Myths Reawakened

The Major took his leave after taking Regina to the military camp. Regina scanned the place and spotted the three Marshals in the steel smelting chambers. Troublesome, she thought, calculating the success rate of a sneak attack.

There was no one around, and the three Marshals appeared unconscious. If she caught them off guard, she stood a seventy percent chance of a successful assassination.

It could work!

Regina nodded to herself... and gave up.

Though it seemed like there was no one else around, there were an innumerable number of people. The formidable-looking tanks and aircraft were all alive. If she made a move, she would find herself surrounded by violent tides of steel.

She needed to keep her life to pay her boss back for saving her; she couldn’t just throw her life away.

Click! x3

The chambers opened. As intense steam rushed out, the three uniformed Marshals walked out, all wearing different uniforms.

There were more than three Marshals in Prussia, but these three faces were widely known as Führer Hidler’s most trusted right-hand men.

Regina observed quietly and speculated that the Prussian leadership consisted of the public figures and the actual leaders. The public figures that the Prussian people knew were no more than figureheads, while those who held real power had never shown their faces, waiting for the right moment to replace the placeholders.

Prussia’s so powerful. Why hasn’t she conquered the world? What is she waiting for?

For Boss to come knocking in order to foil our conspiracy?

Regina had a feeling that Prussia was biding her time for an opening. Before that, her great power remained unknown as she refrained from doing more than crushing the weak neighboring countries, leaving the Chosen Land in peace.

Regina knew that she wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed and wasn’t as good at deduction as Wayne. She put aside her questions and looked at the three steaming Marshals with a perfect poker face.

“Congratulations, our new Air Marshal,” one of the Marshals spoke up. Judging by the uniform, he was most likely the original Air Marshal.

“Congratulations, you will be Marshal of the Reich[1].”

“No, not now. All will be according to the Führer’s orders...” The Air Marshal shook his head, his mechanical features unable to make human expressions. He turned to Regina and said, “You can be more powerful still. A Philosopher’s Stone exists in the volcano. That is the true—”

“Wait!” the Field Marshal interrupted.

The three Marshals stiffened, sensing a mouse who had sneaked in.

Regina narrowed her eyes. The Air Marshal hadn’t finished the sentence, but she could fill in the blanks. Once Wayne was here, she would give him the important information. Then she wanted her promised paid vacation to go on shopping sprees.

“I’ll take care of it,” the Field Marshal spoke with a blank face.

“We go together so that the trespasser won’t escape.”

“Are you looking down on me, trash of the air force?”

“Ha, idiot of the army. Your brain is as slow as your engine.”

The two Marshals argued with the same unchanging poker face, while the Grand Admiral said nothing. It wasn’t because he was aloof by nature, but because he had no say in this matter.

Prussia had not undergone a rapid expansion in military force. Even if she had, the fact that there was only one continent in the Chosen Land meant that there was a limit to how much the navy could expand.

The Grand Admiral commanded a fleet too small for him to speak with authority.

***

A black-robed figure passed through the spatial ward and silently gaped in shock at the grey world. Solsknar had come.

Some time ago, Solsknar had met a crushing defeat, having the power he was so proud of rendered worthless by his opponent. He also lost the Laws of Thunder and Storm, which he had spent years gaining control of.

He even lost a Darkness Knight.

Vichy had gone missing since arriving in the human world and had not contacted him again. Solsknar had tried to reach her, but no luck. The communication didn’t go through. It was pretty clear that she had been killed in action.

Solsknar was filled with regret. To become a demigod, he had recruited many a strong supporter, promising a variety of benefits to attract a group of willing subordinates. Actually, they weren’t so much his subordinates but his investors. They invested in his talent in the hope that they could enjoy a share of his future success.

Among them, Vichy was the investor who requested the lowest return. She enabled Solsknar to wield Twilight Despair. Now that Vichy was gone, he could no longer use the divine artifact.

It was a terrible loss.

Out with the old, in with the new, he told himself. Without Vichy, there was still an active Darkness Knight in the Chosen Land. He could replicate his success. With the Goddess of Darkness implicitly permitting him to win over her chosen knight, the current Darkness Knight would not escape him.

Moreover, the crushing defeat wasn’t without its own rewards. He had learned from the loss that Thunder and Storm didn’t suit him. The future of an Abyssal Python lay in Hell. He should be seeking his path in Hell to become a subordinate god or to go further.

It was Hell, an unclaimed, uncharted land divided by seven demons, but with no real owner. If he could achieve great feats in Hell, perhaps he might even ignite his divine fire.

Then, he wouldn’t just be the Goddess of Darkness’s subordinate god, but Her ally. By working together, they could conquer all of Chosen Land and defeat all other gods, entering Heaven and replicating the Heavenly Father’s unique achievement.

The Goddess of Darkness was still single. Perhaps they could become something more than allies. The thought filled him with anticipation.

Solsknar was a demigod of action. As soon as he set a direction, he made his move. By utilizing his connections, he sent a thread of his thoughts to Hell and met the Lord of Gluttony, one of the Seven Demon Lords.

