The God of Underworld-Chapter 92 - 46: Mortals and Divines

The battlefield had become a storm.

Herios moved—a blur of motion, golden light trailing in the air behind his sword, Pluton.

Each strike he unleashed aimed to cleave through the Divine Spirits that hovered around him like vultures, circling and taunting.

Yet they were cautious, keeping their distance.

They had seen the Sword of Truth fell Veron’s army in a single, blinding arc of light.

They would not take that risk again.

So they bombarded him instead.

Blades of wind, bolts of heavenly fire, shards of frozen light—all rained down from the sky.

The heavens themselves felt like they’d turned against him.

Herios gritted his teeth, cloak torn and body coated in soot and blood, his muscles screaming with every breath.

He swung his sword upward to slice through a wave of searing light.

He spun to deflect a jagged bolt of lightning that might have torn his side open.

He staggered from the shock of a divine blast exploding behind him.

But still, firm as ever, he stood.

His hands trembled. His legs buckled. His breaths came ragged and shallow.

The Sword of Truth, once blazing like a golden sun, now flickered.

Not because his people no longer believed—but because his mortal body was running out of fumes.

Out of strength.

Out of time.

He needed to close the distance. He needed to strike. But they would not let him.

Just then..

A scream tore through the battlefield.

Herios’s head snapped around.

In the distance, beyond the line of broken spears and burning catapults, he saw them—two Divine Spirits descending upon his army like avenging stars.

Soldiers were thrown aside like leaves in a storm.

Dozens fell in moments.

Some tried to fight back.

Others stood their ground, only to be incinerated in seconds.

"No..." Herios whispered.

"DON’T LOOK AWAY!" roared Veron, and a bolt of pure divinity struck Herios in the chest like a hammer of judgment.

The world turned black for a moment.

Herios flew backward, crashing through the earth, digging a trench with his body.

His bones cracked. Blood gushed from his mouth. His armor bent inward, puncturing his side. His sword clattered beside him, dim.

Veron descended slowly, the skies crackling with divine fury around him.

His eyes burned not with rage—but with disdain.

"Why?" he asked, approaching Herios, who lay in a crater of blood and dirt. "Why do you keep resisting?"

Herios coughed violently, trying to sit up, his body wracked with pain.

"You’re just a man," Veron continued. "You will die here. Your people will follow. This rebellion... this defiance of the heavens... will be forgotten. You could have lived in peace. You could have accepted your place. So why?"

Herios did not respond immediately.

He reached out slowly, wrapping his fingers around the hilt of Pluton once more.

The sword flickered faintly in his grasp—its golden light answering even his weakest breath.

He used it to push himself back to his feet.

He wobbled, barely able to stand, blood dripping from his lips. But his eyes—those eyes—still burned.

Not with anger. But with conviction.

And then he spoke.

"Why do I resist...?" His voice was hoarse. "Maybe the better question is..."

He looked up into Veron’s divine gaze and asked, "...why do you bow?"

Veron blinked. The question struck deeper than the wound Herios bore. The god-chosen warrior hesitated, his shoulders twitching.

"You claim to serve the gods," Herios continued, stepping forward now, each word like a blow. "But do you believe in them? Or do you obey because it is easier than standing on your own?"

Veron said nothing.

"You call us weak because we bleed and die as quickly as a candle in the wind," Herios whispered. "But that is exactly why we are strong. Because we know pain. Because we rise again. Because we choose to fight even when we know we couldn’t win."

He lifted his sword.

"And now," Herios said, voice growing stronger, "I will show you the power that no divinity can ever command."

Pluton burst into light.

But this time—it wasn’t golden.

It was white. Pure. Blinding.

The faith of his people. Their pain. Their love. Their memories. Their hope.

All of it—channeled into a single, mortal man who refused to kneel.

The three Divine Spirits around Veron recoiled, shielding their faces.

The very air around Herios trembled, not from divine pressure—but from something older.

Something human. A force that had built civilizations. Toppled tyrants. Endured countless wars.

The force of will.

Veron stepped back. "That light... it’s not faith nor divine."

"No," Herios replied. "It’s our will and conviction."

*

*

*

The battlefield quaked beneath the boots of men.

Kaerion, the great general of Herion, stood at the front of the charge—his iron spear gripped tightly in his hands, blood streaking across his armor, his eyes burning with a fury that mirrored the sun itself.

Behind him, thousands of mortal soldiers surged like a tide, the ground shaking with their war cries.

