Divine Ascension: Reborn as a God of Power-Chapter 70: Theomachy (Part 10)

The battlefield blurred as I ran, boots sliding over fractured marble, divine energy pulsing under my skin. I didn’t know how many gods I’d fought—ten? Twenty? My blade was cracked, scorched black from overuse, and my vision swam from exertion.

Then I felt it.

A gust of wind and a presence moving faster than thought.

I turned, just in time to parry the strike.

The force of it nearly took my arm off.

It was Hermes.

He landed lightly, as if weightless. Cloak fluttering, sandals glowing faintly, caduceus in hand. His body was unmarred, flawless as always, but his expression—his eyes—were shadowed by a grim expression.

"Hermes, wait." I breathed.

He didn’t respond. Instead, he lunged.

We collided like stars—divine speed against raw force. Our blades clashed in a flurry of sparks, his movements impossibly fast, mine driven by instinct and desperation. Every strike from him was precise, measured, held back. I could feel it.

He wasn’t trying to kill me. At least, not yet.

"Don’t do this," I said between blocks, gritting my teeth as I ducked under a sweep of his staff. "You know me."

Hermes twisted, backflipped mid-air, and kicked my shoulder so hard it sent me crashing into a pillar. I gasped, vision flashing white.

"I do," he said finally. "But that’s gow things are."

He blurred again—teleporting or moving faster than light—and was suddenly behind me. I whirled, slashing wildly, but he disarmed me in two moves. My sword clattered across the ground.

A boot to my chest sent me sprawling on the floor.

I hit the ground hard, I felt how my breath was knocked out of me.

Hermes appeared over me, staff raised.

I rolled just in time to avoid it, the blow cracking the marble where my head had been.

"You’re faster," I gasped, pushing myself upright, aura flickering.

He didn’t respond as he came again.

I roared and met him mid-charge, calling on my system:

> ⚔️ [Active Skill: Pulse Barrier] — Divine Feedback Initiated

A shockwave erupted from my chest, knocking him back—but only a few feet. He landed smoothly, barely staggered.

We circled.

The world raged around us—columns collapsing, roars of titans, the screams of gods dying. But here, in this fractured courtyard, it was just the two of us.

Like old times. But at the same time, it wasn’t.

I summoned my weapon again, a jagged staff of divine light now instead of a blade—lighter, faster.

Hermes arched an eyebrow.

"You changed your weapon," he said quietly.

I nodded. "Didn’t think I could keep up with you otherwise."

He smiled—just for a second. I barely saw his expression, but I know for sure it was a sad one.

Then he vanished.

I barely blocked the strike this time.

He moved behind me, above me, beside me—all angles, like wind given thought. Each blow pushed me back, chipped away at my defenses.

Until my shield arm failed.

He struck again, and my staff shattered.

He grabbed me by the throat and slammed me into the ground.

I groaned, I felt my blood in my mouth and my divine energy sputtering everywhere. I felt how his hand tightened around my neck, holding me there. His staff hovered over my chest—ready.

"Hermes," I whispered. "Don’t."

His grip trembled and his jaw clenched.

And then, for the first time since the war began, I saw how Hermes froze.

His staff didn’t move.

He looked down at me—really looked.

"I was supposed to kill you the moment you reached Olympus," he said, voice low. "You’re with Nemesis now. You broke the divine laws. You turned your back on your own kind."

"I didn’t turn on anyone," I coughed, blood trickling from my lip. "And if I betrayed someone, it was Zeus, not you."

His hand loosened slightly.

"I know," he said.

Silence hung between us.

"I know," he repeated.

Then he closed his eyes and felt he let me go.

I gasped, rolling to the side, coughing violently. Fortunately, he didn’t move to attack again. He just stood there, staff limp in one hand, with his face unreadable.

"You are my friend," he said. "I...I can’t kill you, I can’t kill my friends."

"You are my friend too," I replied. "And that’s the reason why I’m gonna say this, I will not ask you to join Nemesis. But...ask yourself and see what Olympus has become."

He looked away.

"I can’t," he said. "Not yet. Maybe not ever. But I can’t kill you, either."

He turned his back on me and took a step away.

"I’m supposed to be the messenger," he muttered. "But I never wanted to deliver this kind of message."

Then he vanished in a blink of golden mist.

I sat there for a long moment.

Heart pounding. Blood dripping from my knuckles. My system flickered warnings across my vision:

----------------------------------------

> ⚠️ Vitality: 23%

⚠️ Weapon Integrity: Destroyed

⚠️ Divine Bond: Hermes — [Unstable]

----------------------------------------

I closed my eyes.

