Divine Ascension: Reborn as a God of Power-Chapter 72: Theomachy (Part 12) - The Reveal

Smoke hung low across the shattered plateau. Steam hissed from the cracks in the marble, where divine ichor and molten earth mingled in bubbling scars. The air smelled of ozone, salt, and burnt stone. The very wind fled the violence still to come.

Zeus rolled onto his side, coughing blood, with a hand pressed to his broken ribs. His vision wavered—there were two tridents in front of him, then one, then none. He blinked hard, forcing himself to focus, his teeth gritted through the pain.

Poseidon lay meters away, on one knee, his face streaked with seawater and ichor, his hair tangled and eyes feral with fury. His trident was buried half in the ground, used now as a cane to keep himself upright while his legs trembled. Every breath rattled his chest like it might collapse inward.

And yet—both rose again.

The silence between them was worse than the noise. There were no words anymore. Just pain, betrayal and pride.

Poseidon moved first this time.

He dragged his trident behind him, letting its prongs scrape a trench in the stone—until he raised it with both hands and brought it down under his brother.

The ground under Zeus heaved.

A tower of ocean erupted beneath him, like summoned from a breach in reality itself. It wasn’t a wave—it was a vertical surge, a column of ocean pressure compressed into a drill of raw power. It launched Zeus skyward like a ragdoll, spinning him end over end.

Midair, Zeus roared and responded in kind.

Lightning exploded from every pore of his skin. He spread his arms, and for a brief second, became a storm incarnate, he was like a spiraling cyclone of wrath and voltage and finally descended like a comet. His fist raised and finally he struck Poseidon directly in the chest.

The impact cracked the sea god’s sternum and hurled him through a temple, leveling it completely. The columns fell like trees, burying him under slabs of marble and divine relics long since forgotten by mortals.

Zeus fell to one knee again, coughing, wheezing, sparks bleeding from his nostrils.

He didn’t get much time to rest as the temple exploded.

Poseidon burst free, carried by a water spout that roared like a beast. His trident spun and extended mid-air, growing into a tide-spear made of compressed sea pressure and coral. He hurled it with such force it cracked the sound barrier.

Zeus barely twisted aside.

The spear tore off a chunk of his left shoulder and pinned him to the mountain wall behind him. His scream echoed through the heavens. His blood sprayed in arcs of golden.

He tore himself free with a snarl, his divine muscles ripping apart and his bones grinding.

Poseidon was already upon him.

He slammed Zeus’s head into the wall once. Twice. On the third strike, he drove his fist through the rock and into Zeus’s gut, cracking his bones, sending tremors down the mountain.

Zeus took that as an opportunity to grab Poseidon’s hair and headbutted him with enough force to snap his nose.

Poseidon reeled and Zeus tackled him through the wall.

They plummeted—through marble, through dust, through fire. Down into Olympus’ lower halls, where the war still raged among the other lesser gods of both sides. The brothers landed in a crumbled sanctum, toppling altars, trampling sacred scrolls under their bloodied feet.

Poseidon struck first—an uppercut wrapped in ocean current.

Zeus spun with the blow and answered with a backfist of pure thunder.

The sound shattered nearby statues.

Poseidon’s trident returned to his hand in a flash of sea-light.

Zeus conjured a blade of condensed lightning, shaped like a jagged fang, still humming with the voices of storms. They circled once, then charged—weapon to weapon, essence to essence.

Their blades met in mid-air, again and again, leaving shockwaves that split the walls. What made broken marble rain like hail. Each impact of their attacks left craters. Each clash drained more of what little power they had left.

And then—

Poseidon stabbed Zeus through the thigh.

Zeus howled and retaliated with a lightning fang through Poseidon’s ribs.

They broke apart, gasping, both barely able to stand.

Poseidon leaned on his trident while Zeus leaned against a cracked pillar.

Both gods bleeding.

But neither of them yielding.

Meanwhile outside, Olympus trembled. The very mountain shuddered, caught between two storms. The war raged above, but here in the ruins, it came down to raw survival.

And still, despite everything... their eyes locked once more. freёnovelkiss.com

They would not stop.

Not until one fell.

