Aras II A.K.A the Cripple and the Monster

I was locked in combat with a god. Fighting a deity was an endeavor of incomparable folly, distinctly disparate from engaging with either immortal or mortal opponents.

Gods were not flesh; they were not imbued with life as mortals comprehend it. Rather, they were manifestation, corporeal embodiments of abstract concepts and ideas.

What significance did a blade hold against War itself? What use was a spear against the very sun?

No, to vanquish a god, one needed either unimaginable strength, transcending the natural order or to wield a creation of such magnitude as to rival the infinity they embodied.

I descended amidst the ceaseless automatons like a meteor. My armor coiled around me, both shielding and empowering me, as I crushed the animated weapons wrought of divine metal beneath my feet.

A blade of lightning surged toward my neck, swifter than a lightning bolt of the sky lord.

It moved with such celerity, so flawlessly executed, that evasion seemed futile. I, a mere Cyclops, should have perished.

Yet, were it not for my armor, I would have been killed. My body moved of its own accord, gracefully sidestepping the lethal strike, as though guided by a dancer's finesse.

From the corner of my singular eye, I beheld the world aglow, as if a second sun had dawned, the sword carving a path of devastation through divine steel as if through butter.

Cannons of pressurized water emerged from my shoulders, unleashing torrents upon the foe who moments prior nearly spelled my demise.

The automaton reacted, interposing its sword to deflect the deluge, shielding itself from the onslaught.

Witnessing the devastation wrought by its weapon, the machine clutched within its grasp a divine relic, worthy of eternal acclaim, yet it faltered and shattered.

I observed the automaton's eyes widen in astonishment as the jets of water cleaved through it and its brethren, time and again.

I refused to remain inert amidst the mass of automatons. One of my hands surged forward.

Emerald sparks danced before my palm, evoking the craft of a Greek smith. How could I claim mastery akin to Hephaestus if I could not wield Greek fire to my will?

A torrent of verdant flames erupted upon the automatons, engulfing them and all within reach with savage fervor, rendering them powerless.

This was a dance. Battle was naught but a choreography, where each misstep might prove fatal, yet one I found profoundly exhilarating.

The ground beneath us transmuted into molten lava as the flames consumed all in their path. My armor shifted, densifying and fortifying to safeguard against the inferno. It would be stupid to fall due to a flawed creation.

Amidst the conflagration, I discerned movement, figures resembling half-melted steel abominations, yet driven by an insatiable hunger for my blood.

Propulsors beneath my feet erupted, propelling me airborne. Some automatons pursued by leaping, others by flight.

One approached, wielding a spear fashioned from molten divinity, poised to impale me.

I seized the moment to deactivate my propulsors, hurtling toward it. Its grip on the spear switched, but too late.

My foot collided with its visage, a wisp of green fire illuminating its form before detonating, propelling me skyward once more.

Another automaton materialized, brandishing a sword poised to decapitate me. I met its blade with a thrust of my fist.

Divine steel clashed against my own, the world convulsing in agony, embers dancing between us.

The automaton's visage contorted, a cannon manifesting and targeting me. Unfortunately for it, I possessed two hands.

My other fist collided with the machine's face, hurtling its remnants to the ground, rending the earth beneath.

I alighted once more, my spear rematerializing in my grasp. "I am no prodigious combatant," I ruminated as I skewered dozens of automatons with a single fluid motion.

My propulsors erupted, propelling me into the fray, wreathed in green fire. My spear and fists became instruments of divine retribution, shattering iron and steel.

An automaton evaded before launching a strike toward my visage. I evaded with a flourish, conjuring Greek fire to engulf it.

It was my inaugural foray into true warfare, my first genuine engagement, yetI was the winning, I was the one striking true.

The automatons moved with preternatural skill, almost divine in their precision. With each maneuver, they narrowed the gap, each strike rending the earth as I evaded.

A winged automaton, bearing the semblance of a youthful deity, soared toward me, its steel feathers ablaze.

My spear deftly deflected each projectile, igniting the ground around me as they met their demise.

I cocked my arm, hurling my spear toward the airborne automaton. It maneuvered adeptly, evading the projectile before resuming its advance.

A surge of exultation crossed its flawless face before morphing into shock as my spear found its mark, rending its mechanical heart asunder.

The spear continued its course, disintegrating the automaton and returning to my grasp. "This should not be within my capabilities."

