NOVEL NEXT The Lightning Bolt.
Along the surface of the ocean, a small island sat a comfortable distance between Crete and the Peloponnese. An uninhabited land that was largely soil and vegetation. Perhaps the odd siren would maroon there for a time, but it was mostly empty.
That was until a flying object smashed into its side. Easily breaking the landmass apart, its shattered pieces flew so high in the air that if the sky had been clear, men from Sparta would've seen it.
Thunder and lightning rumbled out. The ocean crashed and whirled in a ferocious cycle. A silver haired youth groaned before pushing himself up.
Golden blood dripped onto a small piece of the island before trailing to the saltwater below. Zeus wiped his lip and pushed himself to a stand.
Finally, he stretched his muscles again. This time, flexing with real intensity. There was no longer a semblance of nonchalance, nor laziness left in his posture. Even if he knew the forgone conclusion, there was still a massive amount of effort needed.
He could barely remember the last time such an incident occurred. It would've been when he tore Typhon into the chunks that would become Mt Etna.
This Da Hai really was the strongest creature from the upper air to descend. So he concentrated, drawing tremendously more power then he usually needed.
FLASH!
KRAKOOOOM!
Then he was back on Crete with a punch thrown towards Da Hai.
A furious exchange occurred, two martial disciplines from different cultures began the duel. Da Hai did not speak, but neither did Zeus. Both only took in the bare movements of the other, studying the styles.
Whole ten thousand exchanges occurred between the two, only an instant beyond the capture of a human eye could be observed by the heavens.
Flashes of lightning struck the land. The sea crashed ashore. Da Hai frowned with understanding that in a martial display, his style wasn't exactly ideal. As Zeus went for a grapple, a staple in wrestling others to the ground, Da Hai pushed him away with a hurricane spell.
There were some people who were just naturally gifted brawlers. Cultivation would not change that. People are good at different things, immortals were skilled at different facets of life. This boy, and boy was what he was as calculated by Da Hai when they made contact. This boy was as natural of a fighter as they come.
Someone like the Chaos Demon Ape, Tian Hai, Zulong, Eastern Emperor Taiyi, Sun Wukong, or Nezha. People who no matter the cultivation rank, were just that good at throwing hands. Da Hai could respect that much from this foreign deity. He was likely enjoying it as these types of people tended to be.
"Creature from the Aether." Zeus' serious did not split into the grin Da Hai would expect. "Using wind against me?"
He sounded exasperated. Then quickly gained a foothold as the wind only shot through him. In that instance, it was like he became part of nature.
"Hm."
Da Hai nodded, and let his Dao spin. What was the fleshy body to an immortal cultivator anyway? He overlayed his Dao over existence, bringing this foreign concept to suppress the nature of this Chaos World.
It maybe naturally been strong and stable, but its guiding intelligence was inactive. Zeus suddenly found it difficult to reach his godly domain for support.
"How did you?" Then he was smashed in the face by torrents of water. They were so strong that he bruised and bled. Yet despite that, he didn't go down.
He muscled through them with a tenacity greater than most. It caused Da Hai to frown. "Just what are you?"
He wasn't entirely strained yet. But he was growing annoyed. He remembered the blows that Ouranos and Aether left his body when he fought the Moirai. This Zeus was closer to them than he was to the other Olympians.
'Are all members of the big three like this?' Da Hai wondered. 'Or perhaps he is especially gifted. Mythology does indicate he's a man of great luck.'
So Da Hai amplified his output, ignoring the part of his brained that was criticising him for bullying a weaker junior. Hence, tendrils of water raised into the sky, their forms unreachable by the wind generated by Zeus.
The affect confused Zeus, which was why he was smashed into the ground. The eruption of gold and soil split Crete in two. The smell of ozone littered throughout the battlefield.
Da Hai descended immediately, condensing his form into a hybrid battle form where his hair stretched out into snakes, and where scales overtook skin. His clawed hand ripped into the ground, and pulled out the battered form of the Olympian god.
A light flashed in Zeus' eyes. His hands grabbed Da Hai's forearm and an animalistic snarl escaped the thunder god.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
"Dios Ruin!" Zeus called towards the heavens and to his own body. An explosion of lightning engulfed the two. Streaks blew outwards to explode hills and mountains.
