And if Night had merely felt a faint sense of familiarity just moments ago, the next instant brought absolute clarity as thunderous lightning flashed outside the window and a majestic, authoritative voice echoed through the storm-swept palace.
"Raise your head and look at me, my dear daughter! Have you made your choice? Destruction, or rebirth?"
Zeus!
Though he had only heard that voice once before, Night was absolute in his conviction that it belonged to the King of the Gods, Zeus himself.
But how could this be?
Before he could fully piece together the underlying connection, a clear voice echoed through the hall.
"I refuse! Give up, Zeus. I will never agree to your filthy demands.
To harbor such thoughts toward your own child, you truly disgust me."
Boom!
An apocalyptic crash of thunder erupted outside the window.
In an instant, it felt as though the very entropy of the universe was plunging into silence, a supreme chaos seeking to reduce all creation back to the primordial void through sheer, unbridled fury.
"You are the noble daughter of the King of the Gods, the most beautiful woman in this world!
Aside from your great Heavenly Father, no mortal or immortal possesses the right to claim you, my child! Why do you resist? Or perhaps... you harbor foolish fantasies toward those minuscule, fragile human bugs?
They possess neither the towering, handsome, and majestic presence of the King of the Gods, nor the supreme force of lightning capable of obliterating all creation.
Divine blood courses through your veins, meaning you, like me, need not pay mind to the prejudices of worldly decorum. Do you truly favor the weak over absolute greatness?"
....
"You are wrong, Zeus!
Standing before you is not the daughter of Zeus, King of the Gods, but rather the daughter of Tyndareus, King of Sparta, and Queen Leda.
I do not possess a shameless divine father...
And compared to a powerful King of the Gods, I would far prefer to marry one of those weak mortals you look down upon. At the very least, they do not harbor filthy desires toward their own daughters."
The young girl flatly disowned his name as her father.
And as Helena spoke those words, Zeus's fury erupted into a towering inferno!
Night could clearly perceive that it was a terrifying flame capable of igniting and annihilating the entire cosmos.
Yet compared to the crushing pressure brought by Zeus, what shook him mind far more was the truth revealed in their dialogue.
The daughter of King Tyndareus of Sparta, yet simultaneously the biological daughter of Zeus?
Wasn't that...
Helen!
Helena!
The very origin that sparked the entire Trojan War!
How was this possible?!
No, wait, if Helena was truly Helen, then back on the battlefield that day, when he looked up at the fortress walls, he should have easily perceived Helena's aura.
Yet the aura radiating from the city walls differed entirely from Helena's.
Given the profound connection between himself and Helena, even across a vast distance, it was completely impossible for him to feel zero resonance.
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Meanwhile, the young girl's unyielding stance thoroughly enraged Zeus, prompting him to deliver a harsh interrogation.
"Who?! Have you already given your heart to someone else? Is it that hero Theseus who came from afar and witnessed your dance in the temple of Artemis today, or is it Pirithous?"
When Helena began to completely ignore Zeus, treating him as though he didn't even exist in her absolute disappointment and refusal to engage, the latter struck another deafening thunderclap that shook the heavens and earth, speaking in an icy tone.
"Very well! Hmph, the daughter of King Tyndareus of Sparta, is it? You love your adoptive mortal father far more than your biological father.
Yet you forget that everything you possess was bestowed by me!
The very birth of your flesh and soul originated from my power. Just as I can grant you all things, I can strip them all away. Helen, my dear daughter, I have had more than enough of negotiating with you.
I granted you the chance to choose, yet you failed to treasure it. Now, in the name of Zeus, King of the Gods, I shall reclaim every divine blessing I once bestowed upon you, returning your flesh, blood, and soul back to me.
I ask you one final time, Helen: destruction, or rebirth? Do not entertain thoughts of refusal, for if you dare reject me again, I shall strike down that feeble, mortal father of yours!"
As Zeus's cold, ruthless words echoed out, Helen's face turned stark white.
"I choose..."
Under Zeus's forced coercion, tears of profound humiliation streamed down her face.
