Jason was completely stunned.
That was the son of the God-Emperor Zeus!
Even though Zeus was infamous for sowing his seed across the world, and even if he himself didn't care about every child he sired, that didn't mean he'd let others slap him in the face. Killing his son wouldn't go unnoticed.
You foreign heroes really have the guts, huh?!
In fact, even at this point, the Argo hadn't ceased its resistance. The rowers still paddled furiously to the cries of the heroes.
It was useless.
With Arjuna picking them off one by one, those oarsmen—already barely protected—were being sniped down like a string of gourds.
If the Aesir only had Arjuna, Jason would've led a charge himself to try and take him down.
Unfortunately, Arjuna wasn't alone—beside him stood Karna, wielding a divine spear.
On the Aesir side, the number of heroes was outrageously high.
Not only were there a whole host of Arthurian paladins, but also a group of lake fairies led by Merlin, as well as legendary figures like the Slavic hero Ilya Muromets—who had slain a twelve-headed dragon—and the Egyptian pharaohs Tutankhamun and Ramses.
They wanted progress desperately.
And conveniently, Thalos had publicly laid down the path to godhood.
Whether this was the final opportunity or not, these figures—somehow shaken loose from the long river of myth and history—were determined to seize the chance.
Jason felt the burning gazes from all directions. He was genuinely panicking.
"Medea! You useless thing, can't you do anything?!"
At this point, Princess Medea—still yet to earn her future title as a witch—felt deeply wronged. She steadied herself and replied coldly, "Jason, the other side has multiple sorcerers who are near god-level. I may not be able to protect you."
Jason choked, about to lash out again, but was cut off as Merlin on one of the black ships unleashed his spell without hesitation.
The sunny sky seemed to vanish in an instant, replaced by a cosmos of starlight and shadow.
On the side of the black ship, Merlin—clad in a flamboyant robe of blooming flowers—slammed his oak staff onto the deck with a crisp crack. Instantly, nine concentric thunder rings appeared in the air above his head, summoning divine bolts of order-infused lightning that came crashing down.
Medea, unwilling to show weakness, threw her robes into a swirl, her ten fingers weaving complex hand seals with incredible speed. Not only did she conjure several ancient divine arrays to resist the torrent of thunder, but she also slashed her wrist with a serpentine dagger. Blood droplets flew into the sky and merged with her spell formations.
In the very next instant, hundreds of skeletal warriors—formed from dragon teeth—descended onto the black ship, aiming to physically surround and kill Merlin.
But Merlin had been holding back for many years. Even if the God-Emperor Thalos didn't seem to favor him much, that didn't make Merlin weak.
The tip of his staff bloomed with radiant flowers. As petals scattered across the deck, countless vines erupted and shredded the dragon-tooth warriors into dust, which scattered with the wind.
Back and forth, the duel between these two magical titans was swift and fierce.
Thunder rumbled across the sky, waves surged below, and violent elemental reactions churned through the airspace—well beyond what ordinary heroes could interfere with.
Meanwhile, the three black ships closed in rapidly. As freezing gusts surged from their decks, the rolling sea was completely frozen. Dozens of radiant figures slid down frozen waterfalls from the towering ships, crashing into the Greek heroes aboard the Argo with a deafening clash of metal and flesh.
The legendary Argo was considered a great ship—by the standards of Greek fishing boats.
Though it had fifty oars, it was essentially an early model of a trireme. All the rowers worked on the single main deck. The Argo, considered a high-end ship of its era, had only one lower hold used for storing food and water.
In truth, the Argo was just a 30-meter-long "great ship."
Compared to the three Aesir ships—each modeled after galleons and reinforced with iron plating—it didn't stand a chance.
The Aesir not only outnumbered them, but were also better equipped and more powerful.
Zetes and Calais, sons of the North Wind god, were born with wings. Even now, they didn't forget to retaliate, flapping their four wings in unison as they dove at Arjuna.
Arjuna barely glanced at them and didn't even bother to shift his aim.
Because two other bow-wielding knights under King Arthur—Gawain and Tristan—had already taken action.
As their bowstrings snapped the air, it was like two comets were fired into the sky.
A ghostly silhouette of the god-king Arthur appeared around each silver-armored knight, and golden divine light surged at their feet like boiling lava. Every strand of hair on their heads was wrapped in divine power.
Their elegant cerulean longbows radiated immense pressure. When their arrows loosed, they tore a deep chasm into the sea and left trails of silver light rings bursting through the sky.
The two unfortunate targets struck in midair didn't even leave mangled corpses behind. Their bodies began to crystalize before they hit the water, and a passing sea breeze scattered them into ash across the horizon.
On the deck, Karna swooped down from the sky, landing hard with his divine spear—and in one thrust, pierced through Pollux, Castor's twin brother. Although Pollux had a divine father—Zeus—and was supposedly immortal, immortality was only relative.
Mortals couldn't kill him, but Karna, imbued with divine power, certainly could.
Once part of the Indian pantheon, Karna and Arjuna had long since converted to the faith of the God-Emperor Thalos.
Whatever Thalos's twisted reasons were for accepting them, it wasn't as though he'd given them divine powers beyond their level. No divine favor to speak of—just strength that matched their capabilities.
For the two of them, that was enough.
As the heroes of the Argo fell one by one, Jason was completely overwhelmed with fear.
Looking around, only Theseus—the famed Athenian hero who defeated the Minotaur—had managed to take down one of the invaders.
As for the others—Amphiaraus the prophet was slain by Tutankhamun; Euphemus died at the hands of the Slavic dragon-slayer Ilya; Meleager was taken down by Ramses II.
Jason's eyes lost focus. "They… they were the greatest heroes in all of Greece…"
The original plan had been to bring the Golden Fleece back, then heed Athena's call and join the fight in the smaller realms to crush these so-called foreign heroes. But now, they hadn't even made it there—the enemy came to them.
Now, it seemed all too clear who the real great heroes were.
Of the fifty Argonauts, more than half were wiped out in the opening clash.
"Ah—!"
The female huntress Atalanta let out a cry. As the only female hero aboard, she was one of the elite who helped slay the Calydonian boar.
But now, she was being utterly suppressed by a seemingly invincible swordsman and a berserker with a savage fighting style.
Just as she was about to fall, Jason let out a miserable cry of "We surrender!" and chose to lay down his arms.
His surrender became the final straw that broke the spirits of the Argonauts.
(End of Chapter)
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