I may not possess innate talent or strength, but what I was sure of was that I was the o ly worthy of the title of the greatest smith. If strength eludes me, I just needed to forge the means to attain it.

My armor serves as both guide and mentor, augmenting my every action, rectifying my every misstep, and acting autonomously in the face of imperceptible threats.

I have charted a path, a trajectory toward Hephaestus himself. I poised myself as an Olympian sprinter before propelling myself forward.

Propulsors surged, accelerating me ever faster. The air resisted my advance, yet I pressed onward, confronted by an inexhaustible horde of automatons.

My spear vanished from my grasp, trailing a deep ocean blue in its wake. I thrust my hand rearward, Greek fire erupting and propelling me swifter still. A resounding crack, akin to a celestial cannonade, heralded my passage.

I materialized before the Olympian deity, spear in hand. Greek fire enveloped its tip as I directed it toward the god's countenance.

Walls of steel materialized, obstructing my spear's path. Undeterred, I pressed forward, channeling every ounce of my resolve.

My armor undulated as propulsors surged, propelling me with greater force. Steel rent asunder as my spear breached the god's defenses.

I acted instinctively, hurtling toward his visage, spear poised for the kill. Yet my strike met naught but flesh, failing to draw blood.

The waters parted behind him as if by divine decree. The earth behind him lay desolate, an abyss yawning in its wake, yet the god remained steadfast.

His gaze fell upon me, as though beholding me for the first time, acknowledging my existence as more than a mere nuisance.

With a gesture, he dislodged my spear, his thumb tracing the wound I had inflicted moments prior.

Golden ichor stained his flesh—a mere scratch, akin to a paper cut, yet for me, it resonated as a monumental triumph.

"You have drawn blood," his voice boomed like the dark chasms of a volcano.

I felt a grin split my countenance. "Naturally," I declared, facing him. "I am here to vanquish you. How could I achieve that without drawing forth your ichor?"

"You possess great talent," the deity remarked with unexpected tenderness. "Wasting such prowess here would be regrettable. Return to your sire, child. Depart this place for your own sake. You may be skilled, but confronting me seriously would test even your abilities."

"I shall not retreat, Hephaestus," I retorted, leveling my spear at him. This moment marked my opportunity to demonstrate my value to myself and the world. Better to perish here than to flee.

The god sighed like a disappointed patriarch learning of his offspring's follies. "Behold all you have done, all for a mere drop of ichor."

"I am a cyclops. Hard labor has never daunted me, Hephaestus," I affirmed, before unleashing a torrent of Greek fire upon him at close range. Everything that bled could die.

The intensity of the stream heightened as runes etched into my armor ensured the flames burned fiercer and more fiercely.

It engulfed the god's form in sickly green hues, deadly yet mesmerizing. "Truly foolish!" I heard the incinerating deity scoff as he advanced towards me.

I relinquished my spear and conjured a second stream of Greek fire with my free hand, yet to no avail.

My propulsors obeyed my will, propelling me into the air, away from the god. A voice inside urged me to flee, to escape.

I quashed this impulse. Flee? Absurd! With a mere thought, my spear reappeared in hand.

The automatons stood motionless, frozen in eerie stillness, their hands clasped in prayer.

"Fire, harming me?!" the god's voice thundered mockingly. "I AM FIRE! I AM THE CREATOR OF GREEK FIRE! DO YOU THINK MY OWN CREATION COULD HARM ME, CYCLOPS? COULD AN EMBER EXTINGUISH A STAR?"

Though I knew Hephaestus was the god of fire, I believed Greek fire, especially in its modified form, could counter his advantage. Alas, I was mistaken.

I observed the fire shifting and morphing into unnatural shapes around the god's silhouette.

The flames condensed, taking form. I witnessed a hand within the fiery silhouette clench before the fire transformed, revealing a weapon resembling a sniper rifle in the god's grasp.

Realizing his seriousness, I beheld the god's form grotesquely expanding, radiant gold coursing through his being.

It evoked the god assuming his true form, yet something felt amiss. A part of me recoiled at the grotesque sight, urging me to gouge out my eyes at the abomination before me.

Suppressing the burgeoning madness and horror, I tightened my grip on my sword.

The world seemed altered, transformed. My scanner activated, revealing sights invisible to my Cyclops eye alone.

An orange wave emanated from the god, permeating everything it touched with a taint of orange, altering the air, the ground, the automatons, even the sky itself, extending beyond the horizon.

