Chapter 26 - cry me a river
When Ethan's eyes opened, the world was not fire and ruin from the crash - but green. Too green.
A jungle spread in every direction, steaming with heat and the shrieks of unseen animals. His body ached, his head spun, but before he could get his bearings, the branches shook.
Dozens of monkeys with bone-white masks lunged at him, screeching. Their claws slashed air where his throat had been a second before.
"Not friendly!" Ethan shouted, rolling to his feet. He swung with his fists, punching one back into a tree, but three more leapt onto him. His powers flared, the earth cracking under his heel, sending them scattering.
Panting, he stumbled through the foliage until the jungle broke into stone.
There, half-buried into a cliff, was a tomb. Its entrance glowed faintly, carved with ancient Greek runes. Vines tried to strangle it, but even time itself seemed afraid to touch the door.
Ethan wiped blood from his cheek. "Wow... that tomb looks divine."
A hiss slithered behind him. He turned-
-only to come face to face with a severed head, its snake hair still writhing faintly. Medusa.
Ethan jumped back with a curse, nearly tripping over his own feet.
Laughter rang out, warm, almost teasing.
"Oh-sorry. Did I scare you?"
From the tomb, a ghostly figure drifted forward. Tall, armored, with a presence that carried both sorrow and pride.
Ethan tightened his fists. "Who... are you?"
The specter smiled, and the name carried like thunder.
"They call me Perseus."
Clarita's POV
Clarita's blade still dripped black ichor from her last strike, but Arachné's monstrous form loomed, barely staggered.
"You gave me more trouble than I needed," the spider hissed, her voice split between woman and beast.
Before Clarita could move, Arachné spat - thick web fluid slammed across her face and chest, pinning her to the wall. She clawed, struggled, but the silk burned like acid where it touched skin.
Arachné's abdomen swelled, and with a sickening sound, eggs tore open, spilling a flood of smaller, sharper spiderlings. They scuttled across the webs, red eyes glowing with hunger.
Clarita's heart raced. Panic clawed at her lungs. There was no way out.
But then - something cracked inside her.
She remembered Abyss's words: Don't fight like them. Fight like you as she also remember something she's not Alone now she has a boyfriend Ethan she doesn't know if he's alive or dead she need to survive for him if not for herself.
Clarita took a deep breath, teeth grit. She pushed her Echo beyond what she'd ever tried, grasping not at demigod powers - but monster essence. Arachné's own.
The webs hummed. Threads trembled under her control.
Her eyes snapped open. "Let's see how you like being trapped."
The spiderlings lunged - but the webs shifted, spiraling into snares. Clarita redirected the sticky silk, binding the brood in their own mother's threads. Arachné screeched, tearing free, but the damage was done: Clarita was no longer prey.
She stood tall, the faint shimmer of monstrous power lingering around her.
"Guess I'm done playing."
Cosmic POV - Ares vs Elysium
Far above, beyond mortal sight, another war raged.
The sky burned as a living planet, a hungry sphere of stone and flame, drifted toward Earth. Entire continents of it pulsed like a heartbeat.
And before it, a lone goddess stood.
Her bow gleamed like spun crystal. She drew one arrow - a simple shaft, shaped like a heart.
She loosed.
The arrow pierced the planet's core, unraveling it into fragments of molten debris. The goddess spread her arms, halting the falling pieces before they could crush the world below.
She sighed, dusting ash from her shoulders. "Aww. My dress is ruined."
A voice thundered across the void.
"Your dress isn't the only thing about to be ruined."
Ares, god of war, stepped forward, sword already blazing. His grin was sharp, eager. "Your makeup won't survive this fight."
Their clash shook the heavens.
Elysium was graceful, her arrows are brutal . But Ares thrived in chaos - every wound, every failure only made him stronger. His anger was his power, and his blade shattered the land with each strike.
"You don't care if mortals die," she gasped as he crushed a nearby peak, collapsing villages below the mountain behind her was just shattered she can easily do that but what hurt her is"THEIR IS HIMANS RESIDENT THEIR DON'T YOU CARE"she was furious
"Cry me a river," Ares snarled.
But in her heart, she remembered Olympus - the council ignoring her pleas for mortals, dismissing her as naive. That weakness, she had reforged into strength once a goddess of love she trained to be strong to be able to protect humanity by herself.
Elysium whispered a prayer, drew her last arrow, and fired into a glasshouse of pink crystal she had built long ago. The shot ricocheted endlessly until it pierced Ares straight through- kidding one kick all it took to knock ares
The war god staggered, blood dripping - divine blood, rare and terrible. He fell, defeated.
