Meanwhile, while Astellon was entangled with Hippolyta, Heracles had decided that the soldiers who had followed him and Astellon to the Amazon land would spend the day aboard the ship.
Staying on the vessel, Heracles looked over the bustling deck, then stepped outside for a brief walk.
"Haa..."
Having come down from the ship and wandered about, Heracles was thinking over the next trial, considering the girdle he would obtain so easily thanks to Astellon.
"...Are you Heracles?"
"Hm?"
At that moment, hearing someone call to him from behind, he turned and looked that way.
Behind Heracles stood a beautiful female warrior, staring straight at him.
"I am. And you are...?"
Seeing a face he did not know, Heracles asked for her name.
To that question, she answered that she was one of the Amazon warriors...
"Heracles. Please spend a day with me. Help me bear a girl who resembles you."
She asked Heracles to spend a night with her.
At those words, Heracles was briefly taken aback, but after hesitating over her beautiful appearance, he eventually moved with her to a secluded place.
*
Meanwhile, Hera, watching that scene from Olympus,
"I can't stand seeing that!"
For her, the love affairs of mortals at this point in time were not worth a single star's distance, yet exceptions existed.
One of those exceptions was Astellon.
Unlike others, he approached matters of love with seriousness when he shared such moments, but most did not, and she could not look upon them favorably.
Especially the illegitimate children born of her husband Zeus's infidelity.
Thus, the sight of Heracles following after an Amazon warrior now chilled Hera's heart.
"So he really is the child of that philanderer."
As Hera said that, her eyes narrowed.
Then, in an instant, Hera's form began to change.
Her hair shifted, her gaze altered, and even the lines of her body transformed.
In the blink of an eye, she became an Amazon warrior.
"Then..."
The corner of Hera's mouth, now disguised as an Amazon warrior, twisted.
"Let's see how far you can endure."
With those words, Hera descended to the mortal world.
Then she approached the other female warriors and shouted to them, "A hero from Greece has dragged away the queen's warrior!"
"What?"
"How could he...!!"
Hera, using magic to make them believe she had always been one of them, incited the warriors, and the Amazon women, stirred by her words, moved toward the forest where Heracles was.
Once there, they found Heracles together with one of the female warriors and cried out in fury.
"That bastard actually...!"
"Die!"
Then, raising their bows, they aimed at Heracles and threatened him.
Startled, Heracles looked at the female warrior standing beside him, the one who had led him here.
"...You deceived me!"
"W-wait...!"
Believing that the warrior had tricked him into coming here, Heracles immediately swung his club down upon her head.
With that blow, the woman collapsed, blood streaming from the wound, and as the other warriors who had been aiming their bows at Heracles saw the blood soak the ground at his feet, the forest's silence was swallowed by screams and murderous intent.
"He killed one of the queen's soldiers! Those Greek beasts are insulting us!"
At the instigation of the disguised Hera, the Amazon warriors lost all reason.
Dozens of arrows rained down on Heracles, and though he desperately defended himself by swinging his club, the situation rapidly worsened.
Meanwhile, inside the palace, Astellon, who had been resting after spending the night with Hippolyta, was startled awake by the tremendous uproar and the sound of metal clashing outside.
"What is happening? This commotion...!"
Hippolyta, too, was flustered as she hurriedly donned her armor.
"My soldiers would never give off such killing intent. Astellon, let us hurry."
Alarmed by the uproar outside, the two of them hastened from the palace toward the forest.
And when Astellon and Hippolyta came outside, the shoreline was already engulfed in flames.
There, Heracles was seen retreating toward the ship, beating back the swarming Amazon warriors with his club, while the soldiers of Eirene, likewise thrown into confusion by the sudden ambush, were struggling to respond.
"Heracles! Stop! It's a misunderstanding!"
"What in the world are you all doing?! Stop this at once!"
Astellon and Hippolyta shouted at the sight, but to the Amazon warriors who had lost a comrade, and to Heracles and the soldiers of Eirene who had been attacked, the two of them's voices no longer reached their ears.
Hera, the instigator of the chaos, had already vanished into the crowd with a faint, venomous smile, and what remained was only uncontrollable hatred.
"Astellon, get on board first! We can't die here!"
In that situation, Heracles seized Astellon by the arm and hauled him onto the ship.
Hippolyta shouted from the shore, trying to calm her warriors, but the situation had already become impossible to control, with arrows even flying toward her.
"I'm sorry, Hippolyta..."
With matters having come to this, I had no choice but to set sail in haste with the soldiers and Heracles.