Hell

The air shattered.

It wasn't a sound. It was the end of sound. The space between Zeus and Lucifer became a howling vacuum as their power collided. This wasn't a duel of spells or tricks. It was two fundamental forces of the cosmos trying to erase each other.

Lucifer moved first. He didn't walk. The distance between them simply ceased to exist. A fist wreathed in the cold of dead suns slammed into Zeus's guard. The impact didn't ring; it thudded, a deep, meaty sound that would have vaporized a mountain. Zeus slid back, his boots carving molten trenches in the hellstone beneath him. Lightning crackled up his arms, not in attack, but in reaction, a living armor responding to the absolute nullity of Lucifer's touch.

Zeus answered. He didn't throw a bolt. He became the throw. His entire body uncoiled, a piston of divine muscle and storm energy. His fist, wrapped in a miniature, screaming hurricane, met Lucifer's chest. The Morningstar's form rippled like water, absorbing the force, but the shockwave that exploded outwards from the point of impact tore a canyon into the landscape below, swallowing a legion of lesser demons whole.

They broke apart, and the world rushed back in, only to be torn apart again.

Lucifer's wings of screaming souls beat once. A wave of pure despair rolled forth, a psychic tide meant to drown the will to fight. Zeus met it with a roar that was the first thunder. The sound was physical, a wall of concussive force that shredded the emotional attack, the very noise a declaration of existence against the promise of oblivion.

They came together again, a blur of light and anti-light. Fists moving faster than thought. A kick from Lucifer that sliced through the air like a black diamond, parried by Zeus's forearm with a sound like a planetary impact. Each block, each strike, was a cataclysm contained within the space of their bodies.

But Lucifer was not fighting fair. This was his house.

A shadow fell over Zeus. He didn't need to look up. He felt the pressure change, the air displace. Leviathan, the serpent of the deep, had risen. Her maw, large enough to swallow cities, descended from the churning red sky, her throat a tunnel of glowing, acidic darkness.

At the same instant, the ground beneath Zeus erupted. The Great Dragon, all volcanic armor and searing hatred, burst upwards, its own jaws opening to crush him from below.

Trapped.

Zeus didn't try to dodge. He planted his feet and pushed.

A sphere of pure lightning erupted from him, a miniature star of incandescent fury. It expanded in a heartbeat, meeting Leviathan's descending jaw and the Dragon's rising bite. The sound was a screech of tortured reality—the sizzle of divine energy against primordial scales. The two Beasts were thrown back, Leviathan's head snapping skyward with a pained hiss that split the clouds, the Dragon slammed back into the earth, creating a new lake of fire.

But the effort cost him. The sphere flickered. And in that split-second of diminished light, Lucifer was there.

The fallen angel's hand, fingers like shards of obsidian, pierced the fading energy field and closed around Zeus's throat. The cold was instant and absolute. It wasn't the cold of ice, but the cold of the void where stars go to die. It leeched the warmth from Zeus's skin, the light from his eyes.

Zeus gagged, his own lightning sputtering weakly around Lucifer's grip. He brought his hands up, not to pry the fingers loose, but to clamp them around Lucifer's wrist. The contact was agony. It felt like gripping solidified hatred.

With a bellow of effort that tore at his throat, Zeus channeled his power inward. He didn't blast Lucifer away. He superheated his own divine flesh. The skin under Lucifer's hand went from flesh to the surface of a star. White-hot light flared, so bright it bleached the color from Hell itself.

Lucifer snarled, a sound of pure frustration, and ripped his smoking hand back.

Zeus stumbled, gasping, the skin of his neck blistering and healing in the same instant. He looked up, his eyes burning with a mix of pain and grim triumph.

The pause lasted only a breath. Leviathan recovered, coiling for another strike. The Dragon shook the rock from its plates, its eyes fixed on Zeus with renewed, furious intent.

Lucifer flexed his injured hand, the burns already fading, replaced by a deeper, more volatile darkness. He didn't signal the Beasts. They simply understood. This was a coordinated hunt.

The Dragon breathed. Not fire, but a stream of molten reality, a lava that burned not with heat, but with chaos. It warped the space it traveled through, threatening to unravel Zeus's very form.

At the same time, Leviathan's tail, a mountain range of muscle and scale, whipped around in a blow that could shatter continents, aiming to crush him from the side.

And Lucifer came straight down from above, a spear of concentrated night, his fingers aimed like a blade for the crown of Zeus's head.

Surrounded. Above, below, and both sides.

Zeus did the only thing he could. He embraced the storm.

He didn't try to block any of it. He let it all in. He threw his arms wide and roared, and the sky answered.

The storm that gathered was not just above Hell. It was Hell, for a moment. The red clouds convulsed, and lightning fell not in bolts, but in a solid, continuous downpour—a waterfall of raw electrical fury that crashed down upon him, upon Lucifer, upon the Beasts.

It was a suicide move. A cage of his own making.

The Dragon's breath met the lightningfall and detonated, a sunspot of screaming energy. Leviathan's tail was caught in the deluge, the scales glowing white-hot before cracking under the immense, sustained pressure. The Beast shrieked in genuine pain, pulling back.

Lucifer, caught in the heart of the self-immolating storm, was forced to halt his descent, his wings forming a shell of absolute darkness around him to weather the endless blast. The sound of lightning striking his shield was a continuous, deafening roar.

Inside the maelstrom, Zeus stood at the center, the conductor of his own destruction. Blood poured from his nose and ears. His skin was cracking, glowing from the inside out. He was burning himself up to hold them all at bay.

It couldn't last.

The lightningfall sputtered. The endless energy had a limit, and Zeus was reaching it. The storm thinned, the blinding light fading back to the hellish gloom.

As it cleared, the scene was one of brutal stalemate.

The Dragon was wounded, one of its wings mangled, molten rock cooling on its armor. Leviathan bled glowing ichor from a thousand cracks in her scales, her massive form coiled tightly, her eyes wary.

Lucifer lowered his shield. His form was flickering, the edges indistinct. The effort of defending against Zeus's last, desperate play had cost him dearly.

And Zeus stood, swaying on his feet, his chest heaving. The glorious King of Olympus was gone, replaced by a battered, bleeding god pushed to the very brink of his endurance. The light in his eyes was a dimmer flame.

They stared at each other across the scorched and shattered battlefield, the two Beasts hesitating, waiting for their master's command.

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