Two days passed in a blur of observation and planning. Edward had spent the time moving through the mortal world, watching humanity go about their lives with the specter of extinction hanging over them.
Some knew about the upcoming divine judgment, rumors had spread, whispers of a tournament where gods would decide their fate. Others remained blissfully ignorant, caught up in the daily struggles of existence.
He'd seen protests outside temples, people demanding answers from gods who wouldn't deign to respond. He'd watched families gather together, holding each other close as if proximity alone could protect them from divine wrath.
He'd observed quiet acts of defiance—artists creating works that celebrated human achievement, teachers instructing children about the value of persistence, lovers getting married despite an uncertain future.
"These people deserve better than to be erased like mistakes in a cosmic ledger," Edward thought, watching the sun rise over the city from yet another rooftop.
But there was a problem. A significant one.
The original Record of Ragnarok had featured gods at a certain power level. Strong, certainly, but within a range where exceptional humans empowered by Valkyrie weapons stood a fighting chance.
Here in this world, according to what the Presence had told him, these gods were different. These were true forms from the Divine Sphere, operating at full power with no limitations.
Regular humans, even legendary warriors like Lü Bu or Sasaki Kojiro, even empowered by Völundr—the divine transformation that turned Valkyries into weapons—would be slaughtered. It wouldn't be battles. It would be executions dressed up as sport.
Edward couldn't let that happen. Couldn't watch humans throw their lives away in futile gestures of defiance, no matter how brave or noble those gestures might be.
But he also wasn't sure if taking away their chance to fight was the right call. Who was he to decide that humanity shouldn't have the opportunity to stand up for themselves?
Even if they'd lose, even if they'd die—wasn't the choice to fight for survival fundamentally their own to make?
The philosophical dilemma gnawed at him until finally, he made his decision.
"I need to talk to Brunhilde. See what her plan actually is. Then decide whether to let it play out or intervene completely."
Edward closed his eyes and reached for the spatial authorities he'd claimed from various gods over millennia. Teleportation between dimensions was tricky, but Valhalla Arena existed in a space adjacent to the mortal realm, close enough that someone with his level of power could bridge the gap.
Reality folded around him, and when he opened his eyes, he stood in a corridor of Valhalla.
The architecture was magnificent and unsettling in equal measure. Stone walls that seemed to be carved from solidified clouds,, doorways that led to spaces larger than their frames should allow.
Everything radiated divine power, the air itself thick with the accumulated authority of thousands of gods who'd walked these halls.
Edward had cloaked himself before arriving, a simple spell that hid his features and suppressed his divine signature.
To anyone looking at him, he'd appear as just a vague humanoid shape in a dark hooded cloak. Not invisible, but forgettable. The kind of figure you'd glance at and immediately dismiss as unimportant.
He started walking down the corridor, his footsteps silent despite the stone floor. The hallway stretched endlessly in both directions, doors lining the walls at irregular intervals. Each door presumably led to chambers, meeting rooms, or other spaces relevant to the upcoming tournament.
Other figures moved through the corridors—lesser divine beings, spirits, and servants of various gods. They glanced at Edward as he passed, and he could see confusion and unease flicker across their features.
His cloaking spell worked, but it couldn't completely suppress the sense of wrongness that someone of his power level created in a space like this.
It was like having a nuclear reactor walking through a candlelit room, the light might hide it, but you'd still feel the radiation.
Edward ignored their looks and continued forward, occasionally opening doors to peer inside.
Storage rooms. Empty chambers. A library filled with records written in languages that predated human civilization. An armory stocked with divine weapons that hummed with barely contained power.
But no Brunhilde.
"This place is a damn maze,"Edward thought, opening another door to find what appeared to be a swimming pool filled with liquid starlight. "And I don't have time to search every room methodically."
He was about to try a different approach—maybe spreading out his divine senses to locate the Valkyrie specifically—when he noticed movement at the end of the corridor.
A small figure was sneaking along the wall, moving with exaggerated caution. Short ashen hair, slight build, wearing a simple dress that marked her as one of the Valkyrie sisters.
She kept glancing around nervously, as if expecting to be caught at any moment.
Edward recognized her immediately from the memories of the anime he'd watched in his previous life.
