I Am Zeus

The ruins of Olympus were silent. Zeus stood at the broken railing, his eyes calm, his storm hidden. Gaia had left him to his thoughts, her roots fading back into the soil of the world. None of the gods below could see what burned in his veins.

But far beyond Olympus, in places where no god dared walk, the news had already spread. Not through whispers, not through messengers. It was felt.

The death of Surtr.

The eternal flame that had burned since the first dawn of fire was gone, snuffed out in silence. It wasn't a wound the world could ignore. It rippled outward, through every realm, across every sky and sea. To mortals it was nothing more than a shift in the wind, a sudden chill, an unfamiliar shadow at the edge of their dreams. But to the Primordials—it was thunder at the gates.

In the Abyss where light was forbidden, Erebus stirred. The shadow thickened until it became a throne, and from it the god of Darkness opened his eyes. The void itself recoiled. His voice cut through the silence like a knife.

"He has slain one of us."

The shadows shivered as countless wraiths bowed in silence. Erebus leaned forward, the shape of his body barely more than a wound in the dark. His thoughts were not calm—they burned with the sharp edge of pride and wrath.

"Surtr was not the strongest," Erebus said, "but he was flame eternal. His fall cannot go unchallenged. We should strike now. I will lead the way and rip the sky-king apart."

The dark around him churned, restless, ready to move. But another voice cut through before the shadows could scatter.

"You speak like a fool."

The words were heavy, carried on ice older than worlds. From the northern void, frost bled into the meeting place. The darkness cracked, and with it, a figure emerged—colossal, jagged, rimmed with glaciers that burned with cold. Ymir, the first frost, the father of giants.

His single eye glowed pale. His voice was slow, patient, yet merciless.

"You think to face him alone? That is what Surtr thought. That is what Nyx thought. How many more will you waste before you understand?"

Erebus's shadows snapped like whips, but Ymir's cold filled the silence. Neither flinched, but another presence rippled into the gathering before the two could clash.

The air bent, folding inward like paper, then tearing open. From the rent stepped a man taller than mountains, with skin carved like stone and eyes bright as dawn. His breath alone pressed against the others, steady, eternal.

Pangu.

The one who split heaven and earth, whose axe carved the first horizon. He looked at Erebus, then at Ymir. His voice was low, but it carried the weight of both worlds.

"The shadow is right. The frost is right. Both speak truth, but neither carries wisdom."

Erebus hissed, but Pangu raised a hand, and the darkness froze in place.

"You think yourselves endless," Pangu continued. "But one by one, you fall. The storm-king is not Cronus. He is not a Titan. He is not a god of the new age. He carries something else now."

Ymir's eye narrowed. "You felt it too."

Pangu nodded slowly. "Yes. The sky answered him. I felt it when the wind bent above the chaos-sea. He is not merely Zeus anymore. He has touched the root."

The darkness around Erebus twisted tighter. He did not like the sound of it. "Then you mean to do nothing? Let him walk unchecked, let him take our domains, let him unravel us piece by piece?"

A new laugh echoed across the gathering, sharp and ringing like steel on stone. From the sands of forgotten rivers came another—Tiamat, mother of monsters, coiling in the air like a sea made flesh. Her scales gleamed, her many heads hissing in unison.

"You sound afraid, Erebus," she purred, each head speaking in turn. "You should be. The storm-child has teeth now."

Her laughter rippled through the void, cruel and sweet, until even the shadows recoiled.

"Then what?" Erebus snapped. "Wait for him to hunt us? To climb into our domains one after another? We are being thinned like cattle!"

"No," Ymir rumbled, frost spilling from his breath. "We will no longer go to him."

Tiamat's heads tilted, amused. "Then we make him come to us?"

Pangu shook his head. "No. We make war."

The word hung in the air. It was not spoken lightly. Even the void hesitated at it.

"War," Erebus repeated, his shadows curling tighter, sharper. His eyes burned within the dark.

"Yes," Pangu said. "If we march together, if we descend as one, then even he cannot hold against us. The world will fracture. The skies will break. And the mortals who worship him will see their king fall beneath the weight of what came before."

Ymir's ice cracked like thunder. "Better to shatter Olympus once and for all than to be carved away one at a time."

Tiamat's laughter turned low, dangerous. "Then let the heavens drown."

Across the void, other presences stirred. Primordials who had remained silent until now, watching, weighing.

Anshar, the horizon eternal, whispered agreement.

Anu, first sky of Babylon, watched with cold approval.

Nuwa, the weaver of forms, lifted her head with quiet disdain but did not argue.

Apsu, the endless deep, rumbled in the black.

One by one, the voices rose—not as gods, not as Titans, but as the first ones. They did not bicker, not now. Their numbers were fewer than in the first dawn, but each was heavy enough to drown worlds.

And in that silence, the war was declared.

The void trembled. Reality quivered at the weight of the gathering. The stars themselves dimmed, as if afraid.

Erebus leaned forward, his shadows curling into claws. His voice was soft now, but it cut like a blade.

"Then let it be war."

The decision spread like fire. Across the nine realms, the seas, the rivers, the peaks, the chaos beyond sight—every Primordial stirred. They would not wait. They would not creep one by one into the jaws of the storm. They would descend together.

Olympus would drown beneath them.

And though none of them said it, none of them admitted it, each felt the same quiet thing at the edges of their wrath.

The faint hum of the sky.

The whisper of stormlight they could not see, but felt.

The presence of Zeus, silent and waiting, his storm held behind calm eyes.

The war of gods and primordials had begun.