"FOR HERIOS! FOR HERION! FOR HUMANITY!" Kaerion roared, his voice booming like thunder across the scorched plain.

"GLORY TO THE KING OF HUMANITY!"

His men echoed the call, steel clashing against shields, banners flapping in the ash-ridden wind.

They had seen their comrades slaughtered.

They had watched the divine descend upon them like wrathful stars.

Yet they marched still—into death, perhaps—but also into immortality, where their names and deeds will forever be engraved in history.

Before them floated the two Divine Spirits, luminuus beings cloaked in celestial fire, who had turned entire legions into dust with a wave of their hands.

Their expressions were cold, detached and yet now, a flicker of something else had begun to show.

Annoyance.

The humans came at them like ants, endless and tireless.

Their weapons did little against divine flesh, their attacks easily parried or turned aside.

A swing of a spirit’s hand would tear through rows of men, bodies tossed like dolls.

And yet, they kept coming.

One divine spirit—Thalureon, the Spirit of Azure Flame and blessed by Hephaestus—raised his hand again.

A gout of blue fire erupted from his palm, sweeping across a column of soldiers.

Men screamed and burned, but from the smoke, more humans emerged, eyes crazed not with madness but with unbreakable conviction.

Kaerion is at the tip of that spear. He leapt into the air, iron weapon glowing from the heat of battle, and struck down at Thalureon’s shoulder.

It didn’t pierce—but it stung.

The divine spirit recoiled, grimacing.

"They sting now, don’t they?" Kaerion smirked.

Thalureon snarled, touching the spot where Kaerion had struck. "Like mosquitoes. Persistent. Pathetic."

The second divine spirit—Elathys, Spirit of Falling Stars—floated higher, preparing to cast a wave of heavenly arrows down from the sky.

"Enough games," he said, light beginning to shimmer around his body. "Let’s wipe the insects out."

But then—Kaerion shouted again.

"INSECTS, ARE WE?" he bellowed, his voice somehow reaching every man on the field. "YOU REMEMBER THIS—WHEN MEN ROSE FROM THE MUD, WE HAD NOTHING BUT STONES AND HOPE! AND YET WE BUILT CITIES! WE SAILED OCEANS! WE DARED TO CURSE THE GODS!"

The soldiers screamed in answer, rallying behind their general.

"WE DO NOT NEED DIVINITY TO STAND! WE ONLY NEED EACH OTHER!"

And with that, they charged once more.

Spears shattered. Shields broke. But the soldiers of Herion moved not as isolated fighters—but as a single tide.

When one fell, another rose in his place. When a spirit lashed out with divine flame, Kaerion would leap into the blast to shield his men with his own body, roaring back in defiance.

"WE ARE HUMANITY!" he shouted, face bloodied, eyes wild. "AND THAT IS ENOUGH!"

The divine spirits were no longer amused.

Elathys grimaced as a sword scraped his thigh, a mortal weapon, empowered only by the wielder’s sheer rage.

Thalureon grunted as a spear struck his arm and left a shallow cut. Their power was still vast, but even the sun tires of scorching the same earth.

They fought back harder now, striking not to frighten but to kill.

But the humans did not break.

The wave continued, crashing again and again against divine flesh.

A thousand spears against a single star.

It was madness.

And yet, it began to work.

Their endless attacks, though weak, began to wear down the divine spirits.

Every movement cost them power.

Every blast depleted a sliver of their immortal reservoir.

Every moment they remained in the material world was another moment they had to exert energy just to exist.

Even gods grew exhausted.

Kaerion drove his iron spear once again into Thalureon’s chest, this time finding a soft gap between the spirit’s shoulderplate and neck.

A shallow wound, but a wound nonetheless.

The divine spirit screamed in anger and struck Kaerion aside.

The general flew through the air and slammed into the earth, but rose again, bloodied, but breathing and alive.

Thalureon glanced at his wound before sneering at Kaerion, "All that, for a drop of blood."

"You bleed," Kaerion said, limping forward.

Thalureon spat in disgust. "I am a divine—"

"You’re just another tyrant too proud to admit it," Kaerion said. "You think yourselves above us. But you bleed."

He raised his spear again, rallying his troops with a single war cry.

"THEY BLEED!"

And thousands answered.

"THEY BLEED!"

The battlefield, once hopeless, had become a crucible.

Not of destruction—but of rebirth.

Kaerion, though just a man, had shown them that divinity could be challenged.

That humanity could rise.

And in the distance, across the battlefield, Herios heard the cries of his people—and smiled.