Son of Kaos (PJO Chaos Gacha)

[EntropyEnginear]

Of course MC gives Zoe an Apple, I'm guessing she didn't outright refuse it due to knowing that MC doesn't know what that means.

 

[En-men-lu-ana]

That is... certainly a way to read that exchange, I guess...?

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How am I supposed to take him getting turned on by her being a bitch to him, then? Sure, he gets fed up with it every now and then, but those feel like the bare minimum to showcase that he has a spine.

 

[Bakkughan]

him getting turned on by her being a bitch to him, then?

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Please quote where that happens so I can alter it. As far as I know (and I mean, I am the author), he never reacts positively to her acting bitchy against him.

I definitely think you're reading wayyy too much into this.

 

[En-men-lu-ana]

Please quote where that happens so I can alter it. As far as I know (and I mean, I am the author), he never reacts positively to her acting bitchy against him.

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It's the feeling I get off of them, since she is a bitch and hasn't really hid her disdain of men, and he somehow still fucking finds her hot.

This is also your love of "enemies to lovers" seeing the friction as a plus, if someone treated me like Zoe treats the MC and then confessed, the answer is a hard no.

Does not help that I have high empathy, so when she's being a bitch, I'm constantly thinking "how would I react to her" and "how would I act in her position".

I definitely think you're reading wayyy too much into this.

Click to shrink...

I simply hate Zoe with a passion.

Fucking loathe her for reminding me of a younger, stupider me.

I may not have had her specific hates, but unlike her, I reflected, and fucking grew up.

Zoe is too fucking old to get to use the excuse of "young and dumb".

 

[LipsusIdeus]

I am of the opinion that Orion in any interpretation of the myth got completely fucked by the gods ,if this fanfiction is one of zeus ordered his death ,it will be entertaining see him trying to stop the retrival of the master bolt ,why because without it like in the greek legends he will have a limited amount of lighting strikes by how many Haephaestus can make. And he could fool around with Artemis without them being noticed because Zeus will be focused on the Percy boy. Also it allows him time to find one way to disguise from the divine to continue frolicking with Artemis in the sheets.But if this is one of Apollo did it or Scorpio did it then either the sun will always watch or his deadly foe will want to take him back to his afterlife

 

[Bakkughan]

I am of the opinion that Orion in any interpretation of the myth got completely fucked by the gods

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Oh yeah, dude has got genuine and completely understandeable beef with the Olympians, it's just that he needs the Ophiotaurus to kill it and Ethan cannot let that happen (for additional reasons revealed in later chapters). Unfortunately, considering his role as a hunter and antagonist, it'll only be at the final confrontation between him and Ethan that I can fully reveal the hurt Orion has been put through (and it's a lot), which adds to the drama and conflict for Ethan. Still, over on Patreon we're at chapter 17 right now and said final confrontation is about two or three chapters away still, so Orion's past will remain a mystery for quite a while still...

 

[TwinstarKegare]

It's the feeling I get off of them, since she is a bitch and hasn't really hid her disdain of men, and he somehow still fucking finds her hot.

This is also your love of "enemies to lovers" seeing the friction as a plus, if someone treated me like Zoe treats the MC and then confessed, the answer is a hard no.

Does not help that I have high empathy, so when she's being a bitch, I'm constantly thinking "how would I react to her" and "how would I act in her position".

I simply hate Zoe with a passion.

Fucking loathe her for reminding me of a younger, stupider me.

I may not have had her specific hates, but unlike her, I reflected, and fucking grew up.

Zoe is too fucking old to get to use the excuse of "young and dumb".

Click to shrink...

She is old enough to use the Trauma excuse. Especially if she never got therapy over it, and Artemis seemed to be fanning that flame a bit.

 

[obcorbino2146]

"Very loudly." The Lampad huffed.

A muscle twitched in Zoë's jaw and I decided to intervene before our (overly helpful) source became the first Lampad in history to be strangled with her own torch.

"Go, get out of here. Get out of Chicago entirely if what you've told us is true."

The nymph did not need telling twice. She darted past us, paused long enough beside Arion to glance admiringly at the pickup, then vanished into the nearest patch of shadow with a final whispered promise to tell absolutely nobody about us.

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Damn really I was kind of hoping she'd be around a little bit more I kind of liked her. Would have been funny if the MC started to stay in contact with her just to get more gospel and all that other stuff for new quests. Especially would have been funny if he got a trait that made nymphs find him more attractive and he just wants gospel as she flirts with him would have been funny personally. I don't know I just liked her and hope to see her again.

That is... certainly a way to read that exchange, I guess...?

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I kind of understand what he's going about, she's kind of very cold to him and then he's constantly going on with "oh gorgeous eyes this" "she's gorgeous that" 'she's glaring at me and I can't look at her eyes and makes my stomach shutter" it's doesn't really make sense to me either. It really doesn't make that much sense to me either how you're writing it, she sounds like a bitch but he still talking about nothing more than how hot she is. Eventually gets to a point where someone insults you enough you don't keep thinking they're just hot and ignore it, get annoyed with them and they're attractiveness becomes second to how shitty they are acting.

Like take Game of thrones and cersei for example, yeah she's hot and good looking but most people don't want to just fuck her because they know how fucking insane she is and how much of a bitch she is.
It's kind of the same thing going on here she's been nothing but a bitch and the MC barely talks back to her when she does. And it makes it seem like he gets off to being treated like the way he is, with making all these comments over and over about how pretty she is and how she makes him blush. At some point someone would just be annoyed, they will realize she's still pretty but they get annoyed with their personality, and wouldn't just take it.

I mean you can still have a enemies or frenemies to lovers but I don't think the way you're going about it feels genuine, the guy is already seems obsessed with her, it seems like the only one who's an enemy is her. So I agree with the guy with how the interactions are going it doesn't seem realistic for them to just get into a relationship unless some major changes happen.

 

[Darkatlas]

It's the feeling I get off of them, since she is a bitch and hasn't really hid her disdain of men, and he somehow still fucking finds her hot.

This is also your love of "enemies to lovers" seeing the friction as a plus, if someone treated me like Zoe treats the MC and then confessed, the answer is a hard no.

Does not help that I have high empathy, so when she's being a bitch, I'm constantly thinking "how would I react to her" and "how would I act in her position".

I simply hate Zoe with a passion.

Fucking loathe her for reminding me of a younger, stupider me.

I may not have had her specific hates, but unlike her, I reflected, and fucking grew up.

Zoe is too fucking old to get to use the excuse of "young and dumb".

Click to shrink...

I'm gonna be honest I don't see what your seeing. And there's better ways if saying you dislike the dynamic between Zoe and the MC. If you dislike it that much man just read something else then.

 

[Arrowman]

It's the feeling I get off of them, since she is a bitch and hasn't really hid her disdain of men, and he somehow still fucking finds her hot.

This is also your love of "enemies to lovers" seeing the friction as a plus, if someone treated me like Zoe treats the MC and then confessed, the answer is a hard no.

Does not help that I have high empathy, so when she's being a bitch, I'm constantly thinking "how would I react to her" and "how would I act in her position".

I simply hate Zoe with a passion.

Fucking loathe her for reminding me of a younger, stupider me.

I may not have had her specific hates, but unlike her, I reflected, and fucking grew up.

Zoe is too fucking old to get to use the excuse of "young and dumb".

Click to shrink...

I agree.
Zoe was wronged by one Man and spent the next 3000 years blaming, hating and slighting literally 50% of everything in the cosmos.
She is arrogant, entitled and disrespectful.
The scene with him seeing her in the Throne Room where literal Goddesses were, including Aphrodite, and blurting out his toughts made me cringe.

I hope there is some level of commeuppance rather than her just admiting that he 'is one of the good ones' or 'not that bad'.

 

[Yohnos]

"We face the Bane of the Twin Archers, the greatest male hunter who has ever lived: the giant Orion."

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Meh considering that our MC is kin with primordial it doesn't seem that impressive in comparison.. "That dude biggest ennemies are a rapist and a bitch! "

 

[Shivanshu]

"You should see what it says about some of the others. Not to mention, it's inaccurate. The Earth Mother is my sister. Or half-sister, I'm guessing." I said blithely.

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Her being your mother or sister aren't mutually exclusive. She can be both.

 

[ButterflyD3fect]

Sry, can't help myself (still haven't really read the chapters - stuff like this bothers me) - shouldn't it be Khaos instead of Kaos ?

I essentially almost didn't even click this because the title had such an obvious grammar error.

To be safe I put Kaos into a search engine and the first thing that pops up regarding Kaos is a british TV series followed by othet businesses.

Khaos is the name of the deity.

 

[Bakkughan]

Sry, can't help myself (still haven't really read the chapters - stuff like this bothers me) - shouldn't it be Khaos instead of Kaos ?

I essentially almost didn't even click this because the title had such an obvious grammar error.

To be safe I put Kaos into a search engine and the first thing that pops up regarding Kaos is a british TV series followed by othet businesses.

Khaos is the name of the deity.

Click to shrink...

It's not that you're wrong. Chaos is our current word for the original χάος, and the χ is usually romanized as a 'kh'. It's just that it can be written as Kaos as well. Call it stylistic freedom, rather than an 'obvious grammar error'. You're the first one to point it out, so I haven't really seen a reason to alter it.

 

[Bakkughan]

Chapter 13​

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The words had barely left Zoë's mouth before another scream rang out from inside the lodge.

"Help! Somebody, please!"

It was a boy's voice.

Young enough that the panic stripped away whatever composure he might've had left, his thin voice breaking as something heavy slammed into the front door from outside. The whole frame shuddered. Dust drifted from beneath the eaves and one of the boards covering the nearest window bent inward beneath the weight of a hound throwing itself against it.

I stepped towards the cabin before Zoë caught hold of my sleeve.

"Mister Creed. Ethan!"

There was enough warning in her voice that I stopped, though only because Sirius and the rest of the pack had begun spreading out across the clearing. Two moved towards our left, another pair to the right, each keeping just enough distance from the others that a single charge wouldn't catch more than one. Whatever else they were, they had been trained well. No barking, no wild snapping, no pointless displays beyond the bearing of their teeth and the steady rumble of growls building in their chests as they closed off every route towards the lodge.

"We are outnumbered," Zoë said quietly. "And these are no ordinary beasts."

"I'd gathered." I frowned, trying to keep all the hounds in sight.

"You do not understand," she pressed, her grip tightening when I tried to pull away, "Orion will already be moving. I have hunted him across kingdoms, continents and centuries. He can vanish from beneath the eyes of gods when he wishes it, and every moment we spend here gives him more distance."

From a purely practical perspective, she was making sense. A whole pack of hunting dogs stood between us and the cabin, each large enough to tear apart an ordinary demigod without much difficulty. Their master had already proven capable of disappearing into a forest while leaving barely enough sign for Zoë to follow, and if the prophecy truly referred to Orion as her quarry, then allowing him to get farther ahead could cost us whatever the Fates had sent me north to find.

Unfortunately for practical thinking, someone inside the lodge was crying hard enough that I could hear him choking on every breath.

"We'll catch up." I said grimly and Zoë's expression hardened.

"You cannot know that."

"No. What I do know, is that there's a kid in there."

