Chapter 7: A Mountain Almost as Big as a God's Ego

Disclaimer: I do not own Highschool DxD but I wonder if in another world I do. I mean own the OC's in this world so it's possible for Ichiei to own the OC's in the other.

3 Day Later, London

In the busy streets of 1596 London, many men and women went about their everyday lives. Carriages litter the streets bringing cargo, people, or just men going for a morning ride. An ordinary man was walking on the side walk exploring the bustling city and his 3 companions were of the same mind. Well, most of them were.

"Hey Maven what is that?" This was Melissa

"That's the Hospital created by Archbishop John Whitgift."

"Hey Maven, what's those grounds for?" This was Vargas

"That is Cambridge, created in honor of the late Lady Frances Sidney for higher education."

"Hey Maven, can I go in there?" I asked pointing to a large building.

"No, that is the Blackfriars Theater but it can't be used because of political reasons."

They all nodded, not really getting it but she answered their questions so they played along. Then Melissa spoke again.

"Hey Maven, what about…" This continued for awhile.

I scoured the great city with my new companions and Maven seemed to be an encyclopedia on everything and everyone in London. I've never been to modern day London in my past life and just the current London was really entertaining.

'Even with the prying eyes.' I felt the auras of multiple people following us the moment we entered London but they weren't hostile. Regardless, I told my teammates and Maven put my worries to rest.

"They are the Yeomen Watchers."

"The who-men what down?" Her response only made me more confused.

"They're the watchers of London. They make sure no supernatural force is a threat to London or the throne." I looked at the passing men in blue and red robes, holding muskets, and quite intimidating looking to regular people. Maven seemed to understand my confusion so she explained. "Those are the Yeomen Warders created by King Henry VII. The Yeomen Watchers was an Order created by King Arthur himself when he ruled England and have continued to protect it till this day."

"Wow." I was impressed. For such an Order to last that long and under different rules must have been difficult. "Do they protect everyone that sits on the throne or just Arthur's direct descendants?"

"Mainly those who they find worthy. The leader of the Yeomen Watchers is a Great Yokai who King Arthur befriended long ago."

"That's my ancestor!" Melissa dropped that tid bit and continued walking.

I just nodded; no longer shocked at any piece of information they gave me. After traveling and hanging out with the Hero Party I learned something very important.

I was under qualified for a spot on this team.

Maven was a student at the school Merlin himself created and was considered a genius at every magic type there was graduating at the age of 12 and staying till 18 before she left. The school was in London and it was why Maven was so well informed when it came to the Capital of England.

Vargas was the spirit inheritor of Galahad. Yes, the Galahad. One of the three knights that went after the Holy Grail and succeeded. The (illegitimate) son of Lancelot and was considered a paragon among knights. The perfect knight.

Melissa was a Yokai and was from a noble, ancient clan of Shadow Leopards. Her kind is able to access a realm called the Shadow Zone and it's a completely separate space that can reach into any dimension as long as shadows exist there (of course if there are barriers to block her then it's different). Apparently, she was considered a princess since she has a soul link with the Shadow Zone and can go in any time she wants and for however long (regular shadow leopards can't stay too long or they'll get lost in the dark realm).

Samantha has the Sacred Gear Saint Chapter. As long as she considers you an ally, your medical information can appear in her book and she can see any ailment, injury, and deformity. A master healing magician met her, found about her Sacred Gear, and brought her under their tutelage. She has even gone to actual medical school and graduated by age 18.

Aindrea was actually a Demigod (of course he is) who was born between the union of a noble in the Far East and Ares. He was the Guide for the Emissary to make sure we didn't do things that incites tension between the other mythologies and factions during the mission since Adrian was technically representing the Greek Gods. Oh yeah, I was also right. He's a dick.

And Adrian? I found out to become an Emissary you need to have 3 Gods become your patron and gain their blessings. When I asked who his Gods were, it took every bit of my self control not to curse out loud. His Gods were Athena, Hephaestus , and Apollon. An actual Goddess of War and the other the future leader of Olympus. The funny part? The sword he had on him was a blade made by Hephaestus himself to help kill Zeth.

Yeah, I was very under qualified for this position.

"Why is Melissa's ancestor the leader of London's security? I mean shouldn't he be in Japan with the rest of his clan?" Vargas asked a good question.

"King Arthur saved his life and he chooses to protect Arthur's home after he passed to return the favor. There's a rumor that he's just lazy and doesn't want to leave since it's a place that hasn't been attacked supernaturally in centuries." I couldn't help but ask Melissa for confirmation. She just sighed and nodded her head.

