The cold had settled into megumi's bones.
He sat silently on the edge of the ruined kitchen table, dried blood caked beneath his fingernails. His eyes, once so full of light and reckless kindness, stared at the floor—unblinking. Hollow. A man broken open by loss.
Leonidas leaned against the nearby wall, arms crossed. He had seen countless men destroyed by grief, warriors crushed by fate. But this was different. This wasn't just mourning.
It was the silence before something monstrous was born.
The old man took a slow breath and spoke gently, cautiously, as if each word could either save megumi or doom him.
"Megumi… do you want to know who did this?"
Megumi didn't speak.
He simply looked up. His eyes were empty—no tears, no trembling, just a silent nod.
Leonidas stepped forward, his boots pressing glass shards into the floor with soft crunches. "Before I tell you who… you need to understand why."
Megumi said nothing. But something subtle shifted in his expression.
Leonidas continued. "It was… decided. Your child—your unborn daughter—was seen as a threat. A prophecy exists… one we've only glimpsed fragments of. But the Olympians believed your child would bring about a calamity that could… rewrite the divine order."
Megumi's fingers curled slightly. The sound of his knuckles tightening echoed like bones breaking.
Leonidas's eyes fell. "They were going to kill Ava. And then they were going to wipe your memory… so you would never know they existed. I… managed to stop that part. I burned through every favor I had, rewired sigils, paid in blood to shield your mind. But I was too late to stop the attack."
Silence.
Leonidas's voice grew bitter. "The order came directly from Olympus. Zeus. Athena. Hera. All of them. They were afraid of a future they didn't control."
For a moment, megumi didn't move. Then—
His pupils narrowed. A violent shimmer lit his golden irises.
A flash of light burst behind his eyes—his halo, once soft and divine, now pulsed with jagged energy. Gold turned to burning white. Black electricity hissed across it like wildfire across a stormcloud. Sparks cracked in the air.
Something inside him had awakened. Not the calm grace of a chosen vessel.
But the wrath of a father denied.
Leonidas felt it instantly. The temperature dropped. The aura in the room shifted from grief to vengeance.
"Megumi…" he said, wary now. "What will you do with this knowledge?"
Megumi slowly rose to his feet. The chair behind him shattered from a burst of raw energy.
His voice, once warm and human, came out like a verdict spoken from the abyss.
"I will bring about the extinction of the Olympians."
For a moment, even Leonidas—the man who had once slain kings and demons—was silent.
Then he stepped closer and placed a hand megumi's shoulder, grounding him, steadying the violent storm within.
"If you do this," Leonidas said carefully, "if you succeed in destroying the gods… something must rise in their place. The balance must be kept. Chaos cannot be allowed to consume creation."
He locked eyes with megumi. "Are you ready for that? To become what they fear? Not just a slayer of gods… but a ruler in their stead?"
Megumi didn't blink.
"I don't want their thrones" he growled, electricity crackling from his fingertips.
But I'll worry about that another time
Leonidas closed his eyes for a moment, as if mourning the boy megumi once was.
"Then the war begins with you."