Chapter 99: Typhon (11)
“Lord Eurymedon, how was Poseidon?”
As soon as Eurymedon returned, Asterios, his closest aide and personal guard, asked.
“……”
Eurymedon remained silent for a moment at his aide’s question before continuing.
“Well… if I had to judge, I’d say it’s impossible. I only learned one thing: not all of the three great gods are the same kind of ‘great god.’”
At those words, Asterios’s expression hardened.
If that were true, then when he thought about the opponents they would eventually have to face…
“…Shall we eliminate him?”
Asterios turned his body and looked toward where Poseidon was.
Eurymedon shook his hand at his aide’s reaction. Even if they brought out the hidden Gigantes right now, he wasn’t confident they could definitely finish the job.
“No, touching him doesn’t seem wise. He’s powerful—in a completely different way from Zeus.”
Eurymedon thought to himself.
If Zeus was troublesome because of his raw power, political skill, and the sheer number of his children, then Poseidon—the first of the three he had properly faced—left only one impression.
Power. A raging current contained within it.
***
At the very moment Poseidon accepted Eurymedon’s truce and the war halted,
Dionysus was facing Persephone and finally heading toward the place where Zeus was said to be.
“Lady Persephone, where on earth is this Corycion Cave? I’ve never even heard of it.”
“I only heard the name today too. But from what I’ve heard, it’s called the child of Gaia and Tartarus.”
Dionysus felt his tension rise at Persephone’s words. Just the name alone sounded more threatening than the straits of Charybdis.
After walking ahead for a long while, Persephone stopped in front of a certain mountain.
“Here—this is as far as I can guide you. If I go any farther, the monsters of the underworld will notice me.”
The place where Persephone stopped looked like an utterly ordinary mountain.
It was no different from any mountain Dionysus had seen so far. In fact, it was so ordinary that it felt almost absurd.
“Uh… is this really the ch—?”
Dionysus was about to ask with a look that said, Are you sure this is the place? When he shut his mouth.
The mountain, until now, ordinary-looking mountain began to reveal its true nature.
Countless shades writhed and fluttered, the sunlight pouring from the sky vanished without a trace, and the mingled cries of underworld monsters and surface monsters began to echo together.
‘…To think such a place existed on the surface.’
Whether she knew Dionysus’s astonishment or not, Persephone gazed at the mountain and spoke.
“They say this is the place where Lord Tartarus and Lady Gaia first met. There’s also a rumor that it’s where the god Typhon was born and where he gathered his power.”
With those words, Persephone pressed a few flowers into Dionysus’s hand.
“Here—these are the Flowers of Gentle Flesh, the Flowers of Bloody Flesh, and the Flowers of Battle. This is all the help I can give you. From here on, you’ll have to do it with your own strength. Good luck, little brother. Let’s meet again when you’ve become a proper god.”
Persephone turned away after giving Dionysus flowers that grew only in the flower fields of Nyx.
Just as that young demigod had his mission, she too had mountains of work waiting for her.
***
The moment Dionysus stepped into Mount Cilicia (Mount Corycion), the entire mountain felt like a single gigantic labyrinth.
Kieeeeek!
Phantoms flew through the sky, and the forest paths changed shape in real time.
It was a place filled with pure malice, as if declaring that anyone who entered would never be allowed to leave.
“Haa… How am I supposed to find Lord Zeus in a place like this? Wait—does Lord Zeus even really here?”
The densely packed trees constantly shifted form, and the paths changed every minute. No matter how much of a demigod Dionysus was, there seemed to be nothing he could do.
“Sigh… It would be nice if I at least knew my divine name right about now.”
Exhausted from walking far too long, Dionysus sat down on a nearby rock to recover his strength.
Huu…
In the current situation, no solution was in sight. If things continued like this, he would almost certainly starve to death in this place.
“So in the end, the only options are either I become a complete god… or I find Lord Zeus by sheer heavenly luck…”
Booooom.
With the rock Dionysus was sitting on as the center, the paths began to twist and scramble once more.
Watching the forest constantly reshape itself, he realized that trying to find a fixed route here was utterly impossible.
“No way. There’s absolutely no way I can find anything like this. That leaves only one method.”
Dionysus focused on the conversation he’d had with Persephone before entering the mountain.
She had definitely said that, by the time he arrived here, his divine name had already half-revealed its true form.
The proof, she said, was that the wine he had first created touched the emotions of whoever drank it.
“Divine name… Just what exactly is a divine name?”
Dionysus had read books, so he knew the textbook definition.
It was written that a divine name was the essence of a god, or the thing that represented that god.
“But if that’s the case, it doesn’t make sense that divine names can be given and received…”
He was right. If a divine name truly was a god’s very essence, the idea of ripping it out and handing it to someone else was nonsense from the start.
You couldn’t just tear out your own essence and remain intact.
“Then what on earth is a divine name?”
Was it simply power? Or just some kind of magical ability, like the martial prowess of knights, mercenaries, or warriors? What was it…?
Dionysus fell into deep contemplation.
He sank so deeply into thought that he didn’t even notice the souls beginning to gather around him, nor the forest of the mountain shifting chaotically.
“Let’s see… Lady Persephone said she received the divine name [Mother of Monsters] from Lord Poseidon, and that she now also governs agriculture, growth, and abundance… But all of those are things influenced by Lady Demeter and Lord Poseidon, aren’t they?”