"Yeah. My elders brought me before him and we had to wait 3 hours because the lazy idiot over slept and he didn't have anything to say other then, "Wow, congratulations" and then just left!" Melissa remembered the meeting with her ancestor and gritted her teeth. We all laughed at her misfortune.

"Well, he seems to be working pretty hard now." I noticed many shadows that we passed had life force within them and assumed it was the ancestor.

"It's not what you think." Melissa shook her head. "When you become a Great Yokai it's possible to grant certain vassals with your abilities but with higher energy cost and it's not as powerful." I nodded my head in understanding finding the subject interesting before we met up with Adrian, Samantha, and Aindrea.

"It's almost time." Adrian had a serious look on his face. There was something I learned about Adrian and it was that he would be the perfect soldier in an army. He was a pretty alright guy and he may not get a lot of my jokes but that was more my fault then his. The thing is that he only needs the mission, the how, and the when and he's set. That's probably why he has a quirk when it comes to giving others information, he just rolls with what he has and has difficulties explaining stuff to others.

'Heh, he really hits home the hero persona.' I couldn't help but think that

We soon walked to an old, abandoned store that once we got in all we saw was a tall beautiful woman with brown hair reading a book and reclining on a chair. She looked up at us and simply said, "We're closed."

"Good." Aindrea stepped up. "Cause we're here to do the work of the Gods."

The woman lifted her brow, stared at us, and then got up to open the back door. Adrian walked through it and we quickly followed him and he soon stopped, standing next to…am old wooden door.

"Wait." I had to ask now. "This is it?"

Aindrea furrowed his brows and looked back at me. "Do you presume to think I would bring us to the wrong place?"

"Seriously man, presume?" I gave Aindrea a weird look. "Look, I don't know who you're trying to impress but I'm not. Is this seriously it?" I even activated Chi Vision and found nothing.

"Humph, just watch mongrel." Wow, he's even got the humph and name calling down. Impressive. We watched as Aindrea opened the door with a confident stride and ended up…in an old dusty room that looks like no one has used it in centuries. I didn't even know faces can get as red as Aindreas just did.

"W-what is the meaning of this!?" He marched up to the brown haired woman who just proceeded to point down the hall to a very large and expensive looking gate.

"...How the hell did we miss that?" I didn't see it once.

"I saw it." Maven spoke up and Aindrea turned to her, rage in his voice.

"Why didn't you say something!?"

"You didn't ask." Aindrea had nothing to say to that.

The woman coughed once, successfully getting our attention before she outstretched her hand.

"There's a toll to Greek Heaven?" Now that would be funny.

Adrian stepped forward and gave the woman a golden medallion and the woman looked over it once before nodding. She walked up to the gate and opened the pearly white gates. We all went through one by one before I was the last one and stared at the brown haired woman. She stared right back.

"Who are you?" I tried my luck.

"Thallo." She gave her name.

Eyes widening, I tried to respond before I was sucked into the gate. Thallo looked at where Pierce just was before closing the gate.

'No one's ever asked me for my name before.' Thinking Pierce odd for this, Thallo went back to her original position and continued to read her book.

Olympus

When I opened my eyes, I saw that I was in a long flowing field of green that sat next to open waters. I was on a beautiful gold platform that housed the gate we came through. In the distance, I could see villages that had many women, men, and children that seemed to be in paradise. The land was fertile; animals that seemed ethereal ran through the fields, and many beautiful statues littered the grounds in an almost picture perfect way. Then I saw a mountain. A very, very big mountain. The waves crashed against the rock as it was right in the middle of the ocean and seemed to extend all the way to space.

"…Does that even make sense?" I heard Maven snort at my question and I turned to her.

"No, it doesn't." Maven looked up at the mountain that pierced the clouds and seem to go around for hundreds miles. "40,000 feet from base to tip, if it wasn't for magic this thing would have collapsed the rock it's rested on."

"What the hell." That was insane. "They are actual Gods and the first thing they do with their powers is make a big ass mountain? What a waste."

"What would you do with it?" Vargas stood next to me and asked.

"I don't know but it seems to be more trouble than it's worth." I sighed lightly. "Still, the view must be something up there."

"Well be grateful mongrel, you're about to find out." Aindrea said this as a he walked to another gate in the distance and we all just followed him.

"Why is there anot-" Then I felt the difference. My body felt restricted; like a thin veil was placed over me and when I activated Chi Vision I saw nothing.

