Chapter 22

I left the Zeus cabin around 4 in the evening, after two hours of being cooped inside.

Instead of walking up to the big house, I just flew towards it this time, not wanting to be late for the meeting.

These meetings were usually restricted to cabin counsellors only, but I was an exception considering that I led one of the most competent group of demigods. Plus my presence always made the meetings proceed in a civil manner without much shouting and fighting, even the Ares cabin didn't try to pick fights.

Nowadays, there was no meeting that went on without me present, something that actually embarrassed me a little at first when someone specially came to invite me. Not anymore.

I whipped past the lake, flying towards the big sky-blue house that stood tall on an elevated ground. As I landed, my eyes saw Dionysus lounging on the deck with his feets dangling in the air, a couple of satyrs obediently serving him.

"Hey, Mr. D." I greeted the baby-faced god with a wave.

"Ah, Michael. Here to babysit the runts again?" Came his unenthusiastic reply. "Or did your sister come up with a new crazy plan to clean up your messes?"

"Both I'm afraid. Another plan to clear the monsters outside the field." I replied, a little exasperated.

Dionysus appreciated my presence almost as much as cabin counselors.

Well, he appreciated the fact that I could lead the demigods without disturbing him, which was all that the god really cared for. The gods expected Dionysus to lead the camp and keep it safe in times like this. The fact that he could put all of his job on my shoulders was enough to get me in his good books.

"Well, get on with it then." He waved me off.

Of course, being in his good books didn't give me any special privileges. He was a dick to everyone, just less so to me. I took a quick look at his status to see if anything changed in the past year.

Dionysus

Race: God

Tier: 8 (True God)

Current Tier: 7 (Minor God)

Level: 740 (Divine Form) [Max]

Current Level: 640 (Mortal Form)

Divine Power: 6,200,000/6,200,000

Stamina: 6,600,000/6,600,000

Health: 6,500,000/6,500,000

Stats

Strength: 630 (730)

Speed: 625 (725)

Dexterity: 645 (745)

Endurance: 660 (760)

Constitution: 650 (750)

Mental: 52

Spirit: 620 (720)

No changes. Of course, I didnt expect anything else considering his maxed status. But I was always curious about this god, due to my potential spirit surpassing his. Cause that meant I had the potential to be a more powerful god than Dionysus even without system's help.

That's just awesome.

Plus, it was always good to confirm that your residential Bully god/camp director hasn't been growing stronger.

I entered the big house, passing by the internet access room, and climbed the stairs to the next floor.

The rec room was quite big in size, there was plenty of room to walk around even with the ping pong table taking a lot of space. Around the table sat the cabin counsellors, arguing about something as they gathered around the map.

Not everyone was present, I realised. The Demeter and Hephaestus counsellors...they must be on the guard duties still. And Aphrodite, Hermes, and Ares counsellors were missing as well, the first of which irritated me personally.

Including me, there were 5 people present in the room.

I entered with a clap of my hands and glanced around the room. "Where's Chiron?"

"Chiron will join us in a bit." Thalia answered me, her eyes still surfing the map of camp half-blood.

"Of course." I nodded, taking my seat at the very front of the table.

"Hey, cutie." The voice came from behind me, and I recognised it immediately.

"Anna, you are late." I replied irritatedly, without turning.

"Ah well yes, I can't possibly present myself in front of you without looking absolutely perfect now can I?" The 16 year old girl giggled as she took a seat besides me.

Anastasia Bisognin was the oldest demigod currently in the camp. She had an Italian accent, wore little to no make up and still looked like an up-and-coming supermodel.

She also made a habit of teasing me as soon as I was selected as one of the four leaders of squad patrol, and I'd have already kicked her off of my squad for less than professional behaviour had she not been one of the few people who learned everything I taught very quickly and without too much complaint.

She also followed orders without any whining which made me... tolerate her. Her beauty had absolutely no hand in my decision, no sir.

I sighed to myself quietly. The sacrifices I do for the camp.

