(Aden's P.O.V)

Despite the major gods stepping forward, they seemed to atleast retain some of their mental faculties. I could spot the wariness in their motions. They stood rooted to one place like statues.

"Well?"

I questioned with a frown, straightening up from my battle stance. Only 16 seconds remained of me in this form. Were they too scared to attack?

"What are they waiting..." The words trailed away as I realized what was happening. The mental attack latched onto my mind for just a single second before immediately getting crushed by my mental shields. The god responsible fell to the ground in a seizure, blood pouring out of his orifices in a horrifying backlash. The others did not even blink. Seems like the Darkhold's control over them had grown even stronger.

"Nice try."

I chuckled at the weak illusion. However that small second was enough for them to attack ferociously. Using superior speed, over a hundred of them had me surrounded on all sides.

Something struck me on my left leg, something heavy and blazing hot. The blow came from a swole god who swung a burning hammer with enough force to split mountains. I tensed my flesh upon contact, causing the divine weapon to shatter under my muscles and splinter off into smaller parts.

I reached up and gripped the back of my assailant's head, slamming his face onto the metallic ground while also crouching to evade a spear headed for my neck. It passed aimlessly overhead before the owner spun, throwing his heel towards my temple.

Silver fire roared along the strands of my hair dancing around in the air. They hardened as I channeled Earth aura through them, successfully blocking the attack. The fire spread up from my hair to his foot, then his leg in a single second, turning his entire body into ash.

"Die!"

A pale goddess wielding fans from the Heavenly court slashed out at my front, gliding forward in a beautiful spin. Blue water dragons escaped her weapons with an aura of sharpness. I brought up my right hand with the palm clutched on the back of the Hammer wielding god's head.

His body was used to block the attack. Screams rang out as the attacks sliced and slashed him apart. I laid my other palm flat on his back and sent forth a beam of plasma. The shining blue attack pierced through his corpse and disintegrated the upper part of the Fan wielding goddess and over 20 more gods behind her.

The rest immediately backed away in fear, which showed me that at least a small part of them retained control over their minds.

The fear was warranted. They had after all just seen me destroy a few major gods like it was nothing. I pointed a finger at Zeus, then run it across my neck.

"You're letting your inner sadist show."

Chaos told me from my back.

"Pay attention to your surroundings."

I told him with a smirk.

"Oh crap."

He yelled in surprise.

The ground shook slightly as I heard a thunk. Through my divine sense, A shadow had appeared over him. It turned out to be a giant Ent, a tree like monster with a god draped in green leaves and foliage on it's shoulders. Pan.

"Don't fight me! Fight him!"

Chaos told him while pointing a finger my way.

"If my throne gets destroyed, I'll lock you away in an un-escapable room with the god of annoyance."

I warned him, then ignored his cries of protest while I brought my attention back to the majority of the gods. Pan and his Ent seemed to be the only ones willing to play a game of Whack-a-mole with Chaos. The rest had created distance between us. They stepped back whenever I stepped forward.

"Scared already Junior?"

I had the half mind to teleport over to Skaldi and rip the darned book to pieces. This was supposed to be a high octane fight. At this rate, I was simply wasting energy.

"Don't call me that!"

He bit out as I sighed, willingly dropping back into my regular form. There wasn't a point.

"You're not making this fun, you know?" I complained.

"I thought the purpose of controlling them was for them to be fearless? So why do they reek of terror?" Their bodies shivered at the thought of going up against me. Maybe changing tactics was the right way to go? I don't think they fought at a 100% when under the control of someone else.

"Tell you what, why don't you take a time out?"

I snapped a finger and a boom tube appeared below Skaldi, sending her to Energia and cutting off the Darkhold's next words and control over the gods.

The change was immediate. The gods blinked and started looking around. I cleared my throat.

"I've given you back your free will."

With Sound bending, my voice easily projected out across the confused crowd of gods. Without the Darkhold puppeteering then from the shadows, maybe there was a chance I could still have some fun.

Energia had the same innate abilities that Gaea possessed. It was a realm completely under my control. I could cut off any links, be they mental or spiritual coming out of it. In other words, there was no way the Book would regain it's control over them.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

And that also meant, their minds were mine to browse as I pleased. Between one blink of an eye and the next, I understood everything. And with understanding came a change in my mood. This was not about having fun anymore.

"So that's how everything started huh? Knull."

I won't lie, I was pissed at myself.

It was my presence that had changed the history of the universe. The gods sought alternatives to deal with Knull and because of the sorcerers unlocking Earth bending while I was asleep, Geb had been implicated. They had sucked spirit energy from him for years. Knowing it and actually seeing it in their memories were two different things.

My aura gained a hint of savagery as my god of war divinity begun to saturate the area. I wanted to kill something and they could sense it. The fresh bout of panic I could feel from them led to most gods falling to their knees and begging for mercy. Others tried to run away by flying up and blasting attacks at the energy shield surrounding the ring. Upon contact with the shield, their bodies disintegrated under the power of my silver lightning.

"None of you are going anywhere."

"We..."

Poseidon stepped forward but in the fraction of a fraction of an instant, I was there at his back, holding his head while his neck sprayed out blood.

Zeus blinked. Aphrodite opened her mouth to scream and found herself locked in that state by Blood-bending. I lowered her blood temperature, flash freezing her from the inside.

The rest wisely kept quiet. The surprise of seeing two major Greek gods die was too much. But not everyone was that smart. Waves of spiritual influence started falling from the sky as a god that had no physical form tried to attack me.

"Chaos?"

I called, then blinked as a flash of darkness passed through my shoulder, moving faster than any of them could see.