This was the very point that was twisting Dionysus’s mind into knots.
He did not yet understand that what a god governs and a divine name are different things.
The common opinion—shared by most gods—was that a divine name is a god’s essence or the innate disposition they are born with.
But Poseidon had defined divine name differently: a seed planted in parched soil.
A divine name was a world. Each god’s own, unique world. For humans, it was akin to an inner landscape or mindscape.
The only difference was that a god possessed an entire world within themselves, making the meaning far broader.
Naturally, the stronger the god, the more worlds they could contain.
For example, when Athena received Ares’s divine name from Poseidon and caused that seed to sprout, becoming a god of war, it was only possible because she herself already possessed the capacity, talent, and qualities to do so.
Had Athena been lacking, the divine name of war would never have awakened, or it would have remained merely a subordinate aspect of her [Wisdom].
This was also why Ares, even after his divine name had shriveled, could once again become a complete god of war.
That was precisely why Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades were so strong. Their individual raw power was tremendous, but the breadth of the worlds they contained was also unmatched by any other god.
It was already the second day since Dionysus had fallen into his reverie. Hundreds of shades now floated around him. Underworld and surface monsters alike were beginning to watch him closely.
Flash!
At that moment, he grasped a single thread of insight.
“Wait a minute—Lady Persephone also said that a new divine name related to the underworld was on the verge of being born within her, didn’t she? Could it be…?”
—Dionysus, don’t think of divine names as something so difficult, child. They are like raising and tending plants and animals. You simply have to firmly set them on the right path.
“No way!”
***
Dionysus closed his eyes and, just as his teacher had once taught him, peered into his own inner landscape.
What he saw was a vast vineyard and the sweet, dizzying scent of wine. Always before, Dionysus had only thought of tending this place, but for the first time he pushed past it, diving deeper.
After what felt like walking through a long, dark passage, he finally saw them at the very bottom—small, glowing orbs.
Dionysus carefully descended and reached out to grasp one of the orbs.
Flash.
A brilliant light burst through his inner landscape and began to pulse.
Thump-thump-thump.
It was a beautiful purple wine, yet also crimson madness; it was abundance, yet also frenzied ecstasy.
“Ah! So this is the world a true god sees!!”
The seeds that had only been superficially tended until now were finally planted deep within his mindscape, and at last a single complete world began to grow.
Dionysus had finally ascended to the seat of a true god.
And the birth of a new world rippled across the entire cosmos.
“Haha, no wonder demigods are inevitably stronger than ordinary humans. The difference between one born already holding a divine seed and one who isn’t is simply too vast.”
Creating something from nothing and creating something from something that already exists—the gap between those two acts is immeasurable.
“So unlike humans, we are born already carrying the seed!”
Now everything that had blocked Dionysus’s path became perfectly visible.
Even the labyrinth that disordered the mind and sealed the way could no longer bar him.
Dionysus walked straight ahead in a perfectly straight line toward the Corycion Cave where Zeus was imprisoned.
“Father, I have come to rescue you.”
Zeus, lying sprawled with grievous wounds and his sinews torn out, let out a quiet exclamation of wonder.
“That child… has truly become a god.”
***
While Dionysus became a complete god and successfully freed Zeus,
Those on Typhon’s side were still in utter disarray—too preoccupied to even think about the prison holding Zeus.
Originally they would have stationed the Gigante Delphyne to guard it, but at this point even a single one of her was too precious to spare…
“Lord Typhon… is he going to be all right?”
“No, recovery doesn’t look easy. The wound he took from Poseidon is simply too deep.”
“Damn it all… Eurymedon! If you had stepped in just a little sooner, Lord Typhon would never have ended up like this!”
Garm roared in fury at Eurymedon as he looked upon Typhon, whose wounds from repeated battles were no longer healing.
In Garm’s eyes, Eurymedon had more than enough power to have intervened in the fight between Poseidon and Typhon.
Above all, neither the Olympians nor the sea goddesses even knew of Eurymedon’s existence.
“Hmm… I find that hard to agree with. Aren’t we forgetting one opponent?”
“…What?”
“Hades.”
“……”
Garm froze the instant he heard the completely unexpected name.
Hades was certainly not friendly toward Typhon’s side, but he wasn’t exactly hostile either… was he?
Moreover, as far as they knew, hadn’t Hades personally visited the sea goddess Eurynome to declare his stance?
***
“Heh, that mangy cur is probably thinking exactly that. Hahaha.”
“No matter how you look at it, isn’t the King of the Underworld being a little too shameless?”
Thanatos sighed as he gazed at the piles of spellbooks, divine artifacts, and jewels stacked high beside Hades.
Even if he was king, he should at least keep up appearances—pretending to be friendly to their faces, only to stab them spectacularly in the back.
“Thanatos, profit comes before pride. Zeus lost intangible things in a single defeat, Poseidon gained those same intangible things through victory, and I, as god of the underworld and wealth, simply took what I could see with my own eyes.”
Saying so, Hades smiled with deep satisfaction.
“Since when did I ever have to listen to the words of nobodies I’ve never even heard of? The war against Zeus is something we’ll win with our own strength, and that’s that.”
As he spoke those words, green flames sparked in Hades’s eyes, and countless souls swirled around him like a cloak.
Watching him, Persephone shook her head in resignation.
She had felt it ever since he asked her to bear him capable children—this man was simply impossible to like.
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