Chapter 26

Chapter 26 – The Hero’s Fury, The Heroes’ Astonishment, And The Goddess’s Cheers

“Ah...?”

Why can I see the sky?

Son of Alcmene, bearer of Zeus’s blood, destined for a path of glory.

Archimedes, who was also known as Hercules, the young hero, was suddenly bewildered by the vast blue sky unfolding before him.

“Huh...?”

That wasn’t all.

Why are his limbs, always full of energy and vigor, so heavy now?

Even his eyelids, which hadn’t budged during the three-day-and-night battle with the Nemean lion, felt so heavy.

Why was breathing so difficult and painful?

He couldn’t comprehend the strange and unfamiliar sensations he was experiencing for the first time in his life.

Barely lifting his limp hand to wipe the liquid flowing from his nose, a red substance—something he was certain he would never see from his body—clung thickly to his hand.

“Uh... cough?! Cough?!”

That was not all.

With just a slight exertion, a hellish pain pierced his lungs, and the hot bile and blood that surged up felt like they were burning his esophagus.

“Ughhh...”

Had he ever been in such agony since birth?

Had death ever been this close?

In the death-like pain scorching his mind, Hercules trembled with fear for the first time in his life.

“Hey”

“Huh...”

The blue sky unfolded beyond his blurred vision.

A pitch-black silhouette obscured it, looking down at him.

“Tha... Thana... tos..?”

Had the god of death finally come to take him?

Even in the agony that seemed to burn his whole body, Hercules could not hide his despair.

As he caressed his chest, death whispered softly.

“Hey, get a grip.”

“...Huh?!”

It was like magic.

The little touch of death brought a searing pain to his eyes, as if scorched by a hot iron, and slowly subsided, as his hazy mind gradually became clear.

Then, in his clear vision, the face of the man who stood with his back to the light, whom he thought was death, slowly came into view.

Hair as black and glossy as the night sky.

A beautiful face that even Apollo would envy.

But what overwhelmed all of these was the mysterious dignity wrapped in his star-like obsidian eyes.

It was Dianes, with whom he had just been sparring.

“D-Dianes? Wh-What happened?”

Could it be that the Forest of Heroes was invaded while he was on a morning run?

Who was the enemy? A beast? A monster?

As he looked around with concern that others might have fallen to the enemy, Dianes, who had been looking down at him blankly, soon burst into a chuckle as if finding it absurd.

-Whoosh!

Just as they were about to make a hasty escape, the wind twins, who had been grumbling at Theseus for calling them, screamed and ducked as a stone flew straight at them.

“Raaaargh! Kill, I will kill them all!!”

The origin of the flying stone was, of course, Hercules, who had lost his mind and was throwing everything he could get his hands on.

However, even in his frenzied state, his sole target was Dianes.

Yet, the reason why the impact reached them too was...

“...My goodness, there was a person who could do such a thing.”

“Is that really the movement of a human? That?”

Was that how Pluto looked, wearing the shadow helmet, Kynee, and tearing through the army of Titans?

Dianes, with movements that no small hero present could follow with their eyes, was deflecting all of Hercules’s attacks.

“I-is that possible?”

“I-is that a human?”

The twins of the storm exclaimed in unison.

“B-by Zeus...”

“I-is it getting even faster now?”

Even the two shining heroes, inheritors of the gods’ lineage, could only stare blankly, struck by a shiver to the head.

And behind them, only Atalanta, who had evacuated all the female heroes, bit her lip and followed Dianes’s back with her eyes.

Meanwhile.

Above the gentle clouds over the Forest of Heroes, a goddess burst into cheers.

“That’s right!”

Clapping her hands and stamping her feet in delight, her grace and elegance remained perfectly intact.

“Hohohoho! That damn thunder god’s son has finally met his match!”

Laughing loudly with satisfaction, the goddess looked down contentedly at the black-haired hero.

Her beautiful eyes, which would make even the stars of the sky bow in shame, and her softly brown hair elegantly tied up and covered with a golden veil—her graceful beauty that would make everyone bow their heads in admiration—would whisper her name softly into the ears of those who faced her.

Hera.

The chief of all goddesses and the highest goddess, the protector of family and marriage, and the queen of Olympus.

She was a wife who never had a peaceful day due to her husband’s countless infidelities.

“You are delivering the divine punishment I have longed to give to that impudent child in my place!”

Hera, her beautiful eyes filled with rage, clutched her still throbbing breast, wounded by the infant Hercules, and ground her teeth.

Hercules.

Despite being born from Zeus’s infidelity, he was named after Hera’s glory.

Even stealing her milk and inadvertently making the protector of home and marriage his godmother, a demigod who deserved to be torn apart.

Even strangling the snake she sent in his childhood, and his feats of strangling the Nemean lion she sent to punish his foster father, Amphitryon, only fueled her fury further.

Obliviously, Zeus boasted of Hercules’s exploits at every regular council meeting...

Hera was truly furious, searching the earth thoroughly with the sole intent of catching and twisting that wretch with her own hands.

However, Zeus, having anticipated Hera’s moves, had already hidden Hercules in Chiron’s sanctuary.

For a long time, she had to endure Zeus boasting about his son during every divine assembly.

But as time passed, her beautiful eyes finally caught sight of Alcmene’s son growing up in Chiron’s forest.

It was the sight of Hercules lying on the ground in a bloody mess.