On the main battlefield of Mount Olympus, Hades, anxious beyond measure, shouted to an equally bedraggled Zeus: "The Wall of Sighs in the underworld has been breached by those damned Æsir. Persephone is in danger. I must return, and if the underworld falls, my divine power will be emptied out."
Zeus was dumbstruck on the spot.
Wait—brother, the battle's at its fiercest and you're going to run?
Only after narrowly dodging a deathblow from his father's scythe and returning a thunderbolt in kind did Zeus sink into tangled thought.
Of the three brothers, Hades was the most old-fashioned and proper. The most outrageous act of his divine life had been abducting Persephone back in the day.
Persephone had lived with her mother Demeter since childhood and had never considered marriage.
Once, while gathering flowers at Enna with the nymphs, Gaia, with Zeus's tacit leave, made the earth bloom a narcissus. As Persephone strayed from her companions to pick that seemingly harmless flower, the ground split open. Drawn by four black horses, Hades's golden chariot appeared; struck by Eros's golden arrow, he seized Persephone and carried her off.
Hades had no formal wife, and so Persephone naturally became his queen.
For this, Demeter, goddess of fertility and grain, mourned to madness, searching everywhere for her daughter and bringing all life on earth to a halt.
Only later, through Zeus's mediation, came the compromise: "Persephone must spend four months of the year in the underworld, and those four months are winter among humankind."
Hades could be indifferent to many things, but his queen was his lifeblood.
Now the choice before Zeus was two cups of poison: keep his brother by force and risk turning Hades into a crippled god, or let Hades go to relieve the underworld and watch the battlefield on Olympus grow even more chaotic.
After thinking it over for a good while, Zeus said with a bitter face, "Brother, go first and hold the underworld. Once you've driven them off, return at once."
"Good!" Hades looked at Zeus with gratitude.
As one of the very top combat forces among the Twelve God-Kings of Olympus, Hades's departure immediately triggered panic among the third and fourth divine generations of Greece. Even with Zeus shouting for calm, calm would not come.
Losing a core combatant isn't something you can just patch.
With "Earth" immobile, "Sky," "Sea," and "Underworld" outclassed the likes of "War," "Wisdom," "Light," and "Hunt" by far.
The gap in power between Zeus's generation and the fourth-generation gods was sheer discontinuity.
With Hades gone, the "sun god who soars the high sky"—the Titan Hyperion—was nearly unchecked. As father of Helios, the official sun god loyal to Zeus, even Helios could hardly overmatch his own father in their shared domain.
Beyond those few mainline fighter god-kings, there was truly no one among the other third- and fourth-generation Olympians who could confidently stand against a raving Titan.
As Poseidon's power waned, the Olympians were genuinely slipping into disadvantage.
Meanwhile, as Hades raced back, Hela received an urgent courier from Thalos's son, Hermod.
In enemy territory where divine thought could not communicate smoothly, this sort of runner was more efficient.
"Oh? Hades is on his way back?" Hela muttered as she watched the field ahead.
There, Ereshkigal and Scathach were locked in a fierce struggle with the queen's guard—Hecate, a Titaness.
In Greek myth, Hecate, a major Titaness predating the Olympians, embodied magic, witchcraft, night, moon, and ghosts.
Note, she was not among the Twelve Titans who warred with Zeus.
In this world's history she was the daughter of Nyx, goddess of night; she'd helped Demeter raid the underworld to snatch back her daughter, and by her strength forced Hades to accept the "four months a year" compromise. She later became the queen's guard.
At this moment, that Titaness—both mightily embodied and rich in intricate, powerful sorcery—was battling Ereshkigal and Scathach with extravagant godforce.
It wasn't that Hecate's strength flatly suppressed Ereshkigal and Scathach, but this was Hecate's home ground. The two Helheim goddesses were destined to pay dearly in power expenditure fighting here.
At that, Hela had no reason to hesitate.
"Pass the order! Withdraw! If we don't leave now, Hades will pin us in the underworld. I don't do thankless, backbreaking jobs." Hela glanced at Macaria at her side, who looked ready to weep.
Perhaps the daughter of Hades was thinking, If only I'd held out a little longer.
She had no chance for regret.
Had she not surrendered then, she might have been cut down on the spot.
There aren't that many "ifs" in the world.
At Hela's thought, tens of thousands of Helheim warders ebbed away like a tide.
Persephone's face was grim. She asked Hecate on instinct, "Is Hades coming back?"
The Titaness wasn't certain. "I don't know. Probably. Otherwise the enemy had no reason to retreat."
The queen started. "Wait! Any word of Macaria?"
The Titaness's silence made the queen's heart sink. "Not good."
Before long, the underworld cracked and Hades drove his golden chariot behind black horses back into his realm.
Plainly, Hela had left a backhand in her retreat, badly interfering with the underworld's laws, or Hades would have returned sooner.
The moment the couple saw each other, they knew the underworld was safe… for now.
At the same time, Mount Olympus fell.
With Hades gone, Poseidon began to sag as well.
The sea king at least was tough; knowing he was being robbed at home, he still refused to go back.
Or rather, Poseidon knew even returning would be useless.
Hades needed only to hold one underworld. Poseidon had to guard seven seas!
Yes—crafty (wise) Enki had five other water-aspect sub-gods work with him to divert the remaining six seas' waters to other worlds.
Take Veles, the Slavic water god. He came late, stood too low, and wasn't qualified to hold the seas of Ginnungagap. That didn't mean he couldn't handle a water domain. He hadn't earned wartime merit in the Æsir's previous promotions and had no voice.
This time, with a few other water gods helping him make trouble, Poseidon simply couldn't cover it all. Ordinary sea nymphs couldn't beat Veles; if Poseidon came himself, the other seas would be drained.
In that "cover the head and lose the tail" bind, Poseidon simply gave up.
Under such harsh conditions, the rebel Titans pulled off a phase victory.
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