It felt strange to be dead... anyone would think that "Dying" literally meant stopping all sense of existence.
Living in absolute nothingness with incredible apathy... But "No!!" he could feel something... he could feel his body growing.
Or what he supposed was his body... he could feel a strange liquid around him... and for some reason, he could taste something sweet around him.
He might have confused this with being reborn... but the thing is, this wasn't all! In his hand, a golden sword emitting its own light revealed some of his appearance in this silent and dark sea.
His hands were strong and large... His muscles well developed and defined... and his head had a lush forest of hair.
With the reflection of the sword's blade, he could tell that his face wasn't his own face and displayed a clear sign of youth, "Something he lost years ago."
Looking at the golden sword, which seemed to be made of pure gold in his hands, he had a strange sensation... actually, several sensations.
The first was the familiarity he felt with the sword in his hands... it was as if he couldn't imagine his hand without the sword and the sword without his hand.
Secondly, the strange change of environment... he was sitting in his armchair playing the game Elden Ring when suddenly he felt a great pressure on his chest and then everything went dark.
Nothing really seemed to make sense to him at this moment... somehow, he knew he had died, and somehow, he knew he had started living again with a new name.
But he had no idea how the hell he was growing in such a strange way and why he had a sword in his hands...
"Neigh!"
The sound of a horse's whinny echoed throughout the place... as Crisaor looked at the Pegasus, "A horse with wings," suddenly landed in front of him.
Its eyes showed an intelligence not expected from a mere winged horse.
"You still haven't found a way out, huh?"
Crisaor's eyes were complicated... he had tried to find a way out of this place with the help of the Pegasus, but no matter how they moved, they couldn't find it.
Pegasus nodded before gently dropping to the ground, and its wings folded to avoid causing any disturbance. Crisaor didn't say anything in response to the act of the self-illuminating flying pony and instead simply lay down beside it with a soft sigh.
"Where the hell are we, Pegasus?"
"Neigh."
Sighing, Crisaor gazed into the void for a while before noticing something... it was like an annoying spot within his vision that seemed to be enlarging every second.
"Hmm, what's that?"
He wasn't sure, but he knew that whatever it was, it was something interesting that he wanted to have in his hands.
There weren't many things beyond the absolute darkness in this dark and damp world.
[Congratulations, you have activated the Transmigrated System!]
[Status activated!]
[Active Inventory]
[Card Steal Active]
"Uh... a system?"
Crisaor didn't know what to think now... he really had a transmigrated system! And not only that, the last option of the system was just awesome!
Looking back, he glanced at the Pegasus, which was peacefully sleeping above him. There were several things listed.
[Pegasus] (Your brother)
Beneath the Pegasus' name, which he now knew was really his brother, several cards floated above its head.
[Purity (A+)] (No evil can survive in the presence of its beautiful existence)
[Flight (C+)] (You gain wings capable of smoother flight than that of a bird)
[Magic Core (A+)] (A magic core comparable to that of a young dragon)
[Magic Resistance (D+)] (Spells below rank D are nullified)
[Physical Resistance (D)] (Attacks below rank D are nullified)
There were several more cards, but for the moment, Crisaor simply ignored them and examined his own status. He was curious about his own existence.
[Status]
Name: Crisaor
Race: [Giant] (1/2 Demigod)
Core: [Giant's Heart (A+)] [Divine Core (D+)]
Divine Authority: [Strength (D+)] [Earthquakes (E++)]
Condition: [Healthy]
Age: 0
Racial Level: (D+)
Personal Level: 0
Body: (B+) [61]
Mind: (E+) [14]
Spirit: (D+) [24]
Status Points: 0
Passive Abilities: [Herculean Body (B+)] [Giant's Heart (EX)] [Giant's Growth (EX)] [Magic Resistance (C+)] [Physical Resistance (B+)]
Active Abilities: [Mana Control (E)] [Mana Sense (E)] [Giant Language (B+)] [Giant's Blessing (C+)]
Whistle... even at level 0, he was incredibly powerful in every sense. If compared to Pegasus, he was like an almighty tank.
And his Giant's Heart, he assumed it was like Pegasus' Mana Core... it was the thing that provided magical energy to his entire body.
"Though a divine core, huh..."
