“Welcome to the bonfire, Ashen One.
I am the Fire Keeper.
I tend to the flame and serve you.”
“Farewell, Ashen One.
May you find rest.”
“Ashen One… can you still hear my voice?”
Hephaestus’s eyes snapped open.
Behind his mask, his face was blank with an aching sense of loss.
The gentle, serene image of the Fire Keeper in her trailing black robes still lingered in the fading recesses of his mind.
“To our great and benevolent Zeus!
Cheers!”
“HO!
HO!
HO!”
The deafening roar of the crowd pierced his ears, violently shattering the memory.
He looked up.
All around him in the grand pavilion, gods and nymphs were losing themselves to the revelry—raising golden chalices, drinking nectar freely, and laughing without restraint.
Bright smiles plastered every face.
The atmosphere in the Great Hall of Olympus was boisterous, untamed, and triumphant.
Behind his cold iron visor, Hephaestus’s expression twisted into profound disdain.
This was the Hall of the Gods on Mount Olympus.
The grand feast was a victory celebration for a cosmic war that had raged for nearly a century—marking the definitive defeat of the Titans and the dawn of a new regime over the mortal realm.
A mere minute ago, before his memories awakened, he would have been right there among the revelers.
He had, after all, received a handsome share of the spoils.
He was the architect who had forged the Thunder Scepter for Zeus, the Trident for Poseidon, and the Helm of Invisibility for Hades.
He had supplied a ceaseless stream of peerless weapons and armor to the front lines.
Even though Hephaestus had never personally set foot on the bloody battlefields, his contributions had secured him an undeniable seat among the Twelve Chief Deities of Olympus.
He now stood at the absolute apex of the world.
Apart from the ancient primordial entities and his three ruling uncles, he had no reason to bow his head to anyone.
His old self would have been overjoyed by this sudden elevation.
His old self would have rushed straight to the cruel mother who had cast him out, desperate to win her approval and force her to finally acknowledge him as her flesh and blood.
But Hephaestus harbored no such pathetic desires now.
If anything, he felt a looming urge to strike that wretched woman down.
*A second reincarnation, huh?*
The awakening of his past life left him with a deeply complex perspective beneath his mask.
He had finally escaped that endless cycle of slaughter, ash, and forced resurrection—that hopeless, dying world of the First Flame.
And now, his soul had been thrust into this reality.
A reality whose mythological trajectory was painfully obvious to him.
To become Hephaestus?
The famously tragic, cuckolded blacksmith of the heavens?
The God of Fire and Forge.
The tragic figure destined to be the legendary laughingstock of Olympus, doomed to be betrayed by his future wife, Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love and Beauty?
Just tracing the path of his mythological fate made Hephaestus’s stomach turn.
Being abandoned at birth by his own mother for being deformed was one thing.
But to eventually marry the most beautiful goddess in existence, only for her to turn their marriage into a public mockery with Ares?
“At least… at least the worst of it hasn’t happened yet.”
He raised a heavy, calloused hand to touch his mask, feeling its cold, unyielding surface.
Recalling his reflection in the water, he felt a strange mix of fortune and grim resignation.
What baffled him was his appearance.
He didn’t remember pursuing the path of the Lord of Hollows in his past life.
So why was his divine flesh completely hollowed out in this one?
No wonder Hera had been seized by absolute terror upon his birth.
Any mother would shriek in horror giving birth to an infant that resembled a shriveled, dark, dried-up corpse rather than a radiant god.
That didn’t mean he forgave her.
His appearance was his own burden; her failure to be a mother was entirely her own sin.
Perhaps his withered form was simply the result of Hera producing him through parthenogenesis—a flawed creation lacking the proper balance of divine nurture.
Through the narrow slits of his visor, Hephaestus watched the lively crowd, a solitary sense of relief washing over him.
He was relieved because he still had time to completely derail that disastrous future.
His mythological wife, Aphrodite, had not even been birthed yet.
Uranus, the first King of the Gods, had only recently been overthrown, and his severed essence was still drifting somewhere out in the vast ocean.
And she wasn’t the only one missing from the board.
Other prominent Olympic deities—Athena, Apollo, and Artemis—had not yet been introduced to the pantheon.
