I didn’t think he was in any position to make any threats. There was no way that he’d ever convince any of the titans to mount an offensive against me after that. On the contrary, he now had way more to worry about than I did. If there were still any titans that were loyal to my father, the first one they'd go after would be him. As I was Cronus’s son, and now the strongest god of all, I was unlikely to be any titan's first choice for where they directed their anger. The betrayal by one of their own siblings, however, would not go unnoticed nor, hopefully, unpunished.

"Brother," Hades said, and threw his large arms around me. "Look how much you’ve grown. I can barely hug you anymore."

"You managed to put an end to our suffering," Poseidon said, patting my shoulder. "Who would've expected that it would be you who would save us from him?"

"Well, definitely not you," I said, pushing his shoulder while smiling. "You were inside his stomach."

"I always thought Demeter would be the first one of us to explode," Hades said.

"I did. Multiple times. But I wasn't able to kill him," she said.

"It's so good to see you all," I said, taking a second to appreciate seeing everyone together again.

"I hate to intrude, but it seems that justice has been served and my family must have missed me terribly," the monkey-god's hoarse voice said from behind us. "Zeus, you have my eternal gratitude for freeing me from that prison."

"There’s nothing to thank me for," I said. "I only did what was right."

"A trait that was not too common among the old Greek pantheon," he said. "I hope that is about to change. I will take my leave now. Should you find yourself in trouble because of the events that have transpired here today, know that you can count on help from the Hindu pantheon."

"If there is a war, it should be contained within the Greek realms," I said. "But I appreciate your offer and hope that our peoples will finally start benefiting from trade partnerships."

"That is guaranteed," the monkey-faced man said. Then his body started levitating. "I bid you farewell."

"It was great to meet you, Hanuman!" Hades shouted, and the rest just waved at him as he flew away.

We fell to the ground, exhausted by the fight, waiting for the resurrection time-window to pass, to make absolutely sure Cronus wouldn’t be coming back.

"You have changed so much, Zeus," Demeter said and looked at my guildmates. "And I see you made some very powerful friends."

"We will have to hear all about it," Poseidon agreed.

But I noticed Hades was still staring at our father's body.

"Hades, are you okay?" I asked.

"I am," he said, and paused for a moment, thinking of his next words. "It's just... I always thought that there was something wrong with me. With all of us. Yet fighting him with you felt natural. And now that I see him dead I do not feel sad at all."

"Why would you feel sad?" Demeter asked. "He made our lives a living hell. There is nobody alive who's going to shed a tear for him."

"That is what my logical mind told me," he replied. "But I had the feeling that he was a good man. Perhaps I didn't want to let go of the good memories I had of him."

"So how do you feel now?" Poseidon asked.

"All of the good memories are blurry and almost escaped my mind. No matter how hard I try, I can't bring myself to remember a good thing about him. And seeing him dead makes me feel free."

"Damn right, Hades!" Demeter exclaimed. "I knew you weren't completely thick-headed."

"Yeah, I guess I'm not." He chuckled and looked at me. "Alright, little brother. What’s your story then? How did you reach this point with all these people? A clan of your own too, I see?"

"We'll tell you all about it once we're back home," I said. "We have a town on top of a mountain called Olympus."

"Wow, wow, wow," Poseidon said, nodding his head approvingly. "Just how long were we in there?"

"Months," I said. "But before you tell me about your little camping trip, let me introduce you to my guildmates. Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and love, was the first to join me when I barely escaped Cronus. Along with Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, we were the only members of the guild when we turned the place of power on top of Mount Olympus into our guild core."

"I am in awe as to how you manage to co-exist with him," Demeter said, looking at the two goddesses.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Zeus has been the bravest person I have ever met," Aphrodite replied.

"I bet you'll be surprised to see how much he's changed and how much he’s accomplished in your absence," Artemis added.

"I have absolutely no doubt about that," Hades agreed. "We're only here because of him, after all."

"This is Ares, god of war and brother to Aphrodite," I said, gesturing to him.

"I have heard of you," Poseidon said with a grin on his face. "Not just fighting wars, is it? Starting them too."

"I do what I can," Ares replied with a smile.

"And the last to join us is Hephaestus, the god of the forge,"

"You must be the one who crafted this weapon?" Demeter asked.

"I am indeed," Hephaestus replied.

"For that you have our eternal thanks. My brothers and I would never have seen the light of day again had it not been for you and your craftsmanship."

"It wasn't just me—", he began replying.

"You will soon find that Hephaestus is the humblest god in the whole Apocosmos," I said, and a shy smile crept onto his face. "But tell me your story. What happened to you since last I saw you?"

"Well, you saw Father... Cronus devouring us," Hades said, "and we were soon in a completely dark and empty space. At first we thought we’d been teleported somewhere with magical darkness. The absence of light was complete, even with my superior darksight."

