Chapter 70
Welcome to Hell.
This place was Hell. But it was also the perfect crucible. A place hidden even from the prying eyes of Zeus, King of the Gods, where ancient hatred could simmer and power could be hoarded in the dark. Someday, they'd thought. Someday, someone dissatisfied with Zeus's rule would pry open the lock, just as Zeus had once unleashed the Giants upon the world. That was the plan.
That was the theory.
"Stay back! Don't come any closer!" a Titan roared, its voice cracking with panic. It ripped a chunk of the cavern wall free—a boulder the size of a small temple—and hurled it with all its might at the figure sprinting toward it.
Facing an attack like a localized meteor strike, Cyd exhaled sharply. His left hand swung the scythe of Hades in a wide arc, releasing a crescent of silent, hungry darkness. At the same time, he raised his right arm in a defensive cross in front of his face and chest.
The black crescent passed through the massive boulder as if it were a ghost, continuing on to slice through the Titan who had thrown it. An instant later, the boulder smashed into Cyd. The impact was cataclysmic. Stone met invulnerable flesh with a sound like a mountain collapsing. Cyd was driven downward, buried under tons of rock as it cratered the ground.
"Is… is it dead?" one of the last two remaining Titans whispered, nudging its companion.
"It's dead," the other Titan nodded, its stony face grim. "The human is dead."
No sooner had it spoken than the Titan who had thrown the rock shuddered. Its eyes went blank, and it toppled forward, hitting the ground with a final, resonant thud. No mark, no wound. Just… ceased.
"No! The scythe… it carries Hades's authority! Don't let the blade touch you, don't let the darkness graze you!" the remaining Titan snarled, gnawing on a thumbnail in frustration. "Why?! Hades himself couldn't wield the concept of death this effortlessly! That weapon… it's an abomination!"
"Right now, I just care if the human is dead!" the first Titan cried, its voice bordering on hysteria.
"A normal human would be paste! He's mush!"
"A normal human slaughters dozens of us like cattle?! There's only two of us left!"
KRA-KOOOM!
The temple-sized boulder exploded outward from within. From the smoking crater, two vast, draconic wings forged of black scales fanned out, scattering debris. They beat down once with hurricane force, and Cyd shot into the air, hovering above the devastation.
"Okay, that stung a bit," he grunted, shaking rock dust from his hair. [Pandora, Reforged] was already shifting in his grip, the dark scythe melting back into its neutral, box-like form. An amber-gold light, warm and fierce, flowed from the bracer on his left wrist and engulfed the black metal. "But now… it's hunting season."
Components slid, panels folded, and mechanisms whirred with divine precision. The box split down the middle, unfolding and extending. When the transformation ceased, Cyd held not a sword or scythe, but a massive longbow, taller than he was, made of a sleek, black composite material. Amber-gold patterns, like trapped sunlight, glowed across its limbs.
[Pandora, Reforged] — Apollo Manifestation
"Now it's solar power?! How many gods did he stuff into that thing?!" the panicked Titan wailed, snatching up another smaller boulder and hurling it skyward.
"My hunting style might be a little… intense," Cyd said, his voice calm. He drew the bowstring back. Between the bow's arms, light gathered—not an arrow, but a condensed sphere of miniature starfire. It elongated, solidified into a shaft of pure, burning radiance.
TWANG-FWOOOSH!
The arrow of sunlight became a laser-straight beam of annihilation. The boulder thrown at Cyd passed through the edge of the beam and instantly liquefied, raining molten rock harmlessly past him. The beam itself didn't deviate. It struck the throwing Titan center-mass.
"No! Father! Why won't you save us?!" the Titan screamed, transforming into a shrieking, flailing pillar of fire. In its final, agonized moment, its burning head turned, its eyes locking on a specific point in the deep shadows at the far end of the cavern. "WHY ARE YOU JUST WATCHING?!"
Got you.
Cyd's eyes narrowed. The amber patterns on the bow vanished, replaced in a flash by cool, intricate silver tracery. The massive longbow compacted, becoming a sleeker, more elegant hunting bow, thrumming with lunar energy.
[Pandora, Reforged] — Artemis Manifestation
He didn't aim at the shadows. He aimed above them. He drew and released in one fluid motion.
The silver arrow shot forth and, mid-flight, shattered into a hundred smaller beams of chilling moonlight. They rained down on the target area not like arrows, but like a divine scouring blast, churning up rock and dust in a deafening hail.
Cyd descended slowly, his boots touching the ground as the silver light faded. He wasn't fooled by the concealing dust cloud. A being the Titans called 'Father' in Tartarus could only be one entity. If Cronus could be taken out by a simple area attack, Zeus would never have sent him here.
"You are an… energetic youth."
