Chapter 69
This place was crueler than the realm Hades ruled. That was a kingdom of order, of silent rest. This… this was pure punishment.
Tartarus. The pit. The final prison for those whose crimes were beyond redemption. The Giants. The Titans. The deposed King of the Gods himself, Cronus.
"You can still turn back," Zeus said, his hand heavy on Cyd's shoulder. For once, the King of the Gods looked uncertain, even regretful. "You can walk away. You can be… just a man again."
"What happens if they get out?" Cyd asked, his breath fogging in the unnatural cold that seeped from the yawning black rent in the earth before them.
"The world… would likely be unmade. Scoured back to primal chaos." Zeus stroked his beard, his gaze distant.
"If they're that dangerous, why didn't you just kill them all in the first place?" Cyd ran a hand through his hair, frustration bleeding into his voice. "And how many are down there?"
"Who knows? That's what makes them a threat. Maybe they've all withered to dust. Maybe they've spent eons gathering strength, waiting for a crack in their cage." Zeus released Cyd's shoulder, his expression grim. "I will open a passage. But the moment you are through, I will seal it behind you."
"Then how do I get out?" Cyd glanced at Zeus's conflicted face, then hefted [Pandora, Reforged] onto his shoulder. The black box was warm against his back. "Forget I asked."
"Good luck," Zeus said, taking a single step back.
"Cyd, diving in!"
With a reckless grin that felt more like a baring of teeth, Cyd leaped forward into the abyss.
---
"Did I make the wrong choice?" Zeus murmured, closing his fist. The black tear in reality shrank to a point and vanished without a sound.
"Your decisions as King of the Gods have never been in error," a voice like grinding stones said from the shadows. Hades stepped partially into the dim light, his dark eyes burning with cold fury. "But I still despise this one."
"I thought you always despised me," Zeus said, scratching his cheek wearily.
"Leave this place," Hades said, already fading back into the darkness from which he came. "I will wait here."
Zeus watched the spot where his brother had vanished for a long moment.
"Someone has to be the villain," he whispered to the empty air. "I'm used to it. A king cannot tolerate rivals for his throne, even potential ones… even those who have no such ambition. But… pure child of man. Zeus, in his heart of hearts, hopes you will return."
"This is your final trial. You have saved enough people. Now… go save [the hero Cyd]."
---
This was the hell of darkness, violence, and blood—Tartarus. Hope had no purchase here. The air was a physical weight, thick with the stench of ozone, old blood, and a deeper, spiritual rot. The only thing that flourished in this place was despair. How did anything survive down here?
Through hatred. Hatred for the King of the Gods who had sealed them away. That was the fuel. That was what kept their monstrous hearts beating, through centuries of waiting for a chance to tear it all down.
Gurgle… Crunch…
"The smell here is unbearable," Cyd muttered, pinching his nose and kicking aside a pile of what looked like petrified, half-eaten bones. They clattered against more bones.
"…Human?"
Figures stirred in the gloom. Not shadows—substances. Beings of earth and mountain-flesh, fifteen feet tall at the smallest. Giants. Their skin was the color of dried mud and cracked stone, their eyes glowing with a dull, malevolent intelligence. They rose from nests of debris and the remains of… other things.
"We thought the cage had opened. But the crack was too small." One of them, its face a mass of fissures, bent down until its hot, foul breath washed over Cyd. "Human. What great sin did you commit to earn Zeus's wrath and a one-way ticket here?"
Cyd fought back a gag. "I'm starting to understand how you lot manage to survive."
He swung [Pandora, Reforged] off his back. As his left hand gripped the seamless black surface, the crystal on his bracer representing Ares, God of War, ignited with a savage, bloody light.
"And I'm beginning to see exactly why you were locked away."
The black box didn't open. It transformed. Plates slid and reconfigured with a series of sharp, metallic clicks and shunks. In less than a second, the compact trunk was gone. In Cyd's hands was a weapon of brutal, excessive violence: a colossal greatsword, easily eight feet long from crossguard to tip. The blade was a single piece of dark metal, its edge gleaming with a hungry red light. The hilt was wrapped in dark leather that felt alive.
SCHLICK-THUD!
A geyser of thick, blackish blood erupted to either side. The talking Giant stood frozen for a second, a perfect vertical line drawn from the crown of its head down its torso. Then the two halves slid apart and crashed to the ground with a tremor that shook loose a shower of pebbles from the cavern ceiling.
"Ah… the blood's singing," Cyd whispered, hefting the massive blade onto his shoulder. He could feel it—a battle-lust not his own, a desire for pure, unadulterated carnage thrumming through the weapon and into his arm. When he looked up, his usually dark eyes held a flicker of crimson.
