Gaia could easily have prevented it.
With no other choice, the Earth Mother Goddess returned to the surface, intending to warn the gods. Yet in the war between the old and new gods, Zeus—whom Gaia had secretly nurtured and placed her hopes upon—showed no sign of the magnanimity and tolerance expected of him. He decisively cast his father and uncles into Tartarus as offerings, further accelerating Typhon's growth.
The subsequent rise of Olympus and the eager manner in which they divided and seized dominion over sky, sea, and abyss left Gaia utterly disillusioned. She resolved to watch coldly from the sidelines. Though the primal power of the earth's veins remained in her grasp, the new gods had already ascended. Devoted descendants like Demeter, goddess of agriculture, and Pan, god of forests—who directly or indirectly claimed portions of the earth's power—began testing her limits with subtle, incremental demands.
Had she not raised Zeus, stood by him during the war between old and new gods, and maintained control over the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires, this Olympus God King might not even bother pretending. Indeed, he was cut from the same cloth as his forebears.
Hmph. With that bunch of "good children" on Olympus, the future of Greece would likely cease to be her concern. If divine authority was what they all craved—Zeus, Typhon, and the rest—then let them fight for it themselves.
Gaia, the Mother Goddess, adopted a strategy akin to driving out wolves to invite tigers. She chose to remain neutral, allowing Typhon to grow in strength unchecked. But thus, unchecked, the seed of calamity grew more brazen. In secret, he recruited followers, amassed strength, and began his plot against Olympus.
Though born of destruction and distortion, Typhon possessed a cunning intelligence, a gift from Gaia's creative power. He understood clearly that his first conquest must be the gods of Olympus, who held the concentrated power of the heavens. Once he seized dominion over sky and sea, the Earth Mother—who had largely withdrawn from active governance—would be powerless to resist.
Unless absolutely necessary, he wished to avoid stirring Gaia's wrath by disturbing the seeds sown in the Arima Cave, lest she align herself with Olympus. Thus, in the years to come, the Typhon offspring of the Arima Caverns scarcely appeared in any force attacking Olympus. They were merely feared and hunted down by the gods due to their formidable bloodline and terrifying potential.
However, when Typhon inadvertently sensed two delicious, pure essences appearing successively within these marshes, he could no longer contain himself. Using the venomous dragon cultivated in his own blood, he baited the prey he had been waiting for. That was precisely the pure divine power he craved. By refining his own divinity through the two beings present, even Zeus at his zenith would not be his match!
And the most direct way to seize that divine power was undoubtedly to devour them. As for devouring one's offspring? For the Greek gods, this was a family virtue so fundamental it couldn't be more basic. The second-generation God-King Kronos had done it. The third-generation God-King Zeus had done it. Had the first-generation God-King Uranus known his fate, he might have tried it too. In Greece, it seemed one couldn't even get by without a few rounds of fatherly cruelty and filial sacrifice.
Thus, this newly crowned king of monsters felt not a shred of guilt in carrying out such deeds. Now, Typhon glared menacingly at his prey, sealed within the Barrier by the Breath of Storms. His pitch-black, forked serpent tongue flickered across lips slightly parched with anticipation, offering no pretense about his bloodthirsty, savage intent.
"Hand them over to me, then get lost!"
"Roar! Roar!"
The nine-headed Hydra and the Colchis Dragon reared their necks, bellowing with savage eyes.
At the same time, Typhon's offspring surged forward, their overlapping roars echoing with grim resolve beneath the crushing pressure. Even the timidest harpy, though her wings trembled uncontrollably, stood firmly behind Medusa and Athena.
BOOM!
Black smoke boiled across dozens of miles, its violent and cruel aura pressing down like a mountain. Typhon had lost all patience with these insignificant creatures. From within the haze, countless pitch-black dragon heads emerged, surrounding the battlefield from all directions as they closed in on the center.
"A bunch of fools..."
Medusa closed her eyes briefly, recalling how Euryale and Stheno on the Shapeless Island had accepted being devoured by her without a word of complaint. She let out a faint sigh, then snapped her eyes open, a cold, spectral light flashing within them.
Having inherited the divine essence of Earth and Abyss, Medusa had been the first to sense the malice radiating from this King of Monsters. Yet unable to withstand Typhon's overwhelming might, the only option left to her was to offer herself as bait, buying time for her siblings to escape.
But to her surprise, those very siblings—who should have been paralyzed by fear of the monster due to the suppression of his bloodline—sensed something was wrong. One after another, they abandoned their retreat and turned back to support her.
If that was the case, then there was no choice left but to fight to the bitter end!
As hundreds of hideous dragon heads closed in to crush them, Medusa, her aura fierce and unyielding, raised the Scythe of Time and swung it down upon the first black-scaled heads that lunged.
At the same moment, Athena, her face solemn, drew her final spear. She struck it against the bronze shield on her left arm, summoning Typhon's offspring to rally at her position and form a defensive line.
In an instant, the monsters who had grown accustomed to fighting as a unit sprang into action. Some threw themselves bodily against the dragon heads in desperate combat, others unleashed blasts of Mana into the skies, while still others relied on psychic shocks and Mystic Eyes to disrupt the minds of several of Typhon's heads.
"ROAR!"
A hundred throats bellowed at once—the lowing of oxen, the roar of lions, the barking of hounds, the crash of thunder, the boiling of fire—all merging into one catastrophic chorus that shook the land.
A storm of boundless might erupted, carrying chaotic Ether, rending space, and splitting the very earth apart. The Caucasian eagles and harpies circling above were struck down by the surging wind columns before they could approach, their wings shattering as they screamed in agony.
Chimeras, the Nemean Lion, Cerberus, and other beasts skilled in close combat leapt onto the back of the hundred-headed dragon, clawing and biting with savage force. Yet Typhon's body, bearing the traits of both earth and abyss, was monstrously resilient. Their fangs and claws could not pierce his hide, their strikes sparking harmlessly against his scales.
And even the few wounds they managed to inflict vanished in an instant, erased by his immortality. Worse still, parts of Typhon's body shifted freely between substance and void. Magecraft and bindings from Ladon, the Sphinx, and the Gorgon sisters collapsed uselessly against his intangible form.
Swept away by a single breath of the storm, the monsters of the Arima Caverns were hurled through the air, their wails rising as bones cracked and muscles tore.
Only Athena, bearing her bronze shield and a thunder-wreathed spear glowing with violet-blue light, and Medusa, wielding the Scythe of Time with its destructive edge, remained standing against him.
"Still resisting? I've decided to devour you siblings first, then move on to the main course. Now, merge with me willingly!"
Typhon's hundred heads twisted into a monstrous grin. His storm-breath fanned blazing flames outward, spreading in all directions as the very ground began to melt. His countless jaws lunged forward, weaving together in a killing snare around the battered defenders.
Already on the verge of collapse beneath the relentless assault, Athena and Medusa saw their siblings from the Arima Caverns about to be swallowed alive.
In unison, the two goddesses leapt and spun, throwing themselves in front of their kin to shield them.
But this was exactly what Typhon had hoped for.
With their divine light already flickering and breaking apart under the storm and poisonous fire, Athena and Medusa were forced to split their strength protecting those behind them. Their defense faltered, and they teetered on the brink of collapse.
As the last glimmer of divinity from the two "small delicacies" was shattered, Typhon opened his colossal maw and lunged.
Whoosh!
At the final moment, a golden-white arrow of light, blazing like a comet, tore through the choking black fog and streaked across the sky.
The instant it descended upon the hundred-headed dragon, the comet arrow split into hundreds of meteors that rained down in a relentless barrage, forcing the careless Typhon back a step.
...
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