Over the following period, I tried to do what the old lady had advised me to: clear my mind and not think about anything. But I could not! And what was that thing she had said about my true self? Darn it, everything was so confused…

One seemingly usual day, I was lying on my cloud bed in my room, in a supine position, with my hands under my head and my legs crossed. Once more, I was trying to solve the riddle. Suddenly, I felt something. It was coming from Cronuses room!

I turned immaterial and, moving through walls, reached the green chamber of my secondborn. A concubine was fallen on the floor. She had long, black, curly hair. She was wearing a white sweater, a pair of jeans and brown boots. Cronus was standing in front of her, with a cold expression. She was holding her belly and staring pleadingly at him. 'Please, don't hit me. Show mercy to the child,' she said in a low voice.

'I told you I don't want any children. Get rid of it,' he responded imperatively and insensitively.

The woman's eyes became wet. 'I never protested,' she said. 'Not even when you killed my family, not even when, right after that, you abducted me and brought me here, not even all this time you have been raping me. And now, all I'm asking you is…'

Cronus grabbed her by the neck and lifted her with one arm. I saw terror in her eyes. 'Girl, who do you think you are?' he yelled. 'Have you realized whom you're talking to? Have you realized what's going on here?'

'Cronus, stop,' I shouted while returning to my material state. Both of them turned and looked at me.

'Almighty Gaia, please, don't let him do this to me,' the woman said desperately, with her voice barely coming out, because of Cronuses grip.

Cronus ignored her. 'Mother, I'm sorry, but I can't let her give birth,' he said. 'This child might claim my throne someday.'

At that point, I got some justified questions. What would a half blooded offspring born to a mortal and an immortal be like?

And what kind of gestation would that woman have? Would she lay an egg like me? Or would she give birth to a baby? In any case, if I wished to get the answers to these questions, I had to stop Cronus first. I raised my hands to chest level. 'Cronus, I really think you should cool off a notch,' I said with a very serious expression.

'Forget it,' he yelled. Taking me by surprise, he raised his other arm and twisted the woman's neck with it! A creepy, cracking sound was heard. Next, Cronus left go of the practically dead woman, who fell on the floor with a 'fish eyes' expression. He crouched, penetrated her abdomen with one arm and pulled out the small, unformed embryo. (Yes, it was not an egg after all.) He smiled like a madman. 'You thought you'd overthrow me, huh?' he said to the embryo, as if it could understand.

Myself, in the meantime, I was frozen in shock, which was why I could not react. I had never expected something so twisted, even of Cronus. And I had seen nothing yet!

My secondborn threw the embryo in the air and, before it could fall down, shooted a blast of unbelievably hot fire that roasted it in an instant! Cronus caught the roasted embryo in the air, put it in his mouth and began chewing it! A creepy, crunching sound was heard! 'Not bad,' he laughed with his mouth full.

'It was your child, asshole!' I screamed when I finally managed to speak. This was the first time in my life that I swore!

'Don't lecture me!' he yelled. 'You're no saint either! You had no problem when I castrated your pampered son, nor when I subjugated mortals. You're as guilty as me!'

'Exactly,' I continued the screaming match. 'I was the one who gave you the power to do all that stuff and I can take it back if I want to! And I will! Your game is over!'

Cronus laughed! My eyes widened in surprise. Was it possible? Had he truly forgotten I am the almighty Gaia? 'Do it if you can,' he crossed his arms in a provocative manner. 'Start with something simple. Say, I challenge you to make me grow donkey ears.'

Hah! Piece of cake. All I need to do is desire it… The next moment, my eyes bulged in the scare of my life! Why had Cronus not grown donkey ears? How was it possible for me to want something without it happening the next moment? 'Such stuff no longer works on me, mother,' Cronus said in a sarcastically respectful tone of voice. 'My powers have developed.'

And, with those words, he charged at me and dealt a punch to my stomach, knocking the wind out of me! That was the first time in my millennia long life that my incorruptible body felt pain, real pain! I was trying to process, in my superior brain, what had just happened. That was impossible, beyond all reason, beyond my conception! Yet it was happening! There was a power that was able to defy my will, to cause me pain!

And while I was bent forward and holding my belly, Cronus, with a cold look, extended his arm and, with a burst of his inner energy, hurled me away. I went through walls, breaking them, and ended up outside, very far from the palace, in the half destroyed city. Finally, I crashed on a building, which collapsed after the collision!

With the power of my will, I hurled the debris off me. Next, I raised my body several tens of meters above the ground. I felt Cronus approaching by flying.

It seemed that, somehow, he had managed to develop his powers, and, moreover, without me ever having noticed! Maybe…(darn, it was hard to even say it)… maybe he now even possessed omnipotence like me! On top of that, he was in a higher level of concentration than I was; my remorse and the cloud of confusion in my heart limited my mental clarity. I needed urgently to get over my remorse and get down to real combat! I sent a telepathic message to my daughter: 'Aphrodite, as you have realized, a serious issue came up between myself and your brother. Since all hell is going to break loose here, I would feel more comfortable if, for the time being, you went to another planet of the solar system.'

