Immortal clouds spread across the heavens.
Layer upon layer unfurled through the sky until countless banners emerged from the cloud banks.
Three hundred and sixty-five Heavenly Soldiers and Heavenly Generals stood at fixed positions, each holding a celestial banner.
As the banners waved, starlight converged.
A vast stellar realm took shape in midair.
Even deep within the Underworld, gods felt a chill run down their spines.
The pressure emanating from the formation was immense.
Boundless.
Ancient.
Overwhelming.
It wasn't the legendary Zhou Tian Stellar Formation.
Even Drex Valen couldn't reproduce something from an entirely different cosmological system.
This was simply a sealing formation.
A very effective one.
Drex had no intention of letting a single Titan escape.
Meanwhile, in both the mortal world and the divine realm, enormous numbers of Heavenly Soldiers deployed Cloud-Gathering Banners, weaving a massive net that sealed the entire Olympian dimension.
No exits.
No escape routes.
The trap was complete.
Then the archers raised their bows.
Millions of arrows pointed toward the fleeing Olympian gods.
Golden light descended from the heavens.
A storm of radiant arrows tore through space itself.
The Olympians found themselves trapped.
There was nowhere left to run.
Nowhere left to hide.
A wave of unbearable heat swept across heaven and earth.
Darkness surged.
Explosions thundered endlessly.
Space fractured like shattered glass, spreading black cracks across reality.
Violent currents rampaged through the world.
Every gust carried enough force to kill gods.
The destruction stretched from the highest heavens to the deepest reaches of the earth.
RUMBLE!
At last, the two primordial gods of darkness could no longer remain spectators.
Nyx.
And Erebus.
Husband and wife.
Their combined attack shook the world.
Black waves of divine power spread outward like ink spilling across reality.
The resulting devastation was catastrophic.
Mountains collapsed.
The earth split apart.
Tsunamis devoured coastlines.
Entire regions vanished beneath the aftermath.
The classic problem of divine warfare had arrived.
When gods fought, mortals paid the price.
Fortunately, there were very few mortals left to suffer.
The Celestial Court had already relocated nearly everyone.
Not captured.
Relocated.
A very important distinction.
At least according to the Celestial Court.
The Heavenly Army had long surpassed a mere million soldiers.
Now it numbered in the billions.
An endless ocean of divine warriors stretched across the world.
A significant portion of them originated from the souls of angels harvested from the former Heaven Dimension.
Drex had selected the strongest among them and reforged them into Heavenly Soldiers and Heavenly Generals.
The sheer scale of the force left even distant pantheons uneasy.
Then a single spark appeared.
A tiny point of golden light.
At first, it seemed insignificant.
A candle in an endless night.
But the spark grew.
And grew.
And grew.
Soon it expanded into a blazing inferno that stretched for thousands of miles.
Darkness retreated before it.
Neither Nyx nor Erebus could suppress it.
The golden flames gathered inward.
The sea of fire condensed.
And a figure emerged.
A Three-Legged Golden Crow.
It hung in the sky like a second sun.
Light flooded every corner of the divine realm.
Temperatures skyrocketed.
The world itself seemed to brighten.
"What is that?"
The Olympian gods stared in disbelief.
"That thing has the authority of a Sun God!"
Apollo felt the shock more strongly than anyone.
The solar divinity radiating from the Golden Crow made his own power seem insignificant.
A candle before a star.
The gap was absurd.
"Is that the Celestial Court's Sun God?"
The gods were stunned.
A bird?
Their divine Sun God was a bird?
Though admittedly, some solar deities weren't exactly conventional either.
Still...
This was a giant three-legged bird.
The Golden Crow let out a piercing cry.
Its body erupted with light.
Countless rays split apart and rained down across the world.
The sea instantly vaporized.
One unfortunate minor god was struck by a beam.
He disappeared without even leaving ashes behind.
More golden rays followed.
An endless barrage of solar destruction.
Heat.
Light.
Radiation.
Everything melted.
The earth itself began to soften beneath the assault.
A sea of golden fire spread across the horizon.
Then it transformed into a colossal pillar of flame that connected heaven and earth.
Driven by raging winds, the inferno continued expanding.
Clouds spiraled toward it from every direction.
A massive vortex formed overhead.
The spectacle was terrifying.
"That thing is destroying Olympus!"
"Impossible!"
"Stop it!"
Panic spread among the Olympian gods.
At last, Gaia intervened.
The earth responded to her will.
Continents shifted.
Mountains rose.
A gigantic sword forged from cliffs and stone shot upward toward the Golden Crow.
The bird didn't move.
Didn't dodge.
Didn't react at all.
The earthen blade never even reached it.
The light and heat surrounding the Golden Crow erased the attack before contact.
The divine energy within Gaia's construct destabilized instantly.
The collision unleashed a devastating explosion.
Elemental forces spiraled out of control.
Storms erupted.
The world seemed on the verge of collapse.
A black rift opened at the center of the blast, swallowing excess energy before rapidly contracting once more.
The shattered space folded inward until it vanished.
Golden light filled the sky.
Then a beam descended.
A pillar of solar radiance slammed directly into Gaia's position.
The resulting explosion sent smoke and debris miles into the air.
Nyx and Erebus joined the battle immediately.
If they couldn't stop this three-legged monster, the entire dimension would be destroyed.
Darkness surged.
An endless black sea rose toward the heavens.
Wave after wave crashed down upon the Golden Crow.
The creature vanished beneath the flood.
BOOM!
A burst of sunlight exploded from within the darkness.
The black sea was torn apart.
Golden fire spread in every direction.
Space itself seemed to ignite.
The darkness burned away.
Entire sections of Nyx and Erebus's divine power evaporated like mist beneath a summer sun.
The two primordial gods watched in disbelief.
Their darkness couldn't advance even a single step.
Then enormous golden wings unfolded within the burning sea.
Every feather radiated divine light.
The world turned gold.
The Underworld shook.
Golden radiance spread across its eternal gray skies.
Countless points of sunlight appeared overhead.
The entire realm trembled.
The Underworld had always existed separately from the domains of sky, sea, and earth.
It was its own world.
Independent.
Sacred.
Essential.
Every mythology possessed some version of it.
The Underworld.
The Afterlife.
The Realm of Souls.
Without such a place, the cosmic order itself would collapse.
Olympus was no exception.
The Underworld was one of the pillars supporting reality.
Yet now, even this realm was being pierced by the Golden Crow's solar power.
The Olympians had never witnessed anything so terrifying.
Even Typhon, Father of Monsters, seemed lesser by comparison.
Gaia frowned deeply.
She hadn't even had time to process how everything had gone so wrong.
One moment she had been occupied elsewhere.
The next, Olympus was half destroyed and the Celestial Court was on the verge of conquering her dimension.
She planted her Earth Scepter into the ground.
A vast defensive field spread outward.
The power of the earth collided with descending solar radiance.
The resulting shockwave shook the entire Underworld.
Divine energies surged endlessly across the gray world.
Yet the outcome shocked everyone.
The Golden Crow's solar power was overwhelmingly dominant.
Blinding.
Tyrannical.
Unstoppable.
Even Gaia suffered burns beneath the golden light.
For the Celestial Court, the authority of the Sun God occupied an extraordinarily high position.
A terrifyingly high one.