The Greek pantheon is long. And complicated.
Starting from ancient times, first came the First Generation gods—figures like Uranus, the Sky God, and Gaia, the Earth Mother.
Then came the Second Generation, led by the Twelve Titans. If you count them loosely, beings like the Hecatoncheires (Hundred-Handed Giants) and Typhon, Gaia's monstrous offspring, might be included.
Next came the Third Generation, led by Zeus. Besides the main Twelve Olympians, there were also many secondary deities, like Thanatos, the god of death, and Helios, the sun god who once helped fight Odin. Narrowly speaking, there are only a few dozen of them.
But broadly speaking? The list is massive.
Here, two particular gods are worth mentioning—Nereus and Doris.
Nereus, son of Pontus and Gaia, was called the Old Man of the Sea—a wise and kind elder deity. Doris, one of the 3,000 Oceanids and daughter of Oceanus, was his wife.
And these two? Incredibly prolific—they birthed fifty sea goddesses, each a true minor sea deity in her own right.
All fifty have names and appearances in the myths—including Thetis, mother of the newly ascended hero-turned-god Achilles.
And the one now facing off with Arjuna was none other than Doto, one of those fifty.
Despite her mermaid-like appearance, the raging storms she summoned were anything but beautiful.
Torrential waves carrying the crushing pressure of the deep slammed into Arjuna's divine domain. Each surge forced his barrier to shrink drastically.
"Arjuna, can't you do something already?" said Karna, his old friend and former rival, utterly unfazed by Arjuna's new godhood. He still spoke as casually as ever.
Arjuna raised his hand and fired an arrow at Doto.
It missed.
As the God of Archery, there was no way he could have simply missed. Not even a mountain would block his aim—his divine arrows could drill through anything.
The only explanation: the sea itself was actively interfering.
Like a Titan's warhammer, the mighty currents smashed into the side of the arrow mid-flight, shattering its divine force and sending it veering off-course, beyond Arjuna's control.
"…" Arjuna felt danger creeping in.
He was the god of bows—not some random Sea Archer.
Was there even a proper ranged weapon for underwater combat?
He didn't know.
He'd never expected his first battle after ascending would be such a nightmare.
He had to act.
And yet… he couldn't.
This was the enemy's domain—an ocean realm he didn't understand.
Should he retreat?
As he spread out his senses to search for a path of escape, a sudden pulse of divine power caught his attention.
"This way!"
Arjuna raised his left hand, palm open.
The waters ahead parted under his refined divine force.
"You think you can leave the sea so easily?" Doto roared, summoning massive tidal waves from the depths.
But her dark watery attacks were ripped apart by brilliant divine arrows. Golden flame arrows burst through the vortexes, evaporating the surrounding waters into steaming voids.
Arjuna's black hair flowed like a waterfall, each strand wrapped in a fiery law of destruction. Poisonous sea anemones that tried to tangle him turned to ash.
Doto spun her trident, stirring up the abyss and summoning the bones of ancient sea beasts to form a massive wave of death aimed straight at Arjuna.
No, she couldn't cast a true world-ending tsunami, but she could absolutely throw sea junk at him to wear him down.
She had no idea that when Arjuna's bowstring vibrated for the seventh time, the entire sea around them boiled.
The water temperature suddenly spiked.
In the next instant, an arrow trailing solar essence burned through the black waves and slammed into Doto's divine shield.
"Ah—!" the sea goddess gasped, instinctively pulling back.
That was the right move.
So long as Arjuna didn't break for land, she had a million ways to grind him to death in her domain.
Her follow-up attacks were repeatedly blocked by Arjuna, who burned vast amounts of divine power to do so.
Frustrated, Doto snapped, "Let's see how long your god-power lasts!"
To her, this was a losing game for Arjuna. Using pure divine force to fight an entire ocean was beyond wasteful—it was idiocy.
But Arjuna didn't care.
He grabbed a grumbling Karna and charged east, diving across the rugged seafloor, pushing at least five nautical miles.
There, another Aesir god was struggling.
\[Arjuna, I'm so glad to see you haven't died yet.]
It was Ramses II, sending a message from afar.
Unlike Arjuna, Ramses had terrible mobility—but his massive pyramid-shaped fortress offered incredible defense.
Even dragged into the ocean floor, he was still fighting. He just couldn't run.
\[Any bright ideas?] Arjuna frowned.
\[Not really. But your offense and my defense? We might have something. Oh, by the way—I got this.]
The sea goddess Nisaea couldn't stop the two gods from joining up, so she teamed up with Doto, calling in more sea creatures to encircle them.
Arjuna finally reached Ramses's side—just in time to catch a steel tube thrown his way.
"…What's this?" Arjuna's pupils shrank.
That handwriting—no Aesir god could fail to recognize it.
It was from God-Emperor Thalos himself.
\["The density of seawater ranges from 1.02–1.07 g/cm³. It depends on temperature, salinity, and pressure (or depth). In colder, saltier, deeper waters, density is higher. In warmer, shallower waters, density is lower."]
The sentence was engraved in Runas script.
It didn't seem useful on the surface.
But the newly ascended Aesir gods had absolute faith in Thalos.
They exchanged a glance, then said in unison:
"Let's do this!"
Ramses let out a long, reverberating howl.
"WOOAAAAH—!"
Suddenly, the ocean floor trembled violently.
A massive pyramid, built hastily from nearby seafloor rock, rose into the water.
Its square base was over a kilometer wide.
But the sea goddesses weren't prepared for what came next—
Atop the pyramid's apex, a second, inverted pyramid appeared out of nowhere, perfectly symmetrical and grander in design.
The tips of both pyramids aligned, forming an immense binding force.
The two sea goddesses were caught—trapped in this immense magical structure.
"AHHH—!"
(End of Chapter)
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