Peter's wrists were still chained together. But the wall was open. That was enough. Theo grabbed Peter under the arm, hauled him up out of the snow.

  Peter stumbled, weak, but he could move so that was enough. They squeezed through the broken gap into an adjacent corridor and limped toward the stairs.

  Every step sent agony through Theo's squashed hand. Every tinge of movement felt like grinding pain as they reached the upper level gate and stopped.

  Two true bloods stood there, blocking the way, silhouettes framed by snowlight and falling debris. One was unfamiliar, face hard and cold. The other was the familiar one. The one who had once called Theo talented. He looked at Theo's bloody hand, then at Peter's chained wrists, and something complicated moved behind his eyes.

  Theo forced a crooked smile, sarcasm lacing his voice because fear would taste too sweet to them. "Could you let us go?" Theo asked. "Pretty please?"

  The unfamiliar one stepped forward immediately, hand going to his blade. The familiar one lifted a hand, stopping him. His gaze stayed on Theo, and his voice came quieter than the battlefield above. "Oh, you could have been something, you know that…" he said.

  Theo's smile faltered. The words hit harder than a punch. Because part of Theo had believed it once. Part of Theo had wanted it. Not Olympus. Not their gods. But the idea that he could be more than a tool.

  The familiar true blood's eyes tightened. “But you chose to be a traitor.”

  Theo's jaw flexed, blood dripping from his fingers. He looked at Peter and looked back at the beefing true blood before him. "I chose to escape," Theo said. “I choose the path of the immortal, not of arrogant gods.” He muttered as he looked at Peter once more. “I choose him.”

  The other one sneered. "He's father's property."

  Theo's ruined hand twitched, and pain flared so hot his vision sparkled. "Say that SHIT again," Theo whispered.

  Above them, the palace groaned. Another divine shockwave rolled through the structure. Snow shook loose from the ceiling like ash. Somewhere, distant but unmistakable, Hermez's voice thundered again. "Seal the lower levels!"

  The familiar true blood's expression hardened. He heard it too. He realized what Theo had done. He realized what was escaping. Theo watched that realization form—and understood he had seconds before mercy turned into execution.

  The familiar one stepped closer, conflicted carved into his features like a fracture line. "You can still choose differently," he said. “I don't want to kill you.”

  Theo swallowed, breathing hard. Peter trembled beside him, chains clinking softly. Theo tilted his head, voice thin with exhaustion and pain. "Then don't."

  The one moved to strike—but the familiar one snapped, "Wait." He stared at Theo a moment longer. Mourning lived in his eyes, not for Theo’s life.

  Then he exhaled once, sharp. "Go," he said.

  The one beside him was shocked. "What—?"

  "I said go," the familiar one repeated, voice turning to iron. "Get out before I change my mind."

  Theo’s eyes were wide with shock as well, but he didn't waste it. He grabbed Peter and ran, dragging him into the snow-choked corridor as the gate behind them filled with shouting.

  Above, the battle raged. Somewhere in that storm, James was still alive, barely, held together by stubbornness and a staff that didn't make sense.

  Hermez did not rush them this time. He stood amid the wreckage of his valley as he slowly raised one hand. The gesture was almost lazy, dismissive, even, but the air responded as if struck. A ripple passed outward from his palm and the effect was immediate.

  The pressure that had been coiling around James like a tightening spring, building, gathering toward another Charge, collapsed in on itself.

  'What? How could he?’ he thought. Leaving no other choice, he chose the staff. The subtle hum that James had begun to feel in his bones, the rising thunder inside the Staff of Transit, stuttered and snapped.

  Hermez’s voice cut through the battlefield, smooth and almost amused. “Did you think I would let you build momentum uninterrupted? Do you think I am a fool, you shaggy herald?” he said as he channeled his own divinity, releasing waves all over the area.

  The ripple expanded, invisible yet crushing. Snow that hovered mid-fall flattened to the ground. The thin haze of divinity that hung over the shattered courtyards compressed into nothing.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Aron, who was also buried somewhere deep, felt it first as it flickered and killed his skill at five percent.

  Meanwhile the one who survived the avalanche gradually walked near Hermez, his children, his army, fifty—no, closer to sixty—half-blood demigods regrouped. Snow slid from their armor as they rose from collapsed streets and broken pillars. Bronze flashed under the cold light. Fear still lived in their eyes, but obedience lived deeper.

  Hermez lowered his hand slowly. “Forward,” he said.

  They charged. It was not elegant. It was not perfectly synchronized as before. Formation had fractured under avalanche and humiliation. But there were still enough of them, and they still carried Olympian blood.

  They came head-on. Boots tore through snow. Spears leveled. Shields locked. The ground trembled under sheer mass as more than fifty demigods rushed the immortal and his herald in a tightening wedge meant to overwhelm through sheer numbers.

  But something flew from the sky like it was shooting down, a giant hammer aggressively jolting and then.

  Boom!

  Smashing on the demigods, pulverizing a few true bloods and some half bloods into a bloody mess. Standing tall on the hammer, the golden hair flowing back, Aron landed, his eyes on the god far away than the pebbles near him.

  “Immortal…” Hermez grunted.

