Chapter 1994 – 1994. God’s Atlantis
There were five rivers in the underworld. One of these five rivers was the famous River Styx.
I stared at the river before me.
It was so large that it looked more like a sea than a river.
‘So this is the River Styx.’
It didn’t particularly look like a river with negative power. Gods often swore oaths on the River Styx, so it was easy to mistake it for a terrifying river, but surprisingly, the River Styx itself was quite normal.
‘It is indeed a mysterious river. Even now, I can feel a mystical power.’
It wasn’t as ominous as I had imagined.
‘Shall I stir it up?’
Tzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
I unleashed my power.
The lightning flowing from my body scattered through the air of the underworld. The dark underworld brightened in an instant.
I gathered lightning in my hand and shaped it into a spear. When I felt enough power had accumulated, I threw it towards the River Styx. The lightning shook the entire river. The surface of the river surged like waves, and the water soared to the ceiling.
“……”
I frowned. It was just a river. No matter how many times I struck it with lightning, it wouldn’t mean much. Being a river in the underworld, it didn’t seem like there were any living creatures inside either.
‘Shall I stir it up with more power?’
Just as I was about to use divine power, the River Styx split open, and a goddess appeared.
“Stop! Please stop! If you keep doing that, the River Styx and the other rivers might mix! That would lead to another chaos. You don’t want that, do you!”
It was a goddess I remembered.
Styx.
The owner of this river.
“Styx. It’s been a while. Is this the first time since that war?”
“Yes. It’s been a while, Zeus. Please stop. Your anger has already been etched into the underworld. Even after thousands, tens of thousands of years, those wounds will not disappear.”
“Hmm.”
“…If you mix all five rivers… the order of the underworld will be disrupted, and it will have to be rewritten. There will be chaos for a very long time. You don’t want that, do you?”
“I’ve come all this way, so it’s a bit disappointing to just go back. If you want to soothe my anger… then soothe my anger.”
I stared at Styx with blatant eyes. Styx was already a married woman with children. Although her husband was stuck in Tartarus.
“Really, you are…”
Styx shuddered but didn’t run away. It seemed she had decided to sacrifice herself for the underworld.
I grinned.
• • •
After spending a pleasant time with Styx, I flew through the sky and toured various parts of the underworld. As a tourist destination, the underworld was a bust. There was nothing worth seeing. The five rivers were interesting, but after a while, they became mundane.
‘It’s harder to fly than usual. Is it because it’s the underworld?’
I discovered something unusual. An island floating in a corner of the River Styx. In the center of the island, which was full of poppies, an old man was sleeping as if dead.
I looked down at the island from the air. The white-haired old man was a god I had never seen before. Of course, just because I was Zeus didn’t mean I knew every god.
‘There’s a god in a place like this, so I’m curious.’
The sleeping old god seemed to sense my presence and slowly lifted his left eyelid. The eyelid didn’t rise more than halfway. His pupils were unfocused. It seemed he hadn’t fully woken up yet.
“The king of the gods… I see. I heard a new god-king has appeared. Was his name Zeus…?”
“I am Zeus. You’re out of touch with the news from the surface, being in a place like this. It’s been… a few years since I became the king of the gods.”
The god before me was dozing off. It meant he wasn’t even listening to my words. My desire to talk to him disappeared. Still, I needed to know his identity.
“Be careful.”
“Out of the blue? Ah, are you a prophet god too?”
“Dreams reveal much…”
Blood flowed from the old man’s half-open eye. I was slightly surprised by the inexplicable situation. He seemed unfazed.
“The trials are already twisted. The stars have finished their preparations, and chaos is creeping… Destruction is already prepared… You must prepare for the end.”
“The end? You’re not talking about the Gigantomachy, are you?”
“The Gigantomachy is nothing.”
“You seem to know that this world is a trial.”
“All of this is also a process.”
“Who are you?”
Paaaaaaaat!
He vomited blood. His unfocused pupils began to spin wildly. Blood continued to flow. Even in this state, he didn’t seem to have any intention of waking up.
“Hyp… nos…”
Hypnos, the god of sleep.
It wasn’t surprising since it was a name I had expected.
Cough.
Hypnos coughed up blood. His eyes, which had been flashing, began to reflect something else.
A passage.
A dark passage was connected to his pupils. Something was approaching rapidly from the end of the passage. Moving its eight legs actively, it was a spider. A spider with a human head.
‘A human-faced spider? No, it’s not some low-level being like that.’
