Chapter 645 Top of Mount Olympus
Before she could get to Zeus, there were still a few gods that were standing on the stairs, waiting for her approach. One of which held a golden trident and Shiro guessed that he was Poseidon.
He stood at an astounding 7ft tall with slightly black hair that was showing some signs of grey. He wore only a waist cloth and some light armour, leaving his chest and abdomen exposed.
His muscles were well defined but Shiro found no interest in them as she had seen her fair share of nice physiques. If she was a girl who loved muscles, she would have loved the cunt named Aekari.
"So you're the one that Aphrodite kept mentioning. I can see why she wanted to make you her chosen, your beauty is quite obvious." Poseidon narrowed his eyes as he surveyed her up and down.
Detecting obvious signs of l.u.s.t in his gaze, Shiro felt goosebumps on her body and wanted to stab the man immediately.
"Yes I am." Was Shiro reply as she continued to walk up the steps.
Seeing her obvious dismissal of him, Poseidon was rather displeased and slammed his trident in front of her.
*CRACK!
Raising her eyebrow at the cracked staircase, Shiro glanced at Poseidon.
"What?"
"Is this how you greet a god?" Poseidon asked.
"Pft, well respect is earned through one's actions. You don't automatically get my respect since you're a 'god'. Plus, so far your actions have told me that you think more with your d*ck than you do with your head." Shiro huffed.
*PUCHI!
Feeling the urge to drown this woman in front of him, Poseidon clenched his trident as his anger was obvious.
However, before he could make a move, a hand clasped against his shoulder.
"Don't try to f*ck every woman you see now. It's rather disgusting to see." The red haired man laughed as his fiery eyes glared at Poseidon.
"Get your filthy hands off me Ares. I will kill you where you stand, I have not forgotten about the murder of my son, Halirrhothios." Poseidon glared back at Ares.
"I murdered the useless sh*t because he r*ped my daughter." Ares retorted as his aura started to bleed into the atmosphere, making it hard for Shiro to breathe.
"Oi. Can the two of you shut the f*ck up before you embarrass yourself anymore?" A dark voice rang out as the two froze up for a minute before clicking their tongues.
"Che, I'll give you the blessing now." Poseidon glared at Shiro and snapped his finger.
[Blessing of Poseidon]
When you are near any source of water, your power grows. When you are at sea, you become twice as strong. Your water and ice elements are more effective and may ignore resistances. Marine life find it calming to be near you and you have an affinity with water based entities.
Right after giving Shiro his blessing, Poseidon didn't want to stay any longer and disappeared from his spot.
"Coward." Ares huffed before grinning at Shiro.
"So then, I'll also give you my blessings. And just before I go, just know that I enjoy watching you fight." He laughed.
Snapping his fingers, a red Sigil appeared in the air before entering Shiro's arm.
[Blessing of Ares.]
Whenever you enter combat, you passively emit a fighting aura which grows with the intensity of the battle. At its peak, you can 'consume' all of the aura and infuse your next attack with the might of god. This attack ignores all forms of defence. Once you consume all of the aura it resets and will slowly grow once more.
The more times this is used during the same day, the harder it is to make the aura grow.
"Also, be careful of the next guy. Piss him off and he'll drag your soul out." Ares waved and faded away.
Raising her eyebrows at Ares' warning, Shiro could guess that the next god was most likely Hades, God of the Underworld.
Materialising out of the shadow, a gloomy dark haired man with a rather unkempt stubble glanced towards Shiro.
His hair covered a portion of his face which revealed his pale complexion. There were also dark bags under his eyes which showed a severe lack of sleep.
"I apologise about my brother and Ares. The two don't get along very well and Poseidon is like Zeus in some regard." Hades sighed.
"I figured. Though I must say, I didn't expect you to apologise. Aren't you like an Evil God or something?" Shiro asked curiously.
"Is that what mortals think of me now? *sigh* I suppose things haven't changed much." Hades shrugged.
"So you're not an Evil God?"
"No. Just because I guide the souls of the dead doesn't mean I'm evil." Hades yawned before sitting down on the base of his own statue.
"Now then, as one of the higher ranked gods, I have quite a few blessings and I'll allow you to pick one. I cannot merge them together since there is still a limit to your mortal body. Despite having the bloodline of a phoenix, you cannot handle too many blessings just yet. Ares knew this and gave you only one of his blessings but my brother Poseidon was actually so petty and merged a few together into one. I would have liked to give you more since you're quite compatible with my blessings." Hades shook his head.
"Now, here are the options for you. I can improve your rift, grant you knowledge and a certain degree of power over souls, you can have almost perfect stealth which hardly anything can see through and the last one I can grant you is to infuse yourself with some of my power and become a demi god for a short time." Hades offered with a grin.
"I want knowledge and power over souls." Shiro said without hesitating. If she could understand and control souls better, there was a chance that she could find Kuromi once more.
"Are you sure? Do you not want to think about this some more?" Hades asked with a raised eyebrow.
"No. This is fine." Shiro shook her head with a smile. If she could get her older sister back, there was nothing else that she would want.
"Very well." Hades nodded and conjured up a black and purple Sigil.
[Blessing of Hades]
You have an almost perfect understanding of souls and can control them to some extent. Should you disarm and render an opponent defenceless, you are able to rip out their souls with ease. You may choose to return, relocate or destroy their souls. During their soul state, you can prevent the soul from reincarnating so long as you are in contact with them.
"Thank you." Shiro smiled as Hades nodded his head.
"Good luck with my brother. Thankfully for you, Nyx is backing you so Zeus wouldn't do anything too drastic. Nyx is the only one that Zeus is afraid of." Hades reminded before fading away.
Continuing up the steps, she could see a few figures of gods watching from their statues but made no action to interact with her which was ok for Shiro. Because right now she had no energy to spare to deal with their antics.
As she was near the top, each step was taken with great difficulty.
*CRACK!
Flinching slightly, Shiro could feel her body fracture from the pressure but her natural healing quickly patched it up. Unfortunately for her, her body continued the cycle of being broken and healed.
Feeling nothing but pain, Shiro was tempted by the thought of taking a break and adapting to the pain but her instincts urged her to go on.
One step, two step, three steps. Without looking anywhere else, Shiro was solely dedicated to taking the next step forward, increasing the burden on her body.
*BANG!!
Taking the final step, Shiro found herself at the top of Mount Olympus.
[Congratulations, you have scaled the mountain of the gods in one go. Without taking a single break or rest, you have demonstrated great willpower. You are rewarded with the following title.]
[Title: Virtue of Fortitude]
So long as your HP is not 0, you can continue to fight no matter how tired you are, pushing your body further past your limit as long as your enemy is still in front of you.
Once the enemy is dead, you will feel all of the pain acc.u.mulated during this moment and suffer a backlash equal to how much you have pushed your body. This cannot be relieved through any methods and must heal naturally.
[During your ascent, you have acquired several blessings. Some are small boosts in power of the lesser gods while others blessed you anonymously with passive effects. You receive the following reward.]
[Blessing of the Greek Pantheon.]
Each blessing is now slightly more effective and you will gain an additional 10,000 assignable points per level up for each blessing.
Current Blessings: Asteria, Athena, Aphrodite, Ares, Artemis, Hades, Hermes, Poseidon, Nyx.
"So you have arrived at last." Zeus narrowed his eyes.