车生活

“Stop, which deity are you from, and why are you attacking my friend?”

With the clear yet somewhat immature voice ringing out, an invisible fluctuation swept across the field. Instantly, the silver serpents in the sky seemed somewhat languid and listless.

Zeus’s spirit tensed. He looked intently, and there was a red-haired girl around fifteen or sixteen years old.

In her presence, Zeus did not feel intense fluctuations of divine power, but seeing how she could easily stop his attack and weaken the power of his thunder through some means, it was clear that she was no simple being.

However, Zeus had no intention of giving up. Who knew what secrets his identity held, or whether it would lead to big trouble.

“Who are you, and why do you interfere with my affair with this goddess?”

On guard, Zeus surreptitiously gathered strength. If he could not defeat the opponent head-on, a sneak attack might still be a good option.

As long as he could achieve his goal, he did not care what methods he used.

Alas, Zeus did not know that his tactics might be somewhat useful against other deities, but they were ineffective against the enemy before him.

“I am the Grand Sorceress Hecate, and I am also a friend of Selene. It is natural for me to stop you when you lay hands on my friend.”

Lifted into the air by the wind, Hecate watched Zeus’s futile efforts.

Before, when Selene missed their appointment, she thought that something might have come up at the last moment. But what she did not expect was that her friend was under attack by an unfamiliar deity.

And the adversary still showed no sign of stopping. Under her transcendent spiritual perception, Zeus’s rudimentary concealing tactics were meaningless; Hecate could see at a glance that he was gathering strength.

“So it’s you, still not planning to cease your attack, huh? In that case, I’ll discipline you first.”

The stone tablet had once taught her that the first to act had the advantage. Since the opponent was not playing fair, she might as well subdue him first!

Boom —!

Just as Hecate was about to make a move, she was taught a lesson. Clearly, she had not learned the essence of striking first from the stone tablet, as the true first strike does not involve exchanging pleasantries with the opponent.

Before her, Zeus had already decisively taken action upon realizing his plan was discovered. With a loud explosion, lightning struck straight through Hecate’s position.

To his surprise, his attack merely passed through without any feeling of hitting a target.

“Heh, uncultured brute, do you gods only know how to be straightforward?”

Mocking his adversary, the true form of Hecate slowly emerged to the left. That’s how deities who only sense divine power are; a simple illusion spell completely throws them off.

Calmly raising a finger, Zeus instantly felt a sense of crisis before Hecate.

“Psychic Blast!”

During her years traversing the great seas, Hecate hadn’t shied away from clashing with deities. She found that at her current level of magic power, it was difficult to match the divine force of a True God who wielded authority. Merely being baptized by the laws was not enough to fully sublimate her magic, and she did not know how to complete the latter half of the step.

So, Hecate simply gave up trying to harm deities with elements and magical power. Compared to gods, her strong mental power was truly advantageous, and she was essentially equivalent to a deity, with no difference in the quality of her spirit.

On this foundation, with the help of the Tome of All Spells, she created a multitude of mental witchcraft, this ethereal and direct assault on the spirit proved unfailing against gods.

“Ugh—”

A muted groan. Even though he had transformed into lightning and left his original spot in an instant, Zeus still suffered a heavy blow the next moment.

Feeling no force come near him, he yet seemed to have been struck by a giant hammer on the head, leaving the young deity completely disoriented.

“Chaotic Mind!”

Her fingertip lifted slightly, casting another spell. Before recovering, Zeus felt the world around him become confused in an instant; everything was turned upside down, and he could no longer discern which way was which.

Damn it, do you think such tricks will defeat me?!”

Feeling a bit angry from the consecutive blows, the new god experienced his first defeat in divine life. However, Zeus was obviously not the kind to shrink back from this; it only served to fuel his will to fight even more.

So he released all his power and returned to his true form of thunder.

“Boom—!”

Silver light exploded, and Zeus no longer maintained a human shape. He merged himself into the sweeping lightning, which was the authority granted by his godhood.

Even though this would greatly consume his already sparse divine power, in this state, even if the opponent continued with those strange attacks to disturb him, they would inevitably be weakened by the lightning.

“What a nuisance,” she muttered with a slight frown, finding the situation somewhat tricky. Despite the existence of psychic witchcraft giving her the ability to combat weaker true gods, that was all there was to it.

Fortunately, her reliance for walking the seas these past years had never been solely on her personal strength.

Compared to relying on the power of an individual alone, figuring out how to better borrow from external forces, whether the natural world or high-ranking beings, that’s the true source of a wizard’s power.

“That’s why I find these deities so annoying, especially such naturally powerful gods—though now that I think about it, with such a strong godhood, why is his divine power so weak?”

She pursed her lips, slightly puzzled. Hecate lightly flipped open the book she’d been holding in her left hand, turning to a page with a drawing of the stars and the sun.

That was the essence of a fragment of the sun she had picked up on her travels. Using that fragment as a core, Hecate recreated the ‘past’ scene through a ritual, then successfully sealed it into the Book of All Laws in her hand.

Thus, what should have been a complicated and lengthy ritual became a witchcraft spell ready to use at will, which was just a small clever use of the divine artifact in her hand.

The book pages ignited without fire, and the next moment, the sky lit up brightly. As if two suns had risen together, another illusory sun manifested above the ocean.

“Yesterday’s Sun·Setting of the Great Day”!

Across from Hecate, Zeus, who had transformed into thunder, felt an almost irresistible force, which was the echo of Hyperion’s, the God of Sun’s, power.

With one-third the strength of the God of Sun at his peak, borrowed from the ‘past’ by the power of the divine artifact and the ritual, this was not something the newly-born Zeus of mere decades could contend with.

“Out of options, huh? I hate you rash gods who resort to violence at the drop of a hat~”

With a slight smile, Hecate pointed a finger, and the illusory great sun immediately descended. The deity in front of her continued to release thunder, but it was futile in front of the illusory sun.

It seemed like a long time, but in reality, from the start of the fight until now, only a short while had passed. Just as Hecate was about to completely smash it down, Selene, who finally realized what was happening, urgently spoke out:

“Wait, Hecate, he’s Zeus!”

“Ah?”

Her right hand shook, and the illusory sun fell alongside Zeus into the ocean. Billions of tons of seawater were instantly evaporated, a vast number of dead sea creatures floated to the surface, and then the smell of charring arose.

But at this moment, Hecate couldn’t care less about these things. She looked at the deity in front of her and quickly asked:

“You’re Zeus?”

“I am. Is there a problem?”

Having been terrified by the narrowly missed sun, Zeus had thought this venture was bound to fail. But now, it seemed there might be a turn of events.

The formidable woman who had arrived later didn’t seem to dread his name as much as the Moon Goddess did.

“Hmm, no problem, or rather, this couldn’t be better,” she said with a strange smile, looking at Zeus and slowly speaking:

“I’ve had my eye on a certain someone for a long time. Running into you here seems to prove that my astrology is quite effective after all~”