Göll. The youngest of the thirteen Valkyrie sisters. Timid, innocent, and utterly unsuited for the cosmic-level conflict she'd found herself involved in.
"Perfect. She'll know where Brunhilde is."
Edward casually walked up behind the young Valkyrie, his footsteps still silent. Göll was so focused on watching the corridor ahead that she didn't notice him approach.
When he was directly behind her, Edward reached out and gently placed a hand on her shoulder.
The reaction was immediate and dramatic.
Göll jumped up with a panic that would've done a startled cat proud. "Aaaahhhhh! I'm sorry! "
She spun around mid-air, her eyes wide with terror, and came face-to-face with Edward.
Or rather, with Kratos.
The pale, ash-covered skin. The red tattoo that looked like dried blood. The scars that covered every visible inch of skin. The cold, ancient eyes that held the weight of countless kills.
Göll's mouth opened. A sound came out that was somewhere between a yelp and a scream. Then her eyes rolled back and she dropped like a puppet with cut strings.
Edward sighed as he caught her before she hit the ground. "This is a hassle."
He looked down at the unconscious Valkyrie in his arms. She weighed almost nothing—whether from divine nature or just being young, he wasn't sure.
Her face, in unconsciousness, looked even younger than it had moments before. She couldn't be more than the equivalent of a human teenager.
"Great. I just traumatized a child. Hera would scold me for this."
Since he needed to find Brunhilde anyway and carrying an unconscious Valkyrie was as good a way as any to get her attention, Edward simply hoisted Göll over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and continued walking.
Several divine beings he passed looked at him with alarm. A cloaked figure carrying an unconscious Valkyrie was definitely suspicious, but none of them actually tried to stop him.
Something about his presence made them instinctively back away, their survival instincts screaming that confronting him would be a terminal mistake.
Edward methodically checked more rooms, Göll bouncing slightly on his shoulder with each step.
He was just opening another door—this one leading to what appeared to be a garden where flowers sang in harmonious chorus, when he heard a sharp voice behind him.
"Stop right there! Put my sister down!"
Edward turned to find himself face-to-face with Brunhilde.
She looked exactly as he remembered from the anime—tall, elegant, with long dark hair and sharp, intelligent eyes.
She wore a form-fitting dress that didn't hide the muscle underneath, and her stance marked her as someone who knew how to fight despite the lack of visible weapons.
More importantly, her eyes blazed with protective fury as she stared at the cloaked figure holding her youngest sister.
"If you've harmed her," Brunhilde's voice dropped to something dangerous, "no power in any realm will save you from what I'll do."
Edward sighed again. Without ceremony, he simply tossed Göll toward Brunhilde.
The Valkyrie's eyes widened in shock, but her reflexes were excellent. She caught her sister easily, cradling the smaller girl against her chest while never taking her eyes off Edward. "What did you do to her?"
"She fainted when she saw my face," Edward replied, his Kratos voice gruff and matter-of-fact. "I didn't harm her. Just startled her."
Brunhilde's eyes narrowed as she studied him more carefully. The cloak hid most of his features, but she could see the pale skin, the edge of the red tattoo, the ancient scars. "Who are you? How did you get into Valhalla?"
"You probably wouldn't know me," Edward said with a shrug. "I'm not from around here. You can call me Kratos." He paused, then added the important part: "And I'm here to ensure that humanity doesn't perish."
The effect of those words was immediate and dramatic.
Brunhilde went absolutely still. Her eyes widened, and Edward could practically see her mind racing through possibilities, connecting dots, arriving at a conclusion that made her entire body tense with sudden excitement.
Then, without warning, she simply dropped Göll.
The unconscious Valkyrie landed on a nearby couch with a soft thump, and Brunhilde practically launched herself at Edward.
She grabbed his cloak, pulling his face down to her level even with his considerable height, and got directly in his personal space. Her eyes were wild, almost manic with hope and disbelief.
"Are you," she started, her voice breathless. "Are you really the legendary Godslayer? The one who killed divine avatars across another world?"
Edward pushed her face away gently, she was practically rubbing against him in her excitement. "Yes. That's one of my achievements. And give me some space woman."
