In his capacity as God-King and Lord of All Gods—and given that his own authority was already closely tied to the earth—the newly engendered laws concerning procreation seemed, on the face of it, reasonable and ostensibly beyond reproach.
Kronos encroached upon the Mother Goddess Gaia's divine prerogatives and even directly swallowed the law itself. Gaia was deeply displeased, yet in the end she endured it.
After all, one could hardly overthrow a God-King over such a matter; the cost would be too great.
As for the Mother Goddess Rhea—the pitiful mother, the pitiful queen—
She was a gentle Titaness not skilled in war; faced with the God-King's atrocity of swallowing her own children, she could not, by herself, resist Kronos.
No matter how she remonstrated, no matter how she begged, it was to no avail. She could only watch it all unfold, weeping in vain, her pain beyond words.
But Gaia's compromise only emboldened Kronos—he became more brazen, more overreaching.
Over the long years, the six giants who had been banished to the empty starry void could no longer endure solitude.
The vast, barren starry sky was better than Tartarus—
But only by a little.
That boundless desolation likewise drove gods to despair.
They missed the Mother's embrace intensely; so they wrought great destruction in the starry sky, both to vent their unspent power and in hopes of drawing attention and securing return to the earth.
Then Kronos seized on this as a pretext, joined with the Titans, and cast them into Tartarus once again—this time to be imprisoned completely.
With that, Kronos felt wholly at ease, with no further worries.
This act utterly enraged the Mother Goddess Gaia. Earlier, when the giants were banished to the starry void, they had erred first; though the Mother was displeased, she had no grounds to protest.
But now, merely for breaking a few toys, they suffered such cruel punishment—this was too much!
You secretly encroach on my authority, and I said nothing—yet look at what you're doing now!
What you did to your own children, I said nothing—yet you treat my children like this as well!
Gaia sought redress several times, but Kronos brushed her off each time with perfunctory replies.
In the end, the "concession" he offered was to have the sea-monster maiden Campe (Campe, literally "the Curved One"), born of earth and the inland sea, go "tend" (in truth, guard) the giants—an added humiliation.
A child of Pontos—would she dare defy any command of the God-King?
Kronos's actions had trampled the Mother's bottom line; that ancient forbearance and patience was being worn away.
The Mother had completely lost faith in Kronos.
This child of hers was becoming ever more like his father—equally cruel and greedy.
But Kronos was now far too strong.
At present his own domains included creation, agriculture, growth, harvest, abundance, reaping, courage, fertility, procreation, and fire.
Added to that, Kronos had many supporters; his rule grew more secure by the day.
With her authority now fragmented to pieces, Mother Gaia truly had no way to deal with Kronos.
Once Kronos realized no one could do anything to him, he naturally would not rein himself in—he only grew more wanton.
Truly, he and the Sky-Father were cut from the same cloth. The greedy God-King Kronos still felt he hadn't enough.
Within the current cosmic order, it was inconvenient to move directly against Titans whose interests aligned with his, so he looked elsewhere.
The basic elements that compose cosmic existence—earth, water, fire, air—were essentials Kronos had to seize along his path of centralization.
He had already taken fire; the next step was to take water.
But the time was not yet ripe; relations with Oceanus were sensitive, and any move might trigger great upheaval.
As for Pontos, the inland sea within the world—he was of little consequence, not urgent, something to handle later.
Kronos had a target he wanted more, something better.
In all the cosmos there were only two concepts that could never again be endowed with spirit, that could exist only as the basic laws of the universe under the gods' control.
These two, of course, were Erebus, Lord of Darkness and embodiment of nether-gloom; and Ourea, Lord of Mountains and embodiment of the mountain ranges.
The power of the mountains was closely tied to the earth and presently wholly under Gaia's control; Kronos did not yet dare entertain that idea.
And the law of mountains was not so crucial; wholly beneath the Earth-Mother, it could not provide core leverage of control.
Naturally Kronos desired darkness more.
One of the cosmos's most fundamental, primordial, and mighty laws.
The Night-god line was weak now; the Night Goddess Nyx was easy to bully.
So he unceremoniously began encroaching on the authority of darkness.
As for the Lady of Night's former aid—
What aid? That was all past.
This time he was even more greedy, utterly disregarding the comradeship of battle once shared.
Over a stretch of time unimaginable to mortals, he and Rhea created the god of "Gloom," holding the domains of dimness, gloom, murk, dusk, and shadow.
The primordial goddess Nyx, Lady of Night, was enraged—but she was helpless.
After all, compared with the celestial pantheon, she was ultimately an outsider.
The Night-god line, so isolated and weak, could not be a match for the powerful celestial pantheon; the disparity of strength was too great.
Now even the Mother of All, Gaia, could do nothing to the second God-King—what could a Night Goddess who had never entered the core of power do?
She could only endure.
But her anger flared hotter, her heart like a thing set ablaze.
Once the Sky-Lord Uranus bullied me! With great difficulty we overthrew Him—yet you, son of Uranus, bully me still!
Was He overthrown for nothing?
This filled her with the utmost unwillingness—and with piercing irony and humiliation.
After engendering Gloom, Kronos, as ever, unceremoniously swallowed this newborn law, absorbing its power entirely.
No matter how the Mother Goddess Rhea pleaded, the God-King still had his way; his will was unshakable, his heart pitiless.
And after the Lady of Night, Nyx, swallowed her anger, Kronos grew even more unrestrained.
If even a primordial goddess could do nothing to him—what other gods could?
In his view, among the known cosmos there was no god who dared defy him.
The second God-King was becoming more and more like his father—not only greedy and cruel; as his strength swelled, even his arrogance now mirrored His.
Thus the second God-King grew yet greedier; his ambition knew no bounds.
Under the God-King Kronos's deliberate guidance, he and the goddess Rhea gave birth to (and seized) the new domains of "Sea" and "Ocean."
And even to "Earthquake"—the deepest rhythm of the earth.
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