The Villain of Ancient Greece

”Die, you adulterer!”

Amidst a chilling roar, Melinoe, the Goddess of Conspiracy, lunged at the certain pretty boy who had ruined the harmony of the Underworld’s family, wielding two daggers.

Gray-black death energy and twisted vital energy churned and intertwined around her, clinging to the daggers like two raging dragons, one black and one white.

Lorne’s eyes narrowed, and the golden disk behind him spun, stopping at the fifth slot, revealing the [Warrior] radiating a rich blood-red glow.

Then, he casually snapped off a golden branch from the garden, using it as a sword, and unconsciously mimicking Athena’s tone when she used to torment him, he leisurely spoke.

”Is that all? Let me teach you how to use a sword!”

As soon as his words fell, scarlet blood energy stirred a violent

Aether tide, surging like a whirlwind, and a dazzling sword light erupted from the tip of the golden branch in Lorne’s hand, forcefully sweeping aside the two daggers and heading straight for Melinoe’s throat.

Before the sword’s edge even arrived, the cutting wind pressure made Melinoe’s skin sting.

Realizing the terrifying destructive power contained within, the Goddess of Conspiracy in front of him dared not meet it head-on, and quickly lowered her head, turning her body, attempting to avoid the sudden sword strike.

”Too slow!”

In a flash of lightning, the halo behind Lorne spun, and the iron-blooded [Warrior] transformed into the swift [Goat], thrusting the sword’s edge in front of Melinoe with lightning speed, then bringing it down heavily.

”Smack!”

”Ah~”

A crisp smacking sound echoed through the forest, and Melinoe clutched her burning buttocks, glaring fiercely at the pretty boy opposite her.

”Hmm, good glare, but unfortunately, glares alone can’t kill anyone.”

Lorne lightly tapped the golden branch from the garden against the palm of his other hand, teasing with a smile.

Melinoe, unable to bear the provocation, became enraged upon hearing this, pushing the two divine powers of life and death within her to their limit, like a fierce wolf cub, she once again bared her fangs at the unknown opponent in front of her.

The two crossed daggers were like a meteor shower on a rainy night, each strike faster than the last, like a man-made storm of blades, with fierce sword light continuously attacking his vital points such as his throat, lower abdomen, heart, and groin, showing no intention of holding back.

So young, yet so vicious.

Lorne, in the center of the storm, raised an eyebrow, shifting his feet in small steps, while the branch in his hand repeatedly blocked, intercepted, and vibrated... with a precision that wasted not a single ounce of strength, easily fending off Melinoe’s wild and continuous attacks.

After a full fifteen minutes,

Melinoe slowed her attacks, panting heavily, feeling deeply indignant due to some humiliation.

”Coward, can you only defend? Are you looking down on me?!”

Hearing this, Lorne swung the golden branch to parry a dagger thrusting towards him and shook his head with a sigh. ”Your milk teeth haven’t even grown in yet, and you want to play this game; you’re even more reckless than I was back then...”

”What do you mean?”

Just as Melinoe looked bewildered, the man opposite her revealed an exceptionally brilliant smile.

”You asked for this, remember?”

Before the Goddess of Conspiracy opposite him could react,

Lorne’s aura climbed steadily, the War God’s divine power gushing from his body, forming a viscous, blood-red flame, and as the [Warrior] phantom merged with him, a wild, domineering, bloodthirsty aura surged and boiled, as if a sleeping evil dragon had been awakened.

The suffocating sensation that assailed Melinoe instantly made her realize the difference between the opponent ’playing around’ and ’being serious,’ and her face changed, quickly retreating.

”Trying to run? Too late!”

Lorne sneered, swinging the golden branch in his hand, thrusting forward like lightning.

Unable to dodge, Melinoe’s scalp tingled, and she could only quickly swing the daggers held in reverse in her hands, using the stirred Aether to weave a dense sword net, defending with all her might.

However, the skill and strength of the two sides were simply not on the same level.

The golden branch, swung around, sometimes resembled a cunningly venomous rapier, sometimes a wide-swinging heavy sword, and sometimes a flexible short sword.