A spider leg popped out of Hypnos’s pupil. The leg alone was over 10 meters long.
‘The leg is too long to come out of a pupil.’
I didn’t know the details, but it seemed like space itself had been warped. It was probably right to assume that something was wrong with Hypnos’s dream.
“Zeus, die…”
Hypnos said in a broken voice. Even then, four more spider legs were protruding, struggling. The spider’s face and body emerged. The spider’s body was one thing, but its face was distorted as if screaming. I felt an instinctive disgust.
“Disgusting.”
Pajijijijijijijik!
I threw Astrape at the spider. The spider swung its legs and deflected Astrape.
“Kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk!”
Hypnos screamed. The spider leg that had emerged from his pupil pierced Hypnos’s chest. Yet, Hypnos was still asleep.
I approached the spider. I grabbed the spider’s legs, which were over 10 meters long, with both hands and snapped them. The remaining spider legs hesitated but soon rushed at me. I grabbed those legs as well and crushed them.
The broken legs regenerated quickly.
‘I need to finish this before it fully regenerates.’
Pajijijijik.
Manroe (卍雷).
The lightning condensed in my hand rotated, increasing its power.
I slammed Manroe into the spider’s human head.
Kieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!
The spider twisted its body with a shriek. It tried to escape back into Hypnos’s pupil, into his dream. I grabbed the spider’s body with one hand and gathered lightning in the other, swinging it.
‘Astrape.’
Once wasn’t enough.
I swung the lightning again and again.
After slamming Astrape into its head about 13 times, the spider’s body slumped and stopped moving.
‘Finally dead.’
I felt a sense of accomplishment at killing the disgusting bug.
“Ugh…”
Hypnos groaned.
“A traitor… there is a traitor…!”
“A traitor? Who is it?”
“……”
Hypnos didn’t answer. He was dead.
“You should have told me who the traitor was before dying! No, before that, is he really dead?”
I was flustered. Greek gods were basically immortal. They were beings that shouldn’t die. For such a being to die so easily, despite the claim of immortality, was absurd.
Even if complete immortality didn’t exist, wasn’t this too sudden?
‘I don’t know what’s going on. Is he really dead?’
I waited for a few minutes, but Hypnos didn’t move. I burned Hypnos’s and the spider’s corpses with lightning. Hypnos still didn’t regenerate.
‘This is unusual. Very unusual.’
• • •
A few years had passed since Hades’s abduction of Persephone. The surface and the underworld had stabilized again.
Everything had returned to normal. There was no chaos caused by death.
However, I sensed an ominous atmosphere lingering around Olympus.
The goddesses were as usual.
The problem was the male gods.
An ominous air was flowing around Poseidon, Ares, and Apollo. Others would all feel it was just their imagination. But who am I? Having experienced being a tyrant several times, my intuition had developed.
‘Those bastards. They’re dreaming of rebellion.’
It was obvious.
Just as I had usurped the throne from Cronus, they wanted to overthrow me.
‘Hades is probably involved too.’
Subduing them wouldn’t be difficult.
In my current state, I could fight and win against all the male gods.
‘But I have no evidence. They haven’t even started a rebellion yet. Even I can’t throw the male gods into Tartarus for a rebellion that hasn’t happened.’
Using a prophecy as a reason was also impossible.
Fate was so twisted that even the Moirai, the three goddesses of fate, had given up. In this situation, prophecies were meaningless.
‘I have to wait until they start a rebellion. The only good thing is that the goddesses are on my side.’
It seemed they had no particular complaints, probably because I had treated them well. And it didn’t seem like all the male gods had joined them. Hephaestus and Hermes were prime examples. They weren’t particularly interested in power.
‘I need to prepare.’
I could easily suppress a rebellion with my power. What was concerning was what would come after the rebellion.
‘I need more power. To do that, I need to receive more worship from humans.’
There was a limit to just scaring and killing humans.
I pondered and came up with a method.
“Hephaestus!!”
“Yes, Father. Do you need more jewelry to gift to a goddess?”
“Humans have greatly advanced by obtaining fire. However, they are too slow to advance further. Therefore, I intend to bestow lightning upon humans.”
“…Father. Humans cannot dare to handle lightning.”
“I know. But if I have your help, things will be different. Hephaestus, create a generator. And create machines and weapons that use electricity.”
“Isn’t it too early for humans now? I’m worried that humans might try to rise above the gods without knowing their place.”
“Those who don’t know their place will be punished by the heavens.”