'The punishment is missing, was that what he stole?' Zeus realized with growing unease.
Despite being encased, neither celestial beings appeared to be in discomfort. Da Hai's grip on his throat did not loosen, yet neither did his own on Da Hai's limb. No care was given to his crushed windpipe nor the golden ichor being squeezed out. One could say that Zeus was determined to kill Da Hai no matter what.
"What a tenacious fellow," Da Hai said in both irritation and praise. He wasn't quite sure which side he was leaning towards. Though the emotion did strike a cord with him.
"DIEDIEDIEDIEDIE!" Da Hai heard the message stemming from the god's domain. To him, it was a combination of roaring thunder, furious rain, and ferocious hurricanes. Layers of more mundane societal aspects were underneath, yet blanketed by more primal aspects.
Like the firmament of stars above them, Da Hai felt like he was fighting a part of the world. It was truly similar to the Ancestral Earthly Divinities born of Pangu's blood.
Even engulfed in lighting, Da Hai rose into the sky. In reality, Zeus' attack had failed to land, all curving in various ways around him. They were actually unable to reach Da Hai's location in real space.
Wordlessly, Da Hai took off for the west. Any more damage and Crete would become Atlantis. Da Hai didn't need that on his conscience.
Unable to speak, but still relentless, Zeus was dragged face first across the surface of the ocean. The two parted the waves leaving behind a trail of gold.
"DIOS RUNIOUS THUNDER!" Zeus demanded from hush godly domains. The lighting that was generated kept growing in strength, surpassing the barrier between Golden Immortals and Great Unity Golden Immortals.
Even without the incinerating power of tribulation lighting from the defunct bull god, Zeus' lighting was something else entirely. In a weird way, it felt righteous and cruel. Caring only for justice in accordance to the universe's guiding consciousness.
Da Hai frowned with each step of the way. He took off from the ocean surface and reached the limit of the sky in an instant.
"I'm warning you to stop fighting less you want to die," Da Hai communed to the lump of flesh through his mind. This was since Zeus lacked physical features.
His response was more attacks, godly lighting spears what desired to turn Da Hai into a roasted pincushion. So Da Hai responded the action with an equal reaction. He scraped Zeus' half regenerated face across the firmament of the sky.
Above the storm, the sky was clear blue. The atmosphere was fresh from recovery after Da Hai punctured it. Now it cracked again like a precious jewel being scratched up.
The sky was the barrier to the stars. It was essentially Ouranos' back. Even of Zeus had dominion over the sky and all its qualities, Da Hai did not think he had anything to do with what was above it. And they should have already reached the limit of Zeus' reach.
"Foolish, pointless, worthless act!"
Da Hai's eyes widened as he felt a sudden pain jolt through his chest. It was a divine miracle. He was not literally struck by Zeus. But he was struck by Zeus. Like the attack emerged from where he was positioned instead of reaching towards him.
It was impossible. Da Hai's Dao was covering them. In his shock, he let go of the golden mess that was a god.
What looked like a regenerated eye glared into Da Hai's own. Da Hai instinctively saw something. The light shadow of a sceptre that quickly disappeared.
He acted quickly, twisting his head around for all his snakes to perform his most favoured attack. The Eight Headed Killing assaulted Zeus' non moving state in a giant explosion that cracked reality into a million shards of glass.
…
The coast was a beautiful place. A great vacation spot for people of great wealth. In times of peace, villas could be commissioned, rich seafood be collected, and kings could be found relaxing.
Though the Peloponnese was famous for its Spartan warriors, it was also not lacking in natural beauty. It was a fact that even Aphrodite had acknowledged. Though, no one was vacationing in this weather.
And underneath the raining weather, an elderly cyclops pulled a wagon filled with rare metals. A haul he'd bought from the Helots surrounding Sparta that he'd haul back to Poseidon's domain.
"Hm?" The cyclops in the middle of his hauling, almost into the water in fact, suddenly felt a tremor in the air.
He was one of the older cyclops, a direct spawn of the elder three. He was there during the early days of the god's rule, having been born in Tartarus. As such, he was extra sensitive to divine presences.
Several drops of liquid dribbled down to his head and nose. It didn't feel like rainwater, they were much heavier. He peered down, seeing small puddles of gold.