A lot was going through his mind at this moment... he wasn't a deep connoisseur of myths, but he knew something, especially about Greek mythology from which the culture he was born into originated.
The Western culture...
As far as he remembered, in Greek myths, Pegasus and his brother Giant, who nobody cares about, were born from their mother Medusa after she was impregnated by the god of horses, earthquakes, and the sea.
In a way, along with Medusa and her two sons, they represented the three most powerful aspects of Poseidon...
Medusa: The sea
Pegasus... The sky above the sea...
Crisaor: Earthquakes and the land
If he really was that Crisaor from the myths, and his brother was also the Pegasus from the myths, then he had several questions about his existence.
Firstly, "Medusa's womb must be enormous." Secondly, "Was Medusa violated, or was her act consensual in this reality?" And thirdly, "Did he kill Perseus shortly after birth or did he escape with Pegasus?"
He wasn't sure what to do with the increasingly crazy thoughts in his mind... the only thing that comforted him was that it was well-known that Poseidon's giant son Crisaor was loved and cherished by Poseidon.
It wasn't for nothing that he lived for so long, had children... One of whom was later killed by Hercules in his 12 labors... His children formed dynasties and reigns, and he himself was never said to have died.
But he was worried about Pegasus... If he didn't remember wrongly, Pegasus was captured by Perseus shortly after birth, and then later captured by Poseidon.
He couldn't let his blood brother suffer under the murderer of their mother.
It was simply too cruel!
Scratching his head, he sighed and looked at his sleeping brother.
"We'll just see what to do when we get out... for now, I need to gain some strength before leaving... if Perseus attacks me, I'm not sure I can win."
According to myths, a giant gains power the longer they live... the problem is, I haven't even been born yet.
So, to strengthen myself, I have two things I can do... practice using mana, and secondly, take the two cards that interest me from my brother.
[Purity] [Estimated Extraction Time: 1 Hour]
[Flight] [Estimated Extraction Time: 30 minutes]
It's fortunate that Pegasus is sleeping... without hesitation, I'll first press to steal the Purity card.
[Initiating process]
[Please wait for completion.]
Haha, I look great with your wings, don't I, Pegasus?
Pegasus nodded as he watched Crisaor, who now had large white wings like his own, and an aura of Purity similar to his as well, surrounding him.
In this world where Crisaor's size had no way to be compared, he simply looked like a human with white wings emitting a faint white light.
After playing for a while, he eventually turned off the flight ability, but the wings didn't disappear; they just folded on his back, waiting to spread out again when the time was right.
Looking at Pegasus with a strange expression on his face, Crisaor smiled.
"Why the long face... We're brothers, of course, I'll have wings like yours. I'm sure when you're older, you'll be able to have my giant form as well."
Pegasus snorted before taking flight again. He was going to search for an exit once more, and as for Crisaor's transformation, he simply didn't care.
As a mystical creature, he had his pride and couldn't care less about the changes in his giant brother.
Once again, Crisaor began to play with the warm energy within his own body. With each beat of his heart, he could feel his body growing stronger, while the Mana produced by his body flowed uncontrollably throughout his being.
He first tried to extract the Mana from his body. He could easily sense it within himself, so after concentrating for a bit, he managed to make a brown mist slowly emanate like dust from the palm of his hand.
"The control within my body is easy... but why can't I control it when it's released?"
Observing how the energy barely escaped before dissipating into the environment, Crisaor pondered silently.
As an otaku from his previous life, knowledgeable about countless power systems, and now a giant endowed with magical talent comparable to that of a dragon, over time, he managed to come up with possible solutions to his problem.
Pegasus returned and left several times, running all around in search of an exit.
Perhaps due to being a horse, the concept of not being free was simply unbearable for him, let alone staying still. He desperately sought a way out of this dark world.
A brown sphere spun slowly on Crisaor's palm. It was a piece of earth, solid and shiny.
"It seems I truly have authority over earthquakes and, consequently, an affinity for earth... it's so easy to create a piece of land."
"Easy" wasn't the right word... in reality, it was damn complicated. However, since time couldn't be felt in this place, he spent years and years practicing until he could create "matter" from Mana.
