Chapter 8 – The Beginning Of The Journey
Bewildered Nesneria had no idea how she ended up returning to the sea.
Of course, it was only later that she learned that Dianes, in a panic due to the ominous presence of monsters on the night of a new moon, had followed and escorted her as she rushed back to the sea.
Coincidentally, a few days after their first encounter was Nesneria’s coming-of-age ceremony.
Though still young, the nymphs, who each had different milestones for growth, celebrated the coming-of-age ceremony of their little sister with grandeur.
However, amid the congratulations from her sisters, Nesneria was lost in thought, thinking only of the boy nad Dianes, whom she had t that day.
And when she first arrived alone at the bright coastline of Passos Island at the ti of her coming-of-age ceremony, Apollo’s chariot raced across the sky.
“What? It’s only been two days.”
On the pure white sandy beach, Dianes greeted her with a sword in hand.
Under the bright sun, with his face drenched in sweat, Nesneria felt her heart sink once more.
“Wh-why are you here?”
“Hm? This has always been my training ground. The sound of the waves is nice, and no one cos because of the rumors about monsters in the waters.”
Saying that, Dianes picked up his sword again and started dancing precariously on the rock.
That day, Nesneria saw the second most beautiful thing in the world.
The face that had been smiling brightly at her soon turned exceedingly serious, and the wooden sword moved naturally as he extended it, flowing like the currents of the sea or dancing freely like the wind rushing down the mountainside.
And such days continued.
Every day and hour, Dianes would co down to the nymphs’ side of the beach, wielding his sword, while Nesneria, or, as she allowed him to call her, Neri, would watch quietly.
They spent their days exploring the stream together, learning various fascinating martial arts in the forest.
She thought such days would continue forever.
“Eek!”
“Neri!”
Neri, who had dashed to the nymphs’ beach in a single breath, plunged into the sea in an instant.
Dianes, who hurriedly ran to catch her from behind, was too late as she lted into the waves.
Neri, without looking back, entrusted her body to the waves and descended into the deep sea.
“Sister!”
“Neri?!”
Arriving at the Thetis Palace in an instant, Neri threw herself into the arms of her eldest sister, who was embroidering.
Her eldest sister, puzzled by the sudden clinginess of their youngest, listened to the whole story and then…
She let out a deep sigh.
“Eh… Our youngest is sad. What should we do?”
“Waaaah! Unniiieee!!”
A nymph who falls in love with a human experiences such heartache.
Nymphs are tied to one place, unable to leave.
While humans live passionately, as if they cannot be bound to a small world.
Their love often ends in pain for one side.
But.
“Neri, what are you worried about?”
“Huh?”
Being tied down was just the story of other nymphs.
They were Nereid nymphs.
Spirits of the vast sea.
No matter how much a human flies and crawls, a human wandering Greece could never escape the sea’s grasp.
No human could escape the grasp of a Nereid nymph.
“Co on! This is not the ti to cry!”
“Huh?”
“Everyone gather!! Our youngest is going to catch a man!”
At the resounding call of the queen nymph, all the nymph sisters of the sea gathered in an instant.
As a result, fishern and travelers faced unexpected hardships due to the sudden storm.
However, sothing far more important had occurred.
“What?!”
“The youngest is going to catch a man?!”
“Who is it? Is it that black-haired one?”
The sisters, almost as ferocious as lions of Nea spotting their prey, gathered with gleaming eyes.
anwhile, a farewell was taking place on the sea above Passos.
“Farewell, Dianes. May you beco a renowned hero in Greece.”
The old priest’s hand stroked my young head and blessed , and behind him, with eyes full of jealousy and envy, I saw the faces of the temple orphans looking at .
Leaving this small island for the mainland, moreover, for the forest of the great heroes’ teacher, Chiron, seed enviable to everyone.
“I knew from the mont you first arrived that this day would co. Go. Go and beco a great hero; shake all of Greece!”
“May Hers’s blessing be with you on your journey!”
“May the high god Zeus bless you!”
“Yes! Take care, everyone!”
I, too, waved my hand in response to their warm send-off and boarded the ship where Chiron was watching over.
Soon, amidst a grand farewell, the ship set sail, and the island of Passos gradually began to fade away.
“You seem to have many thoughts running through your mind.”
“Well, that’s true.”
Chiron, the centaur, approached slowly with a clattering sound and kindly spoke to .
“Is it the nymph girl that keeps coming to mind?”
“You are very perceptive, aren’t you?”
How could I not be worried?
I was leaving without properly saying goodbye to the person who had been following around since the coming-of-age ceremony.
No matter how I looked at the situation, my heart felt uneasy.
“Well, they are a long-lived species. We’ll see each other again when I co back later.”
“Ahem… Well, it seems there’s no need to worry about a reunion.”
With a questioning tone, Chiron glanced at the sea and bitterly smiled, then knelt beside .
. Despite kneeling, his adult fra and horse body still made him tower over .
“So, how do you feel?”
“How do I feel? Well, my heart is racing for the first ti in a while.”
In my first life, anyone would have rembered and once indulged in Greek mythology…
To think I’d be going to Chiron’s forest, teeming with the heroes at the center of that myth.
