Myth: The Ruler of Spirituality

Mount Olympus, Divine King’s sleeping chamber.

It had been quite some time since the punishment of humans, and Zeus, seated on a chair in his palace, gently massaged his temples.

His headaches had become more noticeable in recent days.

The Divine King knew what this was about. His daughter was about to come of age, eager to come into this world, yet as a deity, she needed a process, a ‘birth.’

But Zeus, after all, was not a goddess; he couldn’t possibly ‘give birth’ to her, and so her power began to conflict with her father’s.

Regarding this matter, Zeus indeed was not without a solution. As an immortal member of the deity race, and not human, he could simply open up his body to allow her to be born. However, in reality, the Divine King wasn’t very eager for her to emerge.

Just as the prophecy had said, ‘One who will surpass the mother, one who will surpass the father,’ this unborn child not only divided most of Metis’s Wisdom, making Zeus feel his own thoughts were not as clear as before, but this newborn also possessed other divine authorities. Undoubtedly, all this foretold that she would be an extremely powerful true god.

But this made Zeus rather apprehensive; after all, if such a daughter were obedient, well and good, but should she harbor resentment towards him for swallowing Metis, she might well become another enemy.

And on the other hand, the Divine King thought of the ‘Wisdom’ that had not been bestowed upon humans not long ago.

Could it be that this daughter, even before being born, had already seen something? Perhaps she refused her father’s command over the authority because she didn’t want ‘Wisdom’ to become a cause of human destruction?

“…Perhaps I’m overthinking it,” he said, “no god could understand the affairs of the outside world before being born.”

Shaking his head slightly, Zeus seemed to want to scatter his worries.

With his brothers and sisters as a contrast, Zeus was quite clear on what an unborn god could do.

Perhaps her refusal of his command over the authority was just a coincidence, or maybe it was an instinctual reaction of the divine authority of Wisdom.

“—Zephyrus.”

Pushing aside his thoughts, with the current situation indicating that the child wouldn’t be born immediately, Zeus prepared to deal with the affairs that had accumulated in recent days.

With Zeus’s call, a breeze passed by, and the God of the West Wind, who had been ‘relied upon heavily’ by the ‘two reigns’ Divine King, appeared before him.

“Your Majesty, what are your orders?” Zephyrus asked in a respectful tone.

“How has it gone with the matter I had you attend to?”

Though everything had been arranged, Zeus felt he was far from the point of resting easy. He wasn’t like he would be later; there were many beings in the world he still had to be wary of.

Therefore, soon after the gods had departed, he had the West Wind God investigate the changes in the human tribes and the attitude of the Afterthinker, Epimetheus, like whether he held any grudges against the Divine King.

And most importantly, he had this keen spying deity track the Goddess of the Magic Net, Hecate. In the current mortal realm, she was the greatest uncertainty. After all, Zeus vividly remembered how, when they had once clashed, this goddess was not yet a deity.

To defeat a fully powered true god without borrowing divine powers, even though he had been very weak at that time, was still quite remarkable.

“Your Majesty, I may still lack in strength, but in this regard, nobody can compare with me,” Zephyrus spoke with unwavering respect, yet his words betrayed immense confidence. As one who had secretly spied on the Lord of the Spirit Realm, the Lady of the Night, and Mother Earth, not even the Divine King could compare to him in this aspect.

Moreover, with the current gods’ divine powers limited on Earth, their perceptual abilities had further declined; under such circumstances, Zephyrus didn’t believe anyone could detect his presence.

“Your Majesty, humans are as arrogant as ever. Even though the gods have already spared them, they still deceive their own kind in the name of divinity, compelling obedience to their commands—such laughable mortals.”

“However, I’ve noticed that under the deception of those who call themselves ‘priests,’ the faith of mortals doesn’t seem to have diminished much despite the loss of divine gifts. Sure, some have become faithless, but many have become even more devout.”

At this, Zephyrus appeared somewhat perplexed. While he could see the outcome, he didn’t understand the reason why some humans’ faith in the gods grew stronger despite the absence of blessings?

“And what of Epimetheus?”

Without explaining his thoughts, Zeus expected this. Mortals were, after all, different from gods; in dealing with them, one couldn’t just bestow favors unthinkingly. As he listened to the Wind God’s report, Zeus’s mind once again cast back to that person who had prayed to him for immortality, yet lacked even a sliver of faith.

That mortal’s name was something like O-something, but that was no longer important. His soul would be eternally imprisoned in that charred husk, enduring endless pain and the torment of lightning; in a sense, this was somewhat a form of immortality.

“Your Majesty, that God of Hindsight is as foolish as the rumors say. I even overheard him mentioning that just before Prometheus left, he advised him to stay away from the Divine Court and humans, yet he did not heed his brother’s words. He and that god-made creature live quite well together, even having a daughter,” Zephyrus said with a touch of disdain in his voice, thinking that if only Epimetheus were half as clever as himself, he wouldn’t have ended up a pawn completely unaware.