Scene 1
"He's bringing a stable hand that none of the other three could."
I nodded as I watched Leto's son lead Zeus's heir projects.
So far, most of them had shown more weakness than strength.
"He promised to deliver that, and he is doing it," I said. "A rough start due to Dionysus misleading even Zeus, so I can't fault him for being sidetracked. After all, he forced Juris into the open."
Hestia could place Juris on the Heir Board all she wanted, but until the rest of them realized there had been another monster lurking beside Tenebris, none of them would treat Ten like the opponent he was worth.
This game of heirs Zeus started would have ended already if Mother had not restricted Tenebris's movement.
My gaze drifted toward Gaia's domain, where her life laws were densest.
Traces of the underworld moved through that region now. Forces tied to Ten and Juris had been steadily beating back Ares and his followers through Adamas.
A newly established piece from Demeter.
She was still hiding most of his details, but one thing was clear. He was a Battle God of Force. The opposite of Ares's War God status.
It sounded slight.
It was not.
Neither boy truly grasped the difference yet, but that difference defined whose ceiling was higher and broader.
"He's not participating unless they come to him," Rhea said.
She sat beside me, watching the board she had given me.
A gift from Juris for the Queen of Olympus.
This chessboard had truly given wisdom to war. Whether Juris understood that or not was irrelevant. His lack of ambition for the Throne of Strategy still puzzled me, but the tool he left behind was too useful to ignore.
"Hermes has been visiting him this entire time," Rhea continued. "Artemis has also stated she will only take part in the war once Athena has picked her side."
"Juris isn't participating either if that is the case," I said. "He seems satisfied being left out of Dionysus's plots. That white flame came from his brother with the only condition being to hide it from Apollo. Hermes used it to aid Ares and stabilize his duty as a big brother. I won't hold that against him."
Rhea nodded.
I placed a key onto the table.
Her eyes sharpened.
She reached for it without speaking.
She understood my request.
No words could be used here. No barrier. No open spell. Any attempt to verbalize the matter would only draw Zeus's eyes toward the Keys to the Conceptual Plane.
A forbidden artifact by Chronos's standards.
Its nature invited Titans to fully form, but it also allowed gods like us to travel into their plane.
Rhea closed her hand around the key.
"Chronos really loved his daughters," she said, laughing softly at my actions.
Then she stood and stepped into the void.
I remained alone in my temple, watching the younger gods gathered in my gardens, laughing and socializing without understanding how many hands were moving above their heads.
Scene 2 — Apollo
"No."
Hera burned the animal skin before I could even finish making my argument.
"That is not possible."
The plans turned to ash in her hand.
She looked down at them like they had been a sin in physical form.
My heart, which had begun racing with hope, immediately sank. I forced my eyes to shut down their connection to Fate. Barely. My staff felt cold in my hand, as if even it was disappointed by the thought I had dared to bring here.
"Don't bother asking again," Hera said.
Her voice cut through every excuse before I could form one.
"The issue is not ambition. The issue is that you have already met the Beginning and almost cost us all dearly. A child in our eyes? Yes. But one born in an entirely different layer."
Her eyes hardened.
"Even taking his name is playing with fire. Zeus and Chronos do not call themselves creators because that is a death sentence. Take the domain first. Titles can be discussed after."
I said nothing.
"You already have two," she continued. "Your next step is yours to decide. And for Chronos's sake, do not use Fate for such ideas, you idiot."
She slapped me out of my daze.
The force launched me straight into the gardens.
Laughter broke out from the goddesses gathered nearby.
Hebe offered me a hand.
I accepted it, then sat up slowly, deciding it would be better to rethink my plans before Hera decided to hit me again.
Her whisper replayed in my mind.
Three Crowns.
Not a suggestion.
An order.
I needed a different direction.
There were no Titans left to steal from once I had given Ares my backup card for Atlas's Strength domain.
So I traveled to Ares's temple.
He had started calling it home, despite it sitting too close to Hera's and Zeus's for comfort. His attempt to match my placement lacked the purpose behind mine. My temple had been placed for access to the faction I was leading.
Hermes had practically moved in with us.
Dionysus remained among his followers, never staying in one place besides our gatherings in Hera's gardens.
I entered without waiting.
"Ares, we must depart for Gaia's domain."
He looked up in surprise.
"Studying won't do much for you right now," I said. "Just remember the details while we head there."
I grabbed his shoulder.
Hera had restricted him to this temple while veteran Major Gods stabilized his war, but waiting any longer would only cost us more ground.
Ares opened his mouth.
I dragged him out before he could complain.
Scene 3 — Ayin
"Adam, good job with this group. You took a lot of pressure off my fairies."
I floated down into the clearing.
Or what remained of one.
Adam had practically destroyed the entire area along with Ares's followers. Broken trees lay in wide circles. Divine blood soaked the soil. The ground had cracked in places from repeated impacts, and the air still trembled with leftover Force.
