Poseidon fell. Thetis Island, breached!
The last few dozen Greek warships and a little over a hundred auxiliary vessels braved the chaotic, crisscrossing bombardment of mana beams, smashed through the endless waves of titanic aberrations, and, seizing the opening bought by Poseidon's self-destruction, pushed toward the Eye of the Tidal Sea without a shred of fear.
But Poseidon's death was not the end of the divine war. It was the opening bell for something even more horrific.
The three Phase-Four Alien Vanguards abandoned stellar-route guidance and focused entirely on the battle in front of them. Their destructive power was beyond comparison, and paired with their relentless self-healing, near-immortality, they became a nightmare the gods had no answer for.
The fighting only escalated. The Storm Sea's storms, thunder, and whirlpools that had raged unbroken for ten thousand years were shredded into nothing. Sea and sky became a blinding weave of dazzling color.
Star rings, sword pillars, Authorities, Divine Constructs slammed together and rang out. Ether tides flooded the battlefield. Sprays of fallen god-blood splattered the nearby waters until the sea turned red, and towering figures collapsed one after another.
The Titan Old Gods, Kronos and Iapetus, fell…
Of the three Hundred-Handed Giants, Gyges and Cottus fell…
Among the Twelve Olympian Gods, Hephaestus and Demeter fell…
Typhon's offspring from the Arima caverns, Chimera, Sphinx, and the Nemean Lion fell…
On Areopagus, Hypnos and Thanatos fell…
As familiar and unfamiliar figures vanished before their eyes, ripples spread through the hearts of the two God Kings.
"Laaa!"
Long pinned down and suppressed, Sefar seized the moment. With a swing of her sword, she knocked aside the Thunderbolt. The star ring gathered above her head spat out dazzling radiance and blasted Samael back.
At the same time, the Alien Vanguard spread her arms. Three pairs of blazing white wings unfurled from her back. With a violent beat, she stirred up a raging surge.
Her colossal body—hundreds of meters long—burst free of the sea and soared into the air. Then she folded her wings and plunged like a falling star straight toward the Eye of the Tidal Sea.
"Civilization shattering operation executing. World Egg erosion rate 71.32%… 71.45%… host planet self-defense barrier hollowing intensifying… suppression established.
Planetary conditions met for piercing the Ether Great Cycle System. Continue guiding Velber main body descent…
Coordinate correction initiating. Route restart preparation!"
A resonant pulse thundered from her chest, carrying those chilling orders across the sea. The two subordinate white titans answered at once, their God of War Swords blazing with light as vast as their forms. They surged forward like lightning, cleaving the battlefield apart and interposing themselves between Samael and Zeus, halting the two God Kings' devastating assaults.
When divine armaments collided, terrifying mana tides surged and shook the air. The cutting gale was so fierce it nearly stole breath from the lungs.
As the power spread outward, the Storm Sea was thrown into violent turmoil, churning into frenzied torrents as waves rose hundreds of meters high.
Hum!
Just as the dwindling human fleet was about to be swallowed by that sky-filling surge, deep-blue light patterns appeared along both sides of their ships like overlapping scales. Miraculously, they split the violent flood apart.
This… Sea God protection?!
Those who survived clenched their jaws, expressions complicated.
But the Argo heroes didn't even have time to exhale. In midair, Sefar folded her wings and sank toward the Eye of the Tidal Sea. The battered human fleet was swallowed under her vast shadow, like ants beneath a mammoth's foot.
At that instant, violet gloom slammed in from the side. Pale yellow wings spread slowly, and the countless snake heads formed from writhing hair tangled and twisted, hissing shrilly in the air.
"My curse, my resolve, soaked into the earth—Forced Seal: Pandemonium Divine Temple!"
The avenging goddess, transformed into a monstrous form, blocked Sefar's descent path. She chanted at full voice as the countless snake-hair behind her, necks arched and tongues flicking, converged and fired a purple-red pillar of light a hundred meters wide.
"Stop! Now!"
Medusa's fangs bit through her lips. With blood on her mouth, she roared hoarsely, forcing Earth Authority to its absolute limit. Her petrifying eyes flared wide, and the purple-red radiance swelled violently.
Sefar's plunging, colossal body halted in midair. Under the staining wash of that purple-red light, chalk-gray mottling began to spread across the white titan's body.
Now!
Seeing the Alien Vanguard's return stalled, Jason gave the order without hesitation. Full speed ahead, charge into the open Eye of the Tidal Sea!
Boom!
But only a few breaths later, a dazzling sword flash cleaved straight through the surging purple-red petrification beam. The light barriers around Medusa shattered on impact. Feathers scattered, and her body staggered.
"Laaa!"
