The steps were now much steeper and larger than before. At times it felt as if we were climbing a scaled wall rather than a large set of steps, but as tiring as that was for our bodies, our spirits were stronger than ever. These were the last defenses my father had, and we were running through them without even needing to spend any of our divinity points.
The next palace was going to be Poseidon's and I took a few moments to explain what it looked like before we reached it. I wasn't sure that it would still look like I remembered it, or if it was even still standing for that matter, but I thought that a little information might help us in fighting whatever was waiting for us there.
Poseidon was always fond of the seas, but also of rivers and lakes. For this reason, he had filled his level with hundreds of fountains, pools of various sizes, and a couple of waterfalls. In fact, the rushing waters were audible when we were still some hundred steps away.
Since water was a great means of expanding the reach of my lightning-based attacks, I was feeling extra confident about this level. However, I knew Artemis and Hephaestus weren’t very keen on fighting in water, so I hoped that our enemy wasn’t amphibian. And it didn’t take long to find out.
As I reached the five hundredth step, I saw the back of a hulking figure hunched in the distance, eating what looked like a tiger. I should have imagined that the beast-man, my father's older ally, would be one of his last protectors.
* * *
Name: Javed-Haneth
Race: Giant/Beast
Class: Beast King
Level: 60
* * *
The giant stood straight and turned to face us, the limp body of the dead tiger still hanging from his jaw. As he stepped toward us, he let the dead animal fall and its bones cracked as it hit the ground from the fifteen-foot drop. He roared at us, a sign that he had completely lost any hint of sapience to his beastly nature.
"What is that thing?" Aphrodite asked with apparent disgust in her voice.
The giant was mostly humanoid-shaped and wearing tattered clothing, but with a few key differences. He had around a dozen tentacles instead of arms, and his badly disfigured face was made even less attractive because of the two massive tusks that protruded from his flesh on each side of his chin.
Javed had met my father when they were both young and adventurous. During one of my father's excursions to the continent south-east of Greece, he met this god of beasts and they somehow became great friends. So great was their friendship that Javed helped him plot against my grandfather and eventually overthrow him.
This friendship was always strong through thousands of years, and it was a testament to Javed's loyalty that he was still standing here to protect my father even though his survival instincts would have no doubt told him to leave as fast as he could.
"This is the end of Cronus, Javed," I said, circling around the giant, trying to put a large pool filled with muddy water between us. "You do not have to die here."
The man offered no reply, and neither did his expression show any comprehension of what I had just said. Most likely, he couldn’t even understand me anymore. Instead, he picked up a large boulder that looked like it had belonged to the palace's construct at some point, and flung it at me.
I dodged to the side and nodded at my companions to unleash their attacks. There was clearly no way to change the beast's mind, for “beast” was all that was left of him now. Hephaestus and Ares circled around him on opposite sides with the intention of flanking him, while Artemis shot arrows at him and Aphrodite attacked with the few offensive spells she had.
But our enemy kept his focus on me as I glid across a metal railing on the side of a large fountain. He whipped his tentacles at me, and I managed to jump over the first couple of them but quickly realized there was no way I would be able to reach him before the third one struck me.
Instead, I held up the spearhead in front of me and aligned it as best I could with the tentacle’s motion, using my abs to hold it steady and waiting for the inevitable contact. My weapon pierced straight through the tentacle and Javed pulled it back violently, letting out a scream of agony.
My spear was pretty well hooked into the tentacle and even though the jerking back of his limb was sudden and strong, it wasn't enough to free it from the spear lodged into it. Similarly, I wasn't about to let go off the only thing that was able to destroy my father so almost immediately, I was being dragged through the air, heading straight toward the giant's face.
By this time, Ares and Hepaestus had reached the giant and were attacking him from both sides. Hephaestus launched himself off of a small marble fountain resembling a dolphin and struck the giant's kneecap with his war hammer. Javed buckled under the strike, but didn't fall to the ground as Hephaestus was probably hoping.
