Seven days later, in the primordial ocean.
The stars in the sky had vanished.
Chaotic masses of matter constantly surged and writhed, squeezing and colliding with one another.
Thick fog covered the water's surface.
Countless grotesque deep-sea monsters slammed into each other and tore at one another, engaged in frenzied slaughter at every moment.
Lorne stood in the air, looking at this savage world where sky and earth blurred together, his face full black lines as he cursed inwardly.
She really can run!
He had chased that woman for seven full days and nights, first from Thebes across half the Peloponnese peninsula, then crossing the outer and inner seas of Okeanos, and finally arriving at the primordial ocean where the world's laws were not yet fully stabilized, yet he had not even caught a single hair of Eris!
If he had not been certain that the one ahead was the Goddess of Discord Eris, Lorne would have thought he was racing against the God of Speed Hermes.
However, after such a long chase, he had discovered one problem with the [Goat].
This thing was good at running through complex terrain and was quite agile, but its endurance was limited, and it was not suited for long-distance flight.
It was precisely for this reason that several times when he had almost caught up to Eris, the woman would flap her wings and slip away right under his nose.
Speaking of which, those wings of hers, they wouldn't have grown specifically for running away after getting beaten too many times, right?
Lorne maliciously mocked someone in his heart while looking around.
Soon, a large stretch of lead-gray thick clouds on the right front caught his attention.
Inside the layers of lightning that shuttled through the thick clouds, a familiar blood-red color was hidden.
Found you!
Lorne gave a cold snort and immediately rushed forward, ready to drag Eris out from inside and beat her up.
However, the closer he got to those lead-gray dark clouds, the stronger a certain ominous premonition became.
Wait, she caused trouble but did not go to Olympus to find Zeus to settle it, instead choosing to travel thousands of miles to the primordial ocean...
And just now she was running quite happily, why suddenly...
Thinking of this, the restless blood in Lorne's body instantly cooled as he turned around and fled without any hesitation.
Then a golden [Goat] shot across the chaotic masses in the sky like a meteor and vanished into the distance.
Immediately, Eris, hiding inside the lead-gray thick clouds, was stunned.
'He discovered me?'
Then the goddess of calamity flew into a rage.
'Chasing me until I was so miserable, and you still want to run? No way!'
"Grab him!"
Following Eris's order, the surrounding lead-gray thick clouds split into three streams and transformed into three tall, strange women draped in black gauze.
They had snake hair on their heads, blood tears flowed from their eyes, wings grew from their shoulders, and they held torches and viper whips.
They emitted low hisses, rolled up scarlet blood clouds, and rapidly surged toward the fleeing prey in the distance.
Sensing three terrifying auras rapidly approaching from behind, Lorne glanced back with the corner of his eye and immediately felt his scalp go numb, cursing inwardly.
Damn, the three Furies!
There really was an ambush!
The so-called three Furies were:
The Goddess of "Restlessness" Alecto;
The Goddess of "Grudge", Megaera;
The Goddess of "Vengeance" Tisiphone...
Collectively, they were called "Erinyes," also known as "the angry ghosts."
They were gods born when the sky father Uranus was castrated, and his blood spilled into the primordial ocean, thereby obtaining the divine authority of revenge and retribution.
Therefore, the three Furies would often ascend to the earth to pursue murderers, especially those who killed blood relatives, tormenting their consciences until they went mad with frenzy.
In the underworld, they were also responsible for punishing the souls of the sinful and were the gods most feared by the Greeks.
As for why Eris could mix with these three freaks and reach a cooperation, Lorne thought for a moment and roughly guessed the reason.
Discord creates suspicion and slaughter.
And those two things are the hotbed that breeds hatred and revenge.
Therefore, their divinities and interests were strongly linked.
It was not strange for them to form an alliance or establish cooperation.
If he remembered correctly, in the "Seven Against Thebes" incident that Eris would personally orchestrate in the future, six of the seven heroes died.
After the king of Argos, Adrastus, the initiator, held funerals for the fallen heroes, he built a temple for the Furies outside the city of Thebes.
Ten years later, the next generation of heroes marched on Thebes again to avenge their fathers and ultimately achieved victory, completing the revenge.
Clearly, the secret collusion between Eris and the three Furies had shown signs very early on.
No wonder this woman was heading straight for the primordial ocean.
It turned out she had three tough allies lying in ambush here.
Sensing the three thick, almost solid divine auras behind him, Lorne felt as if thorns were on his back.
He quickly activated the [Goat]'s authority further and tried hard to widen the distance.
Against one Eris, he was still confident he could handle it, with at least a sixty-forty chance of winning.