Next, star patterns pulsed across Sefar's body. She lifted her head and sang. One by one, titan soldiers and aberrations surfaced from the sea and threw themselves at the Greek gods along the route, locking them in place.
At the end of their strength, deep in the encirclement, the gods could not break through. All they could do was watch as the Alien Vanguard folded her wings and drifted down, landing lightly within the Eye of the Tidal Sea, then raised her butcher's blade and swung at the grievously wounded avenging goddess Medusa, whose light patterns flickered unstably before her.
Damn it.
So close. Just a little more.
Jason fought down the instinctive shiver, bracing himself against the rail. He looked up in rage at the towering white titan standing over the sea, and at the finish line so close yet untouchable. His eyes went bloodshot, and as the God of War Sword fell, he could only shut his eyes in pain.
"Aaaaa!"
At the critical instant, a single high note, like a ballad, like a sacred hymn, like a line of verse, rang out across the entire Oceanus Sea.
Whoosh!
At the same time, a gemlike crimson pillar of light struck in from the rear, tearing open the endless chaos rift. Like a battering ram, it slammed straight into Sefar's chest.
Boom!
The towering white titan shot off like a cannonball, flung diagonally a hundred li. In its wake, it gouged out a dark gash that cut across the Storm Sea.
Finally.
Samael raised his spear and knocked aside the edge of the God of War Sword, his gaze fixed on the figure rising from the sea, climbing higher and higher. Crowned with the Earth's Touch, framed by verdant wings, towering hundreds of meters tall… relief washed over him, followed by a feverish flush of exhilaration.
The last trump card in his hand: Tiamat, the Mother of Origins!
"Laaaa!"
But Sefar was a combat weapon. Even with her chest blasted through, her murderous momentum didn't drop in the slightest. Under the piercing hymn, the star ring rotated forward and focused, projecting a dazzling pillar of light as golden-blue radiance spread outward. In an instant, thousands of titan soldiers and forcibly catalyzed aberrations surged up from the sea and charged the intruder who had barged in to ruin everything.
"Aaaaa!"
And at the exact moment that golden-blue glow expanded, Tiamat, now fully revealed, raised her neck and answered with a cry of her own.
Hum!
The world plunged into darkness. Ink-black storm clouds rolled in with thunder and lightning, swallowing the surroundings. Beneath Goddess Tiamat's feet, a halo throbbed, and a vast red-black tide rushed forward, spreading so fast that in the blink of an eye it dyed an entire third of the Oceanus Sea the same ominous color.
Splash!
Monstrous shadows of every shape, thick with savage intent, burst out of that red-black sea. They ran across the black tide as if it were solid ground, roaring as they threw themselves at the oncoming titan soldiers and aberrations.
Some were giant serpents plated in green-patterned scales, spewing venomous breath. Some were flame beasts with lion heads and golden manes. Some were vicious monsters with trihedral horn-plates, dragon wings and lion bodies. Some were seven-headed serpents firing streams of toxic spittle. Some were fish-headed humanoids clutching steel forks. Some were spiderlike deformities, black-shelled and six-legged, their mouths opening the wrong way…
The two raging floods smashed together. Flesh flew, poison sprayed, and the sounds of roaring and tearing never stopped.
These monsters surging out of the red-black tide were no weaker than the titan soldiers or the aberrations.
"Bašmu, the winged two-legged serpent."
"Ugallu, the lion-headed storm demon."
"Ušumgallu, the three-horned lion-dragon."
"Mušmaḫḫū, the seven-headed snake."
"Uridimmu, the lion-dog."
"Kulullû, the fishman."
And Laḫmu, the "Mysterious Children"…
Samael swept his gaze over the battlefield, silently naming each one. His serpentine pupils narrowed, and a cold smile curled at his lips.
This so-called ace to overturn Greek divine authority was never just Mother Goddess Tiamat, coming alone to fight.
There was also… Mother of Genesis… the Eleven Offspring of Tiamat.
To gain the capital to stand against the Olympian gods, Mother Goddess Tiamat had followed his instructions and gone to the chaotic seas at the edge of Oceanus. There she absorbed the shattered divinity of Uranus, the Sky God, and Pontus, the ancient sea god, then used her origin divinity and the authority of Mother of Genesis to create and organize an army capable of overturning Greek divine authority.
Now, the Eleven Offspring of Tiamat she created were locked in a brutal fight with the titan host summoned by the Alien Vanguards.
Without anyone noticing, the sea darkened further, turning into thick red-black sludge.
Twisted wedge-shaped red-black patterns crawled from the contact points across the bodies of titan soldiers and aberrations. Their reactions slowed, their strength drained away, their shells accelerated into deeper distortion, and in moments they were already cracking and collapsing.
