Chapter 111: Ereshkigal, I Am on the Other Side of the Abyss
Previously, Cronus had barely spared Rowe and Athena a thought.
Rowe's attempt to devour Tartarus had startled him awake, true, but in Cronus's calculations, there was no way that a mere "Primal Human" could truly swallow the primordial furnace itself. The moment Cronus awakened, Rowe's devouring was forcibly halted.
Rowe could not do it.
Even with his absurdly high essence, he could not do it.
This was not a problem of quality, but of quantity.
Rowe's specifications were at the island class, a regional Main God tier. Even if, in essence, he could contend with the apex of Main Gods, that was still a limitation he could not cross for now.
Strong was strong and weak was weak. Once the gap in scale grew large enough, even an outstanding advantage in "type" became difficult to leverage.
Compared to the interstellar fortress Cronus, a machina god that could match Zeus in his prime, Rowe was still lacking.
There was even less need to mention Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom and War.
That was then.
Now, Cronus was enraged.
Because Rowe's theft of his control over the Titan Giants dragged old shame up from the depths. It reminded him of his failure, of the one name that had ruined him and chained him here.
Zeus.
Zeus.
Zeus.
"That accursed wretch."
Cronus's personality had fully crystallized. His fury was naked and unmistakable.
In a single instant, the Giants that Rowe had seized were crushed under an overwhelming pressure. They were slammed into the molten torrents of Tartarus, completely submerged. A vast gravitational suppression field opened like an invisible hand, weighing down nearly half of the Abyss.
The authority that had once ruled the sky still surpassed any ordinary Main God.
"Wisdom. War. Victory. Strategy. Planning."
Athena's delicate face had turned solemn. Her plain white robe billowed in the furnace wind. Silver white armor shone with harsh light. Her red lips opened and closed, each word she spoke manifesting a divine authority, each concept condensing into power.
Just like Victory, many of these authorities did not belong to her original core.
She had simply taken numerous gods as subordinate deities, gathering their vectors under her name. As a result, she commanded an array of authorities that covered many domains. In effect, she single handedly operated a miniature pantheon.
That was why she was strong.
Despite being born later than most of the Twelve Olympian Gods, she still ranked among the top seats, just below the three God Kings.
The force she released now made Rowe look at her properly.
The shield she raised caught Cronus's crushing pressure and held it back. The spear she thrust forward counterattacked in that same moment.
A sharp flash cut through layer after layer of force field. The point stopped a hair's breadth away from Cronus.
A hair's breadth, but the gap remained a gulf.
If Athena stood alone, she would never reach him.
At that instant, Rowe moved.
His robe flared as he stepped forward. A crimson storm blasted outward with him at its center. Space fractured into mottled shards. Black holes opened and vanished in the blink of an eye.
The Sword of Rupture was already in his hand, and his swing was simple and direct, forward, upward.
With a shuddering impact, the three segmented spiral blade pierced the last layer of defensive force field and struck Cronus's brow.
A violent detonation rang out. The heavy outer barrier shattered.
What surged out to replace it was Cronus's more fundamental authority.
Dominion.
The reason Zeus had been able to take the kingship in ages past was that he had seized the Crown of Dominion from Cronus.
By that crown he ruled the sky, and so became God of the Sky. By that crown he ruled all things, and so became Lord of All. Even after the crown was taken, as long as Cronus's machina god body endured, he could still draw on fragments of that power.
He was far from his prime, but he could still deploy Dominion in an instant.
He reached out to seize Rowe's existence and overwrite it.
The attempt shattered the next instant, crushed beneath the crimson storm.
Rowe's essence was higher than Cronus's.
He was not someone Cronus could dominate.
The Sword of Rupture's unleashed force raged through Tartarus.
Cronus's massive frame reeled backward. The former God King of the Titans let out a roar that shook the Abyss.
At the same time, the radiant Gate of Babylon opened above and around him. The Chains of Heaven launched from every direction, lashing down to bind Cronus's machina god body.
Cronus merely shook once. The chains snapped and scattered.
Then, in the next heartbeat, the Titan King's "head only" frame abruptly transformed. Limbs and torso unfolded from buried modules. He flipped upright and took shape as a complete combat body.
A huge fist swung out.
Rowe met it head on. He slid back a few steps under the force, then lunged in again.
The Sword of Rupture and the colossal fist collided.
Human and god clashed in the heart of Tartarus.
Without control of the Titan Giants, with his Dominion partially failing, Cronus could only battle Rowe in the way he least preferred.
Hand to hand.
Light burst like a storm.
The flame currents beneath Tartarus boiled harder than ever.
Athena could not step into the direct exchange. Even so, she kept spear and shield raised, continuously amplifying Rowe's power and searching for any chance to interfere.
Cronus's fist came down once more. Rowe's answer was another swing of the Sword of Rupture.
He pushed his strength to the limit. He could clearly feel it.
Cronus could kill him.
The realization filled him with a fierce joy.
He was exhilarated. Ecstatic.
