Zeus fixed his gaze on her and, in a calm yet subtly oppressive tone, said slowly: "My honored Mother of All, you are the great mother most merciful and most loving toward your children. For that I hold the deepest admiration and respect."
"But," his tone sharpened abruptly, "perhaps you ought to educate your children better."
"Excessive indulgence, many times, only harms them."
"You should teach your children to discern right from wrong and to abide by the rules and principles of acting as gods. That is the only right path that can truly allow them to live long and live well."
Gaia's thin lips pressed into a tight line. She said nothing.
Boundless shame and fury surged through her divine body like magma from the earth's core.
Though she knew every word Zeus spoke was true, who was she?
She was the Mother of All, one of the founders of the universe!
And now she was being lectured by her own descendant, here in the Hall of All Gods, in full view of the pantheon!
It made her wish she could rise at once and sweep from the hall.
Yet in the end, reason overcame impulse.
Feeling that immense pressure on Zeus which had merged with the universe's order itself, she at last slowly, and with humiliation, lowered her noble, beautiful head and silently accepted Zeus's rebuke.
Faced with Zeus in a plainly foul mood, the great Mother of All once again chose to endure.
With so many gods present, how could she publicly defy the God-King's majesty?
Zeus's gaze passed over her and fell upon the diverse band of giants behind her. His voice chilled: "Today, for the sake of the supreme dignity of the Mother of All, I will not add further punishment for your earlier discourtesy at the grand ceremony."
"But from this moment forward, without my personal command, not one of you is permitted to set foot upon Mount Olympus! Otherwise, punishment without mercy!"
Though they had been terrified to the core moments ago by Zeus's world-shattering thunder, on hearing this humiliating banishment, Porphyrion—one of the giant leaders—emboldened by the presence of his Mother before him, let his innate arrogance overcome his fear and stepped out.
He shouted defiantly: "I refuse!"
"Your Majesty the Supreme God-King, do you not proclaim your order to be the 'Sacred Just Order'? We have violated none of the laws you have personally decreed. On what grounds do you treat us thus?"
"As the beloved children of the great Mother of All, on what grounds are we forbidden from entering this universe's center, Olympus?"
"Silence!"
Before Zeus could speak, Gaia had already scolded him sharply.
Stupid children—was the disgrace not enough? Always doing things that cost her face!
Gaia shot Porphyrion a glare, suppressed rage burning in her eyes, and rebuked him sternly: "The God-King's command is the highest rule. Fall back and do not utter another word!"
Upon the throne, Zeus did not even have the interest to spare this foolish giant another glance.
He only looked, amused, at Gaia's cold face, while wondering at whom exactly her anger burned.
In a voice soft as a whisper, he said very gently: "Honored Mother, the facts have once again proven that you truly should take the time to educate them properly and earnestly."
Then his voice returned to the God-King's majesty, and his indifferent words rang throughout the hall: "All giants, hear me—listen well—heed the absolute decree of your Supreme God-King."
"From this instant, should even one of your number dare again to question my will, then this universe will no longer have need of the giant race."
No sooner had Zeus finished than the goddess of oaths, Styx, clenched her teeth, a decisive light flashing in her eyes.
She rose at once and struck!
Endless waters of the Underworld river surged from the void. The pitch-black current, bearing the absolute force of oath and the Underworld's icy breath, became a mighty flood that swept toward the hundred and fifty giants behind the Mother of All!
The giants instinctively tried to rouse their power in resistance, but were horrified to discover they could not move even a finger within this grand temple.
An invisible, vast divine might had already bound them tight. Clearly, other great gods had already acted—and likely more than a few.
The Mother of All's divine body jolted, and she reflexively moved to intervene.
But Zeus's indifferent gaze had already locked onto her, those eyes becoming chains of living thunder that wrapped her fast.
A terrifying sense of danger exploded again and again in the deepest source of her divinity!
She dared not move at all.
She could only watch as the dark waters of the Underworld river wrapped up her one hundred and fifty children and, like so much refuse, blasted them from the temple in the crudest way.
The black waters turned into a roaring dark dragon, sweeping them from the peak of Olympus as it tumbled and bellowed earthward.
At that speed and with that force, they would not land for days.
Zeus gave Styx a slight wave, bidding her sit.
Only then did he turn a mild smile upon the pallid Gaia: "Sometimes, suffering a few setbacks is no bad thing."
"After all, experience and lessons are the precious sustenance that drives a god's growth, are they not?"
Without waiting for any reaction from Gaia, Zeus rose at once and proclaimed to the hall: "Dismissed."
Even as his voice still echoed through the majestic temple, his towering figure became a blazing golden bolt of thunder and vanished from the council chamber in an instant.