"Aaaaa!"
The piercing song shook the air again. Wherever its ripples reached, those monsters infected by the Alien Vanguards shattered apart, flaked off as a whole, and crumbled into the red-black mudflow, dissolving inch by inch.
Then came the next generation: Laḫmu with metal armor plating, Ugallu with gill-lines at the nape that let it swim and breathe freely, Uridimmu with fish scales growing under its fur and membranes stretching from its hind limbs… one after another, these new Eleven Offspring of Tiamat finished their Self-Modification and replacement, absorbing the traits of sea-beast aberrations and titan soldiers.
Origin Authority · Sea of Life!
One of Tiamat's strongest Authorities, the embodiment of the ocean's brine. By cycling the True Ether of Earth's genesis, it allows the sea to supply mana without end, forming a chaos tide that spreads and erodes outward to create terrain favorable to her side.
Any creature trapped in the black mud, or sunk into this Sea of Life, would be randomly afflicted with effects like corrosive decomposition, abnormal states, Self-Modification, ecological change, ecological fusion, and individual proliferation.
That was why the titan soldiers and aberrations had collapsed so quickly. Inside the Sea of Life, their titan-corroded composition was simply rewritten by Mother Goddess Tiamat.
"Zeus, you should be glad this card wasn't used on Olympus in the end…"
The Ancient Serpent glanced back at the God King of Wisdom facing off with Unit 3, his expression layered with meaning. The corner of his mouth lifted as he let out a proud, cold snort.
Zeus's breathing hitched. Even now, seeing the hidden strength these rebel gods had been sitting on left him shaken, chilled down to his bones.
Yes. Thank the gods it didn't come to that.
If the conflict between Areopagus and Olympus had escalated into a fight to mutual ruin, they'd never have had the leverage to face this Titan War.
But the two God Kings' wandering thoughts lasted only a moment before Unit 1 and Unit 3 crashed in again, forcing both sides to focus completely on the immediate threat, with no room to spare for anything else.
With the titan soldiers and aberrations buying her a brief opening, Sefar stabilized her stance in that split second. She reversed her grip, spun the God of War Sword, and condensed its radiance to the absolute limit. Then, with the force of crashing thunder, she blasted it straight toward the source of the voice that had nearly torn her apart.
The Storm Sea along the path took the hit first. The human coalition caught in the gap, and the avenging goddess wavering in midair, had nowhere to run.
So this is it… in the end, you can't dodge what's coming.
Still… I really wanted to taste Samael's butter cake one more time. I really wanted to see everyone in Mesopotamia again.
Beneath that multicolored pillar of light, the slender figure bit her soft lips, glanced back toward some distant point with a trace of loneliness, and let out a quiet sigh.
Damn it… that slut of a goddess of luck.
On the deck of the Argo, Jason twisted around to face the onrushing Ether torrent, the kind of flood that looked ready to scour all life clean. At the same time, out of the corner of his eye, he caught the Eye of the Tidal Sea only a few hundred meters away. His eyes went wide with rage as he forced out a warm, bold "greeting" through clenched teeth.
Just as everyone trapped in the Storm Sea hit the end of the road, the starlit sky split open into a pitch-black vortex. A golden-blue streak of light dove down like a runaway meteor, and a clear, high-pitched shout rang across the sea of clouds.
"Maanna, the gate opens! Venus Concept converges, from the Great Heaven to the Great Earth!—Shatter, Kindling of Venus that Shook the Mountains!"
"Meslamtaea, we're going! Heaven holds the absolute sea, Earth holds the prison, and my heel is the wrath of the underworld!—Appear, the bellows of the underworld trampled by the spirit peak!"
In an instant, fused gold and crimson radiance swept forward like an enraged dragon, smashing head-on into the multicolored beam erupting from the God of War Sword.
At the collision point, space compressed and warped to its limit. The surging Ether torrent detonated, blasting out in every direction.
The avenging goddess, already at the end of her strength, was flung away by the shock like a kite with its string cut, drifting toward the sea.
And right then, that golden-blue streak of light plunged through the gale, dropping even faster.
Just as Medusa was about to fall into the deep, two pale, slender arms pulled her into a warm embrace.
"Long time no see. You can open your eyes now, little Ana…"
With a crisp snap of fingers, the avenging goddess slowly opened her eyes on reflex. In her violet pupils, two familiar faces appeared at once, smiling bright. One wore golden hair, the other black, both spilling over their shoulders, both crowned with seven-pointed gemstone diadems.
The twin goddesses of Mesopotamia.
The Goddess of Heaven, Ishtar!
The Goddess of the Underworld, Ereshkigal!