The princess, renowned as the most beautiful woman in the mortal realm of Greece, suddenly let out a strikingly tragic smile, declaring with absolute firmness, "Destruction!"
"Great God Zeus! Do not dream of using any underhanded method to possess me! Since you demand the return of everything that belongs to you, then drain my divine blood completely, and obliterate every single trace linked to the god Zeus!"
"I am the daughter of a mortal king, not the daughter of the King of the Gods!"
Facing the young girl who resolutely rejected him to the very end, Zeus finally lost his mind to absolute rage!
Even though he was the greatest stallion in all of Greek myth, given his established character, he would absolutely never let go of any exceptionally beautiful woman.
He had pursued the Goddess of Beauty, and when he couldn't obtain her, he chose to destroy her freedom, bestowing her upon his ugliest youngest son purely to make it convenient for his own underhanded affairs.
And this marked the second time he suffered an absolute failure, facing the most beautiful woman in existence once again.
Although traditional myths contained zero records of Zeus harboring designs toward Helen, as this exact scene unfolded before Night's eyes, he found himself surprisingly unshocked.
After all, she was the single most beautiful woman in all of Greece.
Given that Zeus was a figure who wouldn't even spare the Queen of the Underworld despite her being his own daughter, would he truly let Helen walk free simply because she was his offspring?
To be perfectly honest, had Athena and Artemis not possessed their own absolute uniqueness and special divine status, Zeus would likely have made a move against them long ago.
Looking closely at the underlying myths, the heroes Theseus and Pirithous had launched an expedition to Sparta, laying eyes on Helen as she danced within the temple of Artemis, breaking into the sanctuary that very night to carry her away.
This grand palace before his eyes was clearly that exact temple of Artemis.
Yet evaluating the current timeline, this event was transpiring prior to the abduction by Theseus and his companion.
And later, those two heroes failed in their endeavor anyway, as Helen's brothers, the future Dioscuri twins Castor and Pollux, marched on Athens to reclaim her.
At that point in time, Helen was still a minor, roughly thirteen or fourteen years old.
It was only years later, when she reached full adulthood and her beauty matured into something divine, that the famous event of Odysseus and countless heroes competing for her hand occurred.
During that process, Pirithous, having failed to obtain Helen, actually shifted his designs toward Persephone, the Queen of the Underworld!
Wait...
Night's eyes widened abruptly as a terrifying possibility flashed through his mind.
Why did Pirithous, upon failing to claim Helen, select Persephone, the Queen of the Underworld, as her replacement?
If his goal was merely to seek out a beautiful woman, Greece was vast, boasting numerous famous and gorgeous royal princesses.
Yet he specifically targeted the woman belonging to the Lord of the Underworld, a pursuit laden with absolute, suicidal risk.
His obsession with targeting the Queen of the Underworld after losing Helen made it practically impossible not to suspect whether Persephone possessed features that closely mirrored Helen herself.
Considering that both figures were biological daughters of Zeus, sharing a strikingly similar appearance was perfectly logical.
And immediately after, the mythic tale emerged where Zeus transformed into Hades to trick Persephone into sleeping with him.
Damn!
Could it be that his failure to possess Helen right here sparked that exact twisted narrative, where Zeus targeted the Queen of the Underworld later on purely to fulfill his unquenched desire?
(Ok it's fiction...fiction..)
As this bold, mind-boggling theory flashed across Night's mind, a sudden, dramatic shift occurred within the scene, drawing his absolute focus.
Zeus declared, "Good! Excellent! Daughter of the King of Sparta! Since you deny your identity as the daughter of the King of the Gods, then..."
Boom!
In the next instant, the god-king abruptly struck a blinding bolt of thunder downward.
Within that lightning, Helen's physical flesh and blood were thoroughly incinerated into absolute nothingness, leaving behind only a single trace of her true spiritual essence, which Zeus swallowed directly into his mouth.
Night stood completely frozen!
Helen... died?!
Wait a moment, if the true Helen died right here, then who on earth was the Helen currently being fought over by the entire world?!
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