The God of Underworld-Chapter 94 - 48: Judgment

The battlefield trembled. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com

Dust swirled.

The air shuddered with divine pressure.

Even the clouds seemed to recoil from the center of the storm where one man stood, back arched, lungs heaving, eyes burning like twin suns.

Herios, King of Herion, mortal-born, steel-tempered by war and purpose, raised his sword once more.

It glowed brighter than the sun.

Lines of ancient runes ignited across its length, pulsing with radiant heat, reacting not to divine command, but to human will.

And Herios’s will had never burned brighter.

He roared... a terrible, primal cry that tore through the air, shaking even the heavens.

With a thunderous blast of light, he rushed forward, his speed tearing a crater in the ground behind him.

The six divine spirits reacted instantly.

"Varan, flank!"

"Solmyra, above!"

"Thalureon, box him in!"

Commands shot between them like lightning, and they closed in—flashes of divine color and raw power converging on Herios like a pack of celestial wolves.

But something was different.

Herios was much faster, much stronger. Fiercer.

His blows came like falling mountains, shaking the bones of the gods themselves.

Varan’s bow shattered from a parried strike.

Elathys twin blades were knocked from his hands.

Thalureon caught a backhanded blow to the jaw and was hurled into a mountain, reducing it to rubble.

Each motion from Herios was laced with something the divine couldn’t quite understand.

And that is... Conviction.

Not fueled by immortality. Not summoned from some infinite reservoir of divine energy. But drawn from the raw, unfiltered, human heart.

Veron lunged again, lightning wrapped around his spear like a serpent, shouting, "You are still mortal! You can’t keep this up forever! You will get tired, and then die!"

Herios blocked the strike with one hand, sword catching the spear.

Sparks exploded, and the ground split beneath them.

"Maybe... but I will endure." Herios growled.

Veron roared.

Lightning coiled around his arms like twin vipers, his bronze armor cracking from the sheer heat of his fury.

He lunged with a speed that broke the sound barrier, his spear now glowing with heavenly lightning blessed by Zeus himself.

Herios twisted to parry.

CLANG!

The spear met Pluton in a flash of gold and blue, sending shockwaves through the battlefield.

Both men were flung back, tearing furrows through the earth as soldiers, machines, and even mountains quaked from their clash.

But Herios was back on his feet in a breath. Exhaustion racked his body, but the light of humanity still surrounded him, roaring louder than his heartbeat.

The other divine spirits attacked in unison.

Elathys conjured a dozen golden arrows that split the sky, each carrying the weight of starlight.

Solmyra summoned a massive mirror-like disc, which hovered above Herios and began absorbing light before firing it back tenfold as an incinerating solar beam.

Mireos hurled boulders of ice infused with Poseidon’s wrath, shattering the very ground with every strike.

They came from all angles, a storm of godly wrath.

Herios spun Pluton in an arc, creating a shield of faith—the blade’s energy expanding outward like a barrier.

Arrows exploded on contact.

The solar beam was split like a curtain of flame, and the ice boulders were vaporized before touching him.

Still, the power was immense. Each block rattled his bones, his muscles screaming, his vision blurring from the divine pressure.

But he endured.

He fought like a beast cornered by giants, with precision, rage, and the strength of millions behind him.

Then Solmyra appeared behind him, sword of reflected light in hand.

She stabbed.

But Herios turned, grabbing her blade bare-handed.

His palm sizzled. Blood poured from the wound—but he didn’t flinch.

With a grunt, he headbutted her with brutal force. She staggered back, and Herios kicked her full-force in the chest, sending her crashing into a hill, turning it to rubble.

Before he could breathe, Varan lunged, striking with a hammer that created tremors.

Herios ducked under it and thrust upward, Pluton slicing through divine steel.

Sparks flew. The blade didn’t kill him, but it gouged a burning wound through Varan’s chest, sending the god sprawling.

Kaerion and the Herion soldiers still fought fiercely against the machines and summoned constructs.

Thousands were falling, but they did not retreat.

Their shields were shattered.

Spears broken.

But they pushed forward, roaring the name of their king.

Veron screamed and unleashed his full divinity.

The sky split open.

A colossal thunderbolt fell from the heavens, aimed directly at Herios.

It could obliterate a city. A mortal soul would never survive it.

But Herios didn’t run.