"There is also a Quest whose failure may carry consequences far beyond one life," she hissed, sounding almost desperate.

The door shook again as claws tore another strip from the wood. The boy screamed, followed by the scrape of something heavy being dragged across the floor on the other side as he tried to reinforce whatever barricade he'd built.

I pulled my sleeve free.

"We're not leaving him." I said, my tone final, some of that same deep, almost animalistic authority creeping into my voice that I'd gained from my [Hanma] Trait as I brazenly took a step forward.

Even when faced with rows of teeth and cruelly glinting eyes, I didn't feel fear, just... anticipation. I didn't know how else to describe it, but my blood was singing as pressure built between my shoulders.

"This is precisely the kind of distraction Orion uses whenever the Huntresses have closed in on him in the past." Zoë stepped in front of me, silver bow held across her body as if she could physically bar my way with it. "He knows his hounds will delay us. He knows thy wouldst involve thyself because some frightened demigod happened to cross thy path."

"Then he knows me pretty well for someone I've never met." I said dismissively as I looked past her and her jaw clenched.

"It is just one boy."

For a second, the clearing seemed to fall quiet. I barely even heard the growling of the pack anymore, or the winds rustling the trees around the clearing. Zoë must've seen something change in my face, because some of the anger left hers almost immediately, though she didn't take the words back.

"Just a boy?" I asked, my voice deep.

"That is not what I—"

"You said 'one boy' like that makes this... acceptable." I said coldly, venom creeping into my tone.

"I said his life must be weighed against what happens if Orion reaches thy quarry first." Zoë pressed.

I stared at her.

There had been plenty about Zoë Nightshade I'd found irritating since we met. Her pride, her certainty, the way every disagreement with me became evidence of some wider defect shared by the entire male half of the species. Most of it had been easy enough to tolerate, even amusing when it wasn't directed at me.

This wasn't.

Whatever had happened to her over the last few thousand years, whatever men had done to earn such simmering hatred, there was a terrified child trapped inside that cabin and she was willing to just… leave him there. My disgust must've shown clearly enough that Zoë recoiled as though I'd struck her.

Before either of us could speak again, Sirius laughed.

It was a low, rough sound that sat awkwardly in the throat of something built to howl rather than talk. The other hounds immediately quietened, their attention shifting towards the massive shaggy beast at the front of the pack.

"My master warned us you might follow," he said.

His voice was deeper than I expected, every word shaped carefully around teeth longer than my fingers.

"He also said the Huntress would know better than to waste her time."

Zoë raised her bow, but Sirius didn't so much as glance at the arrow now pointed between his eyes.

"You have already lost hours," he continued. "Stay, and you will lose more. My master's quarry flees helplessly while you prepare to die for a child who was foolish enough to intervene with Lord Orion's hunting ground."

A muffled sob came from inside the lodge as Sirius' lips peeled back from his teeth.

"Leave now and perhaps you may still catch his scent before nightfall."

I looked at the claw marks covering the door, then at the hounds surrounding it.

"How very generous of you, but you're barking up the wrong tree here, you Gmork-looking motherfucker." I drawled sarcastically and Sirius' lips peeled back in an angry snarl.

"You should reconsider whether you can truly afford to refuse me. I offer you survival."

"Did you give the kid inside the same offer?" I shot back, anger creeping into my voice as the muffled sobs continued softly behind the torn-up door.

The growls returned immediately and Sirius' eyes narrowed with something far too intelligent to belong in an animal's face.

"Careful, little demigod. Do not think we are unaware of who you are, Ethan Creed. Rumours of your battles have already begun to spread. But, rumours are all they are. You killed one young hellhound and mistake yourself for the second coming of Herakles."

"Been hearing a lot about that guy lately, it's beginning to get on my nerves." I frowned and Zoë made a frustrated sound behind me as I dug into my trenchcoat, withdrawing a bottle filled with what looked like the most fluorescent Mountain Dew ever made.

Sirius stepped forward, his paws sinking slightly into the damp earth beneath his weight.

"My master hunts monsters whose names your kind have forgotten. You are prey that has mistaken the absence of teeth around its throat for strength." He threatened as the rest of the pack slowly stalked forward.

My only response to that was to pop the cap off the [Speed Cola] and down it in a single gulp. Chemical lightning surged across my nerves as the world slowed down and came into greater focus. I rolled my shoulders and felt the One-Star Uniform tighten across my back and smiled without humour.

"Let's see if you're Sirius about that."

The massive hound snarled as I exploded into a sprint straight at him, his pack moving as one.

Two hounds lunged from either side before I'd crossed half the clearing, jaws opening wide enough to close around my thigh. [Martial Foresight] caught the movement before they committed, the angle of their shoulders and the sudden drop in their weight sketching out the attacks a fraction of a second before they came.

I changed direction without slowing.

The first set of jaws snapped shut behind my knee. [Kung Fu Mastery] saw me whirl around as I smoothly drove my elbow into the side of the hound's skull as I passed, [Adamantine Fist] carrying the force through bone with a sharp crack that sent it tumbling across the clearing. It wasn't as effective as if I'd struck with my invulnerable knuckles, but the Trait did enhance all unarmed attacks, and with the strength increase of my uniform and the chemically enhanced Hanma blood singing through my veins, that still hurt plenty if the dog's yelp of pain was anything to go by.

A silver arrow hissed past my shoulder almost at the same instant.

It struck the second hound through the loose skin above its foreleg, driving it sideways and ruining its leap before it could reach me. Another arrow followed before the animal had even hit the ground, burying itself in the earth directly ahead of a third hound and forcing it to veer away.

Zoë might've thought the fight was a mistake, but she wasn't going to let me fight it alone.

[Kung Fu Mastery] urged me to keep moving and I hit the next hound before it could recover from the sudden change in formation, my fist slamming into its ribs hard enough to lift all four paws from the ground.

The hound crashed through a rotting stump and disappeared beneath a spray of bark. I was already moving towards the next before the debris had settled, aware of the timer for [Combo] ticking down in the back of my mind, right next to the one for [Speed Cola]. Even with the chemical enhancement to my dexterity, three seconds suddenly felt like an obscenely short amount of time when half a dozen predators were trying to tear me apart.

Fortunately, they were all within punching distance.

The nearest hound tried to retreat as I closed in, but [Effective Activity] turned my hurried step across the uneven clearing into exactly the distance I needed. My boot came down on a patch of firm earth between two exposed roots, letting me drive forwards without losing momentum as I buried a straight punch into the animal's shoulder with 30% more strength.

The increased impact folded its front leg beneath it and sent the hound rolling through the dirt.

I pivoted towards the next target before the invisible timer of [Combo] could finish its count. The hound Zoë had wounded was still trying to find its footing, one foreleg buckling each time it put weight on it. I caught it with a picture perfect uppercut beneath the jaw and [Kung Fu Mastery] showed its effectiveness as the blow snapped its head back and lifted the front half of its body from the ground. Teeth clacked together hard enough to send several chips of enamel spinning through the air.

Sirius remained several yards away, watching.

That was the first real difference between him and the hellhound in Central Park. The creature that had ambushed me there had been little more than hunger wrapped in muscle and shadow. It had attacked because I was close, because I smelled like a demigod and because apparently arriving at Camp Half-Blood without getting mauled first would've been too easy.

Sirius on the other hand, was thinking.

His eyes followed every movement, taking in the arrows falling around his pack, the force behind my blows and the way I kept changing direction before his hounds committed to their attacks. And every time I avoided or countered one of his hounds, Sirius seemed to learn something, piecing things together, looking for an opening.

And judging from the gleam in those too-intelligent eyes, he had just found one.

A bark cut across the clearing and within an instant, the pack's approach had changed. The two hounds still standing near the lodge separated instead of charging, one circling towards my back while the other kept itself directly ahead of me. The wounded animals stopped trying to attack altogether and began harrying me from the edges, snapping at my legs whenever I shifted my weight, harrying my flanks while making sure to protect their own. None stayed within reach long enough for an easy strike, wary of my martial arts skills. They darted close, forced me to turn and withdrew before I could build any rhythm, all of them moving as one.

The timer ticked down.

Three.

I lunged at the hound ahead of me.

It sprang backwards before I could connect.

Two.

Something rushed in behind me. [Martial Foresight] caught the disturbance in the dirt and the change in the growling at my right and [ Kung Fu Mastery] had the perfect counter ready, but recognising an attack and having enough time to answer it were two different things. I twisted as jaws snapped around the loose tail of [Father Garcia's Coat] instead of my thigh, the fabric jerking tight across my shoulders as the hound threw its full weight backwards.

One.

Before I could be dragged to the ground, I drove my heel behind me, but the animal released the coat before the kick landed and the pressure in my arms vanished.

[Combo] had reset.

"Damn it." I muttered in frustration and Sirius' lips pulled back in what looked disturbingly close to a smile.

"They have brought down prey far larger and stronger than you."

"You know, for a male dog, you're sure acting like a little bitch." I taunted and the massive hound snarled in hatred.

The hounds shifted around me in practiced unison. One drew my attention with a feigned charge while another moved low behind my knees, forcing me to step sideways before a third darted in and tore its claws across my calf. The [One-Star Uniform] held, though the force still knocked my leg out from under me and sent me down onto one knee.

They descended immediately, a desperate rush to tear me apart, but before sharpened teeth could close around my neck, a silver arrow struck the earth inches in front of the nearest hound's paw.

The animal recoiled with a yelp as a second arrow clipped its muzzle. A third sailed close enough across the back of another that the silver point sliced through fur and opened a thin line of blood without burying itself.

None of them were fatal shots, despite the Huntress' millennia of skill, though through no fault of her own. Zoë was aiming to kill, but Sirius had already accounted for her.

A pair of the smaller, nimbler hounds had peeled away from the main pack and shot into the treeline after her, moving with a speed that made them more shadow than flesh. They didn't charge so much as flow through the undergrowth, forcing her to abandon her firing line entirely.

A silver arrow dropped one of them mid-leap, pinning it to a trunk with a wet crack, but the other was already on her.

Zoë clicked her tongue, pivoted on the balls of her feet, and sprang upward as the hound snapped at her heel. Her boot hit the nearest tree trunk, then another, and she was gone into the canopy in a blur of controlled motion, leaping from tree to tree along the outer edge of the clearing.

The hound followed even as Zoë tried to support me from the swaying treetops.

Every arrow forced a hound to turn its head, change its footing or abandon the route it had been given. Against ordinary animals, that might've achieved little beyond confusing and enraging them. Against a pack whose entire advantage relied on acting like six parts of the same body, those tiny disruptions were the equivalent of replacing every third step in a staircase with a rake.

I shoved myself upright and caught the hound nearest me with a perfect rising hook before it could recover.

Its skull snapped sideways and I relentlessly followed it as it staggered, putting a second punch into the same spot before it could escape, [Combo] once again rising.

A hound rushed from the left. Zoë's arrow buried itself beside its front paw and turned a coordinated flank into an awkward sideways leap. I met it halfway with my shoulder, knocking it into the animal I'd already struck, then hammered a fist down between the first hound's shoulder blades.

The ground cracked beneath its chest.

I didn't wait to see whether it got back up. Three seconds didn't allow much time to admire my handiwork. I stepped across its body, seized the second hound by a fistful of coarse fur and punched it straight across the clearing with ever increasing strength.