"Oh you seem tired, my dear leader. Perhaps a quick massage before the meeting starts–"

"Leave him alone, Anastasia!" Thalia snapped suddenly, glaring at the older girl with venom in her eyes. The rest of the counsellors quietly hid their snickers at what looked like another episode of bickering between the girls.

I sighed again. While I was generally exasperated by Anastasia, Thalia outright hated her and made her feelings clear in every meeting.

"Oh my, that's very rude of you Thalia. I'm only doing my duty as the right-hand of our young leader."

And of course, Anastasia just egged her on, not behaving like the oldest in our group should.

It didn't help that when we first arrived in the camp, before our father claimed us, the Aphrodite cabin was insisting I was one of them and tried to get me to sleep in their cabin, which understandably didn't go well with Thalia.

Though I could kinda understand their thoughts. Being the son of Zeus and Gabriel, a god and an angel, made me astonishingly beautiful, and even as a nine year old there were teenage boys who burnt with jealousy.

This was before people knew my mother was an angel, and so Aphrodite cabin understandably thought that I had the blessings of their mother. Again something that did not go down well with Thalia especially when they refused to acknowledge my lightning bending abilities.

"Listen here you two bit bint–!"

Before Thalia could go on, the door to the arc room opened again, this time showing a sleepy Luke coming in.

"...M'kael" The boy lazily waved at me as he went to sit on his usual spot, towards the centre of the left side of the table.

"Thalia." He nodded towards my sister absently, stifling a yawn.

"Did you just wake up?" I asked, thankful for his presence as it kept Thalia in control.

"Yeah. Saw you flying past the cabins and remembered about the meeting. Thanks for that, by the way."

I chuckled slowly to cover up the urge to sigh in relief as both the girls settled down.

Our last members soon arrived. Mark, the 14 year old Ares counsellor, followed by Chiron in his wheelchair because his huge horse rump couldn't fit inside the room.

"Everyone is already in attendance? Excellent!" Chiron exclaimed, ever upbeat. "Now Thalia, my dear, if you could please take the lead and explain your plan to us?"

The next few minutes Thalia described her plan. It wasn't really much of a plan, my sister might be a very powerful fighter but a genius strategist she was not. The core of her plan was simply to leave the magical borders and directly attack the monsters. Which was exactly what we did a couple of months before with disastrous effects.

And Michelle, the Athena counsellor, was quick to remind her of that.

"Right, so after analysing our awful attack plan from last time, which you led by the way, you created this new, super effective plan, huh?" She started sarcastically. "But oh my! Why does this plan sound so similar to our previous one? Must be some really secretive plan because I can't find a difference."

"Don't talk down to me, Michelle!" Thalia snapped angrily. "I know what I said but I still think it'll work. This time we have Potens the dragon automaton with us. We also have a new supply of Greek fire, new celestial bronze weapons and armours and we'll be a lot more prepared and ready!"

"I agree." I stated, getting a grateful look from my sister, while others looked startled and surprised.

Expected, considering I was the only one to vehemently protest the attack two months ago, this must have come as a surprise to them.

"Are you serious rig–"

"I am." I cut off Michelle and raised my hand to stop any protests. Standing up from my seat, I looked down at all the ones present. Not very impressive considering I was still below 5 feets in height but I ignored that. I had a speech to give.

"Two months ago I didn't agree with the plan because I still thought that we simply need to stall the monsters until the gods get their shit together."

Thalia and Luke looked amused at that while the others looked worried. Chiron nervously glanced at the sky as thunder rumbled in the distance.

"But it is clear now that we will be getting no help. It has already been more than a year since the monsters started attacking and we've been trapped here forever. I have no idea why they are silent, neither do I particularly care. Yes, yes the ancient laws and restrictions, I know Chiron, you already told, I just don't know what it is." I interrupted Chiron before he can defend the gods again.

"What I do know is this, if we don't do something about these monsters they will just continue to grow in numbers. Right now, only powerful monsters could enter the camp, and they rarely do so, while the weaker ones ride their coattails, which is the only reason we've held them off so far. Even then we've lost almost two dozen demigods in the last year. This year? Who knows, but it'll surely be more than two dozen. Sooner or later we are going to be overwhelmed by sheer number. We need to thin the herd if we want to get out of here alive."