It even used spear techniques when thrusting and transformed into a battle saber style when retracting.

In short, it changed in countless ways, making it impossible to defend against.

If Athena were present, she would naturally recognize that this was Lorne’s own fighting style, formed through [Infinite Martial Training].

As long as it was beneficial to the battle, he would not be bound by the form of moves; all methods under heaven could be used by him.

According to the Goddess of Wisdom’s evaluation, this flashy system could indeed achieve good results against opponents of equal or lower rank, but against true masters of a single path, it might not be effective.

At most, they would respond to all changes with no change, breaking all methods with one method.

Lorne had fought Athena so many times, and although the Goddess of Wisdom claimed that to avoid bullying the weak, she always suppressed her strength to the same level as Lorne’s with the mindset of a sparring partner.

But basically, in the end, it was always Lorne who got beaten up every time, which already explained the problem well enough.

But unfortunately, the opponent was not Athena, that cheat with explosive combat power...

And she was even weaker than him...

Thus, Lorne’s [Infinite Martial Training] exerted its greatest advantage, easily breaking through Melinoe’s defense with an endless stream of changing moves, repeatedly striking the Goddess of Conspiracy’s arms, back, and buttocks.

”Slap, slap, slap, slap!”

The crisp smacking sounds were incessant, weaving into a joyful melody in the forest, and

Melinoe, who had been thoroughly beaten, finally reached her limit in extreme grief and humiliation.

”I’ll fight you to the death!”

Amidst a furious roar, Melinoe, who was completely at a disadvantage, decisively threw the two daggers in her hands.

Lorne immediately cautiously adjusted his sword stance, deflecting the blade aimed at his face.

However, in the gap where he switched from offense to defense, the previously imposing Goddess of Conspiracy retreated instead of advancing, decisively rushing out of the garden.

A little clever, but not much.

Lorne sneered and snapped his fingers casually.

In an instant, Melinoe found that the rocks and trees beneath her feet became shadowy and indistinct, and the path before her twisted and turned, seeming to have no end.

”Why do you think we’ve been fighting for so long and made quite a commotion, yet no guards from the Underworld have rushed over?”

Lorne spoke softly, holding the golden branch, walking unhurriedly towards the Goddess of Conspiracy, who was still wandering in the dense forest, unable to find a way out.

At the same time, the phantoms of [Goat] and [Bull] flickered behind him.

Both the [Goat] brought by Pan and the [Bull] from Crete possessed the characteristic of a [Labyrinth], with one leaning towards nature and the other towards artificiality.

Combining the two, along with the brutal training from Athena, the Lady of Labyrinths, Lorne could more or less replicate similar enclosed spaces to trap his opponents.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t dare to openly discipline this princess of the Underworld in the domain of the Underworld.

And seeing that escape was hopeless, Melinoe made a decisive move, taking out a cursed blade from a magic array diagram, its blade a light purple, its shape winding, and its hilt inscribed with dense incantations and fiercely cut her palm, letting golden divine blood drip onto the earth of the Underworld while solemnly chanting.

”I call upon thee: You who are imprisoned in the cage of darkness,

I am the one who holds your chains; forgiveness is now; breaking the vow must be answered. I command you to act for me!”

Immediately, a purple-black magic array diagram appeared, and after absorbing the golden divine blood sprinkled by Melinoe, the sound of breaking chains came from within.

Immediately after, a towering, burly giant, over ten meters tall, roared as he crawled out of the magic array.

His skin was as dark as mountain rock, appearing rough and hard, his face ferocious, and his torn abdomen revealed a largely missing liver and heart and lungs, with messy intestines dragging on the ground.

This monster was already dead, but because of his sins in life, his soul continued to suffer eternal punishment in the Underworld.

”Tityos, kill him!”

Melinoe raised the cursed blade with the purple, curved blade in her hand and snorted coldly, pointing forward.

A chain-like light pattern lit up on the giant’s neck, and upon hearing the command, the monster roared instantly, leaping high, swinging both hands to grab the target’s head and legs, wanting to brutally tear him to pieces, venting the savagery and suppression in his heart.

Tityos, the son of Zeus and the mortal woman Elara.

