"But I am a benevolent goddess, and I have always detested wanton voilence." Athena said, her cold, steely voice softening just a bit. "I will not release Lord Perses from his bonds today, if any among your mortal servants can beat three of Echidna's monsters in combat."
At first the throneroom was silent.
Then Nyx laughed. It was a cold, hate-filled laugh without any of the warmth it should have had.
This . . . was naked humiliation!
"You know exactly what you are asking." She said. Her voice trembling with suppressed anger. Her gaze suddenly zeroed in on Echidna.
"The worst of her breed brutalized the gods and Titians who resisted Perses when he sat upon the throne of the underealm. What servant of mine could possibly defeat them?"
Athena smiled wryly and shrugged her shoulders. All her mannerisms seemd to scream: 'That's a you problem!'
But before anything else could be said. .
"I'll do it."
The voice that's spoke was calm and even, punctuating the tense atmosphere.
Adam stepped forward .
Nyx immediately turned to look at him with surprise. Needless to say, she had not expected him to be the one to speak up at this very moment. But then the surprise in her expression was replaced by panic.
"No .. .Absolutely not–"
"Nyx." Adam said calmly while her hand hand into his and stared right into her eyes.
"Trust me."
He hadn't said much, but his firm touch and calm gaze had somehow calmed the chaos surging in her heart.
The silence continued between them as they both stared deeply into the other's eyes. Then slowly, Nyx looked away and gave Adam a very reluctant nod.
"If anything happens to you—" She begun.
"I'll let you punish me however you want." Adam laughed.
Meanwhile, Athena watched this exchange with a frown. She had noticed Adam the very moment she stepped into the hall. After all, the young man looked like perfection incarnate. She noted his closeness to Nyx and the calm and confident aura around him— an aura that should not have appeared on someone as weak as him. Especially not while they were in the company of gods. She had pegged him to be abnormal immediately.
But this was beyond her expectations.
She regarded him more carefully now, her electric blue eyes scanning across his entire body.
He was no fool— that much was evident. . . and he didn't seem to be very reckless either.
And yet, he was accepting a challenge to face against three monsters of Echidna's brood— a challenge most gods would shun. Because monsters knew no restraint or mecy!
The only possible outcome of this fight was death!
But he had to know that.
Athena's gaze lingered on him for a moment longer, her frown deepening behind her mask.
He knew, but he'd accepted the challenge anyway. . .
'How strange. . .' She thought.
For a moment, she was worried that this new variable that had popped up of who knows where might actually end up ruining her plans.
Then she remembered how likely it was for a mortal creature to defeat any of Echidna's brood.
"Very well then" Athena said as she nodded slightly in assent . To this, Nyx sighed softly and waved her palm.
A darkness then swalllwed every living soul in the throneroom, transporting them all to the grandest amphitheater in her realm.
Nyx took her seat at the northern ring. Asteria, her other servant gods, and the night spirits all joined her, while Athena, Perses, and Echidna sat opposite her at the southern wing.
Adam, however was spawned by the darkness onto the amphitheater stage.
Tension hung in the air as Nyx's gaze fixated on Adam, unwilling to let him out of her sight for even second.
Divine energy pooled under her right palm; volatile and dense, compressing tightly like a wound spring. The moment she sensed that Adam's life was in danger, she would immediately rush to save him, to hell with the consequences.
Unfortunately, Athena sensed the abnormal concentration of energy under Nyx's palm and quitely began making her own preparations. If Nyx made a move, she was confident in her ability to stall her for at least three seconds. And in the kind of battle that was about to take place, three seconds would easily be enough for a killing move.
Athena glanced once at Echidna and whispered a command.
Echidna moved for the first time since she came, turning her glowing voilet eyes towards the amphitheater. Then she made a strange gesture: A fist over a curled palm, and then she spoke in an ancient, archaic language.
Adam was surpised by how pleasant her voice sounded, but before he could relish it, something alarming stole his attention.
On the side of the amphitheater opposite him, a crack in space had appeared and began widening at an absurd rate.
When it finally reach a height of five meters, a terrifying creature crawled out of it.
It had nine heads on nine serpentine necks, each one the size of a horse, glinting bronze scales, and eighteen coppery red eyes. Each of heads revealed a pair of fangs dripping green with venom whenever they hissed.
It was a creature of myth so fearsome that even as a child in the far future, Adam had been told stories of its dread.
It was a Hydra!
A wave of discomfort passed through the assembly of gods and spirits as nice gripped the armrest of her chair uneasily.
"Lena, what are my chances?" Adam asked whiles warily eying the creature.
"About eighty percent, my lord. When it comes to pure crushing force, the Hydra is easily the weakest of Echidna's brood. However it is extremely intelligent and cunning. Furthermore, there is no antidote to it's poison."
"So it's all good as long as I don't get bit?"
"I suppose so. . ."
"Excellent." Adam flashed a confident smile as the monster lunged.
The battle only lasted four seconds.
Later when word of this battle circulated among excited spirits and deities within the realm of Nyx, none could agree on what exactly they'd seen. It was just that difficult to track what Adam did within those four seconds.
In those four seconds, he had no more substance than a ghost.
He sidestepped the first head easily, disappeared when the second head swept a wide arc through space, and evaded the third head whe it came barreling from the left.
He moved with unnatural grace— almost as if he was dancing — as he wove through the attacks of nine simultaneous, independently-reasoning killing machines with ease that should have been impossible for any mortal.
Not a single one of his movements were wasted, and every motion of his was terrifyingly precise, almost as if he saw the attacks before they came.
The Hydra was indeed deadly beast: Extraordinarily fast for a creature of it size.
On a normal day, it should have been able to destroy any mortal opponent with ease.
But in truth, Adam was no mortal opponent!
After dodging another one of its strikes, Adam leapt towards the Hydra, rapidly closing the distance between them and entering further into its reach.
He hooked an arm around the closest neck and slid along its length like a zipline.
The Hydra thrashed furiously in an attempt to shake him off, three of its heads immediately rushed towards him at the same time. He released his hold before they arrived, using momentum of the throw to carry himself forward, and landed directly in front of the creature's main body.
He grabbed both sides of the creature and applied a force far beyond what a body should have been capable of. The Hydra wailed in distress, heads writhing in all directions as it's body began to fold.
crackkk....ckrakkl...
Bones and vessels shifted and gave way beneath his palms until finally the Hydra's body caved in at the ridge of its thorax . . .. . [BANG]
The resulting sound was deafening, but it was soon drowned out by the Hydra's last, sorrowful wail. The light went out in its eyes, all nine heads came to a stop as the monster shuddered, breathing its last as its colossal body fell motionless onto the ground.
A long silence followed . . .then all the night spirits erupted into cheers!
Adam straightened his back before dusting himself off, pulling up the sleeve of his right arm to reveal a thin bruise.
'It seems I've gotten rusty in your time here, my lord.
The you of the past could have ended this fight in a single exchange.' Lena sighed.
'Indeed.' Adam agreed.
Back at the seating areas Nyx let out a long shaky breath. She had been clutching hee armrest so hard that her knuckles had turned white.
Asteria also let out a small, relieved sound besides her.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Amphitheater, Athena was very still. She looked at Adam calmly and revised her assessment of him.
His speed alone was extraordinary. It went far beyond what a mortal should have been capable of, but that was not all.
What shocked her the most was his sharp decision making, and his extremely acute five senses.