As soon as He returned to the temple, the God-King dismissed the gods and kept only Clymene behind, then, in a very fiery mood, "disciplined" her fiercely.
Clymene knew she was at fault and did not dare plead for Prometheus at all, only did her utmost to cooperate and let the God-King "lecturer" her as He pleased.
She knew very well that "saying more is not as good as doing more" is the supreme rule.
No matter how much a child angers his god, no matter how thoughtless, no matter how foolish—being the mother-goddess, she could not simply ignore him.
So long as his divinity was not annihilated and he was not cast into Tartarus, then nothing was truly irreparable.
As long as one still "exists," there is always hope for a god.
All is His Majesty the God-King's will. Thunder and rain alike are divine grace.
His Majesty is always magnanimous and merciful; His Majesty is hope itself.
Serve His Majesty well, and when the storm of thunder passes, a gentle rain might very well fall again.
As for the suffering of her child…
That was a good thing too!
If this unfilial son did not suffer a few lessons, sooner or later he would end up as hopeless as that foolish brother of his!
The resolute Great Mother, once she had recovered her calm, had already settled her plan on the way back to Olympus—if His Majesty did not take the initiative to censure her, she would take the initiative to "beg punishment!"
His Majesty needed to vent some fire; that was exactly what she wished.
Of course, the "lesson" she received through this entanglement was quite serious.
At the very least, the tsundere, scheming Storm-Goddess Arke, who had been "eavesdropping" outside, was so "frightened" that her legs almost gave out.
Clymene's "screams" and "cries" had simply gone on too long.
And the sound… was rather too loud.
Though, it seemed… not entirely made up of pain?
This greatly shocked and "polluted" the "pure" (not at all) divinity of the little goddess.
The number of little goddesses outside who lost strength in their legs from eavesdropping was more than could be counted on one hand.
In the mortal world, night fell quietly.
Without the light of holy fire, the moon poured down like mercury, cold and stark.
A cold wind howled over the forest crowns, bringing with it the severity and loneliness of the wild, cutting straight to the heart.
The night had never been so deep; the evening wind had never cut so sharply.
It was a cold that seeped from skin down into bone.
For the first time, humankind would truly feel this world's bone-deep chill.
And also the many dangers hidden in the endless dark—dangers that once had only stayed away out of fear of holy fire.
Now that the firelight was gone, danger descended into reality.
Prometheus had no face to meet humankind.
He had truly heard Epimetheus's words and taken them in.
At least in this moment of crushing remorse, they had reached his heart.
He dared not directly enter human life again.
He had only just been punished; if he were now seen mingling among humans, by the God-King and the gods of Olympus, that would not end well.
If His Majesty turned that anger on humankind, all would truly be lost.
He chose to leave humankind for now.
He needed to cool his own head, to think through all the causes and effects to the end.
He also needed to feel, for once, what it meant to truly have "feet on the ground."
His body and divinity, repelled by the cosmos and cut off from its energy, could no longer recover easily.
So heavily wounded, he desperately needed a long sleep to dull the pain that reached into his very divinity.
He could only temporarily seal his godhood and roam alone over this land that was both familiar and strange.
Of course, however far he had fallen, no foolish creature would dare approach him.
An Olympian high god, however disgraced, is not to be disturbed by mortal things.
Even ordinary gods and nymphs would not dare show him the slightest disrespect.
With a god like this, who knows if one day he might return?
Even if he never did, he had plenty of friends and kin.
Any one of them was not someone common gods or nymphs could afford to provoke.
Before the Olympian gods, to call him a "god of sin" was something no one would dispute, and no one would dare speak for him.
But in the mortal world, what attitude should common beings take toward him?
There was no need to think too hard about that.
High above on Olympus, the gods were not entirely indifferent either.
Some felt both regret and pity, yet could only face it with silence for now.
They could only, in secret, quietly watch the fate of mortals.
Others looked on with disdain, arms folded coldly.
In their eyes, any mortal who dared trample divine majesty, whatever the reason, must pay the heaviest price.
And that price, without doubt, was heavy.
