Leveling with the Gods

"By the way, where is the Thunderbolt?"

The king of another World who knew Zeus.

Odin asked.

"Unlike Poseidon and Hades, he carries nothing in his body."

Zeus did not show up directly except in extreme circumstances.

The last time he fought properly using the power of the Thunderbolt was during the height of Olympus' destruction.

However, the Thunderbolt could not be seen. Even Odin could not find the location of Zeus' Thunderbolt.

"Perhaps the first thing to do is to find the hidden Thunderbolt....."

"My father never hid his Thunderbolt. Rather, he always showed it to us."

The Thunderbolt was the strongest element Zeus had.

It was also Olympus himself, and was said to have the greatest power in the entire Tower.

It's hard to imagine such a powerful object being in plain sight.

But not many people knew what Zeus' Thunderbolt looked like.

"If we are to succeed in destroying Olympus, we must take his Thunderbolt."

It was not an option, but a necessity.

Without stealing the Thunderbolt, it would be impossible to defeat Zeus alone with the confluence of Hercules, who was still in an incomplete state, and the other two Gods.

That is why stealing the Thunderbolt would be the most important role of the person who would travel in the past.

Hercules also knew this, and perhaps he would be the one to return to the past.

"My Father's Thunderbolt...."

So he thought, if he were his own Father....

Where the hell would he hide his Thunderbolt?

* * *

A fleeting moment.

Zeus' eyes riveted on YuWon.

An anxiety like he had never felt before.

His hands were held by Hades, and the power of the Thunderbolt was temporarily sealed.

And then.

Bang-.

Behind him, Hercules' grip tightened around his shoulders.

He could not move.

There was no way to escape Hercules' grip without his lightning bolts.

'No way...'

YuWon's hand coming closer.

Where that hand was headed, Zeus closed his eyes tightly.

No.

He was trying to close them...

At that moment...

Poof-.

Swoosh-.

YuWon ran out of Hades' darkness and brushed Zeus' side. A few seconds passed that seemed too long, and Zeus lost half his world.

Passit-.

A burst of lightning began to emanate from Zeus' body.

Kwalung-!

"Kugh...."

Hercules released his grip as a massive pillar of lightning shot upward.

An electrifying current shot through his body.

Hades and Poseidon frowned as the temporarily sealed Lightning bolt reopened.

"That brief moment was our chance."

Poseidon muttered regretfully.

Hades agreed.

For some reason, Zeus had been unable to use his Thunderbolt, and that brief window of time had been a very brief window of time in his absolute favor.

'I wonder if trusting him too much was the problem.'

In that brief moment...

Seeing that YuWon seemed to be aiming for something, Hades decided to help him.

It was YuWon who created the breach in the first place, and it was YuWon who wanted to take advantage of it, so the right thing to do was to help him.

However.

The result was rather disappointing.

'Just one eye.

One eye.

In a way, it was a great achievement.

But the absence of one eye didn't seem to reduce Zeus' vision.

Making him close one eye wasn't going to change his chances.

At that moment...

"With this..."

Kwak-.

YuWon, who stole one of Zeus' eyes, grabbed it tightly.

"70%".

"...70%?"

Surely, just a moment ago, he had said the odds were only 10%.

Hades stared in disbelief at the golden light emanating from YuWon's hand.

An unusual Arcane Power.

It was impossible for such power to emanate from a mere eye.

Then...

"No way...?

A guess flashed through Hades' mind.

"Is that the Thunderbolt?"

What was the Thunderbolt of Zeus?

No one knew.

Even Hephaestus, the object's creator, said it had no fixed shape.

Besides, Zeus, the owner of the Thunderbolt, always wore a piece of cloth around his body, so it was impossible to know what it was.

But what if the Thunderbolt had planted itself in his eye?

"Yes."

Creackle-.

YuWon responded to the immense power roaring in his hand.

Heaven's Divine Crystal

The last and largest of the three pieces.

The object that made Zeus what he is today.

The Thunderbolt.

'I can't believe he actually put this in his eye'.

Zeus always kept the Thunderbolt hidden in his eye.

It became Zeus' eye and a source of power. That's why he hid the Thunderbolt in a place where no one could find it.

In his right eye.

'The Golden Eye of the System, did he mean the Thunderbolt?'

His eyes, like those of a crystal ball, could see far and reach to the truth.

Apparently, that was one of the effects of the Ray.

And YuWon finally understood.

"So, what's up with that?"

Passit, passit, passit-.

Hades asked at the electrical discharge emanating from Zeus' body.

It didn't look much different from the one he had just seen. In fact, it seemed even more fiery than before.

"It's some kind of protest."

Scorching Arcane Power.

"As if I were shouting: I am still alive and well."

The loss of his Thunderbolts did not change the nature of Zeus' Arcane Power.

The power of the Thunderbolt burning around him was the power of his own Arcane Power.

However, without borrowing the object's power, Zeus' strength would be significantly less than before.

