Harry walked through the streets of Thebes, hands shoved deep into his pockets and his boots tapping softly against stone roads that had no business being this clean or this lively for ancient Greece.
The atmosphere was beautiful in its own way, bright, impossibly blue skies, white marble that gleamed like polished pearl, and people laughing and shouting with a theatricality that felt more like a stage play than history. But even as he admired the vista, he could see things that simply did not belong in this era. There were structural designs that defied gravity, social behaviors that felt distinctly modern, and a general air of "manufactured epic" that made him feel like he was walking through a theme park rather than a Bronze Age civilization.
For God's sake, he saw a smoothie in ancient Greece, he was sure that something like that did not exist during this time.
He hummed as he walked, a tune slipping out under his breath before he even realized his subconscious was leaning into the absurdity of his surroundings.
"Zero to hero, just like that…"
He snorted quietly to himself, the lyrics echoing in the back of his mind. The song had been catchy when he'd first heard it as a child in his first life, and somehow, standing here, it was still an absolute earworm.
He remembered people hating the movie back in his world, he recalled heated arguments on forums and long rants by scholars about how "incorrect" the myths were. They complained about the sanitized Hera, the comedic, fast-talking Hades, and the butchering of the Twelve Labors into a montage and how wrong they were.
As a kid, Harry hadn't understood the outrage. To him, it had just been fun. And even when he grew up and understood the myth and understood why people hated it, to him it really didn't bring that out of him. It was just ridiculous.
It was a neon-colored caricature of history where the "muses" sang gospel and the gods acted like neurotic New Yorkers.
And yet… he didn't hate it. If anything, he found it hilarious. There was a charm to a world where the physics were governed by comedic timing and heroic tropes. It was a refreshing break from the usual worlds he had seen so far.
He had been here for almost two weeks now. After his power had recharged for the first time, he had performed a quick jump back home. He had spent a few hours with Daphne, Tonks, and Anya, using his strings to sync the time flow of the two worlds.
He wasn't about to risk staying here for a few days and returning home to find his manor a crumbling ruin and his girls a century in the grave. Once the "clocks" were aligned and the tether was firm, he had returned to the Greek sun to see this story with his own two eyes.
In those two weeks, he had witnessed the fastest and funniest rise to fame he had ever seen. He had arrived just after Hercules had slain the Hydra, the kid's first "actual" monster. After that, it was as if Harry had blinked and the world had gone into a marketing frenzy that would make a modern PR firm weep with envy.
There were advertisements everywhere. Painted vases featured the boy's face with "Herc" written in bold Greek script, songs were composed in his honor by every street bard, merchants yelled his name to sell "Air-Herc" sandals and protein-enriched "Hero Bread."
There were even little figurines and scrolls praising him as a god-in-waiting. It was the birth of the "Celebrity Hero," and it was happening with terrifying speed. People weren't just following a savior, they were following a brand. The shit was funny as hell to watch.
Harry had watched it all from nearby rooftops and shaded balconies, he just sat back and observed. He watched Hercules kill the Calydonian Boar with a single, massive punch that sent the beast flying into the next province.
He watched him grappled the Nemean Lion and outmaneuver the Stymphalian Birds with a clumsy yet effective charm. He even saw him wrestle a sea monster that had no biological right to exist in any sane ecology, looking like a cross between a serpent and a very angry skyscraper.
The guy was strong. Ridiculously so. Harry couldn't deny that. It was part of why Harry was watching him, wanting to gauge his strength and see just how strong the kid was.
Part of Harry, the part that still lived for the thrill of a good fight really wanted to fight the guy just to see where the limit of so called "Heroic Strength" the kid had ended. he was physically stronger than harry that was for sure but overall power harry had a feeling he would win, but despite not having other powers beside strenght he had a feeling it would be a hard battle which was really saying something about the greek hero. He really wanted to see how far the kid could push him.
But he had decided not to...not yet at least.
The reason? Hades.
Harry could feel the God of the Dead watching the hero, his divinity flaring once in a while, that he was surprised no other god had found out yet, or maybe they were just ignoring him.
Hades' attention seemed to linger like a cold shadow behind the golden sun, and Harry had no interest in picking a fight with the protagonist while a Lord of the Underworld was lurking in the wings, waiting to exploit any weakness.
Unlike the Heretic Gods of his home world, who were once really gods or the collection of stories from humans given form, the gods here were "native" to this reality.
They were part of the architecture of this world in a way that was different from his world, and if he started a brawl with the ruler of the dead, it wouldn't be a quick, clean affair. Hades was powerful, very powerful, and Harry was not naive enough to believe that he'd be able to just win like when he was dealing with other people, so for now, he stayed his hand.
But that didn't mean he wouldn't fight the god eventually. After all, Harry had chosen a world with gods for a very specific reason, experimentation.
He wanted to know if a Campione could gain an Authority from a god of a different universe. He wasn't a hundred percent sure it would work. The "Usurpation of Authority" was a phenomenon tied strictly to the laws of his home world after all. It was a system created by his 'mother', Pandora, so even if he killed Hades, he might end up gaining nothing but a very angry mountain of gods.
