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Monster? No, I'm a Cultivator! (Percy Jackson): Chapter 31
🕑 Added 2025-04-30 06:21:56 +0000 UTC“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—”
Ocean Song and Medusa stood side by side, mouths agape, lungs at full capacity, letting out one continuous, soul-rattling scream as they stared at the very real, very sacred Golden Apple Tree now resting peacefully in front of their half-finished sect.
The tree shimmered with divine authority, glimmering with each golden apple dangling temptingly from its branches. It radiated power, ancient and revered, each leaf practically humming with the sound of Zeus’s lightning bolts finding their heads if a single breath of this was revealed.
“Why is that here?!”
Medusa grabbed Ocean Song by the robes and began shaking him violently. “DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS?! THIS IS HERA’S! HERA’S! AS IN THE QUEEN OF THE GODS, HERA!”
“I know!!” Ocean Song wailed, grabbing his own head.
“IT WAS A WEDDING PRESENT FROM GAIA! GAIA! THE PRIMORDIAL GODDESS OF EARTH! WHY WOULD NESSIE DO THIS?!” Medusa continued.
They both turned to the side.
Nessie blinked at them, her large, calm, vaguely reptilian eyes conveying nothing but unearned pride. She let out a gentle, bubbly “Bawhoooo~,” like a sea cow pleased with itself for pooping in the tub.
“DOES SHE EVEN KNOW WHAT SHE DID?!” Medusa gasped, clutching her chest.
Ocean Song looked at Nessie again, but he could tell that she most certainly had no idea what was going on based on her look.
Medusa pointed accusingly at the not-dinosaur. “Not just an apple! THE WHOLE TREE! How did she even—THE DRAGON! WASN’T THERE A DRAGON?!”
“Yes! Ladon! One hundred heads, fearsome beast, someone I considered for the spot of Sect Protecting Divine Beast!”
Medusa’s eyes went wide with existential terror. “D-did she kill it?” The ancient monster whispered in horror.
Ocean Song’s eyes widened as they both stared at Nessie. “...truly I have picked the greatest sect protecting divine beast…”
Medusa smacked him upside the head. “THE GOLDEN APPLE TREE SYMBOLIZING THE MARRIAGE BETWEEN THE KING AND QUEEN OF THE GODS WAS STOLEN BY YOUR PET!”
“I KNOW, I’M TRYING TO NOT THINK ABOUT IT!” Ocean Song was still in a state of existential fear.
It was one thing to invite Zeus to lightning bolt your face in a challenging manner; it was another matter entirely to essentially slap the Queen of Gods across the face and steal her marriage gift from Gaia.
Their horror reached a crescendo.
“…We’re going to die,” Medusa whispered. “We are going to die the most painful, divine, ironic deaths in the history of immortal execution methods. We’re going to be turned into living statues and fed to peacocks.”
Ocean Song gasped. “Do you think they’ll make me give it back?!”
“OF COURSE THEY’LL MAKE YOU GIVE IT BACK! YOU STOLE THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT BOTANICAL SYMBOL OF MATRIMONIAL DIVINITY IN EXISTENCE!”
“It’s not my fault Nessie thought it was a good offering!” Ocean Song cried out, falling to his knees in front of the sacred tree. “She was just trying to help!”
As if understanding the drama, Nessie let out another soft “Bawhoo?”, tilting her massive head.
Medusa ran her hands through her hair, muttering, “Okay. Okay. Damage control. We need a plan. We need to contact Hestia. Maybe she can mediate before Hera turns us into soup.”
“Auntie!” Ocean Song gasped. “Yes! She’s still here, right?!”
He turned to look—and paused.
The makeshift altar was now surrounded by a quiet ring of fire, and within it, the outline of Hestia remained, looking between them… and the Tree.
She was completely still.
Medusa froze.
Ocean Song held his breath.
Nessie wagged a flipper.
The flame silhouette of Hestia finally, finally spoke.
“…I am going to pretend I didn’t see this.” Hestia, goddess of the hearth, defender of all things family, wisely chose to hang up the divine call.
Ocean Song was a proper cultivator.
That is to say, as a proper cultivator, he knew when he was fucked.
