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Chapter: 230

The lightning kept bursting forth relentlessly from the crown held by the Goddess of Life.

It was as if the sharp lightning was trying to break free from the goddess’s grasp, pleading to be returned to its owner, Zeus.

However, the Goddess of Life didn’t seem to care at all. No, rather, she wore a small smile, as if urging it to try its hardest.

After a short while, the lightning emanating from Zeus’s crown began to decrease gradually.

It resembled a wild horse that had been tamed by its rider, now exhausted and worn out. The golden crown had fallen silent, seemingly devoid of any energy to emit further lightning.

“Hmm. Such a useless ornament. No matter how much I suppress and control it, it can’t even produce a tenth of its original output. Tch. I’ll have to break the shell.”

Saying this, the Goddess of Life fiercely gripped the hand that held Zeus’s crown. The crown crumpled as if it were made of paper.

The golden crown was crumpled and cracked, slowly revealing the form hidden beneath it.

Then, a laurel crown made of pure lightning, which had been trapped beneath the golden shell, regained its original shape.

It was the authority of the king of gods, the symbol of power worn upon his head.

“Now it’s finally looking good.”

The Goddess of Life smiled contentedly at the laurel crown of lightning.

“Well then….”

Instead of placing the laurel crown on her head, the Goddess of Life stored it in a suddenly appeared box and tucked it away in her robes, as if the thought of wearing it hadn’t even crossed her mind.

“What should I do with those who tried to forcefully make unwilling beings into gods, sacrificing their followers? How should I deal with you?”

The Goddess of Life glanced around at the gods, smiling gently, and then lightly snapped her fingers. The frozen mouths of the gods seemed to regain the ability to speak, and one by one, they began to cry out in their respective voices.

“P-please spare us! Oh, Goddess of Life!”

“I, I must have had my head smashed, but how am I… regenerating…?”

“U-uh… it was Zeus who made us do this! He used his authority to push us! We didn’t want to do this!!!”

The gods started barking out their pleas, desperately trying to escape the imminent crisis. Blaming each other for their predicament. Even Poseidon, who was bewildered that his smashed head had regenerated in an instant.

In this light, the once-great gods looked utterly pathetic, nothing more than fragile beings begging for their lives.

“Have mercy! Oh, Goddess of Life! You are the most merciful of gods, are you not?”

“Merciful? Me?”

Upon hearing one god’s shout, the Goddess of Life chuckled softly and replied.

“Where on earth did you hear such nonsense that I’m merciful?”

“Isn’t it a well-known fact among all living beings that the Goddess of Life is merciful? Even at this moment, countless people are praying to you, and you respond by healing their sickness and pain!”

“Well, I only lend a hand a little because those poor kids are crying in torment, you know? I’m not helping because I’m merciful or anything.”

The world might call that mercy, but the Goddess of Life seemed to believe that offering help was merely a given.

“And if I were truly merciful… I wouldn’t have allowed the existence of something like war in this world. I wouldn’t leave such matters to fester just because they are deemed necessary; hence, I cannot be considered a merciful being.”

The Goddess of Life made this claim while wearing a somewhat bitter expression.

“Furthermore, if I were truly merciful, I would have eradicated all of you pathetic gods before your kind could even appear. No, since I have allowed you to live, perhaps that too is a sign of mercy? If helping one leads to others suffering, can we really call that mercy?”

The Goddess of Life tilted her head in contemplation, seemingly questioning the very concept of mercy.

“Well, pondering the question of what mercy is can wait for later. Just because I’ve extended a little help to some living beings doesn’t mean I will do the same for you. No, I’ve already extended my help, but it would be accurate to say you kicked it away.”

“What does that mean…?”

As the gods began to wear expressions of confusion, the Goddess of Life stated bluntly.

“Baal. King of the Gods. The sky god who donned the crown to manage your unruly, arrogant selves. Had you all accepted that one’s rule and recognized his authority, such problems wouldn’t have arisen.”

“B-but…”

“But? You rejected his authority, didn’t you? That’s tantamount to denying my will. Isn’t any further mercy towards you all just a luxury?”

