The fight was going good, it was easy....or at least that's what it looked like
To any outside observer, had there been anyone in the Underworld with the sanity to watch, Harry moved with a terrifying, fluid confidence. He looked lazy, almost bored, dodging apocalyptic blasts of necrotic energy with the casual grace of a man stepping over a puddle.
Every spell he cast landed with precision, every counter-strike was by a simple wave of his hand, as if he were merely going through the motions of a well-rehearsed dance.
That was the lie.
Inside, Harry was burning. His blood felt like molten lead racing through his veins, and his nerves were screaming under the sheer volume of divine energy he was forcing through them.
His Godslayer physiology was the only thing keeping his physical heart from exploding under the pressure of three different Authorities being funneled into a single combat intent.
'God, I haven't used this much power since I faced Odin,' he thought, his jaw aching from how hard he was clenching his teeth to keep from gasping for air. He was maintaining a facade of absolute dominance, pushing his output to the breaking point just to make the Lord of the Dead believe that this was effortless.
Fear was his greatest weapon here. If Hades believed Harry was struggling, the god would find his second wind and drown him in the infinite resources of the dead.
But if Hades believed Harry was an unstoppable force of nature that couldn't even be touched, he would hesitate. And in a battle between godlike beings, where a microsecond of doubt can tilt the axis of reality, hesitation was a death sentence.
Harry raised a hand, twisting his wrist in a sharp, grinding motion that sent a phantom ache through his forearm. Beneath the soot-stained soil of the Underworld, the very bones of the earth revolted.
A massive serpentine construct, forged from compressed obsidian, erupted from the ground. It lunged to his right, its jaws snapping shut over a towering shadow-beast Hades had summoned, crushing the creature into a spray of dark mist before Harry dissolved the construct back into dust with a flick of his fingers.
He bit back a groan, the metallic taste of blood blooming in his mouth. Manipulating the Underworld was costing him dearly. This was Hades' home, like a part of his literal body and soul manifested as a geographical realm.
Every time Harry reached out to command the stone or the air, he was fighting against the god's own immune system. The only reason he could even touch the environment was because his Authorities traced back to Primordial origins, the primordial Geb, but even then, it was like trying to swim upstream against a waterfall made of lead.
And that wasn't even the greatest drain on his reserves.
Above them, stretching across the jagged, sunless horizon of the Underworld, a veil shimmered with the faint, iridescent sheen of oil on water.
This was a veil he created using Oneiric Manifestation stretched to its absolute breaking point. Harry was essentially wrapping the entire realm of the dead in a "dream-bubble," a silent layer of unreality designed to mask the massive divine fluctuations of their battle from the outside world.
He knew that if that veil fell for even a second, the gods and all manner of beings would sense what was going on and turn their gaze to them, and Mount Olympus, Zeus, Hera, Ares, Athena, they would swarm this place like hornets. He was strong, but he wasn't suicidal; he couldn't fight an entire pantheon.
'So hurry up and die already, you stubborn bastard,' Harry snarled internally, his vision pulsing in time with the veil's shimmer.
He gathered his power, pulling from the deep, dark well of the All-Father's wisdom and the Sun-King's son's authority. A miniature sun ignited between his palms, its light so pure and violent that the Underworld itself seemed to shriek in protest. Shadows evaporated in a hundred-yard radius, and the souls in the distance wailed at the unfamiliar touch of warmth.
Harry hurled the false star forward. It roared through the air, a sphere of apocalyptic fusion aimed directly at the center of Hades' chest. For a fleeting second, the brilliance was so absolute that it looked like it would work, that the god would be vaporized where he stood.
Then, the shadows around Hades moved. They expanded into a colossal, weeping wall of darkness that wrapped around the miniature sun like grasping, suffocating hands. The darkness didn't just block the light, it ate it, draining the heat and crushing the star inward until it winked out in a violent, silent implosion that sent a shockwave of freezing air back at Harry.
Hades began to grow, his laughter turning into a booming, discordant sound. His form lost its human definition, becoming a towering, skeletal titan of shifting smoke and jagged bone. Massive wings of solidified shadow tore through his toga, casting a shroud of true night over the realm.
