The silence from Hermes lasted a while as he digested Zeus's astonishing revelation about Atlas and the ring.
He didn't dwell on it, instead shifting to a more direct question—one that had been nagging at him ever since he observed the earlier battle.
"Then why did you swap the thunderbolt?" Hermes stared at Zeus.
"I mean, in that world, when you fought that other 'Zeus', you deliberately exchanged your thunderbolt scepters. The scepter you took was clearly more powerful, but also more corrupted. Weren't you afraid of what traps might be inside?"
When Zeus heard this, he was momentarily stunned, then seemed to hear something utterly ridiculous. The mockery on his face was so intense he could barely contain it.
He laughed, full of scorn.
"Traps? Hah." He shook his head, as if pitying Hermes's 'naivety'.
"My brother Hades loves to insert his dark hand into the key points of every reincarnation. The thunderbolt for Zeus? The trident for Poseidon? These artifacts, symbols of the King of Gods' authority—how could he have done nothing to them? After hundreds of millions of reincarnations, I think all the 'gods' eventually knew what he did to the thunderbolt, but everyone tacitly acknowledged it, or else felt powerless to change it."
He looked at Hermes with a gaze that was both scrutinizing and mocking. "You, boy, claim to be clever as his son, yet you know nothing of this? Are the old-timers who have lived through reincarnations hiding things too deeply, or are you really just too inexperienced?"
Hermes coughed, displaying a rare hint of embarrassment and shame.
He was skilled at gathering information and at trickery, but his knowledge of the deepest, darkest dealings involving the Father of Gods over the endless expanse of time was limited.
Zeus's words were like a thorn, piercing a part of his hidden self-confidence.
He curled his lip and offered no further argument.
"Alright, enough chit-chat." Zeus waved his hand, as if dispersing insignificant smoke, and refocused his gaze on the increasingly terrifying energy fluctuations in the distance, the epicenter of the apocalypse.
"The message Metis sent through you was probably more than just 'I am Zeus', right? Did she say anything else? For example... what to do next?"
Hermes suppressed the unease in his heart. Zeus's casual assumption of dominance caused him intense discomfort, but he understood this was not the time to act on his own whims.
He nodded and said seriously, "The Mother Goddess only said two things. First, to confirm your identity, and to say that the 'Metis' there is temporarily suppressed by her and cannot interfere with that 'Zeus's' judgement for a short time. Second, and most importantly, when that 'Zeus' begins to direct his aim towards the depths of the earth, attempting to 'return' Gaia, that is the optimal time for our action. At that moment, he will be restrained by the earth's resistance and 'Gaia's' last instinct—a moment when his power is most focused and 'vulnerable'."
A light flashed in Zeus's eyes, the corner of his mouth curving into a cold arc. "The optimal time? My mad 'self' probably thinks he's already invincible, doesn't he? But Metis is right. Returning to the source of 'Gaia', touching the most primitive foundations of the world, even in his current state, won't be easy. It truly is an opportunity..."
He turned and glanced one last time at the charred remains in the Hall of the Hearthfire, his eyes indifferent, as if they were just an insignificant pile of ashes.
"Let's hurry. Can't miss the climax of the show."
As he spoke, ignoring everyone else, his body was wreathed in faint thunder, and he took the lead, racing towards the battlefield at a speed far exceeding the level 'Alexander' had previously shown.
Heracles, Odysseus, Theseus, and the others exchanged glances, their emotions extremely complex.
The impact of the truth, the collapse of their purpose, the uncertainty of the path ahead... but there was no time to hesitate.
Odysseus took a deep breath and said to all, "Whoever he is, whatever road lies ahead, we have no choice. Let's go!"
The heroes, along with Thalia and Eros with their varied expressions, and Hermes with his unreadable look, finally took that step towards the center of the vortex of destruction.
---
Deep within the Underworld of Chaos, in a hidden corner with an extremely fragile spatial structure.
The colossal god of time, Kronos, was currently in a posture utterly unbefitting his status. Facing a constantly shimmering spatial barrier before him, he continuously unleashed dark golden energy containing the power of temporal confusion and absorption.
Beside him, Boreas, the god of possibilities and turning points, behaved much more calmly.
