The Path of the Gods Part VI: Beyond Divinity
Zeus looked at the great black dragon rising over Olympus.
For an instant, his expression was one of surprise. Not fear. Not doubt. Pure surprise. Then that expression broke, twisting into uncontrolled fury.
He could not fully sense him.
And that was what enraged him the most.
It was not absence. It was not invisibility. It was something worse. He could feel him, but he could not measure him, could not contain him within the limits he understood. And what he could perceive irritated him even more: he had been used for the ascent of something greater.
Not a god.
But something dangerously close.
As if, without realizing it, he had been playing in the palms of another being, one that owed him neither obedience, nor respect, nor recognition.
That thought struck him like an affront.
His body began to crackle with lightning. The air around him grew dense, heavy with the metallic scent of burned ozone. The Master Bolt in his hand spat violent sparks as it grew in size, reflecting the absolute fury of its wielder.
Olympus itself seemed to react to his wrath.
Poseidon, on the other hand, wore a very different expression.
Not fury. Not wounded pride. It was complicated, tense, loaded with contradictions.
The enemy of Olympus stood before them, yes. But he was not an enemy driven by ambition, nor by a desire for conquest. He was one for something far more uncomfortable: he was the protector of his own son. His master.
Poseidon had never been a good father. He did not love all his children, not even most of them. Many he had abandoned in the past. Others he had pushed, directly or indirectly, into situations that ended up destroying them. And many more he had simply ignored.
His paternal love had always been unstable, conditional, subordinated to his pride. A pride that almost always stood above any family bond.
And now, the son he had barely accepted as his own had a protector willing to become the enemy of Olympus for him.
That made Poseidon glance at Percy for a brief instant.
Percy, who from the very beginning had never looked at him as a father. Percy, who had never truly needed him.
The sense of discomfort only intensified.
"Master!" Percy shouted, with genuine joy, unable to hide his emotion as he saw that black dragon form rise over Olympus.
The word rang out like a slap.
Zeus turned his head immediately.
Fury crossed his face as he pointed the Master Bolt directly at Percy, ready to annihilate him without hesitation, as if erasing the boy were a way to regain the control he had lost.
But he did not manage to do it.
A blaze of intense red fire cut across the sky and slammed into him.
The impact was immediate.
Within seconds, the ice covering Mount Olympus was engulfed in flames. The contrast was brutal: fire devouring sacred ice. The structures that still stood began to crack, to collapse.
In the lower regions of the mountain, the minor gods looked up with eyes wide open, unable to hide their shock and horror at the direct attack on Olympus.
Chaos erupted.
Divine servants and soldiers began to run in all directions, arming themselves quickly, preparing for total war. Unlike the supposed dispute between Poseidon and Zeus, which had never truly mattered to them, this was different.
This was not an argument between gods.
This was a direct attack on Olympus.
As Zeus was swallowed by flames, one of the dragon's hind claws descended and firmly grasped Percy.
"Your job ends here, brat. Go back to your friends," the massive creature said, looking at Percy one last time before making him disappear in a flash of magic.
That gesture left the field open.
The Master Bolt tore through the air with a deafening roar and plunged straight into Miraak's chest.
The thunder echoed across all of Olympus, making the entire mountain tremble, as if the world itself were reacting to the impact.
Miraak lowered his gaze.
He observed the massive hole torn open in his chest. His heart had been completely destroyed.
And yet, not a single drop of blood fell to the ground.
He no longer needed blood to live.
He did not even need a heart.
He only needed to know that he existed.
He slowly raised his face, as if the attack had caused him no discomfort at all.
"FO KRAH DIIN."
The shout resounded like a sentence.
The peak of Mount Olympus began to freeze instantly. Ice surged violently, covering the mountain and spreading uncontrollably toward the lower regions, reclaiming the sacred ground inch by inch.
Zeus roared in fury.
He raised the Master Bolt again and hurled it over and over with all his strength. Each impact pierced Miraak's body, opening enormous holes through scales and flesh, only to close instantly, as if the damage had never existed.
When one of the dragon's wings was finally destroyed, Miraak fell.
He crashed into the ground of Olympus with brutal force and, before Zeus, his body began to change, once more taking on his human form.
Zeus did not waste time.
The bolt was hurled at him again.
But Miraak was already in motion.
He rushed toward Zeus, sidestepping the attack as it passed by his flank. His black sword appeared in his hand in the same instant, cutting straight toward the god's chest.
