Meanwhile, in Athens.
The old and the weak who had retreated to a valley by the corner of the city walls had despair overflowing in their eyes, and within that despair, madness was quietly gathering.
Above them, the sky's luminous barrier glowed faintly. The twinkling stars blotted out the sun's radiance, sharp and unmistakable, and meteors descended from that sea of starlight, burning as they struck all across Greece, setting off violent explosions and tremors…
Ahead of them, the Athenian Acropolis was covered in the scars of slaughter, already riddled with holes. Nearly three-quarters of its walls and ground had collapsed and fallen.
Streets lay in ruins. Buildings belched smoke. Defensive lines were torn apart and routed…
All kinds of warped creatures clustered around towering Gigants, sweeping through like a sky-darkening plague of locusts. The scattered pockets of resistance vanished almost instantly with a few screams, reduced to mere "grains" to be fought over and chewed clean.
Through the smoke and firelight overhead, the distant land looked like fragile cardboard. Fissures stretching for hundreds and thousands of miles crisscrossed one another, and inside them was bottomless darkness…
Etna and countless other volcanoes erupted in fury, ash flung high into the sky. Dark-red magma poured at will, melting every living thing in its path…
Coastal cities like Thessaly, Sparta, and Mycenae had been overwhelmed by backflowing torrents and turned into sea…
Thebes, Arcadia, Calydon, and other high-mountain, dense-forest regions had become a playground for mutated creatures…
Forests burned. The ocean boiled. Mountains crumbled. Sun and moon gave no light. Stars fell from the sky. The whole world had taken on the face of apocalypse.
After the Alien Key activated, the erosion of Greece intensified, and the world began to come apart.
At this very moment, Athens was Greece's last fortress not yet fallen, humanity's final bastion.
"Life is something meant to end. A pilgrimage that only piles up suffering. Eyes grow old, hands and feet grow fragile. Existence will inevitably fade into nothing. Birth is only so you can be destroyed. How pitiful. How laughable…"
Among the lambs huddled and trembling in the city's corner, a languid, teasing voice with a slight nasal edge echoed through the crowd.
The grief of being weak, the pain of loved ones scattered and torn away, the powerlessness of facing aging, sickness, and death… every misfortune and resentment swelled inside people's hearts.
In that atmosphere of despair and tragedy, a woman with silver hair draped over her shoulders and a spotless white dress stepped out of the crowd as if taking a leisurely stroll through a field of poppies. She lifted her skirt delicately, gliding through the mass with effortless elegance. With every breath, she seemed intoxicated by the scent in the air as she climbed onto the Parthenon, its structure half-collapsed.
"Beg for mercy! Let your cowardice spill out!"
That figure, at once like a fairy, a specter, a goddess, and a demon, struck a blasphemous pose. Barefoot, she stepped onto the crown of the great statue of Ophion and looked down at the swarming rabble below as she declared:
"It's time to drown in this boundless sea of suffering!"
In an instant, the blasphemer's alluring pink lips curled into a strange, wicked smile. Her blood-red eyes, brimming with malice, stared down in contempt as countless threadlike wisps of black fog rose from corpses, from rubble, and from living bodies.
A frigid, sinister pressure spread outward. A surging red-black mudflow, like boiling magma, gathered and dispersed as it hung overhead.
At its center, on a lump of flesh shaped like an embryo, countless eerie eyes rolled and blinked, as though studying lambs awaiting slaughter. Pale arms stretched from the black mud, waving in every direction. The malice that seeped straight into the soul, the curse laid upon life itself, was almost enough to suffocate.
"This is the only salvation you'll get!"
The silver-haired, blood-eyed Daughter of Calamity wore that warped smile on her pretty face. She raised her pale fingers high, and the filthy tide above, like scalding magma, was about to pour down!
Tens of thousands of Greeks, whether displaced or fled here in desperation, cowered in the city's corners and mountain valleys. They watched the mutated horde break through Athens' defenses, and the black tide about to crush them, their eyes filled with hopelessness.
This was probably the end of humanity, the world's final halt.
Hum!
Just then, a solemn, obscure vibration pulsed from the chest of that bewitching witch. A gold-and-black mark woven from serpentine scales was embedded deep into her flesh and soul, sending tearing pain through her.
"Yeah, yeah, I got it. I'm working!"
Pandora's face went white as she slumped weakly atop the statue, baring her teeth as she bit down on her lower lip and muttered in frustration.
In the next moment, with a flick of the witch's fingertips, the red-black mud pouring from the sky swept over the survivors' heads and flooded into every district of Athens.
At once, large swaths of mutated creatures caught in that red-black wave sank as if into a mire, unable to move even an inch.
At the same time, pairs of deathly pale arms pushed up from the black mud, clawing their way out to seize the mutated creatures and drag them down into the abyss, dissolving them bit by bit.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The Giant God Soldiers opened fire, loosing cannon blasts and hurling spears of light that slammed into the mud and the writhing arms beneath their feet.
But again and again, the black mud only scattered. The arms were blown apart, only to be born anew from within, each time more savage than before, hauling the struggling Giant God Soldiers straight into hell.
Roar!
On the verge of collapse, a Giant God Soldier let out a piercing howl. The shockwaves rippled outward, and the dense masses of mutated creatures and Giant God Soldiers outside the city answered the call, surging in like a tide.
At the same time, red-black mud streamed up from fissures in the earth. Bones and corpses along its path were swallowed and melted away, and the swelling flood finally gathered into pools and marshes that radiated limitless hatred and malice, forming a barrier in front of the advancing army.
Pandora slowly opened her eyes. The corners of her lips lifted as she murmured in a low, eerie voice.
The grief of being trampled. The despair of being destroyed. The unwillingness to accept fate. The bitterness toward the ending. The world has given you suffering, so repay it with steel. Wake up, so-called heroes. If the light refuses to acknowledge your existence, then let the darkness grant you the right to burn once more!
In an instant, the black mud boiled and surged. Shadows covered in red-black patterns, reeking of brutality and resentment, condensed into solid forms.
Humans don't just live for hope. They also cling to life out of hatred…
Heroes who died on this land, aren't you unwilling? Aren't you furious? I'll give you the chance to struggle. Your enemies are right in front of you. Go on, take your revenge.
The Daughter of Calamity lounged lazily on the face of the Ophion statue, swinging her jade-carved feet as she smiled with half-lidded eyes. At her command, the shadows and those hollow shells reborn from darkness slammed into the onrushing army head-on, forcibly blunting the monsters' advance.
So we can… keep living…
The humans who had survived the catastrophe embraced each other and wept. Many survivors who finally came to their senses even dropped to their knees before Pandora, thanking the goddess for her protection.
Tch. How dull. Maybe the human species really should just be wiped out…
Pandora glanced at the cheering crowd and yawned, utterly unimpressed.
But then, the malice-filled Daughter of Calamity looked back into the black mud, at the empty shells whose reason and beauty had been burned away by hatred and rage, and her mood immediately improved.
Well, if humanity went extinct, the world would be even more boring…
A wicked smile spread across Pandora's face as she propped her chin on her hand and watched the battle on the sea grow more and more deadlocked.
So struggle harder. Cry out in fear. Beg for mercy.
Taste hope and despair to the very end, and then drown in this sea of suffering. For you, that is the only salvation.
Isn't that right, Father?