CHAPTER 495: THE FALL OF OLYMPUS 10

Adam rushed forward, his dark energy blades crackling with chaotic power, but Hades was ready. The Lord of the Underworld’s bident swept upward in a defensive arc. Unlike Poseidon’s fluid movements, Hades fought with the calculated efficiency of a master strategist.

The bident’s first prong caught Adam’s right blade, redirecting its force while the second prong swept toward his exposed flank. Adam twisted away from the strike, but Hades had already anticipated the movement. His free hand gestured toward the spreading shadows, and the legendary army he had summoned surged forward.

Heracles led the charge, his massive shadow-form swinging a club that carried the weight of his twelve labors. Each strike created shockwaves that rippled through the battlefield, forcing Adam to dodge while simultaneously parrying Hades’s calculated bident strikes. The coordination between the Lord of the Underworld and his legendary servants was flawless—where one attack ended, another began.

Perseus darted in from the side, the phantom outline of Medusa’s head in his grip pulsing with petrifying power. Adam caught the movement, but the hero’s speed was legendary and enhanced by Hades’ powers. Only blinking away allowed him to avoid the gaze that had turned countless warriors to stone.

The Lernaean Hydra’s shadow writhed around the battlefield’s perimeter, its hundred serpentine heads creating a living wall of death. Each head dripped with venom that could poison the very concept of life, while its regenerative nature made it nearly impossible to permanently damage. When Adam’s dark energy blade severed three heads, six more sprouted to take their place.

"You face the greatest legends of mortal achievement," Hades observed, his bident spinning in a defensive pattern while his shadow army pressed their coordinated assault. "Heroes who conquered impossible odds, monsters who challenged the very order of creation. Each one now serves in death."

The Nemean Lion prowled at the battle’s edge, its shadow-hide still impervious to mortal weapons. When Adam’s blades struck its form, they passed through harmlessly, the legendary invulnerability translating even to its spectral state. The beast’s roar echoed with the fury of the wild places that civilisation had forgotten, forces that could never be tamed.

Theseus engaged Adam directly, his phantom thread weaving through the air in patterns that seemed to bind reality itself. The hero who had navigated the labyrinth now created one of shadows and death, each movement of his thread creating new pathways for the other legends to exploit. Adam found himself fighting not just individual opponents, but a tactical network of legendary skill.

Medusa materialised behind the advancing heroes, her serpentine locks writhing with deadly beauty. Her gaze carried the power to turn even shadows to stone, forcing Adam to fight while carefully avoiding direct eye contact. He could see through lies and illusion, resist mental manipulation, but eye curses could still endanger him.

The Chimaera stalked beside her, its three heads—lion, goat, and serpent—breathing shadow-fire that burned with the heat that embodied soul destruction, each burst threatening to vaporise Adam. His dark energy blades carved through the fire, but the creature’s legendary ferocity made it relentless in its assault.

Hades pressed his advantage, his bident work becoming a masterpiece of strategic combat coordinated with his legendary army. Unlike his brothers, who relied on overwhelming force, Hades used the positioning and timing of his shadow servants to maximum effect. Each thrust of his weapon created opportunities for his heroes to strike, while every movement of the legends opened new angles for his bident.

The weapon itself was a thing of terrible beauty—two prongs that represented the dual nature of death, both ending and transformation. Where Zeus’s lightning sought to destroy and Poseidon’s water sought to overwhelm, Hades’s bident sought to claim. Each strike carried the promise of the grave, the certainty that all things must eventually submit to death’s authority.

"You fight like the living," Hades observed, his bident weaving between the attacks of his shadow army. "Desperate, clinging to existence. But I am death itself, and death is patient. Death is inevitable."

The Minotaur’s massive form shambled forward, its bull-head lowering in preparation for a charge that had once shattered the bones of Athenian youth. The creature’s legendary strength translated into shadow-force that could crack the marble beneath Adam’s feet, each thunderous step creating opportunities for the other legends to exploit.

Adam’s Mark of Reality Severance activated as he tried to escape the coordinated trap, but Hades had anticipated even this. The Lord of the Underworld’s mastery of space and dimension was absolute within his domain, and he had extended that domain to encompass the entire battlefield. Reality itself had become subject to his will, making Adam’s attempts to slip outside normal space far more difficult.

"You cannot escape death," Hades stated with calm certainty, his bident striking in perfect coordination with Heracles’s club. "It finds all things, in all places, at all times. Even your stolen powers cannot change that fundamental truth."

The shadows began to solidify, transforming from mere darkness into the physical manifestation of the underworld itself. The marble beneath Adam’s feet cracked and split, revealing the burning depths of Tartarus below. The air filled with the screams of the damned, the voices of those who had challenged the gods and found only torment.

Hades’s bident blazed with the power of absolute ending, each prong trailing fragments of the void that existed beyond death. The weapon struck, its impact creating craters that led directly to the underworld.

Adam found himself fighting not just Hades, but the very concept of mortality itself made manifest through the greatest legends of Greek mythology. Each shadow that touched him carried whispers of his own death, visions of the grave that awaited all living things. The Mark of Perfect Control kept him immune to the psychological warfare, but the physical reality of fighting death incarnate alongside history’s greatest heroes and monsters was taking its toll.

The Lord of the Underworld’s strategy became clear as the battle progressed. He wasn’t trying to overpower Adam with brute force—he was systematically dismantling the foundation of Adam’s existence through the coordinated assault of legends who had themselves transcended mortality through deed and story. Each strike of his bident, each movement of his shadow army, was designed to remind Adam that he was still, fundamentally, a mortal ascended.

"You’ve claimed the power of gods," Hades said, his bident weaving through the air in patterns that hurt to look at directly while his legendary servants pressed their assault. "But you still carry the scent of mortality. Still bear the mark of something that can die. And that mark calls to me, mortal. It always has."

The battle reached a crescendo as Hades’s strategic mastery, coordinated with the legendary might of mythology’s greatest figures, met Adam’s chaotic fury. Unlike the fluid dance he had shared with Poseidon, this was a chess match—a game where every piece on the board was a legend in its own right.

Mount Olympus groaned under the weight of their conflict, the massive peak beginning to crack as the underworld pressed up from below.

Adam’s marks sang in harmony as he fought, but even their combined power struggled against the fundamental reality that Hades represented.

The shadows pressed closer, their whispers growing louder as they promised Adam the peace of the grave. Hades’s bident struck again and again with the patient certainty of one who knew that, eventually, all things would come to him—and his army of legends stood as proof of that eternal truth.

But Adam had transcended mortality through will and violence, and he refused to acknowledge any authority, even when that authority was wielded by the greatest heroes and monsters of legend. His dark blades carved through the shadows, his marks blazing with power that challenged every concept. The battle between life and death, between the mortal who refused to die and the god who embodied death alongside history’s greatest legends, raged on across the shaking foundations of Olympus.

The final confrontation with the Lord of the Underworld and his legendary army had begun, and the fate of both the mortal and divine realms hung in the balance.