After a night’s sleep, Asterios rose in the early morning.
Following a simple wash, he went before Chiron and asked, “Father, where does Hephaestus usually stay?
I would like to find him.” A question mark appeared over Chiron’s head; he did not know why his son would suddenly want to seek out Hephaestus, as the man and the god were not even close.
“For what reason?
That fellow is somewhat dull; if you go to bother him without a good reason, his hammer will likely be coming for your face.” Chiron asked out of curiosity, and Asterios then told Chiron about the matter between himself and Aphrodite.
At first, Chiron listened with indifference; after all, it was Aphrodite—everyone was used to it.
To put it politely, she was indeed of the more promiscuous sort, so it was not incomprehensible.
However, when he heard that she had incited Asterios to overthrow the King of the Gods and rule this land himself, Chiron’s expression could no longer hold.
What was she trying to do?
Was that hateful woman inciting his own son to do such a thing?
No…
this, this was truly…
In any case, Chiron could not speak for a long time.
What was the meaning of this?
Even if Asterios was strong now, asking him to overthrow the King of the Gods, Zeus, was simply too absurd.
Chiron was well aware of Zeus’s strength.
The former Olympus Fleet was completely weaker than the previous generation’s Titan Fleet.
However, Zeus was the sole exception; his strength did not merely rival the Titan Fleet, it even surpassed the Titan Fleet’s flagship, Cronus.
It was precisely because of this anomaly, Zeus, that the Olympus Fleet managed to overturn the Titan Fleet.
This was purely Zeus showing off his divine might—a single flagship leading a group of auxiliary vessels to crush the previous generation.
This principle remained the same even now; the remaining eleven principal gods of Olympus, even if they piled together for a frontal assault, could not defeat Zeus.
If one truly wanted to overthrow the King of the Gods, they could only resort to underhanded means.
In the past, the rotten scheme cooked up by Poseidon, Athena, and Hera had once bound Zeus, and in the end, it was Thetis who secretly went to find the Hecatoncheires, Briareus, to resolve the situation.
But, but…
how could one be sure that it wasn’t Zeus wanting to see the reactions of these gods, and thus playing along with those three rebellious fellows to stage such a show?
At this moment, Chiron even felt a bit of admiration for Aphrodite; that woman had truly grasped a key point.
After all, even he, as his father, did not know where the limits of Asterios’s strength lay, and Zeus likely did not know either.
He only knew that this child, Asterios, was very different from others.
“I am wondering if I should speak to Athena about this…” Just as Chiron reached this point, Asterios was already shaking his head.
He did not want to tell Athena about this matter; he had his own judgment.
Since his son felt this way, Chiron would respect his opinion, so he generously told Asterios the location of the Fire God Hephaestus’s temple dwelling.
“In that distant Mount Etna, the temple of the God of Fire and Forge, Hephaestus, which is like a smithy, is located there.
Take my hand, son.
I will transmit the precise coordinate sensing to you, so you can use your Teleportation to go there.” Asterios nodded, and then the two placed their hands together.
Through mental sensing, Asterios clearly obtained the coordinates of Hephaestus’s temple.
The moment their hands parted, Asterios vanished completely from before Chiron.
Chiron scratched his head helplessly; his son truly had a complicated destiny, and such things made one feel quite strange.
Asterios had already arrived in front of Hephaestus’s temple.
To his surprise, Hephaestus’s dwelling was laid out so openly and broadly; did he not even need a door?
It was quite dashing.
He walked inside, and Hephaestus was there, laboriously forging a weapon.
He was sweating like rain, never stopping.
The high-strength divine steel, also known as adamant, was deforming under his hammering.
At this moment, he was so focused that even Asterios respected this passion and dedication of his.
Therefore, Asterios did not disturb him; instead, he controlled his own sound and found a relatively quiet place to sit.
However, after he sat down, he discovered that the ground was warm.
Now he dared not even imagine how hot the forge where Hephaestus hammered the divine steel must be.
When the weapon had taken preliminary shape, Hephaestus stopped.
He temporarily put aside his hammer and tongs, then grasped the sword with his left hand and touched the scorching blade directly with his right.
If there was anything he was dissatisfied with, he would use his nimble fingers to make adjustments directly; this action truly left Asterios dumbfounded.
The gods were, after all, the gods.
If it were an ordinary blacksmith, without magic or mysterious protection, daring to touch such a scorching blade would result in their flesh being burned to a crisp one hundred percent of the time.
Once these minute adjustments were finished, he began to hammer the object again.
Repeating this cycle over and over, finally, an exquisite sword was lifted up by him.
Hephaestus looked at the sword’s beautiful blade, nodded in satisfaction, and placed it on the shelf to the side.
On that shelf were countless weapons he had forged.
These items could all be considered divine armaments in a broad sense, though their strength varied, which depended on Hephaestus’s state of mind and the effort he poured into forging them.
Among them, a greatsword hung high at the very top.
The blade of that greatsword was so broad that even Asterios felt it was not a weapon for a person to use.
Without a height of two and a half meters and innate divine power, the person using this sword would likely look as ridiculous as a child brandishing a blade.
When all this was done, Hephaestus let out a long sigh, then picked up the wine flagon to the side and gulped down the wine.
The coolness of the liquor made him let out a satisfied groan; this flagon of wine went into his belly in no time.
Afterward, he put down the flagon, but as soon as he turned around, he saw Asterios sitting there.
Asterios slightly lowered his head to show respect, then said calmly, “Greetings, God of Fire and Forge, Hephaestus.” Hephaestus’s mind raced for a moment, then he said, “Ah~ I remember now.
You are that child whom Athena took in and handed over to Chiron to raise.
I didn’t expect you to have grown so big now.
You are truly handsome, unlike me with my ugly face.” Asterios did not expect Hephaestus to say this, and he gave a helpless, bitter smile.
In fact, in his eyes, Hephaestus was not ugly; his features were of a quite normal sort, only appearing relatively poor among the gods.
Coupled with flaws like dark skin and a lame leg, that was why he could not receive any affection from Hera and Aphrodite.