"INSIGNIFICANT!" Hades bellowed, his voice a primal roar of divine authority that rattled Harry's very soul.
Darkness erupted from the god's form like a tidal wave. It chased Harry across planes of existence, moving with a speed that tore through the layers of reality. Harry threw himself into the air, his clothes snapping like a whip as he cut down waves of shades, armored skeletons, and chimeras that manifested from the darkness to intercept him. He rebounded off a collapsing obsidian pillar, flooding the immediate area with blinding light to clear a path—
Only for a hand the size of a manor house to seize him mid-air.
Harry barely had time to brace his body with a layer of magic before he was slammed into the ground. The impact was so great it fractured the bedrock of the realm, sending a quake through the Fields of Asphodel that toppled ancient monuments miles away.
He coughed up a mouthful of blood, his vision swimming with dark spots. Before the god could bring his other fist down to pulverize him into the dirt, Harry tore open a rift in space and slipped through.
A titanic fist obliterated the space he'd occupied a millisecond prior, leaving a crater fifty feet deep.
Harry reappeared in the air, mere inches from the god's massive, smoke-wreathed arm. He didn't use a spell this time, he used his claws, calling forth Fenrir's authority. He raked them deep into the "flesh" of the arm, carving through the divine body and the smoke as if it were parchment.
A loud, agonized roar tore from Hades' throat, a sound of genuine shock. Golden blood, the ichor of the gods, sprayed out, sizzling like acid as it hit the ground.
Hades recoiled, shrinking back down to his "normal" size as he staggered, clutching his arm with a hand that trembled. He stared at the wound in disbelief, watching the golden fluid soak his sleeve.
"…How?" he whispered, his voice cracking. He looked at Harry, who was climbing out of a fresh rubble pile, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs.
Hades had been punched by Hercules, he had been blasted by Zeus, and he had taken hits from the titans of old. But he had never, and he meant never been injured like this before. This wasnt just a simple cut, no, this had cut him to his very essence. What made him him, what made him a god.
He had never felt the literal loss of his essence to a mortal being, worse of all. For the first time since the dawn of the world, the dawning horror of mortality flickered in the Lord of the Dead's eyes. He finally understood that Harry hadnt just been spewing out words.
"There it is," Harry said, his voice raspy. "The realization. The fear of death. Now we can actually start the real fight."
Harry didn't give him a second to process the fear. He rushed forward, spears of white-hot fire forming in the air around him like a halo as he moved. Hades snapped back to reality, his blue flames turning a dangerous red as he summoned a wall of darkness. But this time, Harry's fire didn't snuff out, it burned through the shadow.
Hades snarled, seizing two of the fire spears with his bare hands, his palms sizzling as he molded them together into a singular, massive fireball. He hurled it back with a scream of rage that shook the air.
'Okay, I had not expected him to catch them,' Harry thought, shifting his body mid-air with a violent twist. The fireball scorched his side as he dodged, the heat bubbling the fabric of his clothes, but Hades was already there, teleporting to his flank. A brutal strike sent Harry back into the ground, and before he could roll away, shadow chains erupted from the earth like vipers, binding his limbs.
Hades yanked the chains, dragging Harry forward and slamming him repeatedly against a jagged obsidian wall. Pain flared through Harry's spine, but he kept his eyes open, tracking the god's movements. He needed this close-range struggle to place the final pieces of his trap.
Harry raised his shackled hands, blood dripping from his knuckles. "Seven petals... bloom!"
Rho Aias. It was an imitation, of course, a manifestation of his memory of the conceptual shield. It formed just in time to block a storm of compressed minerals, diamond shards, obsidian spikes, and raw ores that Hades hurled at him with the force of a volcanic eruption. The shards rattled against the translucent petals, each impact sending a jarring vibration through Harry's arms.
Harry ripped open another rift, disappearing from the chains and reappearing high above the god's head. He unleashed a pillar of lightning, which Hades evaded by dissolving into smoke and reappearing yards away. Harry smirked at that and launched another bolt where he had disappeared to.