He was born after growing so rapidly that he tore his mother’s womb, and upon growing up, he developed a strong lust for Leto, one of Zeus’s wives, attempting to rape her.

Ultimately, he was shot and killed by Leto’s twin children, Artemis and Apollo, and after his death, he was continuously pecked at his internal organs by two giant eagles in the Underworld as punishment.

So it’s this kind of character, and he even has a grudge with his own little moon...

As information related to the names flashed through Lorne’s mind, he didn’t even glance at the grinning, dark giant ghost lunging at him.

Behind him, the White Horse neighed, and the Golden Bough in his hand ignited with a blazing white flame, sweeping forward.

”Pfft!”

In an instant, the menacing Tityos was cut in half at the waist, and the blazing white flame violently burned along the wound, quickly spreading over the giant’s entire body.

Apollo’s divinity, which purifies defilement, and the sun’s characteristic of burning darkness made Tityos, as an undead, let out a painful shriek.

Soon, the monster, who only grew in size and not in brain, turned into scattered light dust in the blazing white flames, shattered and broken, flowing back into the magic array to continue his eternal divine punishment.

”Useless!”

Seeing her highly anticipated giant defeated in a single blow, Melinoe, who had just turned to flee a few steps, cursed inwardly.

She immediately endured the pain, made two cuts on her hand, and sprinkled divine blood again.

Immediately, two new magic arrays formed, and two dark figures emerged from them, accompanied by the crisp sound of chains breaking.

One held a sword and shield, the other a longbow, standing before the Princess of the Underworld, like two vicious dogs unleashed, baring their teeth at outsiders.

”Ikasion, Tantalus, go together! Stop that fellow!”

Hearing their master’s command, the two vicious dogs immediately rushed forward to prove themselves.

They would rather fight to the death against a strong enemy than stay in the execution ground of Tartarus for another moment.

Even if they died fighting for this Princess of the Underworld, if they performed well, it might grant them a moment’s reprieve from their endless torment.

Seeing the two underworld specters charging at him,

Lorne rubbed his forehead and shook his head, muttering to himself.

Why are there two more scumbags…

Ixion, the former king of Thessaly.

He was handsome and dashing, incredibly strong, and naturally possessed a good physique.

Upon hearing that a neighboring kingdom had a very beautiful princess, he demanded that King Dionysius marry his daughter to him.

Dionysius, pressured by his power, dared not refuse yet did not wish to ruin his daughter’s life.

So, he demanded a large dowry from Ixion.

The latter verbally agreed to the dowry and deceitfully invited Dionysius to a banquet.

Then, he plotted to push Dionysius into a fire pit and burn him to death.

Ixion’ crime enraged everyone in the country, and he was eventually driven out by the citizens.

With nowhere to go, he fled to Zeus, desperately begging the Father of the Gods to forgive his dishonesty.

Due to his naturally good physique, his request was granted by Zeus, and he stayed on Olympus to evade his enemies’ pursuit.

However, this kind of person, whose nature was hard to change, did not stay quiet for long before his old habits resurfaced, and his lustful eyes fixated on Hera.

The radiant Queen of Heaven captivated him, and he even dared to brazenly flirt with Hera, hoping she would elope with him.

After being molested, Hera immediately informed her husband, Zeus, of Ixion’ actions.

Zeus, who had always been the one to cuckold others, naturally didn’t believe anyone would dare to cuckold him, especially a wretch who only survived under his protection.

However, faced with his wife’s categorical accusations, Zeus acted out of caution. He sent a cloud shaped exactly like Hera to Ixion.

The impious king, suspecting nothing, actually slept with the cloud in the garden, causing her to give birth to a half-human, half-horse monster.

This was the origin of the Centaurs. These four-legged beasts were savage and brutal by nature, and like their ancestor, they loved to abduct and ravage women.

Years ago, Lorne and Artemis had performed a bit of ”forced family planning” on the overflowing Centaur race in the Arcadia region.

Having witnessed himself nearly being cuckolded, an infuriated Zeus cast Ixion down into the Underworld. He bound him to a perpetually spinning wheel of fire, where the rapid rotation eternally tormented and tore at his body.

