The conversation with Lucifer did not last long, and shortly thereafter, Lucifer did not linger in that place.

He had learned everything he wished to know and had secured the allies he could gain. Now, for the commander of the Fallen Angels, the most crucial thing was to rush back immediately to gain control of his forces and prepare for a complete and utter break with the Heavenly Pantheon, leading to war.

Lucifer returned with abundant confidence! Although using his yet-to-be-mastered power prematurely had caused some internal damage, he fortunately had Ye Wen, an expert skilled in treating such injuries, by his side. Thus, even without a full recovery, the impact would not be significant.

Moreover, Ye Wen had promised to find a way to involve Mount Olympus, even attempting to establish a connection between Lucifer and Athena on his behalf.

“Of course, whether a cooperative intention is reached ultimately depends on whether the two of you can converse successfully. I won't exert much more effort in that regard! After all, I have already done enough, wouldn't you agree, King of the Fallen Angels?” Lucifer was immensely satisfied with this final appellation. Since he was already preparing to break away from the Heavenly Pantheon, his former title as the Legion Commander of the Fallen Angels was no longer suitable. The title, King of the Fallen Angels, suited his ambition perfectly!

“You are absolutely right; you have helped more than enough. Believe me, you will be rewarded!”

Lucifer was certainly not without guard regarding why Ye Wen would help him so diligently. He had always been curious about Ye Wen’s motivations for all these actions. However, as of now, Ye Wen held no malice towards him; even if he harbored some ill intent, it seemed to be directed towards the Olympian Pantheon and the Heavenly Pantheon.

For Lucifer, that was sufficient! At least for the immediate future, they shared common goals and mutual interests, making cooperation possible! As for later? They would deal with that when the time came!

Naturally, Lucifer was also a person who clearly distinguished between kindness and enmity. Since Ye Wen had helped him, he would certainly offer some form of reciprocation. He had even resolved that as long as Ye Wen did not genuinely stand against him in the future, everything would be open for negotiation!

After Lucifer departed, Ye Wen did not leave the snow plain, remaining at the Valkyrie’s residence for quite some time. It was no longer suitable for him to leave. Although Valkyrie would not face immediate threats from the Heavenly Pantheon—as their attention would surely be focused on Lucifer now—since he had decided to cooperate with Lucifer and was fully prepared to turn the northwestern continent into utter chaos, Ye Wen could not return to Shushan at this juncture.

“However, once the war between Olympus and the Heavenly Pantheon is ignited, perhaps I won't need to stay here anymore!”

With that in mind, what he needed to consider now was casting some sparks onto these two piles of dry tinder—the Heavenly Pantheon and Mount Olympus—that were about to ignite.

“It’s time to make that boy Bentos even stronger!”

Several months later, after numerous excursions for observation, Ye Wen finally determined that it was time to make Bentos significantly more potent. Bentos’s strength now far exceeded the human standard, and on the battlefield, the rampaging Bentos was almost revered by soldiers and border populace alike as the God of War!

Enjoying the adoration earned through military achievements, Bentos began to lead a happy life, but things would never continue so blissfully.

Being hailed as the God of War angered Ares, the true deity on Mount Olympus who had lost the title of the God of War. Feeling deeply insulted, Ares employed subtle tactics, inciting certain nobles who were already resentful of Bentos’s skyrocketing fame. The result was… a cliché tragedy, yet one that remained sickening even after millennia: Bentos, who had retired from the front lines and established a family, was once again rendered utterly alone.

This time, he retrieved the Blade of Chaos, which he had carefully stored away, to seek vengeance against the nobles who persecuted his family. However, it was not as smooth as it had been a few months prior!

With Ares subtly sabotaging him from behind… Bentos, still merely a mortal, seemed to have no recourse other than being tormented to the brink of death. If not for an unexpected event, Bentos might not have survived the night.

And that unexpected event was…

“You don’t seem to be doing very well!” The large, voluminous cloak, still obscuring everything, including the face, delivered the question with a hint of mockery in its tone.

Bentos, fiercely proud from his undefeated record on the battlefield, was about to lash out instantly. Fortunately, his brain hadn't completely atrophied; he recognized that the bizarre figure before him was the one who granted him his power, and also the reason he was alive tonight. After this night, he finally realized the colossal gap between himself and true “gods”—that kind of power was simply not something humans could contend with.

“Afraid? Just because the other party is a… a ‘God’?” Ye Wen raised his hand. The palm, concealed beneath the cloak, appeared somewhat pale under the moonlight, yet this hand, showing no discernible strength, perhaps even appearing delicate like a woman’s, managed to catch a strike from Ares right before Bentos’s eyes.

