At the peak of Olympus, the initial joy of the gods gradually faded.
Zeus began to feel a little bored.
The prayers of the Silver Race were monotonous, full of demands for power and profit, lacking the piety that truly touched the heart of a god.
Although their hymns were magnificent, they seemed rehearsed countless times, losing the freshness that had originally pleased him.
Hera discovered that the marriages she blessed were increasingly becoming tools for political alliances, and love paled in the face of interests.
Demeter felt that humanity was less and less grateful for the harvest and more and more indulgent in waste and greed.
A subtle sense of disappointment, like a thin cloud, began to permeate among the gods.
They had given too much, but it seemed they had raised a group of... spoiled children.
However, the real explosion came from the ever-inflating arrogance of the Silver Race, which ultimately affected the fundamental interests of the gods.
Dangerous arguments began to spread among some of the Silver Race:
"We have the form and wisdom of the gods; why can't we possess the power of the gods?"
"The gods love us because we are better and closer to the divine than the Golden Race of the past!"
"Look, can we also touch the divine light of Olympus through our own efforts... and share it?"
Finally, a group of the most outstanding Silver beings performed a blasphemous ceremony.
They did not offer sacrifices, but attempted to imitate the power of the gods, trying to use their mortal bodies to forcibly violate the laws of nature, and even... pry into the trajectory of fate!
They built a majestic silver tower, claiming to inscribe the glory of humanity, and even their own names, on the starry sky, opposite the gods!
This act was like a loud slap in the face to all the Olympian gods.
Zeus's anger, like a volcano suppressed for centuries, exploded instantly! His golden eyes no longer held appreciation and tolerance, but the cold, angry glare of the God-King!
"Arrogance! Foolishness!"
The thunderbolt condensed in his hands, and all of Olympus trembled with his rage.
However, after the rage, Zeus had to consider the consequences of annihilating the Silver Race.
Prometheus, the son of Hades... Although on the surface Hades seemed indifferent to him, who knew if this was just an illusion created by Hades?
Giving life to mortals was a great power, touching the fundamental laws of the world. Could Prometheus do this, and could it completely bypass the silent approval of his unfathomable brother Hades?
The Lord of the Underworld, who coldly observed everything from behind the scenes and even 'harvested' the Golden Race with his own hands—his will was the key.
"Poseidon!" Zeus looked at his sea-god brother in a low, suppressed voice.
"What do you think?"
Poseidon leaned on his trident, the unruliness on his face replaced by a rare seriousness.
"This bunch of silver-shining little bugs is truly damned. But... before doing it, it's best to clarify the attitude of the one in the Underworld. I don't want the earth beneath my feet to suddenly crack open an abyss leading to Tartarus when I flood it with a tsunami."
Even the unruly Poseidon was so cautious, and Zeus's unease was even greater. He dismissed the gods and pondered alone on his throne, surrounded by thunder, for a long time.
In the end, he made a decision. Lightning flashed, and his figure vanished from Olympus, the next moment appearing before the entrance to the Underworld, which rejects the living.
The cold, deathly breath touched his face, starkly contrasting with the splendor of Olympus.
Zeus restrained the divine light that illuminated his entire body, and just as he was about to enter the eternal darkness, a tall figure, surrounded by the breath of the end of all things, seemed to emerge from the shadows and stand before him.
The god of destruction, Perses. He was silent, holding no weapon, but his very existence was the most powerful barrier.
An invisible destructive force field slightly dampened the thunder around Zeus.
"Get out of the way, Perses. I want to see Hades," Zeus said in a deep voice, trying to maintain the majesty of the God-King.
Perses said nothing, but his eyes, filled with the sense of an ending, coldly looked at Zeus, as if looking at a lifeless, dead being. His majestic destructive power was like a substantive wall, blocking the path forward.
Zeus had no doubt that if he tried to break through, it would immediately trigger a shocking attack.
Just as the atmosphere grew tense, a dark blue torch ignited.
