Chapter 374: Olympus Falls
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20 April 1995, Mount Olympus, Greece
The four of them stood frozen as the gate remained open, revealing a gigantic, expressionless face—a familiar one at that. Five voices, one for each Olympian, spoke simultaneously, their voices echoing around the Labyrinth, "We are not done yet with you, Harry Potter!"
Today had been nothing more than miserable for Harry. He fought a demigod, a water elemental, then proceeded to be attacked by the fucking Olympian gods who happened to want to keep him bound to their plane, using his connection to the prophecy as some kind of safeguard. Then of course, by escaping through pure dumb luck, he ended up fighting the biggest monster he ever fought before. He was tired, his body was killing him, and his magic was exhausted. So, when these things somehow ripped open the gate to the Labyrinth, trying to stop them from escaping, the most he could feel, after his initial surprise, was pure fucking frustration as he hoped this cursed day would end.
Nevertheless, he put on a brave face, hiding how tired he felt, and spoke up, "You know, considering that your realm is being destroyed and everything, I thought you'd be a little too busy to care about little old me."
"Was this your doing?" the Olympians asked.
"As much as I'd love to claim to be responsible, I'm really just as surprised as you are. So, if this is about revenge, I can tell you for a fact that you wasted your time. So, you better go back trying to salvage your home before it's swallowed up into the void."
"You are still needed!"
Harry rolled his eyes, "Am I now? Your home is crumbling, piece by piece. There's a fucking hole in creation all around it. There's nothing I can do to stop that. I don't think there's anything you can do but try to mitigate the damage, to delay the inevitable. And as much as Olympus is nice, I'm sort of fond of being free and, you know, not living in a dying plane of existence. It's a personal preference more than anything. I guess with your very existence being bound to this place, you don't really get to make a choice. So, I guess with Olympus falling, you have a lot more at stake than I do."
"Olympus will never fall before the end of time itself," the spoke with a surety. They had said that before and it did pick up on its importance, of the imprint this proclamation had made. There was power in it, probably a prophecy of some sort.
Too bad Harry was going to ruin this for them, "This is a prophecy, isn't it? You think you're safe because you believe fate will protect you, and save your realm from falling. You wanted me there as assurance that you'll live for even more by delaying Ragnarök. I'm sorry to break it to you, but that doesn't mean much, not anymore. If you haven't noticed, the current Champions of the Light and Dark have been destroying one prophecy after another for the past year or so. What's one more prophecy added to their tally?"
It became very clear who was responsible for this. The prophecy alone was enough to make it obvious. This was Dumbledore's and Grindelwald's doing. Their plan was to break this prophecy, while also getting rid of the Olympians and their influence. It was the very definition of killing two birds with one stone, and now Harry was stuck in the middle.
The ironic part was that he hadn't sought this out, not like he did with the previous tasks. He didn't want to stop the two champions because he chose not to become the hero, chose not to involve himself in their machinations and ended up losing. He wanted to take Daphne and get away from it all, and yet he was pulled back in.
It was a doomed dream from the start, wasn't it? The idea that he would never be free of his role in all of this. And these beings, these Olympians, wanted to take even more, not just his life, but his very soul, and twist it to their own benefit.
No, he would not have it. He would not be so accommodating.
The Olympians froze for a second, showing that this little fact did unsettle them, before answering, "You will save our realm."
"You're joking, right? I can't, I literally can't. Your realm is being torn apart, overwhelmed by the void. There's nothing you can do to withstand that, nothing you can do to stop that."
"Then you will sing one into creation," they responded, "Or you shall perish with us."
What the fuck were they on about? Singing a fucking dimension into creation. What was he even doing, trying to talk to them? It was obvious that they were desperate, and desperate people weren't really known for being rational.
He just needed to get away, but the Labyrinth was entirely frozen. Even with the breaches all over the place, the destroyed walls and paths, the Olympians still held some form of control over it. He wouldn't be able to exit in time. He needed to manipulate the Labyrinth, but he couldn't exactly overpower the Olympians.
A small plan started to form in Harry's mind and he let out a small grin, walking forward with confidence, "You know, not a lot of people know that souls are some of the most resilient things in existence. It's sometimes faint, but they exist in every single dimension at once. It's the only reason you're still alive so far. In a way, every single soul to ever exist is very faintly connected to your realm. It's nothing much, not really, and the realm's collapse will do nothing for them. Dimensions die all the time, after all. But this connection is the only reason why you got any power through their faith."
They stayed silent and Harry continued, "All those people who lived in terror of you and your judgement, all those people whose ancestors devoted themselves, sacrificed themselves, to you. Their connection to your realm is far greater and what is happening here is affecting them, and yet you're doing nothing, just clinging to your survival, wishing to abandon their faith, the very reason you haven't been swallowed into the Light, in favour of making a new realm. This is very telling. You like to think you are gods, but what you're doing now tells me what your true nature is. You're all just parasites, trying to escape the consequences of your mistakes, and your hubris, while longing for the lives of others. You feed on them, on their memories of love and loss, birth and death, joy and sorrow. And you think I'm willing to sacrifice my existence to save you?"
"You are willing to die?" the Olympians spoke at once, their voices filled with confusion.
"Ah, no, I'm not going to die. None of us are. The four of us will make our escape, and there's precious little you can do about it."
"You cannot escape. We control the Labyrinth."
