For nine months, Zeus and his team have been a single, living weapon. They move through dungeons and labyrinths not as individuals, but as parts of a whole. Each victory is a shared breath, each hardship a stone laid in the foundation of their trust. It is a trust as solid and unyielding as the earth itself.
Zeus has absorbed thirty-two Sky Pearls. The lightning that once answered his call now hums within his very bones, a fundamental law of reality he merely guides. He has never been stronger. And yet, as he stands in the silent mansion before dawn, that strength feels like a solitary island.
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The early light glints off his golden armor as he tightens the final arm band. The slide of his sword into its sheath is the only sound in the sleeping house. He stuffs a handful of recovery potions into a pouch, their glass clinking a faint, lonely rhythm.
"Where are you going, Zeus?"
He turns. Metis leans against the doorframe, a porcelain cup cradled in her hands. Her gaze isn't curious; it is knowing, as if she has been waiting for this moment.
"I am going to conquer the Sky Dragon. To reach God-King rank."
"Without us." The words hang in the air, not an accusation, but a statement of fact that carves a hollow space in his chest.
He meets her eyes, the weight of his decision feeling suddenly like a physical burden. "This battle is mine. I did not want to trouble the rest of you." The excuse sounds hollow even to him.
Metis holds his stare for a long moment, her silence a more potent question than any words. Finally, she gives a single, slow nod. "Okay." She steps closer, her voice dropping. "But don't do this again. We stand behind you. Remember that."
Zeus's own nod is sharp, decisive, a gesture to seal the crack of doubt in his resolve. He turns and walks out the door. As he steps into the dawn, her voice, firm and clear, follows him.
"Be victorious!"
He doesn't look back. A crack of thunder shatters the morning calm, and he is gone, a streak of lightning tearing a scar across the heavens. He pierces the Air Realm in a heartbeat, the world blurring into a tunnel of cloud and wind until he bursts through into the Sky Realm.
The serene blue dissolves into an endless, star-dusted black. The silence here is absolute, a physical pressure against the ears. He flies deeper into the void, stopping only when a colossal gas giant planet fills his vision, its surface churning with gigantic tornadoes.
He hovers, the chaotic winds parting around the aura of his power. "SKY DRAGON! COME OUT! FACE ME!" His voice echoes, a tiny defiance swallowed by the infinite dark.
There is no answer, only the silent, violent ballet of the storms.
He raises a hand. Lightning, raw and white, coalesces above his palm. 'Lightning Spear.' A dozen shafts of pure energy lance from his fingertips, ripping into the tornadoes. The superheated gases flare in silent, violent protest, and for a moment, the void itself seems to hold its breath.
Then the pressure changes. A mountain of invisible force presses against his armor, seeking to crush his form. The random tornadoes still, then begin to move with a single, vicious purpose, like soldiers falling into formation.
A roar tears through the vacuum. A vibration that cracks the very fabric of space, a wave of pure force that slams into him. The groan of his golden armor is a cry of protest as he is sent skidding backward through the dark.
From the heart of the greatest storm, it emerges. The Sky Dragon is a leviathan of moonlight and starfire, its scales shimmering with a pale, internal radiance. Golden armor plating gleams across its chest and claws. Wings the color of a deep twilight sky unfold, their span eclipsing a distant nebula. It does not fly; it commands the sky to carry it.
The dragon lunges, its massive jaws splitting the void. The air itself bends inward, crushed by the force of its bite. Zeus kicks back, a flare of golden lightning bursting from his soles. The creature's fangs snap shut on empty space with a dull, echoing crack that sends ripples through the atmosphere. The heat from its maw leaves a searing phantom pain on his chest plate.
'What a speed…' The thought is a cold stone in his gut. 'This is different from anything in the dungeons.'
Sparks crawl across his armor in a frantic, defensive dance. The dragon's wings sweep outward, and the void around them ripples like disturbed water. Tornadoes form instantly, spinning with air sharp enough to flay the flesh from bone.
He extends his arm. 'Lightning Armor.'
Electricity envelops him, a second skin of crackling, brilliant energy. The air hisses and pops around him.
