Chapter Summaries

Samael defended Jason’s decision to return the wounded Argo crew home, then led a smaller party into the Underworld with Medea after realizing she might otherwise become his stepmother in Athens. As the group descended, Poseidon visited a mysterious star-powered cocoon and claimed he had conquered the threat Zeus feared.

• Jason said he would pilot the Argo back to Iolcus with the wounded while Samael took a smaller group to seek Paradise Island, and Caenis accused him of cowardice.
• Samael defended Jason’s choice, explaining that the wounded would be unsafe in the Underworld and that the remaining crew had little use for the expedition.
• Medea pleaded to stay with Samael, and he agreed after realizing that leaving her in Athens could make her the future wife of his father, Aegeus.
• Samael carried Medea into the Underworld through the vortex, and the God of Medicine, Orpheus, Atalanta, Heracles, Circe, Artemis, and six others followed.
• Poseidon climbed to the Great Altar, approached a colossal silver-white cocoon among the stars, and declared that he had conquered the power Zeus feared.

The Argo began its return voyage while Samael led his companions into Tartarus to pursue their plan to revive Orion. After the group crossed the dangerous outer defenses and camped near the River Styx, Samael posed a philosophical question about whether a ship remained the same after every plank was replaced.

• Rhode dragged the injured Caenis back into her cabin and kept talking as the Argo prepared to sail.
• Jason ordered the Argo to return, then apologized to the empty cabin after realizing his old companion was gone.
• Triton watched the Argo disappear into the Eye of the Tidal Sea and murmured that it should stay far from coming changes.
• Samael and five companions entered Tartarus, where an Underworld blessing protected him from Death Qi, and followed Poseidon's route through the dark curtains.
• The group emerged near the River Styx after a day and a night, set up camp, and rested.
• Samael asked whether the Argo would still be the original ship after all its planks had been replaced, leaving his companions puzzled.

Samael used the Ship of Theseus question to comfort his companions about partings, then the gathering was disrupted after Little Medea confessed she wanted to date and marry him. A thunderous roar from the wilderness gave Samael an excuse to rush off and investigate.

• Circe and Little Medea argued with Samael over whether the repaired Argo remained the same ship, while Atalanta challenged Little Medea's reasoning.
• Little Medea compared the Argo's identity to Orion remaining himself despite changes to his body, and Artemis and Heracles supported her view.
• Samael explained that the Argo's identity came from the companions who shared its adventures and encouraged them to reunite, lifting the group's spirits.
• Samael shared wine and smoked meat with the group, then Little Medea asked him to date her, beginning with a blind date.
• A thunderous roar came from the distant wilderness, and Samael hurried off to investigate.

Samael met Sisyphus in the underworld and freed him from the curse that forced him to push a boulder endlessly. After Sisyphus completed one final climb, Samael invited him to join his team, just as Heracles, Atalanta, and the others arrived.

• Samael watched Sisyphus struggle with his boulder and spoke with Thanatos, who allowed him to stay while he waited for his companions.
• Samael asked Sisyphus why he had defied the gods, and Sisyphus defended his deeds as proof of humanity's cunning and a source of fulfillment.
• Samael broke Sisyphus's shackles and soul-chain, lifting the curse, then invited him to become his guide and join his team.
• Sisyphus pushed the boulder toward the summit one last time while Samael considered recruiting him for the Mount of the God of War.
• Heracles, Atalanta, and the rest of Samael's companions arrived to regroup.

Samael’s group sought passage through the underworld to reach the Infinite Plains, and Thanatos offered to guide them to Charon. After paying the ferryman with Zeus Gold, they boarded his ferry and traveled upstream.

• Samael asked Sisyphus for a route to the Infinite Plains, and Sisyphus recommended Charon’s Styx Ferry.
• Thanatos gave the group seven pieces of Zeus Gold and told Heracles that his stepfather and mother were well in the underworld.
• Samael thanked Thanatos but tried to restrain him, then accepted his offer to guide the group to the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss.
• Samael and the others followed Thanatos to the Ferry Terminal and summoned Charon by casting Zeus Gold into the Styx.
• Charon demanded extra payment to ferry the living travelers, so Samael tossed him a bag of Zeus Gold.
• Charon welcomed the group aboard and sailed upstream through the Styx toward the Infinite Plains.