This was far beyond any of the things he had done before that earned…anger or annoyance from any god.
No, this was the start of one of those cautionary tales propagated in myths that end with ‘And then they suffered a fate worse than death, and it continues till this day.’
“I have an idea!” Ocean Song quickly came to a realization.
Medusa grabbed him by the collar. “I don’t care what it is, do it, do it now!”
Ocean Song threw down another altar. “Hecate, help!”
Medusa, in a normal situation, would have been grumpy and annoyed at his actions, but that was probably the best she could hope for in this situation.
The divine sight of Hecate fell on Ocean Song, briefly glancing at Medusa before turning back to him. “What do you want?”
“Golden Apple, stolen, help!” Ocean Song flailed his arms around, like a proper cultivator, of course.
“...and? Hera will be annoyed if you stole an apple, but it’s been done plenty of times.”
“The entire tree!” Ocean Song blurted out.
That was when Hecate saw what he was talking about, and her divine presence immediately descended upon them.
Her eyes landed on the tree in person this time.
“!#@$@%!$#@%?”
Ocean Song was learning a great many new bad words in Ancient Greek today.
“WHY IS THAT HERE?” The Goddess of Magic grabbed him and shook him violently.
“Nessie did it!” Ocean Song threw off all semblance of decorum and pointed the finger at her.
“Bawhoo?” Nessie still had no idea what was going on.
“...what is that?”
“The Loch Ness Monster.” Medusa informed her.
Hecate opened her mouth once; it hung open for a few moments before slowly closing. Rather than replying, she opted to shake Ocean Song some more. “Why did you steal the Apple Tree?!”
“It wasn’t intentional!”
“Hera won’t care about that, you buffoon!”
“Can you hide it?” He asked, pleading with his eyes.
Admittedly, Hecate was nearly moved just from the pitiful sight alone. She didn’t like seeing him in a desperate situation like this. “....I can’t.” She dropped him. “There are rules. I can’t just…overtly act. Not to mention, you’re asking me to go against Hera. Do you have any idea how furious she’s going to be? Do you think that her getting angry at one of Zeus’s bastards is a show of how petty and heinous she can be when she sets her mind to it?”
Ocean Song was a true Cultivator, therefore, he didn’t start crying.
“C-can we make an offering?” Medusa asked.
Ocean Song immediately perked up. “We can make an offering, right? Say, a golden apple?” Ocean Song was about to reach for one before Hecate swiftly slapped his hand away.
“Stop!” She commanded. “Don’t Touch the Apples!” She hissed under her breath. “They’re enchanted so Hera will immediately know if someone picks one of her apples.
“.....but not the tree itself?”
“Why would she ever think someone would be stupid enough to steal the whole damn tree!?”
Ocean Song thought that was a fair point. “Hecate, on a scale of one to ten, how screwed are we?”
“The scale does not go high enough.” She snorted.
“H-how haven’t we been smote yet?” Medusa asked in a whisper, her normal fear of anything divine currently paling in comparison to her fear of what Hera would do to them.
“Do you think she watches it every second of the day? She only cares if one of the apples gets picked…or if that stupid dragon wakes up and makes a commotion…so you might be fine for a while.” Hecate hypothesized.
“So we have a chance.” Ocean Song realized. “We just need to find someone capable of hiding it.” He looked at Nessie. Considering she grabbed it and came back here, presumably she could hide it, but he didn’t think she could indefinitely.
And, well, as much as he loved his new Sect Protecting Divine Beast…he didn’t quite trust her to keep it in her mouth or something for the rest of her life.
“...preferably someone who won’t rat us out.” Medusa added.
“Yes, that’s very important.” Ocean Song nodded.
“You could try Circe; she might be willing to listen if I ask.” Hecate offered a genuine offer coming from a certain…care about her stupid Cyclops.
“The one that turns men to pigs if they go to her island?”
“.....yes.”
Ocean Song weighed his options. Would being turned into a pig be worse than what Hera would do to him?
“I’m fucked.” Medusa sat down. “Maybe if I kill myself, she won’t be able to reach me in Tartarus?”