The dragon's tail moves—a blur, cutting through the black with a screech that grates against his soul. Zeus pivots, arm raised.
'Thunder Punch.'
His fist meets the scaled mass.The thunder that bursts between them is a physical shockwave, bending the void and scattering fragments of broken air.
Agony, white-hot and searing, explodes in his shoulder. The impact throws him backward, his arm hanging numb and useless for a terrifying second. 'One blow! It nearly took my arm with one blow.'
The dragon roars again, its voice a ripple of silent thunder that rolls through the stars. Fire gathers in its chest, visible as molten light shining between its colossal ribs. Zeus shoots forward, ignoring the scream of his shoulder.
'Aeroblast.'
The blast detonates from his palm, a focused hurricane of compressed air. It smashes through the gathering fire, but the attack is too diffuse—the dragon's breath breaks apart, the flames curling around the blast like liquid serpents to engulf him.
He spins midair, his sword a blur of molten gold as he slices through the streams of fire. The metal glows orange, the edges blistering, the stench of superheated metal filling his nostrils. It's playing with me.
The dragon flaps once. The wind turns violent, the air solidifying into blades that cut through space itself. Zeus forces more current through his armor, the lightning around him thickening into a blinding nimbus.
'Aether Enhancement.'
Speed, raw and burning, surges through his muscles. Every nerve ending is on fire. He becomes a ghost, slipping between the slicing wind currents, climbing upward toward the dragon's head.
Its eye, larger than a warship, swivels to track him. A cold, blue fire ignites deep within its pupil.
Zeus twists, his body a coiled spring of golden light. He thrusts his sword forward.
'Lightning Spear.'
The very darkness seems to contribute to its power as lightning condenses from the void into a long,blindingly white spear. He throws it with a sharp, desperate motion.
The spear drills into the dragon's right eye, and a silent, bright explosion of thunder and light tears outward.
BOOOM!!!
ROOOAARR!!!
The dragon jerks back,its roar a psychic scream of pain and fury that rattles Zeus's teeth.
He doesn't stop. He pushes closer, driven by a surge of hope. The creature thrashes. The very air turns chaotic, fragments of frozen atmosphere forming where its heat meets the cold of the void. Shards of ice and globules of fire rain around them.
The dragon's wings fold inward. Zeus's blood runs cold. It's concentrating power.
The pressure spikes, making his ears ring and his vision swim. Light condenses in the dragon's chest again, but this time it is a cold, dead light. Blue vapor pours from its maw, a wave of absolute zero that freezes the very space between them.
Zeus tries to dodge, but the cold is a living entity. It seizes his left arm, a flash-freeze that feels like a thousand needles digging to the bone. Numbness spreads instantly, followed by a deep, terrifying ache. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he forces power into the frozen limb.
'Overload Burst.'
A wave of lightning detonates from his body with a percussive crack, shattering the ice into a million glittering shards. Feeling returns, his fingers trembling as they clench back into a fist.
It is a second of vulnerability, and the dragon exploits it. Its tail comes again, a mountain of muscle and scale moving with impossible speed, and slams into his midsection.
The impact hurls him through the upper layers of the gas giant's atmosphere. He crashes through cloud banks, the successive impacts rippling outwards for miles. He finally steadies himself, hovering over the swirling gases, coughing once. The taste of copper fills his mouth. His armor is dented, humming a discordant tune of residual energy.
The dragon descends, its wings cutting through the clouds like divine knives. Desperation claws at Zeus's mind. He raises his blade and points it downward.
He drops, letting the planet's false gravity claim him.
'Storm Pulse.'
The sky below him turns white. Lightning expands outward in a massive, incandescent ring, cutting through the gas clouds like a scythe. The dragon collides with the electrified field head-on. Arcs of power crawl across its vast wings, sparks dancing along every vein and membrane. The creature roars, its wings convulsing, its majestic flight broken.
Zeus lands on a platform of condensed gas, his legs buckling slightly from the strain. 'It has to be enough.'
He looks up, hope a fragile thing in his chest. It dies instantly. The dragon's scales are already reforming over the blackened, burned areas. The lightning damage fades in seconds, like water soaking into sand. Faster than the Titans. 'It heals faster than the Titans.'
