Chapter 39: Spark
Ethan floated in white noise. His system’s noise.
Half-conscious or slightly awake, whatever you wanted to call it. Just suspended between the two, with every nerve reporting damage in overlapping waves.
In all that, the system finally cut through.
[Host Status: Critical]
[Multiple fractures detected]
[Stabilizing... 17%]
[Emergency Intervention complete]
[Source: Typhon]
The warm current still crawling across his skin felt gentle now. Almost soothing. The same lightning that had once rewritten his bloodline was back—the one that had struck him in the forest before Marcus was seconds away from killing him.
The small creature pressed tighter against his side. Its storm-gray eyes never left his face.
"Father...hurt? I...heal..."
He tried to say something, but his throat seemed jammed.
Cough!
Coughing out blood, Ethan’s throat finally worked, the blood still coating his tongue.
"...Not...your father, little one."
The creature tilted its head the exact same way it had earlier, completely unconvinced.
"Loud. Thunder....Father."
He almost laughed again, but it hurt too much.
Above the ruined ridge, the pressure of Zeus’s presence had already faded. Only the aftertaste remained, like the air itself jolted in his residue.
"Ha, didn’t know you were watching me..." He said, looking at the sky. "Father."
Ethan forced his eyes open fully now. He turned to her. Seris.
In your anger, you became Angelia’s puppet.
Seris still lay where he had dragged her. Breathing. Barely. Angelia’s remaining forces were gone. The twelve elites were either corpses or had been carried away in the flash of yellow retreat.
"What should I do now..."
[Mission Complete: Defeat the Daughter of Hermes]
[Difficulty: Very Very Hard]
[Base Reward: 5,000 EXP]
[Reward halved, received external help]
[Total Reward: 2,500 EXP]
[100x Applied]
[250,000 EXP granted]
"Ohh, okay."
The number hit like a second lightning bolt.
[Level Up]
[Level Up]
[Level Up]
[Level Up]
.
.
.
[Level 30 reached]
[Congratulations, you have reached a higher realm.]
His body seized. Bones realigned with wet, grinding sounds.
"Aaa..." He groaned in pain. "Aaaaa!"
Fractured ribs snapped back into place. The hole in his chest, where Angelia’s pure-divinity spear had punched through, began knitting under a lattice of blue-white current.
The pain was exquisite and nauseating at the same time.
[Free Stat Points gained: 2500]
[Bloodline Resonance detected]
[Divine Energy capacity increased]
[New Trait unlocked: Residual Authority]
Ethan exhaled a long, shaking breath as the last fracture sealed and his insides rearranged.
The creature made a soft, pleased sound and climbed higher onto his chest, tiny webbed fingers patting the place where the spear had entered like it was checking for damage.
"Still here, huh...did you have fun watching me writhe in pain?"
He sat up slowly, watching the system again, the word Typhon.
"Typhon, I really hope you’re not that Typhon..."
The creature considered this with grave seriousness.
"God’s Wrath. Me God’s Wrath...Loud claim opened it. You are loud. You are claim. My name...Spark."
Ethan stared.
"...Spark."
It blinked once, then nodded like that was obvious.
"Yes."
A new system window bloomed without permission.
[Divine Fragment Imprinted]
[Bond established: Incomplete]
[Host recognized as Primary Claimant]
[Warning: Multiple Olympian authorities will detect this bond]
[Recommendation: Conceal or perish]
Ethan closed his eyes for three full seconds.
Of course.
He had just adopted a living piece of the King of Olympus’s wrath in the middle of a battlefield while the daughter of Hermes tried to kill him.
High dopamine moment number one of the day.
He reached out and carefully ruffled the white filaments. Static jumped pleasantly between his fingers and the creature’s hair.
"Okay. Temporary name: Spark. Until we figure out something less dramatic."
Spark’s eyes brightened. It pressed its forehead against his palm.
"Spark. Father."
"...We’ll work on the second part."
Footsteps approached from the lower tunnel path, measured and cautious. One set heavier than the other.
Marcus’s voice echoed toward him, loud and clear.
