The moment Odysseus spoke, the soldiers found their footing again, as though they had finally been given something solid to hold onto.
On a battlefield assembling the finest soldiers from all of Greece, these men were not weak by any measure.
They had crossed the storm the goddess sent, witnessed battles between heroes, and survived on this front.
Before, they had held back from acting against the divine deer, afraid of offending the moon goddess.
But now Odysseus, commander of this camp, had given the order,
Their innate instinct to obey orders as soldiers calmed them down..
This was the order of the great hero Odysseus.
They could not refuse.
And even if the moon goddess Artemis heard about it afterward, she would forgive us.
Telling themselves this, they began moving.
In preparation for the assault on Troy, the Greek alliance had stockpiled a great number of fire arrows.
More destructive and intense than ordinary arrows, and in this era of mythological technology, capable of exploding on impact.
They drew their bows and aimed in unison at the running deer.
And Diomedes, who had also heard the commands, locked his gaze intensely on the deer and Night bearing down on him again.
Even unarmed, he was among the strongest warriors humanity had to offer.
He did not panic.
Instead, he prepared to charge head-on, aiming to control the deer's path and create an opening for the soldiers.
He also intended to take back his weapon.
Losing grip of his own spear in the middle of a fight, letting it be seized so easily, was a humiliation.
Diomedes decided he had been too careless before, underestimating the opponent, and so was sent flying before he even had the chance to fight at full capacity.
On top of that, his arm had gone numb from the earlier impact of the deer and had only now recovered.
He took a slow breath.
Then he let out a long battle cry, roaring and bellowing, and an overwhelming pressure rose from his back.
What should have been invisible intent seemed to materialize, beginning to affect the very air around him.
In an instant, the shadow of a massive and terrible beast seemed to appear behind Diomedes, as though about to swallow the charging deer whole.
The eyes of Diomedes in full focus burned with ferocious intensity.
The deer was startled.
What it was about to charge into no longer felt like a human.
It felt like the entrance to an abyss. Like the fangs of Cerberus closing around it.
This was something that even longed to tear gods apart.
How could an ordinary divine beast stand against it?
Terrified, the deer that had been seconds from impact suddenly braked.
Night nearly got flung forward.
And in that instant, Diomedes threw himself forward.
In the same moment, the soldiers' fire arrows came pouring down like rain.
Bathed in that endless rain of fire, the eyes of the two fighters held only the other's reflection, the arrows all but invisible to them.
Night's reaction was fast.
In the moment he was nearly thrown from the deer, he simply leapt, clearing Diomedes's lunge.
Suspended in the air with his whole body inverted, he twirled the spear through a practiced arc, then hurled it downward in a meteor-like throw he had learned from Achilles.
Boom!!
Striking from directly above at close range, that spear of light, as though gathering the hope of all the stars, drove straight for Diomedes's back.
A technique already famous for its speed, against an opponent who knew nothing about him.
First-time kill.
Done.
Thud!!
Faced with the spear coming at him with blazing force, Diomedes had only his powerful instincts and extraordinary martial skill to work with.
He barely managed to twist his body in midair, but his shoulder was still pierced clean through.
The spear tip turned red as it buried itself into the ground.
Because he was worried about exposure, Night didn't apply the divine spear concept to the throw in that moment.
But a technique learned from Achilles was not something that was easy to dodge.
Diomedes's arm was nearly torn completely off, visible bone showing through where a large amount of flesh had been scorched away, leaving only thin strands holding it together.
Nearly passing out from the pain, Diomedes threw his shield up to block the rain of fire arrows that were only now reaching him.
Damn it!!
He was covered in cold sweat and inwardly shaken to his core.
He recognized that throw.
How was this possible?
When he first saw Night, the obvious musician's attire and the lyre had made Diomedes think of the letter from King Telephus.
He knew a musician hero was coming to support the front.
From the look of it, this was clearly not someone built for direct combat.
And yet, first the spear was taken from his hands, and then what he assumed was just brute force that could not translate into actual technique turned out to be
What had he just seen?
That signature throwing technique, nearly identical to Achilles's, is a meteor-like spear throw.
The very throw that had killed countless Greek heroes on the battlefield.
He would have believed it if told Achilles personally taught it to the man.
Forcing himself through the pain, Diomedes looked toward Night, hoping the fire arrows would at least slow him down.
Then Diomedes saw something that stunned him.
Faced with the falling torrent of fire, Night did not dodge.
He did not use any weapon to knock the arrows aside.
He simply ignored them entirely and kept charging straight ahead.
...!! Crazy.
This is completely insane.
Diomedes's jaw dropped, the shock hitting him harder than if Zeus himself had descended from the sky.
Boom, boom, boom!!
Fire arrows detonated across
Night's body.
When the smoke cleared, he stepped out of it completely unharmed, casually pulling the spear he had thrown back out of the ground as he passed.
Then the spear came straight for Diomedes again, and behind Night's back the outline of a great and terrible beast had appeared, faint but visible, just as Diomedes's own had moments ago.
But the beast behind Night was far clearer and more defined.
The shape of something like a dragon's head could be faintly made out.
In that instant, Diomedes felt real fear.
The presence of death closing in.
Boom!!
A spear was flying in at full charge, with countless fire arrows still exploding along its path, but Night moved through all of it without slowing.
Blasts that would reduce any mortal to ash in an instant, that no hero would dare take head-on in such numbers, were completely ignored.
"Impervious to blades and arrows.
An undying body of steel!!"
Odysseus's voice rang out in stunned disbelief as he named what he was seeing.
Diomedes's pupils contracted.
This man really intended to kill him.
In that moment, he finally felt the overwhelming killing intent coming from Night.
This was not someone looking to teach him a lesson.
This was someone who wanted him dead.
Just as Odysseus had, Diomedes connected what he was seeing to Achilles.
Impossible.
There was actually a second person in this world with an undying body of steel?
.
.
.
(End of the Chapter)