He sat cross-legged on a floating obsidian platform, still toying with the knucklebones in his hand, as if reciting an old, carefree nursery rhyme:
"The bones are cast, half alive, half dead. Where does the river flow? Oh, who knows? Anyway... it will always flow where it needs to go."
Kronos stopped his bombardment and took a deep breath—though a god didn't need to breathe, the action betrayed his weariness and irritation.
He turned his head and stared at his grandson, who seemed harmless but was actually full of enigmas.
"Boy, is this really what you have me doing?" Kronos's voice was like two boulders grinding together.
"Using my power to keep bombarding the barriers between two worlds here? What's the difference between this and those Cyclopes digging ditches? I am the former King of Gods!"
Boreas looked up, an eternal smile on his face. "But, Grandfather, this is a job you must do. Only your temporal power can precisely shake this weak point, formed by the remnants of reincarnation and the grafting of the World Tree, without causing a large-scale reaction from the laws of both worlds. A Cyclops couldn't perform such a delicate 'piercing'."
"Piercing?" Kronos looked at the spatial barrier before him, which was developing more and more cracks under his continuous assault, and saw the faint space on the other side, visible through the mist of the Styx. He frowned. "Where are you trying to get through? What's on the other side?"
"A certain stretch of the Styx," Boreas said calmly, tossing the bones and watching them fall.
"It could be the River of Woe in the 'Styx', the River of Lamentation in 'Cocytus', or the River of Forgetfulness in 'Lethe'... Who knows? There's always a small margin of error in spatial coordinates. But it doesn't matter, as long as it's the Styx."
He pointed to the grey-black water vapor, permeated with bone-chilling cold and the whispers of the dead. "Listen, isn't that a shortcut? Miss 'Styx' on the other side is probably wondering why a 'leak' suddenly appeared in her riverbed."
Kronos snorted and asked no more.
He understood this grandson; behind these seemingly nonsensical words often lay a deeper purpose.
Hades and Metis tacitly approved, or even promoted this—there must be a reason.
He refocused his divine power and bombarded that point with renewed vigour.
As the last dark golden beam, tearing through time and space, struck, the barrier finally emitted a deafening, clear crack—a dark hole had appeared!
From the cave entrance came the clearer sound of the Styx, along with the breath of death, similar yet different from the Underworld of Chaos.
The cold river began to flow through the cave entrance, gurgling towards the Underworld of Chaos, forming a small waterfall in the void.
Boreas stood up, walked to the cave entrance, peered at the other side, and nodded with satisfaction. "Good, the depth is just right, right under the riverbed. Thank you for your hard work, Grandfather."
Kronos looked at the cave entrance and the otherworldly Styx water flowing through it, a thought flickering in his eyes.
"So, what next?" Kronos asked. "The passage is open. What now?"
Boreas turned, his smile turning slightly enigmatic. "Next? Then it's time to wait. Wait for the 'flame' over there... to find this 'cold water'. Or wait for the 'seeds' here... to be drawn to the 'soil' over there. The threads of fate are intertwined. We just need to observe from time to time and gently pull them."
He stopped explaining, turned, and hummed a tuneless ballad, disappearing into the shadows of the Underworld.
Kronos stood alone by the surging waters of the otherworldly Styx, staring at the deep hole. His colossal form cast a long, distorted shadow in the flickering light of the Underworld.
Ambition and time flowed silently in that moment.
---
Time returns to the 'present'—the Underworld of the other world.
Here, there was already a dead vacuum.
The once-bustling judgment hall was empty. Only a lonely, broken boat remained at the ferry dock. The wails and whispers of the dead seemed to have been completely erased by an invisible hand.
Because not long ago, almost all the gods of the Underworld, including the god of death, the god of sleep, the god of vengeance, the judges, and others, had answered the call of the primordial gods and gone out to participate in the desperate battle to besiege 'Zeus'.
Then, they never returned.
Hades had been 'heroically' and 'gravely wounded' in the battle, 'retreating helplessly' at a critical moment, and had vanished.
The other Underworld gods who participated in the war, under the terrifying swings of 'Zeus's' Wrath of Earth, melted like snow in the sun, returning to their source and becoming part of the power nourishing the mad King of Gods.
