Chapter 34

Chapter 34 – The Bloodline Of The Protogenoi

Hermes saw it.

A golden lightning bolt, resembling the divine power of his father Zeus, enveloped Hercules’s fist.

The justification Zeus had used while causing Hera so much distress with his infidelity.

At that moment, it became clear that creating a human hero to prepare for the Gigantomachy was true.

Until now, many heroes of Zeus’s lineage had shaken all of Greece, but none had awakened the divine power in their half-human, half-god bodies like Hercules, and none would after him.

...this thought of his was shattered in just one second.

A hammer of golden lightning, awe-inspiring even to Hermes, was met head-on by Dianes’s arms, which manifested divine power as black as the deep night sky.

However, what was even more astonishing was that unlike Hercules, who merely manifested power through his fists... Dianes used divine power with such proficiency.

The divine energy that enveloped both his arms quickly transformed into a black hole that swallowed everything, absorbing the immense golden divine power entirely.

Of course, the aftermath was significant; the black-haired hero also collapsed, bleeding from his entire body.

From Hermes’s perspective, it was a monumental event with two great heroes manifesting divine power in one generation.

He was just about to take flight to inform his father, Zeus, as quickly as possible.

“Hermes.”

“?! Y-Your Majesty?!”

Queen Hera, who always commanded the other goddesses and queens from the highest temple in Olympus.

She was the only one to sit side by side with Zeus on his throne, and she even nursed Hermes, raising him as his godmother.

From above the clouds, she looked down at him and slowly beckoned him to come closer.

Even Hermes, who roamed all over Greece recklessly, meekly obeyed her gesture.

“Hahahaha! Lady Hera! To meet you so suddenly like this. It seems my efforts to serve the gods diligently have paid off. What luck to encounter the most elegant and beautiful queen by chance!”

As Hermes gently descended onto Hera’s cloud and bowed, Hera also smiled faintly and waved her hand slightly.

“Your greetings are always a pleasure to hear, Hermes.”

“Even a rock rolling on a mountain would become a minstrel if it met Lady Hera.

Because it wouldn’t be able to resist praising your noble figure!”

In his mind, he was fiercely calculating 1,475 possible reasons for ‘why Her Majesty is here’

and predicting what kind of chaos each scenario would cause.

Outwardly, Hermes was smiling brightly and praising smoothly the Queen of the Gods as if he were overjoyed to meet her by chance.

And as she looked at the messenger of the gods, the lovely jester, the Queen opened her mouth.

“Where are you rushing off to?”

“Pardon?”

“.....”

Do I have to waste my precious words any further?

The unspoken smile weighed heavily on Hermes’s shoulders.

“Well, um... you see, Lady Hera...”

“.....”

“Well, it’s because... I owe Chiron some money...”

“.....”

“Hermes!”

“...Huh?!”

The warm yet mighty divine presence pulled Hermes back to reality from the brink of being overwhelmed by his memories.

Covered in cold sweat, Hermes gasped for breath as he faced his goddess.

“Lady He-Hera... Wh-what on earth...?”

“It was our fault. I am sorry.”

Hera, loosening the shawl draped over her shoulders, gently wiped the sweat-soaked forehead of Hermes and spoke in a quiet voice.

“Always cheerful and lively, neither others nor even I realized the deep wounds you carried. As your goddess, I should have tended to the scars you bore from your final battle with the mighty Typhon.”

Whenever the Queen’s touch wiped his forehead, the vision of Typhon burning before his eyes gradually disappeared.

Whenever her soft voice swept past his ears, the screams of the giant god that had burrowed into his mind quietly subsided.

When the goddess with beautiful eyes looked at Hermes again, smiling at his sweat-soaked shoulder shawl.

The nightmare of Typhon that had gripped Hermes had completely vanished.

“Are you feeling a bit calmer now?”

“S-s-s-sorry, I’m so sorry... for this disgrace...”

Seeing Hermes bowing his head with an uncharacteristically embarrassed, almost whispering voice, Hera laughed heartily as if to lighten the mood and patted him.

“Hahaha! Stop it; I might start doubting if you’re really that sly kid who pretended to be Ares and stole my milk.”

“Mmm... Heraa...”

Hera, always on edge due to Zeus’s constant affairs, was actually a goddess who often laughed and enjoyed meeting others.

Laughing cheerfully for the first time in a while as she faced her foster son, Hera seemed more benevolent than ever.

“I understand your concerns. But leave the matter of Dianes to me, and do not speak of it to Zeus.”

“What?! B-but even though you care for that child, Lady Hera...”

“Shh, it’s not like that. Calm down.”

Though not entirely devoid of such feelings, Hera wanted to keep Dianes’s identity a secret from Zeus.

“...You are not the only one who has suffered an indelible wound from Typhon.”