Although the story of Heracles was long gone,
But for gods with long lifespans, it was an adventure story that seemed like it just happened yesterday.
The superb martial arts skills that powerful hero displayed when he shot down the monster with his divine bow before ascending to heaven still seemed vivid in their mind.
The moment she realized what
Night was holding, her composure finally cracked.
She could not possibly have mistaken it.
Heracles' divine bow.
And Artemis' divine arrow.
Both were weapons capable of threatening a god.
Faced with the combined presence of those two divine weapons, fear instinctively seized her heart.
Her body tensed, yet for some reason, she completely forgot to dodge.
Perhaps the memories of the last time that arrow had injured her were too vivid.
Perhaps the sight of Heracles' bow had frightened her too badly.
Whatever the reason, she hesitated.
And at such a short distance, hesitation was enough.
If she wasn't going to dodge, then Night could hardly be blamed for showing her no mercy.
Even with his current level of archery, missing at this range was practically impossible.
His powerful arm pulled the bowstring back.
There was something worth mentioning about this divine bow.
The better the bow, the greater the strength required to wield it.
Greek mythology had a famous story that illustrated this point perfectly.
There was once a beautiful woman whose husband disappeared suddenly.
As countless heroes pursued her, pressuring her to choose one of them, she finally announced a condition.
Whoever could string the bow her husband had used during his lifetime would become her husband.
The heroes eagerly accepted the challenge.
One after another, they stepped forward.
One after another, they failed.
Some could not even attach the bowstring to the bow, much less draw it.
In the end, an old man was the only one who succeeded.
He calmly strung the bow and fired a powerful arrow.
Although the gods had altered his appearance, his wife recognized him at once.
Of course, there was a rather amusing question one could ask about that story.
If another hero had actually possessed enough strength to string that bow, would the woman have mistaken him for her husband too?
That was the advantage of having greater physical strength than everyone else.
When a divine weapon required extraordinary strength to wield, simply possessing it did not mean that another person could unleash its true power.
Even Philoctetes, despite being capable of drawing Heracles' bow, had never been able to pull the bowstring completely taut.
After all, this was the divine bow of Heracles.
Its minimum requirement was already the highest level of strength that many heroes could hope to reach in their entire lives.
Philoctetes was a master archer, so he naturally placed great importance on strengthening his arms and had trained his physical strength extensively.
Even so, using the bow remained an extremely difficult task for him.
As for everyone else, there was even less need to mention them.
Trying to compare physical strength with a dragon was about as difficult as answering the question of what one plus one equaled.
For Night, however, it was simply that easy.
The bowstring reached its limit as he drew it all the way back and then he released it.
Whoosh!
The instant the divine bow was fully drawn and the divine arrow was released, the air exploded with a thunderous crack.
The sound tore through the temple like an explosion.
Everyone's ears rang.
A streak of light flashed across the distance so quickly that the eye could barely follow it.
Then came an extraordinary sound from the sky.
It sounded like a mirror shattering, of like flesh being torn apart.
For a moment, it was as though the very fabric of the world had been sliced open.
And then came the goddess's scream.
Night no longer had Athena's divine power supporting him.
But his opponent wasn't one of the Twelve Olympians.
With the divine bow of Heracles and the divine arrow of Artemis combined, the attack possessed an astonishing level of destructive power.
And the goddess had made an even greater mistake.
She was afraid of those two divine weapons.
That fear had already taken root in her heart, and when she saw them again, she instinctively froze.
She didn't dodge.
She didn't retreat.
Instead, she allowed the attack to strike her head-on.
The result was absolutely devastating.
Countless black feathers fluttered down from the heavens.
The goddess's figure had completely disappeared.
Even the divine radiance surrounding her was gone.
It seemed that she had fled somewhere, abandoning this place entirely.
At some point, the arrow of Artemis had already returned to Night's hand.
At almost the exact same moment that he pierced the false goddess...
Troy.
.
.
.
Princess Cassandra had a prophetic dream.
Yes.
That Cassandra.
The same girl who, in the original course of history, would eventually be humiliated by Ajax the Lesser.
