Thud, thud!!
The sound of weapons clashing violently in the air.
Strikes that could tear open the ground failed to break through the Amazon queen's guard, while every attack from her side came bearing immense pressure toward Odysseus.
In the middle of the exchange, Odysseus quickly understood just how terrifying the strength of this new Amazon queen was, the one said to be the daughter of the war god Ares.
That shocking physical power.
To call it the strength of a dragon would not be an exaggeration.
Boom!!
After another hurricane-like exchange, Odysseus's figure was sent flying.
Then like the fury of a death god bearing down without mercy, Penthesilea pressed forward and drove her sword against his weapon.
In the instant the clash sent sparks flying, her other hand came around and drove a full punch into Odysseus's abdomen.
That relentless, unbroken sequence of attacks seemed absolutely determined not to stop until Odysseus was dead on the field.
A wild and unrestrained fighting style, unmistakably a true warrior, and it sent a chill through everyone watching.
As the battle moved past its midpoint, the mood of the Greek heroes plummeted.
Night: "..."
To be honest, even though his original intention was to keep a low profile and ideally let Greece fail by reasonable means, watching Greece fall apart this badly, he couldn't help but sigh.
One must know, Penthesilea hadn't even given way to Hector yet.
She alone was nearly wiping them out.
This was a disaster. Genuinely a disaster.
And thinking about it, the result was entirely predictable.
In the original story, this Amazon queen was brought in after Hector's death as the top-tier combat power needed to maintain the defensive line Hector had held.
She was the powerful demigod who had the Trojan side trembling before Achilles finally took the field and who explicitly called out Achilles himself for a one-on-one fight.
Of course,
Setting aside the part where she got overconfident at the end, dismissed the Greek heroes entirely, and mistakenly assumed Achilles was just as easy a target as everyone else and ended up paying for it,
Penthesilea's record was genuinely excellent.
If Diomedes had come instead, he might have lasted several rounds with this Amazon queen.
Odysseus, however, was a different matter.
His strength was not lacking, but it was still a step below the absolute top tier, and at this level of battle even a small gap got magnified to an extreme.
Right, what was it Odysseus said before pushing himself forward?
Night thought back for a moment.
Something about helping wear down the enemy's combat strength and stamina?
But now it looked like he was already going to fail at step one, taking out Penthesilea?
Unfortunate.
This Odysseus was not the one from that neighboring world of Saint Seiya.
His greatest strength was strategy, not brute force.
If that Odysseus, the one who held the title of the strongest constellation, the god-tier Ophiuchus saint, had taken the field, it wouldn't just be a demigod who had problems.
Even if Penthesilea's father, the war god Ares himself, came down personally, the outcome would probably still be a severe beating.
And this world's Odysseus obviously had no small cosmos to ignite.
As it became clear that Odysseus was about to follow the king of Sparta into defeat, a divine spear suddenly split the sky.
A terrifying sense of imminent danger washed over Penthesilea, and she threw herself aside.
The divine spear planted itself directly between her and Odysseus, preventing her from advancing another step.
"I'll take it from here, Odysseus.
You've already lost. Get off the field and rest."
The sound of armor moving rang out, and then that commanding, pressure-filled figure appeared on the battlefield once more.
The entire atmosphere went quiet the instant he stepped out.
Odysseus made a muffled cough and opened his mouth as though he still wanted to say something.
Then he heard Night say coldly.
"Your internal organs were shattered by the blunt force just now.
Even with a hero's powerful vitality keeping you from dropping the way a normal person would, there is no way you can keep fighting in that condition.
If you don't want to end up in the same position as the king of Sparta, then move. Now. I am conceding this round on behalf of Odysseus.
Let the third bout begin directly.
Amazon queen,
Compared to continuing to batter an already heavily wounded opponent, the hunt stopped being interesting some time ago, didn't it?"
He had no idea what "batter an already wounded opponent" meant exactly.
But Odysseus, who felt a vague sense of displeasure in those words for reasons he couldn't name, somehow understood what was being said.
Probably something along the lines of calling him useless.
And Odysseus was not even angry about it.
He was actually relieved that Night stepped in when he did.
