18. Self-reflection

For a month, Levana held up the sky. She continued to ignore the titans who would all occasionally taunt her or hit her. The titans even had the audacity to plan their attacks on Olympus in earshot.

However, it was wrong to think that Levana couldn't rid herself of her burden. She had made a contingency specifically for this scenario. She was using the weight of the sky as training. She was also using the opportunity to learn about the supernatural situation in Greece... and apparently the USA?

Kronos, though he seemed to be as confident as always, had sent demigods to search for details about other religions. Despite this slight shift in resources, his main goal still seemed to be toppling mount Olympus. Levana had also learnt the name of the demigod who had caught her eye, Luke Castallen.

" Hey, I feel a little bad for forcing you to take on the sky. Don't worry, soon, your replacement will arrive and take it from you," Levana heard Atlas speak to her. He was the only titan who had not taunted her. He seemed to have given her his genuine respect for wordlessly carrying the sky.

" You, you speak of this like a promise..." Mumbling softly, Levana stuttered a little as she failed to breathe in enough air to speak. She had slowed her breathing a lot since the start of her training. From gasping for air to taking slow shallow breaths consistently. She was attempting to go without breathing, as an immortal, she figured that she should be able to do so.

" Hah! To think that you would break your silence to question my word. It is a promise!" The loud booming voice said somewhere to the left of Levana. A small smile formed on her lips as she began thinking of new plans.

Over the month, she had thought over her experiences and made some self-reflection. Levana was reckless, had anger issues and had another voice in her head that didn't really agree with her at times.

She had addressed all three of her issues and had determined that her recklessness mostly stemmed from her intense emotional responses to lies. After all, though she had come out of her fight with the titans victorious, in her opinion, the situation could have been solved with diplomacy had she reigned in her anger.

She continued to stare at the ground as she always did as she contemplated her life. Her eyes had not lost their glow through the month, her left eye continued to glow sunlight yellow while her right eye glowed deep royal purple. Their bright glow even illuminated the ground beneath Levana.

Though she felt a little stiff at times, the position she held was no longer one of pure agony. Her body, her version of immortality had pushed through allowing her to adapt to the extreme stress her body was constantly under and had made her physically stronger. So, Levana was working on her mental strength.

She stopped breathing.

A minute later, she felt the overwhelming urge to breathe. Her lungs throbbed, the voice in her head screamed at her, and she could hear her heartbeat, she felt pangs of hunger as her stomach reminded her that it existed, her muscles screamed at her, and a headache struck her.

While this was definitely not healthy, her immortality should save her somehow. Ichor dripped from her nose and eyes as her body begged for oxygen. However, why did she need oxygen? Her blood was gold, there definitely wasn't any haemoglobin in it.

She persisted.

Not being able to die may have been a curse to some people but to Levana, it was simply a great tool for coming out of situations stronger. Though her entire world was in pain, Levana had a wide smile on her face in anticipation. Through sheer willpower, her body learnt to shapeshift and adapted.

Hyperion's energy that she had kept circling around her heart began fusing into her. The air around her began to heat up and the black marble beneath her began to release gas. The tears of ichor she shed quickly turned into tears of molten glass as magic did its work.

The tears of molten glass burnt her skin as they travelled down her face. However, Levana flexed her will and her skin toughened and slowly gain greater resistance to the heat. Instead of just bearing the weight of the sky, Levana began actively pushing herself against the falling sky.

She could hear the titans making a fuss about her commotion but she ignored them, it was time to address the voice in her head. It was time to get rid of it.

How?

It was fundamentally still her, still Levana. All she had to do was accept her new self. One that was a little more manipulative, one that could lie when the situation requires it, one that could control her emotions and one that was a queen.

In the end, a queen still loved her subjects as Levana loved her friends. A queen still keeps her promises.

Even the voice was persistent about fusing, to become one with the whole.

Her body changed to accommodate her wishes, and entire organs disappeared from her body replaced by more muscle. As her body changed itself, she focused on changing her mentality to fuse with the voice.

She loved the thrill of battle and this was how far she was going to push herself to become better at it.

Through the haze of pain, she watched as a monster, under the titan's command, dragged a demigod into the room. A girl with blonde hair wearing an odd orange t-shirt.

The titans all looked mad at Levana for some reason. Could she not just be left to train in peace?

Staring at the unconscious blonde girl, she felt a change in the air. She felt a shift in something. A change in fate.

" Ah... I see..." She mumbled. The changes in her body sped up as fate bolstered it.