Achilles took a wound, yes,
But Night knew exactly how serious it was, and it was nowhere close to his own.
He should have recovered long ago.
With his strength on the field, Hector would not have had a free moment to breathe, let alone organize rescue missions and send riders seeking allied support.
It didn't matter if another Amazon queen showed up with another army.
He was Achilles.
No force on earth could push back a Greek line that had Achilles standing in it.
Achilles. The undying hero.
The man whose body turned away iron and bronze alike.
His very presence was the reason Troy did not dare move beyond its walls, even with a warrior like Hector fighting for them.
Mortal numbers meant nothing in front of a hero of that caliber.
They were sheep waiting to be slaughtered, and everyone on both sides knew it.
So how were the Greeks losing ground?
However, Night noticed that when Achilles was mentioned, the expression of the priestess in front of him, Chryseis, changed slightly, looking sad and worried, as if she was recalling something bad.
"Achilles has not appeared on the field. From what I have heard, he and Agamemnon came into conflict.
He withdrew from the war entirely."
Night stared at her, completely stunned.
"What?"
He withdrew?
This hero, arguably the most troublesome for the Greek side in the early game, was the enemy's strongest damage dealer before the gods themselves entered the fray, and was eliminated prematurely.
"What exactly is the reason? Do you know?" He asked hurriedly.
Chryseis hesitated.
She looked down for a moment, then looked back up and told him what she had gathered, her voice careful and quiet, the words coming out as though each one cost her something.
"I believe it was because of my sister. Briseis."
Her eyes went faintly red at the edges, as she took a breath and began.
-During the battle at Thebes, the Greek forces and Achilles were driven back by Night and Hector.
But in the chaos of the retreat, her sister Briseis was not rescued.
The Greeks took her.
What happened after that had shifted slightly from the history Night carried in his mind.
In the original sequence of events, both sisters were captured together.
When Achilles returned and the spoils were divided, Agamemnon claimed the elder, Chryseis, and Achilles received the younger, Briseis.
But now they've only managed to snatch one of her sisters, Briseis.
Night glanced at Chryseis as she spoke.
A woman who caught the eye of the great hero, Achilles himself, son of a sea goddess, needed no description.
He only had to look at the sister sitting before him now, whose beauty put him in mind of Helena, to draw his own conclusions about the younger one.
Achilles and Agamemnon clashed fiercely because they both fell for the same woman...
However, Agamemnon was the commander of the entire coalition.
Tempted by the beauty, he simply took Briseis anyway, over Achilles' objections, over his fury, over everything.
The woman was simply carried off.
That was what finally enraged Achilles. He did not just argue and pulled out of the Greek coalition entirely and started making arrangements to sail home.
Wait, Night suddenly remembered—
In the original heroic tales, Achilles also seemed to have had a conflict with Agamemnon because of Briseis.
After Agamemnon was forced to return Chryseis to her father, he needed to fill the loss somehow, and he turned around and took Briseis, who had already been with Achilles for some time, causing latter to leave the battlefield in anger for a period of time.
Later, the Greeks realized that without Achilles they could not defeat their opponents, so they pleaded and begged him to come back.
But this was different.
Briseis was taken before she was ever truly Achilles'.
Now, due to the unequal distribution of spoils, Achilles left the Greek side prematurely.
No wonder Troy gained the upper hand so quickly!
At this point, Chryseis was full of tears, while she spoke.
In the end, she didn't even wipe them away.
"My poor Briseis. Alone in an enemy camp. Two men fighting over her like she is some toy to be divided between them."
No one asked her what she wanted. She is a prize to them.
A piece of spoils to be allocated.
She did not call them heroes.
The word did not appear in anything she said. Perhaps it never would, for men like that.
They were not worthy of the title.
Then she stood, turned to Night and bowed deeply, both hands pressed together, and slowly went down onto her knees.
"Although, I know this is far too much to ask. I know that. But please."
She looked up at him.
"Please help me bring my sister home. If anyone can do it, it is someone whom Lord Apollo himself has chosen to watch over."
Night said nothing.
To be honest, he was really moved.
Seeing a beauty's tears, watching her beg him for help, as if he were the only one left in the world, there was no way anyone would not be moved.
However...
It wasn't that he didn't want to help.
It was that the honest answer was that he could not.
Briseis was trapped deep inside an enemy camp.
Finding her, reaching her without being seen, getting past whatever guard had been placed on her, and then escaping through hostile territory while every Greek hero who was not Achilles was still very much present and armed, that was not a mission.
That was a death sentence with extra steps.
Let alone him, even the demigod Achilles would have a hard time doing this.
He thought of Achilles.
When Breiseis was first abducted, Achilles, the demigod wanted to draw his sword and kill Agamemnon, however, the stories said Athena herself came down to stop him from drawing his sword that day.
A son of a goddess, one of the most powerful warriors in the mortal world, could only accept being cuckolded and be filled with impotent rage.
What could he possibly do?
Night remembered that after Achilles returned home this time, he went to his mother, Thetis, the sea nymph, and complained.
Thetis, who was not known for patience, immediately went to Zeus for help when she heard that her daughter-in-law had been taken away.
She had a debt to call in.
She had once brought the Hundred-Handed Giants to his aid during a rebellion among the gods, and Zeus owed her for it.
He did not refuse her.
Originally supporting the Greeks, he turned around and prepared to teach Agamemnon a lesson first.
For the time being, the gods might allow Troy to suppress Greece for a while, letting Agamemnon suffer, and they might not offer any assistance.
However, Greek reinforcement, divine or otherwise, would come eventually.
The only question was when.
Night sat with all of that and looked at Chryseis.
She was watching him. And as the silence stretched, he saw, the careful and gradual putting away of hope.
She drew her gaze back.
Although her heart sank to the bottom, but she chose to understand...
She had been carrying this for a month. She already knew what most answers looked like.
"Forgive me, Hero. I shouldn't have put you in such a difficult position.
It was too much. Perhaps I should ask Lord Apollo."
Even you cannot be expected to perform miracles.
'Miracles.'
Wasn't that what heroes existed for?
He was not a hero. He had never claimed to be one.
However, even though he owed her nothing and had even saved her life,
As he sat here and watched her put away the look she had worn when she believed, just for a moment, that he might say yes, the longing, trust, and expectation in her eyes gradually fading away, regaining composure, he couldn't help but such.
The other party must be very disappointed now.
Thinking of this, Night, who was regarded as a hero and expected to be a hero by others, felt that this trust was too heavy.
But should we place our hopes on ethereal deities?
Although Apollo was indeed effective—he actually did go to the rescue and successfully saved Chryseis in the original myth.
But Briseis was a different matter, and the god moved at his own pace.
Even if Apollo were willing to help, how much time would it take for him to slowly unleash the plague and inflict heavy losses on the enemy soldiers?
By the time divine pressure accomplished anything, by the time Agamemnon bent under the weight of it and released the girl, how much time would have passed?
How many nights and mornings?
Even if they manageed to get her back, there's no guarantee she won't be coming back heavily pregnant.
The stories made it clear enough. Briseis, by the time the original tale concluded, had already lost her virginity long ago and as such, she was no longer eligible to serve as a priestess of any god.
That door was closed.
And every day that passed now was another day in that camp.
It's been some time since Briseis was kidnapped, and with each passing day, the chances of her purity succumbing increased, and the hope of rescue decreased...
.
.
.