Yet they had lost anyway.
A loss was a loss.
"Humph!" Poseidon let out a cold snort and turned to leave the hall immediately.
He couldn't stand remaining on Mount Olympus for a single second longer, especially after losing face directly in front of Zeus and Hades, a realization that severely provoked his intensely proud heart.
He prepared to return to his personal temple hidden deep within the oceans.
Meanwhile, sitting atop the absolute highest throne of the King of the Gods, Zeus remained entirely silent, looking at Poseidon's departing silhouette, as he suddenly spoke out, his gaze locking onto Helios. "Sun God, that divine spear belongs to your personal arsenal, does it not?"
Namely, whether the Sun God himself, wielding that very divine spear, would have felt fully confident in overcoming the combined forces of Poseidon and Ares.
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Meanwhile, on the other side.
Within a small city-state situated near Troy.
Ever since the War God was thoroughly frightened and driven back by Zeus's thunderbolts, several of the neighboring city-states he had previously assaulted had been successfully reclaimed by the army led by Hector.
Although the city walls here lacked the reinforcement of divine power, the location stood exceptionally close to Troy itself, allowing Apollo, the patron deity protecting the main city of Troy, to descend at a moment's notice.
Night, Athena, and Briseis had been safely escorted here by the Trojan soldiers.
And to Briseis's sheer delight, her older sister, Chryseis, happened to be here as well, having arrived just today to await their coming.
Reunited after a long separation, the two sisters instantly embraced each other, weeping tears of pure joy.
Yet there was no time for an extended exchange of sisterly affections.
Upon catching sight of Night's blood-drenched, harrowing form, Chryseis anxiously guided the heavily slumbering man to a resting area, immediately beginning to tend to his wounds and wipe away the dried blood across his skin.
Briseis felt no sense of being left out; instead, she actively joined in caring for him.
Only Athena remained absolute in her composure.
Along their journey, she had already utilized her divine power to heal Night's physical shell, possessing a crystal-clear understanding of his internal state.
So, his injuries were far from dire, representing little more than physical exhaustion, and he was presently undergoing a smooth process of recovery and evolutionary mutation.
Though his outward appearance certainly looked somewhat horrific, to say the least.
Right now, what concerned Athena far more was how she would explain the events of today to Artemis.
For instance, how one of the three perpetual virgin goddesses had lost her first kiss, and the recipient turned out not to be Artemis.
Or perhaps how she had been tasked with protecting a young girl's boyfriend, only to protect him straight into her arms.
While the reality wasn't quite as explosive as those phrasing choices, it was glaringly obvious that certain actions performed by Athena could no longer be defined within the bounds of a simple guardian and dependent relationship.
How exactly was she supposed to face the Goddess of the Hunt, who would likely explode in absolute fury over this?
At this moment, the War God Ares, who had previously posed the ultimate threat to Griffith, had ironically turned into the single entity least worth worrying about.
They no longer needed to feel anxious over the War God's forced coercion.
Naturally, the War God Ares, who had just been blown to pieces by the consecutive light cannons unleashed through the unified mind and body of Night and Athena, possessed zero confidence in snatching Griffith away right under Athena's nose.
He was arrogant, true, but he wasn't genuinely foolish to an irredeemable degree.
A combination of Athena and Artemis had already left him entirely helpless, and the remaining Apollo was even more troublesome to deal with.
He had zero confidence in pursuing Griffith now that the youth had reached Trojan territory, where he would be forced to simultaneously face multiple high gods whose raw power stood on par with his own.
Even if he brought Eris along to assist him, it would still be useless.
Speaking of which, the War God Ares suddenly realized that he couldn't even locate Eris's whereabouts.
When he was suffering such a massive disaster earlier, that woman hadn't bothered to step in and help at all.
This pitiful god was completely unaware that Eris had mocked him as utterly useless in her heart upon witnessing his performance, fully resolving to act completely on her own.
Had Ares known this absolute truth, he would likely have exploded in an even greater fury.
Given his toddler-like intellect and bizarre behavioral patterns, he might even have pulled off something even more absurd just to vent his own incompetence.
Stay far away from low-intelligence individuals, and act as a noble, elegant, highly intelligent queen with an endless array of schemes.
'I need to deploy the exact same cunning I used when launching a war with a single golden apple.'
Harboring these thoughts, Eris subsequently paid a visit to the Greek camp, though she refrained from offering a single greeting to the War God Ares, quietly stealing a few individuals away from the Greek ranks instead.
She first located the personal tent of Diomedes, subsequently deploying her divine power to mimic Athena's divine decree, issuing a command directly to him.
Meanwhile, Diomedes was feeling utterly lost regarding his current situation.
After all, his patron goddess had protected Griffith's escape, nearly beating his current high commander into a secondary invalid in the process, leaving even a warrior as formidable as Diomedes feeling that the situation was getting wildly out of hand.
However, he was immediately overjoyed to receive the divine decree so quickly.
Brilliant!
My patron goddess truly hasn't forgotten about me!
Regardless of what task lay ahead, listening to the Goddess was an absolute certainty that couldn't go wrong; the great Athena would never harm him.
Yet the honest, straightforward Diomedes had no idea that his patron goddess was currently stressing over how to deal with Artemis, having completely forgotten about the matter concerning Diomedes.
Even the Goddess of Wisdom could become remarkably dull when entangled in romantic dilemmas, rendering her entirely incapable of multitasking other affairs.
When Diomedes stepped outside his tent, he failed to catch sight of the familiar, sacred, and radiant form of his goddess.
Until a black crow resting atop a tree branch projected a familiar, deeply divine female voice.
"Diomedes... come here. I have a mission to assign to you right now."
Diomedes felt a profound tremor in his heart!
That familiar divinity, that aura, that voice!
Do not ask how one could perceive an aura from a simple crow; the unique presence of an immortal was simply that distinct, as if wrapped in personal visual effects.
Eris, as Macha among the trinity of goddesses within Celtic mythology, possessed the divine title of the Goddess of Phantoms alongside her domains over war and discord.
She could effortlessly transform into the appearance of other deities or any living creature, matching not only their aura but replicating their exact capabilities.
While a perfect one-to-one recreation of a god significantly stronger than herself was impossible, this phantom power was more than enough to leave even gods incapable of discerning the difference, let alone Diomedes.
Though if one insisted on finding a flaw in the trick, it was that Athena preferred transforming into an owl rather than a crow.
The forms adopted by the Celtic trinity of goddesses within legend were almost universally clad in black, featuring dark wings and a preference for manifesting as crows.
Furthermore, in the famous cattle raid epic, when Cú Chulainn met his demise, this goddess, who suffered from unrequited love, had manifested in the form of a crow.
Speaking of which, given that
Cú Chulainn carried the title of Little Achilles and was passed down in certain European regions as a hero modeled directly after Achilles, Griffith, who had similarly replicated the Achilles template and was currently receiving the unrequited affection of a goddess, seemed to be fulfilling the mythic story like absolute destiny.
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(End of the Chapter)