The clash is a sound to break the world. "Clank!"
Cronus's scythe slashes vertically downward. Poseidon crosses his trident above his head, blocking the blow, but the force is immense. It hammers him to one knee, the earth beneath his boots cracking like a spiderweb. Stone splinters and heaves.
From behind, Zeus launches himself high into the air. Lightning gathers, 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, smashes into Cronus's face. The Titan's head snaps back, his features flattening under the impact. A torrent of high-voltage electricity courses over him, followed instantly by a detonation of pressurized air. Cronus is thrown backward, a ragdoll of divine flesh, crashing and carving furrows in the earth until he lies still in a cloud of dust and debris.
Poseidon shoves himself upright, his trident the only thing keeping him standing. Zeus lands beside him, his prosthetic arm smoking, the scent of ozone thick in the air. Their breaths come in ragged, heaving gasps.
Poseidon's eyes, narrowed and sea-sharp, remain fixed on the motionless form of their father. "Is…" he rasps, the word a dry scrape in his throat. "Is it over?"
A shift in the rubble. Cronus pushes himself up, the movement unnervingly smooth. He drags the back of his hand across his face, smearing the golden ichor from his nostrils, and spits a mouthful of blood onto the cracked ground.
Zeus's shoulders slump, not in fatigue, but in grim acceptance. "Ah," he states, the word flat and final. "It still is not over."
Cronus smiles, a wide, terrible grin that splits his bloody face, showcasing teeth stained with gold. "Hahahahahah!!!" His laughter is not joyful, but a roar of defiance that makes the very air tremble. As he laughs, his form begins to swell. Muscle and bone expand, his shadow stretching, then swallowing them whole in a tide of darkness.
Poseidon forces a swallow, a cold knot tightening in his gut. His knuckles turn bone-white around his trident's shaft. Zeus lowers his stance, fists clenching so tight the divine metal of his gauntlets groans. Lightning crackles around him in a frantic, desperate dance.
Divine energy, thick and palpable, begins seeping from Cronus's enlarged form like sweat. His scythe drinks it in, regaining its malevolent, white metallic lustre. Only the deep, ragged scar on his chest Hades' gift remains, a testament to his mortality.
Poseidon's eyes meet his brother's for a fraction of a second. It is enough.
'Leviathan, Awaken!'
The ground beneath him erupts with a colossal surge of water that coils upward, taking the form of the legendary serpent. Poseidon rises with it, his gaze now level with the giant Cronus.
Zeus responds in kind. 'Aether Enhancement!' A tornado of high-speed wind shrieks to life around him, lifting him into the air, a god clad in storm.
Cronus answers with a casual, horizontal sweep of his scythe. The brothers shoot upward, the deadly arc passing a hair's breadth beneath them. Poseidon counters, thrusting his trident forward. 'Tsunami!'
A wall of water, taller than the highest mountain, rises from nothing and rushes toward the Titan. Cronus merely slashes, his scythe cutting the tidal wave apart as if it were silk. But from within the collapsing water, Leviathan lunges, its massive body coiling around Cronus with the sound of grinding stone.
"THUNDER!" Zeus bellows, his arm raised to the heavens. The sky obeys, striking down with a concentrated bolt of a million megavolts directly onto the trapped Titan.
"Aaaaahhhh!!!" Cronus's scream is a physical force, shaking the foundations of the world.
Zeus does not let up. He clenches his prosthetic fist, the runes flaring, burning through their last reserves of power. Blue lightning wraps around him until he is the lightning itself. Prosthetic arm become overcharge and make thunder more denser and wilder.
'Volt Strike!'
He becomes a living projectile, tackling the electrocuted Cronus. The enhanced impact detonates.
"BOOOM!!!"
A dome of pure energy and lightning expands, vaporizing stone, pulverizing land into nothingness. A crater, vast and deep, is all that remains. From the cloud of dust and smoke, Zeus stumbles out, his body haggard. A fit of coughing wracks him, and golden ichor begins to drip from his nose and ears.
"Heh…"he murmurs, swaying on his feet. "Finally… this ends."
Poseidon moves toward him, but his movement freezes mid-stride. His eyes widen, his mouth falling half-open in disbelief. "How…?" he mumbles, the sound barely a whisper.
Zeus turns, following his brother's horrified gaze. Through the settling dust, a giant shadow stands. Two points of blue, radiating light fix on them. A voice, cold and amused, echoes from the form.