’He could have killed me. But he didn’t. Guess he still got my back.’ I thought as I saw him go.

And I didn’t know if that made us allies... or just enemies who werw friends.

---

The wind howled through the broken spires of Olympus.

Stone lay in ruin. Towers reduced to teeth jutting from scorched earth. The sky, once a canvas of celestial calm, was now a battlefield of storm and shadow, lightning tangled with rising plumes of black smoke. The scent of burning marble and divine ichor soaked the air.

And in the center of the devastation stood Zeus—barely.

Blood streamed from his mouth. His beard was matted with soot and sweat. One eye was swollen shut. His chest heaved, each breath a shudder, each heartbeat a thunderclap struggling to continue. The storm around him had dimmed, like the eye of a hurricane too tired to spin.

Across from him, Hades knelt in a crater of his own making.

His armor was shattered. His ribs jutted from one side like broken spears. His gauntlet had melted into his skin. The scythe lay in ruins behind him, cracked in two, its once-immortal edge dulled by the fury it had unleashed. Smoke curled from his back where Zeus’s lightning had burned through him, searing directly into his divine core.

But still, his eyes were open.

Zeus took a step forward, dragging his feet over broken stone. His lightning flickered faintly in his fingers, barely strong enough to light the sky. He raised a hand—more out of habit than purpose—ready to finish the fight.

But the world answered before he could.

The sea roared.

A sound not heard in Olympus in ten thousand years echoed across the plateau—a monstrous, rising wave of salt and fury. The marble floor trembled, then cracked. Water surged upward through fissures, flooding the ancient temple ruins and carrying with it the scent of the deep.

And from that tide, Poseidon emerged.

He rose like a leviathan, his trident glowing blue-white in his grip, barnacles clinging to his bracers, eyes alight with fury. Seafoam crowned his beard. His body was bruised and battered, his left arm streaked with deep gashes—but his posture radiated authority. Purpose.

Zeus turned to him and their eyes met.

The two remaining brothers of the heavens stood in silence, the wreckage of their third laid bare between them.

The flood water lapped at Zeus’s ankles, staining itself with ichor.

Poseidon advanced slowly. The earth quaked beneath each step. His presence wasn’t just divine—it was primordial.

Zeus’s lightning flickered in warning. But Poseidon didn’t flinch.

His trident spun once in his hand, leaving trails of pressure in the air. Behind him, water began to rise again—an ever-swirling storm that loomed like a tsunami made flesh. The ocean had followed its master into the heavens, and it would not be denied.

The storm around Zeus tried to push back, tried to reassert its domain—but it was fading. Tired. Scattered.

"You waited," Zeus growled, his voice broken, lips wet with blood.

Poseidon said nothing.

But the glare in his eyes said everything.

Zeus stood taller, forcing strength into limbs that barely responded. He straightened his shoulders despite the tremor in his spine. His knuckles bled as he raised his fists again. Every muscle of his body screamed and his core flickered. He had nothing left.

But he would not fall.

Not to Hades. Not to Poseidon. Not to anyone.

Poseidon raised his trident and the waters behind him churned.

A bolt of lightning struck the sea—and hissed out like an ember dropped into a tidepool.

The challenge had been made.

---

The first clash was seismic.

Poseidon lunged, the trident striking with such force that it shattered what remained of the courtyard floor. Zeus blocked with his bare arm—there was no time for weapons—and the impact sent both gods skidding across the marble, tearing deep furrows in the earth.

Zeus struck back with a blast of concentrated lightning—not cast from the sky, but ripped from his own divine essence. The beam split the air in two and struck Poseidon in the chest, detonating in a flash of white and blue.

Poseidon roared, driven back—but not broken.

He spun his trident, summoned a sphere of water, and hurled it like a comet. The sphere struck Zeus dead center, enveloping him in a crushing torrent. The pressure collapsed his lungs, cracked his ribs. But Zeus refused to drown.

He tore free, gasping, coughing blood.

Then he ran forward—limping, bleeding—and punched the ocean itself.

Thunder rippled through the waves. The very laws of nature screamed.

The sea recoiled.

Poseidon answered with a second strike—his trident spinning and slamming downward. The ground beneath Zeus exploded in pillars of water, slicing upward like spears. One pierced his thigh. Another carved a line across his shoulder.

Zeus bellowed in pain.

But he didn’t stop and he charged again.

Like storms driven by pride and death, they met once more, and the sky above Olympus trembled with the fury of gods who had ruled too long... and refused to bow to anyone.

Even each other.

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