Legend said Olympus's rule would face three major crises of war.
The Titanomachy, the Typhon War, and the Gigantomachy…
The Titanomachy came first. It was also called the war between the old and new gods, named for Olympus overthrowing the Twelve Titans of Mount Othrys to seize and continue divine authority.
The Typhon War came in the middle era, sparked by that King of Monsters. Countless monsters, some crawling up from the ocean depths and others hatched from volcanoes, nearly flattened Olympus outright.
The last was the Gigantomachy. In Greek, it meant "the war against the giants." The surviving records amounted to only a few scattered lines. The time, the cause, the course of events, even the outcome were all hazy, so it was also known as "the mysterious battle that not even history clearly recorded."
Samael only vaguely remembered that giants who ruled a land called Mu came from the sea and launched a full-scale侵蚀 against Olympus.
This time, the war was so brutal that even humans took part in Olympus's defense.
Mu… Atlantis…
Giants… roaming stellar vanguards…
The white giants that appeared on Earth possessed a passive ability called "Gigantification." Not only could they grow larger by destroying and absorbing civilizations, that gigantification also spread to native life-forms, driving those enlarged creatures to wreak havoc on Earth's civilizations.
Because this virus-like power twisted life away from what it should have been, those native creatures collapsed one after another even as they ran rampant and tore down civilization.
If nothing stopped it, the roaming stellar vanguards would eventually burn away nature, life, and civilization itself, trampling every trace of humanity and gods until the entire planet was reduced to an empty husk.
Clearly, these giant war machines and the warped creatures alike were products of the roaming stellar vanguards' infectious domination.
So that's what the Gigantomachy really was. How did I not put that together?
Samael shot a look at Poseidon, the one who had opened this can of worms and was now staying obediently in the rear, and let out a helpless sigh, full of regret.
If he'd known Atlantis's secret would turn into a problem this huge, he would've pinned Poseidon down and beaten him half to death if that's what it took, just to throw out whatever it was that triggered this catastrophe.
War God Mountain… Ophion, the Primordial Serpent… Kronos, the First Cause… the Gigantomachy…
He had thought he was changing history at every turn. In the end, he had still become part of it.
Staring at the deadlocked battle across the sea, the Ancient Serpent felt a strange mix of emotions.
Still, at least one thing was worth being glad about: not everything was set in stone.
For example, Sefar was supposed to awaken in the late Age of Gods in Greece. By then, only the Olympian gods would still be able to act, and the situation would have been far more dire.
But now, the Age of Gods had not fully faded. Zeus had seized control of vast numbers of imprisoned gods and monsters, turning them into rare and valuable support against the roaming stellar vanguards.
And it wasn't just that. So many historical branches were quietly being nudged off course: Athena's birth, the sealing of [Pandora's Box], the Argonautic Expedition, the rise of War God Mountain, the shift in Heracles's fate…
Those tiny changes might end up becoming the lever that pried Greece's entire future onto a different track.
If they could gather the full strength of Greece's Age of Gods, it wasn't impossible to gamble on a win.
After all, the three roaming stellar vanguards had been awake for less than a day.
Based on what Samael knew from later records, once a roaming stellar vanguard expanded to the seventh stage, it could contend with an entire planet. Working backward from what he was seeing now, the strength of stages one through seven could be roughly divided like this:
Stage One: conservatively, Divine Spirit level.
Stage Two: rising to the rank of a Main God.
Stage Three: possessing the caliber and power of a God King.
Stage Four: tracing back to origin, becoming the apex of a divine system.
Stage Five: power enough to rival an entire Age of Gods.
Stage Six: able to punch through multiple World Eggs of different Ages of Gods.
Stage Seven: burning the whole Earth, shattering every human and divine civilization on this planet.
Unit 2, Sefar, the one that underwent a qualitative leap, had already been around stage three from the moment she surfaced from the Storm Sea, after wiping out the ocean gods and absorbing their spirit particles.
On top of that, she controlled Atlantis's civilization, which had grown out of the roaming stellar vanguards' technological legacy. Her real combat power far exceeded "watery" God Kings like Poseidon or Hades. Only Samael, Typhon, and Zeus could truly match her.
That was why Samael and Zeus had managed, again and again, to destroy the roaming stellar vanguard's physical form and effectively slow her down.
But the roaming stellar vanguards right now were almost impossible to kill for reasons he didn't understand, and their growth rate was terrifying.
Even Samael and Zeus, the peak existences of their respective divine systems, were finding it harder and harder to keep up.
If they wanted to live, they had to completely cripple or break these things down before Sefar and the others evolved to stage five.
That old bastard Zeus had prepared well, and with Greece's current assembled strength…
Maybe it could work.
As Samael focused on recovering, his thoughts kept spinning, sorting through targeted strategies. A sharp light flickered in his eyes.
Besides, Greece wasn't the only power in play.
He had his own cards.
The moment that thought surfaced, the Ancient Serpent seemed to realize something. His eyelid twitched, his expression stiffening as a strange guilt crept in.
Damn… was that why Sefar called in teammates and had reinforcements airdropped?
Waking up early… Greece's combat power exceeding projections… other Age of Gods factors detected… roaming stellar vanguard response protocols upgraded… headquarters, requesting reinforcements! Requesting reinforcements!
Having mentally stitched together a whole chain of cause and effect, Samael took a deep breath, casually lifted a hand, and rubbed at his stiff facial muscles. With a gentle smile, he watched the deadlocked sea battle and muttered to himself.
No way. That's got to be my imagination. Definitely my imagination. Put the blame back where it belongs, this has nothing to do with me.
And Mesopotamia too. Hell Mode turning into Purgatory Mode, Apsu and Marduk showing up… total accident. Absolutely.
Just as this walking disaster for the Greek gods was busy hypnotizing himself and making excuses…
The sea suddenly shook violently. Samael snapped back, looked up at the battlefield, and sucked in a cold breath, his face going rigid.
In barely half an hour, a full third of Typhon's hundred-plus heads had been maimed or severed. Casualties among the Titans, the gods, and Typhon's monsters were nearing thirty percent.
And the monsters surging up from the sea weren't decreasing. They were increasing. Worse, gigantic, deformed sea beasts had started appearing as well.
Athens wasn't looking any better. The dozen or so Olympian Main Gods who'd held the advantage earlier were now struggling more and more as they continued their siege on that roaming stellar vanguard.
Seeing this, Zeus slammed down his thunder scepter with a sharp strike, letting out a cold snort as he snapped the Sea King back to himself.
"Poseidon, my good brother, what are you waiting for?!"