Chapter 200: The Past of Olympus

That evening.

The residents of Cyra Island finished a tiring yet very fulfilling day and prepared to return to their homes to rest.

Or they went with friends to the few bars on the island, drank for leisure, and relaxed.

The island's inhabitants, including their fathers, grandfathers, and even ancestors, were completely unaware that beneath the island lay the fallen Greek gods, let alone the battle that occurred this morning.

The most experienced technicians of the European division have already completed the standard "cleaning" procedure on the underground palace, recording everything noteworthy before proceeding with destruction.

Afterwards, Bai Hou will publicly invest in Cyra Island, while in reality intensifying surveillance over the island.

As for the surviving Hephestus and six divine servant soldiers, they were first transferred to the nearby Gobekli Research Center to undergo a comprehensive examination by the research team led by Alekxia.

After the examination, Artemis herself personally questioned Hephestus about why the Olympus gods had fallen.

———————

…

Late night.

The first floor of the Gobekli Research Center.

Inside a senior staff lounge.

Sui Bian sat on a single sofa, reclined against a comfortable cushion, watching the holographic screen not far in front of him.

(The two artificial intelligences usually remain silent, standing to Sui Bian's left and right)

The screen showed Artemis, dressed in an Umbrella uniform, questioning Hephestus, who sat opposite in a wheelchair wearing a blue patient gown.

Through the dialogue of the two gods, or rather, mostly Hephestus's one‑sided account, Sui Bian gradually pieced together Olympus's past.

Zeus easily defeated the demon Samiel, but the god‑king was helpless against the Cassius gun, forced to watch his daughter slip into a coma.

So Zeus ordered the gods to find a way to awaken Artemis.

Afterwards.

During the two millennia Artemis lay in a coma, low‑level demons from the other dimension—such as the blood demon Greffin—kept harassing Earth incessantly.

Facing enemies of this caliber, the Olympus gods could easily defeat them.

Yet the gods could only defeat them, never achieve a true kill.

At this time Zeus, long before the Plague Doctor, discovered the so‑called "plague"—the threat of the other dimension and demons to the gods and to Earth.

However, Zeus was not as wise as the Plague Doctor and severely underestimated the threat of the other dimension.

Tasked with finding how to awaken Artemis, the swift god Hermes failed to locate a method to revive his sister, but by chance discovered a way to reach the other dimension.

To permanently eliminate the threat and also to awaken his daughter, Zeus prepared to lead a great army into the other dimension to exterminate the demons.

Zeus had his lawful wife Hera temporarily oversee Olympus, and also assigned Ares, Hephestus, Aphrodite and other gods to assist Hera in defending Olympus.

Afterwards, Zeus ordered Hermes to open a portal in the Olympus temple.

Leading gods and demigod heroes such as Poseidon, Hades, Apollo, Hermes, Heracles, along with countless divine servant soldiers, they marched grandly through the portal into the other dimension, preparing to accomplish the feat of eradicating the demons.

Shortly after the army entered the other dimension, the portal inside the temple thundered out of existence, cutting off Olympus's contact with the army.

At first, Hera, Ares and the other gods still had absolute confidence in Zeus's personally led army.

Yet as ten, a hundred, a thousand years passed, even with confidence, the remaining gods had to accept the possibility that Zeus had indeed fallen and the army had been annihilated.

At this point, the surviving Olympus gods finally realized the horror of the other dimension and its demons.

However, Zeus's leading of the army into the other dimension was not entirely futile; at least few demons have since attempted to harass Earth.

The turning point of Olympus's complete decline was the giant Lilith in Turkey near the Greek border, who attempted to use her flesh and blood to create a new species to replace humanity.

Upon learning this, Hera dispatched Ares and the divine servant troops to eradicate it.

The ultimate result was that Ares perished together with Lilith.

Having lost her husband and her beloved son, the double blow drove Hera to grief; she then voluntarily concealed her whereabouts and left the temple atop Olympus Mountain.

In the following several millennia, the godless temple rapidly collapsed, and humanity gradually became Earth's ruler; the Olympus gods and other deities were swallowed by the river of history, becoming fodder for human idle chatter.

As for Aphrodite's fall, it began when Hera left the temple.

Her already decadent private life, now unrestrained by divine accountability, intensified; she also used abilities that could arouse primal lust to tempt the majority of surviving lower deities and divine servant soldiers.

Hephestus, whose marital relationship was nominal, chose to turn a blind eye, living alone beneath the freshly erupted Santorini volcano.

Occasionally, the craftsman god would leave Cyra Island to observe the mortal world, disguising himself in various identities to help island residents and nearby peoples overcome hardships.

Yet this tranquil life ended four hundred years ago.

At that time, the already fallen Aphrodite led similarly fallen lower deities and divine servant soldiers to seize and remodel Hephestus's dwelling.

Aphrodite, devoid even of seductive desire, cut off Hephestus's legs and forced him to forge weapons and armor.

In the following two hundred years, the gods and soldiers who chose to fall captured unwilling companions and dragged them beneath Cyra Island, employing every method to torment the former comrades.

Those who could not endure the torment either were forced to corrupt or lost their lives, becoming skeletons; ultimately only six steadfast divine servant soldiers remained.

Afterwards.

Aphrodite assigned the likewise corrupted Medusa and the nymphs turned into snake‑haired gorgons (lower goddesses) to guard the tunnel leading to the underground palace, while the fallen goddess herself indulged with demons in hedonistic revelry.

During this period, Hephestus endured torment while forging weapons and armor.

Yet from Aphrodite's divine mutterings and the demons' conversations, it was deduced that the demons once defeated by Ares and Zeus were merely among the many insignificant minor characters in the other dimension.

And Aphrodite claimed to have heard the "True God's" teachings.

She said the "True God" was contending with other "gods", and that the present Earth was unworthy of the True God's attention, or that humanity's numbers were too few.

To prepare to please the "True God", Aphrodite forced Hephestus to forge the finest weapons and armor, awaiting the True God's full arrival once it could spare its energy.

(End of chapter)