That finally brought Sirius forwards.

He covered the distance with frightening speed, his size doing nothing to slow him down as he tore across the clearing in three enormous bounds. [Martial Foresight] warned me of the direct charge and thanks to [Kung Fu Mastery] I shifted smoothly to the side, already preparing to strike the moment he passed.

Sirius almost seemed to change direction mid-leap.

One forepaw struck my chest with enough force to tear me from the ground. I flew backwards, hit the side of the lodge and felt several logs crack behind me before dropping into the dirt.

Thankfully the pressure from [Combo] remained, for now.

Sirius landed where I'd been standing and immediately wheeled around. He hadn't committed his full weight to the first attack. It had been another feint, one aimed at learning how quickly I could adjust rather than tearing my throat out.

To the ancient hound's surprise, he found me already moving. The blow had been powerful, but I had pushed through harder hits, from overweight cyclopses and ancient bandit kings alike.

'I can deal with a mutt like you.' I mentally growled as I forced the pain aside.

I crossed the space between us before the three seconds expired, spurred on my the [Speed Cola] in my veins and drove my fist into his chest. The blow landed with enough force to stop his advance dead in its tracks.

For the first time since the fight began, Sirius looked surprised.

It lasted less than a heartbeat. He recovered quickly, twisting his body and raking one enormous paw towards my head. [Martial Foresight] showed me the path of the claws, while [Effective Activity] found the only movement that let me avoid them without surrendering my position. I dipped beneath the swipe, stepped inside the reach of his forelegs and struck him thrice along the ribs, light but fast, rapid strikes that wouldn't have been out of place in an Ip Man movie.

Even though they were only glancing blows, [Combo] ensured that each hit carried more force than the last. I felt something give beneath the third, though Sirius absorbed the damage with little more than a grunt before slamming the side of his head into my shoulder. It was an awkward blow, but even so his sheer size and overwhelming strength still meant the impact sent me stumbling away as the rest of his pack closed in again.

They had learned too.

The hounds no longer tried to drag me down one at a time. Two rushed together, one high and the other low, while a third waited behind them for whichever direction I chose to dodge. I slipped past the first set of jaws, only for the second hound to crash into my knees and knock me off balance. The third went for my throat.

An arrow punched clean through its open mouth.

The silver point emerged from the back of its skull in a spray of black blood before the shaft carried the animal sideways and pinned it to the cabin wall.

The pack hesitated.

Zoë stood at the edge of the clearing with another arrow already nocked, her earlier frustration nowhere to be seen beneath the cold focus carved across her features. The twin dogs that had hounded ('heh') her steps were nowhere to be seen, though judging by the tears in her silver parka and the way she was very clearly favouring one leg, they hadn't gone without a fight.

Enraged at the toll Zoë and I had claimed from his pack, Sirius barked again and the hounds recovered, though the loss of several of their brethren had left a hole in their formation. One rushed too early, while another tried to compensate and crossed directly into its path. Their shoulders collided for only a fraction of a second, but [Effective Activity] turned that fraction into an opening.

I struck the first beneath the ribs, while my next punch caught the second across the muzzle.

Slowly but surely, as the pack was forced to keep up the pressure and expose themselves to counters, [Combo] began climbing again. The hounds that had shrugged off my opening strikes now folded beneath impacts they could no longer absorb.

Sirius saw it too.

His orders came faster, sharp barks and low growls sending the surviving pack in and out around me in carefully controlled waves. They kept their distance whenever I turned towards them, then rushed my back the moment I threatened Sirius. He was using them to deny me a stable target, sacrificing their safety whenever necessary to keep my attention divided.

A hound caught the back of my coat and pulled.

Thanks to [Kung Fu Mastery] I turned with the force instead of fighting it, letting the movement carry my fist across its jaw even as I stumbled over the forest floor, down for the count if [Nature's Embrace] hadn't conveniently firmed the ground beneath my feet and moved upturned roots out of the way in the nick of time.

Another attacked my exposed side. An arrow forced it to duck, and my knee met its skull on the way down.

Sirius charged through the confusion, his muzzle low and his shoulders bunched. This time I recognised the slight angle of his approach. He wanted me to dodge right, towards the hound already waiting behind me.

I went left.

His jaws snapped shut close enough to my face that the rush of displaced air struck my cheek. I caught him beneath the chin with an uppercut that drove his front paws clear of the ground.

Sirius crashed down on his side, rolled once and regained his footing before I could follow. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth. His scarred muzzle twisted as he worked his jaw and spat one broken fang into the dirt.

"You have grown beyond what the rumours claimed about you," he admitted.

"Been a productive couple of days." I admitted blithely, bouncing on the balls of my feet as [Nature's Embrace] made sure my energy kept replenishing (or that could just be the jitters of the [Speed Cola] at work come to think of it).

Across from me, the pack leader stilled.

"A couple—"

I punched him before he could finish.

Sirius staggered, less from the damage than the sheer insult of being interrupted. I pursued him across the clearing, my blessings making sure each step landed cleanly despite the torn earth and scattered debris. He tried to circle away, but [Effective Activity] placed me exactly where his retreat ended. My next punch sank into his shoulder with 90% increased strength and I could feel something pop out of place underneath my unyielding knuckles.

His paw lashed across my chest, tearing through the front of Father Garcia's coat and sending me spinning, pain like red-hot fire lancing out until it almost seemed like it covered my whole torso. I caught myself before falling and used my momentum to drive a blind panicked backfist into the side of his head.

The surviving hounds rushed in together.

Zoë's bowstring sounded three times in such rapid succession that the separate notes blurred together. One arrow struck a hound through the paw and nailed it to the earth. Another buried itself in the ground at a steep angle, forcing the next animal to break its stride or impale itself on the feathered shaft. The third caught the collar of the final hound and tore it sideways into a tree.

The pack's timing collapsed and Sirius was suddenly alone with me.

His eyes flicked towards Zoë, then towards the cabin as he worked through the situation with impressive speed. He could no longer keep me occupied without taking the blows himself, and every hit I landed made the next one worse. His breathing had changed. Each inhale dragged wetly through his throat, while one foreleg no longer took his full weight. Despite that, the look he fixed on me held no fear.

He suddenly attacked, trying to end the fight before I could land another hit, moving faster than before as he leapt towards me in a final, desperate charge that took me off guard.

"Ethan!"

There were no more feints now. No testing movement or order barked to the pack. He threw everything into the attack, every ounce of his considerable weight driving straight towards me as his jaws opened wide enough to take my head and half my shoulders with it.

[Martial Foresight] laid out the options within a split second; move left and his shoulder would catch me. Move right and his forepaw would tear through my stomach. Move backwards and the speed of the charge would carry him through me before I found stable footing.

In short, he had managed to lunge at me in such a way, cutting off my options so there was no good spot to move to... so I didn't.

Sirius' eyes widened a fraction as the distance vanished between us and instead of dodging I raised both hands.

His jaws closed around them.

My left hand caught the upper jaw behind the fangs while my right seized the lower, [Adamantine Fist] turning flesh and bone that should've instantly been torn apart into something his teeth couldn't damage. The impact still drove me backwards, my boots carving two trenches through the clearing as Sirius pushed with enough force to bend my arms towards my (very much squishy not-Adamantine) face.

His breath washed over me, hot and foul with blood.

Muscles bunched across his neck and shoulders as he tried to crush my grip. The surviving hounds barked wildly from the edge of the clearing, while somewhere behind me Zoë shouted something I couldn't make out over the grinding of teeth against my hands.

The pressure from [Combo] burned through both arms, all 110% of it.

I planted my feet as Sirius pushed harder.

The ground shifted beneath my boots, loose earth giving way until [Effective Activity] and [Nature's Embrace] found something firmer below. My heels struck buried roots, thick enough to brace against without snapping, and the retreat stopped.

For the first time, Sirius couldn't move me. His eyes met mine across the length of his own muzzle and whatever he saw there finally replaced calculation with fear.

I tightened my grip, the thrumming of the blood in my ears overwhelming now, deafening me to all else. Zoë was shouting something, the dogs were howling and barking, even the Gmork-lookalike caught in my invulnerable grip seemingly tried to growl something, but I didn't hear any of it.

There was just the thrumming of my blood and a weird, building pressure across my shoulders and back. Something felt weird on my face and to my own surprise, even staring down this massive creature's gullet, I realized I was grinning.

My grip tightened, the pressure between my shoulders built. The hound's upper jaw resisted. The lower twisted beneath my right hand as Sirius thrashed his head, claws tearing long trenches through the dirt in a desperate attempt to wrench himself free. His teeth scraped uselessly across my knuckles.

"Should've taken your own offer," I growled through clenched teeth before I pulled with all of my might.

Sirius screamed.

The sound came out warped by the hands forcing his mouth farther open, shifting rapidly from a snarl into a high, panicked noise that bore no resemblance to the composed voice that had mocked us minutes earlier. Tendons stood out beneath the fur along his jaw. Bone creaked. The scarred corners of his mouth split first, black blood pouring over my wrists as the magical fibres in my [One Star Uniform] fuelled my [Hanma] enhanced muscles and with a roar I forced the two halves apart.

His front claws raked across my already torn-up chest, hot pain lancing through me as I roared louder and pulled harder.

The jaw broke with a wet crack.

Momentum carried my arms apart as the lower half tore free, ripping through muscle and flesh until Sirius' body split open beneath the muzzle. The force of it threw blood across the clearing and sent both halves crashing into the dirt on either side of me.

For several seconds, nothing moved.

I remained standing between the pieces, chest heaving as black blood ran from my hands and dripped from the ends of my fingers. The pressure of [Combo] vanished now that there was nothing left to hit, leaving behind a deep ache through both shoulders and a whole lot of dog blood. The surviving hounds stared at the remains of Sirius, which thankfully were already beginning to disintegrate. One moved and my wide eyes snapped towards it, halting it dead in its tracks as it gave a small, frightened whine. Zoë raised her bow again and that settled it.

The pack broke as one, turning tail and vanishing into the wilderness with considerably less discipline than they had shown entering the fight. Branches snapped and undergrowth thrashed in their wake until even those sounds faded deeper into the forest.

I watched the trees for several seconds to make sure they weren't circling back, then looked down as what remained of Sirius dissipated into golden dust, hands on my knees as I panted, desperate to get some air back into my struggling lungs.

"Guess you weren't." I chuckled weakly as I recalled my lame pun from the start of the fight, before I groaned as golden sparks burst right in front of my eyes, the scroll unfurling with cheery bravado.

[KILL CONFIRMED: SIRIUS, HOUND OF ORION]

[Combat Achievement Recognized]
[Named Villain Defeated]
[Hound of Orion Slain]
[Victory Achieved Through Unarmed Combat]
[Additional Recognition Recorded]
[Reward: Silver Skill Drachma ×1]

[HEROIC ACHIEVEMENT RECOGNIZED]

[Selflessly Saved a Demigod, Despite Risks to Self and Quest]
[Demigods Saved: 4/10]
[Reward: Bronze Ability Drachma x1]

[Rewards Dispensing]

"Oh not now." I grunted irritably as I waved the parchment away.

