The cavern still groaned with the echoes of what had just happened. Ymir's corpse smoked where it had fallen, rivers of frozen ichor spilling into cracks that had split open across the underworld. Pangu was gone, his body torn apart in the storm's last detonation, but the scars of his axe were carved forever into the bones of the realm.
Hades leaned heavy on his bident, the flames licking at its tips guttering low. His cloak was torn and soaked with blood. The Lord of the Dead looked older, as though holding the underworld together had drained centuries out of him in moments. Nyx stood not far off, her star-robes dimmer than before, edges ragged where Ymir's frost and Pangu's swings had cut through. She kept her posture straight, but Zeus could see the exhaustion in her shoulders, the strain in her silver eyes.