Fortunately, Night had already killed that arrogant bastard, thereby changing the fate that had originally awaited her.
And the moment her fate changed, Cassandra felt the oppressive weight that had lingered in her heart for years suddenly disappear.
It was as if she had been given a new life.
Her prophetic abilities became even stronger as a result.
King Priam had more than fifty sons and daughters.
There were so many royal children that many of the princes and princesses could not even recognize all of their own brothers and sisters, much less remember their names.
Those who distinguished themselves through exceptional talent or ability, as well as the children who were particularly favored by the old king and Queen Hecuba, were naturally remembered by more people.
Cassandra was one of them.
She possessed the extraordinary talent of a prophetess.
In the original future, when the Greeks eventually carried out their scheme involving the Trojan Horse, Cassandra would desperately oppose bringing the wooden horse into the city.
No one would listen to her.
In the end, Troy would fall.
And much of that tragedy could be traced back to Apollo.
The god had once pursued the Trojan princess, but Cassandra rejected him without mercy.
Enraged by her refusal, Apollo cruelly cursed her.
From that day onward, no one would ever believe Cassandra's prophecies.
No matter how accurate they were.
No matter how many times her predictions came true.
No one would believe her.
And now, Cassandra had received another prophecy.
One of enormous importance.
In her dream, she saw a black raven.
The raven had invaded the nest of a serpent and a bird, then attempted to attack the radiant child of the sun.
But before it could succeed, a deadly strike of moonlight descended upon it.
The black raven refused to accept defeat.
It attempted to borrow the power of Troy, hoping to use Troy's strength to break through the dazzling radiance surrounding the sun's child, a radiance so brilliant that the raven could not approach him.
The vision ended there.
Cassandra suddenly woke.
Her strength was still insufficient to see the rest of the prophecy.
She sat up in bed, breathing heavily as the fragments of the dream continued to swirl through her mind.
The serpent and the bird were symbols associated with Athena, the goddess of wisdom.
More specifically, the bird was the owl.
Could this mean that another existence had stolen Athena's identity and position and was using her authority to do something terrible?
But then there was the sun's child.
He had used moonlight to deliver a fatal blow against the false goddess.
Cassandra frowned.
Why the moon?
The prophecy was far too complicated.
Fortunately, one name immediately came to mind.
Griffith.
By now, the hero's name had become famous even in Troy.
It was difficult for anyone to ignore a man who seemed to have received the favor of the entire starry heavens of the Greek world.
The sun and the moon both seemed to protect him.
Then...
Could the being represented by the black raven be trying to use the power of Troy against Griffith?
The moment Cassandra reached that conclusion, her expression became serious.
This was important.
Extremely important.
She immediately wanted to tell someone.
When Cassandra hurried to tell her brothers, sisters, and father everything she had seen in the dream, she desperately hoped that they would take the warning seriously.
However...
Cassandra had forgotten about the curse Apollo had placed upon her.
And that curse did not disappear simply because her fate had changed.
Even Hector seemed to be affected by it.
He frowned as he listened to his sister, then looked at her with concern.
"Cassandra, perhaps you simply haven't been sleeping well. You may have had a strange dream and mistaken it for a prophecy."
"No!"
Cassandra shook her head frantically.
"I'm telling you, I really saw it! You have to believe me!"
But no matter how desperately she explained herself, her brothers and sisters only thought she was imagining things.
Some even suspected that she was joking.
Eventually, even the old king became impatient.
"Enough, Cassandra. Stop talking nonsense."
Cassandra's face paled, as she stood there helplessly, her hands tightening into fists.
Why wouldn't anyone believe her?
Just when she felt completely powerless...
A figure appeared before her.
Cassandra looked up; it was her sister, Princess Laodice standing there.
There was a strange, unreadable light in Laodice's eyes as she looked at Cassandra.
Then she suddenly spoke.
"I believe you, Cassandra."
Cassandra stared at her as
Laodice smiled.
"Would you be willing to share the specific details of what you witnessed?"
"Mm—simply start by telling me how that black bi—ahem, raven... intends to to do to that dazzling sun, and exactly what kind of filthy, despicable method it plans to use."
.
.
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(End of the Chapter)