The night hung heavy.
The ruins of Rhodes whispered in the wind.
What was once a glorious city now lay in ruins, with only shattered walls and rubble remaining. The air reeked of burnt ash and blood. The colossal statue of the sun god stood silently against the darkened sky.
Its shadow covered most of Rhodes Port.
With each earth-shattering movement, more buildings were pulverized into dust. Spartan and Greek soldiers alike were caught in the carnage and trampled underfoot.
The greatest casualties were the civilians, whose corpses lay still among the ruins as if lamenting the fragility of ordinary lives caught in the crossfire of a war between gods and mortals.
Ian had arrived too late to save them.
Kratos stood amidst the carnage like a battle-forged statue and felt no pity for the civilians. Scars etched his bald head like brands, and the deep gash at the corner of his right eye seemed to tell tales of past berserker rages. Battle scars crisscrossed his bronze skin; his muscles were coiled like living stone.
Every inch of him was etched with the will of a Spartan warrior.
Ian recognized this character well.
Kratos had once been an ordinary Spartan warrior. During a desperate battle, Ares, the god of war, tricked him into sacrificing his soul for power. When Kratos discovered that Ares had manipulated him into slaughtering his innocent wife and daughter, the flames of vengeance consumed him. Kratos killed Ares and ascended to the throne of the God of War on Olympus.
Yet this was not the end. Kratos found himself bound by the shackles of sin, with the ashes of those he had slain clinging to his body as a constant reminder of his berserk rage in the past.
Now.
While numbing himself constantly with war, Kratos fell prey to Zeus's schemes. Zeus had laid a trap on this very island, plunging Kratos into an abyss from which he could never escape.
Now.
Ian wanted the blood of the Godslayer, and Zeus readily agreed because he had originally planned to kill Kratos there anyway. Using Kratos's blood to appease Ian was simply an added bonus for Zeus.
"Someone wants you dead." Zeus stood atop the Sun God statue's diadem in this desolate wasteland, surveying the battlefield below. He suddenly addressed Kratos, his voice raspy yet carrying an irresistible aura of authority.
As Zeus raised his arm and pointed toward a distant shadow, Kratos whipped around, his gaze cutting through the darkness like a blade. His pupils narrowed slightly as he made out a faint figure concealed within the shadows, a small, frail-looking boy with eyes that held a chillingly unnatural calm and perceptiveness.
"A boy?"
Kratos narrowed his eyes, but a moment later, he let out a cold laugh.
"Do you think I'll believe such a lie?"
Of course, Kratos didn't believe Zeus. After all, Zeus was a notorious liar who had just pretended to help him only to strip him of his divine power and channel it all into the Sword of Olympus.
Kratos would never believe a word Zeus said again. Without hesitation, he raised the Blades of Chaos, roared in fury, and charged at Zeus.
"You deceitful old bastard! Your lies can no longer fool me!"
"Such a crude trick," Zeus scoffed.
Kratos spat out a mouthful of bloody froth; the chains of the Blades of Chaos clattered loudly. He knew Zeus's lies as intimately as he knew the calluses on his own palms. Muscle memory preempted thought, and his body launched forward like a catapult. The twin blades crossed in a deadly X as he slashed toward the god king on the diadem.
Ian stood at a distance, watching the scene unfold. A flicker of irritation rose within him.
"Why does he keep dragging me into this?" he muttered under his breath. "The old bastard's heart is truly rotten."
But Ian didn't intervene. He knew this was a fated battle between Kratos and Zeus, and even though Kratos was no longer a god, it was ultimately a family matter.
Kratos's wars had caused countless civilian casualties.
He himself was far from innocent.
He didn't deserve Ian's intervention to save him, either. Fortunately, Zeus seemed to merely be venting his frustration; he didn't truly intend to turn the wolf against the tiger. He simply wanted to use Ian to mock Kratos.
"Do you still think you're the God of War?"
Faced with Kratos' furious assault, Zeus neither dodged nor parried, nor did he draw his weapon. He stood motionless, allowing the Blades of Chaos to slash his divine body.
Clang!
The blades struck, leaving only a shallow bloodstain on Zeus's skin. His body remained as indestructible as ever, like eternal stone. Zeus had recently used trickery to strip Kratos of his divine power, reducing him to a mere mortal. Though Kratos retained his extraordinary combat instincts and indomitable will, he could no longer withstand an attack from a true god.
"You are no longer a god," Zeus said coldly. There was a flicker of pity and a hint of satisfaction in his eyes. "You can't even break through my skin's defenses."
Kratos roared in fury and swung his blade again and again, but each attack felt futile.