He held Pluton high and whispered. "Lord Hades, bear witness to the power of your champion. The power of humanity!"

The sword pulsed, and a titanic white wing of light exploded from it.

It wasn’t made offeathers, but of memories; scenes of children laughing, lovers embracing, builders raising cities, scholars lighting candles in the dark.

The thunderbolt struck.

And the wing met it.

The sky turned white.

The divine bolt collided with the will of humanity.

And for the first time, divinity bent to mortals.

The bolt cracked apart.

Veron stared in disbelief.

Herios advanced through the smoke, slow and steady.

"Even with all your power," Herios said, voice low but echoing across the battlefield, "...it seems, you still are not qualified to judge humanity."

With a sudden burst, he vanished.

Appearing behind Veron—he slashed downward, Pluton wailing like a chorus.

Veron barely raised his arm to block—but the blade cleaved through divine metal and carved a burning line down Veron’s back.

He roared, pain etching across his face.

Then Elathys and Solmyra returned, flanking Herios again.

The fight surged anew.

They fought like stars crashing together.

Herios parried arrows, ducked beneath divine fists, flipped over spear strikes, and retaliated with brutal efficiency of a man who refused to kneel.

Every strike was faster. Every step was heavier.

Pluton glowed with each heartbeat of Herion’s people.

He caught Solmyra’s blade again and this time, with a scream, shattered it.

He turned to Elathys and drove Pluton forward—grazing the god’s side and burning a strip of divine flesh.

He caught Veron’s spear in a lock, spun around, and threw him skyward, sending the god crashing into his own summoned storm clouds.

And then...

He stood alone again.

Bruised. Bloodied. But upright.

The six divine spirits floated back into the air, circling him with wrath, confusion, and fear.

They... were being pushed back.

By a mortal.

"Allow me..." Herios gripped his sword, "To judge the gods."

"Arrogant!" Mireos roared as he disappeared, darting towards Herios.

But just then, Herios spun, momentum building, and cleaved the air in a wide arc with Pluton.

And then, the world held its breath.

His sword swung down—not at Veron, but at the fastest one—Mireos, who had just blinked in behind him, lance drawn, aiming for his exposed back.

But it was too late.

The blade met flesh.

A massive pillar of white-gold light exploded from the point of contact, engulfing the entire battlefield.

It rose like a tower to the heavens, searing the skies, illuminating the entire world.

The very air screamed as the light vaporized everything in its path.

The earth cracked. The clouds recoiled. Mountains in the distance trembled as if the laws of nature themselves had been challenged.

And then—silence.

When the light faded, the battlefield was still. The gods, the soldiers, even the machines summoned by Thalureon—all stared in stunned silence.

Herios stood with his sword lowered, chest heaving, body bleeding, arms trembling.

And across from him...

There was nothing.

No trace of Mireos.

Not dust.

Not smoke.

Not ash.

Gone.

A divine spirit—erased from existence by a mortal blow.

The silence deepened. Even the winds refused to move.

The first death of a god by a mortal hand... since the birth of time.

From high atop Olympus, the gods watched in stunned disbelief.

Athena, hand to her lips, eyes wide with awe.

Ares, frozen mid-step, his war-hardened mouth slack with shock.

Zeus, King of the Gods, stood from his throne for the first time in centuries, the sky trembling with his rising fury and... fear.

In the battlefield, Veron staggered back.

His mouth moved, but no sound came out.

It was Elathys who whispered what all of them now feared to admit.

"He killed... a god."

"Impossible," Solmyra breathed, her body trembling.

But it had happened.

The impossible had been made real.

Herios, mortal king, stood in the crater of his own defiance. He was bleeding from dozens of wounds, swaying from exhaustion, but he stood tall.

Pluton glowed brighter than ever.

The white light of humanity’s will had not faded—it burned stronger, now fed not by hope alone, but by victory.

He lifted the sword once more and pointed it at Veron.

"I have said... I will judge the gods." He breathed, heavily. "This mortal king declare you, guilty. Your sentence, death."

His soldiers, watching from the ruins, screamed with awe and triumph.

"ALL HAIL HERIOS!"

"THE GODSLAYER!"

"LONG LIVE HUMANITY!"

The tide had turned.

But the war was far from over.

After all, Olympus... had just been challenged, by a mere mortal.