"Locked Space." Maven explained the phenomenon. "All the space surrounding Olympus and the portal here is locked to stop flying." She gestured towards the air and particles were shown covering our bodies. "Those strong enough can easily break it but it will be like throwing a rock into a still pool, the ripple will be felt everywhere."

"Let's go, we don't have all day. The assembly is about to start." Aindrea stood on the portal and waited till we were all on before placing Adrian's medallion on what looked like a control panel. Light flooded our eyes and we were gone.

Top of Olympus

'I'm really getting tired of the light shows.' Rubbing my eyes for what seemed like the 10th time today I looked up and my eyes widen to the size of saucers. One thought can to mind.

'Son of a bitch. Rick Riordan had it right.' The top of Olympus had a long bridge that connected the gate we were on to a large Athens looking city. Looking over all you could see is cloudless sky and the curvature of the world was clearly visible. A black ink screen that didn't show countless stars but was still something to behold.

"…I'm really glad I'm not afraid of heights." Looking down over the edge, a chill went up my spine even though it was quite warm up here (that's definitely magic too).

"I think I'd get bored of screaming if I fell from this height." Samantha had morbid curiosity and tends to say scary jokes from time to time.

"That's not funny Sam." Melissa didn't like them all that much.

"Come on, we don't have time to talk." Adrian told us and we all followed the bridge, being met by the same tall brown haired woman we met not too long ago.

"Thallo?" I was shocked to meet the woman up here when they just saw her back on Earth.

The woman just tilted her head and point at herself. "Carpo. Please follow me." Then turned around and walked towards the biggest building in the city, us right behind her.

A big meeting hall was our destination as Carpo brought us to our seats and we seemed to be the last ones to arrive as 4 other groups were here.

'Feels like a tournament.' 12 large seats were in the middle of the room on top of a platform and it didn't take a genius to figure out who those belonged too. The big gates opened and a loud, majestic voice rung out. "Well, I can't say I don't appreciate a punctual group." 5 figures walked out of the majestic doors and I saw the Gods in all their glory. I give it a 7. Zeus came out into the stage and I observed the godly womanizer (sounds like a great title, actually). Tall, handsome with long curly black hair and hazel colored eyes. He was wearing very luxurious robes. He didn't have a beard.

'Well his subjects got that wrong.' Zeus started talking about how happy he was to see all the groups here, ready to defend Olympus from the scourge that is the evil Zeth. Got to be honest, I didn't hear half of it as I quickly figured out that anything he was saying was about the sacredness that is Olympus and stuff we already knew. 5 minutes later, I was tuning out the God king of Olympus (man that sounds cool without context) and my eyes started to wander. I looked at the other groups that were here but I didn't recognize any one since my companions never talked about them. One the Emissaries looked like she came from Japan, a katana by her waist and was wearing a black and red kimono (they went with that troupe huh?). Another was a man that looked Filipino with short black hair and was muscular as all hell. He listening to Zeus with rapt attenti-

'Is that a thunderbolt?' Blinking to get confirmation, the man did indeed have a thunderbolt shaped halberd resting by his side. 'Wonder who his God is…' Internally snorting, I looked at the other 4 Olympians that came in with Zeus and I recognized one of them.

'So that's Apollon.' How do I know this? Because the moment Zeus and the rest of them walked in I activated Chi Vision, just to check out what a God is really like since we're on a quest to kill one. The only reason I didn't crap my pants there and then was because my brain short circuited and my body relaxed itself on instinct. 'Now that's just not fair…' Imagine a massive storm of wind, lightning, and thunder was just standing a couple feet from you, talking and that storm had literal tales of him being petty, immoral, and kind of a dick. Yeah, I was very uncomfortable the first 5 minutes of listening to him but I quickly got over it. When a being that can wipe you off the face of the earth with a flick of their wrist is so close to you, you quickly realize there is no point stressing about it when he doesn't even know you exist. That brings me back to why I can recognize Apollon because while Zeus is a massive storm, Apollon is like a large yellow sun. It also helps he looks exactly like the light novel described him. Next to Apollon was a large man that had a frown on his face and was shaking his head at every group here like he was disappointed. The odd thing about the man was that I couldn't feel anything coming off of him. Like he wasn't there. He was handsome.

"That's Ares." Maven spoke real low when she also got bored of Zeus's speech. "The other 3 are Apollon, Aphrodite and Hera." I gave small thanks in the form of a nod before shaking his head at Zeus.