Harry's smile grew. "Of course you do. But you can't do much beyond the basics. That's why you had to tear it open yourself. Kronos made the Labyrinth, and after all these aeons, his rules hold firm. You had to stand guard and keep the gate open—and surely you know, if you can manifest here, then there's every chance someone here could meddle in your realm. I must say, though, quite impressive work taming that multi-headed dragon in Hera's gardens. Marvellous beast, isn't it? Not so much for its heads, but for its ability to absorb energy, to fuel itself. I had to, shall we say, coax it into feeding on its own power, to open a breach. Rather pleased with that one. But imagine, what if someone reversed it? What if the beast absorbed energy from the breach instead? To be fair, it'd be nearly impossible to manage that from outside your realm. Unless…well, unless you created a door to allow it, wouldn't you?"
As if it had been waiting for Harry to say it, a giant roar was heard from the other side of the gate, which quickly snapped shut. For a fraction of a second, before it had closed, Harry saw one of the dragon's heads. It had turned entirely black and warped space all around it. It was obviously a side effect of absorbing an insane amount of the energy of the void between realms. There were probably other complications, but it wasn't his problem, was it?
It had been a bit closer than he would have liked. He'd almost started rambling at the end to buy himself some time. He had to be very subtle when altering the magic circle, and the only reason he even managed to do it was because of the mess the breaches made of the realm. There was too much going on for the Olympians to notice a small drop of foreign magic altering a single spell.
Still, Harry knew that this was a temporary setback at best, at least on their end. It was a distraction, and so, Harry used the trump card he had been saving up for the past few days and opened a portal in the Labyrinth towards the exit. Manipulating the Labyrinth itself would have warned the Olympians that their control over the damned place had slipped.
He slowed down time and used Ariadne's Thread to show him the way out, only for it to fizzle out. It should have been a bad sign, but the artefact was obviously confused about which path to take with the space-time anomalies all over the Labyrinth. Still, it did give Harry enough room to exploit it and get a picture of the destination, which was more than enough to open a portal. He had quickly made it swallow him and his comrades; he found himself in a familiar gate.
Sure, the landing was rough, but Harry could tell that they were close. He quickly activated the gate and he could see the material plane on the other side. However, Harry's Arcane Hearing warned him that something was coming. Something was closing the gate, and Harry instinctively pushed the others out of the way, before it slammed shut.
A gigantic golden hand appeared from one of the breaches trying to smash him, and Harry activated the cloak to phase through it, before sending himself to the other side of the unstable columns. A breach of the ceiling allowed the gigantic hand to pry it open and try to grab him once more, but Harry was quick enough to avoid it and send a spear of necrotic energy into the limb.
He was about to run the other way, only for a gate to be pried open, "You cannot escape us, Harry Potter!"
Harry heaved, the sheer stress of what he had been through finally catching up to him. The Olympians' voices continued, "The gates to the material world have been sealed. You cannot leave the Labyrinth without our permission."
Desperate, Harry opened his Arcane Hearing, trying to find a way out, before bursting into laughter. It was an ugly thing, a mixture of pure incredulity and hysteria. The Olympians froze as he just couldn't stop laughing, "Your permission? That's funny. Do you seriously think that I need your permission for anything?"
And just like that the laughter stopped and Harry's face turned serious, "I am the last Peverell, the Lord of Space and Time, and you really should have run when you had the chance."
Before they could even process what he had said, Harry raised his hand, summoning a familiar orb. It was the one where he had sealed the soul of the weird fire demon that almost killed Johnson. He used the resurrection stone to channel the despicable soul itself into a spell, which he sang into existence while relying heavily on his family crest to do the heavy work.
And then, he did it, he let it go, into a slash. A veritable kaleidoscope of colours appeared around it, distorting space and time in a very familiar way. It was an attack that bypassed all dimensions thanks to the intrinsic properties of souls, something that could kill anything, but Harry didn't want to kill anyone. Instead, he aimed it at the connection between Olympus and the Labyrinth. It was a bit of a conceptual thing, rather than an actual bridge, but it was still there.
And just like that, the gate closed once more, and Harry knew that there was nothing that could even forge a connection with Olympus ever again. He had never done anything like that before. It was a mixture of how he created the Colt and how he created a multidimensional portal to another universe. Even then, it had only worked because the soul was so easily accessible, malleable without a body anchoring it properly, and it had been old, powerful enough to cause that kind of damage.
Still, he was absolutely exhausted and had pretty much nothing left in the tank. He limped to the entrance of the Labyrinth as it was slowly collapsing behind him, before activating the gate to the material world once more. He stepped through and instinctively knew that this was probably the last time anyone would ever enter or leave the Labyrinth ever again.
Of course, that was when Daphne ran towards him and enveloped him in a hug, "You're okay!"
"Yeah, I'm fine. There was just some trouble I needed to take care of first."
She glared at him, "Don't ever do that again."
He chuckled, "I promise. By the way, do you guys have any food, I'm famished."
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AN: I had this piece of lore planned that the multi-headed dragon (Ladon from Greek Mythology) was actually a creature from the void between worlds (called Typhon), that Kronos tamed, but I couldn't really find a way to add it to the chapter in a way that made sense. Anyway, while they did escape the Labyrinth, there's still a bit of action left (Won't spoil more than that, sorry, but it's a big one). Anyway, as usual, please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.
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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr
I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.