Leveling with the Gods

On each side of YuWon were two individuals.

Pandora and Hercules.

Clutching onto each other tightly, they boarded the Chariot of the Sun together. This made the solar carriage feel spacious and swept.

"Do you really have to follow me?"

"I just want to know what object they have made for you."

Curiosity was only natural.

The object that YuWon had requested from Hephaestus included the Thunderbolt.

An artifact that was the symbol of Olympus.

Furthermore, one of the ingredients included the "Sea Stone" that Poseidon was desperately seeking.

Combining those items into one?

It wasn't easy to imagine what kind of artifact would have been created.

"It's the same for me."

YuWon took Hercules' curiosity for granted.

He was also eager to arrive at Hephaestus' place.

As he held the reins of the Chariot of the Sun, a thought occurred to him.

"But what about Apollo and his sister? What happened to them?"

It was said that Apollo and his sister had been exterminated by Zeus before the true battle began.

He hadn't heard about them for a long time, but the sight of the Sun Chariot reminded him.

"It seems that my uncle freed them from being imprisoned in Zeus' temple dungeon. I don't know about Artemis, but Apollo seems to be in a very grave condition."

"They must have been severely beaten."

"It's not surprising, both of them would have fought for their lives."

Born as twins, but with different Arcane Powers of fire and ice, they were so skilled that they were said to be comparable to the Three Gods when they fought together.

As such, they were not going to be caught off guard by Zeus' purge.

"So, are they still alive?"

"Yes."

"Well, that's good then."

YuWon let out a sigh of relief.

It was a face that eased a worry.

"Did you know both of them?"

"No."

"Then it's amazing that you care about them."

"How do you see me?"

"Well, as someone who doesn't feel pity at all, and someone very calculating."

"Calculating..."

YuWon rolled the word on his tongue and nodded.

"You're right, but only halfway."

He didn't used to consider himself calculating.

But the current YuWon had to be. Before going back to the past, he had done all the calculations in the first place.

Whom to leave behind, whom to take.

Whom to kill, whom to forgive.

YuWon had fulfilled them.

But that didn't mean he didn't care about those who were on his side.

"If I had taken Apollo and his sister with me..."

"It's not them you should worry about."

YuWon turned his head at Hercules' words.

"They entered the Tower long before you and reached the top long before you. They're not the kind of people you should be burdened with."

His heart melted a little.

He felt that his chest, which had been laden with heavy burdens, lightened a bit.

"So you don't have to carry too much. I don't know what you're carrying, but don't overdo it."

He knew.

That's how it's supposed to be.

YuWon wasn't even a Ranker Player yet. He had to be protected by the administration and had to climb the Tower to take the test safely.

He was too young to get involved in such Tower troubles.

But that was something Hercules could say because he didn't know about the existence of the Clockwork Mechanism.

"When I see you, sometimes I feel that way."

YuWon crossed his arms and looked at Hercules, who held the reins of the Chariot of the Sun in his place.

"It should have been you, not me."

If it had been Hercules instead of himself, wouldn't he have been able to embrace everyone?

He could have taken them without killing or hurting anyone.

But still, Hercules' words were a great comfort.

The journey to the first floor was quite long.

Danpung climbed on YuWon's shoulders and pulled his cheeks. He had been asleep for a long time and had trouble containing his energy after a long hibernation.

Tug-.

YuWon felt a pull on his cheeks.

Looking at Danpung, who had been playing tricks on him for days, he asked in a somewhat indulgent voice.

"Are you having fun?"

"Abba!"

"Yes, yes. It must be fun..."

He didn't know that dealing with children was an exhausting job.

He thought that fighting demons would be a hundred times less exhausting. Suddenly, he felt at ease with his sword.

Crack-.

"Is this the place?"

Hercules saw a small workshop at the end of YuWon's path.

"It's smaller than I thought. However, the facilities seem to be in order."

Hephaestus' workshop was on the ground floor, a bit away from the city center.

The location wasn't bad, and the facilities were decent, but it was nothing out of the ordinary for the best blacksmith in the Tower.

"Well, time to visit my big brother."

Creak-.

Hercules took the lead and opened the door to the workshop.

An unnatural sound.

YuWon was startled by the sound at the door.

"The door, wasn't it locked?"

The door was obviously locked.

However, when Hercules forcefully opened the door for a moment, the doorknob broke.

"...I guess I'll have to call a locksmith."

Hercules, with a perplexed expression, soon headed towards the stairs leading to the basement.

The heat in the workshop was hotter than ever.

He had heard it was finished.

"I can't wait."

YuWon hurriedly went down the stairs.

The floor was a mess. No matter how many spare tools were used, several hammers were broken and scattered on the floor.

Hephaestus lay in the middle of it all.