'Okay, mother, I'm leaving,' she answered telepathically.

Cronus reached me. He hovered across from me, with his arms crossed and a provocative smile. In a state of panic, I tried to stall by talking to him, as if this would help: 'Do you realize that, if we fight here, all mortals will die?'

'So what?' he asked, smiling and shrugging. 'Now I am omnipotent, there are no limits to what I can do. When I'm done with you, I can create more humans to rule over. And not just on this planet!'

'How did you manage to increase your powers so much?' I asked, trying to maintain my composure.

'NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS,' he screamed and charged at me.

I took a fighting stance. However, a fraction of a moment before reaching me, Cronus… disappeared. I felt a headbutt in my back. I winced. Was it possible that Cronus had moved so fast that not even my immortal eyes had tracked him? And yet, as it seemed, this was the case!

I recovered soon from the pain and the surprise, span around and, with a hook punch, caused his head to turn to the side and his lip to burst open. I exploited his daze, grabbed him by the shoulders and kneed the sack of his treasure! To my enormous surprise, he raised his eyes and coughed, looking at me with a smile that indicated that the hit he had received on the supposed weak spot of a man had merely caused him a bearable irritation! 'Not bad, mother,' he commented sarcastically.

Exploiting my surprise, he grabbed my leg and, with a cry, hurled me to the concrete ground, thus opening a huge crater. The next moment, though, I soared out of the crater and, with momentum, headbutted him in the face, thus tossing him further up in the air.

He managed to stop himself a few meters above me. His face was stained with his immortal blood. He smiled creepily and licked the blood off around his lips!

I widened my eyes and gasped in shock. I had already felt something terrifying in him back when he was still in my womb, and now I could see it to its full extent! I had to face not only his power but also that aura of terror which he emitted and which was making me more and more nervous.

I charged at him again. We engaged in an aerial battle, exchanging hits so fast that we were invisible to mortal eyes. For a fairly long time, we would evade each other's blows. Every hit that missed its target created a shockwave that caused buildings and mountains around to crumble!

Aphrodite landed on the planet which has the same name as her. After crossing the layer of clouds which surround the celestial body and give it its pale yellow hue, she stepped on the surface. The atmosphere, the pressure and the temperature there are prohibitive for any mortal creature. But, of course, Aphrodite had no problem staying there as long as she wanted. 'Good luck, mother,' she sighed in a low voice.

My battle with Cronus went on for hours. The energy emitted by our bodies had caused a series of natural disasters: earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves and unbelievably high voltage lightning bolts. Black clouds had gathered everywhere.

We had now got back on the ground and were grappling. Cronuses clothes had been obliterated a long time before. Both of us were full of blood, scars and swellings, though I was obviously in a much worse condition. As for mortal creatures, they all were history! Cracks were being formed on the ground, under our feet!

Little by little, I began to succumb to Cronuses immeasurable strength. I could not take it anymore. My knees started trembling, bending. Cronus smiled. He raised both legs and kicked me with his heels in the face, which thus got stained with even more blood. He continued his motion by doing a back somersault and landed a few meters away from me.

Myself, I had fallen on my knees and was holding my face. I pushed myself to ignore the pain and got up. I extended my arm and fired a wide, bright blast of energy. My son reciprocated by doing the same. The two blasts collided, producing a blinding flash. Cronuses blast overpowered and engulfed mine, thus hitting me. The explosion blew me away.

Fortunately, my body took most of the damage that the blast caused, otherwise the whole planet would have been reduced to cosmic dust!

I stood up again. With greater difficulty than before! Cronus was approaching, flying with determination and momentum. With a signal of mine, a huge hole opened under his course and lava spurt out! I saw Cronus walking slowly out of the spurt, at a relaxed pace, with a victorious smile. 'To try something like that, you must have started getting desperate,' he said.

I growled. I knew he was right. The next moment, I found myself chained to a huge, vertical slab of stone that Cronus had materialized with the power of his will. The chains were made of an unknown material that was Cronuses creation. I tried to release myself. To no avail! Not even my practically infinite strength could break the material my bonds were made of! Cronus stopped before me. He looked at me with a blissful smile. He threw a punch at my stomach, causing my eyes to bulge and my mouth to wide open.

'After I have killed you, I will rule all creation,' he said. 'I, the almighty Cronus! Because I will really kill you, mother!' Never in my millennia long life had it occurred to me that I, Gaia, could ever… die! And yet, that time had come! I no longer had any other choice than to accept my fate.

Cronus took two steps back. His expression had become stern. 'What did you think?' he started again. 'That I was content with being second to you forever? I am born for greatness. It is over, mommy!'

