more at the sight of the two mischievous onlookers, who had brought Dionysus’s wine and Dianes’s corn snacks to watch.
The Sword of Judgement, which seemed to flinch, remained silent, indicating that now was not the time.
“Chaos, Gaia, Nyx, my goodness…”
Even her trusted sword stayed silent. Nemesis felt utterly overwhelmed, whispering the names of the primordial gods she once revered.
-Crunch, crunch!
“Wow! Pow, right in the face! Punch! Kick! Knock ’em down!”
Eris, who seemed to have sold off her dignity as a goddess, shouted with her mouth full of corn snacks.
“Just look at that! Zeus’s son, exactly like his father! Ha! Using lightning so recklessly—simple and brutal, just my style! This drink is delicious!”
The War God Ares was already drunk and giving advice while drinking straight from the jar.
What’s the use of trying so hard to guide humans and lead them to justice?
Just like Hemera and Aether, Nemesis began to feel regret, wondering if it was time for her to step down from her divine duties and disappear.
No matter how indulgent she was with her youngest sibling, Nemesis, being inherently strict and fair, found this chaos deeply unsettling.
“What is that power…?”
The hero wielding lightning that overturned the sea, and the demon with six arms and three heads.
Just like Chiron, who was probably watching in a daze below, what came to Nemesis’s mind was the distant past, the scene of the Gigantomachy, the war of the Titans.
As a child of Nyx, both Zeus and Kronos had asked her to lend her strength to their causes.
She even received a proposal from Kronos, who said that if justice and judgment were with her, she would become the true ruler of the world, and pleaded for her to be his consort instead of the traitor Rhea.
But she had turned them all down, declaring that her divine duty was too pure to be tainted by anyone.
She had watched the great war from a distance on her mother’s orders, a war so massive that no god could ever forget it.
“Wow, that guy… That means there’s at least one more person in the world wielding such power? Just like those bastards from our grandfather’s clan.”
Ares was smiling proudly for some reason, enjoying his drink cheerfully.
“Ah… the drink goes down so smoothly.”
“Ares, aren’t you troubled? That thing from the Titanomachy where you were gravely injured…”
Nemesis, who nervously looked back at him, made eye contact with Ares, who seemed inexplicably delighted.
“Sister Nemesis, just take a quiet look.”
Your younger sibling, the newly born son of the Protogenoi.
“Even the great Zeus cherishes and is wary of this new god from a foreign land. What has he brought to this world?”
-Kuhahahaha!!
In the direction Ares pointed with a glass brimming with liquor, a black demon was erupting with a noise that sounded like laughter, or perhaps the crack of an earthquake.
“Look at that. Does that even seem possible? He’s not a child of gods, not a descendant of spirits, nor a hero chosen by the Fates. He’s just a human who’s built a history so grand that it reminds us of the gods and the giants.”
“Ares, just what are you…?”
“Why is it that you, wiser and older than me, cannot realize this?”
At those words, Nemesis momentarily found herself at a loss for words, staring into Ares’s calm eyes.
Eyes that were always belligerent and simple-minded, yet unbelievably deep and serene for the eyes of a god.
The eyes of Hera, who had walked through the abyss with her and mastered ancient magic, were staring at her.
“I’ve glimpsed that future in the blood and cries of men. The future Father feared is flickering before us again. How can you not see it?”
As if genuinely puzzled, the handsome youth resembling Hera tilted his head and turned his gaze back to their fight.
“Πολεμιστές! Θεοί! Αιμορραγήστε και απολαύστε! Οι ουράνιοι θεοί σε επαινούν!”
“Warriors, gods! Bleed and be praised. The heavenly gods praise you!”
Saying so, Ares threw the goblet he was holding towards them.
That figure certainly possessed the dignity of a War God who praises warriors, fitting for the prince of the Gods.
A fact that many tend to forget due to his rough nature.
Nemesis and Eris suddenly realized that the War God, who presides over battles, was indeed the most legitimate prince of Olympus among the gods residing there.
“He’s not jumping into the fight? Incredible.”
“Wow, I didn’t know Ares had this side to him! I thought he was just a crazy boar.”
“Haha! If it weren’t for you being daughters of Nyx, I’d have punched you both for that.”
As the banter between the gods carried on, the fight below grew even more intense under the blessings of the War God, who inherited the blood of the Superior God.
The two heroes—no, the two demigods—had started to disregard defense altogether, turning the fight into a full-on brawl.
“Take this!”
-BOOM!
The hammer of thunder that could crush mountains struck directly on the head of the black demon.
-BOOM!
A black abyssal fist struck back, smashing into the chest of the lightning warrior.
Blunt weapons, swords, spears, bows, greatswords, spear-swords, crossbows.
All kinds of powers were exchanged in an instant, and both heroes received those attacks with their bodies.
No, the two demigods scattered blood on the ground.
And seeing her brother laughing madly with three heads and holding twelve powers in twelve arms, Eris muttered.
“The abyss, it seems, Tartarus, where Mother resides, has risen, though it is small.”
A form dyed pitch black as if to swallow all the light in the world.
It was no longer the lesser hero Dianes, nor an unnamed god, but an embodiment of power so foreign and atrocious even to the eyes of the gods.
Those eyes burned like hellfire, countering the lightning of the great hero.
“…Brother.”
At the moment when Nemesis, with a fierce and wild appearance that was neither human nor god, was about to slowly open her eyes.
The two demigods began to prepare something.
“They’ve both used up a lot of energy.”
“Looks like they’re gearing up for one last move. I love this part!”
Hercules, firmly planted on the ground, began gathering the immense lightning power of Zeus.
Overseeing this from the sky, the black demon with twelve arms spread like wings smiled with satisfaction.
A fierce smile, as if carved from the same mold, appeared on both faces.
“ZEEEUUUUSSS!!!”
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!”
And at the moment when their smiles intersected.
Hercules, flashing with lightning, and the demon, shrouded in the abyss, fell straight down.
“Oooooh!”
“Is it coming? Is the big one coming?!”
The gods’ excitement reached its peak at the unusual aura of the two.
-!!
Light and darkness.
Heaven and earth.
Gods and demons.
A massive force reminiscent of the primordial explosion left by Chaos shook the earth once more.
The tidal wave and abyss that surrounded them were engulfed by the explosion and vanished instantly.
The earlier clash of the tidal wave and abyss seemed insignificant compared to the immense collision of forces.
If it weren’t for the magic of Chiron and Chariclo and the barrier of Olympus, the Forest of Heroes would have been swept away entirely.
“Brother!!”
“Wowow!! That’s amazing!”
“See, Eris? I told you those aren’t just ordinary arms!”
Nemesis screamed at the overwhelmingly grand and dizzying spectacle, too great to be considered the act of demigods.
The adjacent place was filled with an unbounded excitement of discord and war.
Revered by heroes and praised by gods.
An early reenactment of myths.
That magnificent war had ended.