CHAPTER 180: THE ASTRAPE

For four days and four nights, Nox did not sleep. He was in his workshop, his forge of the void. He was building.

He had the blueprints from Hephaestus’s forge. He had the knowledge consumed from a hundred different warriors and mages. He was not just building weapons; he was building an army of constructs.

He forged soldiers of black iron and void energy, their forms sleek and predatory. He forged massive, hulking war-golems of stone and shadow. They were not mindless puppets; they were extensions of his own will, linked directly to his core.

On the fifth day, Elisa burst into his workshop. "Nox! We have a problem! The human soldiers... they’re deserting."

That got his attention. He looked up, his purple-glowing eyes narrowing. "What?"

"Hera’s words, the fear of fighting a real god... it’s too much for them. Dozens of them have slipped away in the night."

Nox was silent. He looked at the perfect army of void-constructs he had built. He could win this war without the humans. It would be the efficient thing to do.

But he remembered the looks on their faces in the plaza, the moment they had chosen hope over fear.

"No," he said. "I am their king."

He dismissed the construct he was working on and walked out into the main plaza. He stood on the steps of the courthouse.

He did not shout. He just stood there.

The players, the soldiers, the citizens, they all stopped and looked at him.

"I know you are afraid," he said, his voice calm and clear. "You have every right to be. The gods are coming to burn our world."

He looked at their faces. "I will not lie to you. Some of us will die. Maybe all of us. Hera offered you safety as a slave. I offer you a chance. A chance to fight for your own lives. A chance to stand on your own two feet and tell the heavens that you will not be ruled."

He looked out at the sea. "I am going to that island. I am going to face the gods of Olympus. And I am going to break them."

He looked back at his people. "I am not asking you to follow me because you fear me. I am not commanding you as your king."

He dismissed his armor. "I am asking you, as just a man, to stand with me. To fight with me. For our home."

He turned and started to walk toward the city gates, alone.

The plaza was silent.

Then, a single soldier stepped out of the crowd and fell into step behind him.

Then another. And another.

Until the entire army was marching behind him, their faces no longer full of fear, but of a new, fierce, and unbreakable resolve.

They were not just an army following a king. They were a people following their hero.

***

They made landfall on the shores of Crete at dawn on the seventh day. The island was a fortress of bronze walls, Cyclopean sentries, and circling griffons. At the heart of the island, on the highest mountain, the Astrape, Zeus’s god-killing weapon, was gathering the light of the rising sun.

"We do not have much time," Vexia stated.

Nox looked at his army. "Elisa, you’re the vanguard. Break their front gate. Vexia, Mela, you lead the main assault. Your objective is not to win; it is to cause as much chaos as possible. Serian, you must get to the summit and destroy the weapon."

"And you, Nox?" she asked.

He just looked at the massive, bronze fortress. "I’m going to pay a visit to the landlord."

He turned to his army. "For Portentia," he said.

"FOR PORTENTIA!" they roared back.

The battle for Crete began.

Elisa led the charge, a berserker queen at the head of a desperate army, smashing into the Olympian lines. The battle at the gates was a brutal meat grinder.

In the midst of the chaos, Serian, at the head of a small squad of Sun Elf warriors, began a perilous climb up a hidden mountain path Mela’s spies had discovered.

And Nox just walked.

He walked to a sheer, unguarded section of the massive bronze cliffs. He placed a hand on the cold, divine metal.

’Liona, phase me through.’

His body dissolved into a stream of pure, void data. He passed through the solid bronze wall as if it were smoke, reforming on the other side.

He was alone, deep in the heart of the enemy stronghold.

He moved through the halls of the Olympian fortress like a ghost. He was not heading for the weapon. He was heading for the throne room.

He found it at the very heart of the fortress. In the center of the room, on a simple, elegant throne of white marble, sat a woman.

She was clad in the simple, grey robes of a scholar, her face severe and intelligent, her grey eyes holding the wisdom of ages. It was Athena, the goddess of wisdom and strategy.

"I knew you would come," she said, her voice calm. "The direct path is always your way."

"Where is Zeus?" Nox demanded.

"My father is... occupied. He is overseeing the final charging of the Astrape. He left me to deal with you." She stood up. "He thinks you are a brute. A mindless force of destruction. But I have watched you, Nox. You are not a brute. You are a strategist. A king."

"I’m just a guy who’s tired of gods," he said.

"Then you and I have something in common," she said, a small, surprising smile touching her lips. "My father is an arrogant, tyrannical fool. I do not wish to fight you, Void Monarch. I wish to offer you a different path. Help me overthrow my father. Help me bring a new order to Olympus, an order based on wisdom and justice, not on fear and power."

Nox just stared at her. ’A coup? In the middle of a battle?’

[Analysis: The entity ’Athena’ is presenting a genuine offer. Accepting her offer has a 72% probability of a favorable outcome.]

"You want me to help you become the new queen?"

"I want to bring balance," she corrected.

"There’s no such thing as peace," Nox said. "Not anymore."

He raised his scepter. "I appreciate the offer. But I don’t trade one ruler for another."

Athena’s smile faded. "I see. You are not a king, after all. You are just another tyrant."

She raised her own staff. "Then you have left me no choice."

The floor erupted with a blinding, silver light. A complex, multi-layered runic array, a cage of pure, conceptual logic, flared to life, trapping him.

"You cannot win with brute force here, Nox," Athena said. "This is a battle of wits. And you have just walked into my library."

The world dissolved around him, the marble throne room replaced by an endless, white space filled with floating, geometric shapes and streams of pure data.

He was trapped in the mind of the goddess of wisdom.