Max kissed Octavia goodbye at the edge of Pride and stepped into the streets alone.
The city was loud as always — neon screaming, sinners arguing, distant gunfire like background music — but none of it reached him. His mind was already running calculations.
"So," he muttered to himself while walking. "He can kill immortals, grant immortality, grant invulnerability, throw continent-level lightning, and punch like a freight train."
He exhaled slowly.
"I'm going to lose a lot in this fight."
The name Zeus alone carried weight. Not because of the man — but because of belief. Story. Myth. Narrative power layered on top of stolen magic.
Max tilted his head back and scanned the sky.
No storm clouds.
No divine pressure.
Nothing obvious.
"Damn," he growled. "It's going to be impossible to find that incest freak in a city this big."
He stopped walking.
"Fine," he muttered. "We're doing this the hard way."
His pupils dilated.
Reality opened.
Not fully omnipresent — that would kill him — but close enough to hurt.
The world exploded into information.
Every demon.
Every building.
Every whisper.
Every heartbeat.
Pride unfolded like a living map inside his skull.
He found Zeus.
Obscure corner.
Old church.
Followers.
Twelve of them.
Each radiated power roughly equal to a mid-tier Overlord.
"Of course he made apostles," Max hissed. "Of course he did."
His nose started bleeding.
"I've got maybe twenty seconds," he muttered. "Any longer and my brain turns into soup."
Black lightning crawled across his skin.
Not normal lightning.
Soul-eating lightning.
Tensura's void current fused with Jirasd's amplification.
Every second it existed, it grew stronger.
It also burned him alive.
His flesh blistered where the current touched.
"Worth it," he whispered.
He teleported.
The church appeared around him.
Desolate.
Rotting pews.
Cracked stained glass depicting false divinity.
The air smelled like worship gone sour.
"I don't remember this place existing," Max said quietly.
His future sight opened.
Two minutes ahead.
Two thousand timelines.
All ending in violence.
"…Good," he murmured. "At least I'm consistent."
He pushed the door open.
A magic arrow slammed into his shoulder.
It disintegrated mid-impact against the black lightning, but the force spun him half around.
Inside stood Zeus.
And twelve gods.
Not real gods.
Copies.
Miniature myths stitched together with belief and stolen authority.
Ares clone rushed first.
Hephaestus beside him.
Max moved once.
Black lightning erupted.
Both vanished.
Not killed.
Erased.
Arrows filled the air.
Apollo and Artemis clones firing in perfect sync.
Max stepped between future moments, dodging shots that hadn't technically been fired yet.
He hurled lightning.
Apollo vaporized.
Artemis—
Blocked.
Zeus caught the strike in his palm.
Lightning met lightning.
The church shook.
Zeus smiled.
The clones stood back up.
"…Hades," Max muttered.
Regeneration loop.
Soul anchoring.
Of course.
All thirteen attacked at once.
The pressure slammed into him like a collapsing building.
Black lightning surged harder.
His skin burned.
Muscle tore.
Scars formed faster than he could heal.
He was losing ground.
Zeus laughed.
"Imitation End," the false god thundered. "You think stolen power makes you divine?"
Max coughed blood.
"Not divine," he said hoarsely.
His core pulsed.
The End answered.
Power surged through him wrong.
Too much.
Too fast.
The church vanished in white noise.
Explosion.
Silence.
Then darkness.
He woke on concrete.
Pain first.
Then cold.
He sat up slowly.
Half his body had healed.
Half hadn't.
The scars remained.
Hellhound territory.
He recognized the scent.
"…Why here?" he muttered.
A scrap of newspaper fluttered past.
He caught it lazily.
The date froze his breath.
"…No," he whispered.
He stood.
The skyline looked younger.
Buildings missing.
Signs different.
The air itself felt… earlier.
"This," he said slowly, "is around the time I was supposed to meet Loona."
Not memory.
Not illusion.
Time displacement.
The explosion hadn't just knocked him out.
It had thrown him backwards.
Max laughed once.
Soft.
Tired.
"Great," he muttered.
He looked toward the city.
Toward a future that hadn't happened yet.
"Guess I get to do this all again."
And somewhere in Pride…
A younger Loona walked a street she hadn't yet met him on.
[AN: Well here you go, you get to see Max win their hearts himself. Now it will be easier than other stories might do if they put some thought into it but thats mostly cause his wish. And who knows, might do some stuff in the past that will change the future. Might even win Millie over if you guys want. What will he do next who knows. Enjoy!]
[PS. These events in the past chapters will not change what happened. Some little events might change but them being with Max, the break out of the Asylum, everything will happen mostly the same, just some details might change]