The battlefield was a ruin of blood and shadow. The very earth trembled beneath the weight of unleashed power, and the air was thick with the stench of death.

  Poseidon’s own forces were crumbling. The Voidbound Legion tore through his ranks like wolves among sheep, their twisted forms gleaming with dark intent. The mortals who had survived the first wave were dwindling, their strength failing against the sheer savagery of Erebus’s creations.

  The sky itself was a wound, the Black Sun Veil pulsing with a sickening rhythm that clawed at Poseidon’s mind. Every heartbeat was an echo of pain. Every breath a struggle against madness.

  “Father!” Triton cried out, his voice breaking through the chaos. “We’re losing control!”

  “I know,” Poseidon snarled, his gaze flickering with fury. “But we will not fall here. Not like this.”

  “But how?!” Triton’s eyes were wide, desperate. “Their power is beyond anything we’ve ever faced.”

  “Then we must become more,” Poseidon replied, his voice grim. “The Curator was right. Symbiosis must be a true union. One of will and essence. But the process is incomplete.”

  “Then complete it,” Triton urged. “Before everything is lost.”

  Poseidon’s jaw clenched, his trident trembling with the force of his conflicted emotions. He could feel the weight of his own arrogance pressing down upon him. The knowledge that he had caused this. That his own fractured essence had led them to this point. It had become a nightmare of blood and shadow.

  Poseidon’s command to the mortals — to embrace his essence through Symbiosis — had sent ripples of energy throughout the world. Some accepted the offer with courage, their wills merging with the fragments of his power. Others broke beneath the weight of the gift, their minds shattering into madness.

  But those who survived were changing. Evolving. Becoming something new.

  “Father! Look!” Triton shouted, pointing toward the front lines. “They’re holding their own!”

  Poseidon followed his son’s gaze. Mortal warriors fought with a ferocity and skill far beyond what should have been possible. Their weapons gleamed with divine light, their movements precise and powerful.

  It was working. Symbiosis was working.

  “Perhaps there is hope after all,” Poseidon murmured.

  “Hope?” The Curator’s voice was grim. “Hope is only as strong as the will that guides it. And your will is not yet united.”

  Poseidon shot him a glare. “I am learning.”

  “And so are they,” the Curator replied, nodding toward the mortals below. “But you must also learn from them. This war cannot be won by sheer force alone. It requires adaptation. Understanding. Sacrifice.”

  A thunderous crash shook the ground beneath them. Poseidon’s gaze snapped upward, his eyes widening as the sky itself began to twist.

  “Erebus,” Poseidon growled. “He’s unleashing something new.”

  High above the battlefield, a rift tore through the sky. But this was not the void of the Black Sun Veil. It was something different.

  A distortion of time.

  Poseidon’s mind raced, his thoughts like crashing waves. He could feel it now. A force he had not sensed in millennia.

  “Kronos.”

  The name tasted like poison on his tongue. The Titan who had murdered his own father, Uranus also known as Buri, in a desperate bid for power. But why now? Why would Kronos interfere in this war?

  A booming voice thundered across the battlefield, the words echoing like the grinding of mountains.

  “I have seen the truth. The only way to preserve my own existence is to ensure the destruction of all who would seek to usurp me.”

  Poseidon’s eyes narrowed as the sky twisted, the air turning frigid with unnatural force.

  Kronos appeared like a shadow given flesh, his form a twisted amalgamation of time’s decay and raw power. His eyes were burning voids, his hands wielding a sickle that shimmered with the essence of broken moments.

  He lashed out, his weapon cleaving through the ranks of mortal warriors, tearing their very existence from the fabric of reality.

  “Fool,” Poseidon roared. “What madness drives you to this?”

  “It is not madness. It is survival,” Kronos replied, his voice cold and absolute. “I have seen what you and your kin will become. Gods of power who seek to overthrow me. My only hope is to ally with Erebus and undo your very existence.”

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  Then the world went still. A terrible silence spread across the battlefield, as if the very air had been stolen from their lungs. And from that silence came a voice. Deep. Cold. Absolute.

  “Fools. Children playing with fire they cannot control.”

  Poseidon’s blood turned to ice as the air itself seemed to thicken, time slowing to a crawl. He looked to the sky and saw the figure of Kronos, his form wreathed in the shimmering distortion of frozen moments. The Titan’s eyes were twin abysses of darkness, his hands gripping the Sickle of Aeons, a weapon forged from the essence of broken time itself.

  “Kronos...” Poseidon whispered.

  “Why do you fight against inevitability?” Kronos’s voice was a thunderclap, his presence rippling through the battlefield. “You cling to your power, desperate to preserve your own existence. But your doom has already been written.”

  Kronos laughed, the sound cold and hollow. “I will ensure that all who dare defy me are erased from existence.”

  The air around him twisted, reality itself warping beneath the weight of his power. Poseidon could feel the fabric of time tearing, his own senses flickering between moments that had not yet occurred.

  With a single motion, Kronos swept his sickle across the battlefield. The world fractured. Poseidon’s vision blurred, his thoughts crumbling beneath the weight of temporal distortion. Warriors froze in mid-strike, their bodies suspended in twisted moments of agony.

