Libra's POV
While I waited for time to pass, I stared at the ceiling, doing nothing.
Orion sat in a corner, as far away from Artemis as possible, trying to be invisible and, by default, as far away from me as possible.
My mother was beside me; she tried to be an anchor in the situation, but she knew perfectly well that it was the other way around.
Out of nowhere, a few guards entered—centaurs and satyrs, as if they were personal beings, and no god would be on guard duty.
"What's going on?" Artemis asked.
"The judgment of the Grim Reaper, better known as Dante, has ended," one of the guards said.
"So soon—don't tell me what." My mother didn't finish the sentence, since neither she nor I wanted to know if that had happened.
"Follow us to the chambers of the King of Olympus," another guard said.
We both stared at each other, and as I left the cage, I followed her to where the gods were gathered, leaving Orion alone in the prison.
...
When we arrived at the hall of the gods, everything was chaos. Hera and Zeus were arguing fiercely; Poseidon and Athena continued their rivalry with great intensity.
The other gods were also arguing, but not as vehemently as the others.
I saw Artemis's eyes go directly to one god in particular. Apollo, god of the sun, was being admonished by Demeter. The god seemed quieter than usual, and upon seeing his older sister arrive, he sank further into his seat as if he wanted to escape.
"What's going on here? Where's Dante?" Artemis asked the entire hall, causing everyone to fall silent.
"He's dead," Zeus declared, making my eyes widen in shock. "I killed him in exchange for sparing his daughter's life."
How, when, where. My father died for me; how is that possible? But I knew what he was like; I knew he always did almost everything for me and always took care of me as best he could, so I see it as possible, given that.
I felt him open a crater in the ground and I was about to fall in, but it was Artemis who fell in the end.
I looked at my mother on the ground, crying, knowing that her beloved had been killed by his father. But she quickly recovered, since in this world death is not final. Or at least that's what we thought.
"I believe we must continue with the trial," Athena declared as if none of this affected her.
"What do you mean? Dante is already dead, from his father's lightning bolt, what more do you want?" Dionysus spoke as if he were about to fall asleep.
At that moment, I realized that two gods were missing: Ares and Hermes. I wondered what had happened to them.
"Dante's actions were very serious, so he still needs to be punished for what he did, considering he almost killed one of us." The comment silenced the room once more.
And just as he was about to continue speaking, a god entered the room.
"That won't be possible, since Dante isn't in the underworld," it was Hades, the king of the underworld and Dante's father. I had never seen my grandfather so angry.
"What do you mean?" Hera asked, glaring at her brother. "Dante died; by default, he has to go to the underworld."
Hades shifted his gaze from Hera to Zeus.
"Have you forgotten, brother, the story of how they found Dante?" he asked, and Zeus paused, lost in thought.
"What does that have to do with anything? He's part of the Greek pantheon, so if he dies, he must fall into your realm, no question," Athena said, somewhat annoyed, as if Dante's escape bothered her.
"Dante was never born in Greek territory, so his soul doesn't fall into my territory." That left everyone stunned, especially three women.
"But Dante is a son of Chaos; he must be on our side," Aphrodite said, now more concerned about the whole situation.
"Not exactly," Apollo replied, speaking for the first time. "The prophecy said that he was brought here by Chaos, not that he was his creation or son or anything like that, so Dante could very well be an entity from another pantheon brought here by Chaos."
"THAT'S NOT POSSIBLE!" the goddess of wisdom cried out in panic; her composure vanished and her skin turned paler than usual. "That wasn't part of the plan."
At Athena's last words, Artemis stood up abruptly and, with a determined stride, stood before her sister, grabbing her by her toga and lifting her up forcefully.
"What did you do? What was your plan? What did you hope to achieve with all this? SPEAK!" Artemis demanded angrily.
"Athena, what did you do?" Zeus asked his daughter, somewhat annoyed.
"I just wanted him to be mine," she confessed in a barely audible voice. "The idea was that his father would have to punish him; that's why we talked, that he would have another kind of punishment as my slave, and only I could decide what he did and didn't do; he would be only for me and only with me for the rest of his life, far away from you harlots."
It was as if the goddess's soul had vanished.
Artemis released her, knelt, and wept silently.
It was all Athena's plan: Zeus leaving, Hera's actions, Apollo's intervention, the capture, holding me hostage, and my father being punished. But what she didn't foresee was that, when Dante died, she wouldn't fall into the underworld only to later pull him out and monopolize it, using Zeus as a guarantee.
After that, the argument continued, but I wasn't listening anymore, I wasn't paying attention, and I couldn't see the gods as perfect and superior beings, but as heartless and arrogant dogs.
...
After that, Zeus kept his promise to my father by letting me go, since the punishment of death was enough to make me let go.