The goddess of roads and magic, Hecate, quietly emerged from the shadows.
She stood beside Perses, calmly looking at Zeus.
"Your Majesty the God-King," Hecate's voice was cold, without the slightest wave, "His Majesty the King of Hades is already aware of your intentions."
Zeus's pupils constricted: "Then he..."
Hecate interrupted him, directly conveying the will of the Underworld: "His Majesty said: Clean up your own toys; you don't even need me to do it myself."
These words were like cold daggers, piercing the most sensitive and humiliating place in Zeus's heart with precision.
Hades not only made it clear that he would not interfere, but also mocked his authority and power as God-King with extreme contempt!
The indifference in that tone made it seem as if the disputes between Olympus and the earth were merely a game among ants in his eyes, and he didn't even have the desire to glance at them.
Zeus's face instantly became extremely ugly, and his golden eyes intertwined with anger and shame. He clenched his fists tightly, and thunder crackled between his fingers, but he could not unleash it.
Hades's attitude was clear, and he could only humiliate himself by continuing to stay here.
"Very well!" Zeus squeezed out two words through his teeth and took a deep look into the depths of the dark Underworld, as if wanting to imprint in his memory the cold figure sitting on the obsidian throne.
Without another word, he sharply turned, transformed into a blazing bolt of lightning, and shot out of the Underworld, returning to his Olympus.
As soon as he returned to the temple, his accumulated anger exploded completely. A thunderbolt of immense power shot from his hand, blasting a distant, uninhabited mountain peak into powder.
"Hades...!" He roared, his voice full of humiliation and a maniacal sense of being underestimated.
But soon, he forcibly suppressed this feeling, because there were more important matters at hand.
He gathered all the gods who supported him and declared the verdict.
"The Silver Race deserves annihilation."
Zeus's voice echoed atop Olympus, like a final judgment.
"Not because of the silent approval of the Underworld, but because they have violated the undeniable authority of Olympus!"
This time, he no longer needed any conscience.
The majestic divine power burst from his body, and the sky was instantly shrouded in endless thunderclouds, denser and stronger than ever before.
"In my name, Zeus, divine punishment is decreed!"
In an instant, hundreds of millions of thunderbolts, capable of tearing the sky, rained down from the heavens like a torrential downpour, precisely striking every city and every settlement of the Silver Race on earth!
The silver tower that had tried to reach the sky was reduced to molten metal by the first lightning bolt, thick as a mountain range, and collapsed with a roar.
At the same time, Poseidon raised his trident and stirred the waves.
An unprecedented tsunami, like hundreds of millions of blue mountains, surged towards the continent from all sides, devouring everything along the coast. The earth trembled and crumbled before the fury of the ocean.
Hera revoked her marriage blessings, Demeter instantly turned the fertile land into scorched earth, and the remaining gods used their powers to take back all the grace they had given, transforming it into destructive forces.
The Silver Race had no power to resist in the face of divine punishment that shattered the heavens and the earth.
Wailing and despair echoed across the land, but were soon drowned out by the roar of thunder and tsunami.
This divine punishment lasted for seven days and seven nights.
When the thunder ceased and the tides receded, not a trace of the Silver Race remained on earth. Their footprints were completely erased, leaving only chaos and deathly silence.
The once-favored Silver Race became a brief and sorrowful footnote in the long river of history.
Atop Olympus, Zeus looked upon the ruined earth, but in his heart, there was no joy of victory, only emptiness and deep fatigue.
He had eliminated the rebels and preserved the majesty of the God-King, but Hades's contemptuous words were like a nightmare, deeply rooted in his heart.
He had gotten rid of the ingrates, but it seemed he had lost something more important.
And in the depths of the Underworld, Hades still sat upright on his throne. The upheaval of the outside world caused not the slightest ripple in his eyes.
He simply watched as the souls of countless Silver Race flooded into the Underworld in a daze, guided by Thanatos, like another stream flowing into the River Styx.
And Metis stood silently nearby.