Humankind would now pay for the calamity of "deceit" that Prometheus had sown.
Once, the burning, unquenchable holy fire had been a joint grace from the warm Fire-Goddess and the supreme God-King.
Fire did not merely bring the fragrance of cooked meat; it brought warmth to the night, and it drove off evil, purified darkness, and shone as a wheel of truth in the soul.
Whether in deep caves or vast forests, those warm, sacred bonfires of ash-branch were an impassable barrier, keeping all danger at bay.
In the firelight, fear did not spread; hearts did not fester in suspicion; minds did not wander into panic; danger withdrew, and people were at peace.
It was fire that sheltered all mortals.
Now that barrier was gone.
On the earth there were, besides truly intelligent humankind, many fierce beasts and venomous insects, and even many seemingly harmless plants were highly dangerous.
It is not only animals that eat meat; even plants can.
Some of them attack on their own, more bloodthirsty and greedy than ordinary beasts.
And beyond these mundane creatures, there were the "divine monsters" that humans could hardly resist and often could not withstand at all.
These were born of divine blood, or from the gods' powers under strange conditions, and most of them were violent and cruel.
They were now the sort of thing humans, lacking any supernatural power, could not stand against.
Most had little wisdom, but their strength was tremendous, and many possessed bizarre, uncanny abilities.
Once, under the shining of holy fire, they did not dare appear at all.
But now…
In the dark, countless greedy eyes dared for the first time to turn toward the human tribes once shielded by sacred flame.
There were also more terrifying beings: certain evil gods, wicked gods, wrathful gods upon the earth.
Many of these had divine blood, or were offshoots of divine power.
They had no right to dwell in the heavens; some lacked the ability or the will to roam the stars.
But as divine beings, they had every right to live upon the earth.
These gods, though they behaved as tamely and meekly as anyone before the Olympian gods,
were far more "willful" in the face of mortals.
They had no right to enjoy Olympus's nectar and ambrosia; their usual feasts came from mortal beings.
Ordinary mortals, they had long grown tired of.
And humans—these rare mortals scented with the fragrance of "wisdom"—in their eyes were the freshest, most tempting "dessert."
They had wanted to taste this new delicacy for a long time.
But once, under the gods' protection, they could only dream.
Now…
There were also many beasts whose bodies or souls had mutated under various strange conditions—each a grave danger.
Such beings often could not control their change.
Even when they did not mean to attack, they caused great disasters by accident.
In the past, such warped existences could not draw near human tribes at all.
Within the range of the ever-burning fire's protection, such aberrant creatures would never appear.
Even among humans there were the occasional aberrant individuals.
But under the gods' many blessings, little ever came of it, and sometimes it even turned for the good.
Even when there was a problem, the warm firelight suppressed the mutation and kept it from worsening too quickly.
Now all of that had changed.
After a brief discussion, the leaders and elites of each tribe hurried back to their people.
Because the situation was so urgent, they had no time to carry back the remaining half of the offerings that should have belonged to humankind.
Nor did they dare leave them in the temple to rot—that would be another "disrespect" toward the gods.
In the end, they placed all those offerings neatly outside the temple.
The fate of that food was already sealed.
The food Prometheus had racked his brains to "save" for humans could no longer be offered to the gods, and in the end would never truly reach human hands either.
Back in their own tribes, they at once told their panicked, terrified, lost clansmen what had happened.
Of course, each retelling became its own version, most "beautified" in various ways.
Humankind has a great talent: learning bad habits quickly.
Prometheus had just demonstrated "deceit" and "concealment" before the highest God.
Now they took that "divine art" learned from a god and used it upon their own kin.
Was it a "kind" lie?
Perhaps.
In such a world-shattering upheaval, laying the entire cruel truth bare was not necessarily good.
But a lie is still a lie; deceit is still deceit.
This was a lie of "politics."
______
(≧◡≦) ♡ Support me and read 20 chapters ahead – patreon.com/Mutter
Every 100 Power Stones = 1 extra chapter on Saturday.
Every 5 reviews = 1 extra chapter on Saturday.