Divine Ascension: Reborn as a God of Power-Chapter 64: Theomachy (Part 4)

Zeus hovered high above the shattered courtyards, silver beard whipping in a cyclone of his own making. Thunderheads swirled at his command, blacker than a starless night, and it seemed like every breath he took pulled more electricity into his veins.

He saw the devastation caused by the invasion, his once-immaculate Olympus was now torned by war, and a god-king’s fury took hold.

"You dare," he roared, his voice as loud as a thunder, "you dare defile my mountain?"

Lightning spiderwebbed across the entire sky. The lesser gods scattered before him as they felt the weight of his wrath pressing into their bones.

With a sweep of his arm, Zeus called the full fury of the skies down. Thunderbolts thicker than some mountains hammered into Nemesis warriors and warborn alike. Whole ranks of them vanished in flashes of light and concussive blasts that sent debris and bodies tumbling through shattered halls.

Even the minor gods—those who had hesitated—felt their knees buckle. Thunder sang in their ears, and countless crumpled to the marble tiles, their hands were over their heads, they were whimpering.

"You will learn," Zeus bellowed across the dying gardens and cracked arches, "what it means to challenge the King of Olympus!"

More bolts lanced down. Columns shattered like brittle twigs. Whole sections of the Acropolis crumbled and burned. Thunder so loud it silenced every scream.

And then the rain began.

At first it was mist, swirling with the dark clouds. Then a few fat drops spattered the marble.

And then a roar.

A roar so deep it felt as though the ocean itself had risen to swallow Olympus, which made Zeus pause.

From behind the shattered halls and fallen statues came a new surge of power—endless, blue-green and brimming with pressure. Thunderclouds split apart as a cresting wave, taller than the Grand Temple itself, surged up the mountain paths.

And riding the front of it was Poseidon.

His trident glinted like a shard of the ocean’s heart and his eyes glowed with an unyielding tide.

"You’ve had your moment, brother," Poseidon called, his voice seemed as deep as the ocean itself. "This is my storm now."

Zeus narrowed his gaze, lightning flickering around him like a halo of spite.

"You side with these traitors?"

Poseidon’s laugh was short and humorless. "I side with Olympus surviving you, your time has passed brother." He answered.

And then he drove his trident into the marble floor.

The ocean answered.

The great wave broke over the plaza like a god’s hammer.

Saltwater surged through the shattered gates, across marble courtyards and up ruined stairways. Lesser gods who hadn’t already scattered were swept up like toys. Thunderbolts sputtered and died in its embrace.

Water crashed into columns and toppled them. Statues of ancient heroes were wrenched from their pedestals and dragged into the flood. Broken banners disappeared beneath roiling foam.

The deluge poured into every corridor, every temple, every high archway.

And in the middle of it stood Zeus, glowing with unspent rage.

"You dare turn my skies into your seas?" he thundered.

"I dare, brother, this aren’t your skies anymore." Poseidon shot back.

And then their power collided.

Lightning arced into the surf with deafening cracks, each strike boiling the water into steam—but Poseidon’s will was a tide that wouldn’t turn. Again and again Zeus lashed out with skyfire, but the ocean answered with swells of deep blue and green, crashing into him with irresistible force.

The flood rose higher still. It surged toward me where I stood at the throne, freezing me in place as a wall of blue swallowed shattered marble and unconscious bodies alike. I grabbed Hesperia, hauling her up onto the dais as water rushed past my legs.

"You will not take my mountain." Zeus growled, lifting both hands.

A dozen bolts of pure divine lightning wove into one incandescent spear.

And hurled them at Poseidon.

And Poseidon raised his trident—and split the skies once more, this time drawing up the ocean itself into a towering spear of water and brine.

The two forces collided with a sound like the end of worlds.

Steam exploded outward, blanketing the entire summit in white mist.

When my vision cleared, Olympus was no longer a gleaming citadel. It was a ruin suspended in a tempest—half-drowned, battered by the ocean’s force, and still humming with the aftershocks of Zeus’s fury.

And through it all, the war continued to rage, gods and mortals tangled together in the storm.

Olympus was no sanctuary now, they were destroying it without compassion.

Steam and mist coiled around the shattered summit as ocean and lightning raged. The thunder growled like a lion. Thunderbolts and waves had already reshaped Olympus into a landscape of jagged marble spires and swirling floodwater.

And at the heart of this chaos stood the two brothers.

Zeus glowed like the sun, electricity writhing across his frame. Every breath was a crackle of ozone, every gesture an invocation of wrath. Poseidon stood ankle-deep in ocean water, emerald eyes glinting with an ageless fury. The water gathered to him, rose up into looming walls, responded to his slightest twitch of will.