"The punch was good. But is that all you got?"
Before Zeus can form a thought, a massive hand closes around him and hurls him into the sky. He soars, a speck against the sun, before gravity reclaims him. As he begins to fall, Cronus teleports above him and smacks him down with a fist wreathed in divine energy. Zeus falls like a comet, crashing back into the earth with a world-shattering impact.
Poseidon is already moving, a spear of water and resolve. He flies toward the free-falling Cronus, his trident pointed for a killing thrust. Leviathan envelops him, the water sharpening into a glacial point at the trident's fork. 'He is in mid-air, free-falling', Poseidon's mind races, a strategist to the last. 'He's used high-level temporal spells. The dissonance must have him vulnerable. This is the moment!'
His trident is a heartbeat from piercing Cronus's chest when the Titan vanishes.
He reappears directly behind Poseidon.
'Temporal Rend.'
A crescent of deep azure energy, humming with the power to sever lifetimes, hurls toward Poseidon's back. Every instinct screams. He twists, forming a defensive stance, layering water shields before him. Leviathan surges forward to intercept.
The Temporal Rend passes through them all as if they are mist. Poseidon brings his trident up in a final, desperate block. The energy wave phases straight through the divine metal and hits him square. A deep, grievous wound opens across his chest and arm, golden ichor pouring out like a river. He falls, helpless, but Leviathan, though wounded, catches him in the air and softly lays his broken form on the ground.
'Healing…Water,' Poseidon gasps, summoning a jade-colored stream that seeps into the wound, the flesh knitting itself shut with agonizing slowness. He uses his trident to haul himself upright, just as Zeus crawls from his crater, his armor in tatters, his body a canvas of bruises and blood.
A shared glance, and Poseidon directs the last of his healing water toward his brother. Their bodies mend, but the exhaustion in their spirits remains.
Cronus teleports 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 is behind them. An azure-glowing hand touches each of their backs.
'Temporal Freeze.'
The world ceases. Their thoughts turn to stone. Their hearts pause mid-beat. They are statues in a gallery of destruction, utterly helpless.
Cronus raises his scythe, the white radiance of finality blazing. "Scythe severe—lif—"
A ray beam of dark blue slams into Cronus's side. He grunts, whipping his scythe around to block, but the force is immense, pushing him back meters, his boots grinding deep furrows in the stone.
The spell breaks.
Poseidon and Zeus collapse forward, gasping as time floods back into their veins. Their hands scramble at the dirt, grasping for stability that isn't there. Their eyes are wide, darting, breath coming in shallow, frantic hitches. They have stared into the door of death.
Hades lands before them, Helkarion in hand. He doesn't look back, but a wave of his hand casts a spell toward them.
'Fear—Calm.'
A wisp of soothing darkness brushes their temples, quarantining the paralyzing terror, allowing a sliver of reason to return.
Cronus smiles, that same bloody, terrible grin. "You have ascended."
Zeus and Poseidon's heads snap toward Hades. They don't need to probe; the aura he emits is a tide of silent gravity, profound and deep. It isn't just new power; it is a new order of existence.
"Surrender, Father!" Hades' voice is calm, yet it carries 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 cracks 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 roars his defiance, Hades moves. He slams the butt of Helkarion into the ground.
'Soul-Link!'
A thread of brilliant silver and abyssal black snaps from his chest, piercing the air to connect with his brothers. It is a violent infusion. Their bodies arch as Hades' own divine energy and life force floods their exhausted cores, reigniting their spirits like a lightning strike on a dry plain.
Cronus senses the surge. His eyes, already burning with fury, widen into pools of pure, incandescent rage. The veins on his neck stand out like cables.
"YOU! YOU DARE MAKE A FOOL OF ME!"
He vanishes.
He reappears behind Zeus and Poseidon, scythe already in its downward arc, a killing blow aimed at the distracted brothers.
But Hades is faster. Its instinct make this quick reaction. Helkarion doesn't move to block his strike. Instead, he points a single finger.
'Dark Bullet.'
A barrage of compressed shadow-energy slams 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 whistles through the space they had occupied. It bites into the earth, and the mountain screams as a new canyon is born.
Cronus slowly turns his head, his glare a promise of annihilation fixed solely on Hades. He slashes his scythe through the air.
'Temporal Rend!'
The crescent of azure death flies.
Hades meets it head-on, Helkarion's blade igniting with silver flame.
'Silver Slash!'
A crescent of pure, destructive silver flies to meet it.
