The air trembled, like the resonance of a vast and solemn army taking one unified step forward, a shaking that moved the earth.
Terrifying thunder formed a mural across the sky, building the backdrop of a stormy night.
The world shifted from light to shadow far too fast.
The god-king's anger. The world changed.
Suddenly, a rainstorm began across the earth.
The rain carried that immense and suffocating authority, drumming drop by drop against the cheeks of soldiers and heroes alike, stinging the skin.
As the thunder grew louder and more rapid, the rain intensified.
In the end it merged into a dense curtain of driving rain, piercing the fragile hearts of every weaker being below.
They felt fear. They felt dread. Under an anger that resembled a natural disaster, the impulse to fall to their knees and submit rose in all of them.
The great god Zeus.
Even without having appeared yet, the crushing pressure could already be felt, as though the world itself was tilting and bearing down on everything.
Night stood alongside the other heroes, bowing slightly, feeling the terrible weight of it.
The threat was enough to send a shiver through anyone.
If this anger could not be calmed, something deeply and profoundly wrong was coming.
Every hero's instincts told them this without words.
But before any of them could react,
A voice of immense authority descended from the sky, cold and without emotion, delivering judgment like a death sentence.
"Hero Palamedes. Why did you conceal your identity and take the field disguised as Achilles in his place?
In the name of the god-king Zeus, I will bring down severe punishment upon those who have deceived and shown contempt toward the gods."
Divine punishment.
The worst-case outcome had arrived anyway.
The god-king Zeus had spoken it aloud himself.
As someone who had always been under Zeus's particular care and protection, Odysseus knew the character of this god-king better than most.
He was the god who despised being deceived by humans above all things.
The most magnanimous of gods and the most petty.
The most gentle and reasonable and the most brutal.
When pleased, he would extend a hand even to a beggar, granting them unlimited wealth, power, and strength. When angered, he was far more terrifying.
Even Prometheus, one of the elder Titans and a bearer of the name of wise prophet, suffered for nothing more than helping humans obtain fire.
Zeus chained him to a mountain to have his liver eaten each day, an endless torment.
He loved humanity greatly.
He had reached out to mortals countless times, even helping to build the city-state of Troy in that unfamiliar land, raising up a new civilization from the ground.
But he was equally arrogant.
He would not permit humans to deceive him in any way.
He would not allow humans to use fire, which only gods were worthy of.
He did not permit even the slightest act of irreverence toward the gods.
Any thought that displeased him could bring down world-ending thunder or catastrophe.
One person's transgression could be made into a punishment for all of humanity to bear.
Facing a principal god like this, if a satisfying answer could not be given to calm his anger, even if Zeus chose not to act immediately, he would settle every account in due time.
Fortunately this was not yet the absolute worst case.
Zeus spoke specifically about Palamedes taking Achilles's place in the fight, not about the fact that Achilles had not been there from the start.
Night noticed this at the same time.
He also thought of something.
The gods would certainly never admit that they also misjudged and misidentified a hero.
Right now it was only a mortal's "overestimation of one's own abilities" disguise, an attempt to deceive the gods into participating in the battle.
But the former was a different matter entirely.
That would prove the gods' incompetence.
Not even being able to recognize a true hero at a glance.
Was that not incompetence?
It was clear that Zeus's current fury also mixed in some part of shame-turned-rage, along with a desperate effort to conceal the fact that none of them noticed from the start that the Greek side had a fake Achilles.
Since the God-King wanted to hide this matter, his fury was not actually as high as it outwardly appeared.
With appropriately chosen words, there was a chance to calm Zeus's anger.
But...
How should one say it? Odysseus was in a panic.
Night, however, was completely calm and composed, after all...
'Why the hell is this my problem?!
Though he noticed this point, he had absolutely no intention of stepping forward with any ideas.
He actually hoped the Greek camp would completely enrage Zeus and bring divine punishment down upon themselves.
If things went according to his earlier speculation...
Either way, if Zeus only needed one side to lose as an excuse to go and found Rome...
Then letting Agamemnon lose and take his people off to the Mediterranean to grow grapes was not such a bad outcome?!
And at this moment...
Overwhelmed by Zeus's divine might, the Greek heroes, as those caught up in the situation, could not calm their minds enough to think clearly.
Even one as wise as Odysseus, who could see the situation from the same perspective as Night, was too tense in that moment to think of words that could calm Zeus's anger.
And Palamedes, who always carried a reputation for wisdom, if he were in full condition, might have been able to save himself.
He could have cried out some great truth again and gone on and on about it, spoken of the injustice he suffered and the misery of being made a scapegoat, and then shifted the blame.
But now, having lost a great deal of blood, freshly stabbed a dozen or more times in a fit of revenge by Paris, Palamedes was already so weak his face was as pale as paper.
Under Zeus's pressure, he suddenly failed to draw the next breath and was knocked unconscious by the immense weight of it all.
Seeing how utterly useless Palamedes turned out to be.
The gods above all showed expressions of disappointment.
"Odysseus, you come forward in place of Palamedes and give an explanation." Zeus's voice rang out again, devoid of any emotion.
That authoritative voice, set against the backdrop of thunder and storm, was like the scythe of death itself coming to collect a soul.
Odysseus kept his face perfectly composed, but inside he was filled with nothing but bitterness.
No. Why is it me again?!
Why did every piece of bad luck fall on him.
And just as he racked his brains trying to figure out how to smooth things over...
Up in the heavens, the goddess of beauty, Aphrodite, suddenly spoke.
"Great Father Zeus.
Palamedes fought in the name of Achilles as his replacement.
Their act of deceiving the gods is without question deserving of punishment.
That is a fact no explanation can change.
But I think...
Rather than how to punish these mortals, what is more important is whether this duel should continue.
The battle only reached its halfway point before stopping, and the most exciting parts are all still to come.
I imagine even you find this rather unsatisfying."
The question Aphrodite raised was very constructive.
The gods rarely gathered together like this, watching the humans and heroes on the ground fight with all their strength, showing their valor in this "game."
For it to come to such a dramatic and premature end would truly be a shame.
Though no one quite understood what the goddess of beauty meant by suddenly saying this.
But Hermes, who served as both the god of entertainment and a devoted admirer, was the first one who could not hold back and stepped forward to agree. "Indeed, Father God! Stopping the duel like this seems quite a waste."
With someone to start, the other gods also stepped forward one after another to speak.
Though when they first learned they were deceived, their immediate reaction was also great fury.
But then they thought about the entertainment just ending like this?
No way!
How about just letting them keep fighting?!
Punishing them after it all ends was not too late either, right?
Zeus, who was equally a willful and self-indulgent God-King and no less a lover of entertainment himself, instantly felt more than half his fury extinguish.
After all, it really seemed like the right call.
But if that was the case, the first round of battle, which played out like such a farce, could not be counted.
A new hero from the Greek side needed to be selected.
...So who would it be?
.
.
.
(End of the Chapter)