Son of the Hero King

Chapter 774: I only fear one man

Hypnos pondered by himself before rejecting that possibility.

There existed an infinite number of possibilities and an infinite number of parallel universes. It was impossible in such a vast cloud of possibilities that only one reality, the very one that they were experiencing now, contained what she dreamed.

Chasing that line of thought, a strained sigh escaped Hypnos’ lips before he could restrain it. The Witch Queen had been a problem, but at least he was able to understand and accept why she broke out of his realm.

“You having a hard time, fallen god? Let me guess, Ambrosia woke up, didn’t she?” Echidna snickered right at his face, a twisted gleam on her lips that managed to burrow into his godly psyche and irritate him.

“Why bring Ambrosia? It could have been Anubis.”

Echidna scoffed out loud at that. “Anubis won’t move. He doesn’t plan to fight that Euphoria. He will leave that to Ambrosia. He is pretty selfish, you know? If it were the wedding of his daughter you guys crashed, he would have gone batshit insane, but right now he is just joining in for the fun of it and experience a thing or too I’d wager.”

“You seem to be insinuating that he could leave that place at any moment.”

“Hahaha…”

The look of pity Echidna gave made him even more irate.

“We are people who committed multiple taboos in our search for the Truth of this world. We have done things you could not even dare to imagine.”

She waved her hand in dismissal. “The other two love to call me crazy or whatever. But trust me, you truly underestimate the depths of our madness and power. After all, we were once ready to destroy the entire world just to reach our goals.”

Echidna always found it amusing how people seemed to perceive them. The prejudice in their discernment.

Anubis caused the death of millions upon millions of people and the fall of thousands of empires throughout the universe— all of it just to reach his goal.

Ambrosia was a woman who once wished to reduce the very Mortal Realm to ashes for allowing her miserable existence, and now she wished to become all-knowing… Omniscient, an aspect of the true god.

She had caused the creation of hundreds of witches despite knowing the kind of suffering awaiting them and was slowly conquering the Astral Realm through the very witches that she subjected to endless misery in exchange for knowledge, and how to wield and weaponize that knowledge into their power through a seemingly never ending existence.

“It’s honestly unfair when you think clearly about it, right? Anubis gets to transform millions of people into undead and even steal a part of the Afterlife, but people call him an unsung hero. His reputation and valor reaching even the Divine Realm. Meanwhile, I just brought forward a few wars of the Mortal Realm for a measly thousand years, meddled a little with life by creating a race of chimera, and people act like I'm the worst blight in all of existence. Like my very creation was an offense to existence itself. How ridiculous!”

What is this crazy woman talking about? Hypnos could not help from wonder in utter exasperation.

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“You just thought I was crazy, right now, am I right? I can recognize that look from realms away.”

“I apologize. I was simply startled. Now about the deal—”

“I refuse,” Echidna interjected before Hypnos could even finish.

“I have yet to offer my proposal to you.”

“There is just no reason to listen. My choice has already been made. It has been made for some time now.”

“Are you sure? I assure you—”

“Let me guess. Something something… help us and we will give you back your body or something along those lines, right?”

“…”

“Bingo, got it in one go. Well, it isn’t really that hard to guess. The Wings of Freedom has Lustburg's divine weapon, and that weapon is the key to unsealing my body.”

“Then why not join us. Are you now loyal to the prince?”

“There is no such thing as loyalty between us. I am not his servant nor his confidant.”

“Then…”

“I simply like being on the side that will be the ultimate victor.”

“I do not understand that belief, however.” Hypnos’ brows furrowed at Echidna’s declaration. It was one thing for the crazy woman to refuse him outright. But the reason she gave for her refusal just left him baffled in confusion and disbelief.

“While I admit that the prince has very powerful allies by his side… at the end of the day, they are no match for us. You should be aware of that already given your intelligence and wisdom. Euphoria is just the start. More and more of us will ascend back to our divine position and soar beyond soon enough.”

“That seems plausible, yes.” Echidna nodded in understanding and acknowledgement.

“Even now, two of your strongest fighters are barely a match for Euphoria alone, and she is still getting accustomed to her power. She is also considerably holding back in fear of destroying the world and tearing apart the Mortal Realm.”

“You are right. A goddess is still a goddess. From what Sol has shared with us, even a False Goddess like Tiamat could only reach a draw with Luxuria at best. Ambrosia herself has not even entered the threshold that divides the Demigod realm and the Flase God realm, much less surpassing it anytime soon. Meanwhile, Lilith isn’t even a demigod yet in the proper sense.” Echidna gave a cold assessment of the situation, there was no hesitation or reluctance in her voice. She freely admitted how the odds were stacked against them.

“Yet despite knowing all that, you still proclaim to follow the side that is going to win?” He could only voice once more in utter disbelief at the madwoman. Nothing about her argument was making sense for the fallen god.

Echidna smiled. It was a soft and beautiful smile, different from the ones tinged with utter madness that consumed her being… the bone chilling expressions that she exhibited on the go.

“Do you want to know why?”

“Will you tell me?”

“Of course not!!”

Echidna laughed out loud, her arm clutching her belly as she keeled over from the force of her laughter. Why in all the hells would she explain her reasoning and risk enlightening her opponent?

It would be the height of stupidity.

Inwardly, though, her reasoning was crystal clear to her. It was not just because she knew Sol was the literal reincarnation of the Creator God that brought the event that he dubbed as the Twilight of the Gods untold eons ago.

The reason was quite simple, in the end.

Hypnos’ dreams were powerful, but they were limited by the forces of reality. His Elysium could not bring forth the impossible into existence.

However, Sol dared to dream of the impossible and to actually make it possible. His whole path was marked by the subversion of impossibility to utter possibility and reality.

Between someone who could make anything possible within the confines of logic and someone who laughed at the very notion of logic itself, squashed it aside, and then proceeded to do whatever they wished, impossibility of it be damned…

The one she needed to follow was more than clear enough.

There was also the fact that Sol placed a bomb in her soul. But that was just a minor matter to her, really.

As for her body?

She had no attachment to it in the least. She simply needed to create a new and better one after Sol’s punishment for her ended.

Surely you will reduce my sentence now that I rejected the enemy’s proposal, right? Sol.

She grinned as she felt her soul pulse and her vision swim, distort, and transform.

Why had she not left the dream realm even though she could have done it in a heartbeat? As many times as needed, too.

Why did she waste her time talking with Hypnos even though she had no intention of joining his side?

In the first place, why had Sol provided a semblance of her old power back to her even though they all knew it would not have been enough for her to be of any help during the fight?

“Thank you. Echidna. I won’t forget about this. You have my word.” Sol’s voice sounded extremely close to her ear, and she could now see him standing just next to her while Hypnos’ eyes widened in incomprehension.

This was it… This was the very reason that…

No matter what, she would rather die and be reduced to nothingness than have Sol as her enemy.