The winds howled across the rocky slopes, but not with menace.
With momentum.
Zeus stepped out from the mouth of the underworld, his cloak fluttering behind him like a torn banner of rebellion. Sparks of lightning still clung to his shoulders, echoing the fight that had just taken place deep in Tartarus. Behind him, his siblings emerged one by one—Hades, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, Hestia—each carrying the weight of survival and purpose.
And what they saw before them?
Made them stop.
The ground was scorched. Titan soldiers lay unconscious or groaning in the dirt. Craters smoked. Rubble steamed. And at the center of the destruction…
Atlas.
Laid out flat, face-first in a ditch, massive arms chained with glowing binds of divine energy.
Standing over him were Prometheus and Epimetheus—both bruised, scorched, and completely unfazed.
Prometheus looked up, tossing a nod toward Zeus. "You took your sweet time."
Epimetheus waved. "Miss anything?"
Zeus couldn't help but chuckle. "No. You handled it."
Poseidon whistled as he stepped over a cracked helmet. "Looks like you two threw a party and didn't invite us."
"Next time, bring drinks," Epimetheus replied with a wink.
Zeus walked over to Atlas's massive form and stared down at the Titan who once held the sky on his back. "Tie him tighter. I want him to wake up knowing who took him down."
Prometheus nodded, extending his palm. The chains pulsed brighter, wrapping tighter with fire-wrought locks. Epimetheus kicked the base of the chains for extra measure.
With a flash of golden light, the two brothers vanished—taking Atlas to a special prison at Mount Dikti, the gods' growing base of operations.
The others stood in silence for a moment.
Hera crossed her arms. "One by one, they'll fall."
Zeus stared at the horizon, his smile fading.
"Not yet," he said. "One has yet to fall."
Mount Othrys
The air was wrong.
Even the shadows avoided the Titan throne room. The ceiling seemed lower. The walls pulsed with unease. And at the center of it all, Cronus sat frozen.
Still.
Seething.
A Titan general knelt before him, forehead pressed to the cracked obsidian floor. His voice trembled.
"My king… Atlas has been captured."
Silence.
The words echoed like curses.
Cronus didn't blink.
The general swallowed and continued. "He was overpowered at the entrance of the underworld. Prometheus and Epimetheus fought him… and won."
Still silence.
Then—
Crack.
The armrest beneath Cronus's grip split in half. His fingers clenched until the throne itself moaned in pain. Divine energy spilled from his body in waves, distorting the space around him. The stone at his feet began to melt.
"I forged him in storms," Cronus muttered, eyes twitching. "I raised him to carry the sky. And you tell me… he was captured?"
The general dared not move.
Cronus stood slowly, every motion sending tremors through the chamber. His cloak dragged behind him like night itself. The air thickened with raw time magic—blades of light slicing through the dust as if the room couldn't decide which moment it belonged to.
"Zeus…" he whispered.
Then, louder—
"ZEUS!!!"
His voice split the hall like thunder cracking the world. Columns shattered. Statues crumbled. A gust of ancient wind tore through the chamber, ripping through banners and peeling stone from the walls.
"He dares take MY son?" Cronus hissed, eyes glowing brighter now. "He dares free the monsters of Tartarus? He thinks the world will bow to a child born in a cave?!"
He stepped forward.
And with each step, time warped around him.
One footstep—flowers bloomed and died in seconds.
Another—iron rusted, rebuilt itself, and collapsed again.
He clenched his hand, summoning his sickle, its edge dripping with liquid time. Visions of broken futures flickered behind him—Olympus in flames, gods on their knees.
"I will end him," Cronus snarled. "Not just his body… but his name. His echo."
He turned to the other Titans gathered behind him—Hyperion, Iapetus, Coeus, Crius… and the younger titanic children of destruction.
"My kin," Cronus said darkly. "They want war…"
He raised the sickle.
"Then let them drown in it."
With a single sweep of his blade, the air tore apart—revealing a rift in the sky itself. A swirling portal opened, leading to a gathering storm unlike anything the world had ever seen.
"Summon the full host. Let Oceanus hide. Let Themis watch from her seat. I will crush them all."
And through that portal, the Titan King marched.
Not like a ruler.
Like a cataclysm.
Because the age of waiting was over.
And now…
The true Titanomachy had begun.
The Mountain Forge – Deep Beneath Mount Dikti
The cave was hot. Not just from heat—but power. The kind that hummed in the walls and rumbled underfoot like a sleeping giant. Magma veins glowed across the obsidian stone, casting a dim orange light across the chamber.
Three towering figures stood before Zeus. Their eyes burned like furnace coals, their arms thick with muscle and soot. Each one had only a single eye, glowing bright and wide in the middle of their foreheads.
The Cyclopes.
Brontes.
Steropes.
Arges.
Gods of forge and fury.
Zeus stood before them, arms folded behind his back, expression steady.
"I want you to forge weapons. For me. For my siblings,"
his voice was clear, calm—no hesitation.
"My father and the Titans on his side won't wait for us to gather strength. They'll attack. We can't be caught off guard."
Brontes, the largest of the three, stepped forward. His chest was scarred, his hammer slung across his back like a mountain.
"You freed us,"
he rumbled.
"From darkness. From chains. That debt is not small."
Steropes grunted, gripping the handle of his forge-hammer tighter.
"We will craft your weapons, child of storm. Not for payment. For war."
Arges tilted his head, his voice softer but sharper.
"But we will need what was taken from us. The ancient forges. The old tools. The sacred fire."
Zeus smirked.
"That won't be a problem."
He turned, lightning crackling faintly at his heels as he walked. The Cyclopes followed, the ground trembling under their steps.
Mount Dikti — The Hidden Heart
Zeus led them through a winding path carved from silverstone and volcanic glass. The deeper they went, the thicker the air became—warmer, charged. Finally, the tunnel widened, and they stepped into a massive underground chamber.
It wasn't natural.
It pulsed.
Massive gearworks spun slowly in the walls, powered by streams of glowing magma. Anvils floated above molten rivers. Chains hung from the ceiling like iron vines. Crystal pillars rose from the ground, humming with divine resonance.
This wasn't a forge.
It was a forgotten god's workshop.
Arges gasped.
"This is—"
Brontes's voice cut in, low and full of awe.
"The World-Forge…"
Steropes knelt, running a thick finger along one of the etched anvils. Symbols danced to life beneath his touch.
"No Titan could enter here," he muttered.
"This place rejects them. It's older than them. Maybe older than gods."
Zeus walked into the center of the forge, then turned around, cloak flicking like a thundercloud behind him.
"I found this place when I was training. I didn't know what it was at first."
The Cyclopes looked at each other.
Brontes grinned, baring jagged teeth.
"Then let's wake it up."