I Am Zeus - Chapter 226

Chapter 226: First Waves
The air in Hell didn’t just feel hot; it felt like a disease. It was a thick, suffocating heat that carried the taste of ash and rusted metal. It didn’t just burn the lungs—it tried to poison the soul.

One by one, they stepped through the shimmering, tear in reality, the last vestiges of their world’s clean, cold air vanishing behind them. First came Zeus, his form crackling with a storm that seemed defensive now, not commanding. The lightning that wreathed his arms sputtered as it fought the heavy, red-tinged air. His eyes, usually blazing with certainty, were narrowed, calculating.

Behind him, the army of the ages fanned out. The Olympians, their marble-perfect features tightening under the unnatural glare. The Titans, immense and stoic, their ancient eyes taking in the churning sky with a grim recognition. Giants, their heavy breaths sounding like bellows. The Vanir, their nature magic seeming to recoil from the corrupt soil. And more—a tapestry of divine power from every corner of creation, now united in this most damned of places.

A sphere of brilliant, comforting light flared to life, pushing back the oppressive gloom. Apollo, his face a mask of concentration, held a hand aloft, a miniature sun hovering above his palm. Two more sprang into being, orbiting the vanguard of the gods.

“A little light for the road,” Apollo said, though his usual smirk was strained. The light didn’t travel far here; it was swallowed by the deep shadows just a few hundred feet out, as if the darkness itself was alive and hungry.

“Don’t waste your strength, Apollo,” Zeus’s voice was a low rumble, a king assessing a new, hostile kingdom. “This is not our sky. That light is an insult to this place, and it will answer accordingly. Be ready for it to answer.”

Hermes, hovering just off the cracked, obsidian ground, shuddered. “The air itself is… sticky. It doesn’t want me to move through it.” He snapped his fingers, and the usual crisp pop was muffled, absorbed by the thick atmosphere. “My tricks are going to be slow here.”

From within the crowd, a figure with a familiar, grim demeanor stepped forward. Hades, Lord of the Underworld, looked… almost at home. His dark eyes scanned the landscape of pulsing rock and rivers of fire with a professional disdain.

“This is not the Underworld,” Hades stated, his voice dry and cold. “Do not make that mistake. My domain has order. Rules. This… this is a festering wound. A chaos of pain. The dead here are not at rest; they are part of the architecture.” He pointed a pale finger towards a shrieking cliff face. “Their agony fuels the very ground you walk on. Tread carefully. You are walking on ghosts.”

A laugh, sharp and irreverent, cut through the tension. Sun Wukong bounded forward, landing lightly on a jagged spike of rock. He tapped the ground with his staff, which rang with a clear, defiant note against the hellstone.

“So this is the famous Hell? Smells worse than the stables in heaven after a thousand-year banquet.” The Monkey King grinned, his eyes sparkling with challenge. “Lots of big talk, I see. Red sky, fire rivers, screaming voices. It’s a bit… dramatic, don’t you think? Trying a little too hard to impress us?”

“Their dramatics can kill you, Wukong,” Zeus said, not taking his eyes off the horizon. The thunder in the distance was not his own. It was deeper, hungrier. “Listen to me, all of you. This is not a field of honor. This is a den of predators. They will not meet us in a glorious line of battle. They will bleed us, frighten us, and trap us.”

He turned, his gaze sweeping over the assembled pantheons. The divine light in their eyes was already dimmer, the hellish air leaching their brilliance.

“Our greatest weapon is our unity. They will expect us to fracture. To let old rivalries surface. Do not give them that satisfaction. Titans, you hold the flanks. Your size is a shield. Giants, you are the hammer when I call for it. Vanir, do not try to grow life here. Instead, use your power to sense the corruption in the earth, to warn us of what moves beneath our feet.”

He looked to his own Olympians. “Athena, your mind is our map. Find the patterns in their chaos. Ares… control your bloodlust. This is a war of attrition, not a single glorious charge.”

Ares grunted, gripping his spear so tightly his knuckles were white. “They’re just demons.”

“They are the reason the word ‘demon’ exists,” Hades corrected him quietly. “Do not underestimate them.”

As if on cue, Apollo’s leading miniature sun suddenly flickered. A tendril of pure blackness, like sentient smoke, had lashed out from a fissure in the ground and wrapped around it. There was a sound like glass shattering, and the sun was snuffed out, plunging a section of their line back into ruddy darkness. A chorus of whispers, gleeful and mocking, rose from the shadows.

“See?” Zeus said, his voice hard. “They test us already. They fear Apollo’s light because it is pure. That means it is a weapon. Apollo, keep two suns orbiting you, no more. Conserve your energy.”

Apollo gave a tight nod, the remaining orbs of light drawing in closer to his body.

“What’s the plan, Thunderer?” a Titan’s voice boomed. “Do we just stand here on this damned plain and wait for them to come?”

“No,” Zeus said, his eyes fixed on the distant, pulsing black towers that speared the bloody sky. “We move. Pandemonium is the heart. That is where their thrones are. That is where we break them.”

He began to walk forward, each step deliberate. The army moved with him, a island of order in an ocean of madness. The ground was uneven, shifting sometimes as if it were alive. The screams on the wind began to form words, whispering names, old regrets, and half-forgotten fears into their ears.

Wukong, leaping from rock to rock alongside the main force, simply whistled a rude tune to drown them out. Hermes zipped ahead, a blur of motion, returning a moment later.

“The plains up ahead… it’s not just shadow. It’s moving.”

They crested a rise and looked down. The Plains of Shadow were a vast, dark expanse, but it was churning like a sea. It wasn’t shadow—it was a tide of bodies. The Infernal Guard, countless in number, their eyeless skulls and molten armor looking like a field of dark, burning embers. Above them, the winged horrors blotched the churning sky, their chains glowing with a malevolent light.

And leading them, standing half-embedded in the very earth, were creatures of molten chains, their forms shifting and clanking—the Gate-Spawn.

“Well,” Wukong said, spinning his staff, “they sure know how to throw a welcoming party.”

Zeus raised his hand, and the entire army ground to a halt. The silence from their side was deafening, a stark contrast to the rising snarls and the clanking of infernal metal from below.

“This is the first wave,” Zeus shouted, his voice cutting through the hellish din. “Just the first. Do not expend your true power here. Break their line, create a path, and we keep moving. We do not get bogged down. We do not let them surround us. Understood?”

A roar of affirmation went up from the gods, a sound of defiant power that finally, for a moment, overwhelmed the whispers of Hell.

Zeus looked at the sea of damned soldiers, then up at the bleeding sky. He brought his fists together, and a bolt of pure, white lightning, far brighter than anything he’d yet conjured, split the red heavens. It was a declaration.

“FOR OLYMPUS!” he bellowed. “FOR YOUR HOMES! FOR THE DAWN YOU MAY NEVER SEE AGAIN IF WE FAIL! CHARGE!”

The ground shook as the Titans and Giants began their lumbering, world-shattering advance. The gods surged forward behind them, a wave of light and color crashing against the endless, waiting dark. The first great battle for the soul of creation had begun.