Epic Of Caterpillar

-----

A tall man, with a long white beard and a muscular body wearing a Greek toga, glanced at a large crystal ball, Zeus.

There, certain images of Hephaestus and his family moving out of their Divine Realms set within the Central Continent showed up, they all were moving to the border continent.

And not too long after, Zeus sensed the death of his son and his family.

Like their progenitor, he naturally could detect their life connected to his, when a son died, he was able to sense it.

Of course… there were exceptions, such as those that were eaten up from the inside and had their souls replaced by Kireina, which Zeus could not discern if they were truly dead or alive.

However, he could clearly feel that his son, Hephaestus, died.

His fist clenched, as he glared with hate at the crystal ball, grabbing it and breaking it into pieces.

CRASH!

"It was Kireina…" said the voice of a young woman, with long blue hair and golden eyes at the side of Zeus, Athena.

"I know… I know it!" roared Zeus, as thunder emanated from his body, clashing against the sky and generating an enormous storm in a split of a second inside of his Divine Realm.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The rage of the God of Thunder resonated through his inner world, the Divine Realm inside of his Divine Core.

Gigantic thunderbolts fell from the sky, impacting the ground and generating loud explosions of catastrophic levels.

"Without Hephaestus Artifacts… our plans are falling apart," said Athena with a grimacing expression.

"And that monster… She's growing stronger and stronger as we talk… how can we even exert revenge like this?! …What about Apollo and his family?!" asked Zeus.

"They are fine… although Cyrene, Apollo's wife, died in that fight… Apollo managed to escape, but Hephaestus was killed by Kireina… Apollo said that Kireina had found a way to eat him from the inside out… it was… a… terrifying and sorrowful moment for him to have seen such a thing, I can already imagine…" muttered Athena, containing her tears, although she was never in good terms with her brother, she still loved him.

She was now regretting having discussed with him before all of this happened… If she had tried to be more friendly and understandable… Perhaps she might have found a way to stop Hephaestus from being so rash…

But now, it was too late.

The brother that had lived at her side within the Zeus family for so long as now… gone.

"Before all of this… this desire we had to kill Kireina was mere because of the revenge we wanted to exert by the death of our mortal heroes… but now… it has become personal…" muttered Zeus, his eyes flashing with lightning!

"Father… do you want to call the rest of the family?" asked Athena in surprise.

Zeus was someone that did not want to particularly ask for the help of his siblings, but of his children, it was different… the big family of Zeus, after all, did not include his siblings, but his children, and grandchildren.

They were such an enormous force, that they even took over Titans in the Ragnarök.

After all, Zeus' family is not known as the 'Titan Slayers' for nothing.

"Ares, Hermes, Artemis, Aphrodite, Dionysus, and their children and wives or husbands… We will call the whole family… If they did not want to help before, now that Hephaestus was killed by a mortal, they will have to help, they want it or not!" roared Zeus.

"F-Father… so we are making… a family meeting after so long…" said Athena.

"Yes! We are doing one right now! I have decided! We will plan the slaughter of Kireina and all of her family! No one will be left untouched! I will kill them all! We'll kill them all!" roared Zeus, blinded by rage and fury, his enormous power exploded all over his Divine Realm, catastrophic thunderstorms unfolded one by one, covering everything with destruction.

"What about the Azuma Empire and our vessels?" asked Athena.

"They have been nurtured enough with the resources we had given to them! They are ready to bear the burden of our Divine Souls, they want it or not!" roared Zeus.

"…Very well," sighed Athena.

"Where is… step-mother?" asked Athena, as she talked to her father even as he unleashed thunder in fury.

"Your step-mother could not take the sorrow of Hephaestus death, and is crying inside of her Divine Realm… I tried to… I tried to comfort her… but… she blames all of this on me! I was not the one who killed our son! That was Kireina…!" roared Zeus in anger.

"So Hera blames our incompetence… I cannot help but take the burden of the death of my brother…" sighed Athena.

Zeus fell silent for a moment, as he bathed in thunder.

Hera, Zeus' sister, and wife and one of the twelve Olympians, in this world, was known as the Goddess of Marriage and Nebulas.

Although it is known that she died in the Ragnarök, Zeus managed to rescue part of her soul, and later on revived her with a new vessel, at the cost of a fortune of God-Rank Resources. 

After hearing about her son's death, she fell into terrible sorrow and had been crying ever since then.

Zeus had tried to comfort her, but she has yelled at him and threw him off her Divine Realm, so he had no other option to wait for her to get better by herself.

Athena sighed once more, as she is mentally prepared for what was coming in the future…

She already knew that Thanatos' Pantheon, which was filled with Demon Gods, was completely exterminated by Kireina and her allies, and it was completely possible for her… to do the same to Zeus' family.

Because of this, they needed to prepare as many trump cards as possible, as many tricks behind their sleeve as they could possibly muster.

Athena quickly contacted her siblings, and Apollo as well… who was 'recovering' alongside his family inside of his Divine Realm…

Apollo glanced at the clear sky of his Divine Realm, as Cyrene, who was supposedly dead, was at his side, alongside his children Aristaios, Khariklo, and Asclepius.

"It seems that they're beginning to move… Athena has sent me a Divine Message…" said Apollo, as his aquamarine eyes gleamed eerily with crimson red light.

"So it begins…" said Cyrene.

"The main body better raise to godhood already, she needs this powerup," said Asclepius.

"Indeed, I mean, how long is she planning to take? It's already a pain to deal with these stupid Gods," said Khariklo.

"Very true… Well, at least we got each other as a family, don't we?" asked Aristaios, as the rest of the group began to laugh.

