The Hero Returns

The Giants urgently retreated right after Uranus was killed. They had judged that this battle was no longer winnable.

And that's how the war of Olympus against the race of Giants came to an end. Four days have passed since then.

During this period, Su-hyeun was in a half-asleep state.

"Feels like I heard something, but…"

He was gradually waking up from this hazy, sleepy state.

"But…what was it?"

His thoughts were dragging on quite lazily.

Just how long have I been unconscious? Or…could it be something else happened in the meantime? What happened to the war, and did I even survive it?

His train of thought became a complicated mess of questions that began circling around inside his head.

A short while after that…

"Ah…"

His lips parted, and his eyes gradually cracked open.

His eyes, having been shut for some time, couldn't immediately perform their function. Only after several seconds passed by did his blurry and grey vision revert to how it used to be.

"Oh! You're finally awake!"

A large face suddenly filled Su-hyeun's view. He inwardly wondered about how prominent that forehead was while noticing that the voice was familiar to him. "Her—cules?"

His own voice sounded scratchy and hoarse; his vision was fully restored not too long afterward.

He found himself lying on a bed and Hercules standing right next to him. "Why don't you remain in bed for a little while longer? Your body is still a complete mess, you know?"

"My body is?"

"Your sword couldn't withstand father's lightning dragon, so you had no choice but to receive it through your whole body, remember? Since your flesh wasn't as tough as adamantium, it's only natural that it couldn't hold up in the end."

Su-hyeun recalled what happened back then after listening to Hercules's explanation.

Honestly speaking, he couldn't really remember what happened back then. It was like he had been moving almost purely out of instinct or some such.

Despite barely managing to drag out the remnants of his memories, none of them were crystal clear. It was like staring at still images resembling panels of a comic book page.

"Wait a minute," he thought.

Among the memories, he finally recalled witnessing a gargantuan lightning dragon. That dragon definitely got "absorbed" into his sword, too. After recalling that much, he reflexively scanned his waist in a hurry.

His sword wasn't there.

"Hephaestus looked after your sword, friend. It was shattered into bits, so he said he'd repair it," Hercules explained and then handed the sword over to Su-hyeun.

The repair work must've been completed already because the blade before his eyes was clean and smooth with no sign of breakage anywhere.

"It was shattered?" Su-hyeun asked after lightly flicking his finger over the blade's surface. He found it quite hard to believe—to think that a sword made of adamantium would shatter into pieces.

It wasn't "broken" but "shattered," indicating that the blade couldn't withstand the power being focused on it, causing its internal structure to give out.

According to Su-hyeun's common sense, adamantium could not be shattered or even broken into pieces. Knowing this, he could barely estimate how enormous the level of power he had to endure back then was.

"That's right. That did happen."

His memories continued to come back to him bit by bit.

What he did back then was almost instinctual. He sensed that his sword was about to break, so he accepted the power of the lightning dragon Zeus had unleashed into his own body.

His action ensured that his sword didn't snap in half immediately, allowing him to wield the improved Thunder Sword.

"Being made of adamantium does not mean it'll never shatter or break, friend. There is no such thing as absolute or infinite in this universe, after all. Adamantium is simply a type of material that seems too tough to break, that's all," Hercules continued.

"It's my first time learning that."

"It's good to learn something new, regardless of what. Of course, it's still true that adamantium is a near-absolute material as long as the situation is nothing like what happened to you."

Su-hyeun nodded at Hercules's explanation.

For sure, breaking adamantium apart would be almost impossible unless you were one of the Five Godly Sages. No, wait—it would still be a mighty tall order even if you were one of them.

"By the way, friend. What exactly happened to you?"

"Sorry?"

"During the last battle, you seemed different from your usual self. Even now, too."

"I seem different?"

"Correct. You've changed in just one day. To be specific, you come across as someone who has already lived decades, no, centuries by now."

Hercules recalled the techniques Su-hyeun displayed during his battle against Uranus.

The Su-hyeun of then was definitely different from the one before, not only in the way he wielded his sword but also in how he utilized his powers.

Although his powers and godhood all remained the same as before, it was like he was borrowing someone else's technique to use.

"It's not possible to change that much in such a short time. No human and no god can do that. A person with an ego that encompasses intelligence, personality, and disposition…none of those things can be changed in one or two days."

"You sound like a really old man right now."

"You're right. I've been alive longer than you, friend."

"Is that so? Well, yes, I'm still young and all," Su-hyeun replied with an awkward smile. Even an idiot could tell he was forcing himself to smile right now.

Hercules wordlessly stared at the current Su-hyeun. The latter did not answer the earlier question and instead chose to change the subject.

Hercules was in a bit of a dilemma. Should he continue to ask the same question that the other party was clearly reluctant to answer, or should he be a good sport and go with the flow?

His decision didn't take long; he burst into peals of booming laughter, "Ahaha! I feel like I've somehow become one of those uptight uncles, didn't I?"

"I didn't mean it that way, though."

"In any case, isn't it true that I'm so much older than you? Ah, by the way, how is your First Brother doing these days? He helped me a great deal back then, but I haven't even asked about how he is."

After this exchange, Hercules brought up sundry topics that had nothing to do with what he wanted to ask initially.

And the more their conversation drifted away from the original topic, the more enthusiastic Su-hyeun became in his replies.

They chatted for about 10 minutes before Hercules got up from his chair. "It looks like I've been needlessly exhausting a patient with my prattling. I shall get going first. Once you are fully recovered, you should go and speak to my father."

"Thank you."

"I haven't done much to deserve a thank you, friend. In any case, get some rest," Hercules bade goodbye and left the room.

With the only piece of furniture being the bed, this room seemed to be one of the spare rooms found inside Apollo's temple. The Sun God's aura was permeating every nook and cranny of this place.