Samael and his companions crossed the Styx and followed Hecate to the Wall of Sighs, which she opened to reveal the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss. As they entered, Orion sprang away from Artemis and figures approached through the flower fields.

• Sisyphus explained that Charon, Thanatos, and Hypnos were brothers and children of Nyx.
• Medea said Hecate had secretly guided them, and Samael sensed Hecate watching from the opposite riverbank.
• Hecate met the group at the ferry terminal, sent Charon and Thanatos away, and took over as their guide.
• Hecate cleared a path through the ghosts on the Infinite Plains and opened the Wall of Sighs for the group.
• Samael and the others entered the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss, where Orion shot out from Artemis's cleavage and figures came to greet them.

Samael examined the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss and realized Zeus had built it by harvesting human souls and channeling negative energy into the Abyssal Layers. Orion reunited with his body and Artemis, then found Perseus, while Heracles encountered three youths from his dreams.

• Samael discovered that human souls nourished the Pure Land and that negative energy from its residents flowed through ley lines into the Abyssal Layers.
• Orion followed a familiar scent to his original body and transferred his soul from the teddy bear into it.
• Artemis embraced Orion so fiercely that she nearly crushed him before loosening her grip.
• Orion found Perseus and hugged him, but Perseus appeared unresponsive and soulless.
• Heracles saw three youths practicing with wooden swords, the same figures that had haunted his dreams.

Orion discovered that Zeus’s awakened divine mark had made him a prisoner of the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss, and he warned Samael’s companions that living heroes risked being assimilated there. Samael found the Loom of Fate’s marks within the group and broke the mark behind Medea’s ear, asking Hecate whether they had passed her test.

• Samael severed the threads restraining Perseus, and Orion reunited with his awakened friend.
• Perseus revealed that Zeus’s divine mark had awakened in Orion’s new body, tormenting him whenever he rebelled against the gods.
• Orion learned that living heroes’ marks would awaken early in the Pure Land and rushed to warn Samael and the others.
• Samael examined the heroes and found Loom of Fate threads and divine marks within Atalanta, Medea, Circe, Heracles, and Sisyphus.
• Hecate admitted she knew the danger but had left it to the group to uncover and handle.
• Samael used his authority to shatter the mark behind Medea’s ear and asked Hecate if they had passed her test.

Samael met Hecate, who revealed that she could teach him to remove the divine marks binding the heroic spirits and that she was helping to secure Medea’s future. He deduced that Hecate was the physical incarnation of Nyx, Goddess of Night, and began to suspect that Ananke might exist in the future.

• Hecate summoned Hypnos, who woke the heroic spirits sleeping in the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss.
• Hecate offered to teach Samael how to strip divine marks from the heroic spirits, explaining that the Loom of Fate had once belonged to her.
• Hecate said she was helping herself and identified Medea as a promising future for witchcraft.
• Samael asked whether Hecate was Nyx or Ananke, and Hecate said she had never heard of Ananke but acknowledged she had always been Nyx’s incarnation.
• Samael reasoned that Hecate had traded divine authority to Zeus in exchange for a physical body and concluded that Ananke might come into existence in the future.

Samael realized Zeus had manipulated the Loom of Fate to weaken the old gods and offered Hecate help in exchange for protecting his people. Before they could seal an alliance, Hades and the Underworld Judges arrived in the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss after a wounded man alerted them.

• Samael connected the Orphic Cult's accounts of Ananke and Chronos to Athena and feared she was creating a dangerous story about him.
• Hecate told Samael that Zeus had woven the old gods' decline into the Loom of Fate, and Samael offered to break the pattern while warning her not to harm his people.
• Samael's blood temporarily stabilized Hecate, who explained that her followers would inherit her Authority rather than serve as vessels for her revival.
• A crazed middle-aged man was dragged through the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss and pinned to a tree by a black Cross Spear.
• Hades, three Underworld Judges, and Cerberus arrived, and the people in the Pure Land realized the wounded man had summoned them.

Samael exposed and killed Tantalus, Zeus’s supposed spy in the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss, then tried to negotiate with Hades. Hades refused to join the rebellion, and the heroes attacked the Underworld Judges while Samael realized many of Hades’s allies were not fully committed to him.

