The two gods—Hera and Apollo—had gone to THEY, dragging their pride through the mud like rotted corpses behind them, hoping, begging for help. Covering theft with murder. Mistakes with desperation.
In the coldest, most brutal truth, THEY had said they couldn't directly descend onto a Prime World like Earth without years—centuries even—of preparation. To do so would be to invite a war they weren't ready for. A war that would drag the Eldest Child of Existence into the field... or worse, rouse the Whole Mother herself. The consequences? Cataclysmic. Reality wouldn't survive the clash.
So instead, THEY offered her something else.
A weapon disguised as a mercy. A salvation wrapped in extinction.
Something the gods could use now, before Parker Nyxlith reached the full measure of his past power—before the youngest of the Existence's Bloodline rose to a place even his terrifying oldest sister would bow before.
Because if he reached that height?
There wouldn't be a second chance.
Olympus wouldn't fall in battle for it's sins. It would be erased before the first blow was ever thrown.
Hera didn't plan to sit around and watch that happen. Not when she'd finally seen the chessboard for what it was. After long hushed arguments with Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon, Apollo, Ares and Hermes they had all agreed—unanimously and without hesitation—that it was time to move first.
And so Hera had descended, clutching the box that dripped corruption into the very bones of the world. A box not meant to save Parker. But to end him.
It wasn't enough to bless mortals this time. It wasn't enough to bestow favors and pray for outcomes. No—the Big Three, Hera, Apollo, Hermes and even Ares—the blood-drunk war god himself—had whispered and schemed, forging a new plan.
They would create an army.
A force born under the blessings of Olympus, trained and twisted from the beginning with one sole purpose:
Weaken and destroy Prince Nyxlith.
But even that wasn't the full game.
Because this box in Hera's hands?
This cursed thing humming like a second heartbeat against her ribs?
It wasn't meant for the army.
It was meant for their Trump Cards.
The secrets locked away inside that hidden laboratory. Sleeping monsters stitched together by stolen divinity, forbidden rites, and pure fucking madness.
And soon, they'd be awake.
Hera tightened her grip on the box, her blue eyes flashing once as she drifted lower through the thick, trembling night. Somewhere, buried deep under concrete and bone and shattered dreams, the Trump Cards stirred.
And the world—the whole damn world—was about to learn what true fear looked like.
The night split open like an old scar.
Not with mercy. Not with warning.
But with inevitability.
From the tear in the heavens, they descended—not as saviors, not as heroes, but as survivalists. Like soldiers of old grudges and desperate calculations.
Apollo, Ares, Hermes, Hephaestus—and more, already standing below on the cracked soil of Earth, the box heavy against her hip like a second spine.
The air burned around them, thick with a pressure that made mountains want to kneel and oceans hold their breath. The stars themselves dimmed, their light peeling back from the presence now gathering over the mortal plane.
They hovered in a loose, broken halo above the trembling earth—robes and armor snapping in the gale, their faces carved in stone, their eyes older than sanity itself. Above their heads, the constellations twisted, reshaping stories humans had told for thousands of years.
"He's ascending too fast," Apollo muttered, his voice like cracked glass. "If we don't act now, we won't get another chance."
Ares cracked his knuckles once, the sound booming like war drums across the sky. "Yes! No more debates. No more hand-wringing. We move."
Hermes flipped a golden coin across his knuckles, catching it with a grin that tasted more like teeth than mirth. "We hand them gifts... let them do the bleeding for us."
Hephaestus grunted, his single molten eye burning low. "Tools for tools. Weapons for pawns."
Hera could hear them but said nothing.
Her silence bent the air heavier than words ever could, a queen already grieving the war she knew she could not truly win.
Above them, the sky pulsed once—then held its breath.
And then, as if the universe had finally resigned itself, they moved.
Each god lifted their hand, and power twisted awake in their palms—beautiful, terrible, hungry.
Apollo's orbs flared white-gold, burning clean and precise as a surgeon's blade.
Ares' sphere bled deep scarlet, throbbing with every war humanity ever dreamed of.
Hermes' orbs broke apart into a thousand laughing sparks, seeking cunning souls like thieves at a masquerade.
Hephaestus' gift dripped molten iron, slow and inevitable like the heart of a dying star.
Hera had too apart from the box and her's pulsed cold and steady, a sovereign decree wrapped in chains older than language.
Then, they hurled them.
Hundreds—no, thousands—of radiant orbs sliced through the night sky, carving streaks of furious gold across the blackness.
Each one was a promise.
Each one was a loaded gun.
But threaded inside each sphere... was something else.
Something older than Olympus.
Something black and whispering, woven from the same cold, creeping terror that clung to the box Hera cradled.
The mortals would never see it.
They would only feel the temptation, the ache in their bones, the whisper in their blood.
Down below, Earth stirred.
The lonely boy on the rooftop, staring up at the breaking sky.
The broken genius nursing his final shot at redemption in a basement.
The desperate soldier clenching his rifle tighter as something brushed his soul.
The would-be queen sharpening her ambitions like knives.
All of them would be touched.
Above them, the gods watched—silent, savage, half-sick with the knowledge of what they had unleashed.
Ares snorted once, the sound rough as chainmail. "Let's see if your little empire holds, Nyxlith," he muttered into the smoking night.
Hermes only flipped his coin once more, letting it vanish midair like a broken promise.
Hera stood motionless, letting the wind shred at her tunic, letting the cold bite into her flawless skin.
She watched the orbs fall.
And somewhere, far below the Earth's crust, deep in a lab forgotten by gods and monsters alike—