Page 107 of Shattered & Returned

“You’ve grown weak, brother,”he taunted.“Love has made you soft.”

“And power has made you stupid,” I shot back. My death-shadows lashed toward his ankles. He twisted away, but not fast enough. A tendril grazed his golden greave, leaving decay in its wake.

Across the throne room, Dante and Ares clashed in a brutal dance of violence. The war god’s spear met Dante’s axes in showers of sparks that ignited the very air. While others would have crumbled under Ares’s power of terror, Dante only gave a chilling laugh, like damned souls shrieking.

“You think you frighten me, little godling?” Dante roared, his archdemon form emerging, obsidian horns pushing through his skull, eyes burning with infernal fire.“I am fear incarnate! I am the terror that makes gods wake screaming.”

For the first time, Ares faltered. His step back was barely perceptible, but it was enough. Dante’s axes crossed in a brutal arc, splintering Ares’s spear and carving deep into his breastplate.

Orren unleashed claws wreathed in hellfire and faced twelve of Zeus’s elite guards. His three heads moved independently: one breathing hellfire, another biting through armor like plastic, the third howling a sound that forced even immortal warriors to clutch their ears in agony.

The battle raged with increasing ferocity. I traded blows with Zeus, each clash shaking the entire palace. His lightning carved smoking wounds into my flesh, charring skin that struggled toheal fast enough. In turn, my shadows coiled around him like starving serpents, draining his life force wherever they touched.

“You fool!” Zeus roared as I landed a vicious strike that opened a gash across his perfect cheek. “You’d destroy everything for one woman?”

“She’s not just one woman,” I growled, pressing my advantage. “She’s everything you’ll never understand—love, loyalty, compassion, sacrifice.”

The palace fell apart around us. Atlantean ice and crystal exploded into prismatic shards. Columns crumbled like storm-felled oaks.

Dante had Ares on the defensive, the war god’s sadistic glee replaced by raw fear. Orren had torn through half the guards, their blood staining the white marble. But even the hellhound faltered now, his dark fur matted with blood, spear wounds piercing his flanks like macabre trophies.

Time was as much my enemy as Zeus. Every second here was a second Bloom faced the hunters alone, thinking I’d abandoned her. The thought drove me to new heights of fury.

I gathered every shred of remaining power, drawing shadows from the realm’s darkest corners. They coiled around me like loyal hounds, whispering of endings. Zeus answered with his own gathering storm, lightning crackling around him until the air shrieked.

“This ends now!”we roared in unison, our powers colliding with the force of a supernova.

The explosion shattered what little remained of the throne room and reduced it to a graveyard of splintered gold and broken power.

My ribs cracked, inner organs ruptured. I pushed through the agony, through the blinding light, until my shadows struck true. Zeus screamed as my death power slithered through him,aging his divine features, streaking his hair with premature white.

Zeus slumped against the broken throne, his form riddled with weeping shadow-wounds. Ares lay groaning in a pool of his own blood. Dante’s axes had found every chink in his armor. The guards were dead or badly wounded, Orren looming over them with all three heads raised in victory, his body a tapestry of wounds.

We’d won. But the cost was written in blood and broken flesh. I swayed, my body burned badly. Dante’s mortal shell frayed at the edges, his true form straining against this world’s laws. Orren dragged a mangled leg, the bone beneath his fur shattered.

“Run back to your mortal whore!”Zeus spat. “But the trial comes for her, and I’ll be there to watch her fall.”

I ached to finish him. To ensure he’d never threaten her again.

But Bloom needed me.

She came first.

“Dante. Orren.”My voice was scraped raw from battle.“Let’s get the hell out of here.”

We carved through the palace’s remnants. With the last dregs of my power, I summoned Belladonna. The portal swallowed us whole, spitting us toward home. Toward Bloom.

Zeus’s threat coiled in my skull. The true war of keeping Bloom breathing was just beginning.

The journey back stretched into eternity. Each heartbeat pulsed agony through shattered ribs. Every breath tasted of blood and failure. But more terrible than the pain was the gnawing dread:

Would I be too late?

Belladonna tore through the void between worlds. I pressed my ruined body against her neck, urging more speed from her wings, more strength from my failing limbs.

Hold on, my love.

Just a little longer.

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