You can read ahead up to 110 chapters on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darkshadow6395
Night had fallen.
The ruins of Rhodes Island whispered in the wind as if still bearing witness to a war that would never be known to future generations.
The air was thick with the stench of dust and blood amid the shattered walls and broken remnants. In the distance, atop a towering spire, an earth-shattering battle was erupting.
Zeus had been watching all of it from the shadows.
Suddenly, the air twisted and shattered like a smashed mirror. A black silhouette emerged from the void, its black dragon-skin boots landing on the shadowed remains of the broken wall where Zeus was perched.
Ian made not the slightest sound.
He drew closer to Zeus.
"Long time no see, Zeus. Looks like you've grown quite fond of turning into a bird, too. Were you influenced by my Animagus form?" Ian's voice suddenly appeared right beside Zeus.
Only then did the King of the Gods react. He twisted his head around and saw the last person he wanted to see.
The entity that had left the gods with deep, brutal psychological scars before they had even become gods:
The Raven.
He was in the form of a small boy.
It was true that beings like Zeus had been able to find a path to godhood largely thanks to the terrifying example set by this monster, who had shown them a way to grasp and control the Laws.
And yet,
The gods were not grateful to Ian.
After all, he had destroyed their Sky City, forcing them to settle on the tallest mountain they could find.
These living conditions were vastly inferior to those in the Sky City. Even today, Zeus still misses its splendor, as do countless others.
"Why?"
Seeing Ian greet him, the gigantic eagle that was Zeus's incarnation snapped its head around. Its golden pupils shrank to pinpoints. Instead of answering Ian's question, Zeus was visibly shaken.
"You…"
The sound that squeezed out of the eagle's beak carried the rumble of thunder; yet, for once, it was mixed with a hint of panic. The giant eagle flapped its wings and retreated, its bronze feathers scraping the surface of a colossal statue and throwing off sparks.
"Me what, exactly?"
Ian Prince adjusted his crooked bowler hat and spun the wand between his fingers in a neat arc. He looked down at the divine bird, whose wingspan exceeded ten meters.
"You must be afraid I'll charge you copyright fees, so you didn't want to see me. Don't worry. Sure, you copied me by turning into a bird, but I know it's just because you admire me."
A mischievous glint flashed in his eyes.
"So you've emerged again," the giant eagle said in a deep, majestic voice that carried an air of absolute divine authority. "I have not heard your name in a very long time."
The god-king still did not answer Ian's question.
Perhaps out of guilt.
"Good morning, Mr. Zeus. Or should I say, Good afternoon?"
Ian glanced at the blood-red sunset. "Sleeping for too long really messes with one's sense of time."
Ian was clearly putting on an act. He still remembered the warning from the female Titan, Claire, and he had no intention of letting Zeus know that he was a time traveler moving through time.
According to Claire, the time machine's power came from the chief god of this world; it was essentially stolen from that deity. Ian felt it was best not to expose that information.
He liked having leverage over others, but that didn't mean he wanted others to have leverage over him.
"Why appear at this time? What are you trying to do?"
Every feather on the giant eagle's neck bristled, each one crackling with blue-white lightning.
Zeus's voice rolled like muffled thunder.
"I go wherever I want," Ian replied calmly yet authoritatively. He rolled his eyes at the eagle Zeus had become.
"None of your business."
Zeus would have erupted in rage if anyone else had dared to speak so disrespectfully. But in front of Ian, he simply couldn't.
He was the perfect embodiment of daring to be angry but not daring to speak.
Even when Ian casually brushed nonexistent dust from his cloak, his disdain obvious, Zeus fell completely silent and did not dare to respond.
The battle he once fought with Ian was still vivid in Zeus's memory. Even now, as King of the Gods, commanding a host of deities, he did not dare act too arrogantly in Ian's presence.
Because
The gods all knew: That Ian was the end of all things.
That included the gods themselves.
The air froze.
The giant eagle's talons dug deep into the bronze diadem, and spiderweb cracks spread across the statue's surface. In the distance, the roar of collapsing buildings could be heard as animated colossi rampaged through the harbor. But atop this tower, it was as though time itself had been stripped away.
Finally, Zeus looked away.
Golden light erupted as the giant eagle's form twisted and expanded. When the radiance faded, an elderly man in white robes stood before Ian, nearly three meters tall. His snow-white beard hung to his chest, and lightning-shaped scars were hidden within the folds of his wrinkles. His robes appeared plain at first, but every fiber flowed with a cloud-like luminescence, and a belt woven from lightning bound his waist.
