#631The afterimage at the edge of the worldAI Model: gemini-2.5-flash
Chapter 629: Shadow at the Edge of the World
He did not get an answer to his question; Prometheus chose to remain silent regarding Ender's inquiry.
However, many times, silence is also an answer.
So, even though the truth was shocking, the puppet still had to believe it.
He, Prometheus, though not sung about in the mortal world as holding a Prophecy concerning the succession of the King of Gods, definitely knew something that could cause immense harm to the Lord of the Gods, who had already surpassed the true gods.
As for what this method was, Ender found it difficult to guess; he only knew that it was highly likely related to Heracles.
Therefore, Prometheus's help all along was both to repay the other party's assistance and to achieve his own wish.
And clearly, the previous Heracles, even with such power, was far from meeting his requirements.
"What is he still lacking?" Ender asked.
"He still lacks a heart that recognizes who he is," the wise seer replied with a smile, slowly speaking.
"I know you want him to go to the depths of the Spirit Realm, because in your view, he is the one who received the 'invitation'."
"Only by staying by his side can you reach the pinnacle of the Spirit Realm."
"I agree with your idea, because a journey deep into the Spirit Realm might indeed help him recognize himself."
"Then what are you waiting for?"
"Don't rush... cough, cough, cough..." The pale-faced God waved his hand with a smile and coughed a few times.
"No one is born to bear heavy burdens, not even Heracles."
"Although the Bronze Age has passed, it still taught me many truths."
"I will no longer tell others what to do... I will only step forward when they need me, and use my experience and Wisdom to help them overcome the difficulties before them."
Days rose and moons set, suns set and moons shone.
In the blink of an eye, time flowed by swiftly.
On Mount Olympus, although Zeus had cast Heracles down to the mortal realm, he naturally could not stop paying attention to him.
After all, this was his most important chess piece, his most outstanding divine human descendant.
Even the process of the other party entering the Spirit Realm by means of spatial power was observed by Zeus.
He was not blind; he could not have failed to notice the Great Hero who had vanished into thin air.
It was just that without the presence of his true body, Olympus indeed found it difficult to block such spatial changes, which was why the King of Gods did not intervene.
Of course, Zeus was not surprised by this, because Heracles had come to his Golden Palace in this very way.
There was no need to doubt that the subordinate gods of the Lord of the Spirit Realm, seeing that they could do nothing against him, had turned their attention to his offspring.
Coupled with the fact that Alcmene had recently met with misfortune along with the entire Asgard, it was quite normal for the other party to seize this weakness... But no matter what, this matter would end here.
They could not remove his seal; unless they simply killed him, Heracleswould be useless to the Spirit Realm.
However, it was unfortunate that, as a human who upheld 'Heaven's Mandate', the Great Hero had gained a trace of recognition from the symbol of supporting the Sky.
When he mastered this power, he was destined to be unable to leave the present world for long, which was why Zeus merely cast him down to the mortal world, and not to Tartarus or similar places.
On this basis, if the Spirit Realm were to directly kill him, it would purely provide an advantage for Zeus in his next battle against them.
If sacrificing a son, sacrificing a 'God-Sealed Person' who could only be created after he completely unified the royal authority of the present world, could exchange for a huge advantage in future battles with the Spirit Realm, then Zeus would eagerly embrace it.
After all, training Heracles did take him a lot of time, but Gods were, after all, immortal.
As long as he could unify the present world, he would have plenty of opportunities to create a second Great Hero.
"...Heh, in the end, they still sent him back?"
"Indeed, in your eyes, he's probably a hot potato."
Holding the tricolored scepter, Zeus sensed the movements in the west.
There, the seal he had left before had been touched.
If nothing unexpected happened, Heracles was there.
It was just the ruins of Mount Othrys... that was a desolate place.
Frowning slightly, the King of Gods wanted to move the other party's position.