Mommy! Obviously, Cronus called me that sarcastically. But still, that was what Uranus used to call me. Ohh, my sweet one… How beautiful my life had once been. Why had I ruined it? Why had I let dark thoughts control me? Why had I listened to Cronus? Basically, why had I even given birth to him? I should have killed him when he was still in my womb, since I had felt that that child would beget only disaster. At last, I had regretted everything. But it was too late. I lowered my eyes. 'Kill me,' I said in a voice barely audible.

'First, I want to express my hatred of you,' Cronus said and began a monologue full of venom.

I ceased listening to him. I closed my eyes. I was left alone with darkness, as during the first moments of my life. Everything else did not matter. Everything else did not exist for me anymore.

I was not thinking about anything anymore! In other words, what I had been unsuccessfully trying to do all that time! And the reason that, all that time, I had not been able to do it was that I was still affected by reality. But, now that I had stopped caring about reality, now that I had reached indifference, my mind was at last clear. And it was then that truth shone! The old lady was right about everything! What I had been all that time was not my real self. It was not really me.

Devil, that creature that, according to many religions, implants bad thoughts into you and makes your life miserable, is nothing more than one's own bad self. And one's bad self is created little by little by the reality surrounding them, the conditions under which they are born and live. But, when you stop caring, when your mind empties, then reality is lost and so is your bad self. And only your true self remains, what you were the first moment of your life, before anything could affect you.

In the darkness, I faced my reflection. I smiled at it. It was my real self, the one unaffected by anything that had happened to me in my millennia long life, unaffected by the conditions, unaffected by the fact that I happened to be born with all those powers I have! I'm just a human. I'm just a girl. I'm just Gaia!

I opened my eyes with a peaceful smile. That moment, Cronus was almost done with his speech: '...so, now that you know all the reasons I detest you, the time has come to send you into oblivion.'

He stopped and gave me a perplexed look when he realized that I was smiling. 'Strange, huh?' I said. 'Now that everything became clear inside me, you no longer look that frightening to me.'

With a burst of my inner energy, I caused the slab and the chains to crumble. My son's eyes bulged. 'So, will you kill me or not?' I said with a provocative smile.

Blinded by rage, Cronus charged at me, screaming. He attempted to throw a sloppy punch at me, but I caught his hand and threw a punch at his abdomen, knocking the wind out of him.

He knelt, holding his belly. I turned my back to him in a provocative manner and took two steps. He jumped to his feet and, letting out one more inarticulate cry, charged at me again, this time attempting to strike me in the neck with a knife hand. I raised my arm, blocking the hit with my feminine and seemingly weak muscles. Cronus pulled back his arm, screaming with the pain he felt in the spot that had collided with my arm.

I span around and, with a crescent kick on the head, knocked him down. My expression became very serious.

'It's over, Cronus,' I said and extended my arm.

'No, mom, please, don't kill me,' he begged me in terror.

I did not buy it! 'I'm sorry,' I said. 'When you have solved the riddle of your own heart, as I have solved the riddle of mine, I will bring you back. For the time being, though, you are too dangerous.'

Panicked, he was about to say something, but I did not bother waiting to hear it. From my extended arm, I fired a blast that annihilated my son's body. Cronus was dead!

I raised my eyes. I took a deep breath. A golden light surrounded me for a few seconds. And, by the time the light had faded, all my wounds had disappeared thanks to the power of my will. My body was restored to its former perfection.

I smiled. I looked at the sky. The black clouds had begun dissipating. Who knows, maybe there is a god after all! And maybe, sometimes, he ignores one's prayers for a while on purpose. Because the sweet is not as sweet without the bitter! 'Thank you, my god,' I whispered with my hand on my chest.

I soared into outer space. From far away, I looked at the blue planet. I no longer needed it. I fired a blast that obliterated it, along with all my bad memories.

I landed before Aphrodite, on the planet that has the same name as her. We exchanged looks for a while, without either of us knowing what to say. Finally, I broke the silence: 'I... I suppose you know what has happened.'

My daughter nodded. We looked at each other some more. I started again: 'Would... would you mind staying here some more, until I make amends with your other brother, Uranus?'

Aphrodite closed her eyes, placed her hand on her chest and bowed. 'No problem, mother,' she said. 'Take your time. I will stay here as long as needed.'

I smiled at her. I placed my hands on her shoulders. She gave me a baffled look. 'You know what, Aphrodite?' I said. 'I don't think you are as insensitive as one would say at first sight. You have sleeping goodness in you. When we meet again, I will train you on emotional intelligence.'

She smiled at me. 'I'm looking forward to it, mother,' she said. I realized that was the first time I saw Aphrodite smile! I offered her one more smile, waved my arm in front of my face, with its index and middle fingers extended, as a 'goodbye' gesture and flew away.

I could simply teleport to my planet, but I did not want to do it that abruptly. I preferred to fly there and use the travel time to think about how I would face Uranus again!