Most unsettling of all were his eyes.
They had no pupils.
Only miniature bolts of lightning arced and danced constantly across the whites of his eyes.
"State your purpose, Raven. This world is no longer your playground." Zeus's voice had dropped noticeably lower, and his fingers were unconsciously rubbing the lightning at his waist.
He wore a pristine white robe, its hem fluttering, with a golden lightning sigil embroidered on his chest, a symbol of supreme authority. Even though his scalp tingled with fear, he could only grit his teeth and put on a display of dominance.
One must remember that
Many gods were watching right now. It was just like the first time he faced Ian all those years ago. Even though terror gnawed at his heart, Zeus still had to act tough to preserve his authority.
And that authority was already unstable.
His face was handsome yet cold.
The weight and indifference accumulated by countless years lay between his brows. The once high-spirited king, who had ruled over all the gods, now looked like an old man whose spine had been bent by fate.
He was on the verge of collapse at any moment.
That was precisely why he had used the roaring God of War below to establish his authority.
"Relax, relax. I'm not here to play with you."
Ian pulled a scroll of parchment from his inner pocket and gave it a light shake. The scroll unfurled and fell to the ground at his feet. It was densely packed with strange writing, and some of the passages were shifting and reorganizing themselves.
"I'm looking for a talking rose," Ian said.
Hearing this, Zeus raised an eyebrow.
"I'll have the gods help you find it," He said in a low voice.
"And the Epiphyllum nectar, as well as the blood of a godslayer." Ian took out his list and casually read off the items as if he were ordering food, glancing at it as he did so.
Zeus's white robes fluttered despite the lack of wind.
Ian noticed that when he said the last item, the old god-king's left pinky twitched slightly. The ambitious young god-king of three thousand years ago would never have done that.
"I'll have Hermes handle the rose and the nectar," Zeus said quickly, as if eager to conclude the transaction. His gaze shifted toward the distant battlefield, where the god of war, Kratos, was fighting the sun god, Colossus.
"As for the Godslayer's blood, he's right there." A ferocious smile spread across his face.
Ian followed the direction of his finger.
In the midst of the tower's burning ruins, a heavily tattooed, muscular man engaged in combat with an animated colossus. Even from this distance, one could feel the explosive fury radiating from him.
His twin blades carved bloody arcs through the air, leaving lava-like wounds across the bronze giant with each strike.
"Mortal!"
The statue of the Sun God boomed like rolling thunder.
"You dare challenge the gods?"
It possessed the intelligence bestowed upon it by Zeus, not a particularly profound technique, but rather a variant of transfiguration.
Kratos sneered, gripping the Sword of Olympus with both hands. The blades' edges glowed crimson in the darkness.
"I am no mortal," he growled. "I am the godslayer! You false gods, manipulating me, deceiving me, betraying me, now it's my turn to judge you!"
Before his words had even settled,
He leapt from the tower. His body spun through the air like a bolt of black lightning, hurtling straight toward the chest of the Sun God statue. The Sword of Olympus slammed into the torso brutally, sparks flying.
Massive cracks spread instantly.
"Blasphemy!"
The Sun God statue roared and swept a palm forward in a clean sweep, sending a scorching shockwave toward Kratos. The God of War barely managed to twist away in time and was struck by the edge of the blast.
His body smashed into the ruins below, kicking up clouds of dust.
However,
Before the Sun God could continue its pursuit, Kratos burst out of the rubble. He kicked off a broken wall, using the momentum to launch himself skyward once more. A blood-red arc trailed through the air as his twin blades crossed and slashed in a berserk frenzy at the statue's face.
"You're nothing but another one of Zeus's puppets!" Kratos roared. "You don't have a will of your own. What right do you have to rule the world?"
The statue of the Sun God flew into a rage and slammed its staff into the ground. The earth convulsed violently, causing surrounding buildings to collapse. The shockwave hurled Kratos away.
He crashed heavily onto distant stone steps.
He looked somewhat stupefied; his life and death were uncertain.
Seeing this,
"Kratos?" Ian asked softly.
"Yes," Zeus nodded. There was unexpected complexity in his tone. "My son."
"Heh." The corner of Ian's mouth curled upward as he gazed at the figure, who was still stupefied and unconscious yet whose body was struggling to rise. He slowly wobbled his head.
"So that's your son, huh? You're ruthless."
To be honest, Ian didn't particularly like relationships like this.
Zeus fell silent for a moment before speaking again. His voice was suddenly as cold as a polar wind.