'The guy has a wife that looks like that and still cheats? Lucky bastard.' Hera was tall, gorgeous browned hair woman with the typical Greek woman vibe. A toga that showed her aged fashion, clear white skin and her hair was tied up in a bun that looked very class. She had a body that had curves in all the right areas and her aura was like soft, warm breeze.

'Her daughter definitely deserves the title Goddess of Beauty.' I blinked at my thought before rubbing my eyes. 'Wow…even in my head that sounded really douchey.'

But yeah it was true, Aphrodite was really attractive. Long curly black hair that reached her lower back, high cheekbones, unblemished skin and jade eyes. She had a toga like her mother and oddly enough her body shape was not as full as her mother's but seemed more "balanced", not too big (yes, there is a such thing) or not too small. Her overall physique looked very natural and nothing seemed out of place. She was perfect. Pierce blinked. He did it again. Then heavily sighed.

'I'm in an actual mythological heaven, meeting with Gods that have lived for millennia, and I'm here for information to go on a mission to kill a God...and I'm busy checking out Goddesses.' I rubbed my eyes before a smile appeared on my face. 'Heh, Bell sensei would be proud.' Remembering another one of my favorite light novels (can you tell my preference?) Zeus clapped his hands to get our attention.

"Once again, I must thank you kind Heroes for coming to Olympus's aid and we promise to those who had a hand in killing Zeth, your reward will be worthy of a God's head." Ending it there, Zeus and the other Olympians left the room and attendants soon came to bring us to our lodging. We all got up but I noticed Melissa was still sitting in a daze, so I went to tap on her shoulder.

"Melissa?" She didn't react. "Melissa?" Then she jumped up and looked around before locking eyes with me. "Are you ok-"

"Pierce!" She looked like she found her savior and started gesturing wildly with her arms. "There were storms and winds and lightning and a sun and a green field and even though it shouldn't be possible, they all started talking! What was that!?" Melissa finished, sweating and huffing for breathe. I only stared.

"Did…" I started. "Did you look at their auras and passed out?" Melissa growing red face said it all.

'Huh. Maybe I am qualified.' Pierce thought as he turned to follow the group, poor Melissa behind him running and yelling, "Hold on! Please explain what just happened! Wait!"

3 Days Later, Top of Olympus

I walked through the grand halls of the Greeks and for the past few days I found something that made consider converting to the religion. They had modern plumbing.

'This truly is the land of the Gods.' Sighing as I walked to my second favorite spot in the entire building, O entered a garden which was ten times the size of my own house and hanged on the edge of the mountain. The view was incredible and I sat down in a lotus position to go into Zen Mode. Taking a deep breath, I slowly let my mind clear and I could feel all the life around me. The flower and insects that in-habitat the space. The cool wind created by magic but still held bits of natural forces within. It was just so peaceful, and calm, and everything was completely in balan-

"Aaaaahhhhhh! I can't take it anymore!" I finally snapped and screamed out loud. "This whole fucking thing just doesn't make any sense!" At first it was fine; I thought we could rest a couple of days in literal heaven and then get down to business on how we're going to kill Zeth. Expect, no one said anything on the situation besides finding where he's hiding and killing his monster generals to stop them from planning revenge. 'For fucks sake, that's just a general idea not an actual plan!' Adrian said it will be not as straight forward as that so I let that go but even the Gods left us alone to figure it out by ourselves so I can't even ask the questions I had. Apollon met with Adrian to talk and he even played a song for us before leaving! 'He's a pretty cool guy not going to lie but come on man, give us something!' I sighed again (I've been doing that a lot since coming to this world) and rubbed my forehead as I stewed in my thoughts.

"…What doesn't make sense?"

"This whole shit show!" Not questioning where the voice came from, I vented. "I mean if Zeth is such a big threat why don't the Olympians deal with him themselves!? If my home was threatened by a mad God then I'll sure as hell go and take him out! But fine, they can be lazy and push the responsibilities to us but don't give us this monumental task and just continue to be…cryptic…as…hell?" I finally stopped and turned my head to where the voice came from.

It was a woman. A very beautiful woman reading a book. She had light brown hair that was done in a braid. She had an oval face with very valiant features. She was sitting down but I could tell she was taller than me and her eyes were a pretty sapphire color. She had light blue armor over her toga and even with it on I can tell she had a body that I'm pretty sure would cause nosebleed related deaths if ever seen in its full glory.

'10/10.' Being the honest man I am I gave a full assessment of the woman in front of me. I soon found myself staring and bringing myself out of it (it took longer than I'm proud to admit), I started a conversation.