Currently, the twelve chief seats of Olympus were occupied by:
· Zeus (King of the Gods)
· Metis (Queen of the Gods, Goddess of Wisdom)
· Poseidon (Lord of the Seas)
· Hades (Ruler of the Underworld)
· Hestia (Goddess of the Hearth)
· Demeter (Goddess of Agriculture)
· Hera (Goddess of Marriage and Family)
· Helios (The Sun Titan)
· Selene (The Moon Titaness)
· Prometheus (Titan of Forethought)
· Epimetheus (Titan of Afterthought)
· Hephaestus (God of Flame and Forging)
Among the first seven, excluding Metis, they were all full siblings—the children of Rhea and the overthrown Titan King, Cronus.
The remaining five seats were occupied by Titan defectors who had turned their backs on their own kind.
It was their tactical alliance that had ultimately tipped the scales, allowing Olympus to secure total victory.
Yet, the expressions of these vital Titan contributors were far from celebratory.
Hephaestus could see it clearly.
Amidst the swirling crowds of minor deities and serving nymphs, those five Titan defectors wore masks of forced, strained compliance.
The political reality was universal: once the war is won, the weapons are put away; once the crown is secure, the old allies become liabilities.
According to the historical myths he knew, every single one of those Titan seats would eventually be stripped away and given to Zeus’s future offspring.
Prometheus’s ultimate fate, in particular, was bound to be horrific, while the others would simply fade into irrelevance.
The shifting tides of divine politics on Olympus ran incredibly deep, and an ordinary deity would be crushed trying to navigate them.
“Hahahaha!
Look here, isn’t this my esteemed nephew Hephaestus?
Why are you drinking in the shadows all by yourself?”
A boisterous, echoing laugh cut through his calculations.
Hephaestus looked up.
A magnificent man clad in a sea-blue chiton stood before him, his long, azure hair flowing wildly over broad, robust shoulders that radiated the raw energy of the ocean.
Poseidon smiled down at him, gesturing with his cup.
“You should join the high tables.
Enjoy the spoils and the vintage.
You earned this glory as much as any of us.”
“My dear Uncle Poseidon.
Greetings.”
Hephaestus offered a measured, respectful bow to the sea god.
“I am perfectly content here.
The high tables are a bit too loud for my liking.”
“Hahahaha!”
Poseidon laughed heartily, clapping Hephaestus firmly on the shoulder while offering an exasperated shake of his head.
“You are still far too reserved.
Straighten your back.
Stand tall.
Let Hera witness the caliber of the son she threw away.
Make her realize the profound folly of her choices.”
Behind his iron visor, Hephaestus’s features remained rigid.
With his awakened memories as the Ashen One, he felt absolutely nothing for Hera but a cold, detached disgust.
But before those memories had surfaced, the original Hephaestus had been a pathetically loyal, filial son—the type who would desperately beg for her affection regardless of how many times she abused or humiliated him.
If he abruptly flipped his demeanor now, it would undoubtedly draw unwanted scrutiny from the rest of the pantheon.
“…Forgive me, Uncle.
I have made my peace with the matter,” Hephaestus voiced carefully, his tone steady.
“I recognize there is no affection for me in her heart.
I have simply chosen to let it go.”
Hephaestus measured his words with precision.
At his response, a subtle, unreadable shift crossed Poseidon’s expressions.
Hephaestus caught the look, feeling a familiar wave of calculation wash over him.
There was no avoiding it; his established persona as a desperate, longing son was far too deeply ingrained in the minds of the court.
“Oh ho ho~ Poseidon.
Hephaestus.
My exceptional brother and dear nephew.
What grand schemes are you two whispering about over here?”
Before Poseidon could formulate a reply, a smooth, commanding voice intervened.
A handsome, silver-haired man flanked by a trailing entourage of lesser deities walked toward them, a golden goblet loosely held in his hand.
Zeus.
The moment the King of the Gods noticed Poseidon and Hephaestus speaking in isolation, his political instincts had flared, drawing him over to dismantle any private enclaves.
Zeus was the absolute focal point of the Great Hall; wherever he moved, the eyes of Olympus naturally followed.
His approach instantly dragged the collective attention of the entire feast straight onto Hephaestus.
*Don’t come over here…* Hephaestus thought grimly behind his mask.