Reborn As Hades In Olympus

Ch. 53: The New Calamity

Drip. Drip.

"WHAT ARE STORIES...? JUST WORDS ON A BOOK? EMOTIONS CLUSTERED TOGETHER BY LINES OF INK? STORIES ARE A COLLECTION OF LIVES AND HISTORY... BUT WHO DICTATES A STORY'S ENDING?!

A WRITER....? A READER.... ? OR... A GOD!?

A dense, white fog obscured my vision. The ground beneath me felt soft, almost too soft—like I was resting on clouds. I raised my hands. Thin, bony fingers stared back at me, familiar and yet foreign. I was back in my old body. Panic scratched at the edges of my consciousness, but I forced myself to calm my breath.

The cloudy landscape stretched endlessly around me, haunting in its emptiness. Where was he? That meddling bastard...

"I came back here?" I barely recognized the sound of my old voice, hoarse and brittle. I was just leaving the temple of Hermes, the ceremony had just ended, I was looking up at the stars. When did I had zone out. And now, I woke up here. Here of all places, did he summon me or did I awaken myself here?

The feeling of unease still deeply rooted in my heart did not let my thoughts fully settle in place.

But where was he?

A string dangled before me—stretching from my heart, connecting to the black book. I reached out my hand for it, and it landed softly in my palm, the weight heavy with emotions. Pain, regret—they surged through me, overwhelming and oppressive. It was like a living pool of emotions, emotions only I could connect to.

"I guess you've had your fill of the world, too," I murmured to the book.

"Wawawawa, look at what the universe dragged in!" chirped a high-pitched voice. Irritatingly familiar. "You could have knocked ya'know?"

I turnes atlnd gazed at the humanoid figure, painted stark white, grinned mischievously. I still had no knowledge who or what he was only that he knew things I didn't. "It's not like you'll ever get another visitor besides me."

I ignored him and paced around, taking my time to examine my surroundings since I failed to last time.

"Yeowch, sick burn, scholar. Really hit the spot." The Watcher leaned in closer, his exaggerated tone grinding on my nerves. "So what brings you around this parts, change of atmosphere?"

He still hadn't changed one bit...!

I paused, sitting on the fluff-like clouds that was like a bed. "Hermes' death. The man in black. The conspiracy. Was it all because I failed to stop the first calamity?"

The Watcher chuckled, a sharp sound that crawled under my skin. "Let's play a little game, shall we? A game of assumption. Let us assume you had stopped Eris from giving out that golden apple? Would Hermes still have died? Would the Trojan War have been averted?"

I frowned, rubbing my chin. "Are you saying those events would still happen even with my intervention? Are you saying that stopping the calamities are meaningless, or were the calamities even true to begin with?" My voice quivered, anger boiling beneath the surface.

His laughter grated my ears. "Even I had no knowledge of that until you interfered. Let me put it in simpler term. Time, space—they have their own rhythm. Some events are set almost inevitable. Think of it like this: the calamities may not be avoidable because they push the world's story forward.

Trying to stop them... well, let's just say the world resets itself. Fights back to set the balance. The story needs to be convinced enough to change and you my friend was not convincing enough."

My brow furrowed deeper. "What are you getting at?"

The Watcher leaned back and sighed dramatically. "You're supposed to be the genius, right? The chosen one? If you can't figure this out, I'll be sorely disappointed."

Disappointed? The nerve of this guy. But his words tugged at the back of my mind, and unsettling memories surfaced. I had tried to stop the calamity, yet it happened anyway, as if I had knocked the balance off course and the world had corrected itself like an inevitable loop. Since when did Greek mythology get this complicated? "Are the calamities perhaps...

triggers that can't be avoided?"

The Watcher groaned. "Took you long enough. Think of this place— my domain. It exists outside of space and time. Make sense?"

"Sure. Let's pretend it does." I gave a lofty respinsy.

"The calamities are exactly that— set triggers," he continued. "They're unavoidable, yes, but in another sense, no. They're fractions of the bigger picture. Think of them as checkpoints of a story."

My heart sank. "You're saying I can't avoid them, but I can learn from them."

"Bingo!" The Watcher pointed a finger at me, grinning. "Take the golden apple, for instance. You learned a lot from that disaster, didn't you? Every calamity, every ripple, might as well be a piece of a larger puzzle. Perhaps the calamities are there to give you perspective on what to do scholar."

I clenched my fists. "So, you're saying I can prevent the next one by learning from the last?"

The Watcher let out a long, mocking breath. "I'm not saying it's certain, but it's possible. That said, your odds don't look good. You're too weak, too naive— irritating at times. You threw away your most powerful ally you had from the onset due to your conflicting personality— the black book. That was your greatest weapon, and you abandoned it.

Think about how many problems you could've solved if you'd used it. I expected you guys to team up and make a bang."

I bristled. "I don't care."

He cocked an eyebrow, surprised. "Oho!

"I made mistakes, but I've learned from them," I said, rising to my feet, facing him with renewed resolve. "I won't make the same mistake twice."

"Yohoho! Righteous zeal!" he crowed, his voice a mix of delight and mockery. "But I must warn you—the next calamity will be nearly impossible in your current state. Are you up for the challenge?"

An unfamiliar smile spread across my face. "What's the next calamity?" This time I won't miss it, I'll save everyone and stop the circle.

The Watcher leaned in, wagging his finger with a sly grin. "One hint: PANDORA!"

A chill crawled down my spine as realization struck. It could not possibly be, the next calamity was Pandora's Box!! "Interesting."

Pandora's Box— legendary for unleashing the world's evils. Why would the next calamity revolve around that?

Pandora's box was a metaphor for something that brings about great troubles or misfortune, but also holds hope. In Greek mythology, Pandora's box was a gift from the gods to Pandora, the first woman on Earth. Pandora was tempted by her curiosity to open the box which contained all the evils of the world, which she released on humanity. Why would the next calamity be about that?

I racked my brain, searching for meaning. "Could it be about preventing the corruption of humanity? Stopping Pandora from opening the box? If humanity hadn't been corrupted, maybe the Trojan War wouldn't have happened."

The Watcher's grin stretched wider. "Ding, ding! You're catching on. Boy are you good. I'm as curious as you are about where it will lead. But know this— the difficulty level is through the roof." Exclusive content from m,v lem|p,yr

My mind raced. "Pandora was gifted the box after Prometheus stole fire from Zeus. Inside was sickness, death, and every kind of evil. But wait... Zeus sent Pandora after I convinced him not to harm humanity. That means— he went behind my back.

I had totally forgot about that"

The Watcher's expression remained fixed in that same, unsettling smile.

"Hold on, that happened over two hundred years ago when I was in coma!" I shouted. "How can I stop something that's already happened?"

The Watcher's eyes gleamed. "How else? You're going to travel back in time."

"What?" The air left my lungs in a gasp. Time travel? First, rebirth. Now this? "But that's impossible!"

"Not impossible. There are two people who can help you, though I'm not telling you who. Don't want to be a spoilsport." He winked. "Oh, and one more thing—this isn't the second calamity. It's Calamity Zero. The beginning of it all.

Good luck outdoing your first season. I expect to be left at the edge of my seat."

Before I could retort, he gave me a firm shove. I stumbled, losing balance. "Wait! I need more information! Time travel doesn't exist in Greek mythology!"

The ground beneath me vanished, and I fell, crashing into something soft.

My bed.

This was trippy, very trippy.

I shot up, panting, a single word escaping my lips— "Shit."

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