"Ayin," Adam said, looking up. "Did Eli succeed?"
He glanced around before switching to his Life domain.
Roots rose from the shattered ground. Fresh bark crawled across broken trunks. Leaves unfolded from branches that had been dead a moment before. The forest began rebuilding itself around him, enhanced by divine blood and his own excess life energy.
This place was already forming into his exclusive domain.
Lord Ten had warned us not to interrupt that process. Gaia had given Adam her home as thanks, and if the land wished to answer him now, we were not to stand in the way.
"Yes," I said. "Eli removed the local mortals. You can focus on your domain."
Adam nodded.
Tree roots enclosed around him like a cradle and fortress at once. The surroundings continued to grow from the life energy spilling out of him.
Gaia's greatest gift to the boy.
Watching him made comparison unavoidable.
He was still a lower-tier god holding back the first step of consolidating his first domain framework. Yet even before taking that step, the pressure around him was ridiculous.
I had been forced to pick one path at Demi-God and build my future around it.
Prince Ten and his peers were different. They could use their first domain to incorporate similar laws or find perfect mixtures between two different domains. Their childlike natures and the fact that higher-ranked gods still viewed them as children gave them room to make absurd claims and then prove those claims worked.
Lord Ten had done it often.
He had been ten thousand years old when we first met, yet he still spoke of his childhood like it was a time of impossible ideas becoming real through stubbornness.
Cold Fire had been one of them.
The concept that pushed his Sun Domain into the Major rank.
Now Life was being integrated into his Death Domain to stabilize a broader path.
For mortal ascended gods like Eli and me, the most we could usually hope for was an opportunity to gain a divine body capable of fully expressing our domain.
We were pioneers only because of the Golden Cycle.
Lord Hades and the princes supported us, but even then, Eli and I could not compare to this fifty-thousand-year-old Adam. We were two Gaia-linked races who had lived for over a million years, yet we remained stuck in the mid-tier of the Minor ranks.
Every senior god called it the natural bottleneck for anything not born divine.
Bale had surpassed it without dying.
He had become a Death God.
Adam was now testing a method of building a domain he called Life-Force, consolidating everything he had experienced over the last thousand years of the Heir War.
Gaia's domain had become the primary target and battleground. I was tasked with handling the offensive with Adam while Bale reinforced the scattered groups.
I watched the roots close fully around him.
Life-Force.
If he succeeded, he would not just counter Ares.
He would prove mortals and half-divine beings had a way to rise without being devoured by the divine system first.
Scene 4 — Ten
"Why are you here, Ten?"
Apollo was already enlarged, watching the formation of Major Gods around him.
Bale led my side.
That had been a direct order given on a need-to-know basis. Otherwise, everyone involved only had one instruction.
Shut up and follow.
Apollo had led a smaller group of Major to Minor rank gods with Ares. Now they had returned to the mountain range separating Gaia's domain from Zeus's.
Bale met me there.
Ares had returned as well.
Apollo was clearly caught off guard by how many people were involved in this operation.
"Catch Ares and remove him from the game," I said. "Then it will be up to you to figure out how Zeus maintains his lead."
I stretched my arms and enlarged myself to match him.
My grin met his frown.
"How did you hide from Fate?" Apollo asked.
I tilted my head.
"I didn't."
I had been sitting here, waiting and studying Life laws so I could properly build my Domain of Endings with both Life and Death.
"But you won't believe me," I said. "So what will it be? Fight or retreat?"
Apollo raised his staff.
I raised my fists.
Life and Force coated them, the two domains the Earth faction had blessed me with moving together awkwardly, but well enough for a test.
Apollo swung first.
He embedded the staff with wind laws, increasing its speed. It was a crude attack, but effective. I sidestepped as the strike smashed apart the mountain peaks behind me.
I stepped in and uppercut him with an open palm, using Force laws like a club.
He lifted slightly.
Then his hand opened in front of my face.
A tornado exploded outward and launched me back.
I caught myself, slid across broken stone, and doubled the force around my hands in time to stop the next compressed barrel of wind. It exploded on impact, kicking dust across the mountain range and blocking my sight.
Wind screamed behind me.
I only caught a glance before Apollo's staff slammed into my ribs.
His other hand rose toward my face. A ball of compressed wind laws gathered in that split second.
Then it detonated.
I rolled across the ground and through a mountain.
The sound of Bale fighting Ares carried through the destruction.
He was the only god among my side capable of dealing with a Divine Child head-on. As Thanatos's follower and a loose student of Morpheus, he had experience with different and broad domains. Even as a Low Major God, Ares would pressure him.
I opened my eyes.
The sky had changed.
The blue was gone, replaced by the shadow of a purple river breaking into reality.
Apollo was putting his cards on the table.
"The Divine Body of Fate," I said, standing and dusting myself off. "Are you going to run this time?"
His attack had hurt less than it should have.
His Sky laws lacked true offensive weight beyond cutting. He compensated by reading Fate and trying to keep me off balance.
