Brontos and his brothers arrived on the lowest floor of Tartarus, their caravan of Infrazels, Arkdemons, and Genomes workers trailing behind them with carts piled high with bricks and strange, glowing equipment.
The moment they stepped onto the scorched earth, the air thickened. Faces went pale. Cold sweat beaded on temples, and hearts hammered against ribs. Before them lay a mountain of corpses, and towering over it all was the headless bulk of an ancient obsidian dragon. Even in death, its aura was a physical weight, a suffocating blanket of primordial malice.
"Big brother..." Gygas whispered, his voice trembling. "Is that... real?"
Brontos didn't hear the fear. His eyes were wide, but with a craftsman's rapture. "Yes," he breathed, a slow smile spreading across his face. "What a marvel... what beautiful, beautiful body..."
A stunned silence fell over the workers. Gygas and the others exchanged horrified glances. One of the Infrazel workers elbowed another, gesturing with his head toward their master, his eyes wide with a mixture of fear and pity. The second worker just shook his head slowly, as if witnessing a great mind finally snap.
Brontos wiped drool from his chin as he strode forward, utterly captivated. He threw his arms around the dragon's leg, pressing his cheek against the cold, obsidian scales. "I can make an artifact-class armor from this! Ha!" He scrambled to a massive, scythe-like claw, running a bare finger along its razor edge. "Look at this polish! This edge could split a soul! Ah! I cut my finger!" he exclaimed, staring at the clean slice on his thumb. A single drop of blood welled up, and instantly, a web of violet-black poison began to crawl up his hand.
"Brother!"
"Master!"
The team surged forward in a panic, fumbling for antidotes. They emptied three different vials over the wound before the sinister color receded, leaving Brontos shaking his hand as if it had fallen asleep.
Click.
The entire mountain of corpses, dragon and all, vanished.
"Hey! Where's my dragon?!" Brontos freaked out, spinning in a circle.
"Calm down, Uncle." Hades's voice came from behind him, dry as dust.
"This is definitely your work!" Brontos accused, pointing a finger.
"The corpse has been moved to an upper floor for study," Hades confirmed, gesturing vaguely upward. "Now that the theatrics are over, shall we begin?"
"Hmph! Get on with it!" Brontos snapped, crossing his arms. From behind him, Gygas offered Hades a helpless, apologetic look. Hades gave a slight, understanding nod.
He handed Brontos a parchment. "This is the project. We need it functional in two days."
Brontos unrolled the scroll. His eyes widened. "A labyrinth?! In two days?!" He thrust the blueprint at his brother, who paled upon reading it.
"Yes," Hades said, leading them to the gaping maw of the giant chasm. "This is giant chasm. many dangerous creatures are prisoned in it."
"Like that dragon," Gygas murmured, his voice still shaky.
"Precisely," Hades replied. "That dragon possessed power equal to a Chief God. It was immune to magic and could neutralize any attack with its breath. And it was merely the beginning. More horrifying things slumber within. The labyrinth is our first and only line of defense."
Brontos folded his arms, a glint of professional challenge in his eyes. "Fine. We'll do it. But this," he shook the parchment, "is just a basic shape. Where are the details? Trap functions?"
Hades produced a second, much thicker scroll. "I have some ideas."
Brontos snatched it and began to read. A slow, wicked grin spread across his face. "Illusion traps that feed on regret... false paths that promise safety but lead to crushing walls... a corridor of endless psychological harassment... Hades, you are truly evil. They'll die of madness before anything else finds them."
Hades's smile was thin and humorless. "One does what one must." He then drew a small, seemingly ordinary pouch from his robes. When he opened it, the air hummed as he revealed four crystals that pulsed with the light of newborn stars. "The final component."
"Primordial essence!" several voices gasped in unison.
"Yes. I need you to weave these into a seal over the chasm itself."
Brontos tore his eyes from the glowing crystals, his expression turning serious. "It can be done. But it will not fully seal the rift. The power here is too fundamental."
"I know. We only need to slow the tide. Reduce the output to a trickle we can manage."
---
On a sun-scorched battlefield far above, Zelus, the god of zeal and rivalry, stood in grim silence. Across the field, Klymenos, a veteran Titan general, gave a confident smirk.
The battle horns sounded. The lines met with a deafening crash of steel. Zelus fought with controlled fury, but Klymenos's forces, better equipped and holding the high ground, began to push them back.
Then, inexplicably, a Titan horn blew the retreat. Klymenos's forces disengaged, their withdrawal disciplined and orderly.
Zelus watched them go, a cold knot tightening in his stomach. A feigned retreat. A classic trap. Prometheus's warning echoed in his mind: "Pallas plays a deeper game."
"Hold!" he roared, his voice cutting through his troops' battle-lust. "Do not pursue! Regroup!"
He sent scouts to track the enemy. Hours passed. No word returned.
His instincts screamed. "Fall back! Now! To the camp!"
It was too late.
Klymenos emerged from the surrounding hills, his force now four times its original size. At his side were Zelus's four scouts, their faces blank with betrayal.
"They sold us out..." Zelus muttered, his grip tightening on his sword.
"Shoot!" Klymenos commanded.
A black cloud of arrows blotted out the sun. Zelus's men raised their shields, but the arrows found gaps, piercing armor and flesh. His army fell around him. Soon, only Zelus remained, standing amidst the dead, his body a canvas of wounds, arrows protruding from his shoulder and thigh.
Klymenos grinned. "Surrender. Join us Zelus. Our King rewards loyalty far better than your fickle gods."
Zelus used his sword as a crutch to push himself upright. His vision swam, each breath a ragged gasp, but his voice was steady. "Then let me die standing."
"Kill him."
As dozens of soldiers rushed him, Zelus became a whirlwind of desperate, final violence. He parried, hacked, and used a dead man's shield as a springboard to hurl a spear that found a traitor's heart. But for every soldier he felled, two more took their place. As his strength finally failed, a shadow moved faster than sight. A sharp impact on the back of his neck, and the world vanished into nothing.
Out of nowhere, a figure in a hood and mask stood over his unconscious form. "Your fight is over," a female voice murmured.
Klymenos stared. "Who are you?"
One of the traitorous scouts stammered, "She is the general of the Underworld Legion!"
Julie removed her mask with a theatrical flourish. "Hi, I'm Julie. And I'll be your guide to the death door. I promise it will be painless."
"Hahahaha!! Death door!! Hahahah! Hey little girl, I am scared. See my hands are trembling in fear! See! Hahah!"
Klymenos and his army erupted in mocking laughter. Julie simply put her mask back on and drew a single dagger. It darkened to the deep crimson of clotted blood. Then, she let it go. It didn't fall. A dozen more appeared, hovering around her like a halo of slaughter.
For one silent second, they hung in the air. Then, they vanished.
What followed was not a battle, but a harvest. Dozens of crimson trails—like bloody scratches across reality itself—zigzagged through the enemy ranks faster than the eye could follow. There was no scream, no clash of metal. Just a soft, simultaneous thud as every soldier in Klymenos's army collapsed.
A scarlet haze, thick with stolen essence, flowed from the four thousand corpses and poured into Julie. She took a deep, satisfied breath as the bodies crumbled to ash, leaving only empty armor and weapons littering the field.
"See?" she said to the empty air. "I keep my promises."
She poured a healing potion over Zelus's worst wounds, lifted him onto a small boat she'd prepared, and rowed him back toward the allied island. As they neared the shore, she slipped over the side and vanished into the deep water, leaving the unconscious god to be found by the morning patrols, his survival become unsolved mystery.