It almost seemed to... pout as a silver and bronze drachma fell into my hand and it furled itself up again with a snap.

"Ethan! Ethan, are you all right?" Zoë asked as she hurried over, but something ugly settled in my stomach as I looked at her and I pulled away from her ever so slightly as she got close, letting the coins fall into my pocket.

The movement was small, but noticeable enough that it halted her dead in her tracks.

"Ethan, I... that was... very brave of thee." She said haltingly, her hand falling to her side as she looked away from me.

"Let's just check on the 'boy', shall we." I said as I caught my breath.

Despite the animalistic growl slowly ebbing away from my voice the Huntress still flinched at my tone as I turned away from her.

The lodge door had survived the fight, though only in the loosest possible sense. Long strips of wood had been peeled away by Sirius' pack, leaving gouges deep enough that daylight shone through in several places, while the entire frame leaned inward beneath the accumulated damage. Whatever the kid had dragged against it from inside was apparently still holding, because my first knock produced a startled scrape followed by the unmistakable sound of someone trying very hard to stop breathing.

"It's all right," I called, forcing some of the strain from my voice. "The dogs are gone."

Nothing happened.

I glanced back at the clearing, where the last traces of golden dust were disappearing between the roots, then knocked again with considerably less force than I'd used on Sirius.

"We're demigods. We heard you screaming."

There was another scrape from the other side, followed by several seconds of silence before a frightened voice finally answered.

"How do I know you're not with them?"

"Because their leader is currently scattered across most of the front garden."

Zoë shot me a look.

"What? He asked." I shrugged.

Something shifted behind the door. A length of furniture dragged slowly across the floor, accompanied by repeated pauses whenever the boy apparently stopped to listen for movement outside. The damaged door eventually opened a few inches before catching against whatever remained of the barricade.

A single terrified eye appeared in the gap.

It travelled over me first, lingering on the black blood covering my hands and the tears Sirius' claws had carved through [Father Garcia's Coat], before shifting towards Zoë and the silver bow still held at her side. The boy looked ready to slam the door closed again until he glanced past us and saw the empty clearing.

"No dogs?" he whispered.

"No dogs," I assured him.

The door opened a little wider and we got our first good look at the kid we'd saved.

He couldn't have been older than eleven. Mud covered most of his clothes, his dark hair was plastered against his forehead with sweat and several thin scratches crossed one cheek where branches had caught him during his escape. He held a hunting knife in both hands, though the blade shook badly enough that he was in considerably greater danger of cutting himself than either of us.

For a moment he simply stared, before the knife slipped from his fingers and he threw himself at me.

I barely managed to brace before his arms locked around my waist. The impact drove an involuntary grunt from me as every cut and bruise Sirius had left behind immediately flared up with a vengeance, but I swallowed it as I sunk to a knee and wrapped one arm around the kid's shoulders.

"You came," he sobbed into my chest. "I kept s-shouting, but I d-didn't think anyone was c-coming. I t-thought they were g-going to get through. T-they almost got through."

"You're safe now," I said in a soft voice, resting a hand against the back of his head. "They're gone."

He just clung tighter.

The kid clung to me tightly enough that I wasn't going anywhere until he was done crying his little heart out. I let him. After being hunted through a forest by half a dozen monsters and trapped inside a lodge while they slowly dismantled the walls around him, he'd earned the right to lose his composure for a while.

Zoë stood several paces away, visibly uncertain what to do with herself. Her bow had been returned to the quiver at her back, leaving both hands unoccupied and apparently without any approved purpose. She looked from the boy to me, shifted her weight and eventually lowered her gaze towards the ruined doorstep as though it had personally insulted her woodworking sensibilities.

The boy finally pulled away from me, wiping his nose across one sleeve as he struggled to bring his breathing under control. His eyes found Zoë again.

"D-did you come to s-save me too?"

Startled, Zoë's gaze briefly flicked towards me.

"I... assisted."

That seemed to be enough for him. Before Zoë could react, he crossed the distance between them and wrapped both arms around her waist.

The Huntress froze.

Her entire body went rigid, arms held awkwardly away from her sides while she stared down at the small boy clinging to her parka. From the expression on her face, he might as well have handed her a live explosive and asked her to guess which wire to cut.

I would've found it considerably funnier under different circumstances.

Slowly, with all the confidence of someone approaching a wild animal she didn't wish to startle, Zoë lowered one hand and placed it between his shoulders.

"There is no longer any danger," she said formally.

The reassurance came out stiffly, though the boy didn't seem to mind. He squeezed her once before stepping back, leaving Zoë staring at the damp patch his face had left on the front of her parka with a troubled look on her face.

I crouched to retrieve the boy's knife, wincing as I did, before I wiped the dirt from the blade against my trousers and offered it back to him hilt-first.

"What's your name?"

"D-daniel," he said, accepting it with both hands. His voice still shook, though the immediate panic had begun to fade. "Daniel Mercer."

"I'm Ethan. That's Zoë."

"You're one of Artemis' Hunters, right?" the kid said as some of the fear left him, quickly replaced with growing awe.

"You know of my Sisters?" Zoë raised an eyebrow and Daniel looked faintly embarrassed.

"Y-yeah. My satyr told me about them."

"Where is your satyr?" I asked and the boy's face crumpled slightly.

"We were near Duluth when I… lost him. There were monsters everywhere at first, then they all started running away. He said that should've been a good thing, but it just scared him more. He went to find out what was happening and.. never c-came back."

Zoë and I exchanged a look.

"How long hast thou been alone?" she asked.

"F-four days. Maybe five?"

"And thou continued travelling through these woods?"

Daniel nodded, staring down at the knife in his hands.

"I'm good in the woods. Mr. Felix says it might be because of my mom. He thinks she could be some kind of nymph." Daniel rubbed at his face. "So when I lost him near town, I thought... I thought I could find him out here. Or reach one of the safe houses. He showed me where some of them were on the map, but they were empty too."

I straightened with another quiet protest from the cuts lining my chest.

"How did you end up here?"

"I heard something yesterday morning. Trees breaking and this... crying sound. It was really deep, but it still sounded like crying." Daniel rubbed at his face again, leaving a streak of dirt across one cheek. "I thought it might be somebody hurt."

Zoë's attention sharpened.

"What didst thou find?"

"A monster."

The boy hesitated, clearly aware that "monster" didn't exactly narrow things down for us.

"It was huge. The front half looked like a bull, only bigger than any bull I've ever seen. The rest of it was this enormous snake, with really pretty scales all the way down. It had been hurt really badly. There were cuts across its sides and one of its horns was broken."

"It can't be... The Ophiotaurus," Zoë said with a quiet gasp, her eyes going wide but the kid shrugged helplessly.

"I dunno, sounds scary." He swallowed. "But it wasn't scary when I saw it. It just looked tired. And sad."

"You approached it?" Zoë asked sharply as she half stepped towards the boy.

The kid's eyes widened at her sudden intensity and I shot the Huntress a reproachful look. Oddly, where the day before she'd have challenged me, now she winced and pulled back a little.

"I thought it needed help." Daniel said somewhat defensively.

There was no boast in the answer. From the way Daniel said it, moving closer to a wounded monster several dozen times his own size had simply seemed like the obvious thing to do.

'I can see why his Satyr figured the kid's mom was a nymph... unless he misunderstood him, Satyrs are notoriously horny after all... better not to think about that. Bad Ethan, bad!'

"What happened then?" I asked instead as I let nothing of my thoughts show on my face.

"I heard something in the forest." the kid muttered, a haunted tone creeping into his voice as his fingers tightened around the knife.

"The bull-snake heard it too. It was shaking. Like, really shaking. Its whole tail kept rattling against the rocks. Then it tried to get up, but one of its legs wouldn't work properly. I didn't think something that big could even look that scared."

"So you went to investigate," I surmised.

Daniel nodded.

"I wanted to know what was coming before it reached the monster. I thought maybe I could warn it."

Zoë studied him with an expression I couldn't quite read.

"Thou heard the hunter before he intended to be heard?"

"I heard his dogs first. Their paws were really quiet, but there were too many of them. And there was something else moving behind them."

"Thy senses are unusually keen," she admitted. The words sounded as though they'd been dragged from her. "Orion and his hounds have approached prey beneath the notice of beings far older and more experienced than thee."

At the giant's name, Daniel went pale.

"He was huge," he whispered. "I thought he was just a really big tree until he moved. He had this huge bow across his back and his eyes weren't... normal. They looked like those night-vision goggles, like a sniper or something. Then I looked around and there were dogs everywhere."

He stared past us into the clearing, though I doubted he was seeing the lodge anymore.

"Orion walked right up and picked me off the ground with one hand. Just grabbed the front of my jacket and lifted me until my feet were hanging..." Daniel raised one shaking hand well above his head, indicating a height that would've placed him several metres above the ground. "He asked where the bull-snake, the Ophiotaurus I guess, had gone."

"What did you tell him?" I asked.

"The wrong way."

Zoë's eyebrows rose and Daniel looked down at his muddy shoes.

"I pointed east. There was another trail near the water where something had moved through the reeds earlier, so I told him the monster went that way. I thought if he followed it, the Ophiotaurus would have more time to get away."

"Thou knowingly lied to Orion while he held thee aloft in one hand?," Zoë said.

The boy gave a tiny nod.

"That was... very courageous of thee." the Huntress admitted to my surprise, but she looked away with red dusting her cheek when I glanced at her.

"What did Orion do after that?" I asked, focusing on the small child again.

"He dropped me."

The bluntness of the answer made my jaw tighten.

"He didn't throw me or anything. He just opened his hand and walked away. I landed badly, but I don't think anything broke." Daniel shifted his weight, revealing the slight limp I hadn't noticed while he'd been clinging to me. "Then he and the dogs went east."

"And you ran," I said.

"As soon as I could stand."

Apparently Daniel had barely made it a mile before the first howl rolled through the woods behind him. A second answered from farther south, then another from somewhere ahead. By then Orion had clearly reached the false trail and discovered that an eleven-year-old had deliberately sent him in the opposite direction.

The dogs hadn't caught Daniel immediately; no, that would've been too easy. Less fun.

They kept themselves just close enough for him to hear them moving through the forest, occasionally appearing between the trees before vanishing again whenever he changed direction. Each time he slowed, barking erupted behind him. Each time he tried to hide, one of them scratched at the other side of whatever cover he'd chosen until panic forced him back into the open.

"They were p-playing with me," Daniel said, his voice breaking again. "S-sirius kept t-talking. He s-said I s-should run faster. He s-said Lord Orion would be d-disappointed if they b-brought back a c-coward."

He'd reached the lodge shortly before sunset and managed to force his way inside through a broken rear window. The furniture had bought him time, though the pack spent most of the night circling the walls, dragging their claws across the timber and testing every entrance. By morning they had begun tearing the building apart in earnest.

"They could've come through s-sooner," Daniel admitted as fresh tears rolled down his face. "I think they wanted me to know they were g-going to. S-sirius kept saying they'd wait until dark because f-fear made the m-meat taste b-better."

His attempt to repeat the words without crying failed. He covered his face with both hands, shoulders shaking as several days of exhaustion and terror finally caught up with him. I pulled him against my chest again and let him sob into what remained of Father Garcia's coat.