[Pandora, Reforged] — Ares Manifestation
"Let me make one thing clear," Cyd said, his voice echoing strangely in the vast chamber. Tiny scales peeled from the cloak on his right shoulder, elongating into three sinuous, black cables that whipped out and anchored themselves to the sword's pommel, giving him even greater leverage. "I will bring this victory… and offer it to the gods!"
"So you're the gods' hunting hound!" the bisected Giant roared, its voice coming from both halves. Incredibly, the cleaved flesh began to bubble and knit itself back together.
"Hound? Sure, let's go with that." Cyd didn't wait for it to fully reform. He pivoted, the massive sword moving with impossible speed for its size. The red-lit edge passed through the Giant's reforming face once, then again in a perpendicular slash. Criss-cross.
"Would you mind not resisting? I'm on a tight schedule." The crimson in Cyd's eyes deepened. Along the dark blade, pulsing red veins, like arteries, began to glow from within the metal. "A lot of people are waiting for me!"
With a roar that was half his, half the weapon's own fury, he drove the point of the greatsword through the Giant's crosshatched mouth and out the back of its thickening neck. There was a wet, final crunch.
Huh. Weaker than I expected. Are you really Titans?
"Aren't you going to help your friend?" Cyd asked, yanking the blade free. This time, the Giant stayed down, the unnatural light fading from its eyes.
"Friend?" Another Giant stood up. This one was bald, its head a polished dome of stone-like skin. "The bones you're standing on? He ate most of those. I ate the rest. It's the only way we Titans can persist down here."
"To fuel your revenge?" Cyd tilted his head.
"Is there any other reason?!" The bald Giant moved with shocking speed for its size. It didn't charge; it simply leaped, one massive foot aiming to crush Cyd into paste.
"Right. I understand." Cyd reversed his grip and slammed the greatsword point-first into the rocky ground. "That means I don't have to hold back."
The Ares crystal blazed. The dark blade sank into the stone as if it were water. Then, the ground around it began to melt. Not with heat, but with pure, conceptual violence. The rock bubbled and turned incandescent, transforming into a seething river of magma that surged upward, following the path of the blade. More scales streamed from Cyd's cloak, reinforcing the cables, giving him control over the cataclysm.
"RISE!"
KRA-BOOOOOM!
The earth exploded. From the molten fissure, Cyd didn't pull out a sword—he hauled up a fifty-yard-long river of solidified fury. A blade of living, white-hot magma, sheathed in a shell of black, adamantine metal. He swung it in a wide, devastating arc.
The leaping Giant had no time to react. The magma-edge, hotter than the sun's surface, touched its midsection. There was no cut. There was instant, total vaporization. Stone-flesh carbonized, then disintegrated. The upper and lower halves of the Giant were consumed in a fireball that lit the entire cavern, casting monstrous, dancing shadows.
"Okay, that's a bit excessive!" Cyd laughed, a wild, unhinged sound as he shouldered the gargantuan magma-blade. The residual heat had scorched and maimed several other Titans who had been standing too close. "But damn, it feels good!"
"HUMAN!!!"
The death of two of their number in such brutal fashion shattered any illusion. This was no snack. This was an exterminator, sent by their hated enemies. A chorus of roars shook the foundations of Tartarus itself as dozens of Titans, their forms blotting out the faint, hellish light, converged on the single, glowing point that was Cyd and his weapon.
"Whoa, getting a little carried away. War-god's blessing is no joke." Cyd took a deep breath, forcing the battle-rage down. The crimson flicker in his eyes faded. As his focus shifted, so did the weapon.
The impossible heat vanished, sucked back into the blade. Then, in its place, a cold so absolute it stole sound rushed in. The magma blade flash-froze, becoming a monolith of black, dead stone.
"Let's just…"
CRUNCH.
The petrified blade shattered under the fists of the closest Titans. Dozens of mountainous fists, each capable of flattening a hill, descended toward him.
From within the crumbling stone, a different light emerged—not red, but a deep, void-like black. Cyd was already moving, his form a blur. What he held now was no sword. It was a scythe. A curved, elegant blade of darkness that seemed to drink the faint light around it, mounted on a long, black haft. He didn't swing to block; he swung in a single, perfect, horizontal circle.
A crescent of absolute blackness expanded from him, silent and cold. It passed through the bodies of the surrounding Titans without resistance.
And everything stopped.
The Titans froze mid-action, their roars cut off, their fists hovering inches from Cyd's head. Not a muscle twitched. Their eyes, once burning with hatred, were empty. The spark was gone.
"It's a bit of a cheat, but I've already [witnessed your death]. So now I can [reap] it. Convenient." Cyd dragged the scythe's tip along the ground as he walked calmly through the forest of frozen, monstrous statues. "Saves on travel expenses."
[Pandora, Reforged] — Hades Manifestation
The ultimate, conceptual strike. Not damage, but finality.
"You know," he said to the silent, dead cavern, his voice echoing in the new quiet. "Welcome to Hell."