Brunhilde didn't back up. If anything, she leaned in closer, questions spilling out in a rapid-fire stream that suggested she'd been holding them in for days.
"How did you kill them? What technique did you use? Were they fighting at full strength or were they limited? Did you use divine weapons or mortal ones?
How did you get past their regeneration? Can you teach humans to do the same? Are you actually mortal or have you ascended? How—"
"Breathe," Edward interrupted, physically pushing her back a step. "And slow down. I'm here to help, but I can't answer twenty questions at once."
Brunhilde forced herself to take a breath, visibly trying to calm down. But her eyes never left his face, and her expression held barely contained hope.
"You said you're here to ensure humanity doesn't perish. Does that mean you are willing to fight as one of humanity's champions?"
"Not exactly." Edward's expression became serious. "I need you to understand something. These gods, the ones chosen for Ragnarok, they can't be beaten by regular humans. Not even legendary warriors. Not even with Völundr enhancing their abilities."
Brunhilde's excitement dimmed slightly, replaced by defensive pride. "The Völundr transformation gives humans the ability to harm gods. It levels the playing field—"
"Against weakened avatars, maybe. Against gods at partial strength operating in the mortal realm, probably." Edward cut her off, his voice firm but not unkind.
"Against true forms from the Divine Sphere at full power? You'd just be sending humans to die in elaborate ways. It wouldn't be battles. It would be executions."
The harsh truth hit Brunhilde like a physical blow. She stepped back, her expression cycling through denial, anger, and finally acceptance. "Then what should I do? Just surrender? Let humanity be erased without even trying to fight back?"
"No," Edward said simply. "We just change the approach."
He moved past her, walking further into the room where Göll was still unconscious on the couch. Brunhilde followed, closing the door behind them to ensure privacy.
When Edward turned back to face her, he'd pulled back his hood, revealing his full Kratos appearance.
Brunhilde's breath caught. Even knowing who he was, seeing the Ghost of Sparta in full was something else entirely.
The ash-white skin that looked like death itself. The red tattoo that seemed to pulse with barely contained violence. The scars that told stories of countless battles.
And the eyes—ancient, cold, holding the weight of millennia and the memory of every god he'd killed.
"The gods won't honor the deal even if humanity wins," Edward said bluntly. "I know how divine pride works. If humans actually manage to win seven matches, the gods will find excuses.
They'll claim cheating, or outside interference, or that the rules were invalid. Then they'll erase humanity anyway out of spite."
"So it's hopeless?" Brunhilde's voice was hollow.
"No. It's just different." Edward's smile was sharp, dangerous. "Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to show up in that arena.
When I do, every god who's ever had their avatar killed by me is going to lose their minds. They won't be able to help themselves—they'll try to kill me right there, tournament rules be damned."
Brunhilde's eyes widened as she understood. "You're going to draw them all out. Make them attack you together."
"Exactly. And when they do, your job is simple. Make sure the arena's barrier holds. Protect the humans watching. Keep them safe." Edward's grin widened, becoming something truly frightening.
"Because once those gods commit to fighting me, I'm going to give humanity a show they'll never forget."
"But you'll be trapped in there alone," Brunhilde protested, her tactical mind already seeing the problem. "Surrounded by dozens, maybe hundreds of gods all trying to kill you at once. Even you can't—"
"They'll be the ones trapped in there with me," Edward interrupted, his voice carrying absolute confidence. "Not the other way around."
Brunhilde felt something warm curl in her lower abdomen at the casual dismissal of divine threat. The absolute certainty in his voice, the way he spoke about facing countless gods like it was an inconvenience rather than certain death, it was intoxicating.
"Get it together," she scolded herself. "This is not the time for that."
She cleared her throat, trying to regain her composure. "The tournament is supposed to have specific rules. Thirteen one-on-one battles, each god facing a human champion—"
"There won't be any tournament," Edward said flatly. "Not once they see me. The moment I enter that arena, every god with a grudge is going to forget about rules and come at me with everything they have."
He paused, then asked, "Which pantheons aren't participating?"
Brunhilde forced her mind back to tactical matters. "The Japanese and Egyptian pantheons refused to send fighters. They abstained from the vote to erase humanity entirely."
Edward nodded, unsurprised. That aligned with what he knew about his relationships with those pantheons. "Good. Who are the confirmed fighters?"