"... you smell nice." The kid eventually managed to mutter in a small voice and I couldn't help but laugh.

"So I've been told, yeah. Comes in handy more often than you'd think." I said with a grin as I rubbed slow circles in the kid's back.

Neither Zoë nor I spoke for a while, until eventually she stepped closer, something awkward in her stance but there was a determined set to her jaw nonetheless.

"You were right."

I looked at her over Daniel's head, surprised at the admission (and the occasional slip in her archaic speech). She met my eyes, though the effort clearly cost her.

"Had we abandoned him, we would have lost more than an innocent life. Daniel has identified the creature named in the prophecy and brought it precious time. It has been sought after for millennia; it knows well how to hide, if given the chance. The Ophiotaurus may already have escaped the Great Lakes while Orion is forced to recover its trail."

The reasoning was still practical, because that was evidently the language Zoë trusted most when admitting fault, but her gaze dropped towards the boy in my arms before she continued.

"Even without that knowledge, leaving him would have been wrong."

Daniel slowly pulled away from me as Zoë crouched in front of him, bringing herself closer to his height.

"Thou have stood against Orion while alone and unarmed, then deceived him despite knowing what discovery might cost thee. Many trained Hunters would struggle to display such courage."

Daniel sniffed.

"Really?"

"I do not offer empty praise." she said firmly and the boy managed a shaky smile.

Zoë looked towards me, almost cautiously, searching my face for some indication that the admission had been enough. The hard knot in my stomach hadn't disappeared, and I doubted I'd forget the ease with which she'd dismissed Daniel any time soon, but the apology was there beneath the rigid phrasing and uncomfortable posture.

I gave her a small nod and some tension left her shoulders.

Daniel wiped his face and tried to stand straighter, though exhaustion had begun dragging at him now that the immediate danger was gone. His knees wobbled and I caught him by the shoulder before he could fall.

"Easy."

"I can walk." He said, somewhat stubbornly.

"I'm sure you can. You're still coming with us."

He looked from Zoë to me.

"Where?"

"Back to civilisation first," I said. "I need to get Arion back on an actual proper road anyways if we want to beat Orion west. There should still be a hideout or waystation somewhere further south of here that his hunt never reached. Camp Half-Blood is all the way back East, past New York, and we can't abandon the Quest to escort you there ourselves. But we can get you out of these woods at least."

Daniel's grip tightened around the sleeve of my coat.

"Can we look for my satyr?"

The question landed heavily between us as Zoë and I shared a knowing glance.

"We'll keep an eye out along the way," I promised. "And once we find somewhere safe, we'll send word to Camp. If he's still anywhere in the region, they'll search for him."

It wasn't the guarantee Daniel wanted, but he nodded and leaned a little more of his weight against me.

Zoë moved to his other side without being asked and together, we guided him away from the lodge and back towards Arion, leaving the ruined cabin, the clawed door and the last traces of Sirius' golden dust behind us in the clearing.

The Huntress remained silent for a long moment as we moved along the trees, before shooting me a considering look from the corner of her eye.

"... you do smell nice." She confessed, her voice low enough to almost be a whisper.

Somehow, the simple admission did a lot to untie the knot that had been sitting heavily in my stomach and with a small smile I guided the demigod we'd saved back to safety.

---

AN: IMPORTANT NOTICE. After deliberating on it with some of my Patrons and readers, as well as writing several chapters for another HP Chaos Gacha fic that I hope to release soon, I came to the conclusion that so far, two rewards have been subpar. The Silver Ability reward for breaking Dionysus' nose and the Silver Trait reward for surviving a Deletion attempt from the Fates themselves. I have decided to turn the Silver Ability into a Golden Skill, which became:

[Kung Fu Mastery]
|Elite Skill|
You are a master of all forms of Chinese martial arts, from the flowing grace of Tai Chi to the explosive power of Shaolin. Your body moves with decades of internalized practice, and you can switch between styles mid-combat to counter any opponent.

I turned the Silver Trait into a Platinum Trait, which became:

[Hanma]
|Rare Trait|
Baki - You are a Hanma, you are incredibly genetically gifted, possessing increased resistance to poisons and your physical stats grow way faster. In addition, you have so much testosterone in you, any other men may as well be a girl in comparison. Your talent in martial arts is also greatly increased. If you are female the same effects apply without the testosterone, you are just a genetically gifted freak.

I am not letting the Trait change Ethan's personality though, he's not going to act like a Hanma except (as shown in this battle) in the heat of battle. I'm not bringing in some of the weirder parts of the Baki manga.

You can read up to 5 chapters ahead over on my Patreon

 

[shadyshadow_1776]

Damn his pugelist build is going to be insane now

 

[ButterflyD3fect]

It's not that you're wrong. Chaos is our current word for the original χάος, and the χ is usually romanized as a 'kh'. It's just that it can be written as Kaos as well. Call it stylistic freedom, rather than an 'obvious grammar error'. You're the first one to point it out, so I haven't really seen a reason to alter it.

Click to shrink...

Not a linguist, but for what's it worth, from looking it up and general reading, I've never once seen it reffered to that way.
It's so foreign to me I considered it a typo.
That's all really...

 

[h_mon]

Let's fucking go, time for some FATE Bajiquan style.

 

[TwinstarKegare]

Let's fucking go, time for some FATE Bajiquan style.

Click to shrink...

That but I am gonna hope he get a legendary soon,I want to see him get this skill:

[Renewal Taekwondo]
|Legendary Skill|
God of Highschool - A specialized form of Taekwondo specializing in strong linear kicks like regular Taekwondo, it initially resembles simply a more refined and powerful Taekwondo style. The true power is only revealed when the user achieves Recoilless by mastering it, allowing them to focus all of their energy on their perfected strikes to unleash devastating effects.

 

[aokway]

Recoilless

Click to shrink...

Recoilless really is my favorite fictional technique
It's literally just asking the question "what if we take the equal and opposite reaction then add the opposite to the equal one via extreme skill"
This then makes another opposite reaction as strong as the new equal reaction that you then add to the equal reaction
Rinse repeat until space gets unhappy in ways that aren't conductive to things existing and physics doesn't allow you to double it anymore(yes, this is exponential growth with reality as the cap)
Also causing you no recoil because there literally isn't the opposite reaction anymore
Also
Recoilless is limited to just renewal taekwondo
You can apply it to anything once you figure it out

It's just that renewal taekwondo is made by a madman and so self destructive that the only way to improve after a certain point was to literally beat up physics

Yeah
Remember when gramps broke that sword during the cult ambush?(for those that watched it)
The reason he could do that is he didn't break the sword
He simply beat the shit out of the space that sword occupied so hard the sword broke from the second-hand aftershocks
Yeah there's a reason they considered him for the position of god of war
He's just that good

 

[SpiritFoxAlf]

You(and most people who use chaos gacha) should work on integrating the stuff he gets in better instead of just saying "this skill/ability did this" in the middle of the action like with Kung Fu and all the different techniques that come with it.

 

[obcorbino2146]

Well, because it easily sets up the enemies-to-lovers trope which just so happens to be my personal preferred romance set up I guess? (Well that and she's hot. Think Inde Navarette mixed with prime Cameron Diaz when she was a brunette for a little while)

Spoiler: Zoe (kinda)

EDIT: I know, understand and agree with every single criticism against the use of AI, but fact of the matter simply is that I'm a barely decent drawer at best and this best conveys how I picture these characters when writing. Considering they're the main character and his current sidekick, it felt important enough to visualize.

Spoiler: EDIT: Ethan and Zoe together

I can't tell if you're talking about him in the Greek myths, in the Riordan verse or in the Type Moon lore. But yeah, for one of the "good" giants he got a raw deal

Click to shrink...

You know you should probably put these pictures in an extra section so people can see them better.


---

It's good to know that he's not bending down backwards for her on this. I'm glad he actually called her out on this crap it felt like he was just allowing her to get away for a lot of crap for their journey like her massive attitude. Good to know he's finally standing up for what he believes and not just thinking instantly oh wow she's hot even while she's being a b!tch.

 

[Bakkughan]

You(and most people who use chaos gacha) should work on integrating the stuff he gets in better instead of just saying "this skill/ability did this" in the middle of the action like with Kung Fu and all the different techniques that come with it.

Click to shrink...

I experimented with not mentioning them at all during the battle, but that felt off, considering half the fun of the gacha is the rewards, no? If there's some golden middle way, I'm glad to hear it.

 

[SpiritFoxAlf]

I experimented with not mentioning them at all during the battle, but that felt off, considering half the fun of the gacha is the rewards, no? If there's some golden middle way, I'm glad to hear it.

Click to shrink...

Certain perks are fine especially when they are a single individual thing but perks that encompass so many things like Kung Fu and Perks that are obviously being used they should be described like they are being used rather than just telling use they are being used. The way you use combo is good though since you have to keep track of it and adamantine fist is fine but most of the others are ruff.

 

[Bakkughan]

CHAPTER 14​

​

---

The walk back towards Arion was considerably slower than the journey out had been.

Daniel had insisted he could walk, and for the first half-mile or so he'd even done a reasonably convincing job of proving it. The problem was that the kid had spent four or five days alone in the wilderness, had barely eaten, been dropped several metres onto the ground by Orion and then chased through the forest by a pack of hounds that had spent the better part of a night deliberately terrifying him. Adrenaline had apparently been responsible for most of what was keeping him upright, and now that Sirius was dead and the immediate danger had passed, it was abandoning him with remarkable speed.

His limp grew steadily worse as we made our way through the trees. Twice I caught him when his injured leg buckled beneath him, and after the third time I simply crouched down in front of him.

"Come on."

"I can still walk." Daniel protested faintly, though the fact that he was already leaning against a tree somewhat undermined him.

"Sure you can. Now get on."

He hesitated for another few seconds before finally wrapping his arms around my shoulders and letting me lift him onto my back. He was asleep within five minutes.

I adjusted his arms where they'd loosened around my shoulders and continued after Zoë, who had shortened her stride without comment once Daniel started slowing down. [Nature's Embrace] made the journey considerably easier on my end. The forest continued to accommodate me with an enthusiasm that would probably never stop being slightly strange; branches lifted away from Daniel's sleeping face, roots shifted beneath the soil before my boots could catch them and loose patches of earth firmed whenever I put my weight down.

We walked in silence for a while, following the route we'd taken earlier towards the abandoned track where we'd left Arion. Things between us had improved since the clearing, though I wouldn't exactly have described them as comfortable. Zoë had admitted that saving Daniel had been the right decision and I'd accepted the apology for what it was, but neither of us had spoken much since.

"We have gained some time," Zoë eventually said. "Unfortunately, I doubt it will amount to much."

I looked across at her.

"Daniel did send him the wrong way though."

"And Orion will know he was deceived the moment he reaches the place Daniel described. He will double back, find the trail again and continue the hunt." She immediately countered, clearly familiar with the giant hunter's skill.

"Still puts him a few hours behind." I tried to shrug without jostling Daniel too much.

"For now." Zoë said grimly.

She ducked beneath a branch that lifted itself over my head a moment later.

"He knows the Ophiotaurus is frightened now. He will be more subtle when he picks up its trail again."

That was a problem.

