The Rise Of A Porter

Arnold's wildly leaking aura brought a sense of relief to the ones present on the stage. As along with his presence, the aura his summons were leaking, helped to push the godly aura back a bit. Soon the gods realised it was futile to try and suppress him so most of them withdrew their aura back. Except for some stubborn ones who still wanted to 'show' the mortal his 'place'.

Arnold paid no heed to them. If he wanted, he could open his suit and that would have been sufficient to show the gods who exactly was the boss there. However, he decided not to as it seemed like his plan of humiliating Zeus worked even better than he had expected. Zeus could not hold his rage in after seeing Hercules and quickly got up from his seat before yelling at Heimdall. 

"Are you going to turn a blind eye on this too?" Zeus' thunderous voice roared over the colosseum, "Keeping the blatant disrespect aside, how come that mortal is allowed to have three companions?"

A few other gods nodded in agreement. According to the rules, each participant was only allowed to bring two companions at most. Arnold, however, had brought three which could be considered a ground for a penalty even after keeping the blatant disrespect to the rules of the tournament aside. 

"Yes yes, My lordship is right. How can a mortal disrespect the rules? He should be penalised so that dissuades anyone else from doing the same ever again." Hermes joined in to help Zeus out, after all, both of them shared a mutual hatred for Arnold and now was the time to deal as much damage to him as they could.

Soon all of the gods started whispering amongst themselves as Shiva kept quiet knowing fully well that Arnold had not broken a single rule that they had come up with. Whatever he was doing could have been done by anyone else, that is if they were aware of the loophole. In fact, if anything, they should be thanking him for not bringing his entire army there because even if he had, none of them would have been able to do crap about it apart from just sulking around. 

As seconds turned into minutes, things got pretty heated. Also, the dramatic and 'threatening' entry that Arnold made seemed to have to put quite a few gods on edge. However, there was also an overwhelming number of supporters for him. One of the prominent ones being the queen of Olympus herself.

It had been clear to everyone that Queen Hera did not like the king and was only tolerating him for the sake of peace. But now it looked like they no longer cared about the image of their pantheon. But then again, all of them were also aware of her hatred towards Zeus' illicit children. Hercules, being one of the most troublesome ones amongst them. Thus it was a surprise to no one that she was supporting the one who defeated Hercules. 

The gods might have gathered there for entertainment, but it was the contestants who were getting the most entertainment watching the gods quarrel amongst themselves. Although none of the contestants dared to say anything, it was clear that they were having quite some fun there. 

Arnold just stood there smiling like an idiot, however, thanks to the visor in his helmet, no one could see him doing so. Seeing the panicked faces of the gods gave him all the confirmation he needed.

The Gods were afraid of him, or more likely what he would become in the near future. In fact, Arnold was shocked that Zeus did not try to attack him by now. He thought the moment he saw his son being treated like a dog, he would lose his temper and try to kill him. 

'I guess he is not as big of an idiot as I thought he was. Still, it's too early to test his limits. After all, I'm sure I'll get a lot of chances to agitate him even more in the near future.' Arnold thought to himself, 'For now, I should probably focus on completing the ascension quest.'

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Complete the following task before/during <War of the Worlds> event takes place.

• Kill 10 Paladins

• Kill 5 Vassals

• Kill 3 Demigods

[ PROGRESS ] : 

• 1/10 Paladins killed

• 1/5 Vassals killed

• 3/3 Demigods killed

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Arnold used probe on all of the contestants present there. He was a bit surprised by their levels and ranks. It was clear that they had been doing a lot of hard work because not only the vassals, some paladins were higher ranked than Sonya and her team. 

Even though Arnold was planning to kill them either way, he couldn't help but feel a bit sad about it at the same time. Judging by the levels of the others, he wondered if he would even get a chance to fight Sonya and her team if they weren't placed in the same starting group. After all, they were one of the weakest participants there.

Back with the gods, things slowly started to get out of his hands as Heimdall slammed his sword hard on the floor to silence them all. As the moderator of the contest, it didn't matter whether what the gods thought. His decision was ultimate in matters concerning the event.

"I will suggest you keep your opinions to yourself." Heimdall shot a sharp glare at Zeus, "I will see what can be done here."

Heimdall then turned towards Arnold and asked one question, "What do you consider Hercules as, Vassal of the Immortal one?"

Arnold knew exactly where Heimdall was trying to go with his question and he wasted no time in giving him the answer that would have cleared everything, "A pet, your lordship. Nothing more, nothing less."

Upon hearing Arnold's reply, all of the gods realised what was going on. But his reply enraged Zeus even more. This mortal bast.ard dared to call his son a pet? Thunder started crackling around Zeus but even he knew acting out there would do him more harm than good. 

"I see." Heimdall nodded, "If that's the case there is nothing we can do to stop a pet from entering the contest alongside his master. There are no laws that forbid the contestants to bring pets with them, nor are there any rules that decided the number of pets that can participate in the raid. Thus, the charges against Arnold Ling is found to be false!"