Chapter 28: Blood-Soaked Battlefield, 1215 BC

[Eurotas River riverside, near Sparta]

The riverside of the Eurotas river seemed peaceful at first, the sound of running water could be heard from it, nothing else, nothing more. The surroundings are also peaceful. I had seen lions sitting below trees, deers drinking from the river, and birds flying high in the sky.

Me and the other eternals camped near the riverside, we gathered our supplies here, we hunted some deers, dried their meat for supplies, and we gathered the water from the river.

I was skinning the deers. Then we could feel the earth shaking, all of us were alert. Gil, who was gathering the water, approached our camp and shouted.

"An army, " said Gil.

"Whose?" I questioned.

"Spartan." Gil continued.

"Both sides are Spartans Gil." I rolled my eyes at his answer.

"And whose fault is that?" interrupted Ikaris, who was packing our dried meat.

I just kept silent, and Gil answered my question. "The one with Corinth."

I hummed. "Are they approaching us?"

Gil shook his head. "No, it looks like they are going to do a final push. Their entire army is marching."

I sighed, I stood up, I cleaned my hand from the blood of the deer carcass using a cloth, and pointed at the water that Gil was carrying.

Gil grunted, and he walked up to me, he then helped me wash my hands, cleaning my hands from the blood.

"Want to see it?" I questioned.

"See what?" Ikaris questioned.

"The battle."

Ikaris stared at me with his cold eyes. "That war never should've happened, I told you we are not supposed to interfere with human affairs, Arishem should've punished you."

"And yet I'm still standing over here." I stared back, "You want to punish me Ikaris? You can try."

Ikaris stood up and tried to grab my clothes to intimidate me, but Gil interrupted him, he shook his head as he stop Ikaris using his body.

Ikaris eyed Gil, and ultimately grunted and sat back down to pack our food.

"He seems like a pushover." Mephia spoke in my mind.

I shrugged. "Trust me, he's not."

Kingo then suddenly walked to our camp with more supplies he had just bought from the nearest village. "Hey guys, I bought the thing-"

He noticed the rather tense atmosphere, and stopped talking briefly. "What's going on here?"

"Nothing's going on Kingo, Nothing's going on." I hummed.

—

A couple days later, we were walking on the fields of Sparta. I could smell the strong stench of blood and rot. I could see crows and vultures flying in the air above me. We must be nearing the battlefield.

"Gosh, the smell…" Kingo commented, covering his nose.

We walked a couple hundred more meters in front, and we finally arrived at the battlefield. Corpses scattered along the fields. We could see soldiers gathering up the corpses to be buried, but they were not quick enough, as some corpses were now eaten by crows and vultures.

We even saw some women and children in the battlefield, perhaps it's because of the battlefield's close proximity to the town that those women and children are searching for their family's bodies.

"This is your doing, Pluto." Ikaris said coldly.

"So?" I questioned.

"You murdered these men, leaving many widows, and fatherless children." continued Ikaris. "This is what happened if we interfered."

"Widows and fatherless children are common Ikaris." I commented. "But yes, I suppose it's my fault, but it's necessary."

"Necessary?!" questioned Ikaris loudly. "You broke our rules!"

I chuckled at his response. "It's funny that you commented that I broke the rules instead of pitying the humans, what would Sersi feel if she heard you right now…"

Ikaris went silent after that.

I stared at Ikaris, and said: "Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times. It is an endless cycle, I just help advance it."

"But is it right though?" Gil questioned. "There must have been some other ways to make the humans… advance…"

"Perhaps." I hummed. "But it's the only way we know as an eternal, violence. We were created for that, are we not?"

Gil then didn't say anything after that, he just stared at the blood-soaked battlefield, his expression empty.

"Humans… I guess we underestimated them as a species, capable of something like this…" Kingo commented. He then walked to the women and children that were trying to find their loved ones bodies frantically. He then helped them, trying his best to search for the bodies in the smelly field.

We then heard the cheers and shouts of men from the city of Sparta nearby. It was quite loud, it seems they are celebrating in the streets of the city.

"Nothing changed huh…" I murmured. I guess that is to be expected, I helped him after all. As the cheers echoed throughout the sky, I stared at the women and children once more, now crying over a heavily dismembered body.

I then remembered my time with those tribe children with Thena, I remembered Thena's daughter back at Athens.

And I thought. Is this really right?

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A/N: honestly, I'm thinking of dropping this, at least putting it on hiatus :)