The Ophiotaurus had managed to stay ahead of Orion so far, but most of that appeared to have involved running for its life in a more or less straight line. We'd been able to follow the resulting trail around Lake Superior because a creature the size of a bull attached to a massive snake wasn't particularly subtle when terrified. Orion had been considerably harder to track, and Daniel buying the Ophiotaurus several hours wouldn't matter much if both hunter and quarry disappeared into several thousand square miles of wilderness afterwards.

"At least we know they're heading west."

"West is a great deal of land, Ethan." Zoë pointed out, glancing through the trees as though she might somehow spot our quarry between them. "We do not know how far the Ophiotaurus intends to travel, or whether it will continue in the same direction once it believes itself safe. It has been hunted for thousands of years after all, and has long since learned how to evade those who seek its death."

"Why?" I asked idly as I moved up beside her, raising an eyebrow at her as she turned to me in surprise.

"Dost thou not know? It makes sense the Fates would charge thee with the protection of such a mighty beast. It is said that slaying it will grant its killer great power, enough power to challenge the might of Olympos even. Exactly the type of prey a hunter like Orion would chase." Zoë explained, her fists balling at her side as she mentioned the giant.

"Wait, killing it makes you powerful? Isn't that backwards? Shouldn't you be powerful in order to kill it?" I asked, but the Huntress shook her head.

"While undoubtedly strong, its true power involves a prophecy that claimed that whosoever burned and sacrificed its innards would be granted the power to defeat the gods. Briareus of the Hecatoncheires once slew it with an adamantine axe and cut out its entrails during the Titanomachy, but they were snatched away by birds sent by Zeus at the very last second. Since then, it has kept a very low profile."

Something twigged my brain at that, recalling the two days I spent as a test subject patient of the Athena cabin. My reading lessons had been complemented by a crash course in Greek mythology and now the name Zoë mentioned stirred a memory.

"Briareus? Didn't he fight for the gods against the Titans? Hell, he was buddies with Zeus after, right? Freeing him when Hera tied him down to their bed during her little rebellion?"

Zoë tilted her head at that, pleased I knew my history (and her past, considering she spoke from firsthand experience), before giving a slight shrug.

"There are few beings that match the Hundred-Handed in strength of arms or skill at the forge. But they aren't always... the brightest creatures. Briareus' intentions were good, which is why Lord Zeus did not cast him and his brothers back into the depths of Tartarus and assigned them the position of jailers to the Titans instead."

"... who were locked away in Tartarus." I pointed out and the Huntress faltered for a moment before shrugging again.

"I only said Lord Zeus forgave Briareus his intentions. The slaying of the Ophiotaurus itself is still a grave crime. The sacrifice of its entrails, the terrible power it grants, is not something so easily dismissed."

I blinked at the Huntress' words.

"What's so special about its guts anyways?"

Zoë shot me a long, considering look, clearly searching for words before giving up with a shrug.

"The Ophiotaurus has no mother, no father. It is an ancient hybrid of land and water. It sprang forth into existence when those first emerged from the primordial void." She explained and slowly my eyes widened.

"Wait... are you saying that-..."

"The Ophiotaurus, the creature that the Fates have charged thee to protect from Orion's hunt, is thy brother, yes. In a matter of speaking at least." She said far too casually for a statement that weird.

"That... can't be a coincidence." I said numbly and the Huntress nodded thoughtfully.

"I agree. Between thy connection and its potential threat to Olympos, the Fates likely intentionally chose this quest as a test of character for thee. To learn and expose to all the gods what thy choice would be when the time came." She said thoughtfully and something about her wording bothered me.

"And you? Are you here to observe that choice as well? Make sure I choose in Olympos' best interests?" I said challengingly and Zoë's dark eyes flitted to mine as she drew herself up taller.

"I am here by my Lady's request and the Prophecy's demand. That is all." She shot back vehemently and either I had spent too much time with her or my [Counselling Mastery] was working overtime, but I saw through her words immediately.

'Liar.'

"And what will you do if I make the wrong choice?" I pressed and to my surprise, the ancient Huntress flinched, even looking away from me as she sought for the right words.

"I... will do what I must." She eventually said, and though her voice was firm, I could still detect a hint of uncertainty in her words, which I hadn't expected.

With the wind taken out of my sails, all I could do was give a slow nod.

"I see. Good to know where we stand on things, I guess."

"Ethan... I-"

"Forget about it. You got your duties, I got mine. You've been Artemis' second in command for longer than I've been alive. Hell, longer than most countries have even existed. I can hardly fault you for just following orders." I said with a calm I didn't entirely feel as I shrugged Daniel into a more comfortable position on my back and continued walking again.

It took a few moments before I could hear Zoë's footsteps pick up behind me.

"Either way, it's a moot point for now. We'll need to catch up to my brother before Orion does first, moral dilemmas can wait 'till after." I said after a long, awkward pause, both as an olive branch and to distract myself from the implications of the choice that I now knew ultimately awaited me.

'Better to just... focus on the job, I guess.' I thought grimly as Zoë caught up, her grateful nod clearly showing she was thinking along similar lines.

Unfortunately, focusing on the job didn't make finding my newly discovered brother any easier. We knew he was somewhere west of Lake Superior with Orion following close behind, but that still left us with a sizeable chunk of North America to search and no means of narrowing it down.

'Wait… that's not entirely true.' I realized as I felt a weight shift in my coat pocket.

I slowed my stride as I reached inside, feeling the mystical metal brush against my fingertips.

"What is it?" Zoë asked as she noticed the movement.

"I forgot I still had these."

Getting anything out of my pocket with an unconscious eleven-year-old hanging off my back took some effort, but eventually I managed to pull out the two drachmas the scroll had given me after the fight.

One silver, one bronze.

Zoë glanced down at the coins in my palm.

"Drachmae?"

"Rewards." I held up the silver one between two fingers. "I got this for killing Sirius. The bronze one was for saving Daniel."

Her eyes lingered on them for a moment before moving back to me.

"What kind of reward?"

"More blessings from Kaos, basically. Skills, abilities, items. Different drachmas give different things."

"And what will these give you?"

"The silver one's a Skill. Bronze is an Ability."

Zoë stepped over a fallen branch as we continued through the forest.

"Their contents are already known to thee?"

"Not precisely, just a broad category. That's the problem." I rolled the silver drachma across my knuckles before closing my hand around it again. "So far, what I actually get is random."

"Truly random?"

"Supposedly." I mused.

Zoë glanced towards me at that, raising an eyebrow in question.

I'd been thinking about it more and more since leaving Camp. The system certainly seemed random. My collection of rewards ranged from powers capable of letting me trade punches with a god to a small stone whose primary contribution to my survival had been keeping bloodstains out of my trench coat. There was no obvious progression to any of it, and rarity itself seemed happy to jump all over the place whenever I offered a new drachma.

Still, there was a pattern that had become increasingly difficult to ignore.

"I'm starting to wonder if Kaos puts a thumb on the scales." I admitted.

Zoë's brow furrowed.

"How so?"

"The rewards are random. I believe that much. But a lot of what I've gotten has ended up being useful suspiciously soon afterwards." I shifted Daniel higher when his arms began slipping down my chest. "I got [Novice Driving] before I even knew I'd be leaving New York, then I steal-, borrow a car the very next day. Then [Nature's Embrace] right before we ended up spending most of the Quest in the wilderness. Even some of the stuff that looked pretty useless at first has found a use eventually."

"So Kaos may know beforehand what blessings will be of use to thee?"

"Maybe. Or knows enough to give the odds a little push in the right direction. I don't think it can just hand me whatever it wants, otherwise the whole random part is meaningless. He is the embodiment of primordial chaos after all, randomness is kinda his thing."

Zoë was quiet for several steps, her expression thoughtful as she considered the idea.

"Perhaps it is not the reward itself being influenced."

I looked across at her.

"What do you mean?"

"Thy assumption is that Kaos influences the reward because it knows what will happen afterwards." She pushed aside a thin branch before it could catch against her parka. "The opposite may also be true."

It took me a moment.

"You think Kaos changes what happens afterwards instead?" I asked in surprise.

"If Kaos truly is the source from which all things, all abilities and powers, originate, I see little reason to assume its influence would be limited to thy blessings." Zoë's eyes dropped briefly towards the silver drachma still trapped between my fingers. "Perhaps thy reward is entirely random, and events simply develop in such a way that it becomes useful."

I slowed. That possibility hadn't occurred to me.

"Instead of cheating at roulette, Kaos lets me spin normally and then moves the whole fucking casino." I wondered aloud and Zoë raised a delicate eyebrow at that as she briefly paused.

"A crude comparison... but yes."

I stared down at the drachma as we continued walking, turning the possibility over in my head.

The Olympians had treated me carefully from the moment I'd reached Olympus. Zeus had still been an arrogant prick, naturally, but even his hostility had been restrained compared to what I'd expected from everything I'd heard about the man. Hermes had gone out of his way to remain friendly, Apollo had treated the entire situation with a healthy dose of caution bordering on paranoia and nobody had seemed particularly eager to find out what would happen if they seriously harmed the newly discovered son of Kaos.

Even Ares had been remarkably content to allow himself to be reined in from just turning me into a smear across the marble floor.

"I'm starting to see why everyone on Olympus treated me with kiddie gloves." I realized.

"I was surprised Lord Zeus allowed thee to leave at all." Zoë admitted as she stepped around a moss-covered stump. "He does not enjoy things he cannot control."

That was probably something worth worrying about, especially since I was due back on Olympos once this Quest was over. For now though, Zeus was several hundred miles away and my newly discovered brother was somewhere ahead of us with Orion on his trail.

I opened my hand again and looked down at the two drachmas.

"Well, we need a way to find the Ophiotaurus. Seems as good a time as any to test the theory." I said, plucking the silver coin from my palm.

Zoë slowed slightly as I brought the silver drachma up between my fingers, watching with obvious curiosity now.

"How does one offer it?"

"Like this."

I flicked the drachma ahead of us. It turned several times in the air before stopping dead and suddenly vanished into a swirl of nothingness that collapsed into a pinprick, the familiar presence of Kaos brushing against my senses for the briefest moment.

Zoë's breath caught as she stood beside me.

A pale symbol appeared above my head, a simple outline of a mountain crossed by a rising zigzag path, followed shortly after by a shower of golden sparks as the scroll unfurled in front of me.

Zoë's attention immediately shifted towards it as golden lettering began writing itself across the parchment.

[Mountain Ascending Enhanced]

|Common Skill|

You can climb and walk up hills and mountains with remarkable ease, even the steep ones. You know where to place your feet and how to read the rock, though you still need to be careful not to fall.

I read the description twice, waiting for some hidden second paragraph to appear.

It didn't.

"...Huh."

Zoë glanced from the scroll to the symbol floating above my head.

"What?"

"Nothing, I just expected more from Silver."

I reached up experimentally towards the symbol, but my fingers passed straight through the pale outline of the mountain without disturbing it.

"[Mountain Ascending Enhanced]. Common Skill." I read aloud as the scroll obligingly shifted itself so Zoë could get a better look. "Apparently I'm really good at walking uphill now."

Zoë leaned slightly closer to read the description for herself, her eyes moving down the parchment before giving me a considering look.