"From the Greek pantheon: Zeus, Poseidon, and Ares. Norse: Odin, Thor, and Loki. Hindu: Shiva and Indra. Slavic: Perun and Chernobog. Mesopotamian: Anu and Shamash. Chinese: Nezha." Brunhilde recited the list from memory.
"Thirteen gods total, each representing different aspects of divine authority."
Edward mentally ran through the list, comparing these versions to the avatars he'd killed on his Earth.
Zeus would be the most dangerous—the king's true form would be operating at a level far beyond the avatar Edward had fought. Odin, similarly enhanced. Shiva at full cosmic power would be a genuine threat.
"That's perfect," Edward said calmly. "I'll deal with them all together."
There was something in the casual way he said it. like he was discussing pest control rather than fighting the most powerful beings in multiple pantheons.
Then Edward paused, his expression shifting to something more serious. "What about Hera? Have you seen her?"
Brunhilde blinked at the sudden change of subject. "Hera? Zeus's wife? She's not a fighter. Her divinity revolves around marriage, family, and queenship—not combat. Why?"
"Where is she?" Edward's voice had taken on an edge. "Has Zeus done anything to harm her?"
"She's his wife," Brunhilde said, confused. "Why would he harm her?" Then she paused, her brow furrowing as she actually thought about it.
"Though now that you mention it… I haven't seen her in thousands of years. She never shows up to any Council meetings. Aphrodite has been filling her role in divine affairs."
The room's temperature seemed to drop several degrees. Edward's eyes narrowed, and Brunhilde felt a surge of divine power leak from him before he suppressed it.
But in that brief moment, she'd felt something vast and terrible. A power that made her instinctively want to kneel, to submit, to run.
"I need to find her," Edward said, his voice controlled but with an undercurrent of cold fury. "Now."
Brunhilde's mind raced. She had no idea what goddess Hera meant to this godslayer, but clearly she was important. Important enough that the possibility of her being harmed made him radiate killing intent that probably registered across multiple dimensions.
"If she's been imprisoned, it should be the underworld, in Tartarus maybe. But why would...."
Then a thought occurred to her. An opportunity.
"I have someone trapped in Tartarus," Brunhilde said carefully. "Imprisoned by Odin thousands of years ago. If you're going into the underworld anyway, if you could rescue him, he could help. He's a legendary warrior, and he has reasons to hate the gods."
Edward looked at her, his expression unreadable. "Who?"
"Siegfried. The dragon-slayer. Odin imprisoned him out of spite after..." she paused, pain flickering across her face, "after Loki accused him of killing Fenrir."
Edward studied her for a moment, reading between the lines. Husband or lover, then. Someone she cared about deeply enough to risk asking a favor from a being who terrified her as much as he gave her hope.
"If I find him, I'll help," Edward said. Then, more quietly, "I have a bad feeling about this. About what I'm going to find."
Brunhilde reached into a pocket dimension and pulled out a map that showed the layout of the underworld, including the path to Tartarus.
"This will guide you. The entrance to Tartarus is here," she pointed to a section of the map, "and Siegfried is imprisoned in the deepest level, in a structure marked with Norse runes."
"And Hera?" Edward asked.
"I don't know," Brunhilde admitted. "But Tartarus is where gods put things they want forgotten. If she's been missing for thousands of years…" She left the implication hanging.
Edward took the map, studying it briefly before tucking it away. His jaw was tight, and Brunhilde could see barely contained fury simmering beneath the surface.
"Thank you," she said softly. "For helping. For giving humanity a chance. I don't know how I can repay—"
"Just keep the humans safe when things get violent," Edward interrupted. "That's payment enough."
He turned to leave, then paused at the door. "One more thing. When I make my entrance in that arena, play along. Act surprised. Act scared. Let the gods think they have the advantage."
His smile was sharp as a blade. "The look on their faces when they realize their mistake will be worth it."
Then he was gone, vanishing with a spatial shift that left no trace beyond a faint distortion in the air.
Brunhilde stood there for a long moment, her heart racing. Then she looked down at Göll, who was starting to stir on the couch.
