The clash was a sound to break the world. "Clank!"
Cronus's scythe slashed vertically downward. Poseidon crossed his trident above his head, blocking the blow, but the force was immense. It hammered him to one knee, the earth beneath his boots cracking like a spiderweb. Stone splintered and heaved.
From behind, Zeus launched himself high into the air. Lightning gathered, a swirling vortex of raw power and compressed air around his prosthetic arm, the runes blazing white-hot.
'Aeroblast!' 'Thunder Punch!'
His fist, a comet of elemental fury, smashed into Cronus's face. The Titan's head snapped back, his features flattening under the impact. A torrent of high-voltage electricity coursed over him, followed instantly by a detonation of pressurized air. Cronus was thrown backward, a ragdoll of divine flesh, crashing and carving furrows in the earth until he lay still in a cloud of dust and debris.
Poseidon shoved himself upright, his trident the only thing keeping him standing. Zeus landed beside him, his prosthetic arm smoking, the scent of ozone thick in the air. Their breaths came in ragged, heaving gasps.
Poseidon's eyes, narrowed and sea-sharp, remained fixed on the motionless form of their father. "Is…" he rasped, the word a dry scrape in his throat. "Is it over?"
A shift in the rubble. Cronus pushed himself up, the movement unnervingly smooth. He dragged the back of his hand across his face, smearing the golden ichor from his nostrils, and spat a mouthful of blood onto the cracked ground.
Zeus's shoulders slumped, not in fatigue, but in grim acceptance. "Ah," he stated, the word flat and final. "It still is not over."
Cronus smiled, a wide, terrible grin that split his bloody face, showcasing teeth stained with gold. "Hahahahahah!!!" His laughter was not joyful, but a roar of defiance that made the very air tremble. As he laughed, his form began to swell. Muscle and bone expanded, his shadow stretching, then swallowing them whole in a tide of darkness.
Poseidon forced a swallow, a cold knot tightening in his gut. His knuckles turned bone-white around his trident's shaft. Zeus lowered his stance, fists clenching so tight the divine metal of his gauntlets groaned. Lightning crackled around him in a frantic, desperate dance.
Divine energy, thick and palpable, began seeping from Cronus's enlarged form like sweat. His scythe drank it in, regaining its malevolent, white metallic lustre. Only the deep, ragged scar on his chest—Hades's gift—remained, a testament to his mortality.
Poseidon's eyes met his brother's for a fraction of a second. It was enough.
'Leviathan, Awaken!'
The ground beneath him erupted with a colossal surge of water that coiled upward, taking the form of the legendary serpent. Poseidon rose with it, his gaze now level with the giant Cronus.
Zeus responded in kind. 'Aether Enhancement!' A tornado of high-speed wind shrieked to life around him, lifting him into the air, a god clad in storm.
Cronus answered with a casual, horizontal sweep of his scythe. The brothers shot upward, the deadly arc passing a hair's breadth beneath them. Poseidon countered, thrusting his trident forward. 'Tsunami!'
A wall of water, taller than the highest mountain, rose from nothing and rushed toward the Titan. Cronus merely slashed, his scythe cutting the tidal wave apart as if it were silk. But from within the collapsing water, Leviathan lunged, its massive body coiling around Cronus with the sound of grinding stone.
"THUNDER!" Zeus bellowed, his arm raised to the heavens. The sky obeyed, striking down with a concentrated bolt of a million megavolts directly onto the trapped Titan.
"Aaaaahhhh!!!" Cronus's scream was a physical force, shaking the foundations of the world.
Zeus did not let up. He clenched his prosthetic fist, the runes flaring, burning through their last reserves of power. Blue lightning wrapped around him until he was the lightning itself. His prosthetic arm became overcharged, making the thunder denser and wilder.
'Volt Strike!'
He became a living projectile, tackling the electrocuted Cronus. The enhanced impact detonated.
"BOOOM!!!"
A dome of pure energy and lightning expanded, vaporizing stone, pulverizing land into nothingness. A crater, vast and deep, was all that remained. From the cloud of dust and smoke, Zeus stumbled out, his body haggard. A fit of coughing wracked him, and golden ichor began to drip from his nose and ears.
"Heh…" he murmured, swaying on his feet. "Finally… this ends."
Poseidon moved toward him, but his movement froze mid-stride. His eyes widened, his mouth falling half-open in disbelief. "How…?" he mumbled, the sound barely a whisper.
Zeus turned, following his brother's horrified gaze. Through the settling dust, a giant shadow stood. Two points of blue, radiating light fixed on them. A voice, cold and amused, echoed from the form.
"The punch was good. But is that all you got?"
