Third Person-
The sound of war faded for a moment—only a moment—as Ares turned, sensing something behind him shift. It wasn't a soldier. It wasn't fear.
It was power.
Ogun.
The god of war met the eyes of the god of iron across the carnage-strewn field, and for a heartbeat, time seemed to fracture. Neither blinked. Neither spoke. The battlefield seemed to part between them, an unspoken understanding passing through the bloodied soil beneath their feet.
Then they moved.
Ares surged forward, blade raised high, eyes wild with battle-madness. Ogun met him with no hesitation, his war hammer a brutal blur of metal and momentum.
They collided with the sound of worlds breaking.
Steel met iron. Sparks flew. The shockwave from their first blow rippled through the air, knocking back soldiers on both sides. Ares struck with the fury of Olympus behind him, blows falling like lightning. Ogun absorbed them with the weight of the earth itself, responding with crushing strength, every swing of his hammer aimed to shatter, to end.
Ares roared, spinning and slicing at Ogun's side—metal tearing flesh. Blood spilled, hot and dark, but Ogun didn't falter. He growled low and slammed his hammer into Ares' shoulder, the force cratering the ground beneath the god's feet. Bones cracked. Ares grunted, pain searing down his arm—but he didn't fall.
He bared his teeth, grinning through blood. "You hit hard, old man."
"You bleed," Ogun spat. "That's all I need."
They clashed again, faster now—an unrelenting storm of strikes. Ares ducked, drove his sword upward, cutting across Ogun's chest. Ogun grunted, staggered, but brought his elbow down into Ares' jaw in retaliation, snapping the god's head sideways with a sickening crunch. Ares tasted blood in his mouth, but he only laughed harder.
The battlefield around them grew still—warriors caught between awe and fear. No one dared step between the gods. Even the risen dead held their ground.
Ares drove Ogun back with a flurry of strikes, each one more brutal than the last, his sword now slick with Ogun's blood. But Ogun—gritting his teeth, snarling like a beast—grabbed Ares by the throat, lifted him, and slammed him into the earth with enough force to make the ground quake.
Ares coughed, rolled aside just as the hammer struck where his skull had been. He came up swinging, blade biting into Ogun's ribs. Ogun roared, hammer swinging wide and catching Ares across the temple, sending him sprawling, dazed and bleeding.
For a moment—just a heartbeat—both gods knelt in the blood-soaked dirt, panting, wounded, eyes never leaving each other.
This wasn't a duel.
It was a reckoning.
They rose again.
Again.
And again.
Because neither would kneel.
Neither would yield.
And the gods had not yet decided who deserved to fall.
Kamaria-
Amaria and I stood on the ridge, hidden beneath the thick shadows of the forest line that skirted Ife-Ikoro. The wind tugged at my cloak, carrying with it the stench of blood and burning flesh. From here, the battlefield looked like something out of a nightmare—bodies strewn like discarded puppets, smoke curling from scorched earth, and the clash of steel ringing through the heavy air like a cursed hymn.
But none of it compared to them.
Ares and Ogun.
Two gods—two monsters—locked in a storm of violence that the earth itself could barely contain.
They fought like rabid beasts. No restraint. No mercy. Their weapons carved through the air with the weight of death behind them, each blow meant to destroy, not merely defeat. Blood painted their skin, their armor, the ground. It was impossible to tell whose it was anymore. Maybe it didn't matter.
I watched Ares laugh through the pain, his sword flashing with mad delight, even as Ogun crushed bone and shattered earth beneath his hammer. They were gods, yes, but gods born of something far darker—of chaos, of rage, of power unchecked.
And I hated it.
I hated them.
Is this what power meant to them? To destroy, to maim, to revel in suffering? I had heard tales of war—of the old gods and the glory they claimed it brought—but there was no glory here. Only ruin. Only death.
I looked past them at the field soaked in blood, the warriors gasping their last breaths while their kin trampled over their corpses. I saw no honor in it. No reason. Just madness.
And yet my blood trembled in my veins.
Not with fear.
But with something else—something ancient that stirred deep within me, whispering that this was the way of gods. That this was my inheritance.
I clutched the edges of my cloak tighter and shook the thought from my head.
No.
That was not me. That would never be me.
Let the gods wage their war.
I would not become like them.
I turned my eyes away, though the sounds of their brutality still echoed through the valley.
Ares and Ogun were tearing the world apart—and everyone else would pay the price for it.