"Brother!"

Hercules rushed over and lifted Hephaestus.

As Hephaestus lay there, he slowly opened his eyes and moved his pupils to scan Heracles, YuWon, and Pandora.

"Oh, it's you?"

Hercules seemed stunned for a moment as Hephaestus rubbed his eyes and yawned.

It seemed like he had fallen, but apparently he had been sound asleep.

"Why did you come running like that, you madman?"

Shaking his head once, Hephaestus began to gather the broken hammers that were scattered on the floor.

YuWon helped Hephaestus and asked with a concerned expression.

"You haven't exerted yourself too much, have you?"

"Of course I did, I haven't slept since that day."

"You haven't slept? The whole time?"

"I couldn't sleep because I was having fun. That's all."

Dark circles formed under Hephaestus' eyes. It was incredible that a man of his rank could be in such a state with so few hours of sleep.

How many days and nights had he been working on this?

"Follow me. It's inside."

Whoaa-.

Yawning, Hephaestus got up, turned around, and headed to the warehouse.

Apparently, he wanted to show the merchandise to YuWon as soon as possible.

YuWon was also in a hurry.

"I can finally find out."

His heart was beating faster than it had in a long time.

The Lightning, Kyneē, and Triaina.

They were all objects that YuWon had some knowledge of.

But not this time.

This was something new, something that hadn't appeared in the Tower before.

And most importantly, this time he knew for certain who it belonged to. (?)

Creak-.

The warehouse door opened.

Normally, he would have taken a look to see what objects were inside, but this time, he didn't even think about it.

YuWon followed Hephaestus straight to the gloves at the center of the warehouse.

"By nature, new objects receive new names."

Hephaestus picked up the glove, which was inside a transparent glass case.

"But this one didn't have such a thing. It was given a new name upon completion."

Crack-!

The glove shot out.

"As you can see, it has an Ego."

He already knew it had an Ego.

The lightning that Zeus possessed concealed its owner; it was similar to the ego, which has an identity, but it was also different.

"Unconscious."

It seemed to have an unconsciousness.

An object that had will, but was unstable.

The Lightning was definitely a type of object that YuWon had never seen before.

"All I did was bring together what had been divided into three forms. The object that was essentially one, divided into three, and then joined back together, found its original name."

It wasn't an unexpected story.

The idea that different but similar items derived from a single source was a topic.

Furthermore, YuWon had known that they were originally one since he first obtained the Divine Crystal of Darkness.

Even that guy had been talking to YuWon constantly before.

That he needed to gather the three.

"What's your name?"

YuWon looked at the opaque-colored jewel embedded in the center of the glove.

The color faded as the three colors merged.

"Uranus Heart."

"Uranus?"

YuWon's eyes narrowed.

Whether he knew it or not, Hephaestus continued explaining, rotating the object he had created.

"I don't know what Uranus is plotting. But in my experience, the system never lies."

It was only then that Hephaestus's gaze turned towards YuWon.

"You took care of the Lightning, and the other two. This one, once completed, kept rejecting me. It's as if it has its own master."

Crack-.

YuWon took a step closer to Uranus.

"You are its owner."

The warehouse fell silent.

Hephaestus kept his distance. Hercules looked back and forth between YuWon and Uranus, his eyes shining with interest.

And YuWon was now just centimeters away from Uranus.

"Uranus Heart..."

The name had been decided from the beginning.

This object was originally someone's heart.

"It seems like no one knows..."

The others didn't remember, but YuWon remembered the name.

It was Cronus who told him.

"My father was a tyrant."

It was a long time ago.

Those were the words Cronus spoke during a beer party.

"He grew stronger by devouring his own siblings. He ate my uncle, Pontus, and devoured the giants imprisoned in Tartarus."

It was the worst of the hidden history of Olympus.

At the end of the deep and thick roots of Olympus, Uranus began to devour the entire Olympus, even consuming his own children.

"I had to fight to survive, and to capture him, I gathered the Rankers of Olympus, Odin from Asgard, Vishnu from the Vedas... all the Rankers who had existed since ancient times."

It was a great war against a single individual.

It had been so long that it had become blurry, but the image of Uranus remained vivid in the minds of those who fought against him.

"In the end, we won, and Odin and I managed to survive, but half of the Rankers who fought in that battle died."

YuWon reached the Uranus Heart.

"That's what he was, my father."

A tragic story.

But that's why YuWon couldn't help but be drawn to this item.

"Zeus? No way. He's just a brat bastard."

YuWon's heart beat heavily in his chest.

"The worst and the greatest of all time. That was the true heaven of Olympus."

As if he was hearing Cronus's voice at this very moment, at that very moment...

Crack.

YuWon's hand gripped the Uranus Heart.