Let alone Bentos, even Ares himself was startled. Although the figure before Bentos was not Ares’s true body, but merely a wisp of his divine consciousness possessing a randomly selected strong physical shell, the divine power unleashed was not something just anyone could withstand!

At the very least, humans certainly couldn't! Ares’s first instinct was to question the newcomer’s identity, but this action only earned him an internal curse of “Damn fool!” from Ye Wen, receiving no answer instead. Furthermore, because of this verbal exchange, Ye Wen immediately seized Bentos and vanished, as abruptly as he had appeared.

Bentos gazed at that hand and suddenly felt a pang of envy for the mysterious man in black. If he possessed such immense power, would he allow himself to be manipulated so easily?

“Just because I was revered as the God of War, I incurred the wrath of a deity? For such an absurd reason, I lost the family I painstakingly rebuilt!”

The more Bentos thought about it, the more suffocated he felt. When the frustration reached a certain peak, the man chosen by Ye Wen finally erupted: “Even if he is a God of War, I will kill him… I will avenge my wife!”

His clenched fists creaked ominously, his eyes fixed firmly on Ye Wen. He had realized that the mysterious person before him was the only one who could help him achieve revenge. This person had elevated him from someone less than ordinary to someone incredibly powerful; therefore, he must also know how to make him as strong as a true deity!

Naturally, he could also guess that the mysterious man before him must have tasks for him, but these mattered little now. As long as he could seek vengeance, he wouldn't care even if it cost him his soul—he already possessed nothing left anyway.

Ye Wen was quite pleased; this was exactly the reaction he desired. Vengeance—in truth, he had planned to stir up animosity between Bentos and Ares, but he hadn't expected Ares to be so obliging, jumping in before Ye Wen had even made arrangements. However, he suspected foul play might be involved, with Athena being the most likely culprit.

“But… through…?” His thoughts shifted rapidly, and he suddenly recalled someone he had overlooked: Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and love! If this woman, who adored Ares, whispered a few suggestive words, Ares’s rash actions might be explainable.

As for why Aphrodite would do such a thing… suggesting she was colluding with Athena was clearly impossible! The goddesses on Mount Olympus had no amicable relationships; Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite had once caused a massive uproar over a competition of beauty. Therefore, Aphrodite had no reason to help Athena harm her lover.

However, Ye Wen then remembered a crucial figure he had nearly forgotten: Thanatos! The son of Hypnos, one of the twin gods under the King of the Underworld—he was the key to this incident.

“Damn it, Athena, you’re ruthless! You were scheming against Ares so early, even resorting to infiltration!” Ye Wen sighed, feeling a moment of pity for Ares: “Schemed against like that, it’s hard for you not to die!”

But this development meant that Bentos, as a chess piece, had also been exposed. However, judging by Athena’s reaction, it seemed she didn’t mind Ye Wen using Bentos to stir up trouble. Perhaps that woman was plotting how to use Bentos to achieve some objective of her own?

“This won't do—I need to find time to have a good talk with that woman. Otherwise, having a carefully cultivated piece used by someone else is utterly infuriating!” With this thought firmly set, he turned his attention back to the immediate situation.

Regarding Bentos’s problem, Ye Wen already had a plan laid out: “I assume you have grasped that peculiar power by now?” Ye Wen hadn’t deliberately taught Bentos the power of the Cosmo, but due to frequently wearing the Cloth while training, Bentos had unconsciously mastered this energy. The issue was that without detailed instruction, Bentos didn't know how to utilize this power effectively. Currently, his method of using it was extremely crude and simplistic: grab a weapon, charge into the crowd, hack and slash wildly, relying on exaggerated physical conditioning and strength, supplemented by the intermittently erupting Cosmo power in the most primitive, brutal slaughter. However, Ye Wen didn't intend to teach him specific techniques, as he wasn't grooming Bentos to be a Saint Seiya. He wanted Bentos to follow a different path—the characteristic of Cosmo is explosive burst power, but what if one could cultivate a monster that maintained a continuous burst of Cosmo, fighting constantly in that state?

Ye Wen eagerly anticipated this, but the prerequisite was an impossibly strong, virtually indestructible physical body!

Ye Wen certainly had means to achieve this, but he wasn't prepared to pass on his own ultimate techniques to Bentos. Furthermore, his own specialized techniques required immense dedication and time to cultivate; he couldn't just have Bentos go into seclusion for a century or two before emerging, as that would be highly inefficient.

So, Ye Wen conceived an alternative solution: solve it locally—he was initially contemplating various methods, but the appearance of Minos served as a reminder. There was something perfectly suited to his goals in the Olympian territory!

Indeed, Ye Wen’s target was the Water of the River Styx!

