CHAPTER 497: THE FALL OF OLYMPUS 12

The screams of the Hecatoncheires echoed across the shattered peak of Mount Olympus as Zeus’s divine lightning reached its absolute peak. The King of the Gods had endured their crushing grip for what felt like eons, his electrical form writhing and pulsing with barely contained fury. Now, with Hades fallen and Adam’s attention momentarily elsewhere, Zeus unleashed the full magnitude of his power.

The lightning that coursed through the titans’ bodies was no longer mere electricity—it was the primal force of creation itself, the same power that had forged the first spark of life in the primordial void. Each bolt carried the weight of Zeus’s absolute authority, the divine right that had made him King of the Gods.

Cottus screamed as fifty of his hundred arms simply vaporised, reduced to ash by the intensity of Zeus’s wrath. The titan’s grip loosened as agony beyond mortal comprehension coursed through his massive frame. His remaining arms, charred black and smoking, struggled to maintain their hold on the living lightning bolt that Zeus had become.

"You think..." Cottus gasped, his voice barely audible over the crackling of divine energy. "You think we will... release you?"

Briareus fared no better. The titan’s legendary strength, forged in the earliest days of creation, crumbled under Zeus’s assault. Eighty of his arms had been burned away entirely, while the remaining twenty hung limp and useless. His massive form swayed, held upright only by the desperate grip of his fellow titans.

"We... have waited... millennia..." Briareus wheezed, his words punctuated by the sizzling of his own flesh. "We... will not... fail..."

Gyges, the most stubborn of the three, held on longer than his brothers. His hundred fists continued to pummel Zeus’s electrical form even as they were reduced to charred bone. The titan’s will was absolute—he would die before releasing the god who had cast them into Tartarus.

But even the Hecatoncheires had limits.

Zeus’s form began to expand, his electrical essence growing brighter and more intense. The air around him distorted, turning to plasma that seared the titans’ remaining flesh. His voice, when it came, was the sound of thunder given consciousness.

"I AM ZEUS!" he roared, his words carrying the authority of cosmic order itself. "I AM THE KING OF THE GODS! AND YOU—YOU ARE NOTHING BUT RELICS!"

The explosion that followed was visible from every corner of the realm. Zeus’s electrical form detonated outward in a sphere of pure divine energy, the shockwave vaporising everything within a mile radius. The three Hecatoncheires, their massive forms reduced to shadows burned into the marble of Mount Olympus, were finally silenced.

When the light faded, Zeus stood in the center of a crater of melted stone, his form having returned to its humanoid shape. But this was not the Zeus who had entered the battle—this was something far more terrible. His eyes burned with the fury of a god who had been forced to use his full power, who had been humiliated by creatures he considered beneath his notice one too many times.

Blood trickled from wounds across his divine form, evidence of the titans’ desperate assault. His royal garments were torn and smoking, his crown of lightning cracked and flickering. But he stood, and that was what mattered.

"Adam," Zeus called out, his voice carrying across the devastated peak. "You have cost me much this day. My brothers lie dead, my mountain burns, and I have been forced to destroy allies who should have remained in chains."

The King of the Gods began to walk toward where Adam stood over the ashes of Hades, each step leaving molten footprints in the marble. Lightning danced around his form, but it was controlled now—precise, deadly, and absolutely focused.

"You think you have won something here?" Zeus continued, his voice growing in power with each word. "You think the death of my brothers makes you their equal? You are wrong, mortal. You are nothing but a parasite, feeding on power that was never meant for you."

Adam turned to face the approaching god, his dark energy blades materialising in his hands. The essence of Poseidon still coursed through his veins, adding oceanic fury to his chaotic power. The victory over Hades had filled him with the Lord of the Underworld’s authority over death itself. But looking at Zeus now, he realised the true magnitude of what he faced.

This was not just another god—this was the being who had overthrown the Titans, who had established the cosmic order that governed all existence. Zeus had ruled for eons not through mere strength, but through the absolute conviction that he was the rightful king of all creation.

"I am what I have made myself," Adam replied, his voice carrying the weight of his journey from a lesser imp to a divinity. "And I have made myself your equal."

Zeus laughed, the sound like thunder rolling across a summer sky. "My equal? You carry stolen fragments of divinity arranged in an unsightly patchwork, mortal. I am divinity itself, pure and undiluted. Let me show you the difference."

The King of the Gods raised his arms, and the very heavens responded. Storm clouds gathered above Mount Olympus, their depths roaring with lightning that put his earlier displays to shame. But this was not mere weather—Zeus was calling upon the fundamental forces that held the cosmos together.

"You want to know what true power looks like?" Zeus asked, his form beginning to glow with an inner light that hurt to look at directly. "You want to understand what it means to face the King of the Gods?"

The air around Zeus began to warp and twist as he drew upon power that predated creation itself. This was not the lightning of storms—this was the lightning of the void, the first spark that had ignited the universe. His form grew brighter, more terrible, until he became a being of pure divine energy barely contained within a humanoid shell.

"I have ruled for eternity," Zeus continued, his voice now carrying harmonics that resonated through multiple dimensions. "I have seen the birth and death of stars, watched civilisations rise and fall like waves upon the shore. I have been challenged by titans and monsters, by heroes and gods, and still I remain."

Lightning began to rain down from the gathered clouds, each bolt striking the marble around Adam. Zeus was not attacking yet—he was demonstrating his absolute control over the forces of creation.

"But you," Zeus said, his blazing eyes fixed on Adam, "you are an anomaly. A mistake that threatens the order I have spent eons building. And mistakes must be corrected."

Adam felt the weight of cosmic authority pressing down upon him, the absolute certainty of a being who had never truly been defeated. But he had come too far to surrender now. His marks sang in harmony as he prepared for the final confrontation of Olympus.

"Then correct me," Adam snarled, his dark energy blades erupting with chaotic power. "If you can."

Zeus smiled, and the expression was terrible to behold. "With pleasure."

The final battle for the fate of Olympus was about to begin, and the very foundations of reality trembled in anticipation of the clash between the King of the Gods and the mortal who refused to bow to any authority.