Myth: The Ruler of Spirituality

Atop Mount Othrys, the Divine King’s bedchamber.

Once again, a divine birth anomaly occurred, judging by the scale, it was likewise a True God with a strong priesthood. Unlike his own siblings, Cronus could be said to have taken “eugenics” to an extreme level.

However, it was also difficult to say whether this was the influence of fate. After all, it was not uncommon in the Chaos World for powerful gods to sire weak offspring.

In front of the great hall, compared to the leisure at the birth of his eldest daughter, Cronus’s expression was somewhat serious now. Unlike before, this time, he did not know whether the child being born was a boy or a girl.

What’s more, the most crucial point was that his third daughter, Hera, had obtained a portion of the birthright from Mother Earth, which was simply a natural reserve for the future Queen of Gods.

Taking into account that it was entirely normal for siblings among the Chaotic Gods to come together, Cronus couldn’t help but speculate whether this was a Heavenly Empress prepared for the next generation’s Divine King.

As he pondered, the anomaly around the Mount of the Gods became even more intense. But just as the aura was about to climax, the Divine King suddenly looked beyond Mount Othrys.

There, an invisible current of air was rapidly flying towards him.

“Zephyrus, what is he doing here? Didn’t I tell him to watch over Delphi?”

His expression changed, and just like the previous two times, the eyes of all the gods were on the mount. At such a time, for the God of West Wind to come so indiscreetly, there must have been a slip at Gaia’s end.

Stepping forth, Cronus immediately reached the other’s side, and then forcefully compressed Zephyrus, who had taken the form of a stream of air, back into human shape. Before he could even ask, the god of the west directly delivered the news he least wanted to hear.

“Your Majesty, I don’t know how it happened, but Mother Earth and the God of Speech have created a new generation of life on the Delphic Great Plains, and Humans are also among them.”

Boom

Buzz

The Divine Power inadvertently unleashed by the Divine King, along with the sudden buzzing of the Law, resonated with each other.

As his own offspring was being born, the Silver Humanity emerged into the world, and Cronus felt that his previous actions were like a clown in the face of fate.

Swoosh

The dark ribbons scattered across the sky, and the earth trembled. Shortly after, as a stream of light mingled with the faint breath of the four Primordial Gods crashed into the great hall, the true name of the new god echoed in every corner of the Chaos World the next moment.

The God of the Underworld, Hades!

At the same time, perhaps in welcome of its own master, deep below the earth, beside the River of Vows, Styx, another river was slowly born, and an aged deity also emerged from it.

That was the River of Sorrow, Acheron, and Charon the ferryman of the Styx River.

It seems that in many mythologies there is such a river that, apart from a designated boat, no substance can float on top of it. They all have a ferryman, and if one is not willing to bribe him, mortals can only sigh in longing at the river’s edge.

And the painful Acheron, is the Unfloating River unique to the Chaos World.

“…Silver Humanity, Mother Earth, I understand.”

Amid the sky, Cronus seemed to have accepted the fact. He had assigned the God of West Wind to monitor Delphi, simply to prevent any deity from stealthily borrowing the Life Vase, but if it was Mother Earth herself who wanted to create life, then unless he went there personally, no one could keep an eye on her.

But since previously Gaia had sent someone to bring him a Golden Apple, Cronus had thought she wouldn’t do such a thing, but in the end, she disappointed him nonetheless.

“Is this fate? But I do not believe in it.”

The voice was very calm, but Zephyrus’s body began to tremble involuntarily. His instincts told him that the Divine King seemed about to make a terrible decision.

“You can leave now; my firstborn has already come into the world. Now, I must visit him.”

No longer paying attention to the God of the West Wind, the Divine King turned and walked into the central bedchamber of Mount of the Gods. Without pausing, he reached out and grasped, and from the crack between spaces, three golden ‘ambers’ slowly floated out—the very same daughters he had earlier.

Even sealed, they never stopped drawing power from their godhood, resisting Cronus’s divine power. The Divine King had no doubt that if he were to release the restrictions now, they could all grow to the appearance of an eight- or nine-year-old in an instant.

But all of that ended here.

“Cronus, what, what are you going to do?”

Watching her husband push open the doors, with his three daughters from before floating beside him, Rhea lay on the bed, her face slightly pale and with some panic.

Having been together for ten thousand years, she could sense the turbulent emotions beneath the Divine King’s calm exterior.

Moreover, this time, her child was ultimately a Divine Child.

“Nothing, Rhea, I won’t do to you what Father God did to Mother Earth, I promise.”

Approaching the bed, he whispered softly, Cronus sat on the bed’s edge, looking at the newborn infant.

It was as though he was talking to Rhea and also to himself, but it also seemed like he was conversing with something unseen.

“And I don’t know why, my children all, to a greater or lesser extent, split Mother Earth’s power, so it makes sense for her to make such a choice.”

“Yes, it makes sense, destiny is such. It makes everything so rational, as if It had done nothing at all.”

With a sneer, Cronus snatched the infant from Rhea’s hands. He looked at it, just as he once held a sickle, looking at his own father.

“I want to see what other tricks you can come up with.”

Boom

A silent resonance echoed in the Primordial Sea, but the laws of the present world did not take any further action. Unlike the Heavenly Father, Cronus’s actions, in a strict sense, were not against the rules.

To stuff gods back into the womb is a violent act that defies the law of birth. But to swallow gods into one’s belly is simply a special way of sealing gods.

They will thus be cut off from most connections with their godhood, but they will still exist in the present world. Leveraging the connection between their bloodlines, the Divine King could even expend more than ten times his divine power to fulfill their godhood duties in their stead.

And unlike the goddesses, infant gods cannot draw power from within a male god’s body to continue growing; they can only rely on their own severed godhood, allowing their divine power to grow slowly, bit by bit.

So Cronus did so, and he was unharmed.

At the same time, outside Mount of the Gods, amidst the turmoil of the Primordial Sea, all deities with Intermediate Divine Power or higher knew what had happened. One god had swallowed another, using his power to suppress the other’s growth and divine authority. They were shocked by Cronus’s ruthlessness and decisiveness, and for a time, the Chaos World fell silent.

Only Queen of Gods Rhea, she watched in agony as her husband swallowed each of the four children, and even after that, he could still smile at her. For the first time, she felt a sense of strangeness.

“Golden Apple, Mother Earth…”

As another child was conceived within her, Rhea took out the gift Gaia had once given her.

If fate has decreed that the Divine King must be succeeded, then let it come sooner. At least in this way, the world may see fewer conflicts arising from it.