I Am Zeus - Chapter 241

Chapter 241: The Might Of Azazel
The throne room of Pandemonium had become a slaughterhouse of the divine.

Where there was once a clear line between the forces of Olympus and Hell, there was now only chaos. A Vanir, his eyes wild with a hatred he didn’t understand, was bludgeoning a Shinto kami with a frozen shard of his own magic. A Titan, roaring in confused anguish, was tearing the wings from a Hindu deva who had been his ally moments before. Azazel’s presence was a poison in the air, and every being was breathing it in.

He stood in the center of it all, a silent, gaunt statue amidst the storm of violence. His head, with its swirling pits of black sand, tilted as he observed his work. This was not a battle to him. It was a harvest.

Hades, Odin, and Poseidon stood back-to-back-to-back, a small island of grim sanity in the raging sea of madness.

“We cannot fight them all!” Poseidon snarled, his trident deflecting a blast of corrupted light from a once-friendly nature spirit. “They are our own people!”

“They are not themselves,” Hades stated, his voice cold and flat. His own powers were useless here; he could not command souls that were still living, only guide them after death. And Azazel was ensuring there would be many, many souls to guide very soon.

Odin’s single eye blazed, seeing not just the present carnage, but a thousand terrible futures branching from this moment. “The rot is the source. We break the pillar, the temple may yet stand.” He hefted Gungnir, its tip aimed at Azazel. “We must reach him.”

It was easier said than done. A giant, his mind lost to visions of Odin stealing his ancestral lands, swung a massive obsidian axe at them. The three gods scattered.

“He does not even fight!” Poseidon roared in frustration, summoning a tidal wave of black water from the very rivers of Hell to wash away a swarm of frenzied einherjar. “He just… stands there!”

As if hearing him, Azazel’s head turned. The sand in his eye sockets swirled faster.

You wish for me to participate? The voice was in their minds, dry and rasping, like stone grinding on bone. Very well.

He didn’t move from his spot. He simply raised one grey, skeletal hand.

The ground beneath Poseidon did not crack. It remembered. It remembered being part of a vast, primordial ocean, before land, before life. It reverted. The solid hellstone turned into a boiling, acidic brine that had not existed for eons. Poseidon cried out, not in pain, but in shock, as his connection to the elemental water was violently severed and replaced by this ancient, alien sea that sought to dissolve him. He was the God of the Sea, but this was a sea that did not recognize him.

While Poseidon struggled, Azazel’s gaze fell upon Odin.

All-Father, the mental voice mocked. You who sacrificed an eye for wisdom. Let us see what you know.

A spike of pure, psychic information—not a lie, but a horrifying, undeniable truth—lanced into Odin’s mind. He saw it. The death of his son, Baldur. Not as prophecy, but as a memory. He saw the mistletoe, the blind god Hodr, the grief of Frigg. He saw his own failure, his own arrogance in thinking he could cheat fate. The pain was so real, so fresh, it was as if it were happening again. Odin staggered, a choked cry escaping his lips, Gungnir dipping toward the ground. He was not being attacked; he was being reminded of his greatest sorrow, and the weight of it was crushing.

Hades was the last. The Lord of the Underworld met Azazel’s sandstorm gaze without flinching.

And you, Azazel’s voice whispered in the quiet of his soul. The careful warden. The organizer of the dead. What is a kingdom without subjects?

Azazel’s other hand made a gentle, sweeping motion.

Throughout the throne room, the slain—gods, demons, monsters—began to stir. But they did not rise as undead servants. They rose as they were in life, their forms flickering with a pale, stolen light. A dead Titan looked at Hades with confused, accusing eyes. A fallen Valkyrie drew her ethereal sword. They were echoes, memories given form, and they turned not on the living, but on the god who was meant to shepherd them to their rest. They saw him not as their guide, but as their jailer.

Hades stood his ground, his face a mask of stoic pain as the ghosts of his failures—the souls he was meant to protect—shambled towards him. His own domain was being used as a weapon against him.

With the three kings neutralized by their own personal hells, Azazel returned his attention to the wider field. He watched as Ares, lost in a berserker rage, turned his spear on a group of his own Spartan worshippers who had fought their way to his side. He watched as Artemis and Apollo, their divine connection severed by a surge of bitter rivalry over a forgotten slight, began to trade shots of moonlight and sunlight, each blast meant to maim.

This was his power. He did not throw lightning or fire. He did not need to. He was the key that unlocked every cage of hatred, jealousy, and fear that existed in every heart. He was the embodiment of the first thought that ever led to murder.

Poseidon finally managed to wrest control of the primordial sea, forcing it back into the shape of rock with a tremendous effort. He was breathing heavily, his divine energy spent not on attack, but on survival. He looked at Odin, who was still reeling from his vision, and at Hades, who was being slowly surrounded by the peaceful, pleading dead.

“This is impossible,” Poseidon gasped, his voice raw. “We cannot strike what does not bleed.”

Odin forced himself to stand upright, his face ashen. “He bleeds… he just uses our own blood to do it.”

Azazel took a single, slow step forward. The first movement he had made since his release. The fighting around him instinctively pulled back, a ripple of primal fear moving through the crowd of corrupted gods.

He was enjoying this. The silent, grinding sound that was his laugh echoed in their minds once more.

The combined might of the pantheons was broken. Not by a superior army, but by a single, silent watcher who had simply reminded them who they truly were. And the three most powerful gods left could do nothing but watch the end of their world, defeated by their own reflection.

“AZAZEL…..”