Adonis.
This was an incredibly powerful divine force, which would be considered explosive in any mythological system.
What could it bring him?
The beauty more supernatural than the very concept of beauty itself?
Or the destiny of inevitably attracting women, to be pursued by the goddess of Venus, and be cuckolded many times?
If it were the version from a neighboring singularity, a certain Ishtar who had undergone a transformation and became the cutest Twin-tailed tsundere, he was familiar with; he could accept it.
But if it were from those mythological figures, they would just be a bunch of public buses.
"I am a son of the moon, a follower of the goddess of the hunt and the moon, who holds authority equal to yours among the principal gods.
Lady Aphrodite, please restrain yourself."
When Night refused once more and activated the moon goddess's blessing openly around himself,
The powerful blessing of Artemis blazed up and blazed outward, like the North Star shining at its brightest, turning him into the most radiant presence on earth in that instant, and the moon goddess Artemis, even from far away in her temple, felt that presence immediately.
And Night had also just spoken her name aloud.
In Greece, when someone spoke a god's true name, the gods could hear it, though most of them filtered it out and paid no attention.
It was as though they had a built-in identification system.
Their ears only sharpened when someone said something insulting or harmful about them.
But as Artemis's chosen follower, Night had every right to be noticed by her even without saying anything disrespectful.
And since Artemis had lately been watching this direction far more often than usual,
She saw immediately that Aphrodite was pursuing and pressuring her follower.
That was more than enough to set things off.
The moon goddess's temper ignited, and blazing fury filled her eyes.
In the myths, Artemis had nothing close to a gentle nature.
With the God-king as her father and the powerful Apollo as her brother, she was one of the few goddesses almost nobody dared to offend.
Boom!!
Down on the earth, Aphrodite had just been clearly and completely rejected, and took a serious blow to her confidence.
She felt the strange and inexplicable sense of a child refusing its mother and choosing a stepmother instead.
What was going on?
Aphrodite had never experienced anything like it.
The jealousy and hurt of it was making her want to scream.
Especially since the one who stole the person she wanted was her greatest rival, the moon goddess Artemis.
Aphrodite opened her mouth to say something more,
But just then, terrifying divine pressure descended from the sky.
The daytime sky suddenly shifted into night.
Stars appeared across the heavens and the moon hung high and brilliantly in the sky, radiating intense light that answered Night's own glow on the earth below.
On the horizon, the constellation of Scorpius suddenly blazed to life, as though it had woken up, as though it might descend from the stars at any moment.
The sight of it stirred countless beings into alarm.
Even the heroes in Troy lifted their heads in shock and walked out to look at the sky.
"Scorpius!!"
In the heavens, every god was jolted awake.
Who the hell managed to provoke the moon goddess to this extent?
The scale of this was enormous.
To change day into night, to summon Scorpius itself, she was moving against a divine being?
Even the gods in the heavens felt their blood run cold, as though they were facing something terrifying.
Every minor deity with any sense of self-preservation instantly started reviewing whether they had ever offended Artemis.
Even the God-king Zeus, in the middle of receiving Hermes's report, was startled, wondering what his well-behaved daughter was up to.
Hermes also saw what was happening.
He muttered something about not knowing which poor unfortunate had earned the moon goddess's attention.
"Father, please allow me to use my sight to look at what is actually happening," Hermes said, curiosity getting the better of him.
Zeus, equally curious, nodded.
And then the expression on Hermes's face, which had been one of entertained schadenfreude, collapsed completely, replaced by an urgent alarm.
"...!!
Scorpius is falling toward the Greek camp! This is bad!!
I can see the goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite, is right there in the path of it."
Good grief!!
What Hermes did not say was that he could also see the hero Griffith at that location.
One quick connection of the dots, and the sharp mind of Hermes guessed immediately what had happened.
This was going to be trouble.
The relationship between the moon goddess and the goddess of love had already been poor ever since the incident with Hippolytus, where Aphrodite nearly got the young man killed.
Artemis had been looking for a chance at payback ever since.
And now before Artemis had even acted on that, Aphrodite went and disturbed another of her chosen followers.
No wonder Artemis was this furious.
Hermes, now fairly certain he had pieced it together, broke out in cold sweat all over.
So was it his own words that led Aphrodite into this trap?
Or was it that Aphrodite ran off before he could finish everything he was saying?
Hermes really did not want to watch Aphrodite get killed by Scorpius.
He rushed to tell Zeus he wanted to go and get her out of there.
Zeus agreed, his own expression darkening.
He also knew perfectly well the two goddesses had bad blood, but a fight could not happen in the middle of the Greek military camp.
Those heroes could not survive Scorpius rampaging through their ranks.
The Greek side was already struggling and losing ground against Troy.
If Scorpius then tore through what remained of their forces, the gods might as well start preparing for a funeral.
And at the same time,
Down on the earth,
"Get away from my follower, you filthy woman!!" The domineering and ice-cold voice of the moon goddess Artemis came down from the sky and reached both Aphrodite and Night on the ground.
At the same moment, Artemis drew her bow and nocked an arrow.
If Aphrodite refused to leave, the next instant she would put it straight through that underdeveloped little skull of hers, the one so full of dirty thoughts and ideas.
She looked away for barely a moment and someone was already trying to steal from her?
How could Artemis possibly stand that?
And of all people, it was Aphrodite, the one she despised most.
For some reason she couldn't quite name, Artemis felt even angrier than usual.
Even when Hippolytus was nearly killed by Aphrodite's scheming last time, she was irritated and had thought about getting even, but it never reached this level of rage.
After all, Hippolytus was just a mortal.
Out of compassion she had protected her follower, but it was hard to feel particularly strong emotions over the suffering of such a fragile and ordinary human prince.
But right now all Artemis wanted was to put an arrow through the goddess of love's skull.
The difference in reaction was something even the dying Hippolytus at his worst had never managed to provoke from her.
.
.
.
(End of the Chapter)