Faced with the Goddess of Life’s words, the gods fell silent, unable to respond.

It was true they had rejected Baal and rebelled against him.

As a result, Baal was shattered into pieces, and the fragments that severed their connection to Baal became independent gods and leaders of Olympus.

And that very leader of Olympus…

“G-gah…”

Seemingly having lost the strength and authority contained within his crown, he was rapidly weakening.

Once brilliant blonde hair was slowly turning into pale white, and his strong, muscular body was starting to wither away.

It was as if time had sped up, and Zeus began aging quickly.

“Hmm? Shrinking like a balloon. That body must have been maintained by Baal’s power. What a useless application. Ridiculous.”

The Goddess of Life scoffed at the sight of Zeus.

Zeus wanted to say something to the Goddess of Life, but all that escaped his lips were weak, pitiful groans.

He was merely a withered form of a once-proud god.

“So, what should I do with you? Would it be better to kill you off cleanly? Or should I plunge you into despair? Zeus, what do you wish to become?”

“Ugh… Return it to me…”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“Return my… my crown… my power… my authority…!”

Zeus said with a struggling voice.

“Hah! Since when was that yours? Didn’t you steal it from Baal? Truly a greedy little thing!”

The Goddess of Life laughed at Zeus.

“Well, of course, someone like you would so calmly steal and use Baal’s property. What a wretched creature you are!”

“Ugh…”

Zeus whimpered painfully. Looking at him, the Goddess of Life said.

“Killing you is easy, but anguish is over in an instant. A dead soul can be tormented even further; but a soul from which memories have washed away becomes a being akin to its previous life, doesn’t it? Hmm… so it seems.”

The Goddess of Life grasped Zeus’s head, who was too frail to stand properly due to his old age.

“Zeus, do you know what punishment Odin faced?”

“O-Odin?”

“Yes. The Odin who faced a miserable defeat during Ragnarok. You heard about it through Hermes, right?”

With that statement, Zeus’s golden irises began to tremble.

As if he knew what was about to happen to him, they kept shaking.

“Knowing makes the conversation easier. But, of course, merely living as a human wouldn’t be entertaining, would it?”

The Goddess of Life grasped Zeus’s throat, and he began to struggle for breath, making choking noises.

“For you, even being human would be a luxury. You’d be better off as a pest.”

“A pest…?”

“Yes. As it happens, I’ve come up with a fitting name for you.”

With those words, changes began to occur to Zeus’s body, which was trapped by the Goddess of Life.

Cracks started forming in his wrinkled skin. Like the cracked bark of a withered tree peeling away, like crushed stones scattering apart, Zeus’s body began to shatter into tiny fragments.

After a short while, all that remained of the former Zeus was the head and neck gripped by the Goddess of Life.

“You shall no longer be a god. No one will ever worship you. You will become a being more trivial than anything else. Yet, despite that, you will be unable to suppress your greed.”

At the Goddess of Life’s decree, Zeus’s expression contorted. With only his neck remaining, he gathered all his strength and shouted.

“O Goddess of Life…! Goddess…!!! You shall be cursed!!! You shall be cursed!!! The Goddess of Life shall no longer set foot in a world with life!! You will be unable to approach those cherished living beings! O Goddess of Life! Be cursed!!”

With Zeus’s final scream, the last remnants of his head and neck began to form fine cracks and split apart.

“That curse doesn’t scare me at all.”

Laughing at Zeus, the Goddess of Life tightened her grip, and what remained of his body shattered into countless pieces.

“To you, once Baal’s fragment, I shall assign you a new name, Baalzebub. No, since that might feel unfair to Baal, I’ll change it slightly. You shall be named Beelzebub instead. The king of flies, left only with greed, forced to scavenge among the decayed and filthy remains.”

After all the fragments of Zeus had fallen apart, all that remained in the Goddess’s hand was a tiny fly, about the size of a child’s fist.

The remains of a god who had lost everything, with nothing left but insatiable greed.

 

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