It took me three days to make him bleed.
Three days with nothing but a splintered branch in my hands, facing a Primordial whose flesh was harder than the bones of mountains. Every strike shattered my arms with pain, every failed cut left me choking on dust and fury. Tartarus did not relent. He stood there, vast and immovable, letting me exhaust myself against him as if I were nothing more than a storm battering a cliff.
"Again," he rumbled, voice echoing through my ribs like thunder in a hollow cavern.
And I obeyed.
I had no choice.
On the first day, I swung until my shoulders tore and my palms split. Not a drop. Not a scratch.
On the second, I tried speed, precision, desperation—my branch snapped twice, and still his skin drank in every strike.
On the third, I was no longer certain I was still myself. My muscles trembled with every motion, my chest burned with every breath. Yet I kept striking, over and over, until the world blurred into nothing but wood against flesh, pain against defiance.
Then it happened.
The branch cut deep enough. Just barely. A thin line, glowing faintly, and from it welled ichor—silvery, otherworldly, pulsing with power older than the stars. My knees nearly gave out at the sight, not from weakness, but from the enormity of it. I had drawn blood from Tartarus.
"Breathe, Hades," he said, not unkindly. His voice rolled like war drums inside my skull. "Now stop thinking about it. Feel it. Pull it out."
I staggered back, branch slick with his ichor, and for the first time I felt it stir inside me—a whisper in my blood, a spark in my veins. I had chased it before, always losing it at the last moment. But now... now it rose, steady and relentless, like a tide that could not be stopped.
One moment my hands were clinging to nothing but a broken branch. The next, it was alive, humming, burning with silver fire from within.
Tartarus tilted his head, faint amusement flickering across that endless, shadowed face.
"Finally," he said. "Now. Drop it."
I blinked, still catching my breath. "What?"
"Drop it."
The branch slipped from my hand, landing in the dirt with a dull thud. Tartarus stepped forward, each stride deliberate, until his massive shadow swallowed me whole.
"Time for something stronger," he said, his voice low and edged with something that made my skin crawl. "Watch closely."
He didn't summon a weapon like any god I'd ever seen. No flourish of light, no runes, no call to the heavens. Tartarus simply existed—and the weapon came to him.
It began as a flicker at his wrist, the faintest shimmer of heat in the air. Then it spread, flames crawling up his arm—not red, not orange, but deep, abyssal blue threaded with veins of violet that pulsed like a heartbeat. They licked at his skin, not burning but clinging, alive in a way normal fire could never be.
The air warped, the forest around us bending and shimmering. My instincts screamed at me to back away, but I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.
From that living fire, a shape began to coalesce. A long spine of heat and light, edges so sharp my eyes watered to look at them. When the last ember settled, he held something that might have been a sword—if a sword could be forged from the night sky itself and set ablaze.
"This," Tartarus said, hefting the weapon like it weighed nothing, "is primordial fire."
The heat rolled off it in slow, crushing waves. Even standing several feet away, I could feel my divinity react instinctively, pulling inward like prey hiding from a predator.
"It can burn anything," Tartarus continued. "Flesh, stone, spirit... even divinity itself. It is an ability of a Primordial deity, a gift reserved for those who have become one with their domains—Incarnates, in the truest sense. The title of 'Primordial' is not something you're born into, Hades. It's earned. Achieved. And yes... a god can rise that high."
I frowned. "I thought—"
"That it was impossible?" His grin was faint, but dangerous. "Impossible is just a word for people who stop trying. You said it yourself—your goal is to be untouchable. To stand where no one can reach you. The only way to achieve it is to train, and train, until the limits you know shatter beneath you. When that happens... you won't just be a god anymore. You'll reach true greatness."
I swallowed, my mouth dry. "And those flames... they can burn divinity?"
"They can burn anything," he said, his eyes gleaming. "If one was to use it and force it to consume a deity they would be erased as if they never existed."
"And you are going to use that against me?" I repeated, my voice breaking between disbelief and outrage.
"Relax," Tartarus said. The great sword in his hand dissolved—not in sparks or smoke, but in a slow unwinding of its very being, the deep-blue flames peeling away from the blade until there was nothing left but the faint scent of ozone and heat. "I was just showing you a power that will someday be within your reach."
His eyes fixed on me with the weight of command. "Now... close your eyes."
