The world returned in fragments of pain and blurry light. A shadow loomed over his cot. Instinct screamed danger before thought could form. Zelus lunged, his fingers closing around the cold, heavy bronze of a candleholder. He swung it like a club at the figure's head.
"Wait!"
Bia's voice cut through the haze. He froze, weapon poised mid-strike. His vision cleared to reveal his siblings—Nike, Bia, Kratos—by the tent entrance. The nurse he'd nearly brained stood pressed against the far canvas, her hand clamped over her mouth, eyes wide with pure terror.
Shame, hot and sharp, washed over him. "I... apologize," he rasped, lowering the candleholder. The nurse didn't speak, fleeing the tent with a frantic rustle of cloth.
As the tent flap settled, it opened again. Metis and Prometheus entered. "How are you feeling?" Prometheus asked, his voice calm.
Zelus looked down at his body, a canvas of bandages. "Alive." His hands clenched into fists on the sheets. "What happened on the battlefield?"
Metis stepped closer. "Your report is missing. Tell us."
"Betrayed," Zelus spat, the word tasting of iron and ash. "Our own scouts. They sold us to Klymenos. Led us into a canyon, and then his true force appeared—four times our number. They sealed the only exit." He recounted the desperate, hopeless fight, his voice growing tighter with each sentence until it fell away. He looked up, a sudden, chilling realization dawning. "I fell... I lost consciousness. How am I here?"
Prometheus exchanged a glance with Metis. "Klymenos and his entire army vanished. They left behind only their armor and weapons, untouched. We found you alone, wounded, adrift in a small boat near the shore."
The look that passed between the strategists was brief, but Kratos, from his silent post by the entrance, did not miss it. He turned and left without a word.
---
Kratos found the Underworld Legion's camp at the southern coast. It was less a camp and more a fortress. A bird-call whistle echoed from the trees as he approached 'a scout's warning'. He felt the prickle of arrows tracking his movement long before he saw the archers.
A soldier emerged from the gate. "General Kratos. General Julie is expecting you."
He was led through the gate and a shimmering, invisible barrier. The camp within was a model of grim efficiency. Julie sat in her command tent, a table of food between them.
"Please," she said, a faint, knowing smile on her lips. "Sit. Eat."
He sat. With a snap of her fingers, the food arranged itself on his plate. He took a single, deliberate bite, his eyes never leaving her. 'She is a coiled snake' he thought. 'Politeness over a pit of knives.'
"I do not care for empty talk," he stated, setting the utensil down. "Is the Underworld Legion the reason Klymenos vanished into dust and my foolish brother still draws breath? Were you also the shadow behind Nike and Bia's survival?"
Julie's smile didn't falter, but it grew still, polished to an icy perfection. "That is quite an accusation. What would make you think such a thing?"
"I hear many things whispered on the wind," Kratos rumbled. "Prometheus and Metis speak in cautious theories. I deal in certainties. My certainty is that our mother's hand moves in the dark. My request is simple: the war I fight is my own. Do not interfere."
"We cannot promise where our duties will take us," Julie replied, her voice a silken threat.
Kratos stood. His aura erupted, a crushing, tangible weight that sought to press her into the earth. "Then be ready to face me."
Julie didn't flinch. She didn't even seem to strain. Her own power rose to meet his—a vast, dark, seamless pressure that absorbed his onslaught without a ripple. She offered him a small, cold smile.
Kratos grunted, a sound of pure acknowledgment. He turned and left, the message received and understood.
---
At dawn, Kratos stood facing an ocean of enemy soldiers. His own force, a paltry few thousand, seemed a fragile raft against the tide. Across the field, Moraxes, the Titan of Fire, stood wreathed in heat haze, his skin glowing like cracked embers beneath scorched armor.
The battle horns sounded. Kratos roared, "Charge!"
His army did not move.
He turned. His own captain stood behind him, a grin splitting his face, the hilt of a dagger buried deep in Kratos's back.
"Sorry, my lord," the captain said. "Their offer was far greater."
Agony, white-hot and searing, shot through him. Kratos's eyes burned crimson. He grabbed the man's wrist before he could pull the blade free. "Your mistake," Kratos growled, "was not taking my head!"
His other hand moved in a blur. The battle axe swept up and across, severing the captain's head from his shoulders in a single, clean arc.
He ripped the dagger from his own back as his entire army, every last soldier leveled their spears at him. A grim, terrifying smile finally touched his lips. "Come."
What followed was not a battle, but a harvest. He moved through the traitors like a scythe, a whirlwind of gore and shattered steel. But for every man he felled, a spear point found his flesh, a sword bit into his side. Soon, he was a bloody pillar of ruin, a spearhead lodged in his shoulder, his breath a ragged fire. The remaining traitors, their courage breaking at the monster they had created, turned and fled toward Moraxes's lines.
