CHAPTER 103: TAKING THE FIGHT TO TARTARUS

The sky above Olympus cracked like a bone splitting in silence.

Zeus stood at the peak of the ruined throne hall, eyes locked on the horizon. His coat whipped in the wind. He didn’t wait for permission. He didn’t say a word.

He vanished.

Lightning burst where he stood.

The clouds parted violently as he tore down through the layers of the world—through mist, memory, and the veil between realms. The descent left a scar in the sky.

Below, the Underworld stirred.

⚡

Hades stood near the cliff where the abyss waited.

He felt Zeus before he arrived. The scent of ozone hit first.

Then the crack of raw skyfire split the black stone open.

Zeus landed, kneeling, one hand pressed to the floor, steam hissing off his back. He rose slowly, eyes dark, hands still sparking.

"You sure?" Hades asked, tone dry. "Last time you visited, you almost started a war."

"This time I’m finishing one," Zeus said.

They looked into the abyss together.

Below, chains moved.

"We’re going down," Zeus said.

Hades sighed, grabbing his obsidian scythe from the wall behind him.

"Finally."

The two gods stepped off the ledge.

And fell.

They landed miles below the cliff.

The prison heart of Tartarus was not built with floors. It was a sinking spiral of black walls and pressure. Gravity itself bent wrong here. Time shivered.

Chains reached like arms.

The gods walked through them.

Deeper still.

Until they reached the center.

A field of silence.

At the far end, a massive body lay crouched, curled in shadow. Not fully human. Not fully beast. Horned. Cracked skin. Black fire pulsed in slow waves beneath that skin like a dying sun.

Tartarus.

His voice came without form.

"You’ve grown arrogant."

"No," Zeus answered. "I’ve just had enough."

Tartarus rose slowly.

His head scraped the ceiling.

He stretched his limbs—each longer than memory itself—and the walls trembled.

"I gave you my power," he growled. "I gave you Hera. Ares. Olympus on a string. And you spat it back."

"You never gave anything," Zeus said.

"You stole."

Tartarus roared.

The air exploded around them.

Dark chains lunged out from the walls like snakes. Hades spun his scythe, cutting three down in one sweep.

Zeus launched forward, fists glowing white-hot.

He hit Tartarus square in the chest.

The force split the chamber in half.

But Tartarus didn’t flinch.

He slammed his own palm into Zeus’s face and drove him into the ground. The earth cracked. Zeus coughed, flipped backward, landed on one knee.

"Fine," Tartarus growled. "Let’s end this."

The shadows bloomed like wings behind him.

A wave of black fire roared forward.

Hades moved first.

He raised his hand—and the fire stopped mid-air.

Frozen.

Time around the flame slowed as he stepped through it.

His scythe sliced in silence.

Tartarus’s arm bled black.

He snarled.

Then the room changed.

Not slowly.

It shifted instantly.

They were no longer in the pit—they stood on a platform made of screaming faces. The walls were now the inside of Tartarus himself. A living domain.

Zeus blinked.

He didn’t hesitate.

He summoned his spear—Keraunos—and hurled it.

It split the air like thunder and struck Tartarus in the chest.

The primordial howled.

Chains burst from his wounds.

They wrapped the spear, tore it from his chest, and flung it back. Zeus dodged, barely. The spear stabbed the ground beside him and exploded in light.

Hades raised his scythe and whispered to the floor.

The screaming faces stopped.

A silence came.

Then they shattered—tens of spirit blades erupted upward, each made from the souls of the damned.

They pierced Tartarus’s body—legs, chest, back.

He bled shadows.

Then growled—

—and the souls wailed in agony as he absorbed them.

Hades’s eyes narrowed. "He’s feeding on pain."

Zeus clenched his fists. "Then we give him none."

They moved together.

Zeus soared up in a bolt of white lightning, slamming Tartarus across the face with a punch that cracked the sky above them.

Hades appeared behind him, swinging the scythe.

It cut deep—halfway through the shoulder.

Tartarus grabbed Zeus mid-air and hurled him through the platform.

Hades leapt after him—only for Tartarus to slam a chain into the ground, summoning spikes of raw void.

Hades barely spun through them, landing on his feet with a scrape.

Zeus climbed back up through the floor, face bruised, blood on his lips.

But his eyes burned.

"You were never a god," he spat. "Just a parasite hiding in the dark."

Tartarus laughed—a hollow, slow sound.

"I am the first prison," he said. "I am the weight your kind built Olympus upon. Without me, your sky would fall."

"You’re a footnote," Hades replied. "And I’m ready to turn the page."

Zeus raised both arms to the heavens.

But no thunder came.

He blinked.

Nothing.

Tartarus smiled.

"This is my domain."

The chamber shifted again—this time violently. The ceiling vanished. They now stood inside a massive heart. The pulse around them grew loud. Distant screams echoed inside every beat.

The air grew heavy.

Zeus dropped to one knee, coughing.

His lightning—flickering.

Hades stumbled, breath catching.

Gravity twisted.

Time skipped.

Tartarus towered above them now, massive beyond logic.

He raised a hand.

And darkness came crashing down.

Zeus screamed—

—and caught it with both arms.

The weight crushed the ground beneath him. His bones creaked.

Hades summoned his scythe again—this time glowing deep silver. He hurled it forward.

It cut through the darkness like a fang.

Struck Tartarus’s arm.

Black blood spilled.

Zeus rose, finally pushing back the darkness.

He jumped—fist glowing—eyes wild.

Tartarus opened his mouth.

And swallowed the light.

Everything vanished.

For a second, only silence.

Then—

Zeus reappeared, gasping, slamming into the wall.

He hit hard.

He fell.

Didn’t rise.

Tartarus stepped forward slowly.

"Foolish gods," he said. "This realm bends to me."

He raised a hand again.

Chains formed from the void, wrapped in pain.

They slithered toward Zeus—

But Hades stood in their path.

He didn’t speak.

He just raised his scythe again—

And stepped forward.

The fight was far from over.

And Olympus’s fate still hung by a thread.