"That is hardly useless."

"No, but unless my brother has suddenly decided to climb a mountain, it's not particularly helpful either." I pointed out as I adjusted Daniel's arms where they'd started slipping from my shoulders again.

"Perhaps there are mountains in our path." Zoë pointed out as she started walking again, leaving me to follow after her.

"And here's me without my hiking sticks." I said blithely.

Zoë's lips twitched slightly, though whether in amusement or annoyance I couldn't tell. The scroll began rolling itself closed a moment later, disappearing along with the symbol above my head in another scattering of golden sparks.

I looked down at the bronze drachma still resting in my palm.

'So much for Kaos putting his thumb on the scales.'

Then again, if Zoë was right and the 'casino-moving' came afterwards, receiving a mountain climbing Skill in the middle of Minnesota suddenly felt mildly ominous.

I bravely decided not to dwell on that.

"Well, one more shot." I said as I shifted Daniel's weight against my back and rolled the bronze drachma onto my thumb, Zoë glancing back over her shoulder intently.

I flicked the coin and it vanished in the same brief swirl of nothingness, Kaos brushing against my senses before another symbol formed above my head. This one looked considerably stranger than the first: a large open eye surrounded by a thin broken circle, with several smaller lines radiating outwards from the pupil.

Golden sparks gathered in front of me as the scroll reappeared and with a proud swish unfurled itself. Dramatically, the title of my new blessing wrote itself in sprawling letters across its surface.

[Watcher's Curse]

|Rare Ability|

I stopped walking.

"Rare?" I said in surprise as Zoë came to a halt beside me.

"Is that unusual?"

"For Bronze? Kinda, yeah."

The rarity system wasn't quite as simple as better coin equals guaranteed better reward, but there was still a fairly obvious difference in the odds. Getting a Common from Silver followed immediately by a Rare from Bronze was the sort of thing that made me wonder whether Kaos had been listening to our conversation and decided to kindly provide us with a demonstration.

More writing appeared beneath the title.

Allows you to apply the Watcher's Curse on a target. The target affected by this curse will have an ethereal watcher's eye floating over them and watching them. This eye will constantly transmit the target's location and what it sees to you. The Curse can also be used as an anchor to cast abilities and spells from.

By the time I reached the end of the description, my disappointment with the earlier Silver drachma had disappeared entirely.

"This is... actually really good."

Zoë leaned closer to the parchment as she read it herself.

"It allows thee to track anyone afflicted by it?" she raised her eyebrows at the description.

"Looks like it." I nodded, immediately thinking of several people I would've liked to stick it on over the last week alone.

The obvious target was Orion.

Unfortunately, the ability did nothing to solve the rather important prerequisite of actually finding him first. The Ophiotaurus had the same problem, and Sirius was currently dead in a clearing several miles behind us.

The other hounds, though...

I looked back the way we'd come.

"Damn." I sighed as I clicked my tongue in frustration.

"What is it?" Zoë glanced at me.

"If I'd gotten this before the fight, I could've tagged one of the hounds." I explained as the implications settled in. "Let it run straight back to Orion and we'd know exactly where he was."

The Huntress followed my gaze towards the forest behind us.

"They have too great a lead now." She said with a shake of her head.

"Yeah." I sighed.

I could probably still find our way back to the clearing without much trouble, especially with [Nature's Embrace] helping me along, but the surviving hounds had fled before we'd even gone inside to check on Daniel. By now they could be miles away in any direction, and [Watcher's Curse] required an actual target to apply it to.

Still, the timing was hard to ignore.

I looked down at Daniel's sleeping face where it rested beside my shoulder, then back towards the words floating on the parchment. Zoë seemed to arrive at the same conclusion I did.

"The lesser drachma gave thee the greater blessing." She observed quietly.

I had ignored the Huntress' advice, stopped chasing Orion and potentially cost us hours because leaving an eleven-year-old alone in a cabin surrounded by monsters hadn't exactly struck me as much of a choice. That decision had now handed me a Rare Ability specifically designed to track people.

After a Silver drachma had given me a Common Skill for walking up mountains.

"And one suited to our present problem." She continued thoughtfully, though I couldn't help but scoff at that.

"Would've been a little more suited twenty minutes ago." I groused.

"But still." The Huntress pressed and I looked at her as she raised an eyebrow in challenge.

"Still." I conceded after a moment.

That didn't tell us which theory was right. Kaos could've influenced the roll itself, or some incomprehensible primordial part of him might already have known that stopping for Daniel would result in circumstances where [Watcher's Curse] became useful. Hell, for all I knew both ideas were wrong and I'd just rolled well.

The scroll disappeared before I could stare at it any longer.

"Guess that's another point for Kaos knowing what he's doing." I muttered as I started walking again.

"Or another point for Kaos changing what 'doing' entails." Zoë pointed out and I couldn't quite suppress a shudder, Daniel mumbling something in his sleep at my twitching.

"Somehow, that's not comforting." I deadpanned.

"It wasn't meant to be." The ancient Huntress said ominously.

As we continued on, I kept turning the new Ability over in my head while the forest shifted around us. Tracking was the obvious use, but the final line was potentially far more interesting. An anchor to cast abilities and spells from. I didn't have much in the way of either yet, at least nothing I particularly wanted to test with Daniel asleep on my back, but being able to use a cursed target as the origin point for another power opened up possibilities.

For now, though, I needed something to curse.

Very briefly, my eyes drifted towards the silver parka moving steadily through the underbrush ahead of me, before I shook my head hard enough to almost dislodge the still conked out Daniel from my back.

'Not a chance. I don't want to spend the rest of this Quest sleeping with one eye open worrying if she's gonna stick an arrow where the sun doesn't shine...'

I suppressed a shudder and sighed, glancing upwards through the thinning canopy above as my eyes lazily drifted past a dark speck moving through one of the gaps between the branches, and-

'Wait a second!'

[Hawk Eyes] brought the shape into focus and I realised I was looking at a bird circling high above the forest. Far higher than anything I could've made out clearly a few weeks ago, yet I could see the individual movements of its wings without even straining.

The bird disappeared behind a cluster of leaves, only to emerge through another opening several seconds later as an idea slowly began to form.

Zoë glanced over when she noticed I had halted in my tracks.

"What is it?"

"I might not need to curse the hounds."

She followed my gaze upwards, though judging by the way she narrowed her eyes she couldn't immediately see what had caught my attention.

"There is a bird up there." I explained, a crazy scheme beginning to form in my mind.

"And this is... fortuitous?" Zoë tried as she crossed her arms.

"If I can curse the bird, then the floating eye will accompany it and show me what it sees." I explained as understanding quickly crossed her face.

I focused on the distant bird and the new Ability responded almost eagerly. There was a strange sensation behind my eyes, followed by the sudden certainty that I only needed to reach out and choose. So I did. The effects were immediate as a huge green-ish translucent eye appeared over the bird.

It looked like Sauron had gotten his hands on some eyedrops and taken up birdwatching as a hobby.

The bird nearly dropped out of the sky, its wings beating frantically as it twisted around towards the enormous eye now following it.

"Seems to work." I noted with some satisfaction, watching the eye remain firmly attached as the bird desperately tried to shake it.

"Canst thou see through it?" Zoë asked as she stepped up beside me, her own attention fixed on the distant speck.

"Only one way to find out."

Focusing on the eye felt strangely intuitive. There was no switch to flip or command to give; I simply concentrated on the connection I could suddenly feel stretching between us and-

My stomach lurched as the forest abruptly appeared beneath me.

I staggered sideways, barely managing to catch myself without dumping Daniel onto the ground as my brain struggled to make sense of two completely different perspectives at once.

"Ethan?" Zoë caught my elbow when I swayed again, her earlier curiosity immediately replaced by concern.

"Fine. 'M fine..." I assured her quickly though a bit woozy, squeezing my eyes shut in the hope that removing one of the competing views would help. Thankfully it did, though the sensation of apparently floating several hundred metres above the ground while still being able to feel my boots planted firmly in the dirt remained deeply unpleasant. "Just... give me a second."

Zoë kept hold of my arm as I tried to get my bearings, which I was perfectly happy to let her do for the moment.

Through the Watcher's eye, the forest stretched out beneath me in every direction, the canopy broken occasionally by clearings, roads and the glitter of streams winding between the trees. Lake Superior dominated the landscape behind us, its shoreline curving away into the distance until eventually disappearing beneath the horizon.

"Canst thou see?" Zoë eventually asked once I'd stopped trying to fall over.

"Yeah. Pretty much everything around the bird." I shifted my attention carefully, experimenting with the strange perspective as the animal finally stopped trying to escape the eye and resumed something resembling level flight. "Can't see much detail from this high though."

Which was unfortunate, because detail was exactly what I needed if I wanted to pick fleeing black dogs out of several thousand square kilometres of forest.

'Except...' a hunch formed as I frowned, normal eyes still squeezed shut.

"Uhm, scroll? You there? Can you show me the description for [Watcher's Curse] again? Please?"

The sound of sparks and the rustling of parchment were my answer as I turned to face Zoë.

"What does it say again about... casting abilities from it?"

"The Curse can also be used as an anchor to cast abilities and spells from." The Huntress read dutifully and I could hear her realization in her tone as a smirk began to form on my face.

"Let's see if this works."

I activated [Hawk Eyes] and immediately, the entire forest rushed towards me, all the way from its distant edges to every single tree branch of every single tree top jumping into focus, all at once.

"Fuck-" I half-gasped, half-groaned.

My hand shot out blindly and found Zoë's shoulder as a wave of vertigo nearly folded me in half. The Huntress immediately planted her feet and caught me around the waist before Daniel and I could both go over.

"What was that?" she demanded, keeping her voice low enough not to wake the boy currently bouncing around on my back.

"[Hawk Eyes]." I swallowed against the sudden nausea and forced myself upright. "Apparently I can use it through the other eye."

"That appears... unwise." The Huntress said tersely.

"Probably." I agreed, tightening my grip on her shoulder as the landscape slowly stopped trying to rotate around me. "Useful though."

Zoë muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously judgemental, but made no effort to remove my hand.

Once my stomach had settled enough that I was reasonably confident breakfast would remain where it belonged, I tried again, much more carefully this time.

The difference was ridiculous.

From the bird's height, [Hawk Eyes] had access to sightlines I'd simply never get from the ground. Instead of zooming into whatever happened to be visible between the trees ahead of me, I could look down across miles of terrain at once, then pick out individual patches of forest and bring them close enough to make out movement beneath gaps in the canopy.

"Oh, that's useful."

"What canst thou see?" Zoë asked, starting forward again once it became clear I wasn't going to collapse. She kept herself beside me this time, allowing me to use her shoulder for balance as [Nature's Embrace] handled most of the actual walking on my behalf.

"A lot." I admitted, carefully putting one foot in front of the other while my vision remained several hundred metres above us. "Lake's behind us. I can see roads, couple of towns... I think there's a highway farther south."

That last part was good news all by itself. Getting Arion back onto an actual road was going to be considerably easier if I knew where one was.

I ignored it for now and turned the eye west.

The hounds had been running for a while, but they had also been terrified when they left. Sirius had just been beaten to death in front of them and the last I'd seen of the survivors they'd been fleeing through the forest without much concern for stealth.