"Sister?" Göll's voice was weak, confused. "What happened? I had the strangest dream about a scary man and," She sat up, saw Brunhilde's expression, and her eyes widened. "That wasn't a dream, was it?"
"No," Brunhilde said, unable to keep the smile from her face. "That was very, very real."
"Is he going to help us?"
"Yes. He's going to help us." Brunhilde's smile widened. "He's going to save humanity by killing every god stupid enough to fight him."
Göll processed this for a moment. "That's… good?"
"That's perfect, Göll. "
*****
Edward materialized in the underworld of this realm, his spatial transition placing him in a cavern that reeked of death and decay. The air was thick with the miasma of departed souls, and the walls seemed to pulse with malevolent energy.
Since the gods were busy preparing for Ragnarok, security was lighter than it should have been.
Edward moved through the shadows, his divine senses mapping out the location of every guard, every ward, every defensive system.
When he encountered the first group of guards, skeletal warriors in ancient armor—he didn't bother with stealth.
His hand moved, the Blades of Chaos manifested in a flash of crimson chains, and before the guards could even register his presence, they were dust.
The entire encounter took three seconds.
Edward continued forward, leaving bodies in his wake. Any guard who saw him died before they could raise an alarm. Any ward he encountered was shredded with casual applications of divine authority. The underworld's defenses might have stopped a mortal or even a lesser god.
They were nothing to him.
Hades wasn't present—probably off preparing for the tournament or attending to some other divine business. The lack of the underworld's king made Edward's infiltration almost laughably easy.
He grabbed a random reaper, a minor death spirit in tattered robes, and held it by its incorporeal throat. "Take me to the entrance to Tartarus."
The reaper stuttered in terror, unable to speak coherently. Edward sighed and simply plucked the knowledge from its mind, leaving the spirit's consciousness intact but thoroughly traumatized.
Then he discarded it and headed toward Tartarus .
The entrance was a massive gate carved with warnings in a dozen dead languages.
Beyond it, Edward could sense vast presences, the Titans who'd been imprisoned here after their war with the Olympians.
He pushed the gate open with one hand. The metal shrieked in protest, ancient hinges that hadn't moved in millennia groaning under the force.
"WHO DARES—" a booming voice began.
Edward looked at the source. Cronus, the Titan of Time, chained to the wall with bonds that pulsed with Zeus's lightning. The Titan was massive, easily a hundred meter tall, his body scarred from thousands of years of divine punishment.
"Free us, mortal!" another voice called. Hyperion, Titan of Light. "Release us and we will grant you power beyond—"
Edward's gaze swept across the imprisoned Titans. His eyes—cold, ancient, utterly merciless—locked onto each of them in turn. He didn't say a word. Didn't make a threat. Just looked at them.
The Titans fell silent.
Something in that gaze promised that whatever punishment Zeus had inflicted on them was nothing compared to what Edward could do if they annoyed him.
The weight of his stare carried the memory of every god he'd killed, every divine being he'd broken, every cosmic entity he'd made bleed.
"I'll deal with you later," Edward said coldly. "Stay. Quiet."
The Titans stayed quiet.
Edward moved deeper into Tartarus, following the map Brunhilde had given him. The prison's architecture became more elaborate the further he went.
moving from simple stone to complex structures reinforced with divine power and sealed with the authority of multiple pantheons.
Finally, he found it. A building that looked different from everything else in Tartarus. Norse in design, covered in runes that pulsed with Odin's distinctive authority.
The structure was sealed so thoroughly that reality itself seemed to bend around it, space compressing to create a pocket dimension where time moved differently.
Edward took a deep breath. Then he reached out and simply tore through the seals.
It wasn't elegant or subtle. He just grabbed the divine bindings with his bare hands and ripped them apart like tissue paper. The runes screamed as their power was forcibly broken, and alarms immediately began sounding throughout Tartarus.
Far above, in the halls of Asgard, Odin's single eye snapped open. He felt the seals on Siegfried's prison break, felt someone tearing through his carefully constructed bindings like they were nothing.
"Hades!" Odin roared, already moving. "Someone has breached Tartarus! I need to access it now!"
But Edward didn't care about alarms or angry gods. He'd already entered the prison.
Inside, chained to the wall with bindings that sapped strength and suppressed divine power, hung a man.