The voice was calm, dry, and carried an age-old weight of absolute authority. From the settling dust, a figure walked. He looked like a man in his prime, handsome in a severe, timeless way, with dark hair and eyes that held the chill of deep space. He wore simple, dark robes.
"Father!" The last surviving Titan scrambled forward on its knees. "Kill him! Please, kill—"
"Useless." Cronus didn't even look at the Titan. He lifted a hand and placed a single finger against its stony forehead. "A flawed creation. Return to me."
"Wait! I am— AAAAAGHHH—!"
The Titan's form dissolved. Its body lost cohesion, collapsing not into blood and bone, but into a swirling, amorphous mass of primal matter. This swirling vortex of flesh and essence was then sucked into Cronus's outstretched finger, absorbed without a trace. The Titan was gone, as if it had never existed.
"Separating fragments of my own flesh to spawn children was clearly a mistake," Cronus murmured, examining his clean hand. "They weren't even worthy of the name 'Titan.' No matter. I am sufficient."
"The big boss shows up right on schedule," Cyd said, rolling his shoulders. [Pandora] shifted again, collapsing back into its neutral, closed form. "The Former King of the Gods. Cronus."
"At first, I was skeptical. Could a mortal truly harness the power of the gods? But now I see. You carry within you… the essence of nearly the entire Olympian pantheon." Cronus's eyes glinted with a cold, analytical light. His right arm began to distort, the flesh bulging and reshaping into something monstrously powerful. "Telling you that you've been deceived—that Zeus merely wanted you trapped down here—probably wouldn't sway you now."
"Doesn't matter. I can't get out. And you," Cyd grinned, a fierce, challenging expression, "or rather, you alone now, aren't going to let me wander around your backyard. So… let's dance, Former King."
"You dare?!" A vein throbbed on Cronus's temple. His legs swelled and twisted, digging deep into the bedrock. Then he launched himself, not with a leap, but like a living cannonball, the ground cratering behind him. "Not even Zeus could finish me!"
What met him was not a blade or an arrow, but a hammer.
A forge-hammer the size of a wagon, its head glowing with the white-hot heart of a star, wreathed in chains of shimmering, divine metal. Cyd swung it in a brutal, overhead arc.
WHUMP-KABOOOOOM!
The impact wasn't a sound; it was an extinction event. The ground didn't crack; it shattered in a spiderweb of glowing fissures that spread for hundreds of yards. Magma, not from a volcano but from the sheer force of the blow, geysered from the wounds in the earth.
[Pandora, Reforged] — Hephaestus Manifestation
"Cough…" Cyd spat a mouthful of crimson onto the steaming rock. For the first time, his divinely reinforced, Hades-blessed body had been breached. A gaping, fist-sized hole was punched clean through his chest, just below the collarbone. Light and shadow seemed to weep from the edges. "Not bad… for a has-been."
CLANG.
[Pandora] slipped from his grip, its head slamming into the broken ground. Cyd gripped the haft, using it to keep himself upright. Scales streamed from his cloak, wrapping around his buckling knees like braces, preventing him from falling.
"I told you," Cronus's voice came from the settling inferno. His form was a ruin—half his body had been pulverized by the hammer blow, leaving a mangled mess of rapidly regenerating flesh and splintered bone. He shook gore from his reforming hand. "Zeus himself could not end me. You, a mortal, have reached your limit."
"Have… I?" Cyd gasped, blood flecking his lips. With a surge of will, he wrenched the hammer free and, with a last burst of stolen strength, swung it in a backhanded, upward arc.
The hammer didn't hit Cronus's body. It hit the space he occupied with such force that the air itself compacted and detonated. Cronus's already-damaged form didn't fly back; it disintegrated in a mist of crimson and gray matter. His head, wearing a look of mild surprise, cartwheeled through the air before landing with a wet thump.
"Remarkable," the disembodied head said, its voice unchanged. "But that must be your final effort." The head began to float. From the severed neck, bone sprouted like a fast-growing crystal. Then came sinew, organs, veins, muscle—all weaving themselves back into existence at a sickening, impossible speed. Within three breaths, Cronus stood whole once more, dark robes weaving themselves around his new body. "To have wounded me twice. You may die proud, human."
"Sorry to disappoint," Cyd rasped, hefting the heavy hammer back onto his shoulder with visible effort. He took a deep, steadying breath. "But you only got me once."
The horrific wound in his chest was gone. Not healing—gone. As if it had never been. Only the torn fabric of his tunic bore witness.
"Impossible! I felt it! I pierced your—" Cronus's eyes widened in dawning, furious comprehension. "You… you are immortal as well?!"
"Let's play a game, Former King!" Cyd shouted, a wild, defiant fire in his eyes as he raised the hammer high.
"Let's see… who dies first!"