Arson stood behind the door of the bedroom his loop began with. He’d lost count of how many times he’d tried the trial he was currently in. Yet the disparity of how difficult the trial was had long vanished from his mind, as Arson was having the time of his life.

"3…2… 1…”

The moment Arson’s count finished, he dove forward, slashing out with the scythe in his hand, even before the wall in the room crumbled. The giant that threatened to attack Osiris lifted his sword above his head, only for his head to slide off completely. Osiris roared as he lifted his shield, stopping abruptly as the giant’s head bounced off his shield; looking around in confusion, the Celestial was only able to catch the sight of Arson’s back as he leaped over the banister of the nearby balcony.

“Come on, come on!”

Wind whipped past Arson as he plummeted, reaching out with his scythe, his weapon snagging onto the side of a flying platform filled with vegetation. He hung from the side of the platform, waiting for his time. Everything had become about time. Even the slightest mistake would result in Arson failing the trial, and Arson was done failing.

He soared over a battlefield filled with giants and demigods battling for their lives, waiting for the right moment. He saw the catapult made by the giants as it prepared to fire the boulder that would inevitably kill his second target of seven, and pulled his scythe back into his spacial inventory to once more plummet from the sky.

Arson charged a conductive water orb, filling it with enough mana to make bolts of white lightning surge out of the spear of water, diving toward the boulder as he pushed himself downward as much as his flying abilities would allow.

“Come on!”

He and the boulder made contact and the boulder exploded into dust and fine particles, spraying the battlefield below with bits of sand and stone debris. His dive couldn’t be slowed, making the ground ripple out in a wave as he formed a crater on impact.

Men and women were sent flying about. Arson already on his feet, rushed toward an assassin before many of their bodies slammed back into the ground. Everything slowed, and Arson took in the sight of Hermes battling giants and demigods with an army of vines tipped with severely sharpened branch tips.

Arson closed his eyes and the chaotic maze of vines became a readable pattern. Unknowing that his stealth training with Breaker had sharpened him to an untold degree, Arson stepped through the vines even as they moved through the air cutting down Hermes foes by the dozens, rushing toward the god covered in a tree like suit of armor as he speared his foes with a literal glaive made from Titan Steel Wood.

“Not you too, Hercules,” roared Hermes as he noticed Arson break through his defensive perimeter of lashing vines. The god swung his weapon toward Arson without hesitation just as Arson dove toward him.

Arson reached forward with his free hand; the powerful weapon sweeping toward him in a vicious arc. He timed his maneuver perfectly, balancing himself entirely on the flat of the wooden blade’s edge, planking midair as he extended his scythe above Hermes’s head.

The scythe cleaved the invisible foe in half just as their twin daggers were about to slice through Hermes’s neck, not even a foot from behind the man.

Hermes gasped as Arson flew past him, exiting the vines around Hermes, not stopping for anything. He rushed toward a catapult on the god's side of the battlefield, approaching a team of loyal demigods as they loaded the machine with a bag full of flammable liquid.

Before the team could seal the bag closed, Arson ran up the length of the catapults spine, jumping into the massive bag, sloshing the material everywhere. The group jerked back in confusion, as Arson’s scythe vanished and he stared them down.

“Hercules, what are you do—“

“We don’t have time for this, close the bag and fire it toward the giants rushing towards Poseidon!”

“What giants...” one of the demigods started to ask, but a single glance was enough for the group to see what Arson was talking about. Arson glanced at the seven out of seven in his trial counter and felt his rage grow at the group, only slightly aware that his actions were unusual for what Hercules would normally do.

Come on, I don’t have time for this!

“Seal the bloody bag and fire!”

“But...” tried another of the team.

“Now,” yelled Arson and the group shared glances before heeding. The bag closed above Arson’s head and was lit and Arson prepared for the shift in gravitational forces.

He roared as he was launched upward. The bag he was in flying perfectly toward its target as the runes stitched into the bag made the projectile solid until impact, forcing Arson to hold his breath as the liquid inside spun inside with the bag’s rotation.

