Chapter 128: Perseus (20)
The moment Perseus achieved enlightenment, Diogenes’s subordinates could no longer stop him.
No, to be precise, nothing they tried worked anymore.
The tide had completely turned—Perseus was now unilaterally on the offensive.
“Arrrgh!”
“This is insane—he’s growing in real time!!”
“Run! Forget territory or anything—life is more important!!!”
“Retreat! Retreat!!!”
Among the many gods, the authority that inspired fear and awe in earthly races alongside Zeus and Hades revealed a portion of itself through Perseus’s hands.
Countless ice particles lowered the surrounding temperature, slowing movements. Water orbs created by Perseus’s will spun in all directions, forming a massive dome as they began striking those around him.
Ugh!
“Aaaargh!!”
Crack!!!
One by one, Diogenes’s subordinates collapsed.
Diogenes’s face hardened at the sight.
He hated to admit it, but watching the brat he had underestimated achieve enlightenment and grow in real time evoked terror, jealousy, and an inexplicable reverence he couldn’t understand himself.
“Damn it! Why did a monster like that come after me! What the hell did I do wrong!!”
Diogenes raged at the Moirai goddesses who decided human fate.
No one had lived as diligently and passionately as he had—why was this happening to him!
“I didn’t plan to go this far, but it’s all your fault for failing to stop that brat properly. Don’t resent me too much.”
Ω, φρίκτον θηρίο ν κ τ ο βυθοῦ
(O, dreadful beast that crawled from the abyss)
Ἐννέα κεφαλα φεω, ναο β λάστησις
(Nine serpent heads, endlessly sprouting life)
Δίδωμι ν θάδ ε
(I offer here)
—Aeternam Vitam (Eternal life)
With a grotesque voice, a phantom of a monster—mix of dragon, snake, and lizard with nine heads—emanated from Diogenes.
Half his already reptilian body now completely shed its humanity.
Those who had felt no hope against the growing Perseus and were fleeing fast halted involuntarily at his bizarre transformation.
How many could keep running upon seeing a body swelling, scales sprouting on skin, head turning into a dark-green serpent’s, neck elongating?
Eventually, lizard legs burst from the balloon-like swollen body, and the elongated neck and dragon head halted halfway—ending in a grotesque half-human, half-dragon form.
— Grr… Not enough offerings, so I ended up like this. But no worry—the remaining offerings are right here.
Having completed the transformation, Diogenes began devouring his groaning subordinates on the floor.
Most had been injured rather than killed in the fight with Perseus—fitting for those of high realm. This time, it became their poison.
Diogenes started swallowing them alive.
In short, they became living sacrifices offered to the monster he served.
“Arrrgh! Run!”
“No, fight! Escaping that monster is impossible.”
Shocked at Diogenes devouring the fallen, his subordinates panicked, not knowing what to do.
No matter how strange and eccentric this world—with monsters and superhumans—how many could stay calm when their master suddenly turned monstrous and ate his own men?
Perseus sighed and relaxed his stance at the apparent internal strife.
Looking at their state, he no longer felt like fighting.
Above all, Perseus could see it: Diogenes’s transformed body collapsing and regenerating in real time.
The issue was that collapse was microscopically faster than regeneration—and Diogenes hadn’t noticed yet.
“Pathetic. All this chaos just to deal with a guy like this.”
Perseus now sat on the floor, watching their spectacle.
He figured he should at least witness the final struggle of a guy about to pop like a balloon.
***
A long while later,
Diogenes had devoured all his subordinates.
A few had escaped, but most became living sacrifices to Hydra.
— Grrp. With this, my body has taken another step closer to Lord Hydra. But… why didn’t you run, priest of Poseidon, Perseus?
Diogenes thrust his now even more bloated torso and lizard-like face toward Perseus.
In his mind, the brat should have fled long ago—yet there he sat calmly on the floor.
From Diogenes’s viewpoint, that was infuriating and unpleasant.
—Still unpleasant and irritating. I want to tear you apart. But I can’t help acknowledging your potential. To think someone who can truly grow exists. So for you alone, I’ll swallow you in one painless bite—as repayment for helping me take another step closer to that one.
Perseus felt the full extent of Diogenes’s ugliness as he watched him maintain arrogance from beginning to end.
Above all, it rivaled the ugliness of Polydectes he had seen. The difference was that Polydectes lacked talent and power, while Diogenes had gained some through a contract.
Perseus stared at Diogenes—grinning repulsively in a form neither human nor monster.
With that, Perseus firmly set his own path.
The world was easier for people like Polydectes and Diogenes to rampage in than he thought.
“So there are many like you, differing only in degree of power. Therefore, I…”
Perseus flung needle-like water droplets at Diogenes.
Stab.
Trusting in his regeneration as always, Diogenes took the attack with his body again.
But that arrogance led to a massive mistake.
“…will deal with it. Thank you. I have a goal now. I’ll gather those you consider worthless, support them, help them grow—and in the end, drag down every one like you.”
—What? Suddenly spouting madman nonsense…
Diogenes couldn’t finish his sentence mocking Perseus’s mad words. More precisely, he couldn’t continue as he tried to sneer.
His body began rapidly shriveling like a deflating balloon.
The tiny needles Diogenes had taken trusting regeneration were pure extreme poison.
Mixed with Poseidon’s authority and Perseus’s intent, they burst Diogenes’s bloated body from the inside.
Moreover—unknown to both Perseus and Diogenes—
That authority and intent had severed the contract between Diogenes and Hydra.
More accurately, Hydra had unilaterally cut the power for some reason, closer to that…
Pop!