"Um...Hi." I'm a riveting conversationalist as you can tell.

"Hello." But she took it in stride and gave me an amused smile. Coughing, hoping I wasn't blushing as hard as I thought I was, I walked towards her and reached out my hand. "Pierce."

She just stared at the outreached hand for a second before the amused smile became a grin filled with mirth and shook it back.

"Athena." My body locked up so hard, I honestly thought I heard a pop somewhere. Athena just continued grinning and her eyes started analyzing me. It was dead silent as I hoped she wasn't pissed since I pretty much said her entire family is lazy and irresponsible. I realized that she was sitting on the bench next to where I was crossed legged and I didn't sense her at all. 'Just like Ares. Is that something all war Deities can do or is it just them?'

"Well it's uh n-nice to meet you Athena." That was all I got.

Athena just met my eyes and that just made the silence more unbearable. It wasn't just because she was criminally beautiful and an actual Goddess but more because she was one of the Gods...who were sending us on this quest. Blinking, I slowly looked at Athena and stared at her. Athena just stared back with a cute tilt of her head, confused on why the young man in front of her was staring so hard at her now. It wasn't like before when he was appraising a new face, now it was like he wanted to ask a question but doesn't want to speak up.

"Can I ask you a question?" Never mind.

"Depends on the question."

"Okay." I took a deep breath. "What the hell are you guys doing?" Athena just blankly looked.

"You're going to be more specific then that…"

"Oh, right sorry." I gathered my thoughts and went for it. "Why did you give us humans the job to kill Zeth? Can't you guys easily find him and do it yourselves? Why bother whatsoever with him and his monster army? I mean you guys are an entire pantheon, why does it matter if he builds a monster army can't you guys take it out when it gets here? Another thing…" At this point, the flood gates were open and every question both reasonable and unreasonable came out and when I was done, I held my breath and stared at Athena.

"...Finally." She shut the open book in her hands.

"What?"

"I said finally." Athena got up (she was a little taller than me) and looked at me like a teacher does to her favorite student. "Do you know how many Emissaries asked for more information then what we gave them?"

"Uh…"

"Not one. We gave them Zeths plans, his army information, and just with that they were content. Adrian being one of them." Athena sighed. "As a soldier he's quite at the top of what he does but he probably wanted to give you all the information the day before you start." I could only nod along.

"Well, since you're asking I might as well tell you."

"Really?" That was honestly shocking.

"It's not like its private war info; Adrian is just bad at gradually giving the whole plan." Yes, yes he is.

"So, I guess we should start with the reason why we don't just go after Zeth ourselves." Athena took a seat once more.

I nodded. "Yes, what's stopping you guys?"

"There are three reasons." Athena lifted three fingers than two down. "The first one is because of the unwritten rule among Pantheons. The rule states, "For the God who attacks first is forever condemned as the accused." We couldn't attack Zeth at the time."

I furrowed my brows but it kind of made sense and it would explain Shiva's actions in the original canon. Indra all but declared official war against the God of Destruction and was steadily building an army to combat him but Shiva never stopped Indra. This would explain why he never took action and Indra is arrogant enough to not care about being in the wrong.

"But wait, didn't he declare war against you guys and didn't you guys beat him up? Why didn't you just kill Zeth then?"

"He did declare war, yes and we did beat Zeth but we chose to put him in Olympus's prison." Athena sighed remembering their decision. "That was a mistake. It was his plan to be put in there and when he escaped Zeth took the magic codes to the all the captured Titans cages and threatened to unleash them all if a single God steps one foot off Olympus." My eyes widened at that and 2 words appeared in my mind.

'Dirty Bomb.' It was the supernatural equivalent of the modern dirty bomb. One flick and all of Olympus would be flooded with the Titan race just like what Rizevim will do with Trihexa to the world. "How many titans?"

"A little over a hundred." Athena shrugged her shoulders like it was nothing major.

"Over a hundred!" I on the other hand thought it was very major. "W-where are you even keeping that many!?" Athena just deadpanned and pointed downwards. I was confused at the gesture and looked to the ground she was pointing at.

'I don't get it. Is it somewhere in the sea? Or is it on Oly-" My brain finally understood what she was saying and my throat became parched. I looked back up at Athena.

"Please tell me you're kidding." Athena only shook her head.

"Why do you think we made this mountain so big? Sure, it's a nice view but it's not practical." My scalp felt numb and my feet tingled in a way that was really unsettling.

"W-why can't you guys just change the seals or whatever you have that's jailing them?" I was trying to find some comfort in this but Athena just wryly smiled.