"How though?" Michelle asked with a frown. "Do you have a plan for that? Because I've already stated numerous times, it is not logical for us to go out there looking for monsters to fight."

"Yes, I have quite a few ideas actually. Here are a couple of them just out the top of my head. The monsters are here because of my aura right? I just need to cut a few straggling monsters outside the magical boundry around the strawberry fields, then I could travel all the way over to the half-blood hill and easily lure the monsters away from the camp. After that we cou–"

"No!" Thalia cut me off. "I won't let you go on some suicidal plans alone! Listen, I've already thought about this. If you guys could just give me a little time to explain without putting your noses in..."

She shot a glare towards Michelle, who sheepishly turned away. "Good. Now here."

She turned the map around completely towards me.

"Most of the monsters are around the half-blood hill. Grouped up and collected. We can rain Greek fire down on the monsters now that we have the dragon automaton, which is much more durable than a Pegasus. We don't need to fight the monsters. we don't even need more than a few demigods!" She announced passionately. "Mikael, Luke, me, and a couple Apollo demigods are enough."

"And what will you do when that plan inevitably goes down in the flames?" Michelle asked. "What if the kindly ones manage to crash the machine? Or some other monster was able to board the dragon? Have you thought about that?"

"We'll figure it out." Thalia stubbornly stated, not willing to back down even though she clearly haven't thought of that.

"What do you think, Chiron?" I asked the quiet centaur who was frowning to himself.

"I think, perhaps you all should take some time to think this over. One can make plans to avoid mistakes, but ones the mistakes are made, there is no way to avoid the consequences. Especially in the battlefield. Think, plan, and prepare. Once you are ready, we will discuss this further."

I nodded before addressing the other counselors. "What about you guys?" I asked.

Before they can answer however, the door to the meeting room banged open once again, showing a panicked Athena demigod as he panted slightly, sweat pouring down his head.

"T-the beach..." He tried to get out before starting to cough his lungs out. I saw a worried Chiron and Michelle approach him.

"Slow down, Malcolm." Michelle said, rubbing the boy' back.

"The beach.." He shook her hands off to desperately continue. "The beach is breached. Hydra..."

"Oh."

I was out of my seat before anyone can get another word out.

"Thalia! Luke!" I called out even as I ran directly towards the window. "I'll hold the monster off, gather your squad!"

I could hear Chiron bellowing orders and organising the panicking counselors but I'd already jumped out of the window.

With a tug in my belly, I felt my powers answer to my call as I took off into the air with a burst of wind. I saw the monster as soon as I was in the sky, and felt... surprised. And disappointed.

It wasn't the huge dinosaur sized behemoth I was expecting to see. It wasn't breathing out cyclones of fire either, nor was it rampaging around our camp.

It's main body was just slightly bigger than a rhino, maybe around the size of a small elephant, with 7 long serpentine necks and diamond-shaped head with lizard-like mouths full of razor sharp teeth.

It was a horrifying creature to be sure, something that can massacre a bunch of demigods. But it wasn't the legendary city-destroying hydra that I had been fearing.

Curse those stupid tv shows.

It was still threatening the lives of demigods though, so with another burst of speed I flew towards the creature, taking a single moment to quickly glance at its status as I equipped piercer from the inventory.

Hydra (Baby)

Race: Monster

Level: 68

Tier: 5

Mana: 228,000/250,000

Stamina: 60,209/64,000

Health: 65,000/65,000

Stats

Strength: 66

Speed: 69

Dexterity: 75

Endurance: 64

Constitution: 65

Mental: 9

Spirit: 250

The monster was very agile as it dodged numerous spear throws at its head. The ones that actually hit it were body shots that weren't proving useful at all. It didn't even slow down as it pounced towards the demigods who were barely hanging on with their lives, scrambling backwards to avoid the charging monster.

The Hydra suddenly spat a misty glob of green liquid at one of the Athena girls, who slipped down on her butt in an attempt to avoid it. The monster quickly rounded upon her, opening its mouth as it prepared to melt the girl in a puddle of goo.