Leaving Gaia alone where she stood—her exquisite features flickering green then white—her expression a spectacle.
The gods looked from one to another, all silent.
Aside from a few primordial Titans and the six giants, the Olympian great gods rose quickly, one after another, and in knowing silence became streams of light, departing that awkward hall heavy with stillness and oppression.
Holy Mother Rhea sighed inwardly in helplessness, then stepped gracefully forward, her warmest smile on her face, to gently comfort her Mother, Gaia.
She truly did not wish to see her revered Mother and her most beloved child driven to some irreparable pass by a gaggle of rude fools—it was far too unworthy.
The other primordial Titans and giants likewise approached to counsel Gaia, saying the giants had been far too discourteous.
Not only had they failed to respect the gods present, they had even dared disrespect His Majesty the God-King. To be thus dealt with now was only what they deserved.
If they were not strictly taught now, sooner or later they would cause some boundless calamity, and by then it would be too late for regret.
The God-King had only punished lightly to admonish heavily—already a great boon.
Gaia's gaze slowly swept over these great gods who came to offer consolation. When she saw even Oceanus—so sternly dealt with just now by Zeus—speaking hard in Zeus's defense, the last flicker of anger in her heart went out in an instant.
Only boundless, absolute powerlessness remained.
Zeus had completely, utterly taken hold of the universe—taken hold of the hearts of the gods.
Whether reward or punishment, all proceeded from his will.
Among the gods, not one dared defy him.
Not only that, they did not even conceive of defiance. Instead they saw it all as natural and proper.
His power, his authority, even his supreme standing in the minds of the gods—these far surpassed anything Kronos of old could match.
Moreover, through Gaia's source-tied bond with the fabric of the universe, her intuition told her with utter clarity:
Zeus was not merely as formidable as he appeared.
Even after displaying absolute, invincible might, beneath the calm iceberg of his demeanor he still hid a great deal of true strength—many layers upon layers more.
Of this, Gaia was utterly certain.
To say nothing else, consider only the mother of Zeus's first child—that goddess who could not remain low-key even if she wanted to, for her very existence forbade it—Dione. She contained power beyond imagining.
At this Assembly of All Gods, even though she deliberately cloaked herself among the host, Gaia's emerald eyes—which pierce to the source of all things—picked her out at once.
That source-radiance of spirit, which ordinary deities could not see or grasp at all, was to Gaia clear and dazzling beyond measure.
Its brilliance was such that it nearly scorched the Mother of All's eyes.
What a splendorous, mighty spiritual light it was!
Vast, majestic, lucid, deep, brilliant, radiant, resplendent, pure—full of infinite possibility and the unknown! It held a supreme, inexhaustible allure before which every spiritual life would be deeply intoxicated!
In that instant, Gaia even thought her consort—whom she both hated and feared—the First God-King, Lord of Spirit, Uranus—had returned!
Too familiar!
Once, such radiance had been born in her own embrace!
She forcibly stilled the trembling of her divinity, confirmed and reconfirmed, and only when she had ascertained that this goddess named Dione—her aura, nature, and divine essence—was utterly different from Uranus, an absolutely yin goddess, did she maintain her composure.
Even so, she held a few guesses in her heart, and a terrifying possibility quietly rose within her.
After all, the first child of Dione and Zeus was the goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite.
Then between this "love and beauty" of supreme authority and the "love and desire" that births all spirits—what profound connection might there be?
No matter how unwilling or resentful she felt, Gaia had to admit in sorrow that Zeus's might and unfathomable depth had far outstripped her understanding—far beyond what she could now confront head-on.
Before this, it was true she had the power to upend the board entirely, to perish together with the universe and turn all to nothing.
But the instant she beheld Dione, she knew that even perishing together might not succeed now.
For this, Gaia felt profound despair.
This third-generation God-King far surpassed the first and second.
He was a truly invincible God-King—perfect in power, stratagem, temperament, and contingency.
In every respect.
That was why, even after enduring such humiliation and anger, Gaia still chose to endure.
For she had no means at all to deal with Zeus.
She could not, for a mere matter of face, truly deploy that final tactic of mutual destruction.
That would be far too extreme.
And might not succeed.
After all, Zeus was not gratuitously humiliating her without cause.
The God-King was defending his sacred majesty as the supreme sovereign.
A Great Mother always finds ways to comfort herself.
Facing Rhea's and her many children's heartfelt solace, the Mother of All at last forced a smile onto her flawless, stately face.
She chatted gently with her children for a time, and the matter was, for now, laid to rest.
As for Zeus, he had already quietly (strike that—openly) gone to the Underworld.
