Darius Supreme

"Anyway, as I was saying, our two groups of Demi-Gods were sent on these missions given nothing but the skin on our backs to achieve the impossible."

"It was like we had become death warriors… or expendable troops… or cannon fodder…?" Hercules paused as he searched for the right word.

"Suicide Squads. You were sent out as a Suicide Squad." Darius assisted with a smile.

Hercules was stunned by this. "It sounds right, but what does it specifically mean?"

"It's a term used for a selected group of chosen warriors with special abilities to accomplish a seemingly impossible mission whose lives are treated as expendable."

"Should they succeed, they would be rewarded, but if they failed, they would be either dead or punished. They have no choice in whether or not they can go, and retreating before the mission ends usually warrants severe punishment, including death." Darius explained calmly.

Hercules nodded his head slowly, his eyes brightening with every second. "Yes… yes, that is a very apt way to describe what we were made to do back then. A 'suicide squad'... Ha!"

"Well, can you guess who succeeded and who failed?" Hercules asked Darius with a playful expression.

Darius folded his arms and wrung his lips. He didn't know how to tell Hercules that he was already aware of the entire event after having digested all of Faust's knowledge God Krona had possessed.

However, since Hercules had brought himself to the chopping board, Darius didn't mind slaughtering him.

"Both parties succeeded."

Hercules was speechless for a moment that Darius had guessed it so effortlessly, but then he shrugged. "Well, that's correct. The objective that seemed so impossible to complete, to the point that even the Gods lacked the confidence in us succeeding, had been accomplished almost spectacularly by both teams."

"I don't know the events for Vali's team, but something truly special happened during our own mission. Not only did we managed to get past the Giants who guarded them without being seen, we also fought against the Titans directly."

"After setting out a pre-arranged signal, the Gods intensified the fight, preventing the Giants from turning around to stop us. The Titans had also been weakened by their years of imprisonment, so they had turned out to be far weaker than us."

"The Titans were beaten back mostly by me and my raw strength, which had allowed me to contest with even the toughest of them. Eventually, I was able to knock them back into their prison and re-activate the seal."

Hercules stopped here and took in a deep yet stuttered breath as his body trembled.

"However, just before they went in, the largest and most powerful Titan, Kronos, looked me in the eyes and uttered two words. Two simple words that I would usually shrug off as a bitter insult, but somehow they have stuck with me all these years."

Hercules turned to Darius, gazing at the Old Soul with a grave look. "It was not just the tone in which the Titan spoke them, it was the certainty, the mockery, the understanding… the look in his eyes, the snort he made as he uttered it, the general disdain it carried…"

"Those two words were: 'Pitiful fool'. Not even much of a remarkable insult, but it's hard to convey just the way he looked at me, like he was looking straight into my soul."

"His eyes didn't contain any hate towards me nor my actions. Rather, he was filled with pity and mockery, as if looking at the biggest fool he had seen to date."

Hercules shook his head. "I have thought about it many days over the course of my life… what could he have meant by that? What could have made me, Hercules, the Greatest Hero, such a pitiful fool in Kronos' eyes?"

"Was it the fact that I had assisted the very same parents who had tormented me during my mortal life? Was it because I had my wings clipped by accepting their Divine Spark? Was it because I did not know some secret truth that would change my position in the entire conflict?"

The huge Demi-God shook his arms with a troubled expression. "From your information, I guess it's pretty much all three and more. It's hard to believe that two words can contain such a huge amount of complexity and hidden meanings that I would still need a long time to discover."

"Anyway, while I asked myself these questions as far back as then, I couldn't get a conclusive answer as I have now, because what you showed me was too grand for me to even think about back then. The knowledge so profound that I'm not sure even Kronos might have known all of that..."

Hercules then paused for a minute or two, before he glanced at the HoloBrace on his arm.

"However, I asked myself a question. A question I was forced to consider due to my interest in the Titans and why Kronos would say such a thing."

"Why exactly were my father and the other Gods fighting against Gaia? That was the question I was forced to ask myself. Oh, and what a troublesome question it was." Hercules laughed with bitterness.

"Gaia is the spirit of Faust, an embodiment of the very planet we live on. If the world had truly been crated by the Gods, then Gaia should have been a creation of theirs, and exceedingly obedient to them, no? But then why would she want to rebel?"

"One day, I had foolishly posed this question to my father. He explained to me that Gaia had been corrupted by the taint of mortals who wished to usurp the Gods."

"Since mortals made up a majority of its existence and Gaia was the amalgamation of every living things' lifeforce, thoughts, and wishes, it was natural that their filthy cravings would infect her, leading to the creation of the Titans in her attempt to rebel."

Hercules scratched the back of his head. "Truth be told, I took this answer as fact as it was logical and made sense."

Darius nodded. Were it not for his knowledge pertaining to the True Lords and Vena, he might also have been inclined to believe this as it was a lie carefully woven with the truth. Hercules could not be blamed for believing it, because doubting it would have been far more illogical back then.

Hercules sighed. "However, things quickly changed for me after that point. My father had still been somewhat caring up until that point, but his demeanor had started to change. Of course, I did not notice it easily at first, but it became clear that something was up when I was starting to be sent out on more and more Divine Odysseys, all that seemed to be doomed from the start."

"I couldn't succeed them all and since I was made leader of those teams I would often return only to get penalized. It wasn't even rare for me to be the only survivor, a circumstance the Gods found fault with."

"Not to mentions, my repeated failures chipped away at my reputation of being the Greatest Hero. Again, it wasn't much at first, but it was stained more and more with every new failure. No one could deny my contributions in the past, as I have been there for every recent major upheaval the Gods faced and brought significant victory."

Hercules rubbed his beardless chin with a smile. "Funny enough, despite the missions I failed being minor ones with no real consequences, at one point the stain to my reputation seemed to overshadow my victories in grand and important conflicts could repair."

"This has continued up until now. At first, I didn't realize the reason for it, but now, I understand everything. Sometimes, asking a question can be a sin far worse than committing murder."

"I had asked the wrong question. Even though I was given an answer and seemed to be compliant, it had broken a seal, or better yet, a certain status quo."

"From an ignorant Demi-God, I became a possible red flag because in the mind of the Gods, if I could ask this kind of question once, I would definitely ask another like it later on... and eventually I might be unhappy with the answer..."

Hercules folded his arms with a sneer. "Sure, they might be able to placate and rein me in with a clever answer the first few times, but the following questions would be more intense and the answers they required would have to be a lot more thought out."

"Eventually, it would naturally reach a point where they would not be able to give me a satisfactory answer, doubts would build in me. Once that snowballs and escalates, it could lead to a big issue, hence the sudden distrust."

Hercules then waved his hand casually. "Anyway, I am telling you all this for one simple reason: After finding the truth, I am not interested in working for those hypocrites anymore."

Hercules then seized up Darius. "I might choose to work for you, but I would like to know more about what it is you would want me to do, why you want me to do it and how exactly it would benefit you."

Hercules shrugged straightforwardly. "It might sound impudent coming from a captive like me whose life is in your hands, but truth be told, I'd rather die or be tortured than just go from one bunch of bastard to another!"

Darius, who had listened to all of this, clapped his hand slowly. "A good resolution and I admire your decisiveness. I have many uses for one like you, and even ways to make you into a proper God through natural means."

Darius then folded his hands behind his back. "However, we can talk about the details later. For now, acclimatize yourself to the HoloBrace on your wrist and cooperate with the Martin AI to learn what you can!"