And this world-encircling ocean current is completely different from ordinary rivers.
This ocean current circles the entire earth in a slow flow—so vast that mortals could never imagine it even if they exhausted their imagination.
Water is indeed the source of life, but pure water, by itself, has no life.
In this region adjacent to Chaos, the laws are disordered and cannot nurture mortal life; even divine beings, without a god's protection, cannot survive here.
On the side touching the edge of Chaos, the pure material water brims with infinite energy; water element continually drags along the void, converting the void into pure water condensed from pure water element.
Then, through the billions of rivers on the side adjoining the world, this water slowly enters the world, and, after being diverted to moisten the earth by the goddess Tethys, it is
thereafter transformed by the Mother of All, the Mother Earth, into other material elements and integrated into the world's system.
Thus the world, under the nurture of the ocean-current couple and the Great Mother, grows this rapidly and teems with vitality.
There are also many fine tributaries that the gods have led into their "side residences" across the cosmos to nourish their abodes.
Therefore the power and authority of Oceanus and his consort are exceedingly, exceedingly vast—one could say they control the source of life of the cosmos.
This is also why Kronos, in a single impulse, rushed to the ocean current and cast love and desire into it.
He truly believed this could resolve the Sky-Father's remaining problem; the authority and power of the ocean current were too great.
And He also wanted, in passing, to solve the problem of the "eldest brother"—Oceanus.
So that in the coming matter of ruling the cosmos, no one would vie with Him for the God-King's throne.
This is also why Oceanus has never allowed his children to go to the world; he knew that, blessed in misfortune, his family had become too powerful and would inevitably arouse the God-King's vigilance.
If they merely stayed within the ocean, so be it; but if they truly went into the world, the God-King would sleep ill and would surely make a move against his family.
This ocean current is fantastically wondrous; the spectacle of the void being converted into matter is so abstruse—it is the scene of Chaos turning from "nothing" to "being," the supreme principle of the cosmos and the evolution of its origin.
Mortals cannot behold what lies within; even ordinary gods can only see that the river's boundary keeps expanding. As for its profundities, unless one is a great god, an embodiment of the cosmos's fundamental laws, one can by no means perceive its mysteries.
Moreover, the dangers contained within are unimaginable: should an ordinary god be swept in, to say nothing else, their body would certainly be utterly annihilated in an instant—either rolled back into Chaos or reduced to pure water element.
Even the ocean nymphs basically dwell on the side adjoining the earth, not daring in the least to approach the true edge of the world.
At the locus where matter and void intertwine and transform, the surface may appear calm, yet it contains infinitely terrifying powers of attrition and conversion—far more dreadful than simple matter or simple Chaos.
At the beginning, aside from Oceanus's household, there was no other life within the ocean current.
Later, after the second God-King created elemental life, Oceanus followed the model and created water-element beings, barely to ease the gods' loneliness.
The ocean is too vast. Now Heaven and Earth are five billion kilometers apart up and down, and the polar diameter is roughly similar; to encircle the earth, the ocean must be of unimaginable size.
Yet such a vast ocean held only Oceanus's family—an extreme solitude.
Unable to go into the world, the ocean gods were simply too lonely.
Many of Oceanus's children even risked being swallowed by the God-King to go into the world and taste that bustling realm.
Once intelligent life has selfhood and wisdom, it can no longer endure loneliness—especially gods, who possess near-infinite life.
Loneliness is the greatest torment and curse upon an endless life.
Only with a multitude of water spirits for company could the ocean gods barely endure; yet even so, ocean gods would often brave everything to head for the earth.
Those who went, however, were all minor figures of no great consequence; Kronos would not, over such motes of dust, add to his enmity with Oceanus—that was not worth it, for Oceanus and Tethys are famous for defending their children.
Though the God-King did not understand and did not wish to respect it, to do evil to two great Titans over dust would be far too unworthy.
The ocean lies outside the world and is too desolate; on ordinary days the gods, with nothing to do, would not come to such a "barren" and dangerous place.
For too long, the ocean was that calm—so calm it nearly drove gods mad.
But today, the calm cosmic ocean finally welcomed a new guest.
A guest who would change the ocean's isolated state outside the world.
Zeus came to this immeasurably vast ocean current and, without a sound, gazed upon this boundless world of pure water.
There were two supremely important existences in this ocean current—things He must possess, the two fundamental purposes of His coming.
He plunged into the current and only after who knows how long broke the surface again.
The first matter was done; no need to rush—time would take it from here.
Now, the most important thing was the second.
On such an ordinary day, a very handsome and majestic young god—whose smile made him more handsome still—blended in among the Oceanids.
This young god was not only good-looking; he had a fine temperament and a pleasant way of speaking. In an instant he became the darling of many ocean nymphs and won the hearts of who knows how many sea sprites.
Wherever he went, those exceedingly beautiful, water-soft (indeed made of water) ocean nymphs wanted to pull him along to play.
Only, he seemed to be looking for someone—and in quite a hurry. What a pity.
How nice it would have been to stay and play with everyone awhile. Guests to the ocean outside the world are too few—especially such a young, handsome, witty, and charming god.
The ocean, calm to the point of deadly dullness, sorely lacked such a god!
Zeus, for his part, was exasperated. Though the world was now fairly complete, it clearly was not complete enough—at least, hiding His identity while quietly seeking a god was truly difficult.
The world was already vast, but the world-encircling ocean current was plainly vaster still!
At present, gods who still lived within the ocean current and had not entered the world likely numbered in the tens of thousands—but those tens of thousands, spread across an almost endless ocean, were no mere drop in the sea.
It was like searching the solar system for a single ant.
Even for a great god like Him, circling the entire ocean to find someone was an extremely difficult task.
Zeus resolved inwardly that He would one day reweave the order—when the God-King needed to reach any god or mortal, they must be locatable at once!
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