Chapter 2: Five Siblings in the Father’s Belly (2)
Inside Kronos' belly, they lived without any sense of time.
In the pitch-black darkness, they could only piece together information from the faint sounds that occasionally reached them. There was little else they could do.
Before they knew it, the boy had grown into a sturdy man, and the girls had matured into women.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
The sound echoing through the belly irritated Hera.
"Poseidon, can you stop that already? You're driving me crazy with that racket every single day!"
"Hera, this is a proven training method. It's called 'Gunhabaek'—an incredible technique!"
"I don't care what it is, but I told you I'd melt you if you kept up that insane nonsense in front of me…"
Poseidon, who had been pounding the walls of their father's belly with his fists, sensed Hera's anger about to explode and quickly fled.
After ignoring her warnings a few times and nearly dying from her magic, he'd learned to be more cautious.
"Oh my, Poseidon, running away again?" Demeter asked.
"Demeter, you should've seen Hera's face. She was definitely about to use that weird magic again."
"Hehe, well, that's because you keep getting on her nerves. But she's secretly grateful for you, so don't hate her too much."
Poseidon gave a half-hearted nod to Demeter's words and hurriedly dashed to a spot where Hera's wrath wouldn't reach him.
Demeter always spoke kindly of Hera, but that didn't mean being near her was safe.
"Looking at that temper, she's definitely the goddess Hera. And with that kind of strength, she's fit to be acknowledged as the queen of the gods."
Hera had awakened her magic a few years ago.
Since being reborn as Poseidon, he had tested the limits of a god's body, trying all sorts of things from a young age. Among them, he'd been particularly inspired by 'Gunhabaek', a training method he'd seen (and he was certain it couldn't be wrong, as it was the technique of one of the strongest in the world).
There wasn't much else to do in Kronos' empty belly, so pounding the walls was one of the few options.
Sure, he wondered if hitting the walls might cause Kronos pain, but why should he care about a god who had swallowed him?
So, Poseidon struck the walls daily.
In the process, his bones broke, and his muscles were sometimes so damaged he couldn't move. But a god's body recovered from such injuries in no time.
Feeling himself grow stronger in real-time gave him no reason to stop.
Hera, however, always nagged him from the sidelines.
Once, Kronos, perhaps in pain, sent a deadly poison to kill them, still young gods.
It was then that Hera instinctively awakened her magic, saving them all.
If she'd been even a moment too late, Greek-Roman mythology might have ended right there.
Poseidon's relentless experiments and training had indeed caused Kronos significant distress.
Hades, for once, had even praised him highly for it… so wasn't that a job well done?
'Though, since then, some nasty things have occasionally come our way. But thanks to that, we've all properly awakened as gods, so maybe it was a good thing.'
If Hera had heard him say that, she'd have smashed his head in. For now, Poseidon headed toward Hestia, a place where even Hera wouldn't dare act recklessly.
"Hey, Hestia!"
Hestia looked at Poseidon's body, marked with handprints and traces of magic, and let out a deep sigh.
"You're at it again, Poseidon?"
"Hahaha, I had no choice. If we're going to escape and take revenge someday, I have to get stronger."
Hestia gave Poseidon a worried look as he laughed heartily.
"You still haven't given up, have you?"
"Of course not. We'll get out of here eventually. And when we do, we have to defeat Father. No matter what."
"I'm not sure if that's possible."
"Don't worry, Hestia. Hades and I are working hard to get stronger. And with you and our sisters' powers combined, how could we not defeat one father?"
"Well, we can't kill a god, so we'll have to think about what to do after we subdue him."
Hestia looked into Poseidon's confident blue eyes and gave a gentle smile.
"Alright, if you say so, I'll believe you. Come here. You're hiding from Hera again, aren't you?"
"Yup."
As always, Hestia patted her lap, offering a knee pillow.
(True to her role as the goddess of the hearth, Hestia had the ability to embrace and heal quickly.)
Poseidon rested his head on his sister Hestia's lap, and she gently stroked his blue hair.
For now, the five siblings lived in peace, but no one could say how long that peace would last…
***
Despite the utter darkness of Kronos' belly, Poseidon and his siblings relied on each other, training their bodies and the powers dormant within them.
Following Poseidon's lead, they prepared to one day take revenge on the father who had swallowed them.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
As Poseidon continued his wall-pounding, counting the days by his actions, something happened.
Rumble!
The space around them began to shake.
It was the first time such tremors had occurred since Poseidon started hitting the walls, so Hades, Hestia, Hera, and Demeter gathered around him.
"Poseidon, you've caused trouble again!!!"
Hera, the first to rush over, delivered a double side kick to punish Poseidon.
"Argh, Hera! It wasn't me this time! I was just doing what I always do!"
As Poseidon rolled on the ground from Hera's kick, Hades watched with a gloomy smirk, mocking him.
"Tch, tch, tch. If not you, who else here would cause trouble? It's not like our sisters would do something like this."
"Shut up, you pompous jerk with that stupid way of talking."
"You little—"
BOOM!