However, Godou had successfully jumped worlds in his own story and even managed to usurp the power of gods not from his world, which was a good sign, but that had still been a world in the same multiverse, so he was not sure if it might work out for him.
More importantly, there was the little "tug" at the back of Harry's mind, the shimmering golden link to his "mother," Pandora. The connection to the Great Ritual was still there, stretching across the Void like an unbreakable umbilical cord. And now that he had used his strings to tether this world to his own, he felt the connection like he normally did in his world, so it really might work.
Still, it was just a matter of killing a god and finding out if the system still worked for him even in another world, and if it really did, then oh boy, the multiverse really should look out.
Harry sat atop the highest pediment of a temple, legs dangling over the edge, sipping a brightly colored, syrupy drink labeled Hercules' Hero Juice. Below, the man of the hour was posing for a crowd of cheering fans, flashing a set of teeth so white they almost blinded the onlookers.
Suddenly, far in the distance, a mountain exploded in a column of blue and red flame.
Harry smiled, the ice in his drink clinking softly. "Ah," he murmured, amused. "The lord of death is angry."
Hades might be a comic relief character in the cartoons, but Harry wasn't fooled. Even from miles away, he could feel the god's divinity burning through the air, heavy, oppressive, and filled with the scent of sulfur and ancient, cold stone. He chuckled to himself. "Pain and Panic must be driving him mad with their incompetence."
Then, his expression sharpened. It should be soon now, if his memory was right. He took one last sip of his juice, tossed the cup aside, and jumped down. He had to be careful, he didn't doubt that Zeus and the other Olympians would take a dim view of a Godslayer roaming their territory, funny as there were in this reality.
In this world, gods didn't die unless they were turned mortal. Harry, however, was sure that the rule didn't really work with him, so if he really did succeed, he had to book it immediately or else he'd be a dead man.
The next day, the world fell apart.
The Titans erupted from their ancient prisons, wreaking havoc across the landscape. Tornadoes tore through cities, molten lava flooded the lush valleys, and ice froze entire regions in a heartbeat. It was a chaotic symphony of elemental destruction that looked more like a weather report gone wrong than an apocalypse.
Honestly, how could these be considered titans.
Harry watched from afar, arms crossed, his cloak fluttering in the violent winds. A part of him considered stepping in and wiping them out, but honestly? It didn't seem worth it. These "Titans" were just... off. They were powerful, certainly, but they lacked the spiritual weight of the gods.
They felt like "bargain-bin" titans, held together by cartoon logic and raw elemental spite. They were forces of nature, sure, but not what he expected from beings that ruled before the gods. What kind of Authority would he even get from them? Tornado Breath? No, thank you. He wanted something with a bit more conceptual bite.
He was here for the King of the Underworld, and he wasn't going to risk getting known before getting his prize, beside a hero will take care of these guys.
He watched as Hercules regained his strength after Meg was injured, breaking his deal with the lord of the dead.
He watched him fight the Titans and toss them into the stars. And finally, he watched as the God of the Dead, defeated, humiliated, fled back to the deepest pits of his realm.
"Perfect," Harry muttered. "Now is the time."
He followed Hades into the Underworld, cloaking himself with every bit of magic and Authority he possessed. He moved like a shadow through the fields of Asphodel, waiting while the god began to rant and rave at his minions about his failure, his "useless" brothers, and the unfairness of not having everything.
Harry watched as the wonder boy came bursting into the underworld, grabbing Hades, as they talked, made the deal to get his girl's soul back. Watched as the kid dived into the river to get her soul back, looking like he was about to die before becoming a god and escaping the river with Meg's soul, then knocking the dead god into the river as he left the realm, leaving Hades in there as the souls grabbed onto him, pulling at him
Then, Harry struck.
He didn't hold back. He summoned a massive amount of divine power, condensing it into a single, singular point of focus before unleashing it in a magical explosion, a "nuke" of pure divine power, that lit up the Underworld like a second sun.
The shockwave shattered the black stone of the throne room, pulverized the pillars of obsidian, and sent the River Styx into a violent, steaming frenzy.
The smoke cleared slowly. It would be nice if that was all it took to end things but Harry knew it wouldn't end that easily.
Hades swept the dust away with a snarl as he stood in the now empty space that was once a river of souls, coughing, his toga scorched and his skin a little bruised.
He looked hurt, genuinely hurt, which was a feat in itself, and it seemed the god was a bit surprised himself, but hid it well, but that was all. He was far from dead.
His blue flame hair turned a jagged, furious red, his skin took on a deathly grey hue, and his glare was sharp enough to kill a mortal on the spot.
"And who the hell are you?" Hades growled, the earth beneath his feet cracking with the weight of his rage.
Harry stepped forward out of the settling dust, his green eyes glowing with a cold, predatory emerald fire. The power rolling off him was a storm of violence and divinity, clashing with Hades own power.
"Your death," Harry replied.
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