Up above, Artemis had not yet shown herself or acted.
Though she had been furious at first, already poised to draw her bow and shoot down these wretched creatures to save Night,
When she watched the male crew members resist for not even a moment before tumbling one after another off the deck and swimming toward the sirens,
She nearly turned her arrow on the shameless sailors instead.
Even with enchanted song involved, its primary target was not these ordinary men.
With even a little willpower, never mind ten days or half a month, holding out for even a few minutes was something they should have been capable of.
It was almost certain that these men yielded without the faintest resistance the moment they were tempted.
As if hesitating for even half a second were an insult to them.
Artemis was simply curious about how Night would respond.
Was he the type who could not take even the slightest temptation?
However, if that were the case, he wouldn't have refused Apollo's priestess and those princesses without a thought.
Fortunately, after watching for a moment, she felt a small sense of relief.
As the primary target of the attack, Night was still standing on the deck.
But down below, the sirens had no patience left.
Looking at the motionless figure, they sent their song directly at the hull, steering the ship to crash against the rocks.
Boom!!
With a tremendous impact, the vessel slammed into the reef and shattered into pieces instantly.
But even that was not enough to kill him.
Setting aside Artemis and Apollo, who were already quietly prepared to intervene,
In the instant the ship exploded, as Night fell through the air toward the surface, the battle instincts refined through his transformation under Rome's land blessing had already kicked in on their own.
In midair his body adjusted itself automatically, and he finished with a clean flip and landed steadily on one knee.
His consciousness was still submerged in the enchantment, but his body had executed a flawless sequence of movements worthy of a top gymnast.
He slowly rose to his feet, and this gave the sirens quite a shock.
They nearly thought he had broken through the charm and was coming to kill them.
Normally bullying ordinary people was easy enough, but against a genuine hero, their slender arms and legs offered no real resistance.
The fright also made their singing stop short for a moment before they scrambled to resume it.
To their relief, Night's body only swayed slightly and then went still again.
And so he stood there without moving.
A few of the sirens began adding physical gestures to the allure, beckoning him to come closer on his own.
They slipped into the water and played there.
Finally, they watched him take a step forward, both feet entering the water.
Seeing the scene, a flash of satisfaction crossed their faces, but the coldness and cruelty behind their eyes deepened even further.
They were already growing eager to taste a hero's blood.
.
.
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Meanwhile, inside the illusion, Night's consciousness had sunk completely into darkness.
The sirens' enchanting song, strengthened by divine power, became something truly terrifying.
It was no longer a matter of simple mental resistance.
Even if someone were aware that something was wrong, the song would continue working over time, forcibly twisting and rewriting their thoughts.
When your very sense of self begins to break down, can you even trust whether your own memories are accurate?
People do not doubt their own memories.
This deepest layer of mental rewriting was also the most inescapable.
It had to be said, Night was hit by something he never saw coming.
Even Odysseus and Orpheus, the two heroes who had once crossed the sirens' waters, would have fallen here if they faced this version.
Sealing their ears with wax would do nothing against a song that rose from within the soul itself.
Listening to that beautiful female voice, Night, inside the illusion, walked quite naturally toward the pool where the girls were.
But unlike the sailors who rushed toward the sirens with faces twisted by filth, his expression was calm and cold.
After the sirens found that simple allure was not working, they tried a different approach, letting him hear the song again inside the illusory world to pull him into an even deeper layer of enchantment.
And so,
His consciousness sank further, like a nightmare nested inside a dream.
At the deepest layer of his awareness, what lay before him was a world of darkness without any sunlight and an endless blizzard underfoot.
The far end of the road held no light at all, only a lightless horizon that seemed capable of swallowing everything human, like a great open abyss waiting patiently to pull him in and consume him.
The sirens' power was limited, and they could not continue influencing and weaving this deeper layer of mental space.
And so,
The world here appeared as desolate, broken, and terrifying as it did.
But at least this place was not distorted.
After all, in dreams, scenes that violate the laws of physics, strange and impossible combinations, can appear together in any arrangement.
That kind of incomprehensible, murky, bitter chaos, seen for too long, could shatter a person's sanity.
Rather than dying to the enchantment, someone might die to the mental collapse itself.
"Where is this?"
With that thought, Night looked up at a starless sky.
The place was desolate, like a world with no life in it whatsoever.
A thought drifted quietly through his mind.
"When the world is on the verge of ruin and all things are approaching their end, and your own life will soon be frozen forever in the near future,
Would you choose to pray to the gods for spiritual comfort, give yourself over to pleasure and let fate decide, or abandon all dignity and morality in pursuit of the one remaining hope of survival?"
Surrounded by such a world and enveloped in overwhelming solitude, and since this was the subconscious, it seemed as though any choice made here could be understood and forgiven.
Yet even under the guiding questions of what felt like a voice rising from within,
Night showed not the slightest sign of unraveling.
Abandon all dignity and morality and choose hope?
A boring choice.
A person who abandoned dignity and morality was no different from an animal.
Surviving on that kind of black hope would inevitably mean losing oneself entirely.
Night was no great righteous hero, but he still wanted to at least remain human.
As for praying to the gods or surrendering to pleasure, there was even less to say about those.
Knowing what most gods were actually like, anyone who still placed expectations in those figures had to have something wrong with their head.
At least in this world, there were very few gods worth relying on.
It's better to believe in him than in anyone else.
After all, he would never betray himself.
Anyway, even if he achieved nothing,
"Enjoying life" sounded decent enough.
But compared to the options laid out before him, Night did not want to choose any of them.
Why did he need to answer a question like this at all?
Why did he have to choose from a set of predetermined answers?
If fate went from something fixed and unchanging to something selectable yet still unchanging, losing the infinite possibility that was inherent to being human,
Then this piece of garbage, fate, and the world along with it, in the end, should just be destroyed.
Roar!!
And at that moment, from behind him, Night heard a terrifying and savage roar, like a great beast surging forward.
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