Elysium blew him a mocking kiss and vanished into the world below, taking the shape of a gazelle to check on the humans still alive in the ruined mountain bit mad that her dress ruined by some divine ichor
Ethan's POV - The Trial
Inside the tomb, Perseus circled Ethan, eyes sharp but kind.
"You stand where I once stood," the ghost said. "Not a hero by birth. Not chosen by the gods. But by trial."
The cavern shifted. Illusions surrounded Ethan - Medusa, the Kraken, monsters Perseus had slain. Each roared, each lunged.
Ethan fought until his arms burned, every strike echoing Perseus's legacy. He stood bloodied, panting, but unbroken.
At last, Perseus smiled.
"Good. You don't run. You endure. That is all a hero needs."
The illusions dissolved. Before Ethan, a chest opened, revealing a gleaming bronze armor, etched with constellations.
Perseus's ghost raised his blade in salute.
"Take it. With this trial complete, you are no longer just Ethan. You stand among the heroes of Greece - as I did. As Achilles did. As all mortals who defied gods did."
Ethan touched the armor, awe shimmering in his chest. "I... I'm a hero now."
Perseus laughed warmly, fading like mist.
"You always were. Now the world will know it each turn you take the fate and the world would help you and test you with curelity ."
But abyss pov was different
The night was quiet, too quiet for a world that had just seen gods and monsters clash. Abyss sat in the half-light, his breeze curling lazily around his frame like a restless serpent.
From the shadows, a woman's voice cut through.
"Archaene, the death trap. That's what they call her."
Abyss exhaled, sharp and weary, the air sighing with him.
"To you, maybe," he muttered. "To me? She's just another broken weaver. Gods talk about pride, but when it's damaged, they treat the wound like rot. They burn the broken instead of mending them."
For a moment, silence again. But Abyss's gaze drifted far away, back into the weight of memory.
Someone else had worn that same look of pain once. Someone he'd called friend.
Medusa.
And so, the past came rushing back-
the eleven days and a night.
Flashback
A boy of twelve, feral from Tartarus, gnawed the roasted arm of a cyclops for dinner. The forest was quiet until a small owl landed nearby. He squinted, then smirked.
With a flick of his fingers, a vacuum pulled the owl toward him. He opened his mouth wide. Dinner number two.
But the bird twisted mid-air, feathers exploding into light. In her place stood a tall woman with gray eyes sharp enough to slice stone.
"What the-how does bird turn into human?" the boy asked, genuinely confused.
Athena's lips pressed into a thin line. "You almost ate me, child."
"You came close," he replied bluntly, licking grease off his fingers.
Instead of smiting him, Athena tilted her head. "You're interesting. Strong, but unrefined. What's your name? I can't just refer to you as the boy who almost ate me"
He hesitated, unwilling to speak the word Harmonic. The name felt dead to him, buried in Tartarus along with his old self.
She studied him. Then her voice rang clear.
"Then let me name you. Abyss... Abyss Isad."
The name felt heavy, sharp. A title that chained him and freed him at once. He accepted it in silence.
The days that followed were brutal. Athena sparred him into the dirt, showing him that his overwhelming strength was useless without precision. "You're too strong for your own body," she told him. "But I can fix that."
On the sixth day, she gave him a task.
"Find my runaway priestess. Her name is Medusa."
So he went.
And when he found her, she hissed, ready to turn him into stone.
But nothing happened.
"What? How are you immune?" she demanded. "I see no shield, and you look me straight in the eyes."
Abyss scratched his head. "High-speed winds bend light. Makes your reflection... different."
Medusa blinked. "Say it in words I can understand."
He sighed. "I tricked my eyes."
She laughed despite herself. And for the first time, Abyss had someone to talk to.
By the eleventh night, he returned-but Athena had her in chains.
"My final lesson," Athena said coolly. "Fight me. If you win, cure her. If you lose, she's mine."
The clash shook the forest. Athena was fast, but Abyss had studied her-her notes, her rhythm, her flaws. He bent the wind to predict her moves, and for the first time, the goddess staggered.
Panting, she smiled. "Well played, darling. Then cure her, if you can."
He already had.
The potion he'd stolen, refined with what he'd learned, splashed over Medusa. The snakes fell silent. Her face softened into human skin. She collapsed, hugging herself as tears ran.
"I... I kind of miss my snakes. They were my babies."
Abyss crouched beside her, gaze steady. "They'll come back. When danger rises, you'll be gorgon again. When it passes, you'll be you."
And then he left her. Not knowing Poseidon's hand would one day send a champion to cut her down. Not knowing his first friend would die for a god's pride.
Back to the present
Abyss's breeze tightened, cold with memory.
"Medusa," he whispered under his breath "she still haunt me everyday though I assume Gorgons can relive as Medusa told me she died before"he
Iralings note(btw the flashback of abyss vs Poseidon would be in next chapter)