Ares, on the other hand, ran both of his blades straight through Javed's heels, one on each side like a pair of scissors, before pulling them back and severing the giant's muscle. The combination of the two strikes was enough to bring him to his knees and pull me even faster toward him.
The sudden pain and attacks from the others, were enough for me to bypass his defenses, and—more importantly—the looming impalement by his tusks, and I drove my spear straight into his eye, which was almost the size of my head. He let out a renewed scream of pain and made me feel slightly dizzy as he shook his head violently.
Yet again I didn’t let go of my spear, but this time I wasn't able to avoid the tusks. He cut a deep wound into my thigh before I was thrown to the ground with force. Aphrodite instantly cast a healing spell on me while the giant turned and flung Ares and Hephaestus to the other side of the platform using a small tree log as a bat.
Artemis continued attacking him from a distance but now it looked like her arrows were focused on the giant's remaining eye. As dumb as he was now, he surely knew how to fight, and I should have expected his next move. Using a couple of tentacles to cover his working eye, he slithered forward like an octopus and snatched Aphrodite before I was even able to stand up again.
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The goddess's healing spell was interrupted and she barely had time to take a deep breath before the giant dove into the pool that separated him from Artemis. We all rushed to the edge and looked in as he swam with incredible speed into the depths of a seemingly never-ending body of water. Eventually there wasn’t even enough light getting through the water to see him anymore.
"What are we going to do?" Hephaestus asked, while Ares leapt right in after them.
"I can't shoot him in there," Artemis said.
"She can't breathe in there, Zeus!" Ares exclaimed, before taking a deep breath and trying to swim downward.
He barely managed a couple feet toward the bottom before reemerging, panting.
"There's a strong current down there. I can't beat it," he said, starting to panic.
"I'll take care of it," I said, and accessed my divine skills. "Get out of the water!"
I didn't want to use any divinity points just yet but it looked like I had no other choice. Aphrodite was trapped down there and even though I was sure the pressure would be no problem for her, at some point she would run out of air. And that was only if the giant wasn’t attacking her already. I had to fix this.
* * *
Name: Thunder Switch
Level: 1
Type: Active - Divine
HP Consumed: 0
MP Consumed: 300
DP Consumed: 1
Power: -
Range: 700 inches
Precondition: None
Description: Entangling Dark Energy particles by utilizing the tremendous energy discharge of thunderstrikes can make pairing two individuals possible, as well as switching their positions in space and time. By utilizing this skill, the god of thunder, Zeus, can switch places with any member of his party, even if that party member is unwilling or incapacitated.
* * *
I focused on Aphrodite's Dark Energy signature, took a deep breath, and cast the skill. In the time it took me to blink once, all sunlight had disappeared around me and I was completely enveloped by water and the slimy—even underwater—tentacles of Javed.
I wanted to say something smart like “Surprise, motherfucker,” but decided against it, since the water would really mess up its delivery and it might very well be that he didn’t understand a word of it anyway. Instead, I would speak in a tongue he understood well. The language of pain.
Using one of my passive divine skills that didn’t require any DP, Thunderous Intent, I charged my spear with lightning and discharged it at the giant's exposed belly. The flash illuminated the whole underwater cavern. The moment of light revealed that its walls were filled with paintings of fish and other, larger animals of the deep.
More importantly, I was able to see the expression of fear in Javed's remaining eye as he was forced to loosen his grip on my body. With my hands now free, I stabbed him as many times as I could, activating all of my offensive skills in rapid succession.
With each discharge I saw the waters become progressively muddier and more difficult to see through, as blood flowed freely from each of the puncture wounds I gave him. I would have thought that being in the dark and deep water would be to his advantage, but it seemed like the wounds we had managed to inflict on him prior to his retreat down here, in combination with my rapid strikes, were really taking a toll on him.
