Play the Villain - Chapter 239/240 - Vol. 2 - Chapter 65: Not a Single Man Can Be Trusted // Chapter 66: Never Eaten a Child, Yet Dare to Roam the World?

Chapter 65: Not a Single Man Can Be Trusted

With these words, the identity of this male Titan, exuding a savage and overwhelming aura, became unmistakable.

Typhon, the hundred-headed dragon—“the last-born son at the boundary of Earth and Tartarus,” the “Father of Winds who shatters all,” the “ancestor of countless monsters and demons,” the “Giant God of Terror and Calamity”… This cascade of fearsome titles perfectly captured the might of the pitch-black Titan standing before them.

He bore a hundred dragon heads, a tongue of darkness, and eyes that spewed fire. Born from the earth’s creative authority fused with the deathly power of the Abyss, he was a calamity incarnate.

According to myth, this god of disaster once stole Zeus’s Thunderbolt while the king of the gods was entangled with his lover Europa. Typhon then rallied the Titans and monsters under his command to storm Olympus, driving most of the Twelve Olympians—Hera, Artemis, Poseidon, Ares, and others—into panicked retreat.

Only Athena, fully matured and possessing the qualifications of a God King, managed to hold her ground, remaining undefeated and preserving Olympus’s last shred of dignity.

At the time, Zeus, oblivious to the crisis, had taken the form of a white bull and lingered with the Phoenician princess Europa on Crete. By the time news of the gods’ rout reached him, it was already too late. Stripped of his Thunderbolt and with the Olympians scattered, Zeus could not turn the tide against Typhon.

Later, Europa’s brother Cadmus went searching for his missing sister and encountered Zeus. Struck with sudden inspiration, Zeus summoned Pan, the god of herds, to call forth flocks of cattle and sheep. He then built a hut, disguised Cadmus as a shepherd, and instructed him to trick Typhon into surrendering the Thunderbolt. As a reward, Zeus promised Cadmus the hand of Harmonia, the goddess of harmony.

Once everything was arranged, Zeus transformed into a bull and mingled among the herd. Cadmus sat beneath a tree, playing his reed flute. When Typhon, now in possession of Olympus’s authority, heard the music, he dismissed the frail mortal as beneath his notice. Hiding the Thunderbolt, he approached to enjoy the performance.

Enchanted by the music and his own imagined grandeur, the god of calamity grew ever more intoxicated, convinced that his sheer might and charm had won over humanity—the race blessed by Mother Goddess Gaia.

In his mind’s eye, he saw himself replacing Olympus as the new lord of human worship, seizing complete dominion over the earth. Overjoyed, Typhon even promised to have the shepherd boy play for him on Mount Olympus in the future, showering him with rewards to flaunt his generosity.

In the end, Cadmus, with his masterful playing and aided by the covert support of the gods, bewitched Typhon. Zeus seized the moment and reclaimed the Thunderbolt. By the time Typhon realized the deception, it was too late—he rallied his monsters in a furious pursuit of Zeus.

But Athena had already recalled the scattered Olympians, and together they rejoined their king. The final battle began.

Zeus donned clouds as armor, thunder as his shield, lightning as his spear, and thunderbolts as his arrows, descending from the heavens in his golden chariot. Phobos, god of panic, and Deimos, god of dread, flanked him, while Nike, goddess of victory, raised her shield before him.

With their blessings empowering him, Zeus finally stood his ground against Typhon. Joined by Athena, the goddess of war, he led Olympus to a decisive victory.

Because Typhon was born of the Abyss, Zeus feared that locking him back in Tartarus would only allow him to recover and rise again. So the gods instead sealed him beneath Mount Etna, guarded by the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires.

Of course, beyond these legendary exploits, his more immediate significance lay in being the father of Medusa and countless other monsters. But as the hidden fourth-generation Earth Mother Goddess, Medusa knew all too well what she faced.

This was no god, but a monster—a cruel, cunning creature steeped in malice, incapable of compassion.

If forced to choose, she would rather see Olympus remain in power. At least the Olympians treated Greece as their own dominion; things would not grow worse under their rule.

Yet Typhon, in his future reign of terror, declared that once he fully conquered Olympus, he would wed Hera, enslave the gods, free the rebels of Tartarus, let them run rampant, and merge sky, earth, and sea—dragging all things back into the Abyss.

In essence, Typhon was the embodiment of death and calamity born from the Abyss, the manifestation of Tartarus itself given form through Gaia’s creative power.

As the world settled into shape and the divisions of sky, earth, sea, and Abyss grew firm, the Abyss—empty and formless by nature—lacked the means to create vessels or surface into the world.

In theory, as Mystery continued to fade, these ancient deities would all eventually return to primordial slumber, becoming the very laws upholding the Greek world.

However, none of the four primordial deities submitted easily to the dictates of fate.

First came Uranus, the Sky Father, who used his male generative power to awaken Gaia, the Earth Mother’s, fertility. Together they spread countless offspring, and through this, Uranus ruled the land.