The wave dissipated upon reaching the emerald ocean beneath my scanners.

My armor rippled as it analyzed and devised defenses against this phenomenon, harnessing its potential.

A surge of data flooded my mind as my armor completed its analysis, confirming my suspicions: divine authority. This was the divine authority of Hephaestus.

The god's form continued to shift and evolve. His hair blazed with vivacity, resembling living flames, while his once disfigured visage transformed into one of regal handsomeness.

He towered over me, no longer resembling a crippled artisan. He no longer appeared as Hephaestus.

With a flicker of his gaze, his sniper rifle transformed into a hammer of Greek fire.

I hastily crossed my arms, empowering the runes inscribed on my armor to shield me. The hammer collided with my arm, plunging me into darkness as I felt myself plummet through the island and the ocean below.

The water evaporated from the force of the blow, leaving a void amidst the ocean. Only my lineage prevented me from being engulfed by the ocean's attempt to fill the void left by my descent.

My armor pierced the ocean's darkness, affording me a glimpse of the god's form.

Hephaestus gazed in my direction, the air shimmering around him as the sky filled with countless weapons.

With a mere gesture, the god unleashed them upon me. Their sheer multitude overwhelmed me. Dodging seemed futile!

"Summon your father," a scared voice within me urged. I knew a single call would bring my father to my aid. One call and I would be safe. "Just one call," I mused, rejecting the notion and spurning my own aspirations!

As if I would retreat! My armor responded to my will, adapting and shifting. I believed in myself! I believed in what I had wrought with my own hands!

The number of divine weapons mattered naught. If Hephaestus forged millions of swords, then I would forge even more! I would fashion superior arms!

Ceasing to think, I yielded to my armor and the runes embedded within. Spear clashed against sword, sword against shield, as I defiantly faced the smith god's arsenal.

A sword, swifter than my armor's reaction, tore through my side. Yet I pressed onward, utilizing the pain as fuel.

What was pain compared to ambition? What was pain compared to greatness? My armor shifted, mending the wound and reinforcing my resolve.

Each collision reverberated throughout my being, yet with each clash, my weapons grew mightier.

"Evolution achieved!" a mechanical voice declared. A grin crept across my face. My armor, my magnum opus, was not perfect, for perfection itself was flawed.

What rendered my armor unrivaled, what emboldened me to challenge a god, was its semblance of life.

My armor learned, it adapted. Fashioned from my blood, blessed with adamantine scales by my sire, and infused with a fragment of my soul, it was tempered in the blood of an elder Kraken.

Given ample time, my armor could adapt to any challenge! With my next move, the sky split asunder, a chasm rending the heavens before sealing shut.

All of Hephaestus's weapons were obliterated, erased from existence. Even the god himself was not unscathed.

A gaping wound marred his form, evidence of his bisecting. His raised hammer, intended for protection, lay cleaved asunder.

Ichor spewed forth from the god's chest like a geyser, yet he stood motionless as a statue.

"You Dare! YOU DARE!" the god's voice thundered. Chaos erupted as the divine voice reverberated like a shockwave.

The world shifted, clouds darkening akin to Gaia's mourning shroud.

My connection with the Ocean was abruptly severed. Ash and soot descended from the heavens.

Beneath me, the ground gave way to endless lava, volcanoes dominating the landscape.

I stood in awe as realization dawned upon me. My father held sway over the Oceans, his brethren claimed dominion over the sky and the underworld, and now, amid this shifting realm, Hephaestus asserted his own domain.

It should have come as no surprise. Why would a deity of Hephaestus's stature not possess the ability to create a world?

My reverie was abruptly interrupted by a punch that sent me hurtling into the molten depths. Pain flared on the corner of my visage, as if something had forcibly rearranged my features.

In moments, the agony subsided as my armor initiated repairs, minute tendrils of metal weaving their mending.

My body acted instinctively, propulsors launching me to the side just as the god descended upon my previous location.

He flickered like a fading ember, a colossal gauntlet hurtling toward my countenance. With a swift motion, I deflected his arm, sending it careening past my shoulder, before retaliating with a punishing blow to his nose.

Threads of lava snaked around us, emanating from the god's vicinity, impeding his careening trajectory.

The god retaliated with a headbutt, divine flesh rending through my armor, darkness engulfing me as if my eye had imploded.

Yet, even amidst the abyss, I sensed his presence, a propelled knee colliding with his abdomen.

Spears of lava were hurled in response, met with erupting metal from my armor.