• Sisyphus recognized Tantalus and wondered why he had been pardoned, but Samael explained that Tantalus had become a dog while Sisyphus had wanted to remain human.
• Samael used the Flame of Destiny to strip away Tantalus’s blessing, reveal him as a living corpse, and burn him to ash.
• Hades emerged and confronted Samael, who inferred that Zeus had not yet learned of the gathering because the Underworld’s defenses blocked his senses.
• Hades rejected Samael’s invitation to join the rebellion and declared that he would kill the intruders.
• Heracles, Atalanta, and the other heroes attacked the three Underworld Judges; Heracles quickly defeated Rhadamanthus, while the others pressed the remaining Judges.

Samael and his allies overwhelmed Hades and demanded the key to freeing the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss. Hades revealed his trump card by summoning ancient monsters bearing Divine Seals of Thunder, leaving the attackers facing a formidable army.

• Samael distracted Hades with a false promise of a one-on-one fight, then pressured him while Artemis and Hecate stood by.
• Hades found the Underworld Judges defeated and his usual reinforcements unresponsive, while Samael's attacks continued to exploit his weakened state.
• Cerberus bit Hades from behind, threw him into a flower bed, and eagerly joined Samael after being promised a chance to roam the surface.
• Samael offered to let Hades keep the Underworld and spare Zeus, but Hades rejected the offer and activated the Underworld King's Sword.
• Hades's magic summoned two Hecatoncheires, Titans, and Typhon's demon army, each bearing a Divine Seal of Thunder, and they confronted Samael's group.

Samael uncovered Zeus’s hidden army of corrupted gods and monsters beneath the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss, then led the rebels into battle against Hades’s forces. As the human heroes resisted their divine marks and joined the fight, Hades faced Samael’s charge.

• Samael traded blows with the hundred-armed giant, breaking two of its arms while being driven back.
• Hades revealed Tartarus’s hidden reserves of more than ten thousand imprisoned Titans, Old Gods, monsters, and heroic spirits corrupted by Zeus’s divine marks.
• Samael accused Zeus of trusting only Hades and his corrupted puppets, while secretly signaling a small lizard to slip toward the rear light wall.
• Hades warned that a new calamity was coming, activated the divine marks on the heroic spirits, and ordered his forces to attack.
• Samael used the Fate Tablet to suppress the human heroes’ marks, and Artemis, Hecate, the gods of Death, Styx, and Sleep, Heracles, and Sisyphus joined the battle.
• The human heroes formed ranks to resist the god and monster army as Samael charged at Hades.

Samael and his allies fought Hades and the Underworld forces in the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss, while a dragon returned to the goddess with olive branches. After Samael captured and poisoned Hades, he claimed that Hades's wife was in his hands.

• A giant dragon crushed the courtyard guards, then presented the frightened goddess with a bundle of olive branches.
• The human heroic spirits and their allies held off Hades's forces, while Artemis and Hecate kept the Hecatoncheires occupied.
• Samael repeatedly interrupted Hades's attempt to unseal the Taboo of the Gods and forced the wounded king to abandon his spell.
• Samael and a fellow attacker petrified Hades and struck his wrist with a poisoned arrow, then pinned him against a tree.
• Hades refused to reveal the secret key and insisted that Zeus could still defeat them, so Samael told him that his wife was in his hands.

Samael forced Hades to send the Divine Seal Puppets and giants into the Tartarus Dungeon, then demanded that Hades swear neutrality in Olympus's divine authority disputes. Persephone joined Samael's side against Zeus and pressured Hades to choose between staying neutral and going with her to Mount of the God of War.

• Samael showed Hades the battlefield where Persephone was endangered, then demanded that he act.
• Hades used the Underworld King's Sword to drag the Divine Seal Puppets and Hecatoncheires into the Tartarus Dungeon, and Samael threw Briareus's Sea God Amber into the vortex.
• Samael demanded that Hades swear to the Goddess of Oaths not to aid Zeus or interfere in Olympus's divine authority disputes.
• Persephone arrived with an Olive Branch and revealed her resentment toward Zeus, recounting how he had harmed her and her son Zagreus.
• Persephone urged Hades to stay out of the conflict and threatened to return to Mount of the God of War with Samael if he refused.

Hades swore to stay neutral in the Olympus coup and revealed that Zeus’s Thunderbolt Scepter was the key to his divine trump card. As Samael prepared to lead the resurrected heroes out of the Underworld, Circe and Medea stayed behind, and he told Medea to grow up before pursuing romance.

