If both of them became followers of Athena, after the war ended they could still often meet and have friendly exchanges and spar together!
Diomedes, no, not just him.
After the decisive battle,
Night's strength had already won the recognition of all the Greek heroes.
They all had a favorable view of him and were unwilling to see him be harmed by Ares.
And before they could advise Night, King Agamemnon was already the first one to jump up in agitation.
"I do not agree!! Griffith, you absolutely cannot accept that blessing...
That is..."
The terrifying divine might of Ares suddenly descended, crushing Agamemnon's body under its weight.
Agamemnon's face turned red.
His words were locked hard in his throat and could not come out.
But King Agamemnon stared back with furious eyes, his emotions clearly very agitated.
This was how one could describe the terrifying power of bewitching charm.
From when Agamemnon became Night's little fanboy to right now, how many days had it even been?
And yet someone who originally feared divine beings like a mouse now dared to glare at the war god Ares.
Ares was in a very bad mood right now!
The time Artemis once sent down divine punishment, King Agamemnon trembled in fear and lowered his proud head.
When Athena descended, the insufferably arrogant Agamemnon abandoned his intention to fight Achilles to the death once again.
After all, this man genuinely once considered killing Achilles.
If he truly feared Achilles's strength, he would never have humiliated him again and again in the first place.
This brutal tyrant, faced with the heavenly might of the gods, always chose to back down.
And yet now this ostrich and mole of a person actually dared to look straight at him?
Ares felt displeased.
Did people think that he, the war god Ares, was less authoritative than two goddesses?
At this moment, he used his divine power to seal the other party's mouth shut, then continued to look at Night and told him.
"This was a necessary thing for the conquest of Troy.
With my blessing, your power will completely surpass Hector's, and you will be unmatched on the battlefield.
All of it is for the glory and victory of all of Greece."
From Agamemnon's reaction,
Night already understood that this so-called blessing was probably nothing good.
And there was no free lunch in the world.
Not to mention, he was a follower of Artemis.
Moon goddess was extremely good to him, so why change camps...he even refused Aphrodite, why do you, a brainless brute, think I'll join you?
In the name of the goddess Artemis,
Night once again refused the favor of another divine being.
Just as he once refused Zeus's solicitation.
"I'm Lady Artemis' follower and I have promised to follow her until death, so, I'm sorry Lord Ares, I can't accept your favor."
However, Ares, whose specialty was catching people off guard and playing by no rules or conventions...
"Don't worry about the Moon Goddess.
The victory of Greece was the shared hope of all Olympus.
Even the great god Zeus held expectations for it.
For Greece to win, even if the moon goddess Artemis were to learn of this matter, she would not mind..."
To translate in simple terms, the implied meaning behind these sideways words was...
It is by the command of the God-King Zeus!
Even Artemis would not dare resist!
This is not yours to refuse!
A classic case of waving someone else's tiger-skin banner for intimidation!
And as Ares pressed him like this.
Night's heart turned cold as well.
These gods were a pair of weathervanes.
The war god who helped whichever side was weaker and wanted to keep the war going forever.
Without question, if one had to categorize his alignment, it would be chaotic neutral or chaotic evil.
Night finally understood what he had always vaguely sensed was missing from his calculations all along.
He had previously even been planning to kill Diomedes in order to preserve the war god, this main carry big brother on the battlefield, for the Trojan side.
And this guy turned around and came to Greece anyway.
In the original mythological account, the reason the war god helped Troy was precisely because Troy was the weaker side at the time.
To create a more chaotic situation, he stepped in to help the weak fight the strong, maintaining the balance between both sides.
To let the war go on forever!
For humanity, this philosophy was not anything less than wicked.
In actual essence, Ares had no real preference for Greece or for Troy.
Of course, if the goddess of love and beauty Aphrodite could whisper a few words in his ear, things might be different.
At this moment, Night even began to wonder whether the war god and the goddess of beauty were currently in a cold war.
Otherwise why would she let such a powerful lover come over to the Greek side.
And at this moment not only was he guessing correctly, if he was a bit bolder and guessed in the direction of his own influence, he would be even closer to reality.
At this point Ares gave Night three days to think it over.
The domineering war god seemed completely unafraid of him going to seek his chief goddess Artemis for help.
His intention to openly seize the hero Griffith had already reached the point where every hero in the entire Greek camp knew about it.
Ares: Griffith is mine for the taking!
A warrior this wild should come under my command, fight with me until the end of time, and be submerged forever in the hell of slaughter.
He believed that Griffith's true nature was certainly the same as his own.
A warrior who craved war, chaos, and blood.
Ever since watching Griffith's battles against his own daughter, and against the strongest Trojan hero Hector, he always believed this.
Leaving a black dragon this wild under the hunting goddess would only turn him into a tame domesticated reindeer with no wildness at all, a pet with no intimidating presence whatsoever.
A true warrior like this should not be buried in obscurity.
The more he thought this way, the more Ares felt he was completely in the right, and felt not even the slightest criminal conscience about being a robber.
Just a natural and self-evident sense of dominance!
A war god who defied even the God-King Zeus's commands would naturally not fear the hunting goddess Artemis either.
Normally he might still give that wild goddess some face.
But when he encountered something he wanted, Ares would snatch it.
On this he would not yield.
And on the other side, though
Night clearly refused without any consideration, Ares still gave him time to think it over properly.
If he refused again after three days, the war god's fury was not something a mere mortal could bear.
"That is already a threat, is it not?!"
A nameless fire also burned in Night's heart.
Perhaps there was some force of fate operating in the unseen.
Just as he borrowed the identity of a descendant of Kratos.
And the story of Kratos, did it not begin precisely from the conflict and complex relationship with the war god Ares?
Selling his soul to Ares in order to defeat a powerful enemy on the battlefield, gaining the Blades of Chaos, but returning to find the war god had played him, becoming his attack dog and killing for him everywhere until he accidentally killed his own wife and children.
Then under Athena's redemption, the blades were transformed into the Blades of Athena, and he successfully defeated and overthrew the ambitious war god and sat down on the throne of the new war god.
And after the meeting ended, after learning from the other heroes what the war god's blessing actually was.
Night felt it resembled Kratos's experience even more.
The so-called blessing...was nothing but selling one's soul and becoming the war god's attack dog.
Reduced to a tool fighting on and on for him forever.
What kind of divine blessing or favor was that?
For any normal person, it could completely be called a curse.
Though it was reasonable that obtaining great power required paying an equivalent price.
But forced buying and forced selling was not acceptable behavior...
.
.
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(End of the Chapter)