Undeterred, I followed with a roundhouse kick, only to encounter a shield materializing before my leg.

Activating Greek fire at my command, I felt my foot connect with his neck, severing his head.

My vision cleared as my armor completed its healing. "Hephaestus, god of fire, heat, and lava," I pondered.

Already submerged in his realm, I refused to cede control of the battle. I ascended, emerging from the lava ocean, away from the god.

Milliseconds later, I evaded, my armor sidestepping the blurry assailants. A behemoth volcano exploded behind me as the projectiles I had dodged collided with it.

A spear materialized in my hand, swatting away a projectile before tracing a crimson path across a chain of volcanoes.

Launching the spear with practiced precision, I beheld the god emerge from the lava, sword in hand, poised to intercept the projectile.

The sword cleaved through the spear, shattering it before breaking in two.

Undeterred, the god gestured toward the sky above me. Following his gaze, I beheld a star hurtling toward me.

Grinning wider, I welcomed the challenge, but before I could utter a word, a hammer turned my ribs to pulp.

Fiery mechanical wings sprouted from his back, his next swing aimed at my skull.

My armor shielded me, my arm absorbing the blow, though the hammer shattered my hand.

With grim determination, I manipulated my armor, encasing the weapon's head in steel tendrils.

Propelling myself with my remaining hand, I spun around the god, delivering a blow to his fractured visage.

His form vanished into the star above. "Is that all?" I pondered aloud, when I should have known better than tempting fate.

Chains erupted from the star, ensnaring my right hand before pulling me toward the stellar inferno.

As my armor adapted to the plummeting temperature, I descended into the star's surface, enduring temperatures exceeding ten thousand degrees.

Though discomfort and scalding permeated, my resilient Cyclops physiology, me being a son of Poseidon coupled with my armor's protection, forestalled my descent into Tartarus.

The chains led to the god. I knew it was time to end this. If I didn't do so, I knew I would lose. With a swift motion, I severed the chains, freeing my hand.

Gazing upon the unscathed yet wrathful deity, I checked the time with the clock embedded in my armor. Though the battle felt like an eternity, scarcely more than two minutes had passed.

A sword and a spear materialized in my hands, while a hammer manifested in the god's left arm.

"It seems we still got a lot left in the tank Hephaestus," I spoke. "Let's settle once and for all the best amongst us!" I said before hurling myself to the god who copied me.

*scene*

We were clashing in the centre of a star. Even though my armour protected me against most of the harm of it, at least for now, it didn't mean that it was comfortable.

I had walked before in one of the abandoned forges of the Elder Cyclops, children of The Earth Mother and the Sky Father.

It had been as if I had left completely the domain and the presence of my father to an inferno just waiting for the good moment to swallow me.

I stopped trying to dodge. Doing so showed itself useless. My armour was in a constant flux of evolution.

What was once taking seconds was now taking milliseconds. The healing becomes with each clash between the god and me less a botched work only focusing on me surviving and more on improving me.

I was paradoxically becoming stronger and weaker. Each moment was one that could be my last.

Each moment was one where the God's cosmic energy formed and twisted in various shapes only with the goal of ending my existence.

Each moment was one where I felt alive.

With a twirl of the fingers of the gods, spears made of lightning and something else that made my instincts scream at me to be careful were launched at me.

'World alteration,' my armour fed to my mind. Authority used. Divine weapons incoming. Analyse…copy.

I didn't try to dodge rushing toward them unbothered. Before they could Pierce my flesh, spears of dark metal appeared from thin air and collided against them.

Divine weapons clashed creating a vacuum in the center of the star before disappearing, collapsing.

My spear ignited with the thrum of divinity. The more I was fighting, the more I was learning and the more I was learning, the better I was.

I couldn't perfectly copy and understand Hephaestus' attacks. What my armour was trying to do was crack, decyphering them to their bare components so that I could understand them because understanding the impossible meant winning.

Ice, no calling it ice would be an understatement. Entropy recovered my spear. Hephaestus was a god of fire but not in the traditional sense.

Hephaestus was fire in the sense that he was life, advancement, civilization. I could see it now because of my armour.

Hephaestus was evolution. He was potential. Trying to fight him with Potential would be foolish especially when I just grasped at it. It would be like throwing a ball full of water at my father. Completely useless.

What I could do was use the information I gained to create something else equal to his potential.