The Gorgon genuinely considered if staying in Tartarus was a better alternative than what may happen.
“Maybe I can go hide with my father in Atlantis?” Ocean Song pondered. “No, I must face this head-on!” He stood up straighter. “I have no fear!”
“Really?” Medusa looked at him.
“No, I’m absolutely terrified.” Ocean Song admitted. “Hecate, do you know anyone who can help that won’t turn me into a pig?”
“Will a different animal help you make a choice?” She asked in return.
Ocean Song agreed with Medusa.
They were fucked.
“Wait!” Ocean Song’s eyes widened. “I have an idea!”
“This is your last one; if you don’t say something good, I’m jumping off the mountain and respawning in Tartarus.” Medusa said, oddly patiently, like someone who had made peace with death.
“Daedalus!” Ocean Song blurted out the name of the person who would save them.
“...the creator of the Labyrinth?”
“Who else has such profound insights into the art of formations and can hide the Apple Tree from prying eyes?” Ocean Song threw out.
“That’s incredibly idiotic, so much so that it circles back around to being intelligent.” Hecate blinked.
“Okay, and where is he?” Medusa asked.
“In the Labyrinth.” Ocean Song answered.
“How do you know that?” Hecate snapped her head back to him.
“...where else would he be?” Ocean Song retorted swiftly. “Now, I just need to head to the Labyrinth to find him!”
Medusa crossed her arms. “Well, get on with it.”
“.....”
“You don’t know how to find it, do you?”
“...Hecate?” Ocean Song looked at her with pleading eyes again.
Hecate twitched because she was finding it difficult to reject him when he looked at her so pitifully. ”“...I suppose since you gave me flowers, I can answer.” She huffed. “There are plenty of entrances across the continent. The closest one would be at the camp…but if you don’t want to go there, there’s another one just the state over in Atlanta, Georgia.”
Hecate tapped his forehead, and the information appeared in Ocean Song’s head.
“I’m taking Bessie, bye!” Ocean Song picked up the Great Void Heavenly Demon before hopping onto his sword and flying away.
@***@
Ocean Song flew at his fastest speed.
He was racing against the clock.
He wasn’t even sure his father could protect him if Hera found out what they had done. And he very well couldn’t just throw Nessie under the bus.
Partly because she could simply disappear.
But also because he was a proper cultivator, and a proper cultivator doesn’t abandon sect members!
Thankfully, they arrived at the spot rather quickly.
For some reason, the entrance to the Labrinth was inside a large Acquarium.
Nessie found it fun, looking around at the sea life as we walked through the tunnels, surrounded by the massive fish tanks.
Ocean Song would have also taken the time to admire it, but current problems took away all the fun.
He almost did a double take as the entrance to the Labyrinth was quite literally built into the side of the fish tank not far ahead either.
Like, it looked like one of those cartoons where someone paints on the side of a cliff to look like a tunnel.
Except…it was real.
Ocean Song looked behind it to see that there was nothing behind it but water and glass, yet he could put his hand forward into the entrance.
He had no time to ponder the sheer lack of regard for anything resembling common sense or physics and hopped right in, carrying Nessie, despite her being larger than the entrance would allow.
It was exactly as one would imagine.
Large stone walls, a darkness that hung above. An invisible force that prevented anyone from flying upwards or otherwise jumping over the walls.
It was an entirely different world that they had walked into.
The Labyrinth yawned open before them like a puzzle that resented being solved.
Ocean Song stepped forward with all the confidence of someone who had never once solved a puzzle but had always cheated successfully.
“This,” he announced, “is the part where most mortals get lost forever.”
“Bawhoo,” Nessie nodded wisely.
“However, I am a wise and proper cultivator, so I have a better plan.” Ocean Song did his best to teach her the arts of being a cultivator.
He took a breath.
“DAEDALUS! I REQUEST AUDIENCE IN THE ANCIENT TRADITION OF YELLING LOUDLY AND HOPING FOR THE BEST!”
The maze did not respond.
Ocean Song nodded solemnly. “Plan B.”
He sat cross-legged, placed the zither across his lap, and began to play.
