Chapter 20: The Feast of Heroes
Greece was a feast for the senses.
After eons spent in the monochrome of the pre-war Underworld and in the barren darkness of his own realm, this land was an explosion of life. The sun here was not an enemy, but an ardent lover who kissed the earth and made it bloom with almost desperate ferocity.
The air smelled of sea salt, the resin of the pine trees warmed by the sun, and the perfume of thousands of wildflowers.
Lykaon wandered, not as a hunting beast, but as an explorer in a new and vibrant world. Its shadowy form crept between the centuries-old olive trees, a liquid night stream under the bright blue sky. He drank the smells, cataloged the sounds: the buzzing of bees, the bleating of goats on a distant hillside, the murmur of the wind through the white stone ruins.
That's when a new scent cut through the air, one that caused it to stop in its tracks.
It was not the simple smell of nature. It was complex, intoxicating, and chaotic. It was the smell of wine, poured over the earth and warmed by the sun, a sweet and fermented aroma. It was the smell of sweat, both male and female, a sour, salty aroma of effort and pleasure.
It was the smell of sex, a raw, potent musk that spoke of an uninhibited release, so dense it was almost a taste in the air. And underneath it all, there was a hum of power, a strange mixture of the divine energy of the gods and the vibrating vitality of mortals.
'A feast.'
The thought was not an analysis, but an instinctive recognition. His curiosity, now sharpened by freedom, guided him. He followed the trail of the scent, his shadowy form moving with absolute silence through an ancient olive grove.
As he got closer, the sounds became clearer, overlapping in a cacophony of unbridled joy. The pulsating music of a lyre, shrill laughter echoing through the trees, and above all, the unmistakable sound of colliding flesh and the breathless moans of pleasure.
He came to the edge of an ivy-covered cliff, from which a waterfall cascaded in a curtain of silvery, bright water into a pond below. The noise of the water muffled the sounds of the feast, hiding it from the world. It was a perfect hiding place.
He dissolved into the deepest shadow behind the curtain of water, a position from which he could observe unseen, his ember eyes burning in the damp darkness. And he contemplated the scene.
The grotto was a natural sanctuary for hedonism. A pool of crystal clear water formed the center, its surface broken by the bodies moving within. Bronze braziers burned at the edges, their orange light flickering on the damp rock walls, casting dancing shadows that seemed to participate in the.
He saw the demigods. They were unmistakable. Young, arrogant, with bodies sculpted by training and divine heritage. They laughed out loud, their voices a roar of pride, the center of attention of the. He saw one, with the constitution of a bull and a scar on his cheek, take two nymphs at once in the shallows, his laughter thunderclapping as they squealed with pleasure.
He saw the nymphs. Dryads with skin like the bark of a young tree and Naiads whose hair seemed to be made of running water. They moved with an ethereal and wild grace, their laughter like the tinkling of bells, giving themselves up to pleasure with an almost innocent joy.
He saw the lesser goddesses. They were few, but their presence was palpable. One, with skin as pale as marble and a crown of water lilies, was clearly the deity of this spring. He watched the scene with detached amusement, while a young demigod kissed his feet.
And he saw mortals. Some were priestesses, their bodies painted with sacred symbols now stained with sweat and wine. Others were simply women from local villages, lured by the irresistible promise of sleeping with a hero.
Lykaon watched from the darkness, a predator studying a vibrant new ecosystem. This was not the calculated decline of the Egyptian court. This was different. He was honest. Chaotic. A celebration of instinct in its purest form.
'A herd. A wild and disorganized pack, ruled by the loudest alphas.'
His gaze swept over the scene, analyzing, cataloguing. And then, his eyes were fixed on the center of it all. In the main alpha.
He was a demigod larger than the others, his body a mass of brutally defined muscles, his hair a wild blonde mane. He was standing in the center of the pond, with one nymph kneeling in front of him, her head moving rhythmically, while another massaged his shoulders.
His laughter was the loudest, his arrogance the most palpable. It smelled of divine blood, of victory and of a pride so great that it was almost a provocation.
'That,' Lykaon thought, a cold predatory interest crystallizing in his mind. 'That's the king of this little feast.'
And an instinct, older than any human memory, arose in him, a fundamental law of his being that could not be denied.
'An alpha does not tolerate another alpha in its territory.'
…..