Just as when I first entered the Ten Thousand Great Mountains after reincarnating into the Central Plains Murim, I once again felt the emotion of anticipation after a long ti.
“Let’s see… You said you grew up on Passos Island your whole life?”
“Yes, when I was young, I was found asleep in the forest of Passos Island by Priest Efaros.”
“Efaros told . He found you asleep by a stream late at night. Do you have any other mories?”
mories…
I clearly rember the mories of my past and previous lives, my mories as the Heavenly Demon Lord who shook Central Plains Murim, and my mories of diligently working part-ti jobs on Earth.
But there was one thing I particularly couldn’t rember: the monts of my death and the events that followed.
However, when I delve deeply into ditation, fragnts of small mories sotis surface.
An endless pitch-black darkness.
A giant, writhing eye beneath it was staring at .
And after that…
I don’t know.
Afterward, I lost consciousness, and when I ca to consciousness, old man Efaros was looking at worriedly from the bedside.
“I don’t rember well.”
“Is that so?”
“Rather, I want to ask. Who is the being that crafted my flesh?”
“How would I know that?”
Hoo… This old man knows everything and pretends not to?
I glared at him with fierce eyes, but the brown-eyed centaur just smiled kindly.
“Three days before I t you, the temple was turned upside down. I don’t know why, but the priests took out the bed from the VIP room and moved it to the warehouse, and we scoured the whole village looking for well-dried straw.”
“Oh, thanks to that, I slept well last night.”
“Is that all?”
The mystical wine with a fragrant aroma, which was usually hidden deep in the high priest’s storage when cleaning.
It turned out that old man Efaros had already taken out the wine that was said to have been made by Dionysus himself and was preparing a feast by catching several fat pigs.
Even during the Seeding Festival, he turned away all external guests and strictly prohibited entry.
“At the very least, Chiron, you must have contacted us that you were coming, or we must have received information through another route that a centaur was visiting our temple… But you told to go right away as soon as you saw , didn’t you?”
“Hmm… that’s right.”
“And that too, even though old man Efaros, the other priests, and the others were so eagerly courting you, asking to take along?”
As a result, it could be seen that the centaur ca to this faraway Passos targeting , or at least obtained information about through so ans.
And if the source of that information was likely the gods…
“How is it? Is there sothing wrong with what I said?”
Then he, too, should at least know how I ended up in this world, and who the parents that gave birth to this body were, right?
The old centaur, who had been listening intently up to that point, then clapped his hands and laughed as if in admiration.
“Hahaha! You are a very wise child. I, too, am greatly impressed. Yes, that’s right. I received the great oracle of Olympus and ca to fetch you.”
Chiron slowly began to recount how he received the oracle.
“Let’s see, yes. It was after I had a war class with my disciples. I laid my weary body under the shade of a tree and was briefly intoxicated by Hypnos’s whispers.”
Hypnos was the god of sleep, and the fact that he was intoxicated by his song ant he dozed off for a mont.
“But then Hypnos whispered in his dream. A seed had sprouted in Passos, so he told to place it in the Forest of Heroes.”
That’s how Chiron ca to Passos, and before eting his old friend Efaros, he entered the island’s forest to prepare a gift, where he saw and Artemis arguing.
“And that’s how it ca to this point.”
“…Is that forest not a good place?”
Co to think of it, when I first tried to set up a training ground in that forest, I had a hard ti because of bandits and monster-like bears.
Thanks to that, I was able to refine my martial arts to so extent.
Anyway, to sum it up, the twelve gods of Olympus noticed , and thanks to that, I am now heading to Chiron’s forest.
‘Then, would the people from Olympus also know about the identity of this body?’
The reason I was exploring the origins of this body was because of this strange qi flowing through my entire body since I ca to my senses.
It was similar to the divine qi I felt when I competed with the hidden Dao masters in the past, yet its nature was closer to demonic qi—endlessly deep, dark, yet impeccably pure.
This qi flowing through the blood of all the ridians in my body assisted every ti I practiced the Martial Spirit Arts, and, in turn, I slightly learned and used Demonic Arts, achieving effects dozens of tis more potent than in my past life.
If I could fully absorb this and make it mine…
‘I might surpass the Heavenly Demon realm and truly enter the Divine Demon realm beyond that.’
Thus, I was trying to confirm where it originated from and from whom it ca.
To find this, it would probably take a long ti.
“I, too, do not know about your origin.”
“I see…”
It seed I needed to reach the divine level to get information.
But if it were the gods of Greek mythology, almost all of them had disaster-level personalities, so it wasn’t appealing…
“However, one thing is certain: you are a descendant of a god.”
“A god?”
“Yes, a very high-ranking one at that. So always respect the gods and be careful with your conduct.”
A high-ranking god?
Who could it be?
Judging by the divine qi flowing in my body, it was probably a god related to darkness, but who?
Hades, the King of the Underworld? Thanatos, the God of Death?
It seed more like pure darkness, closer to pure dark energy than death.
“Who could it be…?”
“Ahem, more importantly, let tell you about the Forest of Heroes we are heading to now.”
Chiron cleared his throat and changed the subject.
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