In return, almost every single thrust with his tusks opened a wound in my body since I wasn't particularly agile in the water. I could, of course, have used my Go with the Current divine skill to escape his grasp by traveling through the water to the top of the pool. I was under the impression, however, that I wouldn’t have to do this at all.
With every new wound I managed on his body, the giant moved more slowly, and more of his blood leaked out. My own HP was also falling rapidly, but it was obvious there wasn’t much life left in him now. I charged my Maelstrom of Steel skill with as much electricity as I could from my passive divine skill and struck true against his neck.
From one moment to the next, his tentacles went completely loose around me and a torrent of bubbles came out of his face as his last breath escaped him. His body started floating upward. I raced to overtake it to the top of the pool.
When I emerged out of the now reddish-brown water, Ares helped me stand up again.
"That was fast," Aphrodite said, and she instantly started healing me. I noticed she was completely dry now.
"I was expecting you to say you were worried about me," I said, faking being offended.
"That monster had nothing on you," Artemis said with confidence.
"Not to mention that we’d done a pretty good job on him before he jumped in the pool," Hephaestus added.
"We knew you had a way out, but we were also watching your HP in the party status while you were fighting," Aphrodite continued, once she was done healing me.
"That explains it," I said. "But how are you dry already?"
"The spell I use for refreshing myself can do that too," she said, and winked at me. "Here, let me take care of you."
"Shall we take another quick break?" Artemis asked. "Aphrodite should regain her MP and then she can renew our buffs."
"Yeah, let's do it," I said, and waited for Aphrodite’s drying spell to finish before I lay on the ground.
"It was kind of sad to see that giant lose himself to the beast side of his nature," Artemis said.
"To be fair, he always walked the line between human and monster," I remarked. "I guess that's what my father liked so much in him. The part of you that listens to the beast in you makes you much more susceptible to manipulation."
"Damn, Zeus. Does your father have any real friends?" Ares asked. "So far all I'm hearing is that none of those close to him really want to be."
"I’m sure he had friends at some point in his life," I said. "You can't rise so high without any of them. And he has been at the top of the Greek pantheon for thousands of years. Nobody can claim they achieved such a feat by themselves. But he also isn't the same person he was when he rose to the top. Over time, he changed. I don't know if the power corrupted him, or if it was something that would have come upon him with time regardless of his position."
"And you're worried that the same will happen to you?" Aphrodite asked, catching me by surprise.
"I’m not thinking so far ahead. Not when there’s still such a large obstacle in our immediate future."
"But you’re worried that history will repeat itself?" She pressed for an answer. "Just like it'll repeat itself when you kill your father, exactly as he did to his own father."
I looked at her, trying to understand where she was going with this conversation, especially since we were so close to our final showdown now. There were no answers in her expressionless face, since she knew exactly how to hide her motives from me. All that was left was for me to sigh and trust her.
"It has crossed my mind that there is this curse in our bloodline," I admitted. "The youngest son killing his father to rise to glory, only to be turned rotten by power and finally drive everyone around them away. This is something that always eats at a piece of my mind, but now isn’t the time to entertain such demons."
"The demon you’re talking about is but a phantasm, Zeus," Aphrodite said. "You are nothing like your father. You do not want to gain power for the sake of power. You do not attack preemptively. You do not rule with fear, but with understanding and guidance. Taking over the throne will make this world a better place."
"There is not the slightest hint of evil in you," Artemis said. "In the past few months you have saved more people than any of the titans did over the last century. You care about your followers."
"And you care about your guildmates," Hephaestus added. "You have put yourself in danger so many times for us."
"Besides, we're not just going to let you slip into whatever bad side of yours you think exists in you, brother," Ares said. "We are here for each other."
"And always will be," Aphrodite said, and stood up again. "My MP is full now. Let me start the buffs."
After she was done with all of us, we resumed our ascent to the next level of the mountain, which was the palace of my father's favorite son. Hades.