“For the crime of disturbing the mortal realm and interfering with significant characters of the past, you are sentenced to a thousand years of punishment. The Olympians shall decide your punishment.” A man cloaked in a gray robe with a mask like that of an eagle reading out a long scroll to me.

It rolled far across the ground until it traveled under me, but as my eyes drifted off of this insignificant piece of paper, I saw the surprising events that made me lightly smile.

A single tear rolled down the boy’s face as he carried the wounded man in his arms. But it wasn’t my attack that had hit him. In fact, he perfectly deflected my own skill… yet he was betrayed by a boy he had trusted so much.

He had a gaping spear wound through his abdomen, and as the last remaining bits of life flashed across his eyes, I heard him mutter a few things.

“I… trusted you… and loved you… like a son… I’m sorry.”

…

(Lu Bu POV)

My attack did nothing. Absolutely nothing. My attack had been completely countered and then crushed to the ground like a meaningless fling of mana.

All of the mana in my body was drained from that one skill I had used, intending to settle this in one shot, but even with her being in a mortal body, her godly powers were still able to pull through.

“Orion… back up…” I gritted my teeth as the woman’s expression turned bright, the edges of her lips turning upwards into a smile.

I heard no response, so I quickly swiveled my head around, only to see he had completely passed out, and from what I could sense, his heartbeat was slowing.

Shit… I guess this is it-

All of a sudden, I heard a few kicks against the dirt below. I turned my head around to see Orion standing up, his pupils rolling into the back of his head, revealing two little black dots.

His expression was limp, like he wasn’t even conscious of his surroundings. It was a strange phenomenon that I could only anticipate was the work of one of his skills. There was no other option but for me to pick that.

FWOOSH

A massive spear with a glistening red tip flung into his hand, sending his limp body hopping to one side. This only confirmed my suspicions of him being unconscious even further.

“Oho… I forgot he had this skill… no matter though….” Athena smiled, gathering a massive ball of light in her right hand, lined with a million sharp needles about to explode outwards.

“Shit!” I exclaimed, attempting to shufflemy way back to Orion, but my body was so exhausted that when I checked my status, I noticed the remaining bits of stamina I had, dropped all the way down to zero.

“You goddamn… MORTALS!” Athena shouted at the top of her lungs, yet before she could release the attack, a massive hammer made from light swung at her side.

BOOOOOOOOOM

Athena was sent flying to the side, her real form seemingly phasing out of Wu’s body. She slid against the dirty grass below, her ethereal form suddenly being chained up by various shiny links made from a divine metal. 𝑶𝚟𝓵xt.𝐂𝑶𝓜

Long platinum blonde hair with glistening eyes holding a thousand stars. Her skin was a clear blue as she was in this ethereal form that somehow only enhanced her beauty. She was truly a goddess through and through.

Power, looks, and brains are a deadly combination.

Wu, on the other hand, immediately woke up, coughing up blood, but wasn’t dead.

“Ugh… what… happened?” She muttered before her pupils dilated. “OLD MAN!”

SHING

All of a sudden, I felt a massive blade penetrate my abdomen, tearing both of my lungs to pieces and even clipping my heart. It was an attack meant to kill.

When I fell backward, as soon as the blade left my back, I caught a glimpse of long dark purple hair and two cold black eyes greeting me.

Those eyes of his sent shivers down my spine as my mind immediately went numb. My breath left my body, escaping completely from my grasp. I attempted to gasp for air, but that function just wasn’t within my capabilities anymore.

“Huh… wha- what… why are you…”

Orion stuttered as his eyes rolled back into place and his hair lightened. His expression tightened just a bit as he fell to his knees.

“N-No… this…”

With the last remaining bits of breath I could exhale, I spoke my final words. Words that I had wanted to tell him all this time.

“I… trusted you… and loved you… like a son… I’m sorry.”

And just like that, I felt my entire body grow cold as the icy grip of death wrapped around the spear wound in my abdomen. I could audibly hear my heartbeat stop and my pulse begin to slow.

“Huff… huff… huff…”

And then, my breath returned as my darkened vision lit up with sparkles of light. They led me towards a brighter sun that I instinctively reached out to with my naked body.

eaglesnovɐ1,сoМ I then appeared in a room of stone, kneeling at the foot of a throne made of blades. Every single inch of those sharpened pieces of metal was enough to make anybody kneel just from their divine power.

And then, the man sitting atop that throne was a man with short black hair and fiery red eyes. His long dark red beard neatly drooped to the very edge of his lap. His light brown skin complemented the fire erupting from behind him.

“I apologize for what had happened. You may have been part of a simulation, but we did use your real soul. We may have cleared any previous memories of what had happened before the target was placed inside, but I’m glad you found some kind of peace as you died.”

“So I was just a pawn in your plan?” I asked, expecting to hear him explode with anger… yet it was different as opposed to how the other gods described him.

“Well, not my plan,” Ares muttered, his eyes falling to the woman as tall as me and with long white hair and eyes shuffling with seemingly hundreds of pupils. “Arachne… this was a good plan of yours… I wonder when you started putting it in place.”