But the three Furies, born from the blood of the first-generation sky father Uranus, were of the same generation as the twelve Titans and held the authority of vengeance.
Their combat power could be imagined.
He would find even one difficult to deal with, let alone three?
Plus Eris watching covetously from the side.
Was he supposed to stay and wait for dinner instead of running?
Seeing the distance constantly shrinking, Eris immediately snorted with satisfaction.
"Dare to chase me?
When I catch you, you bastard, watch me hang you up and whip you!"
As she spoke, the three Furies swung their arms together and lashed out with their viper whips.
One after another, venomous snakes manifested from concepts shot out from the whips.
Between Eris and the three Furies, who was the dominant one was obvious.
Detecting the dense sounds of breaking air behind him, Lorne did not dare to be careless.
He immediately summoned the [Warrior], stirred the divine power in his body, and swung the [Spear of Nation Founding] backward in a blocking turn.
In an instant, hundreds of colorful venomous snakes were all shattered and turned into a sky full of blood-red mist.
Watching the scarlet mist pass through the spear's block and gather toward him, Lorne's heart gave a strong warning.
Seeing a protruding island on the chaotic sea surface, he immediately withdrew the divine power maintaining "extreme speed" and plummeted downward.
At the same time, the three black-gauze-draped Furies raised their hands and chanted together.
"We are the gods of vengeance.
Here we form a pact and brand the mark. Death shall be given to the living, punishment to the guilty!"
In a flash, the gathered blood-red mist turned into a huge scarlet serpent and crashed straight toward the island below.
"Boom!"
In an instant, earth and stone flew, the ground shook, and the mountains trembled.
The entire island split into pieces and sank into the chaotic deep sea.
Two figures, one after the other, flew out from the thick smoke and firelight.
Two?
"It's you?"
"It's you!"
In mid-air, the fleeing Lorne and Thetis looked at each other in shock and could not help but stare at one another.
Soon, Thetis reacted first as she looked down at the shattered island below and could not help but accuse him in grief and indignation.
"Weren't you gone? Why did you come back again?"
Her appearance was exactly like a deeply resentful woman in the boudoir complaining about a heartless man.
"Passing by..."
Lorne answered awkwardly, then silently turned his head to look at the four figures standing in the scarlet blood color in the sky, forcing a stiff smile onto his face.
"So, I'm not familiar with her. Do you believe me?"
Eris looked at the handsome man and beautiful woman publicly showing affection before her.
Thinking of the humiliation of being rejected earlier, she gritted her silver teeth until they creaked and waved her hand forward with a sinister expression.
"Kill them. Kill them all!"
In an instant, the three Furies who received the order grinned ferociously and raised their viper whips, lashing toward the front.
Looking at the sky full of blood light and venomous snakes sweeping toward her from all directions,
Thetis, who had no idea what was going on, froze on the spot.
Just as the ocean goddess was about to be submerged by the blood color, a thunder-like roar beside her ear woke her somewhat dazed mind.
"Run!"
At the same time, a hand landed on her shoulder from behind, yanked her into the sea, and dived downward with all its might.
As the sea surface above their heads exploded into waves dozens of meters high and the cold seawater washed over her skin, Thetis finally realized her current situation.
While transforming a fish tail behind her to flee, she looked at the troublemaker beside her in grief and indignation.
"Why is there never anything good whenever I meet you!"
"I also want to know..."
Lorne felt very helpless in his heart, too.
He looked quietly at Thetis in front of him, full of confusion.
"Weren't you in the waters near Cyprus? Why did you run to the primordial ocean?"
Thetis gave a certain troublemaker who had no self-awareness a glance and answered without politeness.
"Of course, to hide from you!"
After provoking Ares and then Aphrodite, what if this troublemaker in front of her slipped up while framing Adonis and ran to the island to ask her for help again?
Wouldn't she be dragged to death by him?
For this reason, after selling out Adonis, Thetis had cautiously chosen to move overnight.
She retreated all the way from the waters near Cyprus back to the primordial ocean, planning to temporarily hide on a chosen uninhabited desert island to avoid the wind.
In the end, even after leaving the sea of Okeanos, she still ran into this disaster and was dragged into new trouble by him.
A fated entanglement...
At this moment, Lorne sighed, also looking resentful.
"The problem is, I never went back to that island at all, and I had no intention of going back."
"..."
Thetis heard the implied meaning in his words and fell silent.
The complaints she wanted to vent stuck in her throat and could not come out.
Clearly, both sides had overthought things.
They had missed each other by a twist of fate, and then met again by another twist of fate.
What else was there to say?
The fleeing Lorne and Thetis looked at each other and together let out a long, depressed sigh.
Sigh, a fated entanglement...
(End of this chapter)