Later, I learned that Hermes didn't attend the assembly because he was resting after nearly being cut in two by Dante, while Ares was still drugged—something Athena had done to prevent him from interfering—and he's still in bad shape.
I ended up at Hestia's house to calm down and think about what to do in a better state. Shortly after, I went to Artemis's to do the same as I: to soothe my sorrows.
I didn't want to be here anymore, and I most likely would never return to this place in my life; I couldn't. But before leaving, I went to Dante's and Kiss-shot's house to retrieve the important things, especially the work my father had been doing. I didn't want any god to take them and give them to their children. I couldn't bear it.
In the end, since I couldn't take everything, I destroyed them, leaving only one weapon, which I knew Dante had spent years crafting, so I decided to take it with me.
And so I left this place, never to return, taking with me an Orion who knew what was happening.
When I went down to Crisa, I was surprised. An Adaria, increasingly old, with children and all, gave me a piece of paper. She told me that an object resembling a spear had fallen in the village and disappeared, and inside the object was a note addressed to her, along with some numbers.
When I saw the note, I realized they were coordinates. When I got to the point of the note, I noticed it was a cave, and when I went in, I noticed my father's Buster Sword, but modified.
Inside was a note that read: "Goodbye, Libra. I'm giving you this weapon. You can do whatever you want with it. It's not the Buster Sword; it's its twin, the Fusion Sword."
I crumpled the note and stomped on it in a rage, especially knowing that my father had thrown himself into danger intending to die. I left with the sword, not quite knowing what to do with it.
...
*Time Skip*
(Note: I skipped a section of the story here where I explained in more detail what Libra's normal life was like, but due to space and time constraints, I removed it to include it in this summary.)
I don't know how much time has passed since all this began, but I do know when it started.
After leaving Olympus, I decided to live a quiet life, a life away from it all. After Orion's insistence, I ended up marrying him and having two children, a boy I named Elion and a girl I named Aery.
Everything was going well; I stayed home as a housewife, while Orion did the housework, earning the title of the greatest hunter of his time, but that didn't last long.
Thanks to God's intervention, intending to settle an old debt, he caused a scorpion to poison Orion; no matter what I did, I couldn't prevent his death.
Fearing he would do the same to my children, knowing my eldest had a heart condition, I left them in the underworld in the care of my grandparents, Hades and Persephone.
I left Elion the Fusion Sword, while Aery would keep Nova, the bird that had been in the underworld since Dante's death.
Once all that was over, I spent years hunting beasts, monsters, certain animals, and even humans.
Thanks to this, the title of the greatest hunter passed from my husband to me. I used the hunter's outfit my father gave me to disguise myself and the weapon I had made, a gun that fired bullets in a cross shape.
But that wasn't all I did. Whenever I could, I destroyed the temples of Apollo, Athena, and Zeus. This drew the attention of the gods, which caused me to return to the times when I was hunted; only this time no human could stand against me.
My children are all grown up now. My daughter married a king and became queen, with the treacherous bird by her side, while my son became the royal guard of this very kingdom.
I'd like to go see them, but I'm afraid of getting them into trouble just by being in my presence. I just hope they're alright.
Another one I'd like to see is Medusa; through my fault or inaction, she would be harassed by various would-be heroes, and upon learning of my father's death, she would go mad, ultimately murdering her sisters and becoming a monster known as a Gorgon, who was slain long ago by a descendant of Zeus.
As I walked through the desert on my way to the next city to continue my life as a hunter, I sensed a presence—more than one, many.
To one side was a forest; in it, I saw a being I had only seen as a child, but its appearance was something I would never forget.
It was equine, the mother of beasts.
"It's been a while, brat," the woman said.
"You've come for me; you ran out of cheap men to come after me," she said arrogantly.
"As perceptive as ever, but don't think it will be so easy; the gods have decreed that you are too dangerous to remain here," Echidna remarked.
"Which gods, since I don't think it's all of them?" Even though I live as a hermit, I still see my other loved ones sometimes, like Artemis, Hestia, Ares, or Poseidon, not to mention others like Hecate or Thanatos.
"A dead person doesn't need to know," the mother of beasts said, and a vast number of them appeared. I sensed their presence, but that doesn't mean I was surprised by their sheer numbers.
What caught my attention were those creatures that resembled the Minotaur but were different kinds of animals; one looked more like a bird, another like a shark, and so on. There were about ten of them, quite strong, but the icing on the cake was three creatures hundreds of meters tall.
One was a two-headed serpent with a spear at the end of its tail; the second was a four-legged firebird; the third was a dragon with only hind legs, its hands serving as wings.
"These are my children, whom I created to fight your father, but I'll have to settle for using them against you," Echidna said, as if these things were enough to defeat Dante.
I was already bored with this woman, so I summoned my bow and, using its power along with my skills, I launched powerful arrows.