'In terms of ranking, I would say: ...between tenth and twentieth place, maybe twentieth.'

It was incredible that a single object could make such a difference.

But that was the estimated rank of Zeus' abilities without his Thunderbolt.

And if that's the case, the scales of this fight would definitely tip this way.

Or maybe different.

"I don't know why, but...."

Kak-.

Hercules, approaching Zeus, raised his cracked club high.

"You look so much smaller than before."

Kak, kak, kak, kak!

Crack, crack, crack!

Zeus' Thunderbolt and Hercules' club collided.

The cracked club did not shatter, nor did it bounce as it had in the first collision.

The power had been considerably reduced.

Meanwhile, Hercules extended his other hand toward Zeus.

Pajijik-!

Zeus resisted the blow with his electric discharge and once again wrapped himself around Zeus' body and became a solid armor of lightning.

But somehow...

Chak-.

Hercules' grip ripped through the armor with such ease that it was unlike anything he had ever seen before.

"Didn't I just say that?"

Kak-!

Hercules' foot kicked Zeus in the chest.

"You've gotten smaller."

"Ugh..."

For the first time.

A small groan escaped Zeus' mouth. Pushed back by the impact of his chest, Zeus staggered for a moment and looked around.

Darkness enveloped him and the waves of the sea were rising into the sky.

The spear of Poseidon was pointed at him, and the darkness of Hades was already enveloping him on all sides.

Hercules was relentless in his pursuit. Normally, the three would have been easy to defeat, but now things were different.

Bang-!

The electric fist and Hercules' fist collided.

Force against force, he would lose. Only by pouring out a lot of Arcane Power could he even the score.

Hercules had not become the hero of Olympus for nothing.

He was the existence that became stronger in the Gigantomachy he had planned.

Twack!

The baptism of water from above crushed Zeus' body.

Zeus lost his balance.

Barely reaching out and sending lightning bolts, Zeus mimicked the Thunderbolt.

'I never thought the absence of an object could be so great.'

Opening his one remaining eye, Zeus wiped the sweat from his brow and pushed the water away.

If he relaxed in the slightest, he felt as if the current was going to crush him.

Strong.

This was the power of Poseidon, who had at least half the power of the Divine Sea Crystal on his back.

On the other hand.

"I never thought the loss of the Lightning would be so unfavorable."

Stripped of his lightning, he was literally naked.

Bang-.

Kwaang-!

A fist extended between the cracked streams.

Zeus' body, barely holding on, trembled, and at the same time, Poseidon's current swallowed him whole.

Splash-.

The pressure of the ocean was truly mysterious, and although it was simply water, he felt as if his whole body contracted and was crushed as he entered it.

It seemed impossible to move with mere force.

In the midst of it, Zeus saw Hercules slowly walking towards him.

'What an incredibly strong body.'

He could not believe that Hercules could walk under such intense currents and pressures.

He was not a very big man, but he felt as if he was facing a Giant.

Now that he had lost the Thunderbolt, he was even more confident.

How big was the Hercules in front of him at this moment.

What he would become if he got his hands on a weapon as big as his Thunderbolt.

'I've been raising a monster.'

Maybe if he didn't have this title now, it would be a title he could grow out of in the future.

Kaw-.

Pak-!

The electrical discharge emitted from Zeus' body again created a large hole over Poseidon's sea.

Immediately afterwards, the darkness of Hades enveloped Zeus.

Tsutsutsu-.

The skin blackened as if it was being scorched.

It meant that Hades' darkness was piercing Zeus' armor.

But.

'There's still an eye, left.'

Although the Thunderbolt that played the role of the eye was removed.

That didn't mean that the darkness can't be seen.

Hwaaak-.

Zeus reached out his hand, towards Hades' throat. Surely, he had to have felt something in his fingertips.

However...

Pap-.

He caught nothing but empty air.

"The speed has also slowed down."

Kak-.

A slight tension in the back of his neck.

Through the back of his neck, gripped by his broken hand, the energy of Hades, whom they called the God of Death, entered.

"Kukuk!"

Gagging, blood was spat from his mouth.

Kwajak-!

He quickly turned around and unleashed a lightning strike, but it was a little too late.

Tsut-.

A small wound appeared on Hades' cheek.

That was all.

As if he had already anticipated Zeus' counterattack, Hades disappeared into the darkness once again.

The current Zeus was not strong enough to break through this darkness and attack Hades.

"Ugh......."

Zeus gritted his teeth.

It was a brief moment, but a feeling of helplessness gripped his entire body.

The Lightning.

If only you had that....

Pajijik-.

It was then...

A familiar flow of mana was felt in the sky above the sea.

At the same time, a single figure was clearly visible through his one remaining eye.

Creackle-!

YuWon, high above the clouds.

And in his hand, a twelve meter long lightning spear.

[Lightning]

The Lightning in his hand, sucking in the electricity it unleashed, forged the most powerful spear-.

Flash-!

Now he pointed the tip of the spear at himself.