Hades was at half health and almost done playing possum. His original plan of having Stompy flatten Francis while he destroyed the city had fallen apart. But Hades would settle for “accidentally” killing the Marine when he triggered his ability. After all, he wasn't supposed to kill another god’s champion. But he couldn't be held accountable for collateral damage.

The only real thing bothering the god of death was the fact that Zeus hadn't shown up to stab him in the back. Either his brother was being uncharacteristically kind, or Zeus had found an even better way to hurt Hades.

He got his answer as System alerts started flowing in.

—

Your holy city of Necros has been destroyed by a rival god.

—

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Your holy city of New Camden has been destroyed by a rival god.

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Your holy city of Trenton has been destroyed by a rival god.

—

Hades felt his HP plummet as the buffs from his holy cities disappeared. He couldn't wait any longer for Francis to get within range, he needed to move closer to the Marine.

The god of death broke free of Swan’s grip and teleported halfway to the approaching Titan. The god of art and carpentry swore under his breath. He wasn't sure why Hades had finally decided to start fighting for real, but he didn't really care either.

Chuck was a little bit ahead of Stompy. He saw Hades teleport towards him and did the smart thing, he fucked off in the opposite direction. He couldn't fight a god, even trying would be stupid. And he wasn't stupid. Besides, the other gods seemed to have things well enough in hand.

Hades howled in outrage as the Magical Charger zipped out of range. He had been looking forward to teaching that horse a lesson. The god of death looked up at Francis, noticing how the Marine clung to Stompy's back. It was obvious that something weird was going on, but Hades wasn't sure what to make of the situation.

He closed the gap by teleporting again, and with an evil grin, dismissed his champion. The Titan, who had been preparing to chomp him in two, was teleported back to the underworld in a puff of black smoke.

“Sorry!” Hades called out as Francis abruptly began to plummet through the air, “No Titan for you!”

The Marine was about fifty meters off the ground when Stompy disappeared. Fall damage wouldn't be an issue. But whatever Hades was planning probably would be.

Willow had messaged him through the link with updates about the battle going on in the skies above Brexis. Something about the whole situation seemed incredibly off. He contemplated this as the ground came up to greet him.

A commanding officer had once joked that Francis didn't act any different inside or outside of combat. This was true, mostly because the Marine didn't differentiate between the two. His rules of engagement might change, but he was always ready for a fight.

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According to Willow, the god of death had been getting his ass kicked by Murder Cube’s friends. The fight had been mostly one sided, with the Meme gods taking zero casualties. This seemed incredibly odd to Francis. If Hades was really that outmatched, he would have run by now. And if he could Teleport, that meant he still had Mana left.

Was he playing possum? the Marine wondered. Mentally he had categorized Hades as a Saturday morning cartoon villain (like Skeletor but without the charm). But he was realizing that there was probably more to the god of death than that. Hades was clever, dangerously clever.

The Meme gods were right on his tail, but Hades didn't look worried. In fact, he wasn't paying any attention to them. His eyes were locked on Francis. The Marine felt a surge of adrenaline as he recognized the look. He had seen it before, in the eyes of a suicide bomber.

Operating on pure instinct, Francis Teleported. He wanted to get as far away from Hades as possible. The Marine materialized on a tree limb overlooking the road, firing off the first spell he could think of.

The meme gods had just managed to reach Hades when Francis' spell went off and the death god began to glow an ominous green. The world seemed to shudder, lagging as multiple spells and abilities all triggered at once.

System needed to do some math.

***

First things first, a question needed to be answered. If a powerful death god triggers his Death Burst, Life Leech, and his Keep What You Kill abilities at the same time, how fucked is everyone standing nearby?

Death Burst allowed Hades to burn ten Stress in order to inflict the difference between his current HP and his maximum HP on everyone within fifty meters. The more he was injured, the more damage it did.

His Keep What You Kill ability cost an additional five Stress, but it was definitely worth it. Anything killed by his next attack would be temporarily raised as an undead under his control.

Then, for another five Stress he could also turn on Life Leech. For the next minute he would regain one HP for every ten points of Necrotic damage inflicted. And he was about to do a massive amount of damage.

Technically, there was an order of operations to consider. Francis had fired at Hades right as the death god triggered his ability. System was nothing if not fair, so it flipped a digital coin to decide which attack went off first.

Hades won, a shockwave of crackling green energy bursting from his body. It hit the approaching gods, and all hell broke loose. Neko was killed instantly, none of her abilities were strong enough to withstand that kind of damage. Astley and Swan were stronger, but Hades had been chipping away at their HP since the fight began.

There was a roar of discordant music as Astley was struck down. Swan barely managed to hang on, his HP was in the double digits. Then Francis’ spell went off.

Instead of joining in with an attack of his own, Swan decided to lower Hades' Deflect by his Tier. Normally, this would have only lowered Hades' defenses enough to ensure that Francis was able to hit. But the god of death was suffering from some very nasty debuffs.

Each holy city Hades lost to Zeus’ treachery had cost him dearly. Between that and Swan’s help, Francis was able to crit. What would have normally been a very lackluster magical attack was multiplied by the Marine’s Tier.

Hades screamed as the HP he had gained was burned away by the crit. Swan Teleported back to the safety of his holy city before the death god could take vengeance on him.

Hades took the opportunity to teleport away to safety as well. He would let his new minions soften up the bothersome young god before he went in for the killing blow.

Francis watched as the rainbow unicorn cat and red haired god of surprise stood up. The zombies snarled and locked eyes on him.

“Well… fuck,” the Marine swore.

***

Hades returned to the underworld and dashed to the treasure room that stored his most precious potions. He was beat to shit and needed healing.

But when he opened the vault, it was empty. All his gear and supplies were gone. The death god shook his fist. “Zeus, you motherfucker!”