Some monsters could be seen amidst the chaos, but they were pierced without the arrow even slowing down.
Echidna, seeing this, tried to use magic to protect herself, but it was useless; the arrow destroyed her protection, piercing her head and killing her instantly.
This enraged all the beasts and monsters, who rushed towards me.
Sheathing my bow, I removed the crossguard from my sword to prepare it for fighting. If I remember correctly, my father mentioned that this was a weapon called a machine gun.
Using the weapon in conjunction with magic, I began firing at the beasts. They fell one by one at great speed; the only ones that could withstand the bullets were the minotaur imitations and the three giants, but no matter what I killed, the number of monsters didn't seem to decrease.
Luckily, using projection magic, I was able to get an infinite supply of bullets for the seemingly endless number of monsters.
(Note: Projection magic isn't the same as projection sorcery, since projection magic bypasses several of the sorcery's processes, making something almost instantaneous—something possible, since the age of the gods hasn't ended in this time... or so I believe; Miami confirmed this for me.)
When the monsters reached my position, I had to move from side to side to create distance, because if I engaged in close combat, they could easily overwhelm me.
I had to leap high to dodge the snake's tail, which began spewing gas from one head, causing a spark to ignite everything from the other.
Luckily, I managed to escape, but it was the only thing I could do. The three great beasts launched their attacks continuously.
I had to strap the crossbow to my back and use the Distortion Bow—that's what I called it—to start firing arrows to stop them.
I used fire arrows to intercept the dragon's gas and pure-ether attacks while using water arrows to extinguish the bird's fire, which was creating a tornado and rain of pure fire from multiple directions.
I spent almost an entire day fighting all the monsters; in the end, I managed to kill almost all of them. The only one that survived was the snake, who was the first to escape when she saw that I had killed the dragon with the crossbow, which had a hole where magical energy and ether could be accumulated to launch it like a cannon, located on the other side where the bullets were fired.
In the end, I lay on the ground, surrounded by thousands of beast and monster corpses. I was tired, my legs ached, and, frankly, I was mentally exhausted.
Just as I was about to close my eyes, a feeling of danger surged within me. I opened them to use Haki; an arrow was hurtling toward me. I could only use my crossed weapon as a shield, which was destroyed but saved me from the attack.
The arrow's impact sent me flying a few meters, which I used to get to my feet to use the Eye of God, which belonged to a god named Horus, to see where the arrow had come from.
There stood a young man, between 17 and 20 years old. He had a bow and many arrows, but what caught my attention was the divine power within him. A demigod.
The man had already fired several more arrows in his direction. Using my bracelets, I blocked each one, wielding them like a snake.
Seeing my protection, which he couldn't easily break through, the demigod stopped firing arrows and began to approach me.
Summoning my bow once more, I drew back the string and released it. This caused several arrows made of magic to appear around the man and be fired, but he dodged almost all of them; those he didn't, he destroyed without much trouble.
"Magic resistance, huh?" I said to myself; his body is strong, stronger than a demigod should be.
He summoned an arrow, placed it on the bow, and drew it back, but before releasing it, he imbued it with Haki, since it has been shown that Haki can damage, albeit subtly, even divinity; this being a spiritual being above all else, and if this guy is only a demigod, it should damage him.
When he released the arrow, the man decided to dodge it instead of counterattacking, something that struck me as very suspicious; I should have noticed the change.
Using my special power, I aimed a target at his heart, which he noticed as he stopped to look at it, and I fired several more arrows.
He tried to dodge them, but thanks to my power, the arrow bent as if it had a life of its own and went straight to his heart.
The demigod had no choice but to destroy it, which took a little while.
The problem was that this guy was faster than me at firing arrows, so he would reach me in no time.
He jumped at me to kick me, but using the bracelets, I intercepted his blow. This demigod continued his attack, throwing blow after blow, which I blocked, every single one of them. But his strength was enough to send the bracelets flying.
As his speed increased and I knew he would eventually catch up, I used the last two bracelets to send him flying. I took a direct hit from him, and even with Haki, it hurt, slightly fracturing my jaw.
I was already exhausted, and my arms, legs, and now my face ached; I had to finish this quickly.
"You little demigod, who are you?" I asked out of curiosity.
The man stood up and adjusted his shoulders.
"My name is Alcides," he said simply; without saying anything more, I couldn't help but find the name fitting, since at his age he wasn't nearly as strong as this guy.
If he weren't in such bad shape, I could defeat him, but that wasn't the case; there was no need to mention his parents' names either, since I could feel Zeus's divine energy within him.
Alcides was about to launch another attack, but I acted faster.
He drew back his bow as if it held an arrow, only for an immense amount of magical and ethereal energy to appear beneath Alcides. He noticed it, and when he tried to move, he saw a target on the ground that moved with him, with him at its center.
