some of you got pissed of by Demeter's manipulation understandable so don't get too mad at the mc that he didnt cuss her out in this chapter. my intention wasn't to actually make Demeter a hateble character but I understand if you hate her so you can proceed to bash her or me in the comments.
......
"So I lost, huh?"
Her face became downcast as an expression of sadness marred her face, and her regrets flooded her mind. The tiny hope she had that her mother might be alive in her father's stomach was fading, and with the realization that she might have been deluded to believe she was alive, a tinge of anger flared in her heart. She hated her father, and she felt like getting off the bed and trying again, but that anger was quelled by a sense of defeat. It was pointless; not only that, but if she lost once, what makes her think she can win?
"I'm so stupid."
There was no reason to confront Zeus at that time; waiting and watching would have worked in her favor, yet for some reason she rushed in, forewent any planning, and just recklessly attacked Zeus.
With a sigh, she slid off the bed and stood up, only to stagger forward a few steps. She was feeling a bit lightheaded, but she was overall fine. As she was trying to get her bearings, she heard the sounds of people shouting—two women whose voices she recognized.
"Hecate, are you trying to destroy our home?"
"Calm down, Aphrodite; nothing got destroyed."
"How am I supposed to calm down? That explosion made me lose focus and let him score against me."
"I thought you were worried about something getting destroyed."
"I can be worried about two things, but you making me lose takes priority."
It seems that Aphrodite and Hecate were arguing about something; just as she focused on their voices, the door to the room opened and Hephaestus entered.
"Oh, great, you're awake."
He said with a relieved sigh that he seemed to have been worried about her.
"I just woke up; the explosion woke me up."
"Mm, good, good. I came to check on you since you have been asleep for two days now."
"So I lost that badly, huh?"
She said it remorsefully and felt a bit humiliated by the fact that she was knocked out for two whole days. As a warrior, that's not exactly a good thing, not to mention she had an advantage with the scythe, yet she still lost.
"Don't think about it too much; you can't win all of them, or you can take solace in the fact that I've never won in a fight against you, so in my eyes you're undefeated."
An attempt to console her, however, seems like it wasn't quite welcome; that's the last time he'll try to make a joke ever again. After his words, an awkward silence descended upon the room.
"I'm sorry"
She said it was an odd response to his statement, and he didn't recall her doing anything in need of an apology.
"huh?"
"When we first met, I called you hideous. I'm sorry."
Unfortunately, before Hephaestus could speak, the door was flung open, and Aphrodite walked in.
"Hephaestus, darling, you have—oh, Athena, you're awake."
"Darling?"
Both Athena and I questioned whether this was the first time she had ever called him that. To be fair, their relationship is still quite fresh, so it's a bit early for pet names. Was it appropriate? He couldn't really tell.
"When did you start calling me darling?
"Should I stop?
She asked while grabbing his hand and sticking to his arms. This was no surprise to Hephaestus, as she has been quite intimate for the past two days; he figured it must be in anticipation of what he said back then. Athena, on the other hand, frowned a bit seeing the whore cozy up to Hephaestus; she had never planned on interfering with Hephaestus's relationship, but for some reason this whole relationship rubbed her the wrong way; she didn't like it.
"No, you shouldn't; anyway, what was it you needed?"
"Anyway, Hephaestus, I'll be leaving."
Athena cut in before Aphrodite could answer. She tried to leave, but the door was locked by the two.
"Actually, I need a sparring buddy for my duel against Zeus. Could you stay?"
"WHAT! You have a duel against Zeus?
"I had to step in because he was doing something that might have killed you. Sorry for that."
"That's nice, but Hephaestus, Demeter is here; she says she wants to talk to you about a method to win against Zeus."
Aphrodite said that, if Athena wanted to be told what happened two days ago, she'd have to wait. The fact that Hephaestus was going to be fighting Zeus was more important than catching up with Athena. Truthfully, she felt quite anxious about the whole thing, but she can't really say anything, or rather, regardless of what she says, the fight will still happen. Zeus can very well just attack them, kill both Athena and Hephaestus, and take her forcefully, so telling Hephaestus not to fight wasn't really an option.
"Oh, right, then let's go meet her."
He didn't feel he was going to lose, but anyway, maximizing his chances is always welcomed and appreciated. Hopefully, Hera won't be joining them; the god queen is not someone he wishes to see, and mending his relationship with her will only happen if she herself wants to.
...
"First of all, I'd like to apologize for involving you in all this; I promise it wasn't my intention."
Demeter bowed her head in apology to Hephaestus, feeling genuine sorry for what she did.
"The fact that you did it means it was your intention, so don't lie."
Aphrodite took it upon herself to speak for Hephaestus, or rather, it was more so her anxiety and nervousness that made her so riled up. After all, it is because of Demeter that Hephaestus will have to fight and quite possibly die at the hands of Zeus. Of course, asking him not to fight will only make it seem like she has little faith in him, and truthfully, she does. Sure, Hephaestus defeated and killed Ares, but Zeus is much more powerful than Ares. His thunderbolt and the scythe are weapons that can end Hephaestus with little effort, and little faith is all she can have about the whole situation.
