The skies had grown dark not from clouds, but from the presence of the abomination that was once Gaia.
The gods, bloodied and breathless, floated in disarray across the skies of the upper realm.
Even divine beings could feel it—that primordial fear, deep in their cores.
A cold realization that something was terribly wrong.
Erebus, usually the most unshakable of them, now panted heavily. The blessing of Nyx that cloaked him in the night's first darkness was beginning to dim.
His cuts didn't heal fast enough. His shadow blade had dulled from overuse.
And even Hestia, her once-roaring Azure Lotus Flame now reduced to flickering embers, hovered beside her, barely staying aloft.
Gaia, or rather, the thing that wore her skin, floated above them like a blight in the sky.
Her jellyfish-like body drifted on tendrils of chaos, and her thousands of eyes pulsed in unnatural rhythms.