In my veins and essence ran the Ichor of Poseidon. I wasn't blessed with the control of the sea but nevertheless, the sea was a part of me.

The thing is the sea was ancient, old. Some myths say that The Earth Mother Birthed the Ocean.

Others said that the Ocean predated her. Pontus in his sunken city slept a dreamless dream some sages shared when not in recluse or in the throes of madness.

What I knew is that by using my connection to the sea and adding it to the data I had been able to collect, entropy met against potential and potential fizzled out for an instant.

The god's eyes widened. He tried to dodge. He failed to do so completely. The blade of my spear went through his arm separating it at the elbow.

I rotated, my spear moving into an arc to bisect the god at the Hip. Flames solidified thickening to create armour.

My spear cut through it but not fast enough. It had been able to slow me a nanosecond and that nanosecond was all the god had needed to retreat.

I stopped to watch him. The battle hadn't been kind to him. Even though he was the immortal here, saying that he had the advantage would be a lie. I felt disappointed…yeah, disappointed. Was that all? Was that the peak I always searched to surpass?

"Is that all you can do?" I asked him seriously. Is this all the best you can give?

The god stayed silent, his gaze turned toward his stump. "It won't come back easily you know," I told him.

It shouldn't even come back at all but he was a god and gods and bullshit were synonyms. "All this time, I first saw you as a fly and after a mosquito, I needed to crush," the voice of the god rumbled.

"But you just showed me that you were dangerous, too dangerous to be allowed to live. You created something capable of hurting an Olympian. I can't allow your creation to propagate."

"Weren't you already taking me seriously?" I asked him. He had changed. I had seen his authority expand. I had thought that this was his true form.

The form of the god began to fizzle out like static "I hate taking my godly form," the voice of the god rumbled. "Be glad Aras. I acknowledge your existence."

I felt my body being moved. "Temperature rising too quickly," the robotic voice of my armour spoke before I emerged from the star.

The realm was crumbling…no, shifting all around me. My scanners were analysing the phenomenon but there was too much information, too much data that even with my augmented mind, it was nearly impossible to analyse.

"Do you know why they called me a cripple even though I am an Olympian, Cyclops?" I heard the god say his voice both everywhere and nowhere.

My mind focused on the question. There was an explanation, wisdom and maybe victory in the knowledge.

I needed to think. Think Aras. Think! Hephaestus was born of Hera and Zeus and when he was born, thrown out of Olympus because of his ugliness.

Not all the myths agreed on this version though. In others, Zeus had never been Hephaestus' father. Hephaestus had been born because his mother had wanted a child without cheating on her adulterer husband. She had wanted to show Zeus that she didn't need him.

Hephaestus was born ugly. Hephaestus was born ugly and was crippled by a fall from Olympus. Gods were born perfect. Gods couldn't, shouldn't be crippled.

Hephaestus was born imperfect. Hephaestus was crippled. Was Hephaestus not a god? No, I had felt, I had seen with my scanners how he used divine authority to create weapons, to create this world.

The Hecatoncheires and elder Cyclops weren't gods too but they were immortals capable of standing proudly at the side of their siblings Titans.

Did it meant that…, no it must be something else but imagine if it was actually that. If it did, things would start making sense about a lot of things.

Hephaestus had called himself an Olympian. "You aren't a god, are you?" I spoke softly. It all matched.

"My mother full of hubris tried to do the same thing as the Night and The Earth mother. I am like them she had dared to think!" the bitter voice of the god spread.

"My mother tried to create a god, one on par with the divine bastards of her husband. She tried."

"And she failed," I finished softly.

"Yes!" the god laughed. It was an ugly sound, the one of scraps of iron tearing into each other.

"She failed! I wasn't born right! I wasn't born what she wanted me to be so she threw me from Olympus. I'm sure she had hoped that doing so would have killed me. I was after all in her words just an upjumped half-god."

"But you survived. You were still divine and more than that, you were born with divine domains."

"This is the funny thing thing," the god chuckled. Over me, something began to take shape. It was big, absurdly and it was coming from me who had seen the wonders and horrors of my Father's realm.

It was as if fire and Metal had intertwines neither losing their shapes, connected in a way that only felt wrong. The thing had too many mouths, mouths filled with mouths, mouths open in what I recognized clearly as agony, mouths from which silver Ichor fell down and dripped before fading into nothing and dripping again in an endless cycle.

Arms made of cinders and brimstone grew from its flesh like the branches of a gnarly tree. "Ugly, isn't it?" the Olympian because it was Hephaestus I realized spoke.