From my vantage point of darkness behind the curtain of water, the scene was a tapestry of unleashed instincts. The laughter of the blond demigod, the self-proclaimed alpha of this temporal herd, was a roar of arrogance echoing through the grotto, an unconscious challenge thrown into the night. Nymphs and mortals swarmed around him like moths to a flame, attracted by his power and vitality.
'They play at being beasts,' I thought, the thought a cold whisper in the silence of my mind. 'They don't know the meaning of the word. Their feast is noisy. Chaotic. It is time to teach them what true silence is. The silence of the predator.'
I decided that the observation was over.
I didn't reveal myself with a roar. Noise is the tool of creatures that need to announce their presence to instill fear. I don't need to instill fear. I am fear.
My revelation began as a change in the air.
The light from the bronze braziers, which had previously flickered with a vibrant, orange warmth, was the first to feel my will. The flames wavered in unison, as if a sudden, originless wind had swept through the cavern. They shrank, their brightness diminished, their color became sickly, a pale yellow that no longer cast dancing shadows, but lengthened them, stretching them, making them deeper, hungrier. The grotto, once a sanctuary of warm light, was plunged into a cold and foreboding gloom.
Then, the temperature plummeted.
It wasn't the refreshing chill of the waterfall water. It was a sepulchral, unnatural cold that slipped into the chamber like a miasma. He was born from the shadows, a cold that did not cool the skin, but seeped directly into the bones. The participants' sweaty, hot bodies were covered in goosebumps.
A demigod who was about to grab a dryad against a rock wall stopped, a shiver running down his bare back. The dryad, more attuned to natural forces, turned away from him, her eyes wide open with an instinctive alarm.
The sound was the next to die.
The music of the lyre, which had been a pulsating and lascivious melody, went out of tune. The strings, touched by fingers that suddenly felt stiff and numb from the cold, emitted a discordant note, an agonized groan that died out in the heavy air. The musician looked at his hands, confused.
The alpha demigod's shrill laughter cut off halfway through, caught in his throat. The moans of pleasure turned into murmurs of confusion, then silence. The splash of the water, which had been playful before, now sounded ominous in the growing stillness.
In a matter of seconds, an unnatural and oppressive silence fell over the grotto. It was so absolute that it was a sound in itself, a low-frequency hum that pressed on the eardrums. Even the constant roar of the waterfall seemed to have muffled, as if the water was afraid to make noise.
The feast was over.
They all froze. The bodies, entwined in acts of pleasure moments before, were now motionless. The eyes, once clouded by wine and lust, were now wide open, alert, searching for the source of the sudden, overwhelming sense of dread that had descended upon them. The nymphs, creatures of pure nature, were the first to panic. Their faces, once filled with wild joy, were now masks of animal terror. They sniffed the air, their bodies trembling, recognizing the presence of something that didn't belong, of a predator of an entirely different order.
The alpha demigod, standing in the center of the pond, finally let go of the nymphs who were tending to him. He stood tall to his full height, his muscles tensed, his arrogant face now a mask of confusion, and growing anger. "What witchcraft is this?" he roared, his voice sounding strangely muffled in the unnatural silence.
That's when I made my entrance.
The shadow behind the curtain of water, my hiding place, ceased to be a simple absence of light. It became a hole in reality, a portal of blackness so utter that it made the gloom of the grotto seem bright by comparison.
Two embers of hellfire were lit in that darkness. My eyes.
Then, I stepped forward.
I went through the curtain of water. I didn't push her away. The water split around me, splitting before my form as if it were solid. Where the drops of water brushed my shadow fur, they did not splash; They hissed and evaporated into clouds of steam, not because of the heat, but because the essence of water life was annihilated in contact with the sheer nothingness that I was.
I emerged on the shore of the pond, a colossal figure of silent night. I didn't growl. I didn't roar. I just stood there, my presence blasphemy against the light and joy of his feast. My aura of primordial power filled the grotto, crushing its small celebration under the weight of millennia of loneliness and dominion.
The demigods backed away. The mortals let out muffled shrieks of terror. The nymphs dissolved into the trees and water, disappearing from sight.
Only one stood firm. The alpha. The blond demigod. He looked at me, not with the terror of others, but with astonished disbelief, his eyes sweeping over my form. And then, a slow, arrogant smile was drawn on his lips. He did not see a god. He saw a monster. A trophy.
'Their little king has been dethroned,' I thought, the thought a cold echo in the stillness. 'He doesn't even know yet.'
