I Am Zeus

Chapter 284: "Was all of this even needed?"

The battlefield had already stopped looking like Heaven.

It looked like a memory of Heaven after someone had dragged it through fire.

Angels were falling in burning streaks.

Gods were roaring old names into the white.

Titans were tearing through ranks that had once looked untouchable.

The host of Heaven had come in clean lines, perfect wings, perfect weapons, perfect faith.

Now those lines were broken.

Wukong was the reason for half of it.

He had clones everywhere. Some serious, some stupid, some doing both at once. One was riding on the back of a Throne while smacking another angel across the head with a shrunk-down staff. Another clone had stolen a trumpet from some radiant herald and was blowing nonsense through it while dancing on a fallen Seraph’s chest.

"Left side’s folding!" one clone shouted.

"No, right side’s folding!"

"Oh, then I’ll fold both!"

He swung.

The staff stretched across the field, caught two ranks of angels at the waist, and sent them spinning through the air like toys.

Thor hit them next.

Mjolnir smashed into a cluster of heavenly shields, shattered them, then came back into his hand already dripping with light. He grinned and barked out a laugh.

"This is more like it!"

Shango appeared beside him in a crash of stormfire, axe in hand, thunder rolling off his shoulders.

"You shout too much," Shango said.

Thor bared his teeth. "Then keep up."

The two thunder gods launched forward together, lightning from two different worlds colliding over their heads and crashing into the host below. Every strike blew holes into Heaven’s formations. Every roar added pressure.

Not far from them, Ares was deep in blood and radiance.

He no longer looked like a god trying to prove himself.

He looked like war finally given permission to breathe.

His sword came down through one angel’s shoulder, turned, carved through another’s throat, then he planted his heel in a third’s chest and drove them all to the ground.

"GET UP!" he roared at the next line. "OR ARE YOU ONLY BRAVE IN FORMATION?"

Three came.

He killed two.

The third got clever and came in low.

A spear flashed in from the side and took the angel through the jaw.

Athena landed, pulled the spear free, and didn’t even look at the body.

"You are drifting too far right," she said.

Ares blinked once, then looked at the field and grinned.

"You missed me."

"I corrected you."

"Same thing."

She ignored him and pointed across the field.

"Push there. Hermes already cut their support line. If you break that cluster, Gabriel loses her relay to the back choir."

Ares rolled his neck.

"See? That’s why I keep you around."

Then he charged where she pointed and the line broke exactly where she said it would.

Apollo and Artemis worked like twin disasters.

Apollo lit the field in hard, ugly bursts of sunlight that exposed every angel trying to regroup.

Artemis punished every one of them for it.

One tried to retreat into the glow above.

Her arrow pinned the wing joint.

Another raised a spear for Apollo’s blind side.

Her second arrow took the wrist.

A third tried to speak some holy command.

The arrow went through the mouth.

Apollo didn’t even look over.

"Still showing off."

"You left three alive."

"Not for long."

On the center line, Kratos was a thing the battlefield feared.

Not hated.

Not challenged.

Feared.

He moved through Heaven’s host like a sentence being carried out.

An angel with six wings and a hammer of white fire tried to stop him. Kratos took the hammer to the shoulder, stepped into the pain, hooked one chain around the angel’s neck, yanked them close, and drove the blade up through the ribs. When the body started breaking into light, he ripped it free and turned before the pieces hit the ground.

A second came from above.

He caught the sword arm, snapped the elbow backward, and buried the other blade in the stomach.

A third and fourth came together.

He smiled.

It was not a good smile.

The chains whirled out and both were dragged in opposite directions, then slammed together so hard that the shock rang through the plain.

Zeus saw him and felt a cold satisfaction.

Kratos was locked in now.

No hesitation.

No divided soul.

No half-prisoner.

Just wrath.

Exactly as asked.

Zeus himself was at the worst point of the field, which was exactly where he wanted to be.

Michael had recovered.

Of course he had.

The archangel came at him again with that same hard certainty in his eyes, but now it was fraying at the edges. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth. One side of his jaw looked wrong where Zeus had cracked it. His sword still burned, but there was less serenity in him now.

More anger.

Good.

Zeus caught the blade on a palm wrapped in chaos and shoved it aside.

Michael came in close, driving a knee toward Zeus’s ribs.

Zeus turned with it, took the hit on his hip, and answered with a savage elbow that smashed into Michael’s temple. Michael staggered, but he was too disciplined to lose ground for long. He dropped low, swept Zeus’s leg, then came up with the sword in a rising cut meant to split him open.

Zeus vanished from that space a blink before it landed and reappeared behind him.

Michael twisted just in time to catch Zeus’s fist on a forearm.

The impact still sent a white crack through the air.

"You never stop," Michael said through gritted teeth.

"You still breathe," Zeus answered. "So neither do I."

He headbutted him.

Michael reeled back.

Zeus followed with a kick to the chest that launched the archangel through a pair of Thrones.

Then the field changed.

Not from force.

From presence.

It started as a pressure in the sound.

A thinning.

A pulling.

The screams, the war cries, the clash of metal, the roar of powers meeting—all of it seemed to draw inward for one strange second, as though the battle itself had inhaled.

Then three figures appeared.

The Son came first.

Not with explosion.

Not with violence.

Just there.

Simple robes.

Worn sandals.

Eyes too tired for this war and too kind for this place.

He looked across the field at broken angels, shattered lines, gods in full wrath, Heaven bleeding into the white, and He let out a quiet breath.

"Was all of this even needed?"