Chapter 217: Aftershocks.

Chapter 217: Chapter 217: Aftershocks.

"Ahhh... damn it. I’ve never drunk this much apple nectar in my life."

Melinoe brought a hand to her temple as she entered her chambers inside her father’s palace. Apple nectar was one of the strongest divine alcoholic drinks among the Greeks, and although she was far from drunk, she had definitely consumed more than she was used to.

She hadn’t been in her room for practically an entire day. To a god, twenty-four hours meant very little, but for Melinoe, spending that much time away from the Underworld was almost absurd.

Amaterasu-sama had proven to be rather persistent throughout the night, especially after a drink or two. The Goddess of the Sun seemed to slip into a different mood whenever she drank, something Melinoe had learned rather quickly.

Even the normally gentle Hestia had ended up joining in, followed by that angel who seemed so innocent.

It wasn’t as if drinking was a sin or anything like that, but everyone knew that if there was one goddess who normally stayed away from that kind of excess, it was Hestia. As for Gabriel, Melinoe knew practically nothing about her, although judging by Lord Damon’s and Amaterasu-sama’s expressions, her participation had been a surprise to them as well.

None of them had actually gotten drunk.

Well... except Gabriel.

The Seraph had proven to have rather little resistance to divine alcohol. Although, thinking about it, the fact that she could drink more than one glass of nectar and remain conscious was already fairly impressive for someone who wasn’t even a goddess. Her nature was definitely much closer to divinity than she appeared.

Fortunately, Hestia had eventually decided enough was enough and had taken her friend back to her temple to spend the night. Melinoe could still remember, with a bead of sweat, how reluctant Gabriel had been to leave the room.

Something about how much fun she was having and how she still didn’t want to leave...

The Goddess of Ghosts shook her head. Although, if she was being honest with herself, she hadn’t had a bad time either.

For a long time, she had considered many of Olympus’s celebrations beneath a deity. And, if she was being completely honest, she still thought that to a certain extent.

But perhaps enjoying something like that every once in a while wasn’t so terrible either. Of course, it would have to be with people she knew. She had absolutely no intention of ending up waking in some stranger’s bed, as tended to happen to more than one unsuspecting goddess during many of those celebrations.

Melinoe thought about that as she continued through her chambers. In retrospect, she could count the people she truly trusted on the fingers of both hands.

And she would probably still have a few fingers left over.

Anyway... Lord Damon had asked her to tell her father a thing or two, but right now all she wanted was to rest and sleep in her own bed. She couldn’t care less about anything else.

She would do it later.

Yeah... later.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Olympus

Even though Damon had not made the death of the Titan of Strength public, the news had already begun spreading behind his back throughout practically the entire pantheon and even a good portion of the supernatural world. Damon didn’t even know who had leaked the information. It could have been Uranus, Atlas’s daughters, or someone else who had been paying attention without him realizing it. Whoever it had been, the news had caused quite a stir.

Atlas was a widely known figure even outside the Greek world. Although he was no longer among the most powerful beings in the world, there had been a time when he was considered one of the greatest active forces, ranking somewhere among the fifteen or twenty strongest known existences. His death served as yet another reminder of the power possessed by the current King of Olympus and, from the looks of things, Damon had begun collecting on a few old debts.

Rhea, for her part, had been somewhat saddened when she learned of her nephew’s death. Whenever she thought about Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus, or Menoetius, she inevitably ended up remembering Iapetus, her brother.

There had been a time, long before everything between the Titans fell apart, when Iapetus had tried to court her before Kronos. Rhea had rejected his advances back then, but as the millennia passed, she sometimes couldn’t help wondering what her life might have been like if she had made a different choice. Perhaps her fate would have been completely different. Perhaps she might even have ended up as the mother of Atlas and Prometheus.

And if that had been the case, Rhea wondered whether either of them would have made the same choices. Atlas had never truly been evil. He had been fiercely loyal to the Titans because that was the world he had known since birth and, to him, fighting for his family had always seemed like the right thing to do.

But he had also possessed another side long before he was condemned to bear the heavens; the Titan of Strength had helped mortals understand the stars and use them to navigate during their journeys across the sea. Over time, that knowledge would become part of what humanity came to know as astronomy.

