The war banners fluttered, proud and defiant in the wind, as Nike and Bia led their weary army back to camp. The taste of victory was sharp and sweet in the air, and the cheers of their soldiers were a symphony of triumph—the first true victory in this long, merciless war.
But as they crossed into the main encampment, the symphony died, choked off into a hollow silence. The air grew thick and heavy, pressing down on them. The faces they passed were drawn and pale, eyes darting away to avoid their gaze. The celebration curdled in Nike's throat, replaced by a cold, creeping unease.
"What is this?" she whispered, her hand tightening on the grip of her bow.
Bia's sharp eyes scanned the camp, landing on a solitary, muscular figure seated on a felled tree trunk, methodically eating a bowl of soup. The tattoos coiled around his bald head and arms seemed to pulse in the dim light. Bia approached him. "Brother Kratos."
Kratos turned, his expression as unreadable as stone. He looked from Bia to Nike, his gaze lingering on the dirt and gore that caked their armour. "You return," he stated, his voice flat. "You are the only commanders to steal a victory from our father's hand."
Nike's brow furrowed. "What do you mean, the only ones?"
He set his bowl down. The clatter was unnaturally loud in the quiet. "Three other fronts. North and East—their armies were annihilated before they even touched the soil of Othrys. The merfolk host in the West? Poisoned. The sea itself turned against them." His eyes, cold and ancient, held theirs. "The war was decided before your battle even ended."
Bia took a half-step back as if struck. Her own spear slipped from her grasp, its point digging into the mud. "This… this is a disgrace. This is not war."
Kratos let out a slow breath, the sound laden with the weight of countless battlefields. He did not look at them with scorn, but with a grim, weary pity. "Victory does not care for your honour, sister," he rumbled. "It only answers to those left standing when the dust settles. Remember that." He stood, his shadow falling over them like a shroud. "Rest. The war you knew is over. A crueller one begins now." He walked away, leaving them in the crushing silence.
---
Prometheus entered the command tent to find Metis leaning over the war table, her knuckles white as she gripped its edge. "I predicted losses," she muttered to the map, "but not a total rout. Not without a single blow landed… This is catastrophic."
"Nike and Bia have won their front."
Metis started, spinning around. "How?"
Prometheus settled into a chair and took a slow sip of wine. He raised two fingers. "First, Pallas softens for his children. Second, the Underworld Legion fights for them from the shadows."
The Underworld Legion… Metis's eyes snapped shut as she plunged into thought. Nike and Bia are children of Pallas and Styx. Styx recently joined the Underworld realm, then perhaps… After a long moment, she murmured, "Is this Lady Styx's move?"
"Perhaps," Prometheus answered, noncommittally.
Metis's hands moved swiftly over the map. She placed a black piece upon the Northern pillar and a white one on the Western. "Tomorrow, we test the hypothesis. The Underworld Legion assaults the North. Nike and Bia press the West. Let us see where the scales tip."
---
The fire crackled, casting dancing shadows across the faces of Julie and her commanders. Mia broke the quiet, her voice analytical. "Three commanders fell today. There is a common thread."
"They all died at sea," Sia offered.
"A factor," Mia conceded. "But the true commonality is that they were given unbalanced, weak units. And, most importantly, they all openly opposed Zeus."
Julie's voice was a low, dangerous whisper. "They were staged to die."
"I speculate this is Metis's design," Mia concluded. "Using the war as a cover to eliminate resistance to Ze—"
A rustle.
The undergrowth at the edge of their camp shivered. Every head turned, hands dropping to weapons.
A human soldier stumbled out, his armour caked in mud and filth. His eyes, wide with a mixture of terror and fanatical hatred, locked onto them. He threw a rolled parchment at their feet. "Monsters!" he spat. "Your day of slaughter has come! Hmph… Your coward master's dirty—"
Thwack.
The man's words ended in a wet gurgle as Julie's dagger found its home in his forehead. He crumpled to the ground. A stunned silence gripped the circle, all eyes fixed on Julie.
She merely arched an eyebrow at their stares. "He was loud. Annoying. And he interrupted my strategist."
As Mia cautiously retrieved the parchment, a faint red mist began to seep from the soldier's corpse. It streamed across the clearing, flowing into Julie. Before their eyes, his skin shriveled, his body collapsing in on itself until nothing but a dry, leaf-like husk remained. A gentle night breeze stirred, scattering him into ashes.
Mia announced the letter, "Tomorrow, the Underworld Legion will attack the Northern pillar."
Julie flexed her fingers, a faint, satisfied sigh escaping her lips. "Well," she purred, "the ocean will not miss a single drop." Her smile vanished, her eyes turning hard and sharp as she scanned her commanders. "But my ocean is not so vast. Tomorrow, I will not lose a single one of my drops. Do you understand?"
A unified, sharp reply answered her. "Yes, Commander!"
---
Hades ascended, piercing the veil of clouds until the very air grew thin and vanished. He soared into a void, a profound darkness illuminated by the cold, brilliant fire of countless stars. He halted, momentarily stunned by the ethereal vista before him—a cosmic canvas of swirling nebulae in vibrant blues, reds, and oranges, with distant galaxies smeared across infinity.
Focus, he commanded himself, tearing his gaze from the celestial beauty. He reached out with his secret divinity, a pulse of will that scanned the void… and locked onto its target.
He flew, a black arrow against the starscape, until he reached a swirling vortex of violet and electric blue energy. It pulsed like the heart of a newborn galaxy. As he drove toward its centre, a blur of motion flickered at the edge of his vision.
Instinct alone saved him. He snapped his wings forward, a shield of obsidian feathers meeting an unseen claw with a screech of tearing force. He spun, seeing nothing.
Again, a lethal slash from behind. He twisted, the claws ripping through the void where he had just been. His eyes narrowed. Enough of this.
A wave of purple energy erupted from him, washing outward in all directions. In its wake, the attacker was revealed. Hym, a vengeful spirit with a grotesque, gaping maw and glowing eyes, its spiked body coiling in the ether.
"Kaaahee!!" it roared, its claws igniting with malevolent purple energy. It charged.
Hades responded with a volley of a hundred arcane bolts. The spirit became translucent, the bolts passing through its form harmlessly. It rematerialized, claws descending.
Aegis.
An invisible barrier flared, deflecting the blow. For a split second, the creature was exposed and vulnerable. Hades opened his beak, and a torrent of soul fire, white-hot and silent, engulfed the Hym. It had no time to scream. Its form was incinerated, not into ash, but into a wisp of black gas that drifted away into the cosmos.
Without a backward glance, Hades plunged into the heart of the vortex.
There, at its calm centre, it floated: a spherical crystal, its interior a captured cosmos of swirling purples, reds, and a fiery, golden core. He shifted back to his human form, his fingers closing around the cool, smooth surface. The moment he pocketed it, the entire vortex destabilized, its energy dissipating into the void.
The spatial crystal is obtained, he thought. Now for the final piece.
Transforming once more into the Black Phoenix, he turned his wings downward and began his rapid descent to the world below.