In the present Underworld, only two gods remained truly 'alive' with autonomous consciousness—'Nyx' and 'Erebus', sealed off by Hades in the deepest part.
And... the embodiment of the Styx—the goddess who was always steeped in her icy river waters.
But at this moment, the goddess 'Styx' felt no 'joy of survival' whatsoever.
She was experiencing unprecedented pain and suffering.
Not long ago, on the bank of her river, a fellow who looked very much like the dead messenger Hermes had secretly appeared.
Before she could raise a warning or ask a question, the fellow, like a garbage thrower, hurled a burning soul into the middle of the River Styx!
The flame on the soul was very unusual—not ordinary hellfire or sacred fire, but a golden-red, signifying sacrifice and purification, and interwoven with it was an unyielding dark crimson thread.
This flame seemed to be tightly fused with the soul itself, becoming part of its very existence.
Something terrible happened: the waters of the Styx, the coldest and most poisonous water that terrified even gods and could dissolve most of their power and oaths, could not extinguish the flame!
The flame burned fiercely in the river. Not only did it not weaken, it burned even 'brighter', as if provoked by the Styx's cold water.
Of course, this 'brightness' was not a sharp increase in temperature, but an intensification of its sense of existence, a kind of 'rejection' and 'purification' of the surrounding environment.
The cold river rolled and hissed as it evaporated around the flame, but it could never approach the flame's core.
Even more terrifying, the flame reacted with the Styx water in some strange way.
Instead of spreading wildly, at a constant, slow, but unstoppable speed, it began to 'heat' the vast river around it!
In a short time, the temperature of the River Styx, centered on the burning soul and within a radius of several hundred meters, rose from bone-chilling cold to an uncomfortable warmth, and it continued to rise!
As the embodiment of the River Styx, the goddess 'Styx' was one with the river.
The river was her body, her senses, her extension.
At this moment, a large part of her body was constantly 'burning' and 'heating'. This feeling was like the skin of a mortal being slowly roasted over a warm fire. The pain was not instantaneous, but a long-lasting, deeply rooted torment and weakness.
She tried to mobilize the power of the entire Styx to extinguish the flame, but to no avail.
The essence of the flame seemed to transcend the 'dissolving' power of the Styx's water.
She also tried to communicate with the burning soul, but the soul seemed to be in an autonomous, burning state, unresponsive to the outside world, only a stubborn will, like a heartbeat, flickering in the flame.
"Ugh..." The goddess Styx let out a pained moan. Her originally pale and cold face was now flushed abnormally, and her body trembled slightly in the warming river water.
She had never been so embarrassed and powerless.
This sudden calamity made her feel more terrified and desperate than all the Underworld gods who had perished in battle, because it directly attacked her very foundation.
However, whether by luck or misfortune, her painful 'relief' soon arrived.
Because 'Zeus' was coming.
After slaughtering the land and sea, defeating the siege of the primordial gods, and feeling the churning divine power within his body, which was about to explode and urgently needed 'completion', 'Zeus's' gaze finally fell upon the last divine place in the world—the Underworld, and 'Tartarus', hidden deep beneath the earth, symbolizing the infinite abyss.
He held the Wrath of Earth, still stained with divine blood, and stepped into the entrance of the Underworld.
The breath of death and decay met him, but only excited him further.
He felt that in the deepest part of this land of the dead, an ancient and still majestic origin, like a star about to fade, emitted its final temptation.
He also felt the emptiness of the Underworld and... the anomalous temperature and the soul-fire in the direction of the Styx.
"Oh? A fish that slipped through the net? Or are you playing some trick?" 'Zeus' grinned fiercely. He was full of confidence and did not think there was anything left that could threaten him.
He changed direction and headed for the Styx, intending to crush this insignificant 'anomaly' with his own hands, and then go enjoy the supreme feast of Gaia.
His footsteps echoed in the dead and silent Underworld, like the pounding of the drums of death.
The goddess Styx felt an indescribably terrifying compulsion, the screaming of slaughtered gods, and swiftly approaching complete destruction.
She looked up towards the source of the compulsion, despair flickering in her eyes.
But at least this endless 'burning' pain might soon end.
Whether burned by the flame or destroyed by this new, more terrible madman.
The figure of 'Zeus' appeared on the bank of the River Styx.