He immediately dived for the ground.
KRAKAKAKOOM!
The heavens parted in a burst of thunder and lightning. Grey turned into blue, sparkles of electricity splashed throughout the shoreline.
The cyclops hid helplessly behind a rock, praying to his watery patron that he would not be caught up. Around him, lighting burned across the land. In the distance, lightning exploded the countryside. The cyclops wagered that mortal villages, perhaps even fortified cities would've been caught up. The human builders were good, but not divine good.
Absentmindedly, he wondered if the kings of Sparta had seen this disaster from their city.
KRAKAKAKOOM!
The cyclops peeked out, his goods forgotten. The land had been scorched, though the source of the lighting had not impacted the ground.
To his sole eye, it appeared like a ball of lighting lifted by a hurricane. His heart pounded with fear. Every pore his body was screaming at him to run.
Each streak of lighting tracing the ground made the ball resemble a spider. One could observe golden ichor dropping from it. Yet nature was responding to its call. Energy from the four elements flowed into the mass of electricity, allowing for the god to recover.
Yet it was above the spider like mass, that the cyclops noticed an even more horrifying sight. A gigantic mass of clouds, or bodies of water?
Perhaps it was some form of scales interlocking beside each other. He blinked and saw a horizon instead. He fell to his back in a state of nausea.
No matter what he did, he struggled to make out what his eye was seeing. He would've said it was constantly changing, but that wasn't really true. It had one constant form that he just couldn't grasp. Not even with his superior mind, at least in comparison to a human's.
He turned to run. His metals forgotten as he didn't dare cross a battle being partaken by gods. As quick as he could, he dived back into the ocean, praying for his king's protection.
…
Da Hai stared down at Zeus with a hint of surprise. In the end, the gods of this world were different from the Earthly Divinities. Those like Di Jiang or Zhu Jiuyin, although they had natural command over phenomena, still operated with their own flesh and blood bodies.
Zeus was not like that. And the god who stepped out of the ball of lighting and hurricane appeared uninjured with not a trace of ichor. All the damage Da Hai did was superficial at best. He had never suffered any true damage from the start.
He had no soul to reincarnate like a living being. Nor did he posses true flesh and blood like a living being. He'd have to belong to his own category of immortals.
'It's fine. I haven't been fighting to kill either.' Da Hai leaned back, allowing Zeus to steady himself.
"The one named Zagreus was all I seek. Why are you making this so difficult?"
Zeus, instead of complying to Da Hai's dialogue, raised his right hand and angled his body. Specks of light, expanded across his figure. He didn't believe anything Da Hai said in the first place.
The space around him seemed to shift. No longer was there soil and air. Rather, it was akin to the heavens in all its starry glory. Da Hai sensed the familiar presence of the firmament of stars above this layer of this Chaos World.
"Lord of the heavens right?" Da Hai complimented. Around him, tremendous amount of energy gathered. Zeus appeared to be concentrating hard.
"Only…only I have the ability…yes mother…I…my siblings." He appeared to be whispering to himself. Even though he was focused, a part of him was elsewhere.
The stars formed a straight segment in his grip. Then in a flash, they formed into a white thunderbolt. It was highly condensed, extremely pure, and took up a tiny space.
To Da Hai, he appeared like a baseball player about to pitch. Zeus was serious in that Da Hai was the strongest entity he'd ever fought. That was why he grew desperate enough to use all he could muster.
He was never afraid of death, that was not where the desperation lie. After all, gods were immortal. Incapable of death. What was really important was for him to not be captured or forced to reform.
Olympus' greatest weapon cannot be lost.
"KERAUNOS!!!"
The lightning bolt in his hand shimmered into white hot brilliance. His body turned like a baseball player about to pitch. An equally rapid twist was all it took to launch the bolt.
To Da Hai, he observed spacetime locking him in place. It was a curious effect, telling him that the lightning bolt wasn't just a projectile. It was like a statement, a certainty written in text that the target will be struck be the strongest bolt of lightning imaginable.
'He didn't come up with this.' Da Hai could tell Zeus was a magnificent talent. But talent only took people so far. Truth be told, as of now he wasn't quite sure what to make of the young god.
A young man not even a single chaos cycle old. What a terrifying thought.