A soft, eerie melody filled the air—a song inspired by salmon, composed by Panic, and accompanied by Nessie’s soulful, entirely unrequested vocalizations.
The air shimmered.
Oddly, the labyrinth seemed to respond.
Aggressively.
The walls started thumping in the distance, as if grinding in annoyance. Though, that only made Ocean Song play even more brilliantly!
The Dao of Music was not one for the faint of heart. Ocean Song knew that you had to be bold! He couldn’t help but admire Nessie either, as she kept perfect tempo.
In that, she was screaming in the same random nonsense tone that Ocean Song was randomly plucking strings with.
One of the walls rippled, the stones rearranging themselves until a face emerged—not carved, not solid, but hovering in magic and masonry.
Daedalus.
With a screech of the zither, Ocean Song looked aghast. “Oh no, he has fused with the Labyrinth.”
“It’s magic, you fool!” The stone face of Daedalus scowled. “I simply used the focal point of the Labyrinth to inject—.” He stopped. “Why am I explaining this? I can hear that annoying ruckus all the way from my workshop. What do you want?”
“I have a proposition for you. I—”
“No.”
“-- want.” Ocean Song paused. “No?”
“No, go away.” He immediately rejected it.
“Please?” Ocean Song asked politely.
“.....fine, tell me what you want.” Daedalus was taken aback because the random monster actually was asking him nicely.
“Will you join my sect?”
“I don’t know what that is, but no.”
Ocean Song was in a moral quandary. On one hand, it was obvious that Daedalus didn’t want to join. On the other hand, he really needed Daedalus to join to help with their…little problem. However, he didn’t want to force anyone to join either.
So, Ocean Song decided to do what he did best.
He looked straight at the face, plopped back down, and started playing the zither again.
The face on the wall visibly cringed and shuddered with each passing note. “Are you seriously going to do that until I agree?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about; I’m just practicing my music.” Ocean Song responded.
“You know, I can just tune you out.”
“Then do it.”
“I can shift the Labyrinth until no sound can reach me.”
“Go ahead.
“I will rip off my own ears.”
“By all means, fellow Daoist.” Ocean Song continued to play.
The face on the wall twitched. It was a method of attack he never anticipated. The fact that the Labyrinth was...rather echoey and not something he could simply fix in a short amount of time. Despite the monster—and he could tell at first glance that Ocean Song was a monster – was at a random entrance, and he could hear from the center, that said everything that needed to be said about that particular flaw.
Daedalus realized that this monster must have studied and analyzed his maze for an uncountable number of years to be able to pinpoint this flaw in design that even he had never considered.
“Fine!” Daedalus shouted in annoyance. “I’ll give you a chance. If you can find me within a day, then I’ll…do whatever it is you asked. But if you can’t, you have to leave and never bother me again.”
“I agree!”
“Hmph, then give it your best shot.” The man scoffed, his face disappearing from the wall.
Ocean Song smiled, but he didn’t move.
He didn’t need to.
Daedalus never realized nor paid attention to the large animal that had disappeared some time ago.
Ocean Song stood there for about two hours until he heard something down a few corners of the Labyrinth.
A large shadow loomed, appearing from the edge.
Nessie came, slowly scooting down the long corridor, moving a few inches at a time due to the fact that she was an aquatic animal moving across solid ground.
In her mouth, was a man looking like he had given up on life.
Ocean Song clasped his hands behind his back, robes bellowing heroically.
All according to plan.
@***@
A/N
Ocean Song: Things happened in our favor; I therefore take all credit!
Comments
Nathan Bailey
I laughed hysterically loud
billy oikonomou
You... I like the way you think!
Joe Bill
Maybe Hera is going to thank him?!? Think about it, now that the tree symbolising their marriage is gone, does that mean their marriage itself it gone?!? Hera is about to turn up the charm, goddess of marriage is now on the prowl. Ultimate cougar energy is about to explode!!!!! HERA START YOUR PARTY GIRL ERA!!! UNLEASH THE REVENGE, ZEUS WIL RUEEEEE THE DAY
Orchamus
🤣🤣🤣🤣 Nessie fumbles then comes in clutch
James French
Fucking Nessie man 😂😭