Four days—Su-hyeun realized that's how long he had been unconscious and sighed deeply.

Inside his head was a complicated mess. It would be the first time after becoming a god that he felt this conflicted and complicated.

[The second authority of your "Unique Ability: Samsara - Six Paths" has been unlocked.]

[Samsara - Six Paths of Past Lives]

The "Six Paths of Past Lives" was the second of the Six Paths' abilities that Su-hyeun somehow managed to awaken.

The second part of his unique ability that wouldn't awaken no matter what suddenly activated all on its own, and he didn't need any in-depth explanation on its effects to figure them out on his own.

"Cheon Mu-jin."

A name and a face accompanying it, and then a flood of far-too familiar memories rushed inside Su-hyeun's head.

These memories and experiences belonged to none other than Su-hyeun's past life.

"And it's not just one past life, either."

Although comparatively fainter, memories of several other individuals were messily tangled up in his head right now too. Not just their memories, either, but he could recall even their experiences.

There were drawbacks to this unique ability, of course; it had to be his own past life, and he couldn't control how much and how far he could remember. But depending on who he was during his past life, this ability could undoubtedly prove to be something extraordinary.

And this was how Su-hyeun acquired the memories and experiences of Cheon Mu-jin, which also included the martial art techniques of the man referred to as the Heavenly Demon.

"Hah…"

This was the biggest reason why he felt complicated things right now.

Su-hyeun closed his eyes. The reason for Cheon Mu-jin's memories being the most vivid out of everything was solely because his life happened just before Su-hyeun's began.

When he closed his eyes, the view of Cheon Mu-jin filled up his mind, and in this vision, countless people were being mercilessly slaughtered—all by his own hands, no less.

"Justice or whatever, I'm sick of such pretenses!"

"Do I look like a demonic madman to you?"

"If so, then just as you said, I shall become a demon!"

Those things were what he said as Cheon Mu-jin.

That person's whole life was filled with rage. His boiling anger and resentment gradually turned him into a demonic villain with every passing year.

He hated the world and randomly killed people. Everyone was Cheon Mu-jin's enemies, not just the vast nations ruled by emperors. Even the martial arts practitioners belonging to the righteous sects were his foes since they stood in his path.

He drove that world to the brink of destruction, and in the end, he, too, was driven to death.

Su-hyeun didn't have enough confidence to keep watching these memories and opened his eyes again, "Seriously now, I was one nasty piece of work, wasn't I?"

He scratched his head in irritation. He just couldn't stand watching those past memories.

That person of his past life felt so close yet so far. That was because, although Cheon Mu-jin must've been a real person judging from how vivid the memories and experiences were, it still felt quite disharmonious to Su-hyeun as if he was stealing someone else's memories.

Almost at the same time, he recalled memories belonging to other past lives, causing more and more scenes to pop up in his head. In one of them, he was a slave. In another, he was a king. They weren't as vivid as Cheon Mu-jin's memories or experiences, but time would surely solve such an issue.

"I'm still Kim Su-hyeun," he squeezed his eyes shut. The memories from his past lives were blown away, just like that. No, more correctly, he turned his attention away from them altogether.

"Let's not think about them."

He buried away all those memories deep within his head.

No matter what, the past lives were just that—past lives. The current him and his mind being Kim Su-hyeun was an undeniable fact.

"Now then," Su-hyeun, having gotten rid of all the distracting thoughts in his head, rose from the bed. "I should go and get my rewards."

"My whole body is still aching from the imprisonment they put me through."

"…"

Hades deliberately spoke in a slightly louder voice than usual as if he wanted a certain someone to hear him.

But Zeus continued to stare into the Well of God Titles. It was unclear if he heard his brother's complaints or not.

Hades massaged various parts of his body before saying something else, "Have you suddenly become mute?"

"You've become rather talkative lately, brother," Zeus finally replied after not uttering a single word for an entire day.

A content expression surfaced on Hades's face as if he was pleased by this development. He then walked up next to Zeus, "Uranus is dead and so is Gyges. The only one remaining now is that punk, Briareus. And there isn't much he can do alone."

"I know that, brother."

"If so, what are you worried about? This time, we really did put an end to our far-too-long war, did we not?"

"But brother, do you really think it's over?"

"…"

This time, the opposite happened—it was Hades who clamped his mouth shut and temporarily became mute.

In all honesty, he too was aware that, even though Uranus was no more, nothing could be seen as really over already.

"Where are you thinking of going this time?" Hades asked while sensing that Zeus would disappear without warning very soon.

Not only did Hades live for eons, but he was also connected to Zeus through blood, so his intuition on this matter was entirely accurate, to say the least.

"It seems that we must locate Lord Brahma somehow."

"Brahma, you say?" Hades's brows shot up at that unexpected name. "You mean that lost Primordial God?"

"He's been missing for far too long now. As such, it's time that we try to find out where he is."

"Sounds like you've been mulling this over for a long while, not just a day or two."

"I've been thinking about it for about a decade now, brother."

"If so, why haven't you left yet?"

Hades knew that Zeus was the type of god who would act immediately upon his thoughts. It was already a puzzling matter that a god like him had been standing around agonizing over something for this long, and more than that, it was hard to understand why he hadn't acted yet despite already making up his mind.

"There is still one matter I must attend to, you see."

Hades asked, "In this place?"

"Yes."

Step, step—

Someone's footsteps could be heard approaching from afar.

Zeus and Hades turned their heads simultaneously. The latter immediately remembered a certain someone after hearing those footsteps.

"It seems that he's arrived."

"Oh, so it was him."

Creak—

The door leading into the chamber containing the Well of God Title was pushed wide open, and Su-hyeun walked in through the open doorway.

"The one you've been waiting for.."