Chapter 476

Hercules crashed into the ground, forming a small crater as he landed. The Demi-God was the least affected by this rough landing as he simply shook his head and looked around him.

He was completely surrounded by all sorts of heavy artillery. There was not even a single normal robot around, only the big ones that were meant to be used to destroy castle walls and whole cities, all just for him.

However, Instead of feeling excited, Hercules' lips twitched. He really didn't like these machines, especially after having suffered that blow in their first exchange.

Not only had it humiliated him, but it had also hurt in a way unlike anything the Demi-God had felt before, which had made him extremely wary.

Hercules sensed an aura of demise hanging around his body, and that source of death was coming from these machines. He personally cursed the creator of these things, completely forgetting that he was the one who had advocated for violence instead of diplomacy.

The Demi-God maintained a slow and calm movement, not trying to provoke the machines any further into firing. Meanwhile, they refrained from firing out their charged-up shots, seemingly content to just pin Hercules down for now.

Hercules was the famous son of Zeus, born from the affair he had with the mortal woman Alcmene.

The Godfather had made love to her after disguising himself as her husband Amphitryon who had 'returned home early from war'.

Hercules' very existence grated on the nerves of the Goddess Hera as it was yet another proof of his many illicit affairs.

Unable to do anything against her husband, the wife had taken her anger out on Hercules for the entirety of his life.

On the night Hercules was to be born, Hera had persuaded Zeus to swear an oath that he would make the child born that night to a member of the House of Perseus into the High King.

Zeus had agreed to this, as he had already intended to bestow this honor upon Hercules who would be a descendant of Perseus.

Once the oath had been sworn, Hera had hurried to Mount Olympus and slowed the birth of Hercules by beating Ilithyia, Goddess of Childbirth, half to death before hijacking her Divine Domain.

As a Minor Goddess with zero combat power, Illythia had stood no chance against the Goddess of Marriage.

Using her authority, Hera had made Alcmene suffer childbirth for an extra three hours as a petty punishment while accelerating the birth of Hercules' cousin Eurystheus.

After she had completed her deed, Hera had returned this power to its rightful owner threatening the aggrieved Goddess not to tell anyone about what had happened.

However, although Illythia might have been powerless, she hadn't been one to just let herself be beat up and had confessed everything to Zeus right away, begging for his protection.

Coincidentally, this abuse of power had led to childbirth becoming something the higher beings on Faust would no longer be able to temper with some time later.

As furious as Zeus had been about his wife's action, the oath had been sworn and he would have to abide by it.

After Hercules had finally been born, Zeus had carried the baby to the room of his sleeping wife. In her defenseless state, he had tied her down and allowed his son to suckle on her breast, the monstrous little boy greedily swallowing gallons at a time.

Feeling the loss of her Divine Power, Hera had woken up and had started to struggle. Eventually, she had managed to free herself, but the rest of her milk had splashed across the heavens, creating a new sub-world called the 'Milky Way' which was yet to spawn any life.

Having gotten his revenge Zeus chuckled and left while Hera screamed and cursed him shrilly, music to the Godfather's ears. He then sealed the Divine Power in Hercules' body, allowing it to retain itself within him, as all beings without a Divine Spark would lose Divine Energy slowly regardless of how powerful they were.

With Hercules having been returned to his cradle, Hera had still been fuming. This had been the first time she had ever been disrespected in such a manner, so she had sent out two snakes to slaughter the baby.

The thing that had happened next, had shocked her as well as all the other spectating Gods. Baby Hercules had laughed at the sight of the snakes, gripping each by the neck, strangling them to death with near Divine level strength.

Afterwards, Zeus' proud laughter had been heard booming across the heavens.

Hercules had grown up to be a violent and barbaric youth, one prone to quickly lose his temper. Given his superhuman strength that had obviously presented problems.

The most critical had occurred when he had strangled his music teacher to death after the fellow had criticized him too sharply.

Later in life, Hercules had married Megara, daughter of Creon, King of Thebes, (not the same as the father of Creusa). She had birthed him four sons and together they had lived the idyllic life full of peace, love, and happiness.

Unfortunately, Hera hadn't tolerated seeing his happiness. Still bitter about his existence in general, she had made Hercules fall for her illusion, making him mistake his family members for vile monsters.

The Goddess had induced a berserker rage in him, then watched as Hercules slaughtered his entire family with his bare hands.

