Night had been thinking earlier that no matter how many layers of disguise covered his true identity, there would eventually come a day when it slipped out.
Before that day, kill as many Greek heroes as possible.
His primary targets were naturally those who either held a pivotal role in the alliance or whose deaths would cause maximum internal disruption to the Greek side.
Palamedes was exactly that kind of ticking bomb.
He intended to detonate Odysseus's scandal early and send the legend of the Odyssey down a different path entirely.
Odysseus, beloved of the gods, would ultimately commit an unforgivable crime.
If the current Odysseus was still only harboring thoughts, and the act against Palamedes was something that might happen in the future,
Then Night was going to hand him the knife himself right now.
And through this whole process, he wouldn't even need to meet with Odysseus personally.
Thinking it through carefully, he could certainly find a way to collude with the scoundrel and get it done more smoothly than in the myths, leaving no trace behind.
But that would also bind him and Odysseus to the same ship.
The moment Odysseus was exposed afterward, he would be exposed too.
That said, it didn't matter.
A new bold idea had already formed in his mind.
One that nobody would think of, one nobody would suspect, airtight and untraceable.
As long as the heroes and gods here still hadn't suspected his identity, they would never think to look in his direction.
Because
Night looked toward Troy, thought of the instruction he left, telling Hector to spare anyone wearing Achilles's armor, and a faint curve appeared at the corner of his mouth.
It seemed there was a different way to kill someone now.
Very soon, when Patroclus walked alongside Night and Ajax in Achilles's armor toward Agamemnon's tent,
Soldiers and heroes who caught sight of the armor all assumed Achilles had finally come out.
His beeline toward Agamemnon's location immediately set every hero on edge.
This didn't look like someone going to hand over armor.
Was Achilles going after Agamemnon again?
Heroes started streaming toward Agamemnon's camp from all directions.
By then Patroclus had already conveyed every demand and condition to Agamemnon, exactly as they discussed.
During this process, more and more heroes arrived.
When they realized the one wearing the armor was Patroclus and not Achilles himself, undisguised hostility and irritation showed on their faces.
Patroclus?
How does he have the armor?
What right does he have?
Had Agamemnon already decided to hand it to him?
Not Diomedes the strong, not the wise Odysseus, but this man?
The heroes were having none of it.
Then they heard what Patroclus said next.
When they understood why he had come, the heroes got noticeably agitated.
So Achilles had apparently agreed to let another warrior wear the armor?
For a moment, a very real possibility of actually getting that divine set flashed before all of them, and excitement started spreading fast.
Heroes began siding with Patroclus, urging Agamemnon to complete the exchange quickly so Patroclus and Achilles would willingly hand it over.
Achilles himself agreed to this!
That meant they could compete for the armor with a clear conscience, without worrying about the demigod's revenge afterward.
At this point, Agamemnon's expression had darkened to something past the color of a pig's liver.
It was thoroughly ugly.
Not two days ago, Griffith had walked off with a considerable amount of his wealth and soldiers, and now even someone as insignificant as Patroclus thought he could squeeze money out of him?!
He roared: "You filthy lowlife.
Who gave you the nerve to negotiate terms with your king?
I'll show you right now who rules here!!"
He looked at his herald. "Call the soldiers and take this guy down."
He might hesitate when facing Achilles directly.
But this was just Patroclus.
Wasn't this practically someone delivering the armor straight into his arms?
He had no way to take the armor by force from Achilles, but Patroclus?
It was a completely different story.
Just that morning Nestor had come to him with a plan, saying that through Patroclus he could get Achilles to agree to let the armor go out, just requiring Patroclus to take on the identity of Achilles and lead the troops alone.
And now Patroclus showed up at his door with these demands?
Even Achilles himself wouldn't dare push this far, let alone someone like Patroclus.
How outrageous.
As his herald Talthybius moved with soldiers to surround Patroclus,
Ajax instinctively raised his shield to put himself between them.
Hm...there's one thing worth noting that when Palamedes was later framed and destroyed, Ajax was the only person who, while not having stood at his side, refused to let others stop him from collecting the body afterward.
Inside, he genuinely struggled to believe a fellow warrior could be a traitor.
Ajax carried a deep sense of justice and a genuinely good heart.
Even for someone like Patroclus, he was willing to stand in the way.
With the situation about to explode and a fight seconds away,
The watching heroes wore various expressions, but not one of them moved, all staying in spectator mode, each clearly calculating their own angles.
At this moment, Night, who had been hoping the Greek side would descend into chaos, did not take the opportunity to stoke it further.
Instead, he stepped forward and placed himself between both sides.
Yes, he wanted the Greek camp to fall apart, but not this way.
And given his current position, staying entirely uninvolved wasn't an option either.
Night needed the plan to follow its intended course.
He called loudly for both sides to lower their weapons and, in the middle of it, plucked the lyre strings once, releasing a devastating shockwave.
The wave of force struck the soldiers like a gust of wind, leaving them completely unharmed, but every weapon in their hands clattered to the ground.
The scene made a number of heroes widen their eyes in genuine shock.
If this were a battlefield,
What just happened to those soldiers, standing there stripped of their weapons, would have been obvious.
This was a devastating tool.
"You! Hero Griffith, do you dare defy the orders of our king?" The herald, whose own weapon had been knocked away, demanded furiously.
He reached to pick it back up and continue.
But Agamemnon, reversing his previous fury completely, suddenly broke out in a cold sweat and shouted, "Talthybius, stand down!"
.
.
.
(End of the Chapter)