The third line of defense, deep in the distant valley, was heavy with killing intent, so still it felt as if an invisible blade were hanging through the sky.
Nearby birds startled into the air and circled for a long time, not daring to return to their nests. On the ground, insects, ants, bees, and butterflies trembled and flattened themselves, afraid to make even the faintest sound. The entire forest was solemn and dead silent.
Looking down from the hillside, the offspring of Typhon and the monsters summoned under the dominion of earth authority were all lying obediently in the grass and among the trees.
"Hands up."
"W-whine…"
"Don't drool."
"Woof…"
"Roll over. Show your soft belly."
"Awoo…"
"Mm-hm. Head down."
"Hiss…"
As the two figures walked together along the path, the Typhon-born monsters and magical beasts, normally savage and arrogant, behaved like tame livestock before a certain black demon. That pressure, reaching straight into the soul, left them utterly docile, letting themselves be petted and trained without complaint, lowering themselves and shamelessly trying to look cute.
"Your Authority of the Beast seems a lot stronger again."
From the slope, Medusa glanced back at the magical beasts and monsters in the valley forest, all of them barely daring to breathe, then turned to Samael at her side, genuinely impressed.
"That's because these little things are weak as hell. The few that are halfway decent were all ones I trained from the ground up."
Samael answered irritably, lifting his hand to glance at the lines on his palm, suddenly feeling a bit listless.
During the Typhon War, anything with even a shred of real ability among the gods and monsters had been thoroughly swept clean by the Olympian gods. Even Typhon, the progenitor of monsters, had been reduced to Zeus's divine-seal puppet. The glory of the monsters had long since vanished.
This stitched-together monster army in front of them was mostly for show, cannon fodder through and through.
After this war, not many of them would survive.
"Samael… will we win?"
Medusa looked past the barrier of light at the endless tide of calamity monsters battering the defensive screen, and at the enormous cocoon-like mass that seemed to be incubating in the Storm Sea. Her brows knit tightly with worry.
"We will."
Samael raised a hand and pressed it firmly on Medusa's shoulder, his voice absolute.
Then the Ancient Serpent's lips curled into a faint smile. With an air of secrecy, he placed something slightly cool into Medusa's hand.
"Ana, while we've got this window to rest, there's something I need you to do."
By the time the goddess realized what was happening, Samael was already walking away, his figure fading into the dusk.
Medusa opened her palm and stared down.
A black scale engraved with cuneiform symbols lay there, giving off a faint, elusive glow.
...
A short while later, outside the strategy tent.
Patrol done. Back to work.
Samael, having loosened up for the briefest moment, stretched and lifted the curtain, ready to return to his "model worker" routine, only to find someone already sitting in his place.
A slender figure in a white gauze dress, elegant and composed, was handling the paperwork and keeping the camp running in his stead.
The Ancient Serpent approached quietly and rested a hand on her slightly stiff shoulder, then worked along the muscles, kneading and easing tension, relieving a bit of the fatigue for the administrator who had taken the initiative to step in.
"Back already?"
"Mm."
"How are things?"
"Not good, but it's not completely hopeless…"
"Don't worry. We'll find a way."
The Goddess of Justice gently pressed a hand to her lover's arm, her voice soft with reassurance.
Samael reached out and picked up the white blindfold that had been removed and set aside on the table. He glanced at the Goddess of Justice, who was absorbed in handling piles of minor affairs, and a flicker of complicated emotion passed through his eyes.
It seemed Themis wore that blindfold less and less these days.
"What's wrong? Still worried about the battles ahead?"
After finishing one matter, the Goddess of Justice noticed Samael's distraction and looked up, concern clear in her gaze.
The Ancient Serpent shook his head lightly and gave a wry smile.
"No. I was just thinking… what if I'd never come to Greece? What would things be like then?"
"That would be an irreplaceable loss to Greek law and order, and a great tragedy for the progress of justice itself!"
Themis replied without a second's hesitation, her expression solemn and utterly serious.
"Don't ever make that kind of assumption again."
Samael froze for a moment. But when his eyes met her taut expression and the faintly reproachful look in them, the gloom weighing on his heart vanished at once. He couldn't help but smile broadly and laugh.
"Assumptions, yes. Just assumptions. Don't forget to organize our transcripts and rebuttals as soon as possible. They're invaluable case-law materials…"
"To perfect the legal system as a whole, these cases alone still aren't enough. Once the war is over, we'll work on it together. This is something that can't be done without you, Teacher…"
Themis's expression softened slightly. As she continued approving documents, she casually used a title filled with memories.
"Teacher… if you hadn't mentioned it, I almost forgot. It's about time I fulfilled my responsibility and checked how well you've memorized the statutes."
Hearing that, Samael rubbed his chin and looked her up and down with a teasing smile.
Themis stiffened immediately, her cheeks flushing red.
That scoundrel's bad habit of teasing the judiciary was still something she found hard to deal with.
"Alright, enough messing around. Sisyphus has already obtained a large batch of divine-forged weapons from Etna Volcano, where Hephaestus is stationed. They need your spatial authority to be transported to the barracks and distributed to the front-line units as soon as possible. Go handle that. I'll take care of things here."
The Goddess of Justice pulled a parchment from the stack and handed it to Samael, assigning the habitual lawbreaker a new task.
With the judge's orders given, the Ancient Serpent had no choice but to give up this rare moment of intimacy and head toward the garrison monitoring the Storm Sea.
As his figure disappeared from sight, Themis's pen paused. She reached out and touched the white blindfold on the desk, her eyes filling with deep concern.
This time… did even he lack confidence?
...
Front-line barracks.
After arriving, Samael stood in the open square and unfolded his spatial authority, linking directly to the forges within Etna Volcano. One by one, swords, shields, spears, javelins, armor, bows, and arrows prepared by Hephaestus were transported onto the plaza.
Under Athena's supervision, the soldiers replaced their equipment in orderly fashion. Joy was written plainly on the face of everyone who received a piece of divine-forged armament.
On the battlefield, nothing was more reliable than these. Even if one were to lay down arms in the future, such equipment could become treasured heirlooms, passed down through generations as priceless badges of honor.
"Father, what brings you here? How's your recovery?"
"Not bad. About seventy to eighty percent."
"By the way, have you come up with any good way to break the deadlock?"
After finishing her immediate duties, Athena approached in full armor, shield in hand.
Samael climbed the city wall and looked out over the Peloponnesian Peninsula and the nightmare-inducing enemy forces near the coast of Oceanus. He shook his head helplessly.
"If it were that easy, we'd be done already. What about your side?"
"The ability of those white Alien Guardians to create subordinates is terrifying. We're already at a disadvantage in numbers, and they're still evolving. Unless we can find the weakness of the three Alien Guardians, kill them in a single decisive strike, and then wipe out the subordinates, I honestly can't think of a better option."
"You saw the earlier battles too. Those things are practically immortal. We've attacked every part of their bodies, but no matter how many pieces they're blown into, they just reassemble. So where exactly is their weak point?"
"Is it possible… that their weakness isn't on their bodies at all?"
Athena gazed out at the vast sea, frowning as she murmured. Samael's expression shifted, as though he had grasped a crucial clue.
Before the Ancient Serpent could think it through, a shrill sound rang out from the mountain barrier formed by the altered terrain on the flank. A green arrow of light burst brilliantly in midair.
An alarm arrow!
Bad news. The Colossus units have flanked around from the side!
Samael and Athena exchanged a glance, then immediately summoned the mobile forces and rushed toward the forested mountain flank to intercept.