To make sure he would feel the pain, Hera had also dispelled her illusion and allowed him to look upon their dead bodies, faces twisted from shock, fear, and hatred for their murderous father and husband.

Hercules had been broken by this, almost driven mad as he had roared for days upon end, eventually forcing the Gods to placate him as his thunderous roar of pain had spread over the entire Elysium.

He had then subtly been influenced to go seek the Oracle of Delphi about what to do next. Unfortunately, Hera had been one step ahead of the others, having threatened the Oracle to tell the soon-to-be visiting Hercules exactly what she wanted.

Afraid for her life, she had followed the instructions, instructing Hercules to serve his cousin Eurystheus for 10 years and do whatever he said.

As a pawn of Hera, the Goddess had been sure that she had gained the perfect opportunity to completely ruin him.

This was what had led to the famous 12 Labors of Hercules which had surpassed all stories of heroes that came before, making previous Heroes look like chumps.

They had been as follows;

#1. Slay the Nemean Lion; Hercules defeated the lion attacking the city of Nemea with his bare hands. After the deed, he wore the beast's skin as a cloak to demonstrate his power over the opponent he had defeated.

#2. Slay the nine-headed Hydra; The fire-breathing monster with multiple serpent heads that when one head was cut off, two would grow in its place. With the help of his nephew Iolaus, he defeated the monster and dipped his arrows in its poisoned blood, thus envenomizing them.

#3. Capture the Golden Hind of Artemis; If it had been to kill it, Hercules would have easily completed the deed, but as his mission was to capture it, he had chased it for a year, wearing out the Hind, before presenting it alive to his cousin.

#4. Capture the Erymanthian Boar; It was a fearsome, rampaging boar the size of a large bus. Eurystheus set Hercules the Labour of catching it, and bringing it to Mycenae.

#5. Clean the Augean stables in a single day; Home to 3,000 cattle with poisoned feces which Augeus had been given by his father Helios. Hercules accomplished it by digging ditches on both sides of the stables, moving them into the ditches, and then diverting the rivers Alpheios and Peneios to wash the ditches clean.

#6. Slay the Stymphalian Birds; These aggressive man-eating birds had been a terror, yet Hercules scared them with a rattle given to him by Athena, allowing him to shoot many of them with his bow.

#7. Capture the Cretan Bull; The harmful bull, father of the Minotaur, had been laying waste to the land. Hercules captured it, and carried it on his shoulders to Eurystheus in Tiryns. Eurystheus released it, when it wandered to Marathon which it then terrorized, until killed by Theseus.

#8. Steal the Mares of Diomedes; The horses from Diomedes' stables that had been trained by their owner to feed on human flesh. Hercules accomplished this task by feeding King Diomedes to the animals before binding their mouths shut.

#9. Obtain the girdle of Hippolyta; Hippolyta was an Amazon queen and she had a girdle given to her by her father. He had received a rough welcome because, tricked by Hera, the Amazons had been made to attack him.

#10. Obtain the cattle of the monster Geryon; The next challenge had been to capture the herd guarded by Geryon; a giant with three heads and six arms. Hercules had killed the fellow with a poisoned arrow, then herded the cattle and, with difficulty, took them to Eurystheus.

#11. Steal the golden apples of the Hesperides; These sacred fruits had been protected by Hera who had set Ladon, a fearsome hundred-headed dragon as the guardian. His brother Atlas had offered him help with the apples if he would hold up the heavens while he was gone.

Atlas had tricked him and did not return. Hercules returned the trickery and managed to get Atlas taking the burden of the heavens once again, and returned the apples to Mycenae.

#12. Capture and bring back Cerberus; Eurystheus had grown so frustrated that Hercules had managed to complete all the tasks that he had given him what he had believed to be an impossible task!

However, his cousin had gone Hercules had gone down into the underworld of Hades and captured the ferocious three-headed dog Cerberus who guarded the gates!

After completing these great tasks, Hercules had been lauded as a hero across the world. He had been forgiven of his crime and Hera was denounced by Zeus for assaulting a mortal.

Zeus had then activated Hercules' in-born Divine Spark, which allowed the fellow to become a Demi-God of great power as she had turned Hera's Divine Power into his own over the years.

(Author's Note: Christ, Hercules' story is LONG. This isn't even half of it, and I have cut out SO much. Will have to make a second chapter for him.)