That Atlas was much closer to the nephew Rhea remembered and, personally, he had been a thousand times better a man than Kronos. The behavior of many of his children was proof enough of that. Several of them still held some loyalty toward Atlas, but that loyalty was to their father, not to Kronos’s cause.

The same could be said of Prometheus. In fact, what Zeus had done to him during the first years of his reign had been one of the earliest moments when Rhea began to realize what kind of ruler her son might become. She had been a fool not to take action back then. Prometheus had simply helped humanity, and Zeus, in all his glory, had chained him up and condemned him to a brutal punishment simply because he felt even slightly challenged. The more Rhea thought about it, the more disgusted she became.

That said, Rhea couldn’t deny that Atlas’s death caused her some sadness. He was still her nephew and part of a period in her life that, for better or worse, she could never forget. That didn’t mean she justified the choices he had made, much less his loyalty to Kronos. Atlas had chosen his path a long time ago and, in the end, Damon had responded in the way he believed was necessary.

XXXXXXXXXXX

And while Rhea remembered times long gone, deep within Tartarus, far from Olympus, Kronos had already learned of Atlas’s death.

The Titan remained chained as he clenched his fists hard enough to make the chains around his arms creak. It had been quite some time since he had felt such rage. Atlas truly was dead. Not imprisoned, not weakened. Dead. Kronos couldn’t even sense his essence anymore.

"Fucking Damon...."

"It seems your beloved firstborn is getting ahead of you. He probably already knows about me by now." The dark voice came from behind the Titan and sent a chill across his skin. "It seems so," Kronos muttered. Even speaking quietly, his words carried clearly through the silent Abyss.

"What do we do now?" he asked afterward.

"The same thing we’ve been doing from the beginning. Atlas’s death changes nothing. I couldn’t care less." Kronos felt his anger rise, although he did not show it. Atlas had been one of his most loyal companions, and the Primordial’s indifference toward his death did not sit well with him at all. Still, arguing with Tartarus over something like that would change nothing.

"I’ll continue expanding little by little until the time comes when I can extend myself beyond this place and begin challenging Gaia’s influence over the Earth," Tartarus continued calmly.

Kronos nodded.

"Have you found a body to manifest through yet?" the Primordial suddenly asked. "Or do you expect me to do everything for you?"

"Soon, my lord." Kronos had no intention of questioning him or beginning to offer explanations he probably wouldn’t care about. Luke, the demigod he had been watching for quite some time, no longer possessed the same emotions that had once made him an ideal candidate. The hatred, resentment, and desperation Kronos had hoped to exploit had weakened enough to make using him as a vessel far more difficult.

But Luke had never been his only possibility. There were always other options. In fact, even Atlas’s death could end up working in his favor. There were still Titans who doubted him and whether it was truly worth facing Olympus again. Showing them that one of their own had been completely erased by Damon might be exactly what he needed to push them back to his side.

While Kronos began going through his options, Tartarus had problems of his own to consider. Damon was not only interfering more and more with his plans, but had also managed to free the Hecatoncheir inside his own Domain without Tartarus realizing it until much later.

In fact, the Primordial was more than certain that one of his siblings had something to do with it. Nyx was a possibility, although he also couldn’t rule out one of his siblings’ children having interfered. Even so, the last thing Tartarus wanted at the moment was to create more enemies without proof.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Standing in front of a pink marble temple was a rather well-known figure within Olympus. Ares, God of War, stood planted in front of Aphrodite’s temple in his usual biker look. He wore a somewhat worn black leather jacket over a tight red shirt, dark pants, heavy boots, and his signature sunglasses, behind which the flames that took the place of his eyes could occasionally be seen. His massive frame and the belly he had developed over the years completed an appearance that no one would easily mistake for any other god.

"Alright... that bitch has rejected me several times already, but this time she’s going to listen to me," Ares growled as he prepared to move forward.

A few steps behind him, Phobos let out a small sigh. "I don’t think this is a good idea, Father. You’ve tried more than fifteen times already. Lady Aphrodite has made her point quite clear, in my opinion."

The flames behind Ares’s sunglasses seemed to intensify as he turned toward his son. "Did I ask for your opinion, Phobos?"