A decent plan.
If he already possessed Lightning or Gravity laws.
But his reliance on Fate had kept him from understanding the basics Juris was theorizing from his time with Chronos.
"Let's see if this works," I said.
I decided to take myself one level higher.
The Life laws I had been learning shifted under my Sun divinity.
The surrounding lands between the mountains went up in flames.
Then I pulled the sun down.
There was no Aether holding up the atmosphere anymore.
The sun's face pressed down on Fate.
A scream of anger tore through the sky as Apollo received double the support. He split it off immediately, turning the channel into a multi-level system as he connected all of his gods to Fate.
Their tiers rose.
At minimum, every god rose one or two levels.
The Minor Gods stepped into Major rank as Fate bypassed their limits, even pulling from their future fates to strengthen them now.
Apollo grew slightly taller.
His hair lengthened until it touched his back, closer to mine than before. Gold and purple moved through it as his Sky Prince Crown shone brighter.
I felt Uranus watching us.
Apollo had still edged out a lead, rising to Mid Major God.
I remained held back by my Death laws, my overall rank restricted to High Minor even while my Sun and Darkness had touched Low Major.
Fine.
I coated my body in Darkness laws.
The armor formed solidly over me, thickest around my fists. Then I layered Sun-Force laws beneath it and took a breath.
My right fist pulled back.
Apollo raised an eyebrow.
I punched.
Darkness wrapped around the Sun-Force and left my hand like a Dark Sun.
Fate failed to grasp it in time.
The strike hit Apollo in the chest and sent him flying through two mountains.
The real fight began then.
Ares's domain opened on the other side of the battlefield, providing aid to the gods under him while mine were held back by the residual effects.
Good.
Now both sides had placed their cards down.
Scene 5 — Bale
"This is the second time we've met, Ares."
I led the Major Gods who had already surrounded him and the followers who came with him and Apollo.
"Sadly, instead of my student dealing with you, he has proven he can take the next step whenever he wants. So I'll be your opponent."
Ares stepped forward immediately.
"Adamas's teacher."
My group split apart to avoid being caught in the fallout of our clash.
Some of the gods around us had already witnessed Ares's unchecked ability during battle. None of them wanted to stand too close when he moved.
His sword came down.
The strike lacked the strength I had seen from him before. The lack of armor was likely the reason. He had been born with divine artifacts, the hallmark of each Divine Child.
Tenebris, Apollo, and Hermes were exceptions.
Even Adam had been given a half-Life artifact to build his Force around.
I calmly raised my newly upgraded spear.
The material held. It did not shatter beneath Ares's unnatural domain. I redirected his sword swing, and the attack carved a tear through the earth on the level of a Low Major God.
Even as the weakest Divine Child, Ares was not someone to take lightly.
Several gods' auras spiked around us.
A thin purple chain quietly linked to Ares.
He looked around, confused, before focusing on me again.
Confused, but still dangerous.
A beast did not need understanding to kill.
"Let's go hunting," I said.
I split my body into three weaker forms, each standing at High Minor rank.
One body carried Life.
One carried Death.
The last was my mortal mind, which had advanced to the Minor rank through cultivation alongside my divinity.
That was my method of surpassing the Mid Minor bottleneck.
Not by abandoning the mortal vessel.
By dragging it upward with me.
Ares's domain began blessing the gods around us without him intending it. The purple chain attached to him slowly stained crimson.
Above us, the sun had been pulled down by Ten, pressuring Fate.
My Death avatar advanced first.
My Life vessel began gathering Sun laws, converting life energy into solar force.
My true body pulled out a wooden bow.
I notched my strongest arrow.
Pure will coated the tip.
Then I embedded it with the laws of Endurance I had built in secret.
This was the plan.
The cost.
The human vessel would become a one-time use weapon for this moment.
Sun laws from above empowered my Life vessel enough for me to convert completely into the arrow.
The Life vessel caught the bow and jumped into the trees, hiding my energy beneath the solar laws dominating the mountain range.
The Death avatar held Ares in place.
Poorly.
But well enough.
The battle dragged on.
A year passed before the battlefield truly collapsed into a stalemate.
The surrounding fights mirrored us. What should have been easy victories were forced into stagnation by the two brothers, Ares and Apollo, empowering their sides.
Eventually, Ares ran out of ideas.
He stopped guarding against the two missing vessels.
Fate had slowly retracted herself as more eyes fell on this battlefield.
This was now or never.
My Life vessel pulled the arrow back.
Solar laws coated it.
Then I released.
A star cut across the night sky.
The arrow carried my laws of Endurance and struck Ares in the shoulder.
Solar energy overloaded him.
His body locked.
Then he collapsed.
A New Concept flooded through him, one I had kept hidden from Gaia and even from Ten under Lord Hades's orders.
Before anyone could interfere, Lord Hades pulled me, the surrounding gods, and Ares into the underworld.
Ten remained behind.
Holding the line exactly as planned.