But Gaia, tormented by her abusive husband, had just, with her sons’ help, castrated him.

No sooner had she found a brief respite than Pontus, the ancient sea god who encircled the earth with oceanic authority, seized the chance left by Uranus’s fall. Without restraint, he turned shadows into open force, striving to erode Gaia’s dominion. In doing so, he broke apart the land of Greece into scattered fragments.

The old sea god’s brazen plundering instantly provoked the fury of the twelve Titan gods. Under the assault of the Mount Othrys faction, Pontus’s divine essence was shattered, and he was reduced to raw material for Oceanus, who toiled most and went on to father six thousand rivers.

After the dismemberment of the primordial powers of sky and sea, the scandal of the Titan God King of Mount Othrys once again arose—devouring his children and mistreating his wife.

Rhea, the second-generation Earth Mother Goddess blessed by the land, came to Gaia in tears.

By then, Gaia, weary of endless strife among the gods, had begun to sense a growing crisis.

Thus, to restrain the ambitions of her offspring, and knowing herself ill-suited for battle, she chose to create in the depths of a cavern near the Abyss a third-generation Earth Mother Goddess, Echidna. Through asexual birth she gave her form, and Echidna bore partial powers of death.

Yet the distortion of the Abyss was beyond Gaia’s control. For a being meant as a rational creation, the result was instead a fusion of chaos and defilement. Echidna was naturally imperfect—but Gaia did not discard this flawed creation.

At that moment, Tartarus, god of the Abyss, extended an olive branch. He offered to help his sister create a child capable of chastising the gods.

And so Typhon was born.

But the instant the monster came into the world, Gaia sensed the overwhelming distortion and destructive power within the hundred-headed dragon. She recognized his terrifying ability to break free from the Abyss and tear the earth itself asunder—and she regretted it at once.

It was clear Typhon had not been born to discipline the gods for her, but to annihilate them and rule the world.

Nor had Tartarus any better intention. The primordial god who lurked in the void and loathed physical form had no wish to slumber quietly, leaving the future to the next generation.

Thus Gaia, the Earth Mother caught between sky, sea, and abyss, realized the bitter truth.

Uranus, god of the sky; Pontus, the old sea god; Tartarus, god of the Abyss—each one as untrustworthy as the next.

And men, above all, could never be relied upon.

...

Chapter 66: Never Eaten a Child, Yet Dare to Roam the World?

Gaia could easily have prevented it.

With no other choice, the Earth Mother Goddess returned to the surface, intending to warn the gods. Yet in the war between the old and new gods, Zeus—whom Gaia had secretly nurtured and placed her hopes upon—showed no sign of the magnanimity and tolerance expected of him. He decisively cast his father and uncles into Tartarus as offerings, further accelerating Typhon's growth.

The subsequent rise of Olympus and the eager manner in which they divided and seized dominion over sky, sea, and abyss left Gaia utterly disillusioned. She resolved to watch coldly from the sidelines. Though the primal power of the earth's veins remained in her grasp, the new gods had already ascended. Devoted descendants like Demeter, goddess of agriculture, and Pan, god of forests—who directly or indirectly claimed portions of the earth's power—began testing her limits with subtle, incremental demands.

Had she not raised Zeus, stood by him during the war between old and new gods, and maintained control over the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires, this Olympus God King might not even bother pretending. Indeed, he was cut from the same cloth as his forebears.

Hmph. With that bunch of “good children” on Olympus, the future of Greece would likely cease to be her concern. If divine authority was what they all craved—Zeus, Typhon, and the rest—then let them fight for it themselves.

Gaia, the Mother Goddess, adopted a strategy akin to driving out wolves to invite tigers. She chose to remain neutral, allowing Typhon to grow in strength unchecked. But thus, unchecked, the seed of calamity grew more brazen. In secret, he recruited followers, amassed strength, and began his plot against Olympus.

Though born of destruction and distortion, Typhon possessed a cunning intelligence, a gift from Gaia's creative power. He understood clearly that his first conquest must be the gods of Olympus, who held the concentrated power of the heavens. Once he seized dominion over sky and sea, the Earth Mother—who had largely withdrawn from active governance—would be powerless to resist.

Unless absolutely necessary, he wished to avoid stirring Gaia's wrath by disturbing the seeds sown in the Arima Cave, lest she align herself with Olympus. Thus, in the years to come, the Typhon offspring of the Arima Caverns scarcely appeared in any force attacking Olympus. They were merely feared and hunted down by the gods due to their formidable bloodline and terrifying potential.

However, when Typhon inadvertently sensed two delicious, pure essences appearing successively within these marshes, he could no longer contain himself. Using the venomous dragon cultivated in his own blood, he baited the prey he had been waiting for. That was precisely the pure divine power he craved. By refining his own divinity through the two beings present, even Zeus at his zenith would not be his match!

And the most direct way to seize that divine power was undoubtedly to devour them. As for devouring one's offspring? For the Greek gods, this was a family virtue so fundamental it couldn't be more basic. The second-generation God-King Kronos had done it. The third-generation God-King Zeus had done it. Had the first-generation God-King Uranus known his fate, he might have tried it too. In Greece, it seemed one couldn't even get by without a few rounds of fatherly cruelty and filial sacrifice.