The Minor God of Fear shut his mouth. "Exactly. I didn’t ask." Ares turned back toward the temple. "So stay right there like a good boy and let me do my thing."

Without another word, the God of War puffed out his chest, raised his head, and began walking toward the doors with all the confidence of a man who seemed convinced that attempt number sixteen would somehow be completely different from the previous fifteen.

He didn’t even make it within a few meters of the entrance. An invisible force struck him head-on and sent Ares flying backward at an absurd speed.

Phobos’s eyes widened and he barely had enough time to move aside before his father flew past him. Ares crossed a good portion of the path and ended up crashing into a marble wall hard enough to leave several cracks behind.

For a moment, silence reigned. "HAHAHAHAHAHA!" A loud burst of laughter came from the sky. "Ares, man, that was pathetic! You should’ve seen yourself go flying!"

His face completely red, Ares emerged from the small pile of marble debris and looked up. Apollo was descending from the sky in his chariot, laughing without making any effort to hide it. As soon as he reached the ground, he stepped off the vehicle and the horses vanished along with the chariot in a flash of light.

"Lord Apollo." Phobos inclined his head slightly.

Apollo responded by raising two fingers in a peace sign, a gesture that amused the God of Fear internally.

"Apollo..." Ares began dusting off his clothes. "What the fuck are you doing here? Don’t you have anything better to do? I don’t know, handle your responsibilities or go bother your sister."

Apollo raised both hands while still holding back his laughter. "Woah, woah. No need to get so worked up. I was just joking, you know, like old times." The God of the Sun sighed dramatically. "Though I’d love to go bother Arty. Unfortunately, Lord Damon keeps her pretty busy." He finished the last part with a childish pout.

Ares didn’t even bother responding. After brushing the last bit of dust from his jacket, he started walking in the opposite direction.

Apollo blinked. "Hey, you’re leaving already?"

"What does it look like I’m doing? For the God of the Sun, you’re pretty damn blind."

A vein seemed to twitch on Apollo’s forehead. In a flash, he reappeared beside his brother and continued walking alongside him while Phobos followed a few steps behind.

"Come on, you don’t have to be like this just because Aphrodite hasn’t given you the time of day in... I don’t even know how long."

"Apollo, stay out of my business."

Apollo spread his hands as if he couldn’t understand what the problem was. "I’m just saying there are plenty of fish in the sea, you know? You can always find another goddess. And there are mortal women too."

"I’m tired of mortals, and the other goddesses walk the other way the second they see me," Ares complained.

Ares couldn’t remember ever feeling this isolated in his entire existence. Aphrodite wanted nothing to do with him, the other goddesses didn’t seem interested either, and to make matters worse, he couldn’t even try forcing his will on anyone anymore without half of Olympus coming down on him.

Apollo looked him up and down. "Well... can’t say I’m surprised."

Ares slowly turned toward him. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Come on, look at yourself." Apollo pointed first at the worn jacket, then at his belly, and finally at the rest of him. "You look like the owner of some roadside bar who lost a fight with his own buffet..."

Phobos quickly lowered his head to hide his smile while Ares’s face went from red to an even darker shade. "Say that again and I’ll shove that lyre you love so much up your ass."

Apollo raised both hands. "Copy that," he replied, not taking his brother’s threat remotely seriously.

They walked a few more meters before Apollo remembered something else. "By the way, aren’t you going to train? You know what Lord Damon ordered. We all need to step up our training. Bad times are coming."

Ares snorted. "I don’t give a fuck what Damon said. My whole life has gone to shit because of that asshole."

Apollo stopped dead in his tracks. "Woah, woah, woah. You’re on your own there, buddy." He raised both hands and took a step back. "May Chaos spare me from Lord Damon showing up while I’m standing next to someone saying shit like that."

Ares didn’t respond. He kept walking as if he hadn’t heard him. Phobos passed by Apollo a few moments later and gave him a small apologetic look before hurrying to catch up with his father.

Apollo remained where he was, watching the two of them walk away. "Hmmm..." he muttered to himself. "Won’t even train enough to lose some weight, then wonders why nobody wants to fuck him."

Picture... hopefully lol >>>