The veins on Diomedes's arms stood out sharply, but no matter how much force he pushed behind it, his weapon was locked in place as though welded there, gripped tight.
Impossible!!
What kind of monstrous strength was this?
Even Odysseus, watching from the side, stared with eyes wide open in something close to horror, as though he were witnessing something out of a fairy tale.
Inside Night, the dragon side of him had boiled over completely.
Drawing on the red dragon's power, layered with the enhancement of the Roman dragon's own nature.
If translated into a game, among his six attributes, strength was the one growing fastest by far.
In a pure contest of physical force, even the Minotaur and the young Heracles at a certain age would...
Well, Heracles was in a category of his own.
Even as a young man he was capable of holding up the sky.
That man was an outright bug even among demigods.
But Night, whose body had been steadily growing in the direction of a dragon's formidable physique, almost let go at the very first impact but held after that.
What followed was a pure contest of wrist strength.
Diomedes, as a human hero at this point still without Athena's blessing, simply could not match him.
And so,
Night let out a roar, and in the stunned gaze of Odysseus and the countless soldiers watching, something extraordinary happened.
With one hand gripping the spear tip, he lifted Diomedes clean off the ground, both feet slowly leaving the earth.
Then, boom!!
He flung him away.
The force was so tremendous that Diomedes could not even maintain his grip on his own weapon, letting it fly from his hands as he was launched through the air.
He slammed into the ground hard enough to shake the earth slightly.
Night then took hold of the seized spear and used it as his own weapon.
It was not as famed as Hector's or Achilles's spears, but the material of Diomedes's weapon was clearly no ordinary quality.
After all, this was a weapon that would one day be capable of wounding gods.
An ordinary spear probably could not even pierce divine flesh.
Night urged the deer forward and charged straight at Diomedes.
Strike while the iron is hot.
If he could finish this major threat right now, it would certainly anger Athena, but it would also protect the goddess of love, the war god, and the demigod hero Aeneas for Troy in one move.
In the original story, without Diomedes, the war god's assault had almost succeeded.
The myth described Ares stirring up havoc across the battlefield, slaughtering Greek heroes and soldiers alongside the Trojans, and doing so before even the god-king Zeus and the other gods had time to react.
Ares was all about going against the grain.
Zeus wanted Greece to win, so he was determined to make Troy win and nearly pulled it off.
That was also why Zeus gave him no sympathy when he came running to complain after being wounded.
But if Diomedes was eliminated here, when Ares eventually ignited another round of carnage and the gods had not yet responded, who among the Greeks would be left to stand against the mighty war god?
Night really wanted Diomedes dead.
Even though he had once admired him reading the myths, he was sorry, but on this one point he admitted he was the same kind of selfish as the heroes he despised.
He would only protect those closer to his own side.
This was not about justice or right and wrong.
He and Diomedes had no personal grudge.
But still.
Seeing the deer bearing down on him at full speed, Diomedes went pale with shock, cold sweat breaking out, but this was still the hero who would one day dare to strike a god.
He never lacked nerve.
At the last possible moment, on pure instinct alone, he threw his remaining shield up in front of himself.
Thud!
He was launched again by the antlers, this time slamming into a group of soldiers and crushing quite a few of them in the process.
When gods fight, it is ordinary mortals who suffer.
The soldiers came to watch the spectacle and ended up being the ones who paid the price.
On Diomedes's end, as powerful as he was, he had no way to get a handle on Night.
In a ground fight he would have had a chance, but Night's terrifying physical strength combined with the deer's divine speed made for something like the most powerful and ferocious cavalry unit imaginable.
All he needed to do was hold the weapon steady and point the spear forward.
Ancient cavalry warfare worked exactly like this.
The acceleration alone did all the work, plowing through and shattering everything in the way.
Two tremendous forces combined with a speed that left no time to react, and Diomedes was being run ragged.
Odysseus on the sidelines was breaking out in a cold sweat, his nerves shot.
He definitely was not going anywhere near that.
What kind of crazy is this?
Actually just ramming straight in?
Same unhinged temperament as the moon goddess herself.
Yeah. Confirmed moon goddess follower, no question.
If only Achilles were still here.
How was anyone supposed to deal with an enemy moving at that speed?
Odysseus's expression darkened.
Damn it.
As much as he hated the thought of offending Artemis, in this situation the only way to protect Diomedes was to order soldiers to move against the divine deer and wound it.
He could not stand by and watch Diomedes fight alone and possibly get killed.
Agamemnon would punish him afterward for it, and he would also end up offending Athena for abandoning her favorite to his fate.
And beyond all that, Odysseus had no particular goodwill toward this Griffith, who had come charging into the camp on a divine deer and turned everything upside down.
Especially once he was certain this man was genuinely Artemis's devotee.
In the epic of his own hero story, the Odyssey, he had expressed admiration for Artemis more than once.
For instance, when meeting Nausicaa, daughter of King Alcinous, he described her this way: "You look most like Artemis, daughter of the great god Zeus, for you are as beautiful and tall as she is, and you have her bearing."
He said something similar to his wife Penelope. "Penelope came out of her room, and she looked like Artemis or like Aphrodite."
Odysseus went looking for women based entirely on whether they resembled Artemis.
With preferences this obvious, to say the moon goddess held no special place in his heart was probably not the truth.
Among the goddesses there were so many beautiful ones: Athena, Hestia, Hera, and Demeter, but among them Artemis was the most different.
Perhaps every man had one figure of pure, unattainable longing in his heart.
Some were drawn to allure, and others to the most untouched kind of purity.
And now Odysseus was looking at the man on the deer's back, a man whose beauty made even him feel inadequate.
He did not know whether this was why the other party had become Artemis's devotee.
But
He told himself it was all for the sake of saving lives.
Then, he raised his voice.
"All soldiers, listen to my command! Do not panic! Take your arrows, light them with torches, and fire!
Support Diomedes!"
.
.
.
(End of the Chapter)