Before Zeus could form a thought, a massive hand closed around him and hurled him into the sky. He soared, a speck against the sun, before gravity reclaimed him. As he began to fall, Cronus teleported above him and smacked him down with a fist wreathed in divine energy. Zeus fell like a comet, crashing back into the earth with a world-shattering impact.
Poseidon was already moving, a spear of water and resolve. He flew toward the free-falling Cronus, his trident pointed for a killing thrust. Leviathan enveloped him, the water sharpening into a glacial point at the trident's fork. 'He is in mid-air, free-falling,' Poseidon's mind raced, a strategist to the last. 'He's used high-level temporal spells. The dissonance must have him vulnerable. This is the moment!'
His trident was a heartbeat from piercing Cronus's chest when the Titan vanished.
He reappeared directly behind Poseidon.
'Temporal Rend.'
A crescent of deep azure energy, humming with the power to sever lifetimes, hurtled toward Poseidon's back. Every instinct screamed. He twisted, forming a defensive stance, layering water shields before him. Leviathan surged forward to intercept.
The Temporal Rend passed through them all as if they were mist. Poseidon brought his trident up in a final, desperate block. The energy wave phased straight through the divine metal and hit him square. A deep, grievous wound opened across his chest and arm, golden ichor pouring out like a river. He fell, helpless, but Leviathan, though wounded, caught him in the air and softly laid his broken form on the ground.
'Healing…Water,' Poseidon gasped, summoning a jade-colored stream that seeped into the wound, the flesh knitting itself shut with agonizing slowness. He used his trident to haul himself upright, just as Zeus crawled from his crater, his armor in tatters, his body a canvas of bruises and blood.
A shared glance, and Poseidon directed the last of his healing water toward his brother. Their bodies mended, but the exhaustion in their spirits remained.
Cronus teleported in front of them, pointing his scythe at Poseidon. "You are truly lucky! If I were not already injured, you would have faced the final Temporal Rend."
Then, he was behind them. An azure-glowing hand touched each of their backs.
'Temporal Freeze.'
The world ceased. Their thoughts turned to stone. Their hearts paused mid-beat. They were statues in a gallery of destruction, utterly helpless.
Cronus raised his scythe, the white radiance of finality blazing. "Scythe severe—lif—"
A ray beam of dark blue slammed into Cronus's side. He grunted, whipping his scythe around to block, but the force was immense, pushing him back meters, his boots grinding deep furrows in the stone.
The spell broke.
Poseidon and Zeus collapsed forward, gasping as time flooded back into their veins. Their hands scrambled at the dirt, grasping for stability that wasn't there. Their eyes were wide, darting, breath coming in shallow, frantic hitches. They had stared into the door of death.
Hades landed before them, Helkarion in hand. He didn't look back, but a wave of his hand cast a spell toward them.
'Fear—Calm.'
A wisp of soothing darkness brushed their temples, quarantining the paralyzing terror, allowing a sliver of reason to return.
Cronus smiled, that same bloody, terrible grin. "You have ascended."
Zeus and Poseidon's heads snapped toward Hades. They didn't need to probe; the aura he emitted was a tide of silent gravity, profound and deep. It wasn't just new power; it was a new order of existence.
"Surrender, Father!" Hades's voice was calm, yet it carried over the ruined battlefield. "The temporal dissonance is eating you alive. You are burning your life force just to stand."
"SHUT UP!" Cronus's roar cracked the stone at his feet. "I built this kingdom from the void! I paid for every stone with my blood! And you… you thieves… think you can inherit it? This is why I bet everything! For you, Hades! To scour your insolence from my kingdom!"
As Cronus roared his defiance, Hades moved. He slammed the butt of Helkarion into the ground.
'Soul-Link!'
A thread of brilliant silver and abyssal black snapped from his chest, piercing the air to connect with his brothers. It was a violent infusion. Their bodies arched as Hades's own divine energy and life force flooded their exhausted cores, reigniting their spirits like a lightning strike on a dry plain.
Cronus sensed the surge. His eyes, already burning with fury, widened into pools of pure, incandescent rage. The veins on his neck stood out like cables.
"YOU! YOU DARE MAKE A FOOL OF ME!"
He vanished.
He reappeared behind Zeus and Poseidon, scythe already in its downward arc, a killing blow aimed at the distracted brothers.
But Hades was faster. Instinct made this quick reaction. Helkarion didn't move to block the strike. Instead, he pointed a single finger.
'Dark Bullet.'
A barrage of compressed shadow-energy slammed into his own brothers.
The projectiles hit Zeus and Poseidon square in the back, the concussive force throwing them clear just as Cronus's scythe whistled through the space they had occupied. It bit into the earth, and the mountain screamed as a new canyon was born.
