I Am Zeus

The moment Hermes crossed the threshold of Olympus, the world became a blur of streaking color and screaming wind. He wasn't running; he was unraveling the distance between points, his mind already mapping a route to a hundred different realms. The weight of Zeus's command was a burning coal in his chest, far heavier than any stolen trinket or piece of gossip.

He shot across the cloud-sea, aiming for the vibrant, chaotic tapestry of the Norse realms first. But as he reached the void between territories, the space ahead of him twisted.

It wasn't a portal. It was a trap. The air congealed into a syrupy, resistant gel, forcing him to skid to a halt, his golden sandals scraping against nothingness. Around him, the void darkened, and from the shadows, they emerged.

Dozens of them. The red-skinned brutes and the smarter, black-hided elites. They formed a perfect sphere around him, blocking every escape route. And at the head of this ambush was a new figure.

This one was different. It was tall and gaunt, its skin a pale, corpse-like white, stretched taut over a skeletal frame. It wore robes of woven shadow, and its face was a long, mournful mask, save for its eyes—two pits of cold, blue fire. In its hand, it held a staff topped with a frozen, screaming soul.

"The messenger," the white demon said, its voice a whisper that cut through the silent void. "How predictable. The King foresaw the warning would be sent. We are here to ensure it is not delivered."

Hermes hovered, his caduceus held loosely in one hand. The usual playful light in his eyes was gone, replaced by a flat, calculating calm. He let out a slow breath.

"You know," he said, his voice devoid of its usual chatter. "Everyone makes the same mistake. They see the speed. The jokes. The running. They think that's all there is." He tilted his head. "They forget what a messenger is."

The white demon, a Lord of Hell known as Malakor, gestured with its staff. The sphere of demons tightened. "You are a courier. A gilded insect. You will be swatted, and your message will die with you."

"The message isn't what I carry," Hermes said, a faint, cold smile touching his lips. "The message is me."

He moved.

But not in the way they expected. He didn't try to dodge or weave. He stood his ground and vibrated. The air around him began to hum, the same frequency Zeus had used but pitched higher, sharper. The golden wings on his helmet and sandals flared with a light that was not reflected, but generated.

Malakor's eyes flared. "Destroy him!"

A volley of hellfire and dark-energy projectiles lanced toward him from all sides. Hermes didn't evade. He simply held up his caduceus.

The two serpents entwined around the staff came to life, not as illusions, but as manifestations of his true domain. They uncoiled, not to strike, but to weave. They spun in a blinding circle, creating a shimmering, golden lattice around him. The incoming attacks hit the lattice and… reversed. They shot back at the demons with twice their original speed and force.

The ambush became a chaotic storm of their own reflected fire. Red demons screamed as they were consumed by their own hellfire. Black elites found their dark-energy blades turning on them, slicing through their own ranks.

Malakor snarled, a sound of pure fury. It thrust its staff, and a wave of absolute zero cold, a frost that could freeze souls, shot forward.

Hermes met it head-on. He punched forward with his free hand, not to block, but to answer. The air before his fist shattered not into ice, but into a million glittering shards of solidified sunlight. The wave of cold met the wall of light and evaporated with a deafening hiss.

"You are not just a messenger," Malakor hissed, its composure cracking.

"I am the word that cannot be un-sent," Hermes replied, his voice echoing with multiple tones. "I am the path that cannot be blocked. I am the connection between all things. You think you understand realms? I define the space between them."

He finally shot forward, but not as a blur. He moved in a series of instantaneous, quantum jumps, appearing in a dozen places at once within the sphere, each after-image delivering a single, devastating blow with his caduceus. A demon's helmet crumpled. Another's spine shattered. A third was disintegrated into ash.

He was not fighting them. He was delivering a message of utter, final refusal.

In the heart of the chaos, he appeared directly in front of Malakor. The Lord of Hell swung its soul-staff, a blow that could sever a god's spirit from its body.

Hermes didn't parry. He caught the staff. His hand, glowing with golden light, closed around the frozen soul at its tip. The soul, sensing a power older and purer than the hellish energy that bound it, flared with one last burst of light before dissolving into peaceful nothingness.

Malakor stared, stunned, at its now-useless staff.

"The proof," Hermes said calmly.

He then moved faster than thought. He didn't strike a killing blow. Instead, he grabbed Malakor by the throat and the leg. With a grunt of effort that held the strength of continents, he bent the demon lord over his knee.

There was a sickening crack that echoed through the void, not of bone, but of infernal essence being forcibly folded. Malakor, Lord of Hell, was bent into a perfect, humiliating U-shape, its form frozen in a posture of absolute defeat.

The few remaining demons stared in horror, then fled into the shadows.

Hermes stood, hefting the bent, immobilized form of Malakor over his shoulder as if it were a rolled-up carpet. The demon lord could only emit faint, gurgling whimpers.

"Zeus said to deliver a warning," Hermes muttered, adjusting his grip on his living, breathing "proof." "Might as well make it a visual aid."

With a final, contemptuous glance at the dissolving ambush site, he kicked off again into the void, the bent lord slung over his shoulder. The message was now underway, and its first exhibit was a broken demon, delivered not by a cheerful courier, but by the God of Messengers, who had just reminded everyone why some paths are best left unblocked.