(Meanwhile in another place...)

The storm of war raged far from here.

No thunder reached this place. No blood. No screams or crumbling marble. Here, there was only silence—absolute and suffocating.

The room was circular. Its walls carved from black stone that drank light rather than reflected it. No torches were on and burned, no windows showed sky and the air was still, as it was heavy with the weight of secrets.

And on the center of the room stood a single figure.

She was draped in deep indigo robes, woven with thread of starlight. Her silver circlet bore no symbols of crown or dominion—only a single downward-pointing triangle etched into its face. Her hands rested calmly behind her back.

Her face, in the quiet, was unreadable and unmoving.

Hera.

The Queen of Olympus. The wife of Zeus. The so-called matron of family and hearth. The woman history had tucked behind her husband’s shadow, year after year, age after age.

Until now.

A soft hum echoed through the stone. Faint at first—like a whisper heard through water—then growing in resonance. Hera tilted her head.

She was no longer alone.

"You’re late," she said, her voice calm, regal, sharpened with centuries of experience.

A voice answered—but not aloud. It slithered into the room like mist, bypassing ears and sliding straight into the soul.

"Time has no relevance to me Hera, and neither should have to you."

Hera’s posture didn’t change. But her eyes flickered—just slightly.

From a warm gold... to a shining, unnatural violet.

Her breath slowed.

"You’ve been watching the battle," she said. "You saw Poseidon arrival and Hades intervening. You saw the chaos unfolding, didn’t you?"

"I saw. It unfolds as we predicted."

The voice was masculine—but at the same time a little feminine, it was too smooth and too deep at the same time. Each word resonated like a thousand whispers speaking in unison, layered and echoing through every nerve.

"Do you regret what you set in motion?"

Hera closed her eyes.

For a moment, she was still just a woman. Not a goddess, but a wife scorned.

And then her eyes opened again—still glowing violet.

"No," she answered. "I regret not doing it sooner."

The voice responded, pleased. "You chose well. But you gotta admit that this wouldn’t have worked without my advice, ideas like the mask, keeping distance and our identity in secret helped us and Nemesis to thrive in the shadows."

Hera nodded slowly. "Yes, it was very succesfull, Zeus still doesn’t know anything. None of them do. They probably think I’ve retreated into neutrality. That I weep in some place waiting for the war to end."

He scoffed.

"Let them think that. Let them believe you are only a grieving matron, mourning the death of Olympus."

"And what happens when he dies?" She asked, her voice quieter now. "When my husband lies death beneath a trident or a scythe?"

Hera turned toward the far wall. A thin sliver of a pool shimmered beneath her feet—its surface perfectly flat, revealing images not of the present, but of infinite possibilities.

"I will not cry for him," Hera whispered. "Not after the centuries he crushed me beneath his reign. Not after the children he spawned without my blessing. Not after all I endured in silence."

Her nails dug into her palms.

"I created Nemesis not just to destroy Olympus," she said. "But to tear down the entire lie of divine hierarchy. To rewrite the law of thrones, pantheons, worship."

"And you will." the voice nodded.

Hera tilted her head while her mind went to other place thinking of her deepest desires.

The pool before her shimmered—images of her face carved into new temples, mortals kneeling, sacrifices offered in her name alone.

Violet light pulsed in her eyes again.

"I’ve lived too long in Zeus’s shadow," Hera said. "Let them all fall. When the dust clears, the world will see who truly deserves to rule."

The voice paused.

"And if they resist you? Even your allies?"

Hera’s voice dropped to a whisper.

"Then they’ll join Olympus in ash."

Silence invaded the room again while the air turned colder.

The light dimmed further, as though the shadows themselves bowed in acknowledgment.

The voice returned once more—this time with reverence.

"Very well, Queen of Ashes. The moment approaches. Remember the plan and don’t forget to do your part, I will be watching you."

A moment later, her violet eyes dimmed and they returned to gold.

Hera inhaled sharply, blinking while she looked around the room.

Alone again.

But she smiled—slowly.

"I warned you, husband," she whispered to the silent walls. "To don’t underestimate me, to stop cheating on me with whores, but you didn’t listen."

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