I hesitated. "Why?"
"Because," he said, as if explaining to a stubborn child, "before you can shape power, you have to see it. Get a mental image of a sword in your mind—its shape, its weight, its balance. Picture it so clearly that you could build it blindfolded. That image will be the mold into which your divinity flows. Keep it strong. Keep it sharp."
I did as instructed, shutting my eyes and forcing my breath to steady. I tried to imagine the kind of weapon I'd want in my hand. Something massive and unwieldy would be impressive, sure—but I'd never been the type to rely on brute weight. I needed something fast, adaptable. Deadly without being cumbersome.
A longsword. Balanced enough to be precise, long enough to keep distance, light enough to strike without hesitation.
I willed my divinity downward, focusing on the flow Tartarus had drilled into me for days. It pooled in my palm, warm and strange, before condensing into a small sphere of darkness. The sphere trembled, then stretched, elongating into the rough outline of a blade.
When I opened my eyes, my heart sank. The "longsword" was... pathetic. The blade warped in places, edges rippling and uneven. Its tip flickered like smoke on the verge of vanishing. It looked less like a weapon and more like a shadow trying—and failing—to imitate one.
Tartarus' expression didn't change. "Again."
I gritted my teeth. "You could at least—"
"Again," he repeated, tone cutting off my words like a guillotine. "Focus."
I shut my eyes once more, but this time I started smaller. A needle—thin, precise, unwavering. I shaped it in my mind, felt the weight of it in my palm, then slowly broadened and flattened it until it became the blade I wanted. My breathing slowed, matching the steady beat of my heart.
When I opened my eyes, something was there.
Not perfect—not even close. The edges still looked like they'd been chewed on by some invisible animal, and the hilt was little more than a lump of shadow. But it held together. It was a sword, in the loosest sense of the word.
Tartarus stepped closer, his eyes glimmering faintly in approval. "Crude. Rough. But it's a start."
He gestured toward my creation. "Now—hold it. Feel its weight. Learn it. You're going to make a thousand more before the day's over."
I tightened my grip. The blade wavered faintly, but didn't dissolve.
Somehow, that felt like my first real victory.
The next hour was nothing but creation and collapse.
"Again," Tartarus said.
The blade in my hand wavered, dissolved into black mist. I inhaled, focused, built it again.
"Again."
The hilt crumbled, slipping through my fingers. My jaw tightened, divinity flowing back to my palm.
Over and over, until the cycle blurred into a rhythm—summon, hold, fail, rebuild. My arms ached even though the weapon was made of shadow. My head pounded from the constant strain of focus. But slowly... it became faster. Cleaner. The image came to me without conscious thought, and the darkness obeyed without hesitation.
By the third hour, Tartarus no longer had to say the word—I destroyed and rebuilt the blade before he could open his mouth. The motion became instinct. Second nature.
Finally, he stepped forward, studying my work. The latest sword was still rough, the edges unpolished, but it no longer trembled. It existed because I willed it, and nothing else.
"That's enough," Tartarus said at last. His tone was not praise—it was a verdict.
I let the sword dissipate, ready for another lecture, but instead he rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck with a slow crack.
"You've learned to shape your weapon," he said. "Now you'll learn to use it."
Before I could ask what that meant, Tartarus extended his hand—not with the controlled precision he'd shown with the primordial flames, but with something heavier.
The air thickened. A sound like wet stone grinding filled the space between us. I saw white first, then the jagged curves of bone knitting together in midair, forming a blade so massive I had to step back.
It was a butcher's sword—if a butcher was a giant who worked in killing gods. The blade was cleaver-like in shape, its edge uneven but impossibly sharp. Spinal ridges ran down its center, vertebrae fused into a handle wrapped in sinew.
"This," Tartarus said, hefting it with one hand as if it weighed nothing, "is a weapon of my own making. Let's see how your shadow-blade holds against it."
He swung it once, the air hissing in its wake.
My fingers instinctively tightened, summoning my own crude longsword without thinking.
Tartarus noticed. His grin was slow and predatory. "Good. Hold it tight, Hades. You're going to need it."
Then the lessons began in earnest.
The first swing came faster than I could process.
One heartbeat, Tartarus was standing still, his bone cleaver resting casually on his shoulder. The next, it blurred down toward me with a weight that made the ground groan beneath my feet.