An embodied miracle... But in the end, it was to be expected; he was a Giant, second only to the Titans and comparable to dragons.
Many gods were wary of his kind, and Typhon, a "Giant," nearly defeated Zeus, a king of gods. If it weren't for Typhon being trapped in a hundred-god trap, Zeus would have suffered a major defeat, and Olympus might never have recovered.
That's how powerful the Giant race was.
Squeezing his hand, the earth compressed into a solid rock, which he then tossed aside, where several other rocks were starting to form a small mountain.
"Why does it take so much effort to create earth?"
He didn't know. He was truly puzzled by this. Creating a simple stone consumed all his magic, and it wasn't even that large, only the size of his fist.
With many doubts, he eventually took a break before considering something. Instead of making shapeless stones, he could create more refined sculptures. That might help with his control.
With that in mind, he began creating earth and, instead of compressing it into a ball, he used magic to shape it into a figure. His earth was a light gold color, so when the small figure was completed, it looked like a tiny golden figurine.
As for what the figure represented, not even he could tell... it was simply a rock in the shape of a human, with no distinct features.
Standing beside Pegasus, who seemed smaller with each passing day, Crisaor looked down at the shattered and lifeless human figure at his feet.
"Where did you get a dismembered human, Pegasus?"
Pegasus glanced at him before looking up at the sky. He could understand what Crisaor was saying. This thing had fallen from above.
Staring at the sky, Crisaor furrowed his brows.
"Strange... we've inspected the sky of this entire world and never found anything... So where did this really come from?"
With doubts, he didn't dwell on it too long and instead crouched down. He finally had a way to compare his height to a human.
And he could tell... this human must have been around 1.7 meters tall. But he was easily twice, if not more, their size. At a minimum, he was a giant of 2.5 meters, and that was the minimum.
Pushing his finger against the small human body, he noticed a small symbol amidst the blood and gore. An insignificantly tiny bird symbol was etched onto the damaged armor, along with clear bite marks.
"Seems like it was bitten to death... What could it have fought against before ending up like this?"
He couldn't say for certain, but it had to have been a massive and powerful creature to pierce through such solid metal armor with its teeth.
Well, solid from his perspective... it looked solid, but when he gave it a slight squeeze, the armor's metal bent easily.
As Crisaor investigated the body, Pegasus grew bored of watching his brother toy with a corpse and took off flying, attempting to find the opening from where the body had fallen.
After seeing Pegasus fly off again, Crisaor grew bored as well. He stole the few crumbs-sized coins from the man's body and removed his armor before tossing the corpse away.
He had no interest in the dismembered body, and he didn't need to eat, so there was no point in keeping it around.
The coins were too small for his hand, but his eyesight was keen, and he noticed several details and an impression on the coin that he somehow managed to read, even if he didn't recognize the symbols.
[Athena]
"Why would an Athenian warrior be searching for Medusa?"
Based on what he knew, he could piece together a rough idea of what might be happening outside. He had already accepted that he was inside Medusa, even if it seemed highly illogical.
But considering that Gaia had a world within her chest that could imprison Titans, and that Cronus had a world within his stomach, it wasn't far-fetched for him to believe that Medusa, a deity in her own right, could have a world within her stomach and womb.
Therefore, now that he was inside Medusa, he could understand that when he awakened in this place with Pegasus, it was some time after the active day between Poseidon and Medusa.
That meant there were several options according to time and mythology.
The first was that, in her madness to become a monster, Medusa started killing all the heroes who sought her and consumed them before being beheaded by Perseus.
The second was quite similar, but with a subtle change. Medusa returned to the island where her two divine sisters lived and protected them from the heroes who sought them before succumbing to madness and killing everyone without discrimination.
The time of Medusa's death also changed depending on the time of her initial death. In the first scenario, Medusa ran for only a few years before being beheaded, while in the second, hundreds of years could easily pass before Perseus arrived.
In either case, this was both good and bad news for Crisaor and Pegasus. Their time to be free was approaching, but the cost was likely their mother's head. No matter which version of the myth it was, Athena was a jealous bitch, and Medusa suffered.
The fact that a cursed and unlucky woman had to die for him to be born didn't sit well with him. Unfortunately, it's not like he could do anything to change it.
Creation is hard, cheer me up!
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