A sharp scream came from above as Chaos devoured and assimilated the Great Spirit, the god of Native Americans.

For the brave ones or the ones too scared to move, they all watched me like a hawk. With measured steps, I finally arrived before their leaders, my earlier attack having carved a path towards them. Hades' eyes stalked Poseidon's head with a look of abject horror and disbelief. Zeus on the other hand had a clenched jaw and stormy eyes. Lightning erratically danced around his body. It seemed as if he was seconds away from attacking yet...none of them did a thing.

I spread out my hands.

"The ones begging me for mercy, I am not a magnanimous god." The statement rang out across the crowd, breaking their hope and bringing forth despair.

"To be completely honest with you, I despise gods. And now after seeing what you put my son through for hundreds of thousands of years, I believe its time I disclosed one more thing about me." I paused, swallowing the lump of anger on my throat. I wanted nothing more than to drown them all in silver flames. But that would be too easy a punishment.

"I care about my family more than anything else."

My eyes bored deep into Zeus' own.

"And to those who hurt any of them, a painful death is all they can to get from me."

"Aaargggghhh!"

A war cry rang out as a sword cut through the air.

The one who stepped forward to face me was Ares, the Olympian god of war. One god of war against the other. His first strike, I sidestepped to the side, then backhanded him away. The impact knocking the breath out of him as he rolled along the ground to slam onto the dead corpse of the Ent that had attacked Chaos earlier.

He rose up unsteadily, broken bones and torn flesh healing up in but a second.

"Face me you coward! Prove to me that you are what I sense you are, a god of War!"

Coward? Is this fool serious?

I laughed whirling around.

"Are you challenging me?"

"Yes!"

He stated, red divine energy that carried an essence of slaughter washing over him. His body was draped by a golden red armor as he twirled his sword. I could feel the fluctuations of a mental conversation happening behind me among the gods.

"Scheme all you want. Plan countermeasures and come up with strategies."

I stared back at Zeus, Amaterasu, Sun Wukong who was the only one looking unworried by the situation and a few more major gods.

"Just know that it's all useless. I'll give you time you decide the order in which you want to die."

Stepping away, red fire washed down my hand before forming into a black lance with flames covering the head. its tip crackled with sparks.

"As for you Ares, I accept your challenge." I narrowed my eyes.

"Don't die too fast."

Ares was the first to strike, closing the distance between us in less time than I expected, his sword flashing through the air as he launched himself at my left. But I was quicker, yet again sidestepping the attack and retaliating with a swift strike of my own at roughly the same speeds he was moving at. Ares dodged, his sword clanging against the shaft of spear as he tried to find an opening.

He was relentless. However, my movements were precise and calculated, blocking or dodging at every turn. Ares was having a hard time keeping up, so I lowered my speed until he could finally start seeing my moves. Until he could start capitalizing on openings.

His sword produced sparks and loud clangs as it clashed against my spear. It was easy to see that he was skilled. However, I was simply better. My expertise coming from two sources. One, my divinity and the second from combat honed to perfection through battles with extremely powerful beings.

A particularly nasty deflection from my spear, saw him tumbling through the ground once more, his weapon flying out of his hand. The next instant I was above him, pointing the head of the spear at his neck. Ares blinked while breathing heavily. Everyone was silent, waiting for what I was going to do.

I twirled the spear in my hands, then unravelled it into flame energy.

"Your daddy is not yet done scheming."

I informed him, stretching out a hand for him to use to get up from the ground.

Ares reached out and grabbed my palm. I smiled, pulling him up from the ground and slamming him onto the floor behind me. His breath was knocked out of him as his eyes widened. I wound my foot back and kicked him on the side. He rolled away before coming to a stop before Zeus.

"Get up."

I ordered.

The god of war stumbled backward, his breath knocked from him. But he was not defeated yet. With a fierce cry, he summoned all of his strength and charged forward, his hands extended like claw. Unarmed combat huh? Let's go. The two of us collided in a frenzy of punches, kicks, and slashes. Each of his punches was like fending off slow and weak blows from a child. I dodged a fist and landed a palm on his nose, breaking it.

Before he could heal, the next winding attack he threw landed on my open hand. I squeezed his wrist and heard it snap, then my forearm smacked onto his elbow and made it bend the wrong way with a sickening crunch. My foot kicked out and broke his knee from the contact of my heel and the side of the joint. Ares opened his mouth to scream but a hit straight to the throat blocked the airway. He opened his eyes wide and took a few steps back, gasping for air.

I waited as he healed, using telekinesis to summon his sword onto my hand and send it flying into his.

Ares looked up warily.

"You're a god of war. Death is only meaningful in battle."

The words roused him up.

Ares was determined to win, his pride was on the line as he redoubled his efforts. He stepped forward and swung his sword with all his might, the blade arcing through the air as he sought to take down his opponent, me. The bladed edge of his weapon struck the side of my spear and broke.

Ares had left himself exposed for just a fraction of a second, and I was only too quick to take advantage.

I lunged forward, my flames forming into a sword that pierced through his chest in a single, swift motion.

Ares staggered, his sword falling from his grasp as he clutched at the wound. He looked up at me, eyes wide with surprise and anger.

"It was a good fight."

I consoled, pulling out the sword and watching as golden flames started consuming him.

"You...you defeated me," he gasped, his voice barely a whisper.

I gave a nod.

"What can I say? I'm the better god of war."

And with that, Ares fell to the ground, his body consumed by the flames of my weapon. The battle was over, and I stood tall as the Victor.

Now for the footnote.

"Well, what scheme did you finally land on?"

I threw over my shoulder at Zeus.