"Ethan. If you’re dead, I’m going to dig you up just so I can kill you again...you know that, right?"
Ethan smiled, small and very much alive.
"Still breathing, Marcus. Can you please bring medical? And don’t shoot the talking lightning baby."
A long pause.
"...The what?"
***
Marcus rounded the last bend of the tunnel with a field medkit in one hand and his terminal held high. The hologram of Chief Barry followed three steps behind, expression carefully blank.
Marcus’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
"Explain. Now...in small words. I don’t want a whole summary of what happened."
Ethan scratched Spark under the chin. The creature made a soft thunder-purr.
"Okay, not spoiling much here. Long version: Angelia, or whatever her name was, the one we had a meeting with Rick...you remember?"
"Yeah...yeah, the blonde. The one you held more eye contact with. What? Did she betray us?"
"Not the revolution per se, but me..."
Marcus stared at him for a while. "Did you propose and she rejected you?" He joked.
"She is a daughter of Hermes....a demigod, Marcus."
"Oh....OHHHH. Shit got serious real quick."
"I fought Hermes’s daughter, kinda took a hit here. Okay, in simple words: I survived.
Package hatched. It decided I’m its dad. We’re now bound to a living fragment of divine wrath. It seems multiple pantheons will want us dead."
Marcus stared.
Barry rubbed his bald head slowly.
"Kid...you can’t keep doing this."
"I’m open to suggestions."
Spark turned its head toward Marcus and declared, clear and solemn:
"You...Uncle."
Marcus’s eye twitched.
"What...No."
"Uncle."
Ethan snorted, then winced as the residual bruises reminded him they existed.
[New Main Mission Branch Unlocked]
[Protect the God’s Wrath]
[Secondary Objective: Conceal bond from Olympian detection for 72 hours]
[Failure: Immediate divine hunt]
[Reward: Access to Residual Authority – Rank 1]
Seventy-two hours.
The same window the system had given him once before when it forced him to protect the Athena bloodline.
Ethan looked at Spark. The creature looked back with absolute trust and zero concept of the geopolitical disaster it represented.
Marcus crouched beside Seris, checking her pulse. "She’s stable for now. Barely. I thought you would just kill her, but knowing your...nature, I guess you didn’t."
"Forget that. We need to tell everyone. And we need to move before Angelia regroups or Hermes himself decides to pay a visit."
Marcus kept staring at Spark like it might explode.
"That thing called you Father. In front of witnesses. Hermes’s kid heard it. The revolution cells already know the package went live. We’re compromised on every axis, you know that, right?"
Ethan stood. The extreme Agility still sang in his nerves. He felt lighter. Sharper. Dangerous in a new way. But also came the searing pain that resulted from using such speed.
He looked at the clear sky where Zeus’s voice had come from.
My son...huh.
A claim.
Ethan exhaled.
"Then we stop hiding like rats. We steal the credit within the week. No more trivial plans."
Marcus’s head snapped toward him.
"Excuse me?"
Ethan rolled his shoulders, his ember slowly coming back. Lightning, his own this time, flickered once across his knuckles and stayed, obedient.
"Zeus just publicly intervened for me." He announced.
"That means every player on the board now knows the Son of Zeus is active and protected. Hiding buys us days at best. Using the noise buys us leverage."
He met Marcus’s eyes.
"We ask Rick why a legendary beast like Typhon was sent here by the revolution in the first place.
We force the next conversation on our terms. And if Hermes wants his daughter’s pride restored, he can come collect it himself."
Marcus’s mouth curved, just slightly.
"I think Rick will tell us why this thing is here, but about Angelia...You’re going to start a war with the messenger god?"
Ethan smiled the same small, cold smile he had worn when he dumped every free point into Agility.
"I’m already at war with half the pantheon, man. Might as well be efficient about it."
Spark climbed higher onto his shoulder and declared, proud:
"Father loud. Good."
Marcus looked at the creature, then at Ethan, then at the sky, and finally muttered the only prayer that made sense anymore.
"...We’re all going to die."
Ethan turned toward the lower path, residual thunder still warm under his skin.
"Not today, buddy. Not today...let’s return. Quick..."
****
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