Boom!
At last, the Argo slammed into the ground at a steep angle. Amid a thunderous crash, its solid wooden hull skidded forward, pulverizing the stone paving of the main road, smashing through buildings along its path, and carving out a rubble-filled trench more than a hundred meters long. Destruction spread in every direction.
The Argo, once carefully adorned before departure, was now a wreck, pieces scattered everywhere, its battered keel exposed in pitiful detail.
Yet, fortune still favored them. The ship's core structure held. Amid violent coughing, the Argonauts, all of them covered in ash and dust, staggered out of the lingering cloud.
We won the gamble! Hah! Just like I thought, she really is a damn fine ship!
Jason was half-supported by the twin swordsmen as he emerged from the wreckage. Suppressing the surge of excitement in his chest, he grabbed his shield, slung his javelins onto his back, and lifted his bronze sword. His voice rang out sharply as he issued the next set of orders.
"Move! Plan Two! While they're still slow to react, push straight through! My landing point is only five or six hundred meters from the central Sea God Temple!"
The route to the great altar meant plunging deep into enemy territory, outnumbered and outmatched, a path guaranteed to be riddled with danger.
That was why, if the direct glide landing failed, their fallback plan was to follow Triton's earlier guidance and activate the teleportation ritual within the Sea God Temple, entering the Interstellar Mountainous City.
But doing so would mean charging straight into the enemy's core, likely facing multiple monsters at once, with little hope of retreat.
Even so, with events having reached this point, none of the Argonauts dared hesitate. They swiftly armed themselves, gathered around Jason, and broke into a run toward the newly renovated Sea God Temple of Atlantis.
Ironically, this very temple had been refurbished during their earlier stay in Atlantis as an act of atonement for an unfortunate sea god. Because of that, no one present knew these roads better than they did.
Guided by familiarity, they advanced without obstruction. In just a few dozen breaths, they reached the temple plaza.
Two familiar figures leaning against the Sea God pillars immediately caught their eyes, bringing an unexpected surge of joy.
Atalanta and Circe!
They were alive. Not only that, they had arrived ahead of them and were waiting at the temple to rendezvous.
That's great!
"Atalanta, Aunt Circe! Are you alright?"
Seeing them, Medea's eyes lit up as she hurried forward. Carried by the sudden relief, the Argonauts unconsciously quickened their pace as well.
But the moment they stepped into the plaza, where seven Sea God pillars stood scattered in formation, the two figures turned stiffly toward them.
Their faces were deathly pale. Urgency filled their expressions as their lips trembled, forcing out broken, hoarse sounds with everything they had.
"Don't… come closer… hurry… run!"
Everyone's expressions changed instantly, their bodies reacting on instinct as they tried to pull back.
Too late.
A violent tremor surged up from beneath their feet. The vast plaza split open, a massive chasm tearing across it and stretching for dozens of kilometers. From the soil beneath the city rose a machine-like entity, its form resembling a pale cyan eyeball, small pink wings sprouting from either side, and a sharp, downward-pointing tail like a rigid root.
Where it passed, walls collapsed and buildings crumbled. Dense, shadow-green vegetation erupted and spread wildly, rapidly devouring most of the steel city. Even the stone slabs beneath their feet were pierced as layers of dark green growth forced their way up.
The True Machine God, Demeter, Goddess of Agriculture!
The Argonauts stared at the monstrosity blocking the Sea God Temple, and at the thick vines already coiling around the outer perimeter of the seven Sea God pillars. Their hearts clenched hard.
At the same time, as their viewing angle shifted, they finally saw the truth.
Emerald-green vines extended from cracks in the stone, tightly binding the legs of Atalanta and Circe. Pale roots had already pierced into the flesh of their backs, embedding themselves deep within. A sap resembling a neurotoxin continued to flow into their bodies, inducing numbness and complete paralysis.
This thing clearly possessed at least rudimentary intelligence. It had deliberately set bait, laid a trap, and waited for them to walk straight into it.
And that wasn't all.
