Chapter 377: "Hello, Lord Seito. My Name is Hermes, One of the Twelve Olympians."
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"Brothers! Get him!"
The moment Hidenori Tabata finished his second slap, he drove a hard kick straight into Apollo's stomach. The heavy blow sent the god crashing to the floor. Hidenori quickly dropped to one knee, pinning Apollo's head firmly against the stone tiles.
Seeing this, Kitahara Iori and the rest of the Fatui Guild members swarmed forward in a flash.
The group surrounded Apollo and unleashed a chaotic storm of punches and kicks. The unexpected beating forced Apollo to roll into a ball, desperately covering his face with his arms.
The spectators: "..."
The assembled gods were completely struck dumb. Not a single deity in the hall ever expected that a prominent god like Apollo would be stomped into the ground by a pack of mortals.
However, no one stepped forward to stop the fight. Apollo had completely ruined his own reputation today; once the dust settled, they would all have a fantastic excuse to mock him for centuries.
Apollo was completely consumed by rage. He wanted to instinctively break his seal and unleash his full divine power to vaporize Kitahara Iori and the others. But the moment he remembered that using divine power would instantly force his return to the heavens, he forced his anger down.
Still, even without using divine power, a god's basic physical strength was vastly superior to that of an ordinary mortal!
Apollo rapidly found his footing, throwing his arms out to hurl Kitahara Iori and the others off his back.
"Damn it! You still have the nerve to fight back?!"
Iori snapped, refusing to let him off. He scrambled back to his feet and lunged at Apollo once more, with the rest of the guild members closing in right behind him.
A few of the men tightly pinned Apollo's arms and legs, while the others systematically targeted his vital weaknesses. What were those weaknesses? It was incredibly simple: his eyes, his groins, and his rear!
"Ahhh!!!"
As Iori and the boys repeatedly struck his most sensitive spots, Apollo let out an agonizing shriek. He tried to yell out a proper threat, but the sudden waves of intense pain reduced his voice to miserable screams. In a matter of minutes, he was completely wrecked by the Fatui members.
The violent scene made the adventurers who had tagged along with their gods look away, unable to watch the horror. But the deities themselves found the drama incredibly entertaining.
Seito let out a cold laugh. Apollo was truly full of himself. Did the old creep honestly think he could act like a supreme ruler outside of the God-King Star Sector? Worst-case scenario, even if Zeus discovered their presence, Seito could easily use his spatial arrays to transport everyone back to the safety of his home faction. For now, Apollo thoroughly deserved to taste the misery of being completely crushed.
After about ten minutes of continuous stomping, Kitahara Iori and the boys finally released the battered god and jogged back to Seito's side.
"Lord Seito, the target has been taken care of," Iori said with a wide, cheeky grin.
"Mhm."
Seito nodded in deep satisfaction. As expected of the men serving under his banner, their response time and execution were exceptionally fast!
Looking down at the miserable, broken figure of Apollo groaning on the floor, Seito offered a final cold sneer and completely ignored him.
"Let's go. It's time to enjoy the party," Seito turned his head to speak to Hestia and the two girls beside him.
"Sounds good!" Hestia smiled brightly, agreeing instantly.
She deeply despised Apollo's disgusting behavior. Threatening Seito? Worst-case scenario, she could simply use her own primary Main God Authority to mask Seito's energy tracks from Apollo and Zeus's perception fields later. It wasn't a major issue for her anyway.
As Apollo lay face-down on the cobblestones, he glared at Seito's retreating back with venomous eyes. He swore to himself that he would murder Seito and his group at all costs! The plan was simple: he would use his official divine authority to contact Zeus directly and expose these outside invaders!
With the chaotic opening act concluded, the remaining gods casually returned to their wine cups and resumed their friendly chatter. Hestia naturally guided Seito and his companions toward her closest friend.
"Let me introduce you. This is my best friend, Hephaestus," the blue-ribbon goddess said with a warm smile, gesturing proudly to the red-haired, one-eyed goddess beside her.
"Hello. I am Seito, the Space God-King. These two ladies are Kirukiru Amou, the Goddess of War, and Maple, the Goddess of the Earth from my faction," Seito introduced his group politely.
"Nice to meet you," Hephaestus smiled warmly, studying the two girls standing next to Seito.
A Goddess of War? Their own Western Mythos Faction possessed one as well—Athena, one of the primary Twelve Olympians. As for a Goddess of the Earth... Hephaestus looked at Maple. Their faction also housed a primordial earth goddess, though that entity was none other than Gaia, the original mother of creation.
Tap, tap, tap~~
Right at that moment, a smooth set of footsteps approached. Hermes, the God of Travel and Commerce, walked up to their small circle.
"Hello, Lord Seito. My name is Hermes, one of the Twelve Olympians of the Western Mythos Faction." Hermes offered a pleasant, squint-eyed smile, extending a polite greeting to Seito.
"Hello," Seito replied, his mind instantly spinning as he evaluated the god before him.
In his memory files of the original story, this guy hid an absolute mountain of deep secrets. Most notably, he maintained a direct, private communication link with Zeus. Seito couldn't be entirely sure if Hermes would instantly report their presence to the old ruler.
Hermes possessed an incredibly eccentric personality, driven entirely by a desire to treat the world like an entertaining game. But Seito had zero intention of letting his guard down. One careless mistake around a trickster like this could easily cause his plans to fall through.
"Sheesh! Did you guys completely forget about me?"
Loki walked over with a lazy stride, her hands resting comfortably behind her head. She hadn't brought a single adventurer from her Familia to the banquet today. The reason was simple: the main vanguard of the Loki Familia had already set out for their deep maze expedition, leaving only a small skeleton crew behind at the mansion.
"Hello, Loki," Seito greeted her smoothly.
"Hey there~" Loki grinned widely, tossing a casual wave back.
The group completed their basic introductions, quickly settling into a comfortable familiarity with one another.
"Lord Seito, what is the current state of affairs up in the God-King Star Sector? I recently caught a rumor that a brand-new powerhouse from the lower domains managed to breach the ceiling and enter the sector," Hermes asked casually, tossing the question out like a piece of regular gossip.
Seito instantly raised his internal mental shields. This guy really is an absolute old fox!
Since Hermes maintained an active line to Zeus, he naturally possessed a far clearer picture of the upper floor's layout than the standard lower-world gods. Seito was completely certain that Hermes was trying to bait him into leaking his data logs.
"Wait, how come I haven't heard about that?" Hestia blinked in confusion. She had absolutely zero record of such news.
Meanwhile, Hephaestus and Loki seemed to catch onto something. They quickly exchanged a brief, knowing look and began to quietly shift their gazes back and forth between Seito and Hermes.
"I only secured this log profile over the last couple of days," Hermes replied smoothly to the blue-ribbon goddess. Hearing his answer, Hestia nodded in understanding.
"I'm completely in the dark regarding that rumor," Seito shook his head calmly, playing his cards close to his chest. "However, the Central Region has indeed been locked in a massive wave of chaos lately. Even the Weapon God-King was recently confirmed dead."
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Thank you for reading.