The moment the assembly was dismissed, the goddess of Night gave him a very serious look, laden with warning and urgency.
At once, like a meteor shower of the night, dozens of messages began bombarding his senses through his private divine network, urging him to go to the Underworld immediately, right now, at once!
She had already hurried back to the Underworld to wait for Zeus, which was why she had not stayed to comfort her "bestie" Gaia.
What could she do—no bestie could be as important as her lover.
Zeus, sensing several flashing red notifications in his private channel—and well over a hundred unread messages—could only clutch his head.
He hesitated for quite some time, and as Nyx's "fatal cascade" of divine messages began a new barrage, he decided he had better head to the Underworld first.
If he delayed, Nyx—whose feelings had been repressed to the limit—might truly snap.
Besides, there were indeed important proper matters to handle; he might as well take care of them along the way.
Having shifted from his austere middle-aged God-King form back to his handsome youthful appearance, Zeus went to the Underworld grandly (in fact, tiptoeing).
The moment he stepped into that realm of eternal stillness, the ever-attentive goddess of Night appeared before him.
Yet the Nyx standing before him now bore no trace of the hard, urgent tone of her messages—she was gentle and obedient, as if a different goddess entirely.
Back in the Underworld, she had at once changed into a silhouette of effortless allure, all ready and waiting for Zeus.
She had truly steeled herself: if Zeus did not come today, she would have stormed up Olympus heedless of all.
If need be, she would stir up another blazing row with those little vixen goddesses of Olympus!
But Zeus had not disappointed her—he came at once—and she was greatly satisfied and delighted.
In her lover's heart, she was indeed the most important!
A Great Mother will always find ways to comfort herself.
And now Zeus was wholly ensnared by the goddess of Night before him, inwardly crying that he could not bear it!
Hearts nearly blossomed in his golden god-eyes!
The goddess of Night had shed the stately black robe she'd worn at the Assembly of All Gods and instead put on a garment steeped in classical Greek charm—an artwork of such high artistry as to shock even gods.
It was a black lace, semi-sheer gown woven from the essence of night.
The bodice was a daring, uninhibited off-the-shoulder Y-shaped design.
Night itself had been cut to the most graceful lines, setting off the goddess's alabaster skin—white as congealed moonlight—into even loftier beauty, with a depth and curve that could make any god's head swim.
The clever construction was held together solely by divine power; by mortal standards, it could never stay in place.
Below that breathtaking curve was a delicate dark-gold belt cinching a waist slim beyond grasp.
"Willowy as a handful" would still be saying too much; that slender, supple waist seemed so fragile it might snap like a flower stalk in a strong breeze.
Beneath the waist was a luscious, rounded curve enough to make a god's mouth water—a branch in the night heavy with the ripest, juiciest peach.
And as for that slit in the skirt—who knew which goddess she had learned it from—its "artistic" content was stacked a good forty or fifty floors high!
With Zeus's piercing gaze, he needed only a flicker to see that beneath that mist-thin gauze, there was nothing else.
"The somewhat weightier shapes and sizes" were plain as day!
In that half-veiled haze, with each light step, if her gesture grew the slightest bit bolder, the infinite vistas would be more than Zeus could take.
When a primordial Great Mother resolved to beguile her beloved All-Father, the myriad graces she unfurled were unmatched by any youthful maiden goddess.
Nor did the dress's cunning end there.
Though the slit was high, the hem was very long.
Trailing like a river over the night's fine mist, a pair of legs long as life itself—fuller and more luminous than freshly peeled lychee—flashed between the opening and closing of the skirt like pale moonlight gliding along a dark river.
The goddess of Night's skin was by nature the purest cold white; now she deliberately conjured a blue cold flame of the Underworld to play about her like sprites.
Her tender, voluptuous snow-white skin, lit by the cold fire, seemed to glow faintly—regal and sacred, yet supremely sultry and enchanting.
Most striking of all were her charming, glossy jade feet.
Their lines were elegant and proportionate, so delicate they bore not a speck of dust; the toenails shone a lustrous jet, the ten toes rounded like small shells.
At a glance they were like the finest black pearls, an extreme visual contrast against the gleaming cool white of her skin.
What jolted Zeus's very divinity was that upon those perfect jade feet she wore a pair of cutting-edge dark-gold strappy high-heeled sandals!
Their slender ties wound around her white ankles, and each tap of the half-palm-high heel seemed to thump directly upon Zeus's heartbeat.
As those jade feet winked in and out beneath the hem, they slapped a dozen irresistible "control effects" upon Zeus in succession.
"This isn't right," Zeus was inwardly thunderstruck. "How would you know to dress like this? It's far too avant-garde! It doesn't belong to this era!"
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