Arson kept his eyes closed, seeing the battle he rushed toward come into sight well in advance with his Closed Eye Dominion. Just before he was set to collide, he struck.

Come on!

Arson summoned his scythe, slashing outward, just above the rushing crowd of giants below. The bag opened silently as Arson spun, spreading the liquid outward above the heads of the giants, as the flaming bag lit the material causing an explosion of raining fire.

The giants screamed in alarm, Arson descending through the flames to slice two of the three giants' heads off, dropping down to cut down the third’s legs off at the knees before she could turn around.

Arson summoned Jack, and had his Living Hand Construct begin to create a conductive water orb above his head; Arson dismissed his scythe, and raised his hands above his head to help create a larger orb as fast as possible.

“Poseidon!”

The god glanced at him. His green eyes fierce even as his gaze met Arson’s through the head to toe armor made of water he wore. Arson glanced up at the orb that had already grown larger than a bolder, and back towards Poseidon. The man’s gaze confused as a seeming Hercules rushed toward him with an amalgamation of both he and, for all intents and purposes, his father’s element, while literal flames ate the upper half of his toga off his body.

“Tidal wave, uncle!”

The moment Arson spoke the name of the incredibly dangerous attack that Hercules’s uncle was known for, understanding filled the god’s eyes, and Arson jumped .

The trident in Poseidon’s hands began to glow with an intense light, while the god used the remainder of the element that formed his armor to blast back his enemies. A slicing ring of water spreading outward around the god, killing two of Arson’s unseen targets, but not the third.

“Now,” yelled Poseidon, and Arson thrust the giant orb toward the god’s trident as the weapon was raised upward.

Come on, come on!

The trident made contact with Arson’s orb, and waves taller than the giants themselves exploded outward in a halo around Arson and Poseidon.

Arson, seeing that Poseidon had full control of the water he’d summoned, let go of the orb and dropped to the ground. He reached out to the left, grabbing the third assassin by the neck, and swept his hand toward the assassin’s neck while summoning his scythe, beheading the woman before she could thrust out with her sword.

Arson dove forward, putting himself in front of the next pulse of waves that Poseidon summoned forth, letting the massive wave hurtle him toward his next target. His heart racing at the sight of the seven out of seven gods still being alive for the trial.

…

Athena fired arrow after arrow, growing tired as the days long fight continued. She was more than capable of continuing for days longer, as long as no true foe of her own magnitude approached her.

She sensed the blade darting toward her eye only a mere foot away, and knew there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop the strike. She watched her long life flash before her eyes, closing her eyes as the blade was just about to pierce her pupil, but the strike didn’t land.

Instead Athena was blown backward. She opened her eyes once her back bounced off a pillar, crumbling the support as if it were made from brittle and ill stacked rocks rather than condensed marble.

A creature made of shadow thrashed about on the ground where she’d just stood, bleeding out all over the floor.

Then to her utter shock, Hercules landed on the balcony she’d just been shooting from, holding a strange longbow with moving gears at its top and bottom, before he fired two more strange electrified arrows into the creature, further pinning it to the ground; the strange rune filled bow he held disappeared as he reached for the assassin.

His approach was nearly instantaneous; the creature, grabbed by the neck and electrified; a strange liquid flowing from his hands and drowning the shadowy humanoid assassin.

Has Hercules ascended toward godhood?

The question was both ridiculous and impossible, but the strange abilities, were unexplainable, until Athena noticed the unfathomably complex sundial wrapped around his wrist that flickered with powerful runes to such a degree that she could barely keep her eyes on the device.

He looked at her, and his blue eyes, swirled with strange points of light that hadn’t been there the last time she’d seen him, before he yelled. His voice so powerful and demanding it made her jump in a way that only her elder brother had prior to that moment.

“Where is Ares?”

The creature still thrashed wildly in his grip, trying to escape the powerful grapple, but getting nowhere in its attempt.

“Hercules, where did you—“

“Stop wasting my time, Athena. Where is Ares, now!”

“He is fighting to join your father in the throne room, but,” started Athena, but Hercules was already moving before she could get another word out, bursting through a wall as a white golden hand left his back and continued to drown the assassin that had nearly taken her life.