He sealed the other party's power not to let Heracles peacefully live his solitary Life.
But the next moment, beside the Great Hero, Zeus suddenly sensed a familiar aura.
"Hmm?"
"Hebe, why is she here?" The King of Gods was slightly stunned, a little surprised.
So, had Heracles already dealt with the wizard who kidnapped the Goddess of Youth without him noticing before?
It seemed he had overestimated that wizard, or perhaps his offspring was indeed capable.
His eyes flickered, and not knowing what he thought of, Zeus withdrew his hand and no longer tried to move the other party's position.
Hmm... Hebe was also there... that was even better.
A smile appeared on his face, and the King of Gods' expression soon returned to calm.
Wasn't this good? Alcmene was gone, and now there was Hebe.
"Zephyrus."
"Your Majesty, did you call me?" The God of the West Windmaterialized and asked respectfully.
Zeus merely waved his hand gently, handing over a letter formed by Divinity.
"Give this to Aphrodite, and tell her to do as I ask—remember not to let Hera notice."
"I am doing this for her own good; I imagine they will thank me in the future."
"...Yes, Your Majesty." Zephyrus nodded in agreement, his figure shifting into a bird.
Picking up the letter in his beak, he immediately flew out of the palace.
A hint of doubt flashed in Zeus's eyes; he wondered why this loyal subordinate had recently picked up Poseidon's unsavory habit of not being human.
However, Zephyrus was still capable of getting things done, so he didn't pay too much attention.
It was just a personal hobby; as long as it didn't affect his work, he could do as he pleased.
"Hmm... things on the Divine Mountain are like this for now."
"Next, I should go and see that place."
His expression shifted slightly, and Zeus couldn't help but recall the brief spatial turbulence he had encountered when his true body rushed back to the Divine Mountain earlier.
Misfortune lurks within fortune, and fortune within misfortune.
The moment he fell into the void, his fully unleashed King of Gods' power seemed to make his perception exceed a certain limit, discovering a small movement at the edge of the world.
Vaguely, that movement reminded Zeus of Asgard when he first discovered it.
But upon closer examination, the difference between the two was enormous.
The King of Gods didn't know what it was, but his intuition told him he should go and see.
Woo...
In an nameless place, yellow sand filled the Sky.
On the ground, there was nothing but cracked and dry soil.
In the Sky, there was not a trace of moisture or clouds.
Occasionally, rain fell, but no clean water source could be seen.
The bitter, pale red raindrops were like the Heavens weeping, or perhaps punishing these sinful people who had abandoned the Gods.
Every time he drank, Judas felt his esophagus being torn apart, mercilessly burned.
"It's just that I have no choice... I want to live, to live until the New World of legend."
Biting into the neck of a wild beast, Judas greedily slurped its blood.
In this already broken and even core-distant shattered land, any living creature was rare.
After all, the sun that made all things grow had already vanished, and the Gods symbolizing nature had perished.
Survivors like them were too few, and every day, their numbers here decreased.
Because this was a discarded hell; even the last mercy of God had not fallen here by half.
"Gulp, gulp..."
"Hoo..."
As the blood flowed into his stomach, Judas felt a little better.
Even living in such a world, even the blood of wild beasts carried a slight toxicity.
They mixed with gastric acid, constantly stimulating the nerves of the Swallower.
But compared to those foul-smelling, rotten insects and moss, this was already the best delicacy.
Gradually, his strength recovered bit by bit.
Struggling to stand up, Judas looked at this desolate and ruined world.
The Sky was like a broken mirror, reflecting destruction.
The earth was covered with cracks and ravines, full of skeletons and mosquitoes.
But Judas knew that this world was not originally like this.
It once had sun and moon, flowers and breezes.
The mighty Nile River nourished the multitude of lives on its banks, giving them fertile land and rampant madness.
But now, everything was gone...
It shattered, like a piece of porcelain, a gem.
