The storm was no longer a threat. One avalanche could be stopped—Hermez had proven that with contemptuous ease. One front. One wave. One clean problem to outrun.

  But this wasn’t one. This was a chorus of collapse, multiple ridgelines answering the hammer’s call, sliding in staggered intervals from angles that weren’t meant to converge.

  Hermez stood at the center of his battered dominion, steam curling off his skin where snow died before touching him. He watched the horizon whiten in sections. Not a single wall, but many. A layered rumble as you could say.

  His sons and daughters—his army, his “proof”—were scattered across courtyards and shattered streets, bronze armor half-buried, spears abandoned, formation utterly gone. Fear filled their eyes as they shouted at each other, trying to remember which direction obedience lived in.

  “Lord father! What should we do?!” one screamed. Others joined, unsure whether to flee or trust their god.

  Most screamed nothing at all. Hermez had forbidden them from running. He had threatened them with drowning. He had pushed a mountain back and demanded reverence, demanded rigilliance. Yet fear still ate through their discipline like rust through gold. And this time they were not alone in their terror.

  “It has been long since I felt like this,” he voiced, the feeling sharp and ugly inside him.

  Not the fear of dying. Not the fear of being hurt. He had bled before and recovered. He was a god. Gods did not fear pain. Pain was simply a tax the world paid for witnessing them.

  No.

  This was the fear of losing control. Hermez had always hated that above all else.

  He hated the rules of the world the way a prince hated gates. He hated laws that did not come from his father’s mouth. He hated karma, that invisible ledger judging him when no one else dared. He hated that even divinity carried consequences.

  He stared above, to the sky. His jaw tightened until his teeth ached. If he still held the Staff of Infinite Transit, this would be laughable. He could step between moments, slip through the avalanche the way a blade slips through air, and laugh as snow fell harmlessly into gaps mortals could never see.

  But he had lost it. Lost it because of that undying immortal. Lost it because of that cursed hammer. Hermez swallowed the bitter taste in his throat. As the avalanche drew near once more, he decided.

  He didn’t like to pray.

  Prayer was submission dressed as pitiful ritual. It was admitting someone above you could grant or withhold. It was acknowledging hierarchy in a way that made his skin crawl. He was no one’s messenger. He was Hermez.

  But he knew what needed to be done, so he spoke it low, so only the air would hear.

  “Sky that crowns, I do not kneel—

  Yet lend me fire, lend me steel.

  Strike my bones, make lightning mine,

  Let borrowed wrath become a sign.

  One breath, one spark, one ruthless deed—

  Father, answer. I will bleed.”

  The last line tasted like utter submission that burned his pride. He opened his eyes. The sky answered not with majesty but annoyance.

  Thunder!

  A shallow thunder rolled across the sky, one reluctant bolt. It snapped down with clinical precision and struck him in the chest. His body arched. Muscles locked. For a fraction of a second he was nothing but a silhouette filled with screaming white.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Pain ripped through him. When the light faded he was still standing. But everything had changed. His yellow radiance had turned white—compressed thunder, Zeus’s glare, a crown forced onto a neck that refused it as his own and the Karma of Olympus plunged.

  ‘Good. Let it drop. Then Olympus will finally notice, what I will accomplish today,’ he thought.

  If his father demanded payment, he would pay it in spectacle.

  “Watch,” he commanded, voice carrying across the ruined courtyards. He took one step from the palace heart. The ground cracked beneath his heel. Then he moved.

  DOOM!!

  He crossed the sound barrier in a single second. Friction ignited a white-hot wake behind him. Marble blistered. Snow vaporized in ghostly plumes along his path.

  He charged straight at the largest incoming avalanche—the thickest wave that threatened to swallow the palace heart.

  There were smarter ways to stop it. But he didn’t want efficiency. He wanted to show them all that overwhelming power was enough.

  Hermez slammed into the avalanche head-on. White divinity collided with white snow. The impact detonated like a god meeting a mountain.

  Snow compressed. The leading edge buckled. He drove into it like a spear carving a tunnel through flesh.

  His children stared in awe, fear turning to worship. Then Hermez saw gold amid the snow, not a glow. A man. Ahead of the disaster. He had already dropped from the ridge above the palace heart after the first wave.

  Aron stood waiting, hammer raised, posture calm in a way that didn’t look brave.

  “Typical,” Aron muttered.

  Hermez’s eyes widened in genuine surprise.

  “ARON!” he roared.

  Aron swung. “Cleave.”

  The hammer’s arc severed the white divinity with surgical cruelty. The borrowed lightning peeled away as if it had never belonged. The separation grilled him to his core.

  Hermez’s power snapped back to yellow. His momentum faltered. Aron stepped into the gap and struck again, not with the same skill this time.

  [Charge: 10%]

  Boom!

  The hammer smashed into Hermez’s ribs. The god folded sideways. White steam burst from his lungs as he was hurled backward out of the tunnel. He tumbled through blasted snow, carving a trench with his own body.

  Then the greater avalanche landed. Their god had failed splendidly. Snow swallowed the green valley and false city with indifferent force.

  Streets vanished. Pillars crushed. Bronze armor flashed once and disappeared. Spear tips poked out like bones and were erased.

  A thick, suffocating silence followed the roar.

  Moments later the snow quaked near the far side where the avalanche had piled deepest. Two figures rose from the buried world like corpses refusing the grave.

  “Haaa…” James breathed, emerging first in the outer colonnade. Snow slid off him as if unwilling to touch. His golden hair caught the dim light, eyes hard and cold.

  Theo climbed out beside him, coughing, already scanning the horizon with predatory focus.

  They both knew it wasn’t luck. It was Aron’s control.

  “Lord Aron did it!” James said, straightening with excitement. Theo remained mesmerized by the devastation that had just happened.

  “Is this the power of an immortal?” Theo asked.

  Farther away at the palace heart, snow exploded upward. Hermez rose from the white like a vengeful god, hair wet, skin steaming, aura flickering yellow and unstable.

  He reached outward with his senses and felt the threads to his children snap—one after another. Hundreds of broken bonds.

  “Che…” Hermez’s mouth tightened. “More than half are dead…fuck..fuck fuck.. Fuck!!”

  He wanted to scream Harder but he swallowed it, smoothed his expression into near-serenity.

  'Calm down, They are tools. Tools break and can be replaced and

  Freya,You promised to deliver the immortal on a platter.' he thought.

  “Asgardians,” he continued aloud, contempt thick. “Always thinking trickery is a virtue.” he said, Then his eyes found James and Theo.

  He saw Theo wearing the enemy’s skin beside the immortal’s herald. Hermez’s eyes narrowed. A cold smile sharpened on his face.

  “Well,” he said smoothly, “would you look at that.”

  His gaze lingered on Theo. “A son who knows how to survive.” The words were light, almost playful. Theo stayed blank, body coiled.

  Hermez flicked his eyes to James. “And a borrowed brother. The immortal was able to save you, impressive.”

  He was stalling, analyzing everything—the snow depth, the broken rune grid. He stepped forward, snow hissing beneath his aura. His divinity remained unstable, but that only made him more unpredictable.

  James stood his ground. He had to be careful here, as dealing with gods was always a whole new pain in the arse. The cracked staff responded. Slowly he raised his right arm. Twin serpents glowed faintly.

  Hermez’s fake smile shattered.

  “…How,” he breathed, eyes wide with fury and possession.

  James let the staff glow brighter.

  “Well,” Hermez said softly, almost tenderly, “this is interesting.”

  His gaze locked onto James with the weight of a god reclaiming what was his. “You shouldn’t have shown me that.”