"I mean, we are all just clones of the main body, but yeah, I guess we can begin to have our own thoughts and dreams and stuff," said Apollo.

"Now that all the family has been replaced with us, it feels way better… We can freely talk however we want," said Cyrene.

"Indeed! Man, the main body is probably happy that we finally managed to eat Khariklo and Aristaios…" said Aristaios.

"Yeah… Wait, shouldn't Cyrene be here? I mean, she's supposedly dead…" said Khariklo.

"True, what are we going to do with her? Should we send her to the main body so she can eat the body as well as the Divine Core?" asked Apollo.

"Hm, I would like to stay as I am… I do not really want to be assimilated back! Independence! Give me independence!" said Cyrene half-jokingly.

"Well, I am pretty sure that if we ask the main body, she'll let you be, you can always join the other gods in the Pantheon," said Khariklo.

"I guess that's what I will do! See ya," said Cyrene, opening a rift in Apollo's Divine Realm and jumping back to her own Divine Realm, as she traveled towards the Devil Forest and decided to call Kireina to come to pick her up to move her to the Lower Realm.

"Now that she's gone, we should also begin to prepare, we have to convince our family that we are authentic after all! And well, we also need to plan out some ways to slowly parasitize them… The best way to fight against Zeus' family is simply by eating them from the inside out!" laughed Apollo, as his children did so as well.

"Ah! I'm hungry…" said Asclepius.

"Alright let's go eat some Divine Beasts then," said Aristaeus. 

"Aight~," said Khariklo.

However, as the three children are about to go flying around the Divine Realm to catch some dinner, Apollo suddenly stopped moving, as if contemplating something.

"What's the problem?" asked Khariklo.

"…There's something very… weird going on inside the Interdimensional Merchant Shop…" said Apollo.

"What?" asked Khariklo.

The three children checked the Interdimensional Merchant Shop as well, finding the strange thing that their father did as well.

"What… what is the meaning of this?!" asked Asclepius.

"Oh woah…" said Khariklo.

"Oof, maybe the main body is having it even harder now…" said Asclepius.

"You know that we must do everything to help her out, right? So this also affects us…" said Aristaeus.

"O-Oh yeah! I know, I know…" said Asclepius.

"Sigh… This is a bit… bad… I think… Well, the main body has already grown pretty strong too, and it is about to become even stronger, so perhaps it will not affect us as much… but… the rest of the world? Yeah… this will surely change the rules of the game a lot," said Apollo.

"Do you think… That those idiots did it?" asked Khariklo.

"Most likely! Who else? Jorgrakog already told us that they gave him something weird like these things…" said Asclepius.

"And they seem to work as intended… Jorgrakog confirmed it," said Aristaios.

"Hmm… Well, things are about to get spicy," said Khariklo.

"Spicy? What kind of term is that coming from a delicate-looking nymph goddess?" asked Asclepius.

"Come on, give me a break…" sighed Khariklo.

"Alright, alright, we better tell this to the main body asap," said Apollo.

"I think she already knows," said Aristaeus.

As the Clones of Kireina taking over the lifeless bodies of Apollo and his children kept speaking, the children of Zeus received the messages from Athena, one by one.

Although they had already detected the death of their sibling and most of them were filled with sorrow while asking Zeus what had just happened, Athena confirmed their fears and asked for their assistance.

"Hephaestus… My brother… You were always such a strong and brave man! You did not deserve to die like this! The world is unfair to those that are strong… and that wretched mortal… I will make sure to crush her with all of my might!" roared Ares in fury.

"So Hephaestus died by the hands of Kireina… I was never close to him, and in fact, I didn't like him at all… Yet, he was still my brother. I cannot let a mortal kill my family and be left without repercussions… I am sorry, but I guess I will have to bring your soul to the underworld, Kireina…" said Hermes, smiling calmly.

"So I have begun… Hephaestus's death is a tragedy. The sorrow of losing my brother is only being calmed down by the burning rage within my mind. I must exert revenge… I will annihilate that mortal with one thousand arrows to her head… I swear it by my fallen brother…" said Artemis with a stoic expression as her eyes gleamed sharply.

"Hephaestus… my beloved little brother… I cannot fathom your death yet… My heart is broken… yet… there is a burning rage that is slowly building it up… The amount of suffering you and your family must have gone through cannot be ignored… We shall exert revenge, as the family that we are…" said Aphrodite, with sorrowful eyes that also showcased a strong conviction.

"I… I never thought such a thing would even be possible… Hephaestus… I remember the many times we shared wine… this is truly a tragedy… I… The least I could do is assist my family to avenge your fallen one…" sighed Dionysus, filled with sadness.

As the message sent by Athena was received by the Gods, Zeus detected something odd within the Interdimensional Merchant Shop, and so did Athena.

"This… What is this?" he wondered.

"I cannot… believe it… those Gods that had achieved such power… are just sharing it with everyone? Literally… just everyone else?!" asked Athena in bewilderment.

"Are we… even sure it works properly?" wondered Zeus.

"The authenticity of the item is there… the interdimensional merchant shop is controlled by the system, and the system immediately detects if an item is authentic or not, if it is not, it won't be accepted to be sold, father… this item, is true as it says it is," said Athena.

"Then… But… this… changes everything! Not only our situation… but the entire world situation! This… change the entirety of the concept we had been growing with for so long… All of the rules will be turned upside down! Quick, Athena, buy as many as you can!" said Zeus.

"B-But father… they're quite costly…" said Athena.

"No matter, buy them! We must acquire this power at all cost, this is what we had been looking for all this time!" roared Zeus.

-----