Chapter 1 The Howl from Tartarus

The roar from the depths of Tartarus and the powerful pressure, almost solidified into substance, were becoming increasingly violent. Even Hao Ren and Hasse found it hard to bear this level of oppression. Lily reacted for a moment when she heard the name, then remembered who Cronus was: "You're talking about Zeus's old man?"

"Who else could it be?" Hasse's face was expressionless, but the emotions revealed in his one eye were clearly terrible. "The depths of Tartarus are a huge prison. After it was confirmed that this space couldn't be used for much else, Zeus locked his mad giant father in here... That guy is definitely a huge problem!"

As if to echo Hasse's words, the roar from the depths of the earth suddenly exploded again. Immediately afterward, a powerful energy fluctuation shot out from the ground somewhere. A dark red lightning bolt burst out from the collapsed ruins of the Copper Palace, instantly shattering a towering spire in the middle! The collapsing fragments were directly weathered into ashes in mid-air!

Hao Ren was stunned and looked at Hasse in astonishment: "Why is this giant alive? Why did your Holy Crusaders leave this scourge behind when they left?"

Hasse's tone was quite helpless: "Because it was an unnecessary loss—Cronus is imprisoned in the deepest dungeon of the Underworld, and he can't get out at all. Even if we want to kill him, we have to spend a lot of effort to dismantle the cage first, which will seriously affect the rhythm of the entire offensive. Our original plan was just to kill Hades, and then after destroying the Olympus control center, the entire alien space structure, including Olympus and the Underworld, would be torn apart by the space-time storm. At that time, Cronus, who was locked in the cage, would naturally die—you know, in the original 'history', no one came here to wake up the defunct Cerberus, and Cronus didn't run out until the end..."

"Great, this is my fault," Lily said, wrinkling her nose. "How would I know that the three-headed freak would open Cronus's cage... Speaking of which, how did it open the cage? Didn't you say that the cage imprisoning Cronus was very strong?"

"Of course, the prison is very strong, but Cerberus is the prison's watchdog," Hasse said. "And it probably has instructions like 'In the ultimate situation, release Cronus to perish with the enemy.' Our investigation was still... when we attacked here."

Hasse's words were interrupted by an unprecedented earthquake that suddenly swept through the entire Tartarus region.

The majestic Copper Palace shook in the earthquake, and one metal tower after another fell like dominoes. The land on which the Copper Palace was located was groaning in pain. It was the sound of tens of millions of tons of rock being torn, squeezed, and crushed. If viewed from the air, Hao Ren would see that all of Tartarus was splitting apart—starting from Hades' palace, this land floating in the alien space and surrounded by the River Styx had reached its end. A terrifying crack was rapidly extending across the land and touching the border of the Elysian Fields.

This place was no longer safe to stay.

Hao Ren turned his head and glanced at the huge crack in the Wailing Wall and the mechanical tower behind the Wailing Wall connecting Mount Olympus and the Underworld, taking the lead: "Let's go! There's no need to fight Cronus again!"

Everyone immediately reacted. They realized that they were not here to clear a dungeon and fight a boss. Cronus's appearance was just an unexpected epic CG. As a group of historical passers-by with a mission, they didn't need to worry about the Olympian "gods," especially since those "gods" were about to be finished.

Everyone followed behind Hao Ren and broke through the crack in the Wailing Wall.

The foundation of the black mechanical giant tower appeared in front of Hao Ren.

It was a bizarre thing. Hao Ren had never imagined that any space transmission device would look like this: countless rotating metal shafts and constantly exchanging alloy plates formed its huge outer shell. Between those structures, there were rotating structures like gears everywhere. Its principle was a mystery. It was unclear whether it should be considered a magical device or a technological device, but Hao Ren could clearly see that there was a solidified metal structure on the base of the giant tower. All the rotating mechanical parts avoided that place. There was a door-like arched structure there, and it was obviously the entrance.

Hao Ren easily cracked the encryption of this door with some high-tech means—mainly directional blasting and plasma cutting.

He called it physical decryption.

The group entered the giant tower one after another. Almost as soon as they walked into this cylindrical space filled with leaping electric light and seemingly empty, everyone felt the gravity they were subjected to reverse.