The fellow before him, with a scorched face, holding a bow and arrow, covered in marks of fire-scorching and immense tearing, was clearly Ixion himself.

As for Tantalus, who followed with a sword and shield on the other side, he was even more beastly.

He was an early ruler of Mycenae, the noble son of Zeus, who could dine at the same table with the God King and did not need to avoid the gods’ conversations.

Yet, despite the gods’ leniency, his greed was insatiable and his reverence nonexistent.

Not only did he leak the secrets of the gods’ lives in public, but he also stole nectar and ambrosia from their table to share with his mortal friends.

Furthermore, he appropriated the sacrifices to the gods and stole Zeus’s temple pet hound; his crimes were numerous.

Even more outrageous, to test whether the gods were omniscient, he invited the gods to his palace as guests and secretly had his son Pelops killed, then roasted and boiled him, making a feast to entertain the gods.

During the meal, Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, distracted by her daughter Persephone being abducted by Hades, inadvertently ate a piece.

The other gods, sensing something was amiss, saw through Tantalus’s trick, threw the torn and cooked human limbs into a basin, and asked the Fates to take the poor child out of the basin and bring him back to life.

And because Demeter ate a piece of meat, the child’s shoulder was missing, which the gods later replaced with ivory.

Afterward, the mocked gods unanimously decided to inflict the most severe punishment to torment Tantalus, this living beast.

Thus, this brutal and arrogant king was cast into hell by the gods to undergo eternal divine retribution.

The specifics were as follows: he stood in the middle of a pool of deep water, the waves lapping just beneath his chin.

Yet he suffered a fiery thirst, unable to drink a single drop of cool water though it was right at his lips.

Whenever he bent down to drink, the water would immediately flow away, leaving him standing alone on dry ground as if a demon had performed a spell to drain the pool.

At the same time, he was tormented by unbearable hunger.

Behind him was the lake shore, lined with fruit trees laden with fruit, their branches bent low with the weight, hanging before his forehead.

As soon as he looked up, he could see honey-dripping pears, bright red apples, fiery red pomegranates, fragrant figs, and verdant olives on the trees.

These fruits seemed to smile and beckon to him, but as soon as he stood on tiptoe to pluck them, a great wind would blow through the air, sweeping the branches upwards.

Besides enduring these torments, the most terrifying suffering was the continuous fear of death, because a large rock hung above his head, threatening to fall at any moment and crush him to pieces.

Under layers of torment, the once handsome and tall king of Mycenae was now covered in cracked skin, revealing his purplish rotten flesh and stark white bones.

The breath of death escaped his mouth, emitting a thick stench of a corpse, and even the eyeballs within his sockets had melted away, revealing the hollow, eerie soul-fire—like a walking corpse.

Presumably, they should now know the preciousness of food and that not everyone can be cuckolded, right?

Lorne chuckled, raising the Golden Bough of the Garden in his hand, and golden and white flames blazed fiercely.

At first, Tantalus, holding the sword and shield in front, paid no mind, but as Lorne flicked his wrist and swung the Golden Bough, golden-white flames sprinkled forward like a shower of meteors, clinging to Tantalus’s weapons, skin, rotten flesh, and internal organs.

Immediately following, bright and intense flames blazed fiercely, calcining his soul and consciousness inch by inch, and excruciating pain ensued.

”Ah ah ah ah! How could this be? Lord Melinoe… Save me… save…”

His screams abruptly ceased.

Tantalus, engulfed in the raging flames, didn’t even have time to scream before his limbs, like burnt firewood, twisted and disintegrated, turning into ashes and scattering inch by inch.

Looking at the golden specks of light that flowed back into the magic array, Lorne shook his head regretfully.

The gods’ prohibitions and eternal punishments were indeed formidable, actually granting Tantalus a trace of the quality of immortality.

Even though Lorne had used Hestia’s [Flame] and Apollo’s [White Horse] to collectively spawn this holy flame, which purified filth and burned evil—it had only destroyed Tantalus’s physical vessel, sending him back to his cell to continue his sentence.

However, for these two scumbags, such a result was even more terrifying than eternal death.

(End of Chapter)