Why was he seeming further and further?

Was I falling?

Why was I falling?

Thinking…thinking…what was I?

When did thinking become so hard?

"Athena once said to me that history doesn't repeat itself but rhyme. I fell on the island of Lemnos and almost died. Would have probably done so if the humans who had lived on the island, the Sintians hadn't taken pity and tried to save my life. I wouldn't have survived if they hadn't made sacrifices and prayed for help to save me. I would have died if Tethys, my Vová and Eurynymone hadn't come."

System failing, system failing. Urgence protocol activated. Urgence protocol activation failing. Too much damage. Survival of the host is endangered.

"I was just like you Aras, the Cyclops. I wasn't a god. I was born with no domain but I dreamt of being great, of proving to the one who had discarded me my worth. The Sintians were great smiths so I learnt from them. I pushed myself, never stopping no matter how hard it was, no matter how gruelling it was, no matter how pathetic it made me look," Hephaestus spoke.

Images of a young boy assaulted my mind and for a brief moment gave me clarity. Images of a young boy yearning for more, someone just like me.

"I became good. So good that with my hands, I was able to create miracles. I became so good that the ones around me stopped seeing me as their peer, as just exceptional and hard-working. They began to worship me and the more they worshipped me, the better I became and the better I became, the more they worshipped me. It came to a point that they gave me a name. Hephaestus Polymetis, Hephaestus of the many crafts. Names for your last lesson are the backbones of domains. There's no point in hiding anything from you because you won't survive," the god spoke with a certainty-filled voice.

"They're domains and At the same time not. A god may have a domain without a name even most of the time, they followed shortly but names in themselves could be said to be keys to a domain. They gave me names, multiples but I wanted more. It wasn't enough if I wanted to be their equal, if I wanted to be recognized, and respected! So I did what I knew best, I made myself better. A true smith can use everything to forge, to create something new so I use the names I gained to create a god! If only you had listened, if only you hadn't been so proud, you and I would have created so many wonders but fret not, I saw your invention. I'll remake it, better as proof to the world that you Aras were great. Now fall".

My visions went black. I knew I was dying. I could feel my armour trying to do something but it was only delaying the unavoidable. I would die here. I would lose here.

I fought and made a god bleed. I'm sure that my father's servants had used the opportunity I gave them to ransack Hephaestus' forge. It counted for something right? Then why did it feel so bittersweet?

I wasn't disappointed because I was dying. I was disappointed because, in the end, the only thing I truly have been able to do was push the Olympian to reveal his best. Was I truly going to go out like that?

Nah, fuck that.

The spark of divinity inside of me that I inherited from my father, which I had refused to use because of my pride moved at my command.

I was a smith and Hephaestus had said it. What kind of smith was unable to create wonders with metaphysical components? Only a bad one and I wasn't one!

I wrenched it out, this spark. I ignored the pain akin to my heart having been torn out of my chest.

My body didn't answer me but it was fine. My armour had improved me at every level. It had improved my mind. Things passed, memories of things rushing perfectly remembered. I could forge with my mind.

I was a blacksmith. It didn't matter how strong, or how horrifying the world could be. I just needed to create with my hands, with my soul a miracle, a phantasm to tear the nightmare above apart.

Threads, microscopic threads appeared only visible, only being able to be felt by me.

Hundreds, Thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, billions. They multiplied again and again and again.

Those threads, they were me. They were my eyes. They were my hands. They were my souls. They dug deep into the world surrounding me at my will.

My body, my mind and my soul were broken. I could see it so clearly with them. My soul, no my essence, I wasn't human was leaking like a broken faucet.

I could fix it right now but doing so, doing something akin to intruding on the domain of my uncle the rich one would be leaving me unable to attack, to hurt Hephaestus, to win.

According to my will, my body bent, nothing but a puppet for the billions of strings manipulating me, puppeting me.

The smart thing would be to try to run. The smart thing would be to try to call my father. Doing The smart thing would be synonymous with betraying myself.

Better fade, essence sucked into Tartarus, changed and shifted into something that wasn't me than continuing living while I could have touched my dream just if I had tried.

No, I would not heal myself even though it meant doom for me. I wouldn't heal myself but direct some of the threads to my leaking essence.

It was nothing than temporary, probably buying me nothing but ten milliseconds at best and that was if I didn't redirect all the threads to what I was about to do.