Zeus reacted in time, using the Master Bolt like a tether to halt the strike.
"FUS RO DAH."
The impact shook the air.
Zeus took a step back.
It was not like with Ares, who had been sent flying. Zeus was on another level. But that was exactly what Miraak wanted.
He advanced one step and raised his foot, slamming it hard into Zeus's chest. The god lost his balance for an instant.
It was enough.
The sword came down with all its force.
For a brief moment, Zeus felt something he had not expected to feel: that this material, even if it could not kill him, could wound him. His pride reacted before his body, forcing him to move, to retreat.
The cut struck the frozen ground of Olympus.
Part of the mountain was cleaved apart, and enormous blocks of ice began to break free, falling downward and destroying sacred structures.
Each fragment that fell was another humiliation.
Zeus no longer spoke.
His face was serious, rigid, heavy with restrained fury. He understood that saying anything would be useless. He tried to expel Miraak from Olympus, hurling him away.
But every time he tried, Miraak's body became intangible, like mist itself, and reappeared instantly at the summit.
As if he refused to leave.
Or rather, as if he wanted the battle to be fought there, solely to continue destroying Zeus's pride before all others.
Neither of them returned to their full divine forms, nor to the dragon's form.
Both of them knew.
Neither could truly be destroyed.
And both understood it, though from different places.
Zeus sensed it in the way Miraak existed. He was not immortal in the divine sense. He was not sustained by worship, nor by faith, nor by a domain that could be taken away. He existed in a way that escaped the rules Zeus knew, and that irritated him deeply.
Miraak, for his part, had also understood it. When he tried to force the idea of Zeus's erasure as a threat, he realized almost immediately that it would not work completely. To erase Zeus, he would have to destroy Olympus in its entirety.
And that was far easier to say than to do.
Zeus was still an immensely powerful being. Even now.
They were not evenly matched in strength. They were matched in certainty. Both knew they could not kill each other, and that if their clash escalated any further, the resulting catastrophe would be impossible to hide.
Something that did not suit Zeus, with so many gods watching.
And something that did not suit Miraak for a different reason. He had not become more powerful by accepting CHIM. He had not gained raw strength nor absolute dominion. He had become impossible to destroy, nothing more.
If he wanted to become stronger, he would have to do so on his own.
But that did not mean he could not do something equally valuable.
Destroy Zeus's pride.
Make it clear that he could not act with impunity. That if he committed another foolish act, if he attacked Percy again or crossed a line, he would be there to remind him, before all the gods, that he was not untouchable.
Zeus's body turned into lightning.
He moved at an impossible speed to follow, reappearing behind Miraak in a blink. The Master Bolt transformed into a spear of pure energy and pierced through Miraak's back, bursting out through his chest, while the attack continued forward and destroyed even more of Mount Olympus.
The impact was devastating.
But Miraak's body became mist.
It dispersed into the air and reformed instantly at Zeus's side. In the same motion, he drove his black sword into the ground.
The impact shattered the sacred floor of Olympus, breaking it apart in all directions. Zeus lost his footing for a brief instant.
It was barely a second.
But enough.
Miraak raised both hands.
A rain of lightning descended from them.
It was not an attack meant to destroy Zeus. It was mockery. A cruel reflection. Using lightning against the god of lightning himself, not to defeat him, but to provoke him.
To humiliate him.
But the true target was not Zeus.
The lightning began to strike the thrones.
The sacred seats that still remained standing.
One after another.
Poseidon watched his throne.
That fisherman's seat that looked like a mockery among the others, yet symbolized his authority, his dominion, his place among the gods. Then he looked at his brother. Then at Mount Olympus, slowly being destroyed.
For an instant, his body tensed.
He seemed ready to intervene.
But something stopped him.
An invisible, ancient gaze resting upon him.
It did not frighten him. But he understood what it meant. If another god entered the battle, it would cease to be an internal dispute. It would become a war between pantheons.
And that must never happen.
What was worse was that Poseidon did not recognize that presence. He did not know where it came from. But he felt it as ancient as his own parents. Or perhaps older.
Miraak's body was struck again.
Half of his torso was annihilated by the Master Bolt, disintegrating in a flash of energy.
But before it could touch the ground, it vanished.
His form reconstituted itself immediately, intact, as if the damage had never existed.
As if his own reality dictated the shape he was meant to have.