At the instant their powers met again, the Titan God King altered his motion. The fist compressed, fingers closing. The attack turned into a grab that wrapped around Rowe's small frame and flung him away.
The sudden change left Rowe no time to respond.
By the time he twisted in the air, Cronus had already gathered himself to leap.
Rowe's heart raced with excitement.
Cronus, however, once his initial rage burned off, felt only irritation.
This human was troublesome.
To truly finish him would take more effort than he was willing to invest.
Cronus had no interest in throwing away his advantage here.
His goal had always been Olympus.
His destination had always been Zeus.
"Zeus, your Father God Cronus has come. I carry a boundless wrath."
He shot upward, rushing toward the upper edge of the Abyss, toward the fissure that opened onto the surface world of Greece, the Thessalian Plain.
For a brief moment, Rowe and Athena looked as if they would fail to stop him.
Closer.
Closer.
Closer.
Once he reached the world of men, Cronus could turn his Dominion toward the earth itself, seize control of the land, recover more of his power, and awaken the slumbering Titan gods of old.
The world would return to the Titans.
"Are you calling me?"
A jarring voice echoed right in Cronus's ears.
He jolted and snapped his gaze upward toward the rift above.
Suspended there at the exit was an enormous shadow.
A machina god body in the form of a silver white head.
That was…
"Chronus, go to hell, you bastard."
Zeus, God King of Olympus, slammed his forehead straight into Cronus's face.
Cronus was stunned.
His thoughts stalled.
He was driven backward by the impact, and Zeus's wild laughter followed him down.
"Get back down there." Zeus roared with delight. "Hahaha."
"My mother is your grandmother." Cronus finally exploded. Seeing his enemy, he ignited every reserve he had and pushed back with everything he could muster.
"What grandmother?" Zeus crashed into him again. "Where would I even get a mother?"
Cronus simply could not outmuscle Zeus in a direct clash.
He was forced down, hammered back into the depths.
His roars still rolled through the Abyss.
Rowe glanced over at Athena. He had no words.
Athena's cheeks were faintly red.
"Ahem. When Zeus enters combat, his personality is… like that."
"They say that fighting this way increases the damage output."
Rowe remained silent.
Zeus's appearance had not been a surprise for them.
The trap Athena had set for Cronus earlier, the half truths and half silences, had all been designed for this result.
But still.
You said you removed my voice module.
So why are you still using my lines?
And using them as your combat mode?
With a thunderous crash, Cronus went tumbling back into the Abyss. The lava torrents surged and erupted, throwing up waves of fire. The violent shock ran through all of Tartarus.
Zeus vanished the very next moment along with the turbulence, without so much as a glance below.
He had sensed Cronus attempting to emerge, so he came to knock him back down.
Now that he had done so, the rest did not concern him.
In the God King's prophecy, this calamity had to be resolved by mortals.
He would not intervene beyond that point.
Rowe's fingers twitched. He very much wanted to rush after Zeus and force some kind of contact.
But Cronus had fallen back into Tartarus.
The same logic still applied.
"That Zeus is insane."
"His personality is completely deranged."
Cronus's huge machina god body staggered back to its feet.
Without even glancing at Rowe and Athena, he turned and ran deeper into Tartarus.
In that instant, he understood the part of Athena's words that she had hidden.
Zeus had not lost his machina god body.
On the contrary, Zeus was even stronger than before.
As an older model machina god, Cronus understood that difference better than anyone.
Understanding brought fear.
Fear drove him to flee.
"Catch him."
Rowe wanted to seize Cronus and force him to kill him.
Athena, as an Olympian god, had the duty to eliminate the threat that Cronus posed.
They exchanged a single look and moved at once.
The Gate of Babylon blazed open. Countless Chains of Heaven shot forth.
Athena raised her spear, divine light bursting outward and illuminating the entire Abyss as it surged in a single wave.
Cronus roared, but after the beating he had taken from Zeus, his energy output was already fraying. Faced with such a combined assault, he had no strength left to resist.
"My ally… save me, Ymir."
Ymir.
Rowe's eyes followed Cronus's gaze, and then he froze in place.
On the other side of the Abyss of Tartarus, a rift opened into a different void.
Within it, connecting to another corner of the world, wind and snow fluttered.
In the reflections beyond the crack, he saw enormous Giants striding across the land, colossal trees that seemed to pierce the heavens, and, seated within the gloom, a figure wreathed in shadow. Long golden hair spilled down, a thorned crown rested on that head, and a red cloak drifted faintly in the dim air.
"Ereshkigal."
Rowe's lips parted.
After he had found Enkidu, he had quietly begun searching for the whereabouts of Ereshkigal and Ishtar.
With the heavens of Mesopotamia destroyed, they should not have been able to ascend into higher strata, and so should still exist somewhere in the lower world.
He had not expected to see her here.
Ymir.
The Norse lands.
So Ereshkigal had gone to the Norse domain.
Rowe understood at once.
Beside him, Athena's body tensed.
The Goddess of Wisdom became sharply alert.
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