  “My lord…” James voiced.

  But it was not the end, more of the demigods were running towards them, powered by the rage from their humiliation before their father, they shouted mighty and strong.

  Aron did not step back. He tilted his head slightly toward James. “Bear for impact.” The words were calm, almost bored.

  James swallowed blood and tightened his grip on the staff. His ribs screamed. His collarbone throbbed where Hermez’s elbow had cracked it. His shoulders were half-numb from intercepting that god-speed punch. None of it mattered.

  The first rank closed the distance. Aron’s hammer pulsed once.

  [Charge: 2%]

  James felt the staff surge in defiance of Hermez’s suppression.

  [Charge: 60%]

  Hermez’s divinity, his ripple had stalled their charge once, but not erased them. Twenty meters. Fifteen. Ten.

  The first spear thrust came at Aron’s throat. He moved. Fast and precise.

  The hammer swept horizontally in a controlled arc, not invoking Cleave fully, too little charge, but carrying the accumulated kinetic weight of two percent of something the world had not yet fully cataloged.

  At the same instant, James stepped into the staff’s pull. He did not think. He did not calculate. He let the serpents drag his arms through space.

  They swung together. The collision detonated as snow blasted outward in a ring. The first line of demigods shattered as if struck by a landslide in reverse. Shields crumpled. Spears snapped mid-shaft. One man howled as his shoulder tore from the socket in a hot spray of red. Bodies folded under the concussive force.

  Twenty of them were flung backward in a single violent sweep, bronze armor buckling like tin. The remaining half-bloods staggered but did not retreat. They pressed inward, circling, tightening, attempting to drown the immortal in sheer proximity.

  Only the true bloods at the rear remained standing after the initial shockwave without losing footing. They did not fall. They did not stagger. Their armor rang but held. Their eyes sharpened.

  Hermez watched it all from the edge of the wreckage. He did not intervene. Not yet.

  His divinity flickered unevenly beneath his skin. The borrowed thunder from Zeus had already been severed once. His reserves were not empty, but they were no longer comfortable.

  His karma, however, remained untroubled. It pulsed, tethered upward, connected through ancient myth-lines to Olympus itself. Every reckless expenditure, every forced acceleration, every manipulation of law and friction, the cost flowed upward into a greater reservoir, but even though they had stored plenty, it didn't mean it was infinite and because of his use.

  He felt it clearly. Eyes. Many eyes. Olympus was watching now. Let them. Hermez smiled faintly. He stepped back. Not in retreat. In calculation.

  As another wave of half-bloods collided with Aron and James, Hermez lifted both hands behind his shoulders. Golden light erupted from his spine.

  It did not form gradually. It surged outward like molten metal poured from a furnace. Plates of living gold unfolded over his torso, sealing into place with sharp metallic clicks. Greaves encased his legs. Winged helm descended over his brow, the feathered crest gleaming under fractured sky. His sandals shimmered as gifted feathers from Hephaestus fused along their edges, amplifying velocity with ancient craft.

  The armor completed itself in a single breath. Hermez rolled his shoulders once.

  Then, a pulse. Not from the battlefield. From within. A rigid voice echoed inside his mind, dry as stone dragged across stone. “You have done enough.”

  Hermez’s jaw tightened instantly. The link shimmered fully open. Hephaestus.

  “I am withdrawing my support,” the forge-god continued, tone cold and measured. “The Asgardians are getting involved. I will not escalate this any further as Father is displeased.”

  Hermez’s eyes darkened. “You’re leaving?” he demanded silently, fury rippling under golden plating. “After everything I’ve paid you?”

  “You paid in petty offerings,” Hephaestus replied. “Not in inevitability brother. This is no longer contained.”

  “I gave you true blood sacrifices,” Hermez hissed. “Fed you my damn sons and daughters…”

  “Don’t blame me, you antagonize Asgard first, I advised not to interfere with them in their own turf.” Hephaestus answered. “I will not stand in front of that hammer. Nor will I provoke father further. The end.”

  Hermez’s teeth clenched hard enough to crack. “You coward!”

  There was no answer. The link faded. Hermez severed it himself before it could linger.

  “Pathetic loser,” he spat aloud, voice audible now in the snow-choked air. “Always were.”

  He laughed once, sharp and humorless. “Let Ares bed your wife and still forge trinkets in the dark.”

  His eyes burned brighter. “I should have called him instead.”

  The thought had barely formed, when a familiar echo answered. A deep, amused rumble from above. “Haha, here you go, brother.”

  The sky split. A red fire tore downward, not lightning but war itself. It struck the ground before Hermez in a pillar of scarlet flame. Snow vaporized instantly. Stone liquefied at the edges of the impact.

  Hermez did not flinch. The fire withdrew inward as if inhaled by the earth itself.

  When it faded, something remained embedded in the molten crater. A sword. Lean. Long. Perfectly balanced.

  Its blade shimmered with runes older than Olympus. Not decorative—functional. Lines carved in spiraling patterns that drank light rather than reflected it. The hilt was wrapped in dark leather, the pommel shaped like a snarling beast mid-bite.

  Ares’ gift. The voice chuckled once more. “Enjoy.”