…

Ares fought creatures that surged from a unknown portal that reminded him of his brother Hades’s very own. If it weren’t for the fact that he knew where the portal led, he’d fully believe that his brother had betrayed them all.

He laughed to himself, knowing that his death was but a moment away. Or at least that is what he’d thought, until his nephew arrived.

Hercules rushed onto the rooftop, swinging a harvesting tool in a whirlwind of devastation.

Ares was barely able to keep his eyes on the spinning young demigod as he lopped off the heads arms and legs of opponents that Ares was incapable of seeing. The ones he was able to see were mere distractions, making openings for his invisible enemies.

If it wasn’t for his powerful body, he’d long ago been cut down, but had regardless been close to toppling over until Hercules had emerged, aiding him in a way that felt like a blessing from the maiden herself.

“Follow me, uncle. I will need your help soon, just make sure you are ready,” roared his younger brother as he rushed toward the Titan Steel Tree that grew atop the center of all Olympus.

“Uncle,” mumbled Ares, confused by his younger brother’s words as he watched him run up the trunk of the towering tree, rushing far up its length as if gravity meant nothing to the young demigod.

Hercules then dove backward; a large shield appearing in his hands as a vibrant water submerged both the shield and Hercules entirely.

The power emanating off his brother made Ares step backward. The god completely shocked when the roof that he’d just fought atop, crumbled as his younger brother became like a meteor, roaring as he dove like a falling star toward a beast he’d only ever seen in his nightmares.

…

Zeus and Hades fought back to back. A primordial beast the size of a building swinging its massive paws around, trying to crush him and his brother. Oddly enough the issue wasn’t the giant wolf they fought, it was the multitude of smaller wolves that poured out of the beasts wounds, forming from the primordials blood that was causing the two gods issues.

Many of the guards around them struggled to stay on their feet. The wolves proved to be an almost insurmountable foe, many of the loyal demigods there to protect Zeus already bleeding out, or crushed by the Primordials massive claws.

The only thing separating the wolf from the gods were the distracting force of half humans and fey, giving their lives to support their leaders. A force that stood no chance as they were slain by the handful with each attack that came from the primordial before them.

“It has been a pleasure my brother, thank you for this life amongst the clouds, if my soul lives on I will forever remember what you have done for me,” said Hades. The god thrusting his twin swords made of darkness in every direction, teleporting at incredible speeds to lay down every enemy that made it close to Zeus as he threw a dwindling amount of lightning bolts at the primordial.

“This is not our end brother, we can do this!”

Hades chuckled, but before he could respond a roar could be heard coming from above them. A roar unlike anything they’d ever heard in all of their countless battles. A roar that filled them with fear unlike anything they’d ever heard before.

The gods looked up as gravity forced all movement in the room to a standstill. The ceiling folded inward on itself, and Hercules was then seen diving toward the primordial consumed in a golden water that surged with white lightning. He held a shield that also glistened with the same energy and collided with the back of the primordials head. A massive boom went outward, blasting back all of the blood wolves, splattering them across the throne room, leaving Zeus and Hades to scramble to their feet.

Once upright Zeus stared astonished as his son held the giant fangs of the primordial on one side of the beasts head, yanking it back and forward to keep its monstrous form off balance. Zeus opened his mouth to yell, but Hercules own yell bursted throughout the room, stunning Zeus to silence.

“Ares, do it now!”

Another roar was heard, and Zeus looked up to see Ares diving toward the back of the beasts neck with a claymore as long as his massive son was tall.

The primordial tried to move, but instead Hercules smashed its head into the ground, pinning it as Ares swung, cleaving through its neck in a single downward slash.

The flesh of the body tried to rejoin with the severed skull and spinal cord, but Hercules lifted it once more and slammed it overhead.

Hades had already rushed toward Hercules’s exposed back, fighting the herd of blood wolves that poured out of the primordials neck, forming from the near waterfall of blood pooling on the floor. Yet Zeus stood frozen, completely dazed by the sight of his son.

His normally timid and fearful of everything son. The son he’d witnessed lose more battles than he’d wished to remember. The son who now pummeled a primordial that he and his powerful brother struggled to conquer.