Kratos remained oblivious to the future Ye Wen had charted for him, merely nodding vaguely: “Although it’s still a bit raw, once I engage in combat, I can guarantee this power will erupt when I need it!”

His method of utilizing the Cosmo was crude—using emotion to influence the power. This made the power highly unstable, but Ye Wen couldn't be bothered to correct him immediately; he would let him fumble his way through it for now.

“This power is actually not meant for human hands; it’s a force so potent it can threaten the gods!” Ye Wen’s words ignited excitement in Bentos. Only then did he realize how immensely powerful the strange energy within him truly was: “Does that mean if I continue to train this power, I can defeat a god?”

Alas, he did not receive a definitive answer from Ye Wen, who immediately doused his enthusiasm with a bucket of cold water.

“No! If you continue to train it, your body will eventually collapse because it cannot withstand such immense power! At that point, not even a corpse will remain; you will turn completely to dust, ceasing to exist in this world!”

Bentos felt the heart that had just been ignited turn instantly to ice. He almost wanted to shout and question Ye Wen why he had imparted such a dangerous power to him! But then he remembered that without this power, how could he have avenged his fellow villagers on the battlefield?

Thinking of this, he couldn't bring himself to hate Ye Wen; he felt perhaps this was his destiny. He shook his head with a bitter smile, finally hardening his resolve: “It doesn’t matter. As long as I can kill that bastard, I don’t care if I turn to ash!”

Ye Wen let out a smile. He appreciated Bentos’s resolve, though Bentos could not see his smile. In Bentos’s eyes, Ye Wen remained a dark, eerie, and mysterious figure.

“Don't worry, I have a way to resolve this hidden danger. As long as you can find one thing, your body can become incomparably robust, standing shoulder-to-shoulder even with true deities!”

Continuing to paint a grand vision for Bentos, Ye Wen’s tone gradually became more animated, much like a devil inciting a child into mischief: “At that time, even if you raise the power within you to a level that frightens the gods themselves, your body will not collapse from the strain! Everything—all of it—can be yours, provided you find that entity!”

After delivering these words, Ye Wen looked at the still-calm Bentos and could only mutter in frustration, “I should have kept that fellow Shen Gongbao behind; that guy is way better at sweet-talking than I am! I guess I’m truly unsuited for this kind of work. I should just go back to farming in Shushan later… I haven't tended to those two fields at home in ages!”

He didn’t realize that Bentos before him had reacted; he simply hadn't expected the situation to take such a sharp turn, that he still had hope of growing stronger, and could become that strong.

The immense shock left him momentarily unable to process, unsure of what expression to adopt, resulting in his current state.

Kratos stared blankly at Ye Wen, frozen with a placid expression. Seeing no response from Bentos, Ye Wen stood awkwardly in place.

A gust of mountain wind swept through, and the two men standing foolishly on the mountaintop maintained their positions. Finally, Bentos swallowed hard, breaking the strange silence.

“What is that thing I need to find…?”

“Water!” Ye Wen inwardly breathed a sigh of relief: “Finally, I can continue the deception!” “Water?”

“That’s right. A type of water found only in the Underworld—the water from the River Styx in Hades!” Ye Wen eagerly anticipated Bentos’s reaction upon hearing this.

For the people of this remote place, Hades was strictly forbidden territory, much like telling someone in the East, “I need you to find something for me; it’s in the netherworld!”

As expected, Bentos’s expression became incredibly complex. Setting aside the River Styx, the very concept of the Underworld—a place only heard of but seemingly impossible to reach alive—caused him great internal conflict.

“Go to the Underworld? What does that mean? Am I supposed to die?”

No one had ever been known to enter that place alive, and Bentos didn't believe he would be the exception: “Are… are you joking?”

“Of course not!” Ye Wen chuckled sinisterly, but this laughter sounded eerie and terrifying at this time and place, only amplifying the impression that he was no good guy given his current appearance: “Don’t worry, since I mentioned this place, I certainly won't send you stumbling around without a clue! I will arrange a highly competent guide for you, but how you obtain the Water of the Styx and successfully cleanse your entire body with it will depend entirely on your own capabilities!”

Amidst the grim words laced with a sliver of hope, Bentos finally confirmed that the possibility of gaining power still existed, and his heart was already burning with ambition. However, he was unaware that the “competent guide” Ye Wen had arranged for him was currently cuddling a small cat, rubbing it against his face, and then, without warning, sneezed violently, spraying Garfield all over with saliva.

“Mrow!”

The enraged little creature delivered a direct uppercut, knocking Minos to the ground. It then discontentedly grabbed Minos’s skirt to wipe its face clean before walking away, tail wagging, leaving the fallen Minos wondering to herself: “Why do I suddenly have a bad feeling?” (To be continued)