  “Father!” Triton cried out, his voice distorted and broken.

  Poseidon struggled to hold himself together. His trident trembled, its fractured essence reacting violently to the distortion of time. He could feel Rahab’s rage boiling within him, screaming for destruction, while Raguel’s calm presence fought to restore order. But the conflict within himself only made him weaker.

  “Enough!” Kronos roared. “You have failed to understand your place, Poseidon. You are nothing but a relic of a broken order. And now you shall be cast into oblivion.”

  Odin’s focus narrowed to a razor’s edge. His spear, Gungnir, vibrated in his grip, its Celestial metal humming with a power that strained against the distortion of time. Beside him, Zeus’s hands crackled with raw energy, lightning twisting around his fists like living serpents.

  Kronos stood before them, his form a shadowed giant wrapped in shimmering strands of broken moments. The Sickle of Aeons in his hand gleamed with the terrible radiance of absolute entropy.

  “I am the master of time,” Kronos thundered. “You are nothing but fleeting shadows.”

  “Yet somehow, we remain.” Odin’s voice was cold and sharp, his gaze unyielding. “Your time has come to an end.”

  Kronos lunged forward, his sickle sweeping the air with a savage precision. Odin twisted his body with unnatural fluidity, dodging to the side as the weapon carved a rift through the battlefield. The very fabric of reality quaked under the force, leaving a twisted scar of darkness in its wake.

  Zeus’s fists erupted with lightning as he charged, his body moving with the grace of a storm. His blows rained down upon Kronos, each strike aimed at vital points — neck, chest, knees, joints — a perfect blend of martial skill and raw force.

  But Kronos was not so easily defeated. His movements were swift, controlled, each slash of his sickle guided by the terrible precision of a master who had spent eons honing his craft.

  Odin and Zeus fought with a calculated synergy, their attacks weaving around one another with the elegance of a deadly dance. Lightning clashed against the sickle’s edge, sparks hissing as raw power met the essence of time itself.

  Odin circled Kronos, his eyes scanning for weaknesses. His mind raced with possibilities, every calculated step designed to create an opening.

  Zeus pressed the attack, his strikes growing more ferocious. The air crackled with each blow, the energy building into a crescendo of rage and desperation.

  “Now, Odin!” Zeus roared. “Strike while he’s distracted!”

  Odin’s spear cut through the air, a flash of light aimed directly at Kronos’s throat. But the Titan twisted his body, the attack missing by a mere breath. The sickle lashed out, its blade slicing toward Odin’s chest.

  Odin dropped to the ground, rolling with precision before launching himself upward, his spear whirling in a defensive arc.

  “This is not working,” Odin grunted. “We’re attacking him, but we’re not severing his control over time itself.”

  “Then we have to break the lock,” Zeus replied, his eyes blazing with fury. “We have to fight him on his own terms.”

  Odin’s mind raced. If Kronos’s power was derived from his control over time, then disrupting that control was the key. But how?

  The answer struck him like a flash of lightning. Kronos’s own power could be turned against him.

  “Odin!” Zeus cried, his voice a thunderous echo. “Do you see it?”

  “I do.” Odin’s eyes narrowed, his grip tightening around Gungnir. “We have to shatter the lock. Together.”

  Their powers intertwined, Zeus’s lightning crackling against the temporal distortion, forcing it to recoil. Odin focused his will, his spear resonating with the very essence of time itself.

  The air shuddered as Odin’s power surged. He could feel the threads of time unraveling, Kronos’s hold over them beginning to break.

  “No!” Kronos bellowed, his eyes wild with fury. “You cannot defy me!”

  “We already have.” Odin’s voice was a whisper of ice. “And now, you will fall.”

  The lock shattered. Time resumed. Kronos roared in pain as his power faltered, the Sickle of Aeons trembling in his hand. But even weakened, he was still a force of unimaginable destruction. His attacks grew erratic, savage, a beast lashing out in desperation.

  But then, the earth split open, and from the churning depths emerged Hades. His eyes were cold and merciless, his armor gleaming like obsidian. Behind him, an army of Undead surged forth, their ghastly forms ripping through the Voidkin with a terrifying efficiency.

  “Kronos!” Hades’s voice was a hiss of vengeance. “Your reign ends here.”

  “Hades…” Kronos growled. “You should have remained in the depths where you belong.”

  “I do not belong in darkness,” Hades replied, his gaze burning with intensity. “In this dimension, I command it.”

  Odin and Zeus struck in unison, their powers slamming into Kronos’s chest with a force that fractured the very ground. Kronos staggered, his form wavering.

  Hades raised his hand, and a rift opened beneath Kronos, the twisted darkness of Tartarus yawning like a hungry maw.

  “It is over, Kronos,” Hades whispered. “Into the abyss where you belong.”

  Kronos’s screams were a symphony of rage and despair as the pit consumed him. The last glimpse of his burning eyes faded into the blackness, his voice a haunting echo.

  The ground sealed. The silence was deafening.

  But even as they caught their breath, Poseidon felt it. A shadow growing beyond the edge of perception.

  Erebus was coming.

  And this battle was far from over.