"Not only was it dark, but we didn’t even have access to our inventory," Poseidon said. "So we could do nothing but roam around in the dark, shouting and hoping that someone would hear us."

"Can you believe that?" Demeter said, hitting her head with her hand. "These morons were walking around that place, shouting like idiots, without a care about what might be lurking in the darkness."

"Wait, were you not all in the same place?" I asked.

"No, no, no," Hades replied. "Once devoured we were completely alone, blind, and with no access to our inventory. At that point, I didn't know if there was anything worse that could happen, so I just started looking for you all."

"Eventually Hades and I heard each other's shouts and we joined forces," Poseidon said. "If it can even be called joining forces. We just wandered around randomly for hours."

"Was there nothing else there?" I asked.

"It was a completely empty space," Demeter explained. "The ground was hard like marble and that's it. No inclines or declines, no seams on the floor, no air, no smells, nothing."

"Sounds like a dreary place," Aphrodite said.

"Tell me about it!" Poseidon replied. "Anyway, eventually we met up with Demeter—"

"You mean I snuck up on you—" she began, but was swiftly interrupted by Hades.

"Let's not go there," he said. "That is of no significance. The point is that we were reunited."

"Indeed we were," Poseidon agreed, looking relieved that Demeter hadn’t continued with her version of their encounter. "So we started looking for you."

"Silently at first," Hades continued, "until your sister was finally convinced there was no point in tiptoeing anymore."

"That's when we came across Hanuman and we finally understood what was happening," Demeter explained. "Apparently he had been there for many hours or hundreds of years. Those were his actual words."

"Yeah, very strange fellow," Poseidon agreed.

"Soon we put two and two together and realized he was that Hindu god that had gone missing all that time ago," she continued. "He took it very well considering he was in there alone for so long."

"Honestly, I think if it had been me in there for so long I would have gone completely mad," Poseidon said.

"I think it has to do with their whole philosophy as a pantheon," Hades remarked. "That's why he was able to keep his mind sane and didn’t even know how much time had really passed."

"In any case, he explained to us how he came to be there, and that he had walked non-stop since he arrived," Demeter continued. "Soon we understood that the place was an endless loop. A place of complete darkness where we were cut off from the Dark Energy, our skills, our divine powers, and our inventory."

"Not that we stopped searching for you and trying to find a way out," Poseidon said. "Until we finally convinced ourselves that you had somehow escaped. And that gave us hope."

"How did me not being devoured give you hope?" I asked.

"Zeus, we all believed in you," Hades replied. "We knew you would never let us stay in there for all eternity."

"We were sure you'd come to rescue us, brother," Poseidon said. "We just had to sit tight and wait."

"You guys..." I said, not believing what I was hearing. "Thank you for saying that."

"Of course." Poseidon shrugged. "So when we started hearing sounds of battle, we were sure it was you."

"You could hear us fighting from in there?" Artemis asked, surprised.

"We couldn't exactly make out what we were hearing at first," Hades replied. "But even the faintest of sounds that didn’t originate from the four of us were immediately noticeable. At first it sounded like a pounding. Soon it became louder and we could recognize the sounds were coming from the other side."

"We couldn’t make out voices or anything like that, mind you," Poseidon added. "More like rocks moving underneath our feet or a very distant yell. But the sounds soon became louder. We were sure there was a battle happening."

"Eventually, we started seeing a little information from the Dark Energy," Demeter said. "At first only scanning each other. It came and went. But then we gained access to our class skills. Then our divine skills and finally our inventory."

"We geared up for battle and waited for whatever was going to happen," Poseidon said. "And what a beautiful thing it was. A very faint light appeared above our heads. There was no doubt about it. The fabric of whatever was keeping us inside was thinning."

"Knowing this might be our only chance, we unleashed everything we had," Hades said. "All of our offensive divine skills, our spells and ranged attacks. Until we finally made it. A blinding light pierced through the hole that was created, and the first thing we saw was your spear."

"The first thing he saw is what he means, since we were still completely blinded by the sudden light," Poseidon said.

"Thankfully, your guildmates had joined us inside by then as well and were running toward the tear," Demeter said. "Aphrodite, having scanned us, quickly cured our eyes and we all charged at Cronus."

"I'm sorry you waited in there for so long," I said, "but to be honest, I never thought I'd see you again. Had I known that you were in there all this time—"

"You would have rushed to your death like a fool." Aphrodite finished my sentence for me.

"You're probably not wrong about that," I agreed.

"Looks like you finally found people who can match you," Poseidon said with a smile, but was confused when nobody smiled at his little jest. "Why are you all looking at me like that? I'm only joking."

But we weren’t actually looking at him. We were looking behind him.

"So it's finally done," Rhea said. "The prophecy has been fulfilled."