Thus, this newly crowned king of monsters felt not a shred of guilt in carrying out such deeds. Now, Typhon glared menacingly at his prey, sealed within the Barrier by the Breath of Storms. His pitch-black, forked serpent tongue flickered across lips slightly parched with anticipation, offering no pretense about his bloodthirsty, savage intent.

“Hand them over to me, then get lost!”

“Roar! Roar!”

The nine-headed Hydra and the Colchis Dragon reared their necks, bellowing with savage eyes.

At the same time, Typhon’s offspring surged forward, their overlapping roars echoing with grim resolve beneath the crushing pressure. Even the timidest harpy, though her wings trembled uncontrollably, stood firmly behind Medusa and Athena.

BOOM!

Black smoke boiled across dozens of miles, its violent and cruel aura pressing down like a mountain. Typhon had lost all patience with these insignificant creatures. From within the haze, countless pitch-black dragon heads emerged, surrounding the battlefield from all directions as they closed in on the center.

“A bunch of fools...”

Medusa closed her eyes briefly, recalling how Euryale and Stheno on the Shapeless Island had accepted being devoured by her without a word of complaint. She let out a faint sigh, then snapped her eyes open, a cold, spectral light flashing within them.

Having inherited the divine essence of Earth and Abyss, Medusa had been the first to sense the malice radiating from this King of Monsters. Yet unable to withstand Typhon’s overwhelming might, the only option left to her was to offer herself as bait, buying time for her siblings to escape.

But to her surprise, those very siblings—who should have been paralyzed by fear of the monster due to the suppression of his bloodline—sensed something was wrong. One after another, they abandoned their retreat and turned back to support her.

If that was the case, then there was no choice left but to fight to the bitter end!

As hundreds of hideous dragon heads closed in to crush them, Medusa, her aura fierce and unyielding, raised the Scythe of Time and swung it down upon the first black-scaled heads that lunged.

At the same moment, Athena, her face solemn, drew her final spear. She struck it against the bronze shield on her left arm, summoning Typhon’s offspring to rally at her position and form a defensive line.

In an instant, the monsters who had grown accustomed to fighting as a unit sprang into action. Some threw themselves bodily against the dragon heads in desperate combat, others unleashed blasts of Mana into the skies, while still others relied on psychic shocks and Mystic Eyes to disrupt the minds of several of Typhon’s heads.

“ROAR!”

A hundred throats bellowed at once—the lowing of oxen, the roar of lions, the barking of hounds, the crash of thunder, the boiling of fire—all merging into one catastrophic chorus that shook the land.

A storm of boundless might erupted, carrying chaotic Ether, rending space, and splitting the very earth apart. The Caucasian eagles and harpies circling above were struck down by the surging wind columns before they could approach, their wings shattering as they screamed in agony.

Chimeras, the Nemean Lion, Cerberus, and other beasts skilled in close combat leapt onto the back of the hundred-headed dragon, clawing and biting with savage force. Yet Typhon’s body, bearing the traits of both earth and abyss, was monstrously resilient. Their fangs and claws could not pierce his hide, their strikes sparking harmlessly against his scales.

And even the few wounds they managed to inflict vanished in an instant, erased by his immortality. Worse still, parts of Typhon’s body shifted freely between substance and void. Magecraft and bindings from Ladon, the Sphinx, and the Gorgon sisters collapsed uselessly against his intangible form.

Swept away by a single breath of the storm, the monsters of the Arima Caverns were hurled through the air, their wails rising as bones cracked and muscles tore.

Only Athena, bearing her bronze shield and a thunder-wreathed spear glowing with violet-blue light, and Medusa, wielding the Scythe of Time with its destructive edge, remained standing against him.

“Still resisting? I’ve decided to devour you siblings first, then move on to the main course. Now, merge with me willingly!”

Typhon’s hundred heads twisted into a monstrous grin. His storm-breath fanned blazing flames outward, spreading in all directions as the very ground began to melt. His countless jaws lunged forward, weaving together in a killing snare around the battered defenders.

Already on the verge of collapse beneath the relentless assault, Athena and Medusa saw their siblings from the Arima Caverns about to be swallowed alive.

In unison, the two goddesses leapt and spun, throwing themselves in front of their kin to shield them.

But this was exactly what Typhon had hoped for.

With their divine light already flickering and breaking apart under the storm and poisonous fire, Athena and Medusa were forced to split their strength protecting those behind them. Their defense faltered, and they teetered on the brink of collapse.

As the last glimmer of divinity from the two “small delicacies” was shattered, Typhon opened his colossal maw and lunged.

Whoosh!

At the final moment, a golden-white arrow of light, blazing like a comet, tore through the choking black fog and streaked across the sky.

The instant it descended upon the hundred-headed dragon, the comet arrow split into hundreds of meteors that rained down in a relentless barrage, forcing the careless Typhon back a step.