The fight dragged on, a relentless dance that turned the underworld into a wasteland of shattered pillars and scorched earth. Both were flagging. Harry's breathing was ragged, his lungs burning with every inhalation of the sulfurous air, and his vision was beginning to blur at the edges from sheer magical exhaustion. He was running on fumes, his core feeling like a hollowed-out shell.
Finally, a heavy blow from Hades caught Harry in the chest, sending him rolling across the cracked floor. He landed on his back, heaving for air, staring up at the dark, vaulted ceiling that was barely held together by his veil. He didn't move. just laid there.
Hades appeared a few feet away, limping heavily. The god was a mess. His left arm was gone, lopped off by a well-timed blast Harry had hidden in a flurry of sparks minutes earlier. Golden blood soaked the parched earth around him, turning the dust into a glittering, divine mud.
The god advanced like a predator that had finally cornered its prey after a day-long hunt. "What was that talk... about being my death?" Hades sneered, his voice trembling with a mixture of hatred and hidden relief, seeing his enemy down. "After all that... you're just another mortal... dying in the dirt of my kingdom."
Harry let out a weak, bubbly laugh, tasting the copper of his own blood. "I know, right?" he said cheerfully, looking up at the god with a gaze that remained terrifyingly sharp. "I really thought I'd do better. But I guess I'm a bit out of practice. I did try, though. That deserves a hand, doesn't it?" He glanced pointedly at the god's empty, bleeding sleeve. "Oh, wait. You can't."
Hades' blue flames exploded into a violent, blood-red crown of fire that reached the ceiling. "I will enjoy... torturing your soul... for all of eternity! I will build a cage of bone just for you!"
"Well," Harry said, pushing himself into a sitting position despite the protests of his body, blood streaking his grin into something monstrous. "I don't think so. Because I've already won."
"What?"
Before Hades could strike, the ground beneath him erupted in a blinding golden light. chains, interrupted from the ground as they bound the god's legs and his remaining arm, pulling him to the ground.
A wand snapped into Harry's hand.
"The decree is final, the verdict is cast. No armor of the divine, no lie of the past, shall stand before the Supreme Will! Sever! Judgment!"
Judgment (Breithiúnas an Uachtar).
A pillar of pure, white light crashed, hitting the god, Hades, who screamed as he felt his connection to the Underworld simply snap. The realm, which had been an extension of his will for eons, suddenly felt cold and foreign. He was cut off from his own home and domains.
His control over shadows, souls, and death vanished in an instant.
Roaring in primal fury, Hades broke through the golden chains with a final, desperate burst of physical strength and rushed at Harry. He sent the boy flying with a punch that would have killed a giant, then rushed forward to finish it. He had to kill him now, before the boy did anything else.
But as Hades lunged for the killing blow, His body locked up as if he had run into an invisible wall of solid lead.
Across the walls of the Underworld, runes ignited with a fierce, electric blue light. They covered the walls around the underworld.
"Do you like them?" Harry asked, standing up slowly and dusting off his scorched robes. "I carved them with lightning every time you 'dodged' one of my bolts. I wasn't missing, Hades."
He had used the entire fight to set this final trap. He knew he couldn't block Hades' power just like that, you couldn't build a dam in a rushing river after all, without either stopping or redirecting the river, the amount of Hades' power was simply too strong to overcome with brute force. But by using Judgment to "slow the current" and sever the god's connection to the realm, the runes could finally hold the weight of the god's remaining essence even if just for a minute
Harry summoned his lance. The white-and-gold weapon appeared in his hand, humming with power.
"This won't hold you long," Harry admitted, his voice cold and final. "But it doesn't have to. The dam just needs to hold for a few moments."
Hades screamed, forcing every last drop of his essence into his muscles, his face contorting as he fought the runic hold. He shattered the constraint with a final, desperate roar and lunged, only for four identical copies of Harry to manifest in a blur around him, grabbing his limbs and pinning him to the spot.
"Gae Bolg!" Harry shouted, his voice echoing through the silent realm.
The lance ignited with the light of a dying star, a brilliance that promised only oblivion. Harry hurled it with every ounce of his remaining strength.
"NOOOOOOOOOO!" Hades shrieked, the sound cut short as the weapon pierced his heart.
The Underworld exploded in a blinding, silent flash of divine white light, erasing the shadows.
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