"Mercy! Lord Moraxes, we—"
The Titan snorted. "Hmph. Weaklings." He raised a hand, and a wall of divine flame incinerated the deserters to ash. He turned his burning gaze to his own host. "Attack! Any who hold back will share their fate!"
From a distant ridge, invisible, Julie watched. "Impressive," she murmured, observing Kratos's bloody dance. "But can you able to face Moraxes after this?"
The Moraxes army charged. Moraxes hurled a fireball that struck Kratos square in the chest, throwing him backward. His world dissolved into heat and agony. His skin blistered and blackened; the stench of his own burning flesh filled his nostrils. He was being baked alive within his armor.
This is it, a distant, rational part of his mind conceded. This is the end.
'No!'
The denial was not a thought, but a fundamental law of his existence, a force that rewrote reality. A resonant SNAP echoed in the core of his soul—the sound of a chain he never knew existed shattering into nothing.
The Unbound Will.
A corona of violent, crimson energy erupted from him, scouring the flames from his body. His blistered skin smoothed over, replaced by tissue as hard as god-forged iron. The exhaustion vanished, replaced by a bottomless, roaring well of power. The pain remained, but it was no longer a weakness, it was fuel.
"What?!" Moraxes roared.
Julie, who had been poised to intervene, let out a soft, startled laugh. "Well then." She faded back into the shadows.
Then Moraxes charges with fast, blinding, the ground beneath his feet turning to embers. His flaming sword slashes through the air, a trail of light against the gray horizon.
Kratos pivots. The axe meets the sword with a crash that sends sparks flying not just from fire, but from steel.
The flames lick his arms, but he doesn't flinch.
Moraxes presses forward, his sword whirling in heated arcs. Each swing leaves burning trails that scar the earth. Kratos blocks, steps back, and times his breaths waiting and reading his movement.
Moraxes thrusts, the sword flaring like a dragon's breath. Fire explodes from the blade, engulfing Kratos in a storm of heat.
For a moment, it seems over.
But through the flames, a silhouette moves slowly, like a boulder rolling downhill. The fire parts. Kratos bursts through, skin blackened but eyes blazing colder than iron.
Moraxes swings again. But this time Kratos parries with the haft, twists, and shoulder-checks him hard enough to send sparks flying from his armor.
The Moraxes stumbles. The axe roars down, cracking into the sword's flat, the flames flicker, falter, and die.
Moraxes tries to rekindle them, try to stand up but Kratos doesn't give him time. He swings low, catching Moraxes's leg, sending him sprawling.
Moraxes, desperate, thrusts upward fire reignites in one final blaze. But Kratos sidesteps, plants his foot, and brings the axe down with both hands.
As the flames died, Moraxes stared, his fire guttering. Kratos sidestepped a feeble thrust, planted his foot, and brought his axe down in a cleaving arc that split the Titan's helm, his skull, and the ground beneath him.
Silence.
The Titan army broke, scattering to the winds. Kratos did not pursue. He turned, his body a testament to carnage, and began the long, slow walk back to camp, dragging his exhaustion and his victory behind him.
---
Kratos reached the allied camp as the sun was setting. The guards at the gate saw his approach and fell silent. He walked through the entrance, and the noise of the camp, the talking, the hammering, the movement stopped completely.
Everyone stared.
He was covered in blood from head to foot. It was dried and cracked on his armor and skin. There were burns on his arms and face, some old, some newly healed into pink scars. He smelled of blood, smoke, and something metallic.
He didn't look at anyone. He walked straight to the water tub near the horse posts, gripped the edge, and poured the entire contents over himself.
Water rushed down his body, turning red as it hit the ground. It washed away some of the blood, but most of it remained, staining his skin and armor a dark brownish-red. He stood there dripping, looking even more terrifying wet than he had dry.
General Theron approached slowly. His hands were shaking. "Kratos," he said, his voice unsteady. "Your army... where are your soldiers?"
Kratos turned his head. His eyes were tired but hard. "They turned on me," he said, his voice flat. "I killed them all." He paused, letting the words hang in the air. "Then I killed Moraxes."
Theron's face went pale. He backed away quickly, then turned and nearly ran into the crowd.
The news spread through the camp in whispers.
"He fought his whole army alone."
"He killed everyone who betrayed him."
"And then he killed the Fire Titan."
"Look at him. Drenched in blood."
Soldiers who had once joked with Kratos now looked at him with fear. They saw the blood caked on his armor, the cold look in his eyes, and understood that this was not the same commander they knew.
As he walked toward his tent, leaving red footprints on the ground, the name came from the crowd. It wasn't shouted, but murmured, passed from one soldier to another.
They didn't call him by his name anymore.
From that day forward, they called him Crimson Death.'