A mixture of emotions filled him in that moment. Both pride, and envy swirling about in a dangerous mix of thoughts that made his mind grow numb with bewilderment.

“Father, you must defeat it now, this is our only chance!”

Zeus snapped from his daze at his son’s cry for help, and his heart began to race as he pulled on every bit of manna in his soul, pumping the energies with life and living emotion; his will becoming further fuel for the growing lightning that flowed throughout his body.

“Skyfall!”

…

Arson watched as a pillar of condensed lightning as black as the night sky fell toward him and the primordial he wrestled with, and smiled.

“Bring it on,” he yelled as he lifted the head of the primordial into the direct line of fire. The bolt of god’s lightning filling the beasts head with uncontrollable power as Arson roared in defiance of the force trying to kill both him and his final foe within the trial.

The moment stretched and Arson felt his vision go blurry. His limbs began to shake, but he refused to give in. He’d never been this close.

Then it happened, Zeus’s bolt eviscerated the primordials first core. The brain of the beast needing to be destroyed before its heart, and the rest of its body.

Arson wanted to drop, and fall unconscious as blood rained down around them, but an itch at the back of his mind told him that if he did, somehow the situation wouldn’t end with the gods surviving the battle.

He looked around to see Ares, Hades and Zeus all fighting the growing number of blood wolves and sighed inwardly. He had to give everything to this fight, or all his hard work would be for nothing.

He pulled on the cage of anger and rage that he’d built around his heart since he’d been taken to Endless and let his power flow wildly outward from his center.

In the next instant he was moving rapidly. Using all of the styles of Omni his mother had shared with him thus far, styles of combat that had improved drastically since he’d been stuck within the loop of the very trial he was stuck in.

Wolves were crushed by axe kicks. Splattered by punches surrounded in conductive waters, and even crushed by Jack. The Living Hand Construct, teaching itself how to grow in proportion to crush enemies in its grip since they’d been stuck in this trial’s loop. Easily able to smash Arson’s enemies while field by his rage.

Arson dodged a wolf’s lunge, ignoring the creature as Jack smashed down, flattening the wolf with a closed hammer fist that sent lightning rippling through the ground, killing even more rushing wolves.

After what felt like an eternity to Arson, finally the primordial's seemingly endless flow of blood stopped, and Ares stabbed his blade into the heart of the massive beast, slicing through its second core.

“You must burn it!”

Arson’s voice felt strange, but he ignored it realizing that it wasn’t his own, but Hercules’s, the demigod he’d invaded to complete the trial. A detail that he didn’t enjoy to think about in the slightest.

Many of the remaining few demigods began to burn the corpse immediately, listening to Arson without a single moment of hesitation. Yet another factor that Arson was unaware wouldn’t normally happen.

Hercules’s reputation up to that point wasn’t one of leadership and might, but through Arson’s efforts in the battle, a new fame was being spread through the citizens of Olympus. A reputation that would forever distort Hercules’s path, as his father had never feared his son’s might, until that very moment.

Arson looked around, only then noticing that everyone in the room was staring at him. A literal steam rising off his head and shoulders as Arson’s own crown fought to rip through the distortion being made by the system to hide it from existence.

Arson smiled, knowing that the trial was over. His mind, body and soul pulled to a completely new time and space in a flash, saving the gods but letting Olympus burn down around all of its people.

Hercules left to fend for himself against a family separated by betrayal, filled with those who’d kill both parent and child in a heartbeat to protect that of their own power.

The demigod blinked slowly as his own consciousness returned to him,. He looked around at the shocked faces, and was confused by the rumors being murmured all around him.

He fell to his knees exhausted, confused by the memories that began to fill his mind. His actions alarming and completely foreign to him.

Finally he looked to his father. A man who normally looked in his direction with sadness and pity. A new face worn by the god, confusing Hercules even further.

Is that fear in his eyes…?

Hercules wasn’t given a single moment further to figure out what was going on before his father raised his hand, pointing in his direction as he looked at all of his guards and troops in the room.

“Seize him!”