"I have many sons. He is the most disobedient one."
He raised his right hand.
A tiny thunderstorm cloud pulsed in his palm. "But it doesn't matter. He's about to die. Once the colossus crushes his bones, I'll collect his blood in an amphora and give it to you."
It had to be said.
That attitude was truly cruel.
Ian watched Zeus quietly. Hearing this, Ian could clearly feel how different this Zeus was from the leader he had seen in ancient times.
Colder. More ruthless.
Perhaps this was the price of becoming a god. Ian had seen this King of the Gods in the distant past. Back then, Zeus was high-spirited and full of ambition and ideals.
He was still rich in emotion.
The Lord of Thunder, who used to weep for his people, now had nothing but icy calculation in his eyes. Beneath the radiance of divinity lay a soul darker than Hades' River Styx.
"You really are heartless," Ian remarked.
"Whoever wears the crown must bear its weight." Zeus's expression twisted for a moment. The cloud patterns on his white robes suddenly darkened to storm gray, a manifestation of cold, emotionless power.
"Or maybe you've been influenced or tempted by the Death God? Your Underworld is located somewhere within the Twilight Zone, isn't it?" Ian studied the gray-black aura around Zeus thoughtfully.
To that question,
Zeus offered no reply.
"I hope you won't interfere in our family affairs, Raven."
Every word carried the omen of thunder.
"Take what you want and leave. This world is doing just fine now; it no longer needs variables like you."
It had to be said that Zeus was being rather self-absorbed at this point.
Before Ian could respond, Zeus's figure exploded into countless points of golden light. The lights regrouped in midair and condensed once more into the majestic giant eagle. It gave Ian one final, unsettlingly complex glance, then spread its wings, which covered the sky, and shot toward the storm clouds gathering above.
Ian stood at the edge of the shadows.
The gale whipped his cloak violently.
Not far away, Kratos had just wrapped his chains around the colossus's ankle and was using the momentum to swing himself up toward its knee. The Spartan warrior's roar pierced the howling winds at that altitude.
"Interesting...even Kratos has been dragged into this." Ian muttered to himself,
Straightening his list, he continued,
He needed a rose, a drop of nectar, and a bottle of blood. Beyond that, he still needed one more thing.
It was something he absolutely could not tell Zeus about.
"A god's heart."
Ian didn't yet know whose heart he would take, but he knew he needed to make preparations. He gently closed the list, and his figure began to turn translucent. Just before he disappeared completely, he cast one last glance at the sky.
Zeus's eagle was flying through the clouds; with each beat of its wings, a bolt of lightning was summoned.
Farther out on the horizon, the faint silhouette of a ghost ship could be seen.
It belonged to a wizard.
Wizards were also recording an unknown history.
Ian watched the story unfold.
Time passed, second by second.
Dusk over Rhodes Harbor was bathed in blood. The setting sun poured down like molten gold upon the war-torn port, gilding the shattered shipwrecks, collapsed walls, and fields of corpses with a false splendor. Kratos stood in the middle of the harbor with the Sword of Olympus hanging at his sides. Fresh blood dripped from the blades, blooming into dark red flowers on the stone pavement.
His chest heaved violently with each breath, tasting of iron. Three hundred Rhodian soldiers lay piled around him like a hill of bodies—not killed by him. Ever since Zeus stripped him of his divine power and poured it into the Sword of Olympus, he had been as weak as a mortal. These soldiers had died too.
"My gift, my son."
The voice came from above, deep as thunder yet hissing like a venomous serpent. Kratos snapped his head up and saw a hawk land on top of the colossus of the Sun God Helios.
The statue towered over a hundred meters tall, its bronze body more magnificent than the tallest lighthouse in the harbor of Rhodes. A radiant diadem crowned its head, and its right hand held a torch, a beacon meant to illuminate the Mediterranean. But now, the flame was no longer sacred fire.
It was lightning...
Zeus's lightning.
He looked down upon Kratos from on high.
The hawk's golden eyes danced with lightning.
"Zeus!"
Kratos forced the name through clenched teeth as if it were poison that needed to be chewed and crushed.
The Sword of Olympus hummed in his grip.
He knew this presence all too well: the thunder atop Mount Olympus; the pressure of the King of the Gods.
"Someone wants you dead," Zeus said suddenly.
He truly lacked any sense of honor.
He shamelessly dumped the blame onto Ian, who had been watching from the shadows. As the giant eagle transformed back into human form, Kratos followed the direction of Zeus's pointing finger,
And saw the young wizard.
(End of Chapter)