They soared into the air, and gravity came from above, making them feel as if they were falling headfirst.

Not long after this "fall" began, through the wide gaps between the constantly moving outer shells of the mechanical giant tower, Hao Ren saw Hades' Copper Palace finally crumble.

It was crumbling, not collapsing—the majestic palace was torn into pieces by a force from below as if it were made of paper. Countless building fragments exploded like fireworks under the impact of powerful energy. The earth cracked open a huge mouth filled with red light, and in the huge mouth, a huge, lava- and lightning-covered palm propped up the ground and crawled out with a terrifying body.

Only a small part of the giant crawled out of the crack. His head and one-third of his upper body were struggling to break free from the earth. The other parts of his body were still bound by many iron chains and light streams. Those things seemed to still be trying to drag him back into the cage. However, even the parts that had been exposed were terrifying enough.

Before this, Muru and Lemendusa were already the largest humanoid creatures in Hao Ren's cognition. The guardian giant's ten-meter-high body was already worthy of the name giant, but Cronus's body was even larger than that.

His head, as if cast from rock and black iron, was already more than ten meters high. If his body proportions were similar to those of a normal humanoid creature, then his total height would be about eighty meters.

This was an amazing monster.

The giant struggled and roared. His huge body was still quite small compared to the entire earth, but the energy gushing out of him was enough to further tear apart the cracks in Tartarus. This giant, who was considered the second-generation god-king in ancient Greek mythology, bumped the earth with his shoulder, and the ground within a few kilometers radius instantly surged like water waves. The chains and rays of light that bound him further broke and fell off.

Hao Ren saw more huge arms emerging from behind Cronus. The owners of these arms climbed, pushed, and followed the increasingly wide cracks in the earth. They emerged from the earth of Tartarus one after another.

They were smaller than Cronus, but equally ferocious and terrifying. The bodies of these giants were like those cast from stone and metal, and there were also many limb deformations like malformed diseases. Some giants had arms of unequal thickness, some giants had tumors on their backs that spewed out hot air like volcanoes, and some giants even had many extra arms out of thin air.

Like a group of monsters crawling out of a horror myth, they broke through the shackles of Tartarus prison and stepped onto the stage at this moment when the mythological era was about to end.

"They are the Titan giants who were imprisoned with Cronus," Hasse took a breath. "These guys have all been released... These deranged guys probably won't stay obediently in place and perish with the Underworld..."

Hao Ren and his party were still rising continuously (or "falling" towards Mount Olympus). At this position, they could easily overlook what was happening on the ground.

The released giants began to rage. Like crazy demons without the ability to think, they violently tore apart the last few pieces of the Copper Palace. Then they swayed in place for a while. Finally, the Titans raised their heads one after another.

Led by Cronus, these ancient giants roared in the direction of Mount Olympus.

Although they seemed to have lost their ability to think normally, this did not mean that some ancient conditioned reflexes and instincts were also lost. After a brief chaos, the giants finally acted: Cronus first crossed the Wailing Wall, which was about to completely collapse, and then suddenly hugged a slowly moving metal plate on the surface of the Underworld Tower with his incomparably huge arms. Then, using both hands and feet, he began to climb this "bridge" connecting Olympus and the Underworld.

The other giants followed suit.

Under the impact of the giants' terrifying power, this complex and delicate "pipeline" was obviously severely interfered with and damaged. Cronus's fingers were stuck between the flowing energy and the rotating parts. The flames and lava flowing out of his body poured into the more precise mechanical gaps. Under such violent destruction, the Underworld Tower let out bursts of overloaded roars and finally began a massive explosion from the bottom up.

The base of the mechanical tower exploded. Countless rotating parts and magic-filled metal plates scattered like fireworks. Flames and lightning flowed through the countless gaps in the tower body and spread rapidly upward from the base.

The giants also seemed to realize this. Their few remaining logical judgment abilities made them speed up their climbing. Below them was the constantly exploding and disintegrating Underworld Tower, and above them was the space rift leading to Mount Olympus. This was a scene that could only be seen in mythology—

The previous generation of "gods" who had escaped from the prison of Tartarus were climbing the tower leading to Mount Olympus, preparing to launch a war of revenge against their descendants.

Even if their descendants had already been defeated in another war.