CHAPTER 157: THE AFRICAN GODS

The desert had gone quiet.

The heat still shimmered over the dunes, glass still cracked underfoot, but the battle was finished. Ra’s fire had been buried in the sand, Khonsu’s silver glow snuffed out, and the corpses of Egypt’s Primordials lay heavy as mountains. The Olympians did not cheer. There was no victory in it, only silence and the sound of their breathing.

Zeus sat apart from them, his back resting against the melted bones of a broken pyramid. His storm had dimmed down to faint sparks rolling lazily across his arms, more like restless embers than fury. His fists, cracked and raw, finally lay still at his sides. For the first time since this war began, he let himself close his eyes.

The ground trembled nearby as Poseidon adjusted his trident in the sand, his chest heaving. Athena stood rigid, blood streaking her cheek but her spear still upright. Ares laughed under his breath at nothing, the sound more madness than joy. Hermes sat low, sandals sparking faint as if he couldn’t keep still even in exhaustion. Apollo and Artemis leaned on each other, their glow faded thin, like dawn and dusk caught between storms. Nyx’s veil hung torn but steady, Gaia’s roots cracked and bleeding stone dust into the earth.

Hades stood apart, pale fire dripping from his bident, his cloak dragging shadows across the sand. His presence was heavier than before, darker, the abyss whispering through him. When he finally spoke, all of them turned.

"It’s time," he said. His voice was low, unshaken. "The next step isn’t here. It’s in the east. The Hindu realm."

The name alone carried weight. Everyone knew what it meant. That realm was not like the Shinto, not like Egypt. Its gods were countless, its Primordials ancient, its stories stretching back longer than most remembered. A harder fight waited there.

Nyx tilted her head, silver eyes unblinking. "They’ll not bow easily."

Gaia’s hand pressed into the ground. "Their Primordials are bound deep. But when they rise, they rise with fire and rivers. It will be war."

Athena spoke sharp, her voice steady despite the streak of blood down her armor. "Then we’ll meet it. Strategy holds even against the vast. They can bleed like the rest."

Ares grinned wider, blood dripping down his ribs. "Good. Let’s see what their war looks like."

Apollo exhaled, his bow humming faint with light. "They will burn brighter than we’ve seen. But light burns out." Artemis nodded at his side, her arrow resting against her bowstring.

Hades looked at all of them once. His pale fire spread wider. "You’ve seen me now. You’ve seen what the abyss has made of me. I’ll lead this. Nyx, Gaia—you’ll stand with me against their roots. Athena, Ares, Hermes, Apollo, Artemis—you’ll cut down the host. Poseidon, you’ve bled enough. Rest here. And Zeus—"

He paused, his pale eyes locking with his brother’s.

"—you stay."

The words hung in the heat.

Zeus opened his eyes. Sparks crawled faint across his jaw, but he did not rise. His body was broken, his storm burned hollow. He wanted to argue, to stand, but the weight pressed him down. And he knew Hades was right. He had carried the storm far. It was time another carried the silence.

He exhaled, the sound like a tired thunder rolling through cracked stone. "Very well," he said. "Go. Break them. Leave nothing standing."

Hades gave a single nod.

One by one, they gathered around him. Nyx’s stars flared dim but sharp. Gaia’s roots coiled tight through the glass. Athena’s spear gleamed faint in the smoke. Ares dragged his sword across the sand, its edge dripping sparks. Apollo’s light grew steady, Artemis’s silver bow drawn. Hermes flickered once, sandals sparking gold. Together they stood with Hades, a storm of their own, pale fire and shadow wrapping them.

The air warped. The dunes shook. In one surge of abyss and star, they vanished.

–––

The silence after was heavy. Only Poseidon remained near, his trident buried in the sand, his eyes on the Nile’s faint shimmer far away. Zeus stayed seated, shoulders slumped, sparks whispering around him. He let himself breathe for once, the storm inside quiet.

But rest did not mean stillness. His thoughts carried forward, beyond the desert, beyond the east.

The Hindu realm would bleed under his kin. He trusted them. Nyx and Gaia could bind the Primordials. Hades had grown into something darker, heavier, ready to lead. Athena’s mind, Ares’s fury, Hermes’s speed, Apollo and Artemis’s light—they could tear through armies. They would manage.

But Zeus had another path.

His eyes turned toward the horizon of the west, toward lands most gods overlooked. Lands where the sky was not filled with temples or torii or suns, but with drums, fires, rivers, and ancestors’ names whispered into the air.

Africa.

In another life, before Olympus, before storms and crowns, he had been born in those lands. Nigeria. He still remembered the scent of rain-soaked soil, the hum of markets, the rhythm of voices that moved like rivers. That memory lived deep in him, buried but unbroken. Now he wondered: what did those gods look like? The ones mortals rarely named outside their own lands. The pantheons that the world called "minor," though their blood ran just as old.

Would they stand with him? Or against him?

He leaned forward, sparks flickering across his knuckles. His lips curved into the faintest shadow of a smile.

He didn’t plan to ask.

He planned to topple them.

The Primordials of Africa—the ones who had shaped rivers, forests, skies—he would face them as he had faced Ymir, Pangu, Izanagi, Ra. He would lay their pantheon flat. He would prove that fame meant nothing. Power alone decided who stood and who fell.

Zeus tilted his head back, looking at the broken Egyptian sky. His storm hummed faint, but it no longer pressed to break free. He would wait. He would heal. His kin would cut through the east. And then, when the time came, he would walk into Africa not as a stranger, but as the storm that no one could ignore.

The desert wind carried ash across his skin. He let it pass, his eyes closing once more.

"Soon," he whispered to himself. The word was low, lost in the crackle of glass under the heat.

His sparks dimmed.

And for the first time in ages, Zeus allowed himself rest.

The storm would rise again.