"You can thank my father for that. Zeus regularly improved the magic seals that held back the Titans every few decades since their imprisonment but he always kept the central magic array the same and…

…Zeth took the key to the array." I finished for her and dropped to the ground, sitting there. It was like having an up-gradable iron safe, you gradually increased the metal quality but kept the same combination. "Well, your father shit the bed there."

"Yes, yes he did." Athena agreed with me.

"So whats the third reason?"

"Zeus's pride." My face must have been something if the way Athena laughed when she saw it. "I'm serious. There's a reason Zeth is so powerful and it's because Zeus was grooming him to be his successor. Zeth had other plans." Her father's rage that day when Zeth declared war against them was terrifying. "But he still let his feelings get in the way that day, by not killing Zeth he put Olympus in this situation."

I sighed and asked another question. "Did you guys really not notice that he was building a monster army before he declared war?" Apparently, Zeth already had 9 Generals with tremendous strength at the ready when he escaped Olympus.

"We noticed. We just didn't want to be the one to make the first blow." Athena brought up the unwritten rule again. "Zeth wants Olympus for his great monster kingdom and as long as we stay put, he won't unleash the titans since they'll just wreck everything."

Silence rang as the last of my questions were answered. The Gods didn't just want to dump their problem on us; they really can't do anything or risk Olympus being destroyed. They can beat the titans in a fight but the collateral damage and the possible deaths involved were inevitable, Zeth also could use that time to strike. Zeus also can't change the central magic array either since Zeth will know the moment its being messed with.

"Damn it." I cursed out loud. "I'm sorry Athena but we don't stand a chance against Zeth, even injured you Gods are probably something else."

"We know." I raised my head to look at her after that and she gave me lopsided grin.

"Did you honestly believe that we would just send the Emissaries straight after Zeth?"

I blinked at the trick question. "Uh…no?" Athena gave a very un-ladylike snort.

"It will take years for Zeth to reach full strength again, Hera and Artemis made sure to hit him with every curse they had before he escaped."

"That's doesn't change the fact that we don't stand a chance with our current selves." I may have kept downplaying our importance but it still felt like a really high hurdle.

"Do you?" Athena just gave me a knowing look. "Tell me Pierce, how would you take down a fortress?" I raised a brow to the question and thought about my answer.

"Well I would use overwhelming force to take it ov-"

"You don't have that."

"…Okay, then I'll get a man on the insid-"

"That's not going to work either."

Glaring a little at the cheshire smile Athena was sporting (and finding it really hot) I focused and finally thought of something as I shrugged.

"If none of that works, then the only thing left is to give up…

It was Athena's turn to glare at my cheeky smile.

…or just whittle down the fortress bit…by…ah!" I got up like I've seen the face of God (maybe if I was born a thousand years earlier) and turned to Athena who looked smug.

"Exactly." She explained. "Zeth declared war first and that's public knowledge to many other pantheons and factions. No one's going to give him asylum so he's hiding in a small pocket dimension and won't come out till he's healed."

"But?"

"But his general's are still on Earth, constantly recruiting more and more monsters into his army and they are who the Emissaries are going after." Athena was quite proud of the plan. "Adrian knew the plan and was going to tell you the moment he has the first target."

Now that was a plan.

The 9 Generals were still Ultimate-class beings and I wasn't confident on going against them head on but like they say, "All is fair in love and mythological war." Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was the saying. There was one final problem though.

"If we go after his army and we take them all out…what's stopping him from releasing the Titan's when he knows he's lost?" I got silence and when I thought Athena wasn't going to answer my question she spoke.

"Nothing, there is nothing we could do to stop him." Athena gained a forlorn expression. "Not every problem in life has an answer Pierce."

I had no respond to that. From a Goddess living as long as she has, it seemed even worse when she said it.

"…Alright." I bowed low to Athena. "Thank you. You pretty much cleared up all the questions I had so thank you."

"Don't mention it." Athena waved away my bow. "You were going find out anyway."

Nodding, I turned towards the door and made the trip back to my room before Athena called out to me.

"Pierce." I turned back towards her. "I hope you don't die." We both stared at each other, me with my face in a daze and Athena who, honest to God, blushed before stuttering, "I-I'm sorry. T-that sounded better in my head." And then she was gone. I could still feel her embarrassment in the air.

Blinking and staring at where she just was for a good 5 seconds, I eventually walked away and made it back to my room and laid in my bed.

'…Kawaii?' I didn't sleep at all that night.