"You destroy what you cannot control," Poseidon roared, voice deep as a tidal chasm.

"You dare judge me?" Zeus’ reply was an explosion of sound. Thunder split the mist and shattered columns around them. "I am Olympus. Without me, all falls!"

Lightning burst from his hands in a continuous barrage.

Poseidon answered with a surge of ocean water so dense it was nearly solid. Thunderbolts struck the rising flood and exploded into hissing steam, vaporizing gallons in an instant. Even so, the ocean pressed forward.

Zeus raised his hands high, summoning a net of lightning that blanketed the shattered summit. Jagged spears of light carved into Poseidon’s oncoming waves. Sparks flew where water met divine fire, white arcs hissing through the swirling spray.

But Poseidon did not yield.

With a bellow like a typhoon breaking on the coast, Poseidon drove his trident into the marble floor. A crack raced across the throne terrace and, from its jagged mouth, ocean currents surged upward.

Waves rushed across the dais like charging beasts, spiraling around columns and up into the air.

Zeus’ eyes flashed, and he answered with a thunderstrike that lit Olympus like the heart of a storm. The light was so pure, so absolute, that it seared the mist into bright fog and forced even Poseidon to shield his gaze.

Yet when the light faded, Poseidon was still there—trident held like a standard against the divine onslaught.

"You never could see the tide," Poseidon growled. "You never learned to bend."

Zeus’ face twisted with wrath. "And you, brother, never learned that I am the one who breaks tides!"

He surged upward into the air, body wreathed in blue-white arcs of power. Bolts as long as spears struck from his hands as he descended like a comet.

Poseidon met him with a titanic upward surge of ocean water, a swirling tower that crashed into Zeus mid-air.

Lightning burst in all directions. The very air screamed with the violence of their clash.

Both gods disappeared into a maelstrom of shattered marble and boiling seawater.

For a long moment, there was nothing but the roaring deluge and the flash of lightning through mist.

And then the ocean erupted.

Zeus shot upward, tearing free with a thunderous cry. Water streamed off him like falling rain. Behind him, the air still sparked where Poseidon’s waves had grounded his power.

He was bleeding, but barely.

A thin trail of ichor ran down his brow, though his divine wounds sealed almost as quickly as they appeared.

"I will not lose Olympus," he swore, voice trembling with fury.

"You already have," Poseidon’s voice answered from the swirling mist.

The sea rose once more—and this time it took shape.

A vast leviathan of water, crowned with a surge of foaming white, its body a hundred paces long and eyes burning green like Poseidon’s own.

With a flick of Poseidon’s trident, the leviathan lunged.

Zeus spun, hands bright with living electricity, and blasted a column of lightning into its face. Steam exploded where bolt met beast, yet the leviathan barreled on.

Its jaws crashed into Zeus like a breaking tide.

He disappeared under the cresting water.

Poseidon’s eyes narrowed as he bent his will into the waves. Beneath the surface, currents lashed at Zeus like whips, dragging him down into the ocean’s crushing embrace.

Lightning flashed from the depths. Thunder answered.

The leviathan convulsed. The water around it glowed blue-white—and burst.

Zeus exploded free, arcs of raw power cascading into the ocean, ripping deep holes into the flood. Steam and mist blanketed Olympus anew.

And still they fought.

Zeus raised his hands to the shattered skies. Thunderheads coiled into a titanic vortex above the summit.

"I am Olympus!" his voice roared across the heights. "And Olympus will never bow!"

Lightning screamed down in jagged streams, like a cage forged from pure energy.

Poseidon planted his feet.

The ocean answered him, a churning wall that rose higher and higher until it matched the fury in the skies.

With a brutal gesture, Poseidon sent it surging upward—a cresting tsunami to smother the lightning and knock Zeus from the air.

The two powers met and Olympus shattered.

Columns and spires cracked like twigs. Cracks opened in the marble courtyards, flooding with ocean water as rain scoured the mountain. Thunder and surf clashed until they were one sound.

Somewhere beneath it all, I could feel the throne trembling.

The throne I had only just wrested from its wards, glowing dimly under my palm. Hesperia was still unconscious at my feet.

And yet, even my attention was fixed on the spectacle before me.

Zeus was glowing again, divine light erupting from him in waves. Poseidon was surrounded by a swirling shroud of ocean mist and foam.

Each prepared another strike.

And the world held its breath.

Neither would yield. Neither could.

This was no brief skirmish; this was a reckoning. A war between brothers as old as the world, a fight that would shape Olympus forever.

And it was nowhere close to ending.

The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l