The Abyssal Pythons and the Lord of Gluttony were no friends. The former were the original inhabitants whose land had been invaded by the latter. After a terrible battle to the death, the Abyssal Pythons were defeated. Some escaped, and others surrendered. Their home became the Lord of Gluttony’s territory.

Their eyes were red when they saw each other, but that was only because their eyes were red to begin with. Neither of them was so naive that they would be hung up on the bad blood in their past. Bygones were bygones. Solsknar sought Gluttony out with the excuse of visiting his old friends in his home country to talk about a possible win-win arrangement.

Gluttony ignored Solsknar, but then, after a few days, he turned around and sat Solsknar down for a talk about partnership.

Gluttony granted Solsknar’s wish for a territory in Hell, enabling him to wage war against the other lords. In return, Solsknar had to open the Gates of Hell in Berlo, Prussia.

Both were plotting something, and both believed that they got the better deal.

The demon’s contract was full of loopholes. Exploiting them, Solsknar could break his promise without paying a price. So that they could maintain the veneer of peace, he had descended to the human world with part of his thoughts, assuming control over a demon vessel.

Later, Wrath and Gluttony pointed out the convoy leaving the orphanage and asked him to open the Gates of Hell at the destination of the convoy. Solsknar immediately realized that he had been deceived. This had nothing to do with the Gates of Hell. Prussia was more than it seemed. The two demon lords were using him for their secret plan.

Solsknar didn’t raise hell. He was curious about what had been keeping the two demon lords in Prussia. Whatever could compel two demon lords to lie low had to either be an invaluable treasure or an absolute power that they couldn’t resist.

Stepping through the ward, Solsknar was at first shocked, and soon ecstatic.

It was a great treasure! The goddess had led him to a new path to godhood!

His elation was short-lived, however. Demon lords were no philanthropists. They wouldn’t be serving him the chance to ascend to godhood on a silver platter. This space, constructed with a Philosopher’s Stone, was dangerous. If he got careless, his thoughts could die here.

But it was only part of his thoughts. He could risk it!

The temptation of godhood was too great for Solsknar not to make the gamble. He scanned the space, drawing more of his thoughts from the Divine Realm to further empower himself in the human world.

He didn’t know that the moment he opened the channel to the Divine Realm, a pair of dark eyes had looked over.

The Goddess of Darkness!

Nothing that the inhabitants of Her Divine Realm did could escape Her notice. Ines had recently acquired a treasure, and She had been paying close attention to Solsknar, one of Her pawns.

When She saw what Solsknar saw, She felt the same craving. The small space had gathered three demigods, a subordinate god candidate for Darkness, two demon lords, two angels, and...

Oh?

Noticing the individual hiding in the bushes, Ines closed Her eyes, going back to figure out the treasure she had recently found as soon as possible. Then She would borrow Laws of Mechanical Augmentation from that man.

As expected of the pretty boy that had drawn Her attention, he managed to unearth such a surprise in the barren world of the Chosen Land. His luck was beyond extraordinary.

She took her departure soon. She hadn’t sensed the presence of another god in the cramped space, so the pretty boy would certainly be the last one laughing. Then She would get what She wanted from him.

It was a perfect plan!

Rumble—

Amid stirring vortexes of Darkness, a python running a thousand meters long hovered in the sky. Solsknar reforged himself into a bald man in a black robe. The black python tattoo on his forehead hissed like a living creature.

Volatile energy vortexes swept outward as pitch-black light clung to Solsknar, putting him in a gleaming divine armor. Three men traversed the air to reach him. The Air Marshal, taking the lead, swooped down and landed with both feet, creating a deep crater with a bang.

With the audible friction of metal machinery grinding, the Air Marshal extracted his feet, leaping out of the crater. His cold gaze fixed on the intruder with crackling currents.

“Darkness. Descended being, are you not a mage of the human world, but a visitor from the Divine Realm of Darkness?”

“I came from Hell!”

Solsknar didn’t want to state his true origin, but instead put the blame on Hell. That was what most demigods descending to the human world did. As a result, nine out of ten deadly fires were attributed to the demons of Hell.

Only when doing good did demigods state their true origins, taking credit for their just actions.

The three Marshals surrounded Solsknar. Due to the influence of their Mechanical Augmentation, they sprang into action without any reaction or unnecessary chit-chat, planning to capture the intruder before extracting information.

Following a flash of blinding light, powerful currents propelled the Air Marshal like rocket boots. Like a streak of lightning, he reached Solsknar between one blink and the next, his swinging fist distorting the air and generating vapor.

Solsknar conjured a sphere of glowing black mist, instantly offsetting the Air Marshal’s momentum to allow him to easily catch the weak punch.

With his python tattoo breathing out on his bald head, Solsknar grinned wolfishly. “Within you is a tremendous power. You need not hide it. Show me how far the path could go.”

“As you wish,” the Air Marshal said in a monotone. The chest area of his uniform transformed into hard steel before a dark launcher opened. A missile hit Solsknar squarely in the chest.

1. Reichsmarschall, the Marshal of the Reich, is a newly created rank for Hermann Göring during WWII to make sure he’s the symbolic superior to other commanders, who were promoted to Generalfeldmarschall (General Field Marshal). ☜