Starting with a sound like a balloon bursting.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
Rapid explosions rang from inside Diogenes’s body as it began shrinking.
—Argh! What the hell did you do to my body!!
“Nothing, sorry, really nothing. I just made a path for the things you couldn’t digest to burst out.”
—Bullshit!!! Everything I swallowed was an offering to Lord Hydra. To say I couldn’t digest it—don’t deceive me with nonsense!!!
“Well. Maybe the Hydra you believe in didn’t want the offerings.”
With Perseus’s final words, Diogenes shrank so rapidly he could no longer retort.
The problem was that while the swollen insides deflated, the outer skin remained.
It resembled Atlas bearing the sky.
Of course, Diogenes—crushed under his own skin—was far uglier, and unlike Atlas, he clearly couldn’t bear it.
“Tsk tsk tsk. Crushed under the weight of his own skin. Waiting to die slowly like that must be agonizing. It would have been cleaner to die by my hand.”
—Argh! Save me, Perseus. If you spare me, I’ll tell you where everything I hid is. Save me!!!
Diogenes—flattened unable to bear his skin’s weight—looked exactly like someone crumbling under his own karma.
“The end feels too anticlimactic, leaving a bad taste. Sigh… Still, glad it’s cleaned up neatly? Let’s go find Njord quickly.”
With Perseus’s lament tinged with emptiness, continuous groans echoed from inside the massive reptilian hide.
***
In the deep swamps of the forest near Argos—deeply connected to Perseus—a legend spoke of a dragon with a massive tail and body living there.
The dragon was covered in dark-green scales, greeting outsiders with nine heads and one golden head.
And now those nine heads and one golden head were watching Perseus.
—Tasty nutrients kept coming endlessly from that child. Is it right to give up like this?
—Then oppose him?
—True. Not easy.
—What’s there to fear? Just a god.
—…Did we have a mad head like this among us? Might need to burst it and get a new one.
—Tsk, seventh, understand. You’re newly grown.
—More importantly, what does our main body think?
—Yes. In the end, we exist because of you.
Perseus thought Hydra simply lost interest in Diogenes, severing the contract and allowing his intent-mixed poison to work.
But…
To be precise, the nine heads of Hydra were watching both Diogenes and Perseus with regret.
For Hydra, Diogenes had been a decent contractor.
He faithfully offered sacrifices and supplied fairly high-quality humans and other races as food. From their perspective, he was a good business partner.
Abandoning him just because he antagonized a priest of Poseidon left them with much regret.
—If we lend our power now, it doesn’t seem impossible to kill that brat Perseus—the gods’ favored little one.
—True. His real-time growth is interesting, but he’s still lacking.
—And if we erase all our traces, it should be fine?
—Or how about we devour that Perseus ourselves? We can still use this lump.
—That’s good! Looking closely, that Perseus kid seems like he’d increase our power.
—I agree. Looks tasty.
—Me too!
—Me too!!
—I agree.
In an instant, the nine heads decided among themselves and prepared to act.
Then the golden head—which had been silent until now, more olive-toned and appearing the wisest—spoke.
“Stop. I forbid it.”
At that, all nine heads turned to it—with highly dissatisfied eyes.
—Even if you’re our main body, this outrage is unacceptable.
—Right, right. Swallowing that kid feels like something would change.
—And he looks delicious too.
—It’d be easy too. We can just reconnect the contract with the still-living contractor.
—And Poseidon doesn’t care about his priests anyway.
—True, Poseidon is like that.
—But Mother might get angry. She protects Poseidon’s priests.
—That’s true. Mother likes Poseidon.
—But why do some exalt Poseidon and others don’t?
The olive-golden head—the main body—closed its eyes as if its head ached from the noisy spare heads chattering.
Even though each spoke only one line, it was like nine humans shouting randomly.
“Grr! Everyone quiet!!”
At the main body’s roar, the chattering nine heads shut their mouths and glared with discontent.
[[[…….]]]
The main head, accustomed to such glares, ignored them.
But at their persistent stares, it eventually had to explain the rational reason it had severed the contract.
Though it was the main body, each head was also itself.
Sigh… I didn’t want to say this if possible… but no choice…
“Listen well. That kid had Poseidon’s token. And there was the gaze of the mage watching us. The mage rumored among gods as Poseidon’s illegitimate child and Demeter’s lover was watching us.”
—What? Poseidon’s token!!!
—Damn, we almost got screwed!
—Don’t use such cheap language. It’s undignified.
—More surprising is Poseidon’s illegitimate child… If that’s true, it’s not easy to touch.
—Hmm… And accurately sensing us from Athens to this swamp…
—Means it’s really interesting.
—Extremely so.
—Above all, he’d be delicious. Eating a human like that—might even match Zeus?
—That’s impossible. Speak sensibly.
[[[But I want to eat him!]]]
With that, the nine heads stared piercingly somewhere—drooling.
The drool hitting the ground emitted acrid smoke, but the nine heads were too fixated to care.
‘Sigh… This is why I didn’t want to say it… We can’t even go anyway. We can only send an avatar now. And an avatar can’t beat the mage.’
Hydra’s golden main body was cold-headed.
It was obvious how many eyes would turn if it left the swamp personally.
Even if it did, meeting the mage would be impossible.
‘We’d meet the Olympians first.’
Moreover, Hydra had one contract with Poseidon.
‘More loss than gain…’
“It is regrettable. If not for that mage, an avatar could have swallowed him.”
Hydra watched the mage meeting its gaze, swallowed regret, and closed its eyes.
If it kept watching, even it might grow greedy like the other heads.
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