The two attacks, one of time, one of underworld, collide in the center of the battlefield. There is no sound for a moment, only a light that swallows everything a sun being born at their feet. Then, the roar comes, tearing the world as under. When the blast fades, the earth is broken for miles, a glassy, smoldering ruin.
Hades slides backward, boots grinding on the shattered rock. His chest burns, the coppery taste of blood on his lips. Across the haze, Cronus stands. His armor is a web of cracks, ichor flowing freely, but his eyes are still sharp, burning with mad, defiant life. 'He's still standing.'
Poseidon plants his trident, steam hissing where seawater meets molten stone. 'Rise, Leviathan. This is our final stand.'
From the flooded fissures, the colossal serpent rises once more, coiling upward until its shadow swallows the sky. Its scales are chipped, its form flickering, but its roar is a challenge that shakes the heavens.
Zeus clenches his prosthetic arm. The sparks that drip from it are weak, the gold seams dark. He pours the last dregs of Hades' gifted power into it. With a wordless cry, he leaps, a final thunderclap aimed at Cronus's heart.
Cronus catches the blow. The flash blinds the battlefield. For a single heartbeat, they are frozen the King of Titans against the God of Thunder.
Then Cronus twists his wrist.
'Deacceleration field.'
The world slows to a crawl. Zeus's motion ceases, his face a mask of straining effort, trapped mid-strike. Cronus, moving with impossible speed, vanishes and reappears behind him, hammering a devastating blow into his spine. Zeus crashes to the ground, his prosthetic arm going dark with a final, sad sputter.
Poseidon's eyes flare sea-green. 'Tidebound Execution!'
Leviathan lunges, a living spear of ocean and fury.
Cronus turns a weary palm. 'Deceleration Field.'
The serpent freezes mid-strike.The very droplets of water hang motionless in the air.
Hades swings Helkarion, but Cronus lifts a single finger. 'Slow Pulse.'
The spear's descent becomes a sluggish crawl.
A faint, bloody smile touches Cronus's lips. "You fight against time itself."
Hades grits his teeth, his new divinity resonating with the very core of the world. He whispers a single word, a command of harmony and Underworld.
'Harmony—soul link.' 'Fusion harmony and sin —pride'
A black-silver wave pulses from him. The temporal chains binding his brothers shatter. Their movements flicker back into sync with his own heartbeat. Time, for them, steadies.
Zeus surges up from the ground, not with lightning, but with raw, brute force. Poseidon's trident becomes a blur, and Leviathan mirrors him, its tail sweeping through molten rock.
They strike as one. A final, coordinated assault born of desperation and a shared soul. Zeus's fist, Poseidon's trident, Leviathan's mass all connect. The impact blows the summit of Orthys into the sky, a cataclysm of steam and fire.
For the first, true time, Cronus staggers.
"Now!" Hades's voice cuts through the chaos, the conductor of their finale.
Their rhythm is perfect. A god of the sea, a god of the sky, and the beast of the deep. Cronus vanishes.
A whisper follows, thin and strained. 'Acceleration: Overdrive.'
He reappears between them,his scythe a blur of white. He moves faster than sight, blocking Zeus's arm with a shower of sparks, kicking Poseidon back, and blurring again.
Poseidon roars, slamming his trident down. 'Leviathan's Maw!'
The serpent erupts from the ground beneath Cronus,its jaws closing around him in a vice of water and scale. The mountain shakes with its triumph.
Then, a light. A terrible, tearing light from within the serpent's throat. Cronus bursts free, drenched in water and his own ichor, his eyes burning with the last of his divine fury.
"You bring beasts and thunder," he growls, his voice the sound of breaking continents. "But you can't outrun me."
Hades steps forward, Helkarion held steady. "Then let's see who fate favors."
He raises the spear. Shadows spread, runes of death and finality burning on the molten stone. 'Shadow bind.'
Spectral chains,cold as the void, erupt from the ground, lashing around Cronus's limbs, holding him fast.
Zeus and Poseidon do not hesitate. Lightning and sea, sky and abyss, strike as one.
The explosion is silent, then all-consuming. It sears the world white, a new sun born on the mountaintop.
When the light fades, Cronus still stands. His armor is ash, his body a ruined monument, golden life flooding from a dozen wounds. But he is smiling.
"You forget," he rasps, the words a bloody gurgle. He lifts a trembling, skeletal hand. "I… am time."
The world stops.