That gave me something to look for.

I searched along the direction they'd fled, moving from clearing to clearing while the bird continued circling above. Several times I caught movement only to zoom in on deer, and once what looked like a very confused black bear, but no hounds.

"Nothing yet." I muttered when Zoë glanced towards me.

"They may have changed direction once they were beyond our sight." She warned, carefully guiding me around a fallen tree that [Nature's Embrace] apparently couldn't be bothered to move for my convenience.

"Maybe. Probably, even; they're panicked, not stupid. Still, there should be some sign…"

I kept searching, moving from one break in the canopy to the next as I followed the direction the hounds had fled. A clearing several miles ahead showed nothing, nor did the narrow road I found cutting through the trees farther west. I was about to shift my attention again when a flock of birds suddenly burst from the canopy in the distance, scattering wildly above the treetops.

I stopped at that, Zoë halting alongside me when the hand resting on her shoulder pulled her back with me.

"What? What is it? What do you see?"

"Something scared a bunch of birds." I said as I focused [Hawk Eyes] on the disturbance.

For several seconds I saw nothing except branches shifting where something had recently passed beneath them. Then a large black shape burst across a narrow strip of open ground and vanished back beneath the trees.

I grinned and Zoë immediately caught on.

"The hounds are within thy sight?"she asked sharply, turning towards me.

"One of them."

I followed the disturbance ahead and caught another hound crossing between the trees, then a third several seconds later. All three were moving at a pace that made it very clear Sirius' death remained fresh in their memories.

"Three." I confirmed, adjusting my focus as they disappeared beneath the canopy again. "I can't see the others but they're probably not far behind."

"And where are they going?"

I watched them for another minute before answering, following each brief glimpse and the trail of disturbed wildlife they left behind.

"West. Maybe a little south, but mostly west."

Zoë's expression tightened at that, though I could only feel the movement of her shoulder rather than see it.

"Back to Orion?"

"Could be."

It was tempting to keep following them directly, but I doubted I could keep track of them for long. Besides, it would mean I'd have to keep stumbling through the woods, leaning on Zoë for support while their steady gait easily devoured the many miles between them and their master.

'Need to be proactive. Need to see where they're headed.' I gritted my teeth as sweat slowly began to bead on my forehead.

Using [Watcher's Curse] by itself hadn't felt particularly demanding, and neither had [Hawk Eyes], but stacking one on top of the other was proving considerably more taxing than I'd expected. I could already feel the steady drain on my energy as I pushed my vision further out, enough that without [Nature's Embrace] constantly topping me back up from the forest around us, I doubted I could've kept this up for long.

Even with it, the strain was starting to build.

'Definitely not trying this while driving.' I clenched my jaw as I swept my gaze out towards the distant horizon, [Nature's Embrace] willing the confused bird to soar ever higher.

The forest shrank beneath me until the hounds disappeared completely. I kept following their course instead, pushing [Hawk Eyes] farther towards the horizon.

The view opened up dramatically once I stopped trying to stare through individual trees. Minnesota stretched out beneath me in broad patches of forest, farmland and water, roads threading between towns that became smaller and smaller the farther west I looked. Beyond that, the terrain gradually flattened and opened into plains.

I pushed farther.

There was a hard limit eventually. [Hawk Eyes] could magnify what I could see, but it couldn't do anything about the curvature of the Earth. Even so, being several hundred metres in the air extended the horizon far enough that the amount of land visible was absurd.

"I'm looking ahead of them now." I explained when Zoë asked what I was doing, shifting my grip slightly as Daniel's weight began pulling awkwardly against one shoulder. "If they keep going the same direction, we don't really need to know exactly where they are. We need to know where they're heading."

"Assuming they continue upon the same course."

"It's better than just 'west'."

Zoë gave a quiet hum of agreement and left me to search.

I followed the rough line of the hounds' retreat across the landscape. There wasn't much I recognised. A few larger settlements stood out amongst the surrounding farmland, along with highways and rivers I couldn't name from the air, but none of that told me where Orion or the Ophiotaurus might be.

Then I started noticing the gaps.

Large sections of land broke up the farmland farther west. At first I assumed I was looking at national parks or simply less populated areas, but there were too many of them and some were enormous.

"Zoë, what's in the Dakotas?" I asked, trying to keep my attention on one particularly large stretch while the bird carrying my viewpoint continued drifting.

"A great many things. Thou wilt need to be more specific."

"There are these huge patches where everything changes. Fewer towns, different roads, a lot less farmland in places." I tried to follow the boundary of one and quickly gave up when it stretched beyond what I could comfortably keep in view. "They're all over the place."

The Huntress went quiet beside me.

"Reservations." she eventually said.

"You mean the Native American ones?"

"Yes." Zoë confirmed, and I felt her slow slightly beneath my hand. "There are many across the Dakotas. Some cover vast stretches of land."

I studied the distant patches again with considerably more interest.

The hounds' current course didn't run directly through any one of them, at least as far as I could tell, but it would take them close to several if they kept heading west.

"Think that means anything?"

"Perhaps." Zoë answered after a moment, her voice turning thoughtful. "Monsters generally avoid the reservations when they can. Demigods are wise to do the same."

That got my attention enough that I nearly opened my eyes.

"Why?"

Zoë reached up and caught my wrist before my grip could slip from her shoulder, guiding my hand back into place as we continued through the trees.

"The gods of Olympos are not the only powers that hold influence upon this continent." she explained. "There are spirits here that belong to peoples far older than our own presence in these lands, and many still watch over places sacred to them."

"So Greek monsters stay away."

"Most have learned to." There was enough weight behind the words to make me suspect that lesson had occasionally involved considerably more violence than Zoë was bothering to mention. "The same is true of demigods. We do not enter such places lightly."

That explained the strange patches in the landscape spread across the horizon.

More importantly, it explained why something that had spent several thousand years being hunted might deliberately head towards them.

I followed the hounds' route again, this time paying attention to how it intersected with the reservations ahead. Their path would take them close to several, with plenty more scattered farther west.

"The Ophiotaurus doesn't even need to go inside." I realised aloud. "It could just stay near them."

"Indeed." Zoë agreed, catching a branch and holding it aside as we passed. "A creature that has survived hunters for as long as the Ophiotaurus would know where its pursuers are reluctant to follow. It seems desperation has driven it to gamble that whatever guards those borders poses less danger than Orion does."

"And what about him? Think our jolly giant will actually stay away now?" I hedged and Zoë was quiet for a long moment.

"Orion will follow wherever the trail leads." she said grimly. "But even he would be cautious near lands protected by powers other than our own."

I considered that while looking across the enormous stretches of country ahead.

It still wasn't much. The reservations covered far too much territory for us to simply pick one and hope my brother happened to be nearby, and there was no guarantee the hounds were truly headed in that direction, or would decide to fall back to a rallying point somewhere.

We still didn't have an exact location yet, but at least we finally had something better than just west. My brother had a reason to stick close to the reservations, and there were plenty of those scattered across the Dakotas. Between Zoë's tracking and my new eye-in-the-sky trick, we could keep adjusting our course as we went.

Considering all we'd had half an hour ago was literally just a heading on a compass, I'd take it.

I finally let [Hawk Eyes] drop and immediately regretted opening my actual eyes. The forest snapped back into existence around me while my sense of balance remained somewhere high above it, forcing me to tighten my hand around Zoë's shoulder until the ground stopped shifting beneath my feet.

The Huntress waited without comment.

"I'm going to need practice with that." I admitted once I could stand without using Artemis' lieutenant as a walking stick.

"That would be wise." Zoë replied dryly, smoothing the shoulder of her parka where I'd been gripping it before looking west through the trees. "But if the Ophiotaurus is indeed seeking the protection offered by those lands, we may be able to predict its path as we draw closer."

"Good enough for me." I shifted Daniel higher on my back and started walking again, relieved to have my vision firmly attached to my own skull again where it belonged. "Guess we have our heading."

---

AN: You can read up to five chapters ahead over on my Patreon

 

[aokway]

An anchor to cast abilities and spells from. I didn't have much in the way of either yet, at least nothing I particularly wanted to test with Daniel asleep on my back

Click to shrink...

You do(you already did one as i read further)
And there's one that would have been quite useful
"abilities" include the watchers curse itself
And even if you use the singular pronouns of said curse to mean you can only have one at a time
It still would work like camera hopping in the watch dogs games
This still combo's with hawk eyes letting you basically speed around the entire continent by hopping from bird to bird like information bouncing across satellites


Also
I have a hilarious recommendation our boy could give to his brother
Get a item that prevents his death(not healing, just not being allowed to die) and sacrifice his organs to himself and then heal and do it again
Repeat until reality undoes the infinite power glitch(meaning his organs wouldn't give power anymore)
This would massively increase his brothers power and remove the reason people were hunting after him
While also making the gods that sent this challenge scratch there heads
Because the original challenge didn't anticipate him making the door number 3
Which means he gets to troll the gods again without being punished again
God the number of loopholes he's abusing to fuck shit up might make him an honorary Canadian
It's not like his build doesn't fit(America wizard made them a barbarian for a reason)


Also also, by virtue of the fact that mountains are.. mountains this does also give general wilderness knowledge, not as much as it's own skill would but quite a bit of useful stuff and it's pretty specialized towards "don't touch that, don't step on that, don't take that path etc etc" along with climbing knowledge how to walk for a long time without rest the gear needed and how to use it, some weather prediction and other miscellaneous bits of knowledge,
Everything you need to climb a mountain

 

[Bakkughan]

I have a hilarious recommendation our boy could give to his brother

Click to shrink...

That... huh... maybe there's something I can work with there...

"abilities" include the watchers curse itself

Click to shrink...

I decided against Watcher's Curse being able to leapfrog off itself, precisely because that's utterly broken. I'll rewrite the chapter to make it a bit more explicit, have Ethan try it and get an error message, forcing him into trying to anticipate the Hound's movements instead.

 

[aokway]

maybe there's something I can work with there

Click to shrink...

Poor fate
Tried to test him, got a first hand experience on what "child of khaos" means in context of telling him what to do(specifically how much of a massive mistake that is)

precisely because that's utterly broken.

Click to shrink...

Damn
It would have been so funny for him to be able to just appear in camp half blood from halfway across the world to give a hotswap based Morse code messaging
But it sadly wasn't meant to be
I understand why
But it would have been so funny

 

[Yohnos]

Orion is about to get scalped by some Native American Gods and I'm all for it

 

[obcorbino2146]

"I was surprised Lord Zeus allowed thee to leave at all." Zoë admitted as she stepped around a moss-covered stump. "He does not enjoy things he cannot control."

That was probably something worth worrying about, especially since I was due back on Olympos once this Quest was over. For now though, Zeus was several hundred miles away and my newly discovered brother was somewhere ahead of us with Orion on his trail.

Click to shrink...

I'll say it again, I hope the primordials chew him and the Council a new one. They have no say over primordials even a minor one or Demi one like the MC.

I believe that when the primonials learn, they'll will get mad, not because they give a crap about the MC, their little brother but because the gods dare to try to Lord over a child of the void, of Khaos. Especially one that is being blessed and followed by khaos like the MC is.