The dragon inhales sharply, a sound like a collapsing star. Fire and lightning twist together inside its throat, a blasphemous union of elements. It exhales a mixed torrent—a helix of flame and electricity that promises utter annihilation.
Zeus crosses his arms. 'Volt Strike.'
Every particle of his being ignites.He becomes the lightning, a living bolt of defiance. He bursts forward, piercing straight through the heart of the dragon's attack. The combined stream explodes behind him, a sun-birth of destruction. His sword, fueled by his divine energy, slices deep into the creature's neck. Sparks and glowing, blue blood spray into the void like alien rain.
The dragon swings back in a blind, pained rage. One claw, each talon like a polished monument, catches him on the side. His armor shrieks as it bends inward with a sickening crack.
CRACK!
He grunts, spins backward, and pours the last of his will into his blade. 'Thunder Vein.'
The air around the dragon becomes a prison of branching lightning.
The strikes connect, one after another, wrapping the colossal creature in chains of raw power. Each pulse detonates in a sequenced orchestra of destruction, a dozen explosions ripping across its shimmering scales.
The light fades, leaving afterimages burned into the void. The dragon's outline appears through the smoke—battered, smoking, but still moving. "Still alive."
As he watches,the wounds seal, the light in its scales dimming only slightly with the effort.
He lands on another drifting platform, his breath coming in ragged, painful gasps. ' I'm pouring everything I have into it, and it just… rebuilds itself. I can't out-power it. I have to out-think it.'
The dragon turns its gaze downward. Its wings fold inward. The pressure changes, the void trembling as if in fear.
BOOOM!!!
The blast flattens the gas platform beneath Zeus's feet into nothingness.He shoots upward on instinct, trailing a streak of desperate gold. The dragon's jaws snap shut on the space he had occupied a fraction of a second before.
He counters with a wild strike across its snout. The blade leaves only a shallow, burning trail. Its scales are adapting. Resisting the current.
The dragon twists, one wing sweeping through the air. The force alone is a physical wall, sending him spinning out of control. He regains his bearing, his body screaming in protest, and aims his hand.
'Chain Arc.'
A relentless current leaps from his palm,chaining through the dragon's wing joints, grounding through its limbs. Sparks light the void like a strobe, revealing the beast's convulsing form.
Enraged, its tail lashes out, creating whirlwinds with the force to tear continents apart. Zeus avoids the first, but the second clips his leg. A sickening numbness, followed by a fire of torn ligaments, shoots through him. His control breaks. He is falling, tumbling end over end through the chaotic sky.
He hits the gas surface below. The pressure dents the atmosphere, then rebounds, tossing him like a doll. His vision swims. For a fleeting second, he sees Metis's knowing gaze, hears her voice, not as a memory, but as a ghost in the static of his mind: "We stand behind you."
'A fool's pride. That's what this is. To think I could face a god alone.' His body is at its limit, but his will, fortified by the memory of his team, burns brighter. He pushes himself up, the groan of his broken armor a promise of defiance.
Above him, the dragon circles, its chest glowing with all five colors of celestial destruction—red, blue, white, gold, and gray. Fire, ice, thunder, sky, air—all merging into a single, world-ending point of light.
Zeus grits his teeth, a smile touching his bloodied lips. He floats upward, raising his cracked and glowing sword. "This is not just for me! This is for them!"
The void flickers with the focused, blinding light of purpose.
The dragon roars and releases its attack—a mixed storm of every element. Zeus does not dodge. He flies straight into it.
The collision is the end of sound and the birth of light. A silent, white explosion consumes everything, expanding outward to swallow the stars.
When the shock fades, the two figures drift apart, wreathed in smoke and dying energy. Zeus's armor is a scorched and broken shell, his sword little more than a molten hilt. The dragon bleeds rivulets of faint light from deep, weeping gashes across its chest and wings, its radiant scales now dull and tarnished.
Both are still. Both hover on the edge of oblivion. Both wait for the other to fall.
Zeus clenches the searing hot hilt of his sword, the pain an anchor to his consciousness.