"I assure you, I had thought to come to you for the proposal before, but you suddenly showed up at the perfect opportunity."
"So you manipulated the situation in order to get what you want? Why?"
Hephaestus asked, and surprisingly enough, he felt deeply disrespected. It was like Demeter saw him as a tool and used him; he didn't like that. It was like someone just casually took his life and decided whatever to do with it, and once they were done, they could just throw it away. Demeter proceeded to explain the situation to them.
"I see, so because you're in a situation you can't get out of, you tried to use me to get out of it?"
"Yes, and I apologize for that. It was my intention to talk to you first, so I apologize for that."
"Alright, for the time being, we'll put that on hold, but for now, what details have you brought for the duel?"
He decided to ignore what she did, but he will not be associating himself with her anymore. Although she seems truly sorry, he felt she would do it again should she find herself in a similar situation again. As such, he will have his guard around her.
Well, the duel will commence as stated before, and the battle ground will be in Olympia in the arena that was made as a sanctuary for Zeus by the humans."
"Why there? I don't see why it needs to be near humans."
"I'm sure you can guess why."
"ah! I see. He wants to humiliate me in front of everyone and all the mortals that can see."
"Hecate, your magic will be needed to create a barrier to protect the spectators."
"And why should I do that? I am completely uninvolved in this whole ordeal."
Hecate responded without any care; in her hand was a floating ball seemingly made of silver and radiating a lot of magical power. Magic was her specialty, so Demeter didn't think it was out of the ordinary.
"Please, we may not really involve ourselves with mortals, but they're still our responsibility since we made them."
Hecate rolled her eyes and agreed, although reluctantly. Despite the gods lack of involvement with humans, Zeus and many others are still fervently worshipped, having temples and cults; however, for the most part, the gods don't pay too much attention to such things.
"The second matter I wanted to discuss was how you could possibly defeat Zeus or be on equal footing with him."
Athena's ears perked up as she heard those words from Demeter. She may have been defeated, but anyway of getting stronger was always welcome.
"go on"
"Do you know how titans become personifications of concepts?"
Something that Hephaestus has never considered before; in fact, the majority of people in the room had never actually thought about that question before, and they have all taken it as something that was both a given and unique to the titans. But thinking about it now, how does one become the physical embodiment of an abstract concept? Did the concept itself gain sentience and become a physical being, or was there something more to it? Hephaestus placed his hand on his chin as he began to contemplate deeply authentic matters.
How would an abstract concept gain the ability to think and act independently? Abstract concepts don't exist but instead are just ideas created by humans, or rather, in this case, concepts have existed long before humans could even think about them, so in this universe, at least, where did they come from if not from thinking agents? In his old world, concepts like love, strength, and victory were merely words created by already existing humans, or rather, they were named and given definitions by humans to the point that they became a natural part of the human world. However, in this universe, that wasn't the case; these concepts existed long before Prometheus thought about the idea of humans.
"I see you're already thinking about this deeper than you need to."
"How can I not? You just asked a very profound question, and I want an answer to it."
He responded as his head turned to look at Athena, and he caught her staring at him for some reason—no, she wasn't staring at him alone but instead both him and Aphrodite—and she quickly turned to look away as soon as he caught her.
"You already know that everything we see in the current world today was the result of the union between two primordials, Gaia and Ouranos; well, not everything, but they're the ones who started it all. Essentially, the Primordials gave birth to everything as we know it, and that includes concepts as well; only the Primordials can grant a concept autonomy, and I'm talking about the first generation; this power is exclusive to them only."
"So are you saying I need a primordial's help to fight Zeus?"
"No, what I'm saying is that you need to be named by a primordial to get stronger and become a personification; that's one way to do it."
Hephaestus wondered about what he heard. It was true that many of the titans were children of the Primordials, as it wasn't farfetched that the Primordials would be powerful enough to do that. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't exactly close to any of the first-generation primordials.
"You said that's one of the ways; what's the other way?"
It was Athena who asked. Everyone in the room understood why she would ask that question; it wasn't out of curiosity; the focus in her eyes made it clear that she wanted to fight Zeus once again.
"The other way is complete assimilation of your concept into your soul; however, the problem here is that if there's more than one person that has the same concept, you're going to have to kill them."
"I see. Thank you for giving me this information. So are you saying that I should assimilate the concept into my domain?"
"Yes, I think that's the only way to defeat Zeus."
....
A/N: was feeling a bit of writers block during this chapter and I was torn between making it a flash back for Athena and Hephaestus or not, in the end I chose not.
I also found out that in Greek myth Aphrodite is considered to be a primordial or I found some parts where she's thought to be a Primordial she might be OP by the end of this.