I barely blocked. The impact rattled my bones, sent a jolt of pain up my arms, and nearly wrenched my crude longsword from my grip. I staggered back, but Tartarus didn't give me the luxury of recovery.
Strike. Pivot. Sweep.
His movements were unnervingly precise—no wasted motion, no flourish—just the kind of lethal efficiency you'd expect from a being who'd fought wars before the concept of time existed. Every blow was calculated to shatter my defense, to strip away everything I thought I knew about fighting.
I adapted as best I could.I learned to roll with the hits rather than meeting them head-on, to bleed away the force of his strikes with movement. I learned to use his own weight against him, to turn what should have been killing blows into narrow escapes. Desperation became my teacher; instinct became my constant companion.
But no matter what I tried, Tartarus broke through. Every feint, every trick, every clever adjustment—I could almost see the moment he read it, dismantled it, and crushed it with a single counter. He was a wall of precision and brutality, and I was just the fool slamming into it again and again.
Days bled into weeks. Weeks into months.
The battlefield shifted with the whims of the world. Some mornings, we fought beneath a sky so hot it felt like the air itself wanted to smother me. Other times, the rain hammered us until the ground turned to sucking mud that tried to claim my boots with every step. Some nights, it was only the pale light of the moon and the gleam of his bone blade that kept me from being swallowed by darkness entirely.
Through it all, Tartarus never slowed. Never softened. He didn't just beat my form apart—he ground it down to the raw foundation and rebuilt it piece by piece. My stance grew unshakable. My grip became instinct. My strikes, once wild and reactive, became deliberate and sharp.
By the second month, the pain was no longer an enemy. It was an old, familiar presence—constant, reliable, almost comforting in its way. My arms throbbed every night with deep, bone-deep aches. Every cut stung like fresh fire before the inchor worked its way through me to heal it. My ribs bore bruises in every shade, each one a lesson I'd paid for in sweat and blood. I lost count of how many times that cleaver of bone had carved into my skin, how many times I'd been slammed into the dirt so hard my vision went white.
And every time, I got back up.
Then—on a day that began like any other—it happened.
The fight had gone on for hours. My muscles burned, my breath came ragged, and yet there was a strange clarity in my mind. His massive cleaver came low, a brutal swing meant to cleave through my legs. I stepped back just enough to evade, my sword rising in a feint toward his head. His blade rose to intercept, heavy and sure. That was the moment I'd been waiting for.
I pivoted hard, twisting my hips, and drove my longsword forward with every ounce of strength I had left.
The impact was perfect. My blade slid past his guard and bit deep into his side. For a heartbeat, there was silence until inchor started to bleed through his clothes.
Tartarus didn't grunt. Didn't flinch. He simply looked down at the wound, then up at me, and smiled.
Tartarus froze for half a breath, then stepped back. My weapon was slick with his divine essence. Steam rolled off my body as my wounds began knitting shut, the cuts hissing as they closed. My lungs burned, every gasp pulling in the heavy air like molten lead.
Tartarus touched his wound. The skin knitted back together in seconds, leaving not even a scar. His grin was the widest I'd ever seen it.
"Well done," he rumbled. "You're ready."
I spat dust from my mouth and stared at him. "That's it? Two months of you beating me into the dirt and now I just... leave?"
He nodded once. "You're free to go. But be warned..." His gaze sharpened, ancient and heavy. "Greece is a mess."
Before I could ask what he meant, Tartarus turned his hand palm-up. In a flare of deep, shadowed flame, a weapon materialized—not crude like my first attempts, but forged perfection.
A longsword, black as midnight with silver edges that shimmered faintly in the light. The crossguard was shaped like raven wings, and faint etchings ran the length of the blade, almost like constellations.
"I had it made for you," Tartarus said. "Adamantine and Necro-steel. Strong enough to cut the soul from the body, and light enough to keep you fast. Treat it well, and it will never fail you."
He sheathed the sword in a black scabbard and tossed it to me. I caught it by the grip, feeling the perfect balance, the weight exactly as I'd imagined months ago in that first, shaky attempt.
"Good luck, Hades," he said, his voice like stone grinding. Then his form blurred, flames wrapping around him in a spiraling inferno, until he vanished completely.
I stood there, the weight of the sword in my hand, the echo of his presence fading into the wind—knowing that the real fight was just beginning.