Chapter 32 – The Depth Beneath Blood and Frost
The forest had grown silent, unnaturally so. The air was thick with the residue of battle — frost, ash, and something darker, unseen but felt deep in the marrow. Kratos walked ahead, steps heavy, the frost of his axe leaving small trails on the dead ground. Atreus followed, his breath forming pale mist in the air. The light had turned blood-orange, as if the sky itself was bruised.
Something in the earth pulsed again. A rhythm. Slow. Ancient. Hungry.
Atreus spoke softly, "Father… this heartbeat—it's stronger. Closer."
Kratos stopped, head turning slightly. "It calls."
They reached a clearing — once a lake, now frozen solid and cracked with veins of red light beneath the ice. The reflection on its surface was not their own. Kratos' reflection stared back, but the eyes were burning gold — the eyes of Zeus. Behind it, a second reflection formed — Poseidon's, with tendrils of water and lightning weaving around his form.
Atreus drew an arrow, the tip faintly glowing. "That's not possible…"
Kratos' voice rumbled low. "They are not real. They are memories made flesh."
The ice beneath them cracked violently. Steam hissed upward as water surged, forming a massive shape that twisted and roared — a humanoid figure, its body a fusion of ocean and storm. Its eyes glowed like bioluminescent lanterns beneath deep waves. Poseidon's essence.
From the shadows above, lightning forked downward, striking the ice and birthing another figure — this one formed of light and wrath, crowned by thunder. Zeus' echo.
Atreus' voice broke. "Two of them?"
Kratos tightened his grip on the Leviathan Axe. "Not them. What wears their faces."
Both figures stepped forward, the frozen lake groaning beneath their combined weight. The watery one — Poseidon's echo — spoke first, its voice rolling like waves across stone.
"You slew us, son of Sparta. You tore the order of Olympus apart. Yet even gods of death leave echoes behind."
Zeus' echo followed, his tone thunderous and mocking.
"And now you play the savior? You think these realms will not curse your name the same way ours did?"
Kratos did not answer. He took a slow breath, eyes never leaving the two phantoms. His voice was low and grim. "I am not who I was."
The Zeus-figure laughed. "You are exactly who you were. Rage. Violence. Blood. You have only given your war a new name."
The air grew heavier. Thunder crackled. The water at their feet began to rise. The two phantoms moved as one — a wave of divine energy rushing toward them, one of lightning, the other of crushing water.
"Move!" Kratos roared, shoving Atreus aside. The surge struck where they had stood, exploding in a storm of frost and steam. Kratos rolled, slammed his axe into the frozen ground, summoning walls of ice to divert the water. Lightning struck again, shattering the barriers.
Atreus fired rune arrows into the sky — they arced, bursting into threads of light that tangled around the water-phantom's head, briefly slowing it. Kratos lunged, swinging the Leviathan Axe upward, slicing through the watery form's chest. It roared, reforming instantly.
Zeus' echo appeared above him, descending with lightning striking his hand like a spear. Kratos crossed the Blades of Chaos just in time, the impact sending a shockwave through his body. The ground split open; water hissed upward through cracks.
Atreus screamed, "Father!"
Kratos growled, pushing back, forcing the phantom to stagger. "They are illusions, boy. Not gods. Remember that!"
Atreus nodded and fired again — his arrow striking the red cracks beneath the ice. The lake responded violently. The ground shook. The surface began to collapse inward, revealing a void beneath — a pit filled with glowing tendrils of red and black mist.
Zeus' echo turned, eyes narrowing. "You cannot escape what you have unleashed."
Kratos' voice was a snarl. "Then I face it."
He hurled the Leviathan Axe at the lightning form — it struck true, embedding deep in its chest, and frost exploded outward in a shockwave. The figure howled, dissolving into streaks of light. The watery one lunged again, engulfing Kratos in a surge of liquid force, dragging him toward the pit.
Atreus ran forward. "Father!"
Kratos' voice thundered from within the storm. "Stay back!"
The water twisted violently as Kratos emerged, chains of fire bursting from his arms, the Blades of Chaos igniting the air. He roared, spinning them in wide arcs, the heat and fury boiling the liquid form into steam. The phantom screeched, collapsing into a pool that sizzled and evaporated.
When the mist cleared, the clearing was half gone — only jagged ice remained around a yawning pit that breathed faint red mist. At its base, something moved. Something alive.
Atreus stepped closer. "What… what is that?"
Kratos stared downward. The thing beneath was massive, serpentine, shifting beneath layers of ice and stone. Eyes like dying stars opened slowly, focusing on them. The voice that came was neither male nor female, but deep, ancient, and patient.
"You kill what you do not understand. Even shadows have purpose."
Atreus' skin prickled. "Who are you?"
The voice echoed through their minds.
"One of the Nine. The Depth That Remembers."
The air grew colder. The mist thickened. Kratos' instincts screamed danger — the kind that not even gods could measure. The creature beneath the ice shifted again, massive coils moving like rivers beneath stone.
Kratos took a defensive stance. "What do you want?"
"To remind you," the voice said. "Every victory bleeds consequence. Every god you killed left a wound on the world. Now those wounds take form."
The ice began to crack again, great fissures racing outward in red light. The sound was like thunder and heartbeat together.
Atreus whispered, "It's waking up, Father…"
Kratos turned to him. "We move."
They sprinted toward the far edge of the collapsing lake, but the creature beneath moved faster. A massive tendril — part shadow, part flesh — erupted from the ice, slamming down where they had stood. The shockwave threw them into the air. Kratos hit the ground hard, rolling, blood streaking his arm.
Atreus landed beside him, coughing. "It's— it's breaking free!"
Kratos rose, grabbing his son by the arm and pulling him to his feet. "Then we go through it."
The creature roared, the sound shaking the world. It was not a roar of fury — but awakening. It filled the sky with its voice.
"You will not destroy us all, Ghost of Sparta. The age of gods does not end with you. It begins again — in shadow."
From the fissures around them, figures began to emerge — silhouettes of the other Eight, distant, ghostly, their forms flickering like candlelight in fog. Each radiated power and hunger.
Atreus' breath hitched. "They're… they're watching us."
Kratos' eyes burned with grim fire. "Then let them watch."
He raised the Leviathan Axe, frost crystallizing the air. The Blades of Chaos burned red behind him, one fire, one ice — his balance of rage and control.
The serpent beneath laughed, a deep, resonant sound that shook the frozen land. "Balance is a lie. You are the blade that never dulls, the rage that never dies. When the ninth awakens… even you will kneel."
Kratos' voice was ice and fire combined. "Then I will die on my feet."
The ground split fully open. The world tilted. For a heartbeat, Kratos saw the depths below — a chasm filled with swirling energy, red and black, endless and alive. And from that chasm, tendrils reached out, brushing his mind. Visions—Olympus burning again, Faye's face fading, Atreus consumed by shadows.
He roared, breaking free of the vision, axe raised high. He swung downward, striking the ice with all his might. The shock shattered the fissure. The entire lake gave way, collapsing into the abyss.
Kratos grabbed Atreus mid-fall, chains wrapping around them both, embedding into the side of the collapsing cliff. The world above was vanishing into mist. Below, the chasm glowed like the heart of an awakening god.
Atreus clung to his father's arm, eyes wide. "What now?"
Kratos looked down, the red light reflecting in his eyes. "Now… we descend."