As luminous patterns pulsed and spread around Demeter's mechanical body, figures began pouring in from all directions. Atlantean soldiers clad in black armor, their flesh entirely gone, leaving only dry bone. Crimson, vicious light burned within their empty eye sockets as they closed in, beginning the hunt.
"Don't stop! Break through!"
With enemies closing in from every side and no path left to retreat, Jason roared, issuing the order without hesitation. The Argonauts surged forward, charging head-on toward the Sea God Temple.
If they wanted to reach the Interstellar Mountainous City, this was their only chance.
Eyes hardened with resolve, they clenched their teeth and rushed ahead. Javelins and arrows flew one after another, streaking through the air as they hurled everything they had toward the floating machine god, Demeter.
"Continental-class fragmentation mechanism, activate. Divine core connection, divine core excitation. How insignificant, how wretched are the creatures of this mortal world. Wretchedness is death, death is the end. I grant you eternal rest!"
Yet the vines before Demeter writhed and swayed, easily batting aside every javelin and arrow. In a voice gentle with pity, she recited a divine decree, the words soft on the surface and murderous at the core.
Bzzzt!
The moment the order was spoken, the Goddess of Agriculture descended with elegant poise and lightly touched down. Sickly green light-patterns rippled outward. Wherever they reached, vegetation erupted into frantic growth.
Wisps of gray mist seeped through the green like breath. The earth where roots had taken hold turned to sand, stripped of all vitality. Even the hard stone paving nearby broke down into fine grains, then crumbled into dust and drifted away on the wind.
No!
Sisyphus, who had once toyed with Death and was the most sensitive here to the authority of death, stared at the patches of shadow-green grass that had somehow spread beneath their feet. His pupils shrank. Snatching up the two closest people, he sprang into the air.
But it was already too late.
The rolling gray mist swept past the Argonauts. Their flesh dried out in an instant, breaking apart like rotten wadding. Their bodies became desiccated husks, drained of moisture, and they toppled stiffly to the ground like wheat cut down at harvest, not even managing a scream.
Only the captured Atalanta and Circe, along with Sisyphus and the two lucky souls in his grasp, narrowly escaped.
So that was it.
The authority of life could nurture verdant growth, and it could also call forth death.
And those unremarkable blades of grass from earlier were Demeter's medium, the conduit through which the Goddess of Agriculture stole human vitality.
Sisyphus finally understood how those Atlantean defenders had become nothing but white bones.
The Demeter whose "program" had been rewritten was almost certainly the culprit behind the collapse of the surface city, the executioner set here to guard the Mu continent's Atlantis.
It's over. It's all over.
Sisyphus, saved only by his own alertness, looked down at the drying corpses as they were gradually wrapped up and swallowed by creeping green. His blood all but froze.
Just as the deceiver who had evaded death's judgment time and again stood there in numb horror, a crisp medical bell rang out to his left.
The man Sisyphus had hauled up in his panic calmly raised a serpent staff. The black snake coiled around its tip hissed and flicked its tongue like a living thing, scattering droplets of luminous spiritual fluid, like dew and starlight.
"Creation began from nothingness. Death is new birth. By the law of the circle, by the serpent's shedding and change, I grant healing through medicine and break the shackles of the wheel of fate—True Medicine: The Useless Lament of the Underworld!"
As his solemn chant fell, the Argonauts who had been stripped of life and reduced to withered husks were washed in that purplish-red essence. Their flesh filled out again, bit by bit. Nearby grass and trees withered in an instant, as vigorous life force flowed in reverse, pouring into their bodies.
In moments, not only were their wounds gone, they were restored to their peak.
Wh… what just happened?
The Argonauts crawled up from the ash of dead plants, feeling as though they'd only taken a nap. Even their minds felt fully refreshed.
But when they looked up at Demeter, floating in midair, the memory hit them like a hammer. Their pupils tightened, faces going pale.
They had already died once.
And Asclepius had dragged their lives back from the brink by some means.
So… the immortality drug he'd been going on about all this time—had he already finished it?