• Hades swore an oath of neutrality, surrendered the Underworld King's Sword, and told Samael that Zeus’s Thunderbolt Scepter controlled the Taboo of the Gods.
• Atalanta, Circe, and Medea treated the wounded heroes, while Samael discovered that the Divine Seals could restore fallen heroes to life.
• Hecate and Thanatos escorted Hades and Persephone to the Underworld King's Hall and kept watch over them as the Olympus rebellion approached.
• Samael spent two days removing the Divine Seals from several dozen trusted heroic spirits and prepared to leave the Underworld with them.
• Circe and Medea chose to remain with Hecate, and Samael told Medea to grow up when she asked about her romantic request.

Hydra’s peaceful life in Arima Cave ended when Cerberus returned, prompting a chaotic fight that Samael broke up before leaving with the heroic spirits. Samael led the group to Athens and safely reached Mount of the God of War, where familiar figures arrived to meet them.

• Hydra dozed in Arima Cave until Cerberus returned from the underworld and the two fought over his theft of her wine.
• Samael joined the brawl after Hydra’s venom nearly hit him, then beat both beasts into submission.
• Samael reassured the Serpent Mother about Tina and left Cerberus and Hydra behind while he led the heroic spirits toward Athens.
• Samael hid the group from Zeus’s awareness with the authority of destiny as they traveled to Athens and passed through the city.
• Samael led the group through the Acropolis and into Mount of the God of War, where familiar figures descended from the temples to greet them.

Samael reunited with Themis, Medusa, and Athena and discussed preparations for a coup against Zeus. He proposed using Hera and Hephaestus’s Golden Throne to trap Zeus, then revealed he had borrowed someone from Hecate to help conceal the conspirators.

• Asclepius and Orpheus led the heroes to the guest hall, while Athena took Atalanta to visit the children and Samael reassured her.
• Samael reunited with Themis, Medusa, and Athena, then recounted what he had learned about the Argonaut Expedition and the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss.
• Themis reported that the constellation candidates were nearly ready, and Athena said most of the Argo Heroes had arrived in Athens.
• Samael and the goddesses discussed waiting before contacting Poseidon and Hera, while Medusa warned against acting too soon and Samael advised keeping the Children of Typhon hidden.
• Samael proposed using Hera, Aphrodite’s sachet, and Hephaestus’s Golden Throne to restrain Zeus, and Athena questioned how they would evade his senses.
• Samael projected the Pure Land’s heroic spirit forces and pointed out a purple-black butterfly-winged youth he had borrowed from Hecate.

Poseidon prepared for an approaching confrontation while Hera, Athena, and Poseidon formed a plan to suppress Zeus. Meanwhile, Samael gathered his companions and led them toward the Caucasus Mountains to visit Prometheus as events on Olympus began to unfold.

• Poseidon closed the Star Gate, ordered Triton to prepare, and left Atlantis as the silver cocoon cracked and twelve mechanical lifeforms stood watch.
• Hera, Athena, Poseidon, and Hypnos met near Mount Olympus and agreed to target Zeus, with Athena hoping to free her mother Metis from his mind.
• Samael told Medusa and Themis that Athena's side had begun moving, then announced that he would visit Prometheus in the Caucasus Mountains.
• Samael summoned Atalanta, Heracles, the Twin Swordsmen, Caenis, the God of Medicine, and other companions, then led about a hundred people toward the Caucasus Mountains.
• Themis stayed behind on Mount of the God of War and watched Samael depart.

Hera, Poseidon, and Athena ambushed Zeus and nearly bound him to the Golden Throne. Zeus’s attempt to turn the battle by striking the Underworld failed, leaving him imprisoned and wondering who had placed a Destiny restriction in the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss.

• Zeus followed a fragrant scent to Hera’s palace, where Hera and Poseidon trapped him with the Golden Throne’s chains and Poseidon’s trident.
• Zeus broke their momentary hold with a strange rhythm and attacked Hera with the Thunderbolt Scepter, but Athena blocked the strike with her shield.
• Hera, Poseidon, and Athena combined their powers to overwhelm Zeus, tightening the chains and draining his divine strength.
• Zeus sent a lightning spear through three bronze gates toward the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss, but dark golden patterns shattered it before it could reach the Ley Lines.
• Zeus spat blood as the Golden Throne’s chains inscribed his blood marrow and divine core, and he wondered who had placed a restriction of Destiny in the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss.