Chapter 46: The Warrior's Choice
They were getting close now.
Damon could feel it — the pulse of the hourglass thrumming through the marble beneath his feet like a second heartbeat, growing stronger with every corridor they tore through. His shadows raced ahead of the group in black tendrils, whipping around corners and threading through cracks, mapping the labyrinth's twisting guts as fast as he could think. The Greek realm fed them like oil poured on fire, and for the first time since this trial had begun, Damon felt like the maze was working with him instead of against him.
They ran in formation without discussing it — Damon at the front, Brick and Thalios flanking, Naia and Eudora behind. Five demi-gods at full strength, moving through white marble corridors that seemed to widen at their approach, as though the Greek zone recognised its own and was clearing the way for them.
The hourglass burned in the dark above them. Damon didn't need to look up. He could feel the sand draining — a thinning pressure in the air, a countdown written into the bones of the labyrinth itself.
They didn't have long now, maybe an hour at most.
Suddenly, his shadows screamed a warning at him.
Not in words — but in a sudden, violent contraction, snapping back toward him like startled animals, coiling tight around his legs and up the length of his sword arm. His blade hummed at his hip, its dark edge vibrating against the scabbard in response.
Damon threw up a fist as he skidded to a halt.
The group stopped. Brick carried on running for a moment, slowing down as he turned to look at what Damon was doing. "Hey, why did we stop?"
Thalios halted with Damon's sudden stop, the hairs on the back of his neck picking something up.
Naia and Eudora pulled up short behind them, reading the tension in Damon's shoulders before he said a word.
"Others," Damon said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Close. Moving toward us." He said, alerting the others in the group.
"Other demi-gods?" Naia asked.
Damon closed his eyes and let the shadows paint the picture. Five figures. Moving with alarming coordination through a corridor that ran parallel to theirs, angling toward the same junction point twenty metres ahead. Fast, controlled, and silent.
"How many?" Brick murmured, adjusting his grip on the war hammer.
"Five."
"Demi-gods?"
Damon's jaw tightened. The shadows couldn't tell him that — they could feel movement, weight, heat, but not divine heritage. All they told him was that whatever was coming moved like a unit, and it moved like it knew how to fight.
"I don't know... But if I had to guess, I would say get ready for a fight."
Weapons came out. Brick's war hammer swung off his shoulder, the leather wrapping creaking. Thalios drew his bronze sword, and the blade threw white-gold sparks as electricity crawled along its length.
Naia unclipped her trident from her back, and Eudora did the same with her staff, both of them getting ready for battle.
They were outside of the Greek realm now, feeling their powers return to normal. Still, they were back at one-hundred percent, and that counted for something.
Damon drew his own sword. The Stygian iron sang as it left the scabbard, its edge so dark it seemed to carve a line of absence in the air.
They moved forward in silence. Ten metres. Five. Each of them following Damon's lead.
The corridor curved, and Damon knew this was it.
Coming around the corner at the same moment the other group did.
For a single, frozen instant, ten demigods stood face to face in a vaulted marble corridor with weapons drawn and powers blazing.
Then everyone started moving at once.
Brick lunged forward half a step, hammer cocked. A bolt of lightning arced from Thalios's free hand before he'd even registered the motion, striking the wall three inches from the lead figure's head and blasting a shower of marble dust into the air. Naia's water coiled into a defensive barrier.
However, the figure at the front of the opposing group hadn't flinched.
She stood with one hand raised, palm open, radiating a light so clean and steady that it cut through Damon's shadows like morning sun through mist. The light didn't burn — it simply was, warm and impossibly calm, pushing the darkness back not with force but with the sheer weight of its serenity.
Himiko stood facing Damon and the others.
Daughter of Amaterasu. Goddess of the sun.
Damon had seen her once before, standing in the grand courtyard of Olympus when the Japanese pantheon had been introduced. She'd glowed then too, motes of light dancing around her like fireflies, her dark black hair catching every stray beam and holding it. But that had been a formal display — power worn like jewellery, only shown for effect.
This was different. This was a woman standing in a labyrinth full of enemies with a hand raised in what looked like peace, her light saying stop more eloquently than any word could.
Behind her, the other Japanese demigods had reacted — but not the way Damon expected.
Akira, the son of Hachiman, stood a half-step behind Himiko's left shoulder with his hand on the hilt of his katana but the blade still sheathed. He hadn't drawn it. His dark eyes moved across the Greek demigods with the focused precision of someone cataloguing threats — Brick's hammer angle, Thalios's crackling hands, Naia's water barrier, the spread of Damon's shadows. He was reading them the way Damon read a mark on the streets of his home quickly, completely, without sentiment.
When those eyes landed on Damon, they stopped.
A moment of recognition. Not surprise — something deeper. One warrior identifying another.
Ren, son of Susanoo, had no such composure. He stood at the right flank with his kanabo, a brutal iron-studded war club — already in both hands, his body coiled like a spring. The storm-cloud tattoo across his bare shoulders writhed and crackled, miniature bolts of electricity dancing through its shifting patterns. His dark blue hair moved in a wind that wasn't there, and his eyes flashed with something that wasn't anger.
It was hunger.
Hotaru was a furnace barely contained. The petite daughter of Kagutsuchi stood with her fists clenched at her sides, embers drifting from her hair like sparks from a forge. The air around her shimmered with heat distortion, and twin points of fire burned in her amber eyes. And although she was small. She was ready. Every line of her body screamed it.
Kazes, the son of Fujin, was the only one who looked genuinely amused. He stood still with his hands folded behind his head, not seeming to have a care in the world, with a perpetual breeze ruffling his silver hair and tugging at his clothes. His stormy grey eyes held a glint of entertainment, as if ten armed demi-gods facing off in a collapsing labyrinth was the most interesting thing that had happened to him all day.
The silence lasted three seconds. However, it felt like an hour.
Himiko lowered her hand slowly. The golden light dimmed — not extinguished, but pulled back. She looked at Damon, and then at the scorch mark Thalios's lightning had left on the wall beside her head, missing her by mere inches.
"That," she said, her voice carrying the measured warmth of someone accustomed to defusing volatile situations, "was close." Her eyes shifted to Thalios. No anger. No accusation. Just a calm, steady observation that somehow managed to make the son of Zeus look like a child who'd thrown a stone at the wrong window.
Thalios had the grace to lower his sword arm, though the electricity didn't stop dancing across his skin.
"Could've been closer," Brick muttered, lowering his hammer a fraction. His eyes hadn't left Ren. Two brawlers recognising each other across a crowded room.
Damon slowly sheathed his sword, reading the room.
It was a deliberate choice, and he felt every eye in the corridor track the motion. Sheathing your weapon in front of five armed demi-gods from a rival pantheon was either confidence or stupidity, and the line between the two was thin.
But Damon had spent his life reading rooms, and this room — marble corridor, ticking clock, two groups of demi-gods who all needed to reach the same finish line — didn't call for drawn steel.
Not yet anyway.
"We don't have time for this," Damon said, pitching his voice to carry without shouting.
Calm, yet direct.
The way you talked to someone when you wanted them to know you weren't afraid but also weren't looking for trouble.
"The hourglass is almost empty. Every second we spend staring at each other is a second we're not reaching the centre."
Himiko's expression shifted — the faintest softening around her eyes in approval.
"On that, we agree," she said.
She glanced back at her own group, a wordless check-in that passed between the Japanese demigods in a language of looks and micro-expressions too fast for Damon to fully read.
Kazes pushed off the wall with a lazy shrug. "She's right, you know. The sand's nearly gone. I could hear the grain count dropping for the last ten minutes." He tapped his ear and grinned. "The wind carries the sound beautifully."
But Ren hadn't moved. The son of Susanoo stood rooted to the marble floor, dropping the tip of his kanabo to the ground, cracking it. His tattoo still churned with restless electricity as he stared at the Greek demi-gods.
"You," Ren said. His voice was deep and raw, like gravel tumbling in a storm drain. "Son of Ares."
Brick's eyes narrowed. "Yeah?"
Ren's mouth split into a grin that had nothing to do with friendliness and everything to do with the promise of violence. "I watched you fight the Norse giant. Through the walls. The labyrinth lets you hear things if you listen the right way."
He shifted his weight forward, the kanabo's iron studs catching the torchlight. "You hit hard. I want to see how hard."
"Ren." Akira's voice was quiet, but it cut through the corridor like a blade drawn across silk. Not a command — an observation. The kind of single word that carried the weight of a full sentence. "This isn't the time for that."
However, Ren didn't look at him, his gaze never leaving Bricks.
"It's always the time."
Damon saw it building — the inevitability of it, the way certain situations had their own gravity that pulled people toward collision no matter how sensibly you tried to steer them away. He'd seen it a hundred times on the streets. Two dogs circling, hackles up, the fight already decided before the first snap.
Thalios stepped forward before Damon could speak.
"If there's a fight to be had," Thalios said, the electricity around him intensified until the marble walls reflected blue-white light, "then I'm not walking away from it. Not again. Not after—" He stopped himself. The muscles in his jaw tightened. Not after Vali was what he didn't say, but every Greek demi-god heard it.
Brick didn't even hesitate. He stepped up beside Thalios — the first time Damon had ever seen them stand shoulder to shoulder without animosity — and hefted his war hammer.
"What he said." The grin was back, but different now. Harder. This wasn't the joyful laughter from before. This was a man who'd been humiliated by an eight-foot Norse demigod and needed to prove, to himself more than anyone, that the realm had been cheating him, not his own strength.
Damon looked at them. Then he looked at Ren, still coiled and grinning. At Akira, who had moved his hand from the hilt of his katana — but not to back down. To settle his grip.
The son of Hachiman was watching the two Greek demi-gods with that same assessing gaze, and Damon saw the moment a decision formed behind those dark eyes. Not recklessness, like Ren. Something quieter. The son of the Japanese god of war saw two worthy opponents, and every principle he lived by — every tenet of the warrior's code his father embodied — said the same thing.
You don't walk away from a worthy fight.
"Akira." Himiko's voice held a note of caution.
"Go," Akira said, without looking at her. His tone was respectful but final. "Take Hotaru and Kazes. Reach the centre."
Himiko studied him for a long moment. Something passed between them — not an argument, but an understanding. She'd seen this before. She knew what it looked like when Akira made up his mind, and she knew that pushing would only waste the time none of them had.
"There will be time for battle in the later stages," Himiko said. The words were for the Greeks as much as for her own people, and they carried the quiet authority of someone who'd thought three moves ahead and accepted the one she couldn't prevent.
"This doesn't have to happen now."
"But it does," Ren said, still grinning. Lightning flickered through the storm on his shoulders. "Because now is all we've got."
Himiko held her composure for one more breath. Then she turned to Hotaru, who was vibrating like a tuning fork, embers shedding from her hair in a steady rain of orange sparks.
"We go," Himiko told her.
Hotaru's eyes were on Thalios — on the electricity crawling across his skin, on the raw power radiating from the son of Zeus. Fire and lightning. She wanted to test it. Damon could see it in every taut line of her body, in the way her fists clenched tighter.
But she followed Himiko's lead. A sharp exhale through her nose, a visible effort of will, and Hotaru turned away from the fight.
"Fine," she said, the word carrying the temperature of a furnace door closing. "But I get the next one."
Kazes was already moving, drifting past the Greek demigods with that perpetual breeze whispering around him. He paused beside Damon for half a second. "Good luck with the centre," he said lightly, as if they'd bumped into each other at a market. "I'd hurry, if I were you. The sand sounds like a waterfall now."
Then the three of them were past — Himiko's golden light leading, Hotaru's embers trailing, Kazes's wind erasing their footprints from the marble dust. They moved down the corridor with quiet efficiency and disappeared around a bend without looking back.
Which left five.
Damon turned to Brick and Thalios. Both were already in fighting stances. Brick had planted his feet wide, his war hammer resting on his shoulder, every muscle in his body singing with power. Thalios had drawn his sword again, electricity arcing between the blade and his free hand in continuous, hungry loops.
Across from them, Ren rolled his shoulders. The motion was slow, deliberate, almost theatrical — a fighter loosening up because he knew exactly what was coming and wanted every tendon ready for it. His kanabo's iron studs sparked as he tapped it once, twice, against the marble floor. Each impact left cracks in the marble floor.
Akira stood still. Perfectly, utterly still — feet shoulder-width apart, left hand resting on the scabbard of his katana, right hand open at his side. Not a fighting stance. A ready state. The difference was subtle and enormous: a fighting stance said I will fight you. Akira's stillness said I can fight anyone, at any time, and I am choosing this moment.
"Brick. Thalios." Damon's voice was steady. He knew that tone wouldn't reach them — not fully, not when the blood was up, and the pride was on the line with every fibre of their bodies screaming for the redemption the Vali fight had denied them. But he had to try.
"We don't have time. The hourglass—"
"Won't matter if we can't fight when we get there," Brick said, not unkindly. His eyes were locked on Ren. "I need this, Damon. You know I do."
Damon looked at Thalios. The son of Zeus met his gaze, and for once there was no contempt in those electric blue eyes. No superiority. Just a raw, honest need that Damon recognised because he'd carried a version of it his whole life — the need to prove you were enough.
"Don't tell me to run again," Thalios said quietly. There was no challenge in it. Just a statement. The memory of the retreat from Vali sat between them like a scar that hadn't fully closed.
Damon read the room.
He'd been reading rooms since he was twelve years old, picking pockets in Camden Town, learning to tell the difference between a target who'd chase you and one who'd let it go, between a corner you could escape around and one that would trap you. He'd read the divine assembly on Olympus, read the politics of the Underworld, read Hades' careful manipulations and Persephone's cold hatred toward him.
And right now, in this marble corridor with the hourglass dying above them, he read the situation with the clarity that he knew there was no stopping the two of them.
This fight had already started.
Brick needed it — needed to feel his power against an equal on level ground after Vali had made him feel like a child. Thalios needed it — needed to prove that the tactical lesson Damon had beaten into him wasn't weakness but a weapon. Ren wanted it because wanting was all Ren knew. And Akira... Akira had made his choice because something in the Greek demi-gods had passed a test Damon hadn't even known was being administered.
Trying to stop it would waste more time than letting it happen.
So Damon let it go.
"If I can't stop you... Then you had better promise me you will make it before the time runs out." Damon said.
Brick's grin widened. "We'll catch up."
Thalios said nothing, but he gave a single, sharp nod. The closest thing to a response Damon knew he would get from the son of Zeus.
Damon turned to Naia and Eudora. Both of them wore nearly identical expressions — a blend of exasperation and resignation that was so perfectly synchronised it might have been rehearsed.
"Men," Eudora said, as if the single word explained every war in the history of every pantheon.
Naia shook her head, but a faint smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "There's no talking them out of it."
"No," Damon agreed. "There isn't."
He started to move — but then stopped, catching Akira looking at him.
Not at Brick. Not at Thalios. At Damon. Those dark, calculating eyes had tracked every decision Damon had made in the last thirty seconds — the attempt at reason, the reading of the room, the acceptance, the trust placed in his teammates to handle themselves — and found something in the sequence worth noting.
Damon met the gaze. For a moment, the noise of the labyrinth fell away — the distant groan of shifting walls, the electric hum of Thalios's power, Ren's crackling tattoo, the whisper of falling sand. It was just two young men standing across from each other, recognising something that didn't need language. The way a swordsman recognised a swordsman. The way a thief recognised a liar. The way a leader recognised another leader and understood what it cost.
"I was hoping to fight you," Akira said. His voice was low, pitched for Damon alone. Not a boast. Not a challenge. An observation offered with the same spare precision as everything else about the son of Hachiman.
Damon held the gaze for one more breath.
But before he could say another, Thalios spoke.
"You won't get the chance once I kill you."
Akira turned his attention back to the son of Zeus, sensing the blood lust coming from him.
"Perhaps another time..." Akira said aimed at Damon.
Damon smiled and turned away.
"Show him who he's messing with, Thalios." Damon said to his fellow demi-god before looking at both Naia and Eudora.
"Let's go," he said. both of them nodding, and the three of them broke into a run, leaving Brick and Thalios standing in the marble corridor with two sons of Japanese war gods and the weight of everything they needed to prove.