"Will you two stop it?! We're in a serious situation with this place shaking, and you're still fighting!"
Demeter, who had never lost her temper before, stomped her foot, putting an end to Hades and Poseidon's bickering.
"If it's not Poseidon, then what's causing this?"
"Hestia, maybe something's happened to Father, who swallowed us."
While Demeter restrained Hades and Poseidon, who were still itching to fight, Hestia and Hera analyzed the cause.
"Huh? Hera, didn't you kick Poseidon because you thought he caused this?"
"Nah, I just wanted to hit him. I made up the reason."
"Oh, I see. Well, Poseidon's tough, so a few hits won't hurt him."
"Right? Just looking at him makes you want to smack him. Anyway, based on my magic, something's definitely stimulating Father's insides."
The two women casually reached a conclusion that would've made Poseidon furious if he'd overheard.
"Then we should amplify that effect."
"Exactly. If we use our powers to completely turn this place upside down, we might be able to get out."
While Poseidon and his siblings were assessing the situation inside Kronos' belly, outside, just as in the original myth, Zeus, with Rhea's help, succeeded in feeding Kronos the pharmakon.
Urghhh!
Having consumed the pharmakon infused with Gaia's power, Kronos began to vomit everything out.
"Ugh, cunning Mother Gaia. In the end, you're just another filthy, vile woman, manipulating your children and husband as you please. And Rhea, I never expected this from you."
Kronos glared at Rhea with resentment in his eyes.
Then he turned to his child, a young man with golden hair.
"Foolish child, you're being played by Gaia. You don't even know who's pulling the strings of that red-haired woman beside you."
"Father Kronos, even if that's true, what choice do I have? After all, you're the one who tried to kill me and my siblings."
Zeus, the golden-haired youth, retorted without a hint of hesitation, unshaken by Kronos' mockery.
Having witnessed both Kronos' cruelty and Gaia's, Zeus had already decided which side was more advantageous to him.
Kronos' face hardened as he looked at Zeus, who bore a striking resemblance to himself.
What Rhea had tricked him into consuming was undoubtedly a drug meant to force him to expel the siblings inside his belly.
After all, Zeus, the young woman behind him, and Rhea alone couldn't possibly defeat him.
As for Gaia, she could no longer interfere further…
Though furious, she wasn't his immediate concern.
'First, I need to stop time in my belly.'
Kronos immediately halted the flow of time within his body.
Even he could sense how powerful the children he had swallowed might have become.
'Considering the pain I felt from those stomachaches…'
Feeling a sense of crisis from the unfolding events, Kronos drew the adamantine sickle he had used to dethrone his own father, Uranus.
Rhea, horrified at the sight of Kronos, hurriedly cast a spell on Zeus and warned him.
"My son, it seems Kronos has stopped time inside his belly. The drug's effect has been halted!"
"Damn it!"
"Zeus, stay calm. We still have a chance. Focus on the fight. Mother and I will try to free your siblings."
***
Power clashed against power.
Kronos, wielding the sickle that had castrated his father, manipulated the flow of time—speeding it up or slowing it down—to put Zeus in a bind.
As the god of agriculture, his ability to "harvest" everything was deadly to Zeus.
'Ugh!'
Despite Zeus fighting with all his might, his body became increasingly bloodied as time passed.
Kronos' attacks, backed by his power to ensure a predetermined future of "harvesting," were each like a one-hit kill.
All Zeus could do was keep dodging.
The only thing he had was the Aegis shield, and if it hadn't been made from the same metal as the adamantine sickle by Gaia, Zeus would have been far worse off than just bloodied.
"My son, crawling on the ground like a rat. I wonder how furious Gaia would be to see her 'pawn' in such a state."
Swish.
As Kronos' sickle grazed Zeus' head, narrowly dodged, a few strands of Zeus' golden hair were cut and fluttered away.
Due to the sickle's shape, Zeus tried to exploit the openings created when Kronos swung, but each time, the time in that space slowed drastically, forcing Zeus to evade the incoming sickle before he could counterattack.
As Zeus' wounds multiplied and he struggled to fend off Kronos, Rhea and Metis were in a frantic state.
"Mother, the other Titans will come rushing in soon."
"Yes, Gaia's ability to conceal information has its limits. With Uranus hating Gaia, there's little she can do."
"And since Zeus hasn't yet received a proper divine name, he can't fully wield his power, so holding out much longer will be difficult."
Rhea nodded at Metis' words, deep in thought.
To restart the flow of time in Kronos' belly, their only option was to exert force from the inside.
'If my children inside could use their powers, they might be able to move Kronos' time…'
Rhea looked at her youngest son, barely holding on.
Without an immediate solution, the best course of action might be to flee with Metis and Zeus.
If they could escape to Gaia's belly, even Kronos wouldn't be able to harm them.
"Metis, we may have to plan for the future—"
Boom, boom, boom!
"?!"
Just as Rhea began to speak of retreating, a sound like a massive drum reverberated from within Kronos' belly.
"Mother!!!"
"Could it be?!"