He was tall, skinny , with long hair and a beard that spoke of years without proper care. His body was covered in scars, and his eyes when they opened at the sound of Edward's entrance, held the hollowness of someone who'd given up hope long ago.
"Run away from here," Siegfried's voice was weak, barely a whisper. "The seals… they'll alert Odin. You need to—"
Edward ignored him and walked to the chains. He grabbed them and crushed them in his hands. The metal forged from divine materials and inscribed with Norse runes of binding, crumbled like rust.
Siegfried dropped to the ground, his legs unable to support him after millennia of being suspended. He looked up at his savior with confusion and disbelief. "Who—why would you? Did my wife send you?"
Edward didn't answer the question. His mind was elsewhere, focused on the bad feeling that had been growing since his conversation with Brunhilde. "Is Hera also here? The Queen of Olympus?"
Siegfried blinked, thrown by the question. "Hera? Why would Zeus's wife be in Tartarus? I've been here for thousands of years and I've never—"
But Edward wasn't listening anymore. He was reaching out with his divine senses, searching for something he desperately hoped he wouldn't find.
And then he felt it. A faint pulse of energy, weak and barely there. Divine power that had been almost completely suppressed, hidden beneath layers of seals that made Siegfried's prison look like amateur work.
And beneath that divine power, he felt something else. Something that made his blood run cold and his heart clench with emotions he'd thought he'd mastered millennia ago.
A marriage bond. Activating after thousands of years of dormancy, reaching out to connect with his divine authority, pulling energy from him to sustain the life on the other end.
"No," Edward whispered.
"What?" Siegfried asked, managing to get to his feet. "What's wrong?"
Edward didn't answer. He just moved, his body blurring with speed as he followed the bond. Siegfried cursed and ran after him, his warrior's instincts overriding his weakened state.
They ran through Tartarus, Edward's divine senses locked onto that faint pulse like a bloodhound on a scent. Through corridors, past other prisons, deeper and deeper into the pit until they found it.
An old building, even more heavily sealed than Siegfried's prison. The walls were covered in greek symbols that Edward recognized from his knowledge.
This wasn't just a prison. This was a tomb. Something meant to be hidden forever, buried so deep that even gods would forget it existed.
And from inside came the faint sound of humming. A woman's voice, singing an old Greek melody that Edward recognized from thousands of years ago. A song Hera's avatar had sung to him on quiet nights when they'd been alone together.
Suddenly the voice stopped singing.
"Is that you, Edward?"
The voice was weak, barely audible. But it carried such hope, such desperate belief, that Edward felt something crack in his chest.
He didn't waste time trying to unravel them properly. He just unleashed his power, all of it, the accumulated authority of dozens of dead gods and cosmic entities, and tore the entire building apart.
The structure exploded outward, seals shattering in cascades of golden light, stone and divine metal disintegrating under the assault. When the debris settled, when the dust cleared, Edward stood at the center of the destruction.
And there, chained to what remained of a bedpost, was Hera.
Her original form looked nothing like the avatar Edward had married.
Where the avatar had been regal and powerful, radiating queenly authority, this version was broken.
Purplish-black hair hung limp and tangled around a gaunt face. Her body was thin from what must have been thousands of years of minimal sustenance. Shackles covered her wrists and ankles, inscribed with runes that continuously drained her divine power.
But her eyes, when they focused on Edward, held recognition and relief and love.
"I knew you would come to save me one day," Hera said softly, her voice stronger now that the seals were broken. A small smile crossed her cracked lips.
"Although I prefer your original handsome look. This pale warrior aesthetic is a bit intimidating."
Edward stood frozen. He'd prepared himself for many things, but not this. Not finding his wife, or rather, the original form of his wife, imprisoned and tortured for what must have been millennia.
Because of him.
The realization hit like a physical blow. Hera's avatar had severed her marriage to Zeus and married Edward on Earth-X.
And the original forms could feel everything their avatars experienced—the joy, the love, the happiness of a marriage that actually worked instead of the toxic nightmare Zeus had put her through for eons.
About a thousand years ago, Hera's avatar had told him her original form wanted to come to Earth-X. Wanted to merge with the avatar and live as one being, to fully experience what love and a happy marriage actually felt like instead of just feeling it secondhand through the avatar connection.