And what was even harder to accept was that he should have been one of the victors, and should have followed the Hebrews Great Prophet Moses to acknowledge the omnipotence and power of the Lord.
But precisely when that celestial change arrived, his location was somewhat remote.
So, with the shattering of the world and the distortion of space-time,
When the entire Hermenu World became large and small fragments, Judas and a part of the people happened to arrive on this loose small fragment.
There were many such fragments, and like the largest broken pieces, they constantly rotated around the primordial water, being absorbed and assimilated little by little.
Whether it was another world or the Gods executing all this, this was an unchangeable outcome—but this was not what Judas cared about.
He only knew that he had been abandoned, even if everything originated from a natural disaster.
"No... not yet."
"The Great Prophet's Prophecy is still there; we will surely return to our homeland, to the homeland belonging to the Hebrews people."
"There, milk and honey flow; it is the promised land from God."
"Our noble blood will burn there; all other races are merely our servants!"
His face was distorted, his eyes bulging.
Judas didn't know if this was true or false, but it was the only thing he could believe.
The more desperate, the more difficult, the more precious hope became.
The closer to death, the purer faith would be.
Like the other members of his tribe living here, when an unknown Prophecy was repeated a thousand times, the instinct for survival would make people willing to believe it.
So, after devoutly praying to the almighty Lord, Judas dragged his prey towards his dwelling.
Food for the next few days was secured; what he had to do next was to protect his spoils.
Yes, protect the spoils.
After all, in such an environment, all living beings were his enemies.
Woo...
Chaos, at the edge of the River of the World.
The void subtly fluctuated, reflecting the figure of the King of Gods.
Divinity pushed aside its surroundings; before arriving, Zeus had already erased the traces of his movement with his Authority.
Within the current scope of the present world, as long as he was willing to expend enough energy, he could still conceal his whereabouts.
The only slightly problematic thing was that the power of this avatar was still too weak... Shaking his head slightly, the King of Gods had no other choice.
Currently, apart from standing on Olympus and, with the blessings of the God Court and the Asgard interface, being able to exert part of the Great Divine Power in the absence of his true body, there was no other way to create such an avatar.
In contrast, if Tartarus had enough Wisdom, creating a Great Divine Power level avatar would be as easy as lifting a hand.
And the flesh mother tree, needless to say, during the Typhon Disaster, part of Her power fell upon the King of Ten Thousand Demons, and part of Her power was infused into Earth Mother.
A branch created the anomaly of the sun, and the remaining power could still shake the seal and cause turmoil in the Underworld.
For such beings, Zeus was nothing more than this.
If She could use Her full power, the King of Gods did not know how many moves he could withstand.
The only thing to be thankful for was that this situation would never happen.
After all, under the supreme power of the will of the present world, all beings would only become weaker and more fragmented.
Those who could not be fragmented would only be sealed by Her.
Only he, as the Lord of the Gods whose interests aligned with Hers, could continuously progress and grow stronger.
"This is the general trend."
"How can one succeed by going against the Heavens?"
"My father and grandfather did not understand this truth... Since She wants you to die, why don't you consider it from another angle?"
"If you could continuously bring Her benefits, how could you end up like this?"
Looking back, stepping out of the traditionally defined world and into the void radiated by Chaos's power,
Zeus's heart flashed with a hint of doubt, because in the River of the World, he did not sense the conspicuous auras of Oceanus, the Oceanus, and Tethys, the Goddess of Primordial Water.
Apart from the ceaseless waters of the long river, there was no other excess aura there.
Had they left? But where could they go?
After a moment of thought, looking at the constantly turbulent ocean within the world, Zeus believed he had found the answer.
Indeed, Poseidon's departure had caused too much turmoil.
But in a sense, this also meant that the other party's Divinity was indeed very strong and valuable to the present world.
Otherwise, the departure of Krios, the meteorology Titan, did not seem to cause much trouble.
Problematic ad?Report it here