Ten milliseconds. Ten milliseconds would be enough. Hephaestus had been right when he had said I would perish today but he had been wrong thinking he would be the one to prevail.

The Olympian being what he was because of hard work, because of grit and pain only made me want to win even more.

My body stood shakily, nothing but a vessel. My threads, they gave me sight. They gave me everything I needed to triumph.

"A name? You gained a name?! No," the abomination in the sky chuckled softly before it exploded in full-blown laughter. Reality screamed in agony as a sound that shouldn't exist came to life from the mouth of the Olympian "You made one! You used your own inherent divinity! No, it is more than that! A symbol of power! You turned your essence into a symbol of power! You did what only Primordials, the Elder Cyclops and I have been able to do!"

9 milliseconds. I had only 9 milliseconds left. I didn't have time to ponder about the words of the Olympian.

"Crush," I pushed my body to whisper before the world bent. My threads, they dug into atoms, dug even more in a realm of the infinetmenstal small and dug again until they reached for the domain, the state of reality I now knew where Gods' powers operated.

The false world of Hephaestus broke at my will. The weight of an entire world collapsed on the form of the Olympian. Only my thread kept me safe in a limbo state untouchable for a brief instant to the madness I had brought for.

Billions of tons that did nothing to the Olympian. I could see it. Matter had simply stopped existing near him. It just meant I needed to do worse.

Above me, the sun fell. No, it wasn't one I realized. It was just a sword the size of it. Calculations ran into my mind analysing the phenomena, proof that my armour even gone had more than served its purpose.

The sword was made of Plasma my threads fed to me. A sword with a heat of at least 100753789 degrees.

Cold, I needed cold. My threads surged to my will and shifted the world. "Absolute Zero," I commanded them and time stopped.

The sword the size of the sun had frozen. It had also stopped falling. Gravity, I had frozen gravity itself a part of me realized.

Even then, the Olympian moved when it should have been impossible. "My fire," the Olympian spoke. "Is Evolution itself! Do you truly think that would be enough?"

Before my eyes, the sword began to melt the ice covering it. No, I would not let it do so! I pulled with my threads.

They tied themselves around the hilt of the sword dragging it to cut through the flesh of the Olympian.

The sword touched Hephaestus and sank as if he was an amorphous being. The threads I used weren't spared. Even though I tried to pull them back, some of them sank too in the flesh of the Olympian making pain blossom even more into my soul.

They've been cut away from me. It's as if something had taken clipper, clinched them on my flesh and pulled savagely but with my soul. '6 Milliseconds,' I calculated. 'There were only 6 milliseconds left.'

"Is that all that you can do?" the voice of the Olympian moved through the void between us. "This is no more an affair of war between our sires! This is a battle to see who's the best smith! Me, the greatest in all history and you who I dare to call the greatest I saw in the modern age!"

5 milliseconds left. I only had 5 milliseconds.

Hephaestus was right. I was still hesitating. I hadn't gone all out. Where was my imagination?! Would I be satisfied with a less-than-satisfactory showing? Hell no!

Space and time began to distort as I copied what I had once seen the Olympian do. To beat him, I needed to think like a god! To beat him, I needed to become a god and what was a god without a domain?!

I was now standing on an island in the middle of what I knew was an endless sea. Before living in Atlantis, before learning the way of the forge, I had been a child, the only child of a nymph.

She hadn't loved me. It had always been clear to me how she had only looked at me with disappointment and disgust as if I had failed her just by existing.

She hadn't loved me yet I had. She hadn't loved me yet those days had been some of my best memories because on this island, no matter how much she hated me, no matter how different I wished things would have been, I had been free!

I had been free because I had been ignorant. I had been free because, at this time, I only had thought she and I existed. I had loved this island because by being on it, I had felt as if I was everything I could possibly be, not the disappointment my mother thought me as. I had felt like a god.

It had been childish and idiotic. Still was and yet…and yet! This was an island surrounded by an infinite ocean.

An ocean mine to control only! An ocean mine to shape only! this world was one where I was god because this was a forge, my forge.

Starlights, flames and cosmic weapons each capable of shaking cities to their cores and splitting mountains in two rained from above.

The sea moved, copies of the weapons, superior copies created by the Olympian were sent back to clash against the original.

As long as Hephaestus was in this realm, everything he created would directly be analysed and sent back to my mind to be reconstructed by my threads under the infinite ocean surrounding me.