Zeus slowly raised his hand and clenched his fist, instantly bringing the entire Sun God statue to life.
The colossal bronze figure towered dozens of meters tall and pulsed with the power of the ancient gods in every inch of its sculpted musculature. It raised its massive palm and slammed it down on Kratos with crushing force!
BOOM!
The ground shattered, and dust and debris exploded into the air. Kratos was sent flying like a fallen leaf and crashed heavily into the ruins. He spat out a mouthful of blood.
He tried to fight back, but the divine power that had once flowed through him was now gone.
"Look around you, Spartan," Zeus said, slowly descending from the sky. His heavy footsteps crushed what remained of Kratos's hope.
Clad in white robes that billowed in the bloodstained wind, his towering, solitary figure declared, "This is the price of defying the gods." The lightning in his eyes had frozen into a pale, ethereal mist.
His voice echoed like thunder from a distant mountain cave, reverberating with a deep, droning hum.
"You caused all of this! You bound me with a curse through the God of War's divine seat!"
Kratos knelt on one knee amidst the fountain's ruins, the Blades of Chaos thrust into the ground to support his weight. Every muscle fiber in his body strained like a bowstring drawn to its limit; every inch of his skin was beaded with fine droplets of blood, burst capillaries crushed by divine pressure. Yet he raised his head, his bloodied gaze piercing the swirling dust.
He hurled the Blades of Chaos once more.
But this time, the strike was even less effective than before.
The instant the blades struck Zeus's chest, sparks of gold erupted instead of blood. The blades didn't even scratch the God-King's white robes; instead, they jarred Kratos so violently that the skin on his hand split open.
The blades struck the God-King's robes without leaving a mark, sending a jolt that split Kratos's hand open. Now too weakened, his frail mortal body was incapable of wielding the blades against Zeus.
"You think these toys can harm me?" Zeus scoffed, blowing a gentle breath that sent Kratos flying backward as if struck by a siege hammer. He crashed through three stone walls before finally stopping.
"The divine power I bestowed upon you, I can naturally reclaim." Zeus raised his right hand, and the colossal statue of the Sun God mirrored his gesture by raising its left palm. "Now, witness true power."
As the colossal palm descended, Kratos rolled instinctively to evade it. However, his mortal body moved too slowly, and the bronze hand's edge grazed his back, instantly peeling away his entire layer of skin.
When he slammed into the ground, the sound of his spine cracking against the stone slabs echoed clearly. Blood gushed from his ears, nose, and throat, pooling into a crimson lake amid the shattered rubble.
"Get up, Spartan!"
Zeus's voice boomed nearby. Through his blurred vision, Kratos saw a pair of boots inlaid with thunder symbols slowly descending and coming to rest less than a foot from his head.
"Where's the arrogance you showed when you slaughtered my temple guards? Where's the hubris you displayed when you challenged Olympus?" Zeus's voice dripped with mockery and the self-satisfied glee of settling old scores.
Kratos's knuckles twitched. Most of his tendons had snapped, yet some deeper force beyond mere muscle continued to drive his shattered body. As he propped himself up on his elbows, his fractured ribs pierced his chest cavity, exposing their stark white bones to the air.
"For... Revenge," each word was punctuated by a bloody bubble, "I would die... a thousand times."
Zeus suddenly erupted in fury. He seized Kratos by the throat and lifted him into the air. The crushing weight of divine power made every bone in Kratos's body groan under the strain.
"Revenge?" The god king's face twisted into a monstrous mask, his white hair standing on end like a banshee's venomous snakes. "You know nothing of true revenge!"
He hurled Kratos against the base of the colossal Sun God statue. The bronze surface buckled into a human-shaped dent upon impact, and Kratos convulsed like an insect pinned to a specimen board.
Strangely, his consciousness remained exceptionally clear—perhaps a final act of mercy from his dying brain. He saw Zeus conjure the familiar Sword of Olympus.
"You have betrayed the love I gave you," Zeus growled as he squeezed Kratos's throat and lifted him high into the air. The bloodstained face of the Spartan was reflected in the pale, divine eyes of Zeus.
"Open your eyes, Kratos," Zeus boomed like rolling thunder. "Witness how you have dragged your people into the abyss."
With agonizing effort, Kratos forced his heavy eyelids open. His vision blurred by blood, he still managed to see the Sword of Olympus erupt with blinding golden light in Zeus's hand.
Where the blade pointed, the air distorted and the earth trembled.
"No!" Kratos roared, but his voice was drowned out by the hurricane-like storm of divine energy.
Zeus swung the sword.
In an instant.
Rampaging divine power swept across the island like a tsunami. The ground cracked, buildings collapsed, and the sky tore into jagged thunderclouds. Ian stood on a distant cliff, watching the cataclysm unfold.
