Palamedes's voice was not loud.
He felt grateful that Night took his place in the battle, relieved the gods' fury, calmed the God-King's anger, and spared him, the impostor, from immediately suffering a terrible fate, giving him room to maneuver.
On top of that, the small gesture
Night showed him when seeing him off before added to the favorable impression.
This made Palamedes feel deeply anxious, and he could not bear to watch him end up in the same situation as himself.
He thought that perhaps the divine weapon truly had a will of its own and was difficult to control.
His armor suddenly falling apart was already outrageous enough.
To fight while wearing that nightmare of an armor and also trying to wield a weapon he could not even lift, was that not just throwing his life away?
And though his voice was deliberately kept low, it was still heard by the gods above.
With a god's powerful senses, how could they not perceive the commotion Palamedes was making?
A flicker of hesitation crossed God-King Zeus's face.
He knew it.
Achilles's full set of equipment was forged by his own son, the god of fire and forge, Hephaestus.
A mortal hero absolutely could not lift that divine weapon.
At the very least it required someone of demigod level, a powerful hero with divine blood flowing through their veins, to be worthy of wielding it.
He almost forgot about that...
But then Zeus suddenly noticed the calm expression still on the face of his daughter Athena.
Her eyes were quietly fixed in the direction of that hero on the earth below.
She appeared as still and composed as water, but there seemed to be a faint and hidden anticipation for what was about to happen.
Was she anticipating that this hero could lift Achilles's weapon?
Zeus considered this thought of his to be quite absurd.
But the reaction of his daughter, the goddess of wisdom, made him unable to stop himself from wondering.
Could Griffith truly lift that weapon?
With a crash, Hermes threw the weapon down from the heavens, and it landed in the earth below, telling Night that he already brought the weapon for him.
Under the gaze of ten thousand eyes, everyone waited for the young man to draw out the weapon.
And if he could not even pull out the spear from where it stood driven into the dirt, that would certainly be a very humiliating scene.
And if Night, the hero representing the Greek side, failed, it would also deal a considerable blow to the morale of the Greek army.
On the other side, King Agamemnon and Odysseus both felt a jolt in their hearts after hearing Palamedes's words.
But before they could stop him...
At this moment Night, with the help of the Greek heroes, had already found and gathered the finely crafted armor that was scattered across the battlefield and put it on.
That figure, where wearing clothes concealed the leanness and removing them revealed the muscle, a powerfully built physique completely hidden under the loose robes and cloak, suddenly wore the armor with an incomparable impressiveness and striking quality.
When the bright red, like a horse's mane, drifted behind the helmet.
The moment the armor was fully and properly worn.
Everyone felt the change in Night's presence.
The bewitching charm was concealed.
The warrior's armor was donned.
And at last, what began to emerge was the hero's nature that resided within him, the brilliance of a powerful body.
More like Achilles than Achilles himself, even carrying in his presence a faint dragon-like pressure, a monster that subtly and clearly surpassed appeared.
Like a war god standing upon the earth, that sight made even the war god Ares in the heavens involuntarily brighten with interest.
"He actually looks like a powerful warrior!"
"On the strength of this presence alone, this child is no ordinary person!"
A great many looks of surprise flashed through the minds of the gods at once, and they understood that they had misjudged him.
The descendant of the dragon-slaying hero.
Thinking about the wild and powerful warrior blood that flowed in the other party's veins, what unfolded before their eyes was perhaps perfectly natural.
After all, a hero capable of slaying a dragon was no ordinary hero.
The evil dragon was a creature that even the gods feared.
Only the most exceptional of heroes could possibly bring down a monster like that.
And at this moment Night walked slowly forward, the armor producing a rhythmic clanking sound, and every step carried a sense of coordination that felt as though it struck directly against the hearts of those watching.
People's breathing involuntarily began to rise and fall in time with that rhythm.
Quite a few heroes who knew their craft felt their expressions shift slightly.
What extraordinary physical coordination.
His mastery over his own strength had already reached an incredibly refined degree.
What did it mean to have the composure of a true powerhouse?
Simply through that natural mastery of the body and that exquisite rhythm of force control, he could draw the breathing of others into sync with him, affect the people around him into unconsciously following his rhythm, and in turn produce a feeling of pressure as though being dominated.
And typically, someone who could command such a level of supreme martial skill must be a warrior who had passed through countless dangerous battles, mastered many heroic techniques, and possessed an incomparably powerful body.
...They belonged to the ranks of true monsters.
Though Night's body developed far later than others, his martial skill, nurtured by Hector, Achilles, Aeneas, and many other great heroes, and sharpened further by actual battlefield experience and even the life-and-death struggle against the great dragon at the very edge of survival, had long since made a qualitative leap.
On top of that, the repeated strengthening from the body's own recovery and the feedback from the red dragon pact meant that though his physical body did not advance as quickly as his martial skill, it could still thoroughly overpower most of the heroes present.
And now with a full set of divine equipment worn over his body, and on top of that a second layer of divine artifact conceptual enhancement stacked over the first, it surpassed the idea of one plus one equaling more than two.
And so the pressure Night brought to the ordinary heroes and mortals grew even stronger.
As he walked toward the divine spear standing driven into the center of the battlefield.
The accumulated pressure had already become as real and tangible as something physical and made every single hero's expression change.
"Why is his presence this overwhelming? I actually feel like the pressure this person gives off is even stronger than Achilles?!"
At this moment quite a few heroes could not help but be struck with shock, all arriving at the same thought.
Was this still the musician who had no martial training and possessed weak strength?
The dragon's innate pressure comparable to divine might, plus the transformed bonus from the double divine equipment buff, and finally his own dragon bloodline and powerful body.
The qualitative change that all of this produced together made the heroes hold their breath.
Everyone felt that after putting on the armor, he was like a completely different person.
Even the heroes found themselves struggling to breathe under that oppressive weight.
As for the soldiers on both sides on the battlefield, there was no need to say more.
All of them had difficulty breathing and did not dare look directly at that figure.
Only Hector, who was relatively unaffected, looked at that striking figure on the field.
Though the expression on his face beneath the armor was hidden from view, what flashed through his heart in that moment was incomparable warmth and pride.
'My brother. You have grown stronger!
Even I can feel a trace of threat from you now.'
For Hector, the days from when Night first began training and growing stronger to when he left Troy for Greece felt like just yesterday.
In such a short span of days, not even a full month, he grew strong to this degree.
He truly did not misjudge him.
"You are someone more outstanding than me, someone with the potential to become a true hero. My friend!"
.
.
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(End of the Chapter)