'3 Milliseconds. Only 3 Milliseconds left,' I thought as the sky shone like a cosmic tapestry being weaved before my eyes.

I was in my world. I was the one with the advantage here! It didn't matter that Hephaestus could seemingly create weapons straight out of fairy tales!

He was now on my turf! Two scarlet spears with barbs met above me tearing through space. The one Hephaestus created shattered while mine only cracked before going forward and being broken by another weapon created by the Olympian.

All over the world I had created, this was happening. Millions and millions of weapons so much more numerous than sand particles clashed.

'2 milliseconds left,' I noted my essence nothing but a bonfire to the star that it was.

I was winning. Hephaestus was slowly but surely losing ground. Weapons were coming closer and closer to puncturing his flesh, from hurting him. The problem was that it was happening too slowly.

I didn't have the luxury of continuing this for longer. A spear, a simple-looking one appeared in my right hand.

It meant that I needed to go claw out victory! The Olympian was distracted I knew. By acknowledging me, he had done me a favour. He had stopped holding back or holding back completely which meant that every weapon I copied was one worthy, powerful enough to affect the Olympian even if most would have been akin to the bite of a mosquito.

I switched with a white Jian meters away from the Olympian. Thousands of skeleton hands made of fire rushed at me the Olympian seemingly expecting such a thing from me.

One contact I knew would be my loss. Only one contact. Fortunately, I knew what to do to not be touched.

Darkness pooled above my brow manipulated by my threads to take the shape of a helm. What I was wearing was a copy, one badly made because I had been fortunate or unfortunate enough to never have seen the rich one's symbol of power but even then, everyone knew of its existence.

More than that, even though I may have not seen the Helm in real life, items of invisibility, items originally made by Hekate and Hephaestus were tools well known that even though they didn't give a hundredth of the powers of the Helm could be a decent substitute when they were of good quality.

They were copies from the Helm of Darkness. They didn't make the wearer simply invisible. They made the wearer undetectable by reality at least at a mortal level.

By using this concept, the idea of a copy and its original, I created a crown. Already it was fading out but it was okay.

It was still a copy made by my own hands! I phased out of reality, the hands not touching me because I shifted for an instant out of reality giving me an opening to strike.

It was a minuscule one, a more than microscopic one I would have missed if it wasn't for my threads.

My grip on the spear tightened. '0.20 Milliseconds left.'

A true wound wasn't one physical. Physical ones could with time heal, and mend. Inflicting Physical wounds to gods or similar beings was useless.

To hurt a god or something akin to it, one needed to strike at their soul, at their essence, at their domain. I could see it so clearly guided by my threads.

My spear flew out of my hand pushed by my threads. I watched the spear dig into the abominable artificial flesh of the Olympian, its goal the core of Hephaestus.

I watched how the body of the Olympian shifted, changed trying to protect him leaving me undisturbed.

My spear was slowing down, the thread not seemingly enough to pierce the Olympian. '0.10 milliseconds.'

That was okay. My body was a wreck, a broken thing that should be allowed to rest. I was bleeding and what was blood if not a liquid?

My mother was a nymph and my Father was a god yet I was born a cyclops, a creature considered a monster.

There were other nymphs who went to have children with gods. The messenger of the gods' mother was one of them yet he had been born a god, not a monster.

It is only now through what I learned due to my now destroyed armour, the Olympian and my threads that I finally understood why.

I was Poseidon's son yet I had never been able to bend water to my will, to make miracles with it until today unlike most of his demigods and godly children.

Monsters were failed gods. Gods who hadn't inherited enough from their divine parent, who weren't loved enough or lucky enough at the moment of their conception.

Even then, I had inherited a part of my spark of divinity, of my essence from my father, Poseidon.

This is why I had been able to breathe underwater, to understand the basic mermish tongues without learning them.

'It such a shame that it was only now,' I thought 'that I cracked it'. My Blood moved leaving my body, a proof of my understanding of the laws that ruled this world, to take the shape of a singular bullet.

The bullet moved faster than lighting to perfectly end at the butt of the spear to push it deeper and break through the flesh of Hephaestus.

Checkmate I thought as the spear flew and cut Hephaestus shredding what I knew were the links to his domains, his names.

0.2 Millisecond.

My eye focused on the last thing I would see, the broken and wailing shape of Hephaestus, the greatest Smith in history.

'0.1 Millisecond'.

'I win!' I thought with a smile as I watched him fall apart before everything went dark.