Then the she had lost connection with the original. Edward, dealing with countless other crises, had assumed Hera's original form had changed her mind. The original forms of gods were different from their avatars, after all—different experiences, different perspectives.
He'd never imagined that Zeus had imprisoned her. Had sealed her away in the deepest pit of Tartarus, hidden behind so many layers of power that even other gods wouldn't find her.
How long had she been here? Thousands of years, chained and alone, slowly dying as her power was drained away, waiting for rescue that seemed like it would never come?
And Edward had just… assumed she'd changed her mind. Had moved on with his life while she suffered in darkness.
The guilt threatened to overwhelm him.
Siegfried stood nearby, his mouth hanging open as he tried to process what he was seeing.
The Queen of Olympus, Zeus's wife, chained in Tartarus like a common prisoner. And apparently married to this terrifying man who'd rescued him.
"What in all the realms is happening?" Siegfried muttered in disbelief
Edward moved forward, his hands trembling slightly, the first time Siegfried had seen any crack in the godslayer's absolute control.
He knelt beside Hera and gently broke the shackles, his divine power making short work of the bindings.
As soon as the last shackle fell away, Hera's body began to glow. The marriage bond, now fully active after thousands of years, poured Edward's power into her.
Divine energy flowed through the connection, healing her malnourished body, restoring her strength, bringing color back to her skin.
Edward carefully lifted her into his arms. She was lighter than she should have been, evidence of her long imprisonment,but she was alive. Broken but alive.
"I'm sorry," Edward said quietly, his Kratos voice rough with emotion. "I'm so sorry, Hera. I should have realized sooner. Should have checked. Should have—"
"Shh." Hera reached up with a weak hand and placed it against his cheek. "You came. That's what matters. You came for me."
Then, with a strength that surprised both of them, she pulled his face down to hers and kissed him.
It wasn't the passionate kiss of reunion. It was gentle, almost chaste—the kiss of someone who'd been starved of affection for millennia, who'd held onto hope through sheer will, who'd waited and believed that eventually, someone would remember her.
When she pulled back, tears were streaming down her face. "I've been waiting so long. So very long. You better make it up to me later."
Despite everything—the guilt, the anger, the cosmic chaos he was about to unleash—Edward managed a small smile. "I will. I promise."
Hera smiled back, then her eyes closed as exhaustion overtook her. The marriage bond was healing her, but years of torture couldn't be fixed instantly. She needed rest, needed time to recover.
Edward stood, cradling her against his chest, and turned to face Siegfried. The legendary hero looked thoroughly shell-shocked.
"We're leaving," Edward said simply. "Now."
"What about Odin?" Siegfried asked. "He'll be coming with reinforcements. Hades too. They'll try to stop us."
Edward's eyes blazed with cold fury. The temperature in Tartarus dropped noticeably, and Siegfried felt his newly freed body tense with instinctive fear.
"Let them try," Edward said quietly. "I need to kill some gods anyway. They can be the first."
Somewhere far above, Odin and Zeus both were indeed rushing toward Tartarus, gathering forces to confront whoever had dared break their prison seals.
Zeus spoke carefully as the appeared at the gates of Underworld. " Both Siegfried and Hera escaped their prison, that's no coincidence. And Hades refusing to come, I feel it's related to him."
Odin paused. His kind calculating. "If that's the case, do you believe it's wise to go in by ourselves?"
Zeus looked amused. "Is the Allfather afraid?"
Odin calmly replied. " I don't fear it. I believe in being prepared for anything. Or did you forget? Of all our avatars, mine lasted longer against him than any of yours?"
Zeus chuckled. " Oh? But this time there is no little girl to take hostage."
Odin ignored his provocation. "War isn't about honor Zeus. It's about winning. You know that better than anyone."
Zeus cracked his neck, lightning sparkling around him. " True. Honor won't give you survival. Now, let's go show this mortal what happens when you truly anger a god."
They had no idea what they were walking into.
No idea that the Ghost of Sparta had just been given a very personal reason to make the gods bleed.
The tournament was supposed to start in one day.
It was about to become a bloodbath today instead.
And the gods had only themselves to blame.