He had been covering his mouth to hide the blood and fragments of tissue he was coughing up.
His body had genuinely reached its limit.
He had been holding on through sheer stubbornness alone.
He never expected to be seen through so clearly.
He had made bold promises and was now exiting the stage in such a sorry state, but being even more afraid of ending up as a prisoner of the enemy like the king of Sparta,
Odysseus simply accepted reality and turned his horse back toward the Greek formation without ceremony.
At the end of the day, his life mattered more than his dignity.
With that kind of raw physical power, was there perhaps a compressed and ugly titan hiding under that Amazon queen's armor?
Odysseus, fleeing in utter disgrace, still carried in his heart a malicious suspicion born from fear of and fury toward Penthesilea.
On the other side, the latter did not even glance at the departing Odysseus. Her gaze locked onto Night instead.
She said nothing and only raised the weapon in her hand, issuing a challenge.
Penthesilea was afraid that if she opened her mouth she would not be able to stop herself from going soft and letting this beautiful and striking man go.
At this moment she even felt an impulse...
To embrace the other party with her weapon.
If he were a bird in flight, she would break his wings and make him submit at her feet.
And at this moment Night felt a familiar feeling.
It was like that day when he carried the fate force of Adonis.
The scene before him felt strangely and familiarly like something he already saw before.
If he knew right now what was going through this Amazon queen's mind, he would certainly be astonished.
Just like in the myth, in one version of the story where Penthesilea fell in love with Achilles.
On the battlefield, when she saw the figure of Achilles in his glory, she had that same kind of thought.
"My companions, I shall hold this weapon and embrace him in the gentlest way, for this weapon is the only way I can hold him.
I will draw him into my arms without causing him pain. Flowers of spring, do not let him fall and hurt himself. Catch him; keep his limbs from harm.
I would sooner let my own heart bleed than see his blood spill. I must capture him as one captures a brilliantly colored bird from the sky, and I will not rest until I do."
And this time Penthesilea did not encounter Achilles but instead encountered a figure wearing that same armor and shining even more brilliantly.
But beauty alone was not enough to capture this queen's full attention.
At this moment she bent low to the level of her mount's mane, hungrily swallowing the air that stood between them.
Then she suddenly charged at Night to strike.
Just as the epic recorded it.
Her helmet plume seemed to feel fear itself, pulling her head violently downward from behind.
This was a woman of absolute ferocity in battle, whose rhythm in combat was always decisive and brutally direct.
Fearless and passionate, even somewhat self-divided.
The more she liked something, the more she advanced toward it with a sense of destruction.
As she charged in, the words that came to Night's mind were those that described Penthesilea in just this way.
"Even if all of hell were pressing down upon you, you must be a giant and not fall. Be like a stone arch: it stands unmoved because every stone within it strains to collapse. Raise your dome-like head with pride and shout to the lightning of the gods: Come then!
Even if you are shattered from head to foot, as long as within that young chest of yours there is still one breath to hold the stones and mortar in place, let there be not even the slightest wavering in your heart."
Facing a warrior so fearless that her spirit had grown somewhat unhinged...
She even said herself that unlike other girls who spoke of love and would want to swallow you whole as if you were food, other girls only said such things, but she was genuinely willing to act on it.
And after accidentally killing someone she loved.
She became completely unhinged and said the words: "Compared to the soft, wet kisses of other women, is it not my blood-soaked kiss that suits you better?"
This was a warrior who would absolutely never be crushed by despair.
Or rather, the deeper the despair, the more unhinged she became, and the more unhinged she became, the more dangerous and the more her combat strength surged, making her a monster.
Perhaps it was a common trait of the war god's bloodline.
That fanatical pursuit of battle had already been carved into her instincts, into her bones, and in the end transformed into an abnormal state of mind.
To break this kind of strength, one needed to completely suppress it before it exploded and give it no chance to erupt.
To crush it with an even more absolutely overwhelming force.
In that instant of lightning and fire, Night, who already figured out what to do next, charged forward to meet her.
Finally, whether for the gods or the heroes, the most anticipated battle had arrived.
Griffith had come at last!
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.
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(End of the Chapter)