Seeing that he couldn't dodge it, he drew back his arrow and aimed at my attack, since it was better than aiming at me because if he did, the attack would still reach him.
"Apólyti volí (Απόλυτη βολή)," I said, releasing the string, causing the accumulated magical and ethereal energy to rain down on the demigod in the form of arrows.
Alcides also fired, and I saw the most powerful arrow he had ever launched. The moment both arrows collided, a gigantic explosion erupted, consuming everything in its path.
The demigod tried to escape, but he was quickly submerged.
I used all my remaining energy to shield myself with Haki and magic to withstand the attack.
The explosion reached me, leaving me badly injured.
Once all that was over, I used the Eye of Horus to look at my opponent, only to see the badly wounded demigod lying on the ground, still alive, but motionless.
"What a monster," I remarked, since that explosion should have killed any ordinary demigod.
With a heavy heart, I left, as I was badly injured and needed a place to rest, and it wasn't safe here.
After a while, I arrived at a temple, but this one belonged to my mother, Artemis.
I entered the place with great confidence, knowing it was my mother's temple.
As soon as I arrived, the high priestess recognized me and helped me to a safe place to rest, leaving me with a middle-aged woman to watch over me.
As I looked at a wound on my leg, I felt a knife plunge into my back, piercing my chest.
I had let my guard down; I looked back to see the woman who was supposed to be watching over me holding the blood-soaked knife.
"How does it feel to be stabbed in the back by those you trust?" she said venomously. I didn't say anything, just stared at her. "I trusted the gods, but they destroyed my life; my entire family was destroyed by you. I'm here to do something about it, to harm your loved ones as well."
With that, she tried to stab me again, only to be stopped by the high priestess.
The others rushed to my side and helped me in my dire condition.
It turns out this woman had suffered a misfortune inflicted by the gods. In her quest for revenge, she hid in a secure temple, since I was destroying some, and waited for a god to come so she could try to kill him. She had acquired a knife coated with the Hydra's venom with all her money.
Unfortunately for her, hardly any gods visited their temples, so when I arrived, announcing that I was the daughter of Artemis, she attacked me.
Now I am wounded and exhausted, with a fatal wound and poisoned, since there is currently no cure for the Hydra's venom.
I felt immense pain throughout my body, as if my flesh were about to give out.
But I wasn't going to stand idly by.
I got up and left, ignoring the woman who would later surely cause my mother to suffer for the rest of her life.
The priestess tried to stop me and wait for my mother, but I refused; I had something to do before I died.
...
I stepped off the boat, my entire body aching; I could barely bear it anymore. Every second that passed, the poison was killing me more and more, but I still hadn't reached my destination.
With a cane, I walked slowly toward where I wanted to go. After hours of slow, agonizing suffering, I arrived at my destination, the ancient place where my father had started it all; in Crisa, I stood before the mountain that held the entrance to Anakosmo and, by extension, Olympus.
I summoned my bow and drew it; a Greek metal arrow appeared. I imbued it with all my energy, mana, haki, and everything; I left nothing behind. I also used the bow's special ability to distort reality and space.
I aimed at the entrance to this mystical world and released the arrow.
"Goodbye," I said, collapsing to the ground as everything went black.
...
Third-person POV
The arrow, imbued with immense power, flew directly to the entrance the gods had created on the reverse side of the world.
This place had several barriers to stop enemy attacks, but with the power of the Imbiod bow within the arrow, it distorted reality and space to pass through these barriers without destroying them; it was as if it made a hole in them so that, once it passed through, they would return to normal.
When the arrow reached Anakosmos, it was like an earthquake striking the island. It ripped through the island, destroying everything in its path; the island began to crumble and be destroyed rapidly, causing the creatures that lived there to fall little by little into the void, where the world lay.
But the arrow did not stop, for its objective was different, ignoring all the defenses in the place. It reached Zeus's chambers, which were destroyed in less than a second.
Libra's attack destroyed Anakosmos, along with several of the homes of the Greek gods on Olympus, mostly due to collateral damage.
Zeus was furious and wanted to punish the culprit, only to discover that it was Libra who had done it all, and, to top it off, she lay dead at the entrance to the mountain.
The god's fury had to be sated, so in a fit of rage, he destroyed the island of Crisa along with all its inhabitants and, in doing so, sealed its entrance to the world forever.
Luckily, Ares, realizing what was happening, intervened, saving Libra's body from destruction.
The first to act was Artemis, who told Libra what had happened in the temple and, along with her surprise attack before all this, demanded compensation.
Since Artemis was Zeus's favorite daughter, he ultimately granted her request, transforming Libra into a constellation for the rest of her life.
Thus ends the story of Libra, daughter of Dante, the Grim Reaper.