...
The silence in the grotto was a canvas. And on that canvas, the blond demigod painted his arrogance with a laugh.
It was a thunderous laugh, full of wine and the invincibility of divine youth. He broke the spell of terror that I had woven, not out of courage, but out of pure and stupid pride. The other demigods, seeing their leader laugh, regained an iota of their courage. The nymphs and mortals, huddled on the edges of the pond, looked at him as a savior.
"By Tartarus!" he roared, his voice echoing in the stone. "A beast of a legend! Just when the party got boring."
He stood tall, rising from the water, drops glittering on his diamond-sculpted body. I didn't see myself as a god. He saw me as a monster from one of his fables, a creature to be killed, a feat to be sung by the bards.
'He talks too much. Like all those of his kind.'
"Listen, beast of the night," he continued, pointing at me with a finger as thick as a sausage. "I am Alkeus, son of Ares. My destiny is glory, and your dark head will look magnificent on the wall of my temple. Prepare to die!"
He did not wait for an answer. With a roar that was half war cry and half belch of wine, he charged.
It was an impressive display of physical power. The floor of the grotto trembled beneath his feet. Each stride was a burst of muscle and divinity, his body a battering ram of flesh and blood designed to break down the gates of citadels. Their goal was simple, brutal, and direct: to ram me, knock me down, and break my bones with their bare hands.
'He thinks this is a fight. He believes that we are equal.'
I let it come.
I stood completely still, a living night statue, as the son of war pounced on me. The air moved in its wake, a shockwave of pure force. His fist, the size of a melon and glowing with a faint golden glow of his divine power, went straight to my head.
He was going to hit me. I was going to break.
And then, his fist pierced me.
There was no impact. There was no resistance. His fist, a divine flesh-and-blood battering ram, found nothing. It pierced my head like smoke, the momentum of his own attack tripping him forward, his war cry turned into a gasp of pure and utter confusion.
He staggered, turning on himself, his face a mask of disbelief. "What... what witchcraft is this?"
'Yours is strength. Mine is reality. And I can rewrite it.'
Before he could recover, his own shadow rebelled.
The dark spot that his body projected on the golden sand, usually a two-dimensional, inert imitation, came to life. It is no longer flat. It thickened, swelled, becoming a pool of sticky, black tar.
Alkeus felt an unnatural chill rise up his ankles. He looked down and a gasp escaped him. His feet were sinking. The sand beneath him had turned into a swamp of solid darkness.
Fought. He pulled, his Herculean muscles tensed to the breaking point. But it was like trying to escape from quicksand made of the night itself. The more he fought, the deeper he sank. Darkness climbed up her calves, cold and possessive, to her knees.
And then, I started drinking.
Not with my mouth. With my will. I focused on him, not on his body, but on the fire that burned inside him. His father's inheritance. The power of Ares.
Alkeus shouted, this time a sharp sound of pain and panic. The golden glow surrounding his body wavered and then began to flow downwards, being absorbed by the shadow that trapped him. I could taste it, a conceptual aftertaste in my essence: the taste of iron, of the fire of the forge, of endless anger. It was delicious. And I drained it.
He watched, with helpless horror, as his own muscles, the pride of his lineage, seemed to deflate. The brutal definition softened, the divine tension faded. The force that could break down walls was escaping from him, absorbed by the earth at his feet. Their screams turned into faint moans.
When it was almost empty, when the fire in his veins reduced to a dying ember, I stopped the drainage. And the shadow set him free.
The darkness retreated, returning to a simple harmless stain on the ground. Alkeus, stripped of his strength and pride, collapsed. He fell face first into the sand, his body trembling, not from cold, but from weakness and shock.
He was no longer a demigod. He was just a man. A very strong man, perhaps, but only a man.
I approached slowly. Every step was a silent thunder in the now deathly silent grotto. I stopped over it, my huge shape eclipsing what little light remained, my shadow covering it completely.
I didn't touch it. I didn't need to.
He felt my presence upon him. The weight of my power, the indifference of my gaze. And it broke.
With a trembling and muffled sob, the sound of a king losing his crown, he used what little strength he had left to move. He pushed himself, trembling, until he was on his knees. His head, once held high arrogantly, was now bowed, his blond hair hanging down, hiding his face full of tears of humiliation.
The alpha had fallen. The hero was kneeling.
And the feast, under a new and true king, was about to begin.
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