Cronus slowly turned his head, his glare a promise of annihilation fixed solely on Hades. He slashed his scythe through the air.
'Temporal Rend!'
The crescent of azure death flew.
Hades met it head-on, Helkarion's blade igniting with silver flame.
'Silver Slash!'
A crescent of pure, destructive silver flew to meet it.
The two attacks, one of time, one of the underworld, collided in the center of the battlefield. There was no sound for a moment, only a light that swallowed everything—a sun being born at their feet. Then, the roar came, tearing the world asunder. When the blast faded, the earth was broken for miles, a glassy, smoldering ruin.
Hades slid backward, boots grinding on the shattered rock. His chest burned, the coppery taste of blood on his lips. Across the haze, Cronus stood. His armor was a web of cracks, ichor flowing freely, but his eyes were still sharp, burning with mad, defiant life. 'He's still standing.'
Poseidon planted his trident, steam hissing where seawater met molten stone. 'Rise, Leviathan. This is our final stand.'
From the flooded fissures, the colossal serpent rose once more, coiling upward until its shadow swallowed the sky. Its scales were chipped, its form flickering, but its roar was a challenge that shook the heavens.
Zeus clenched his prosthetic arm. The sparks that dripped from it were weak, the gold seams dark. He poured the last dregs of Hades's gifted power into it. With a wordless cry, he leaped, a final thunderclap aimed at Cronus's heart.
Cronus caught the blow. The flash blinded the battlefield. For a single heartbeat, they were frozen—the King of Titans against the God of Thunder.
Then Cronus twisted his wrist.
'Deceleration field.'
The world slowed to a crawl. Zeus's motion ceased, his face a mask of straining effort, trapped mid-strike. Cronus, moving with impossible speed, vanished and reappeared behind him, hammering a devastating blow into his spine. Zeus crashed to the ground, his prosthetic arm going dark with a final, sad sputter.
Poseidon's eyes flared sea-green. 'Tidebound Execution!'
Leviathan lunged, a living spear of ocean and fury.
Cronus turned a weary palm. 'Deceleration Field.'
The serpent froze mid-strike. The very droplets of water hung motionless in the air.
Hades swung Helkarion, but Cronus lifted a single finger. 'Slow Pulse.'
The spear's descent became a sluggish crawl.
A faint, bloody smile touched Cronus's lips. "You fight against time itself."
Hades gritted his teeth, his new divinity resonating with the very core of the world. He whispered a single word, a command of harmony and the Underworld.
'Harmony—soul link.' 'Fusion harmony and sin —pride'
A black-silver wave pulsed from him. The temporal chains binding his brothers shattered. Their movements flickered back into sync with his own heartbeat. Time, for them, steadied.
Zeus surged up from the ground, not with lightning, but with raw, brute force. Poseidon's trident became a blur, and Leviathan mirrored him, its tail sweeping through molten rock.
They struck as one. A final, coordinated assault born of desperation and a shared soul. Zeus's fist, Poseidon's trident, Leviathan's mass—all connected. The impact blew the summit of Othrys into the sky, a cataclysm of steam and fire.
For the first, true time, Cronus staggered.
"Now!" Hades's voice cut through the chaos, the conductor of their finale.
Their rhythm was perfect. A god of the sea, a god of the sky, and the beast of the deep. Cronus vanished.
A whisper followed, thin and strained. 'Acceleration: Overdrive.'
He reappeared between them, his scythe a blur of white. He moved faster than sight, blocking Zeus's arm with a shower of sparks, kicking Poseidon back, and blurring again.
Poseidon roared, slamming his trident down. 'Leviathan's Maw!'
The serpent erupted from the ground beneath Cronus, its jaws closing around him in a vice of water and scale. The mountain shook with its triumph.
Then, a light. A terrible, tearing light from within the serpent's throat. Cronus burst free, drenched in water and his own ichor, his eyes burning with the last of his divine fury.
"You bring beasts and thunder," he growled, his voice the sound of breaking continents. "But you can't outrun me."
Hades stepped forward, Helkarion held steady. "Then let's see who fate favors."
He raised the spear. Shadows spread, runes of death and finality burning on the molten stone. 'Shadow bind.'
Spectral chains, cold as the void, erupted from the ground, lashing around Cronus's limbs, holding him fast.
Zeus and Poseidon did not hesitate. Lightning and sea, sky and abyss, struck as one.
The explosion was silent, then all-consuming. It seared the world white, a new sun born on the mountaintop.
When the light faded, Cronus still stood. His armor was ash, his body a ruined monument, golden life flooding from a dozen wounds. But he was smiling.
"You forget," he rasped, the words a bloody gurgle. He lifted a trembling, skeletal hand. "I… am time."
The world stopped.