His robes billowed wildly in the storm of raging energy.
"Such terrifying magic power, or should I say divine power?" Ian mused. "The longer a god lives, the stronger their divine power becomes." He could feel the restless divine power surging through the air.
He cast a spell, shielding himself and the remaining civilians in the city. At the storm's epicenter, countless Spartan warriors were engulfed in golden light. Their armor disintegrated under the divine might, and their flesh evaporated in the energy. Not even a final scream was left behind. In an instant, the once-formidable Spartan legion was reduced to swirling ashes scattered across the sky.
Kratos's pupils contracted violently, and a broken wail escaped his throat. His warriors, his people, and the Spartans he had sworn to lead to glory were now all annihilated by Zeus because of his rebellion.
"This is the price for defying the gods," Zeus said in a bone-chilling voice. "Remember their deaths, Kratos, their blood is on your hands."
Kratos's knuckles trembled with rage, but his battered body had lost the strength to struggle long ago. Zeus reveled in his despair as the Sword of Olympus glowed with a frigid light in his hand once again.
"And now...it's your turn."
His milky white eyes burned with cruel intent.
"You're afraid," Kratos laughed suddenly, blood trickling from his lips down his chest. "That's why you have to kill me."
Zeus paused almost imperceptibly in his motion to raise his sword. In that fleeting moment of hesitation, Kratos mustered his last bit of strength and lunged at the god king. Without a weapon or a strategy, his attack was purely animalistic, his teeth actually sank into Zeus's wrist, golden ichor splattering across his face.
Hot and searingly warm.
"You filthy beast!" Zeus roared, flinging his arm. Kratos was hurled into the air and met by the Sword of Olympus, which had been waiting for him.
The sword's tip pierced Kratos's chest with pinpoint accuracy.
Time seemed to freeze. He hung suspended on the blade, watching his blood trickle down its engraved grooves, which were etched with divine runes that were now greedily absorbing his life force. Zeus's face loomed close, and a flicker of emotion finally surfaced in his pale eyes. Was it pity? No, something far more complex.
"Athena was right," Zeus said, his voice suddenly weary. "Some destinies, even gods cannot escape."
Twisting the sword's hilt, Kratos felt his internal organs being pulverized by divine power. "But at least today, the prophecy will not come to pass."
The blade erupted in a blinding white light. Kratos felt himself falling, plummeting through rock, magma, and countless wailing souls. The last thing he saw... was the boy from the high place, the figure Zeus clearly dreaded.
Who is he?
Kratos didn't know.
All he knew was that his will had fallen silent.
It was as if his ears had been muted.
He couldn't hear a word the boy said after he landed.
The storm subsided and the dust settled.
Like a falling leaf, Ian's figure drifted down from the high cliff, his black robes swaying gently in the lingering breeze. His boots touched the ground silently. His silver-gray right eye narrowed slightly as he gazed at Zeus, who was still hovering in midair.
"Why did you point at me earlier?" Ian's voice was calm yet carried an unmistakable edge of challenge.
Zeus paused for a moment; the Sword of Olympus in his hand still radiated a dangerous golden light. In the end, however, he restrained his divine power, and the sword's glow gradually dimmed until it vanished completely.
He slowly descended to the ground. The dust clinging to his white robes dissipated automatically as if this land dared not defile the God-King's garments.
"Godslayer's Blood is here," Zeus said, avoiding Ian's question. He raised his hand, palm down, and aimed it at Kratos's withered corpse.
Kratos's body was ice cold, his skin ashen, and his muscles atrophied. Yet, drawn by Zeus's divine power, the remaining blood in his body writhed like a living thing.
It seeped from his wounds and pores and even from the depths of his long-stopped heart. It coalesced into a thin, crimson stream that spiraled upward and finally formed a dark red sphere of blood in Zeus's palm.
Zeus retrieved a crystal vial from thin air; its surface was etched with ancient runes. The blood automatically flowed into the vial and churned within as if still carrying Kratos's fury and resentment from his life.
"Take it," Zeus said coldly, handing the vial to Ian. "What you wanted."
Ian took the vial, glanced down at Kratos's corpse, then looked up at Zeus and suddenly chuckled.
"I think he'll be back."
Zeus's brow furrowed, and a flicker of impatience flashed in his eyes.
"You overestimate my son," he said coldly. "A mortal remains a mortal. Death is death."
The god king's confidence was palpable.
Ian shook his head, tucking the crystal vials into his tunic.
He felt like a villain.
'Just as I thought,' he mused. 'Getting mixed up with these gods never ends well.'
(End of Chapter)
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