He woke up in a body… unfamiliar.
It was...small...weak.
A hollow shell that barely stirred when he moved.
He growled, cold and low, letting his displeasure seep into every inch of this feeble form.
What was this? Where was he?
He remembered, or rather, pieces drifted through the haze. Fragmented, blurred, but undeniable. He should have been fighting—tearing through those pathetic gods, laughing as that upstart Zeus raised his toy thunder. He'd been there, right there, then… nothing.
A cold fury settled into him, hard as ice, unyielding as stone.
"Mother," he called, his voice jagged, a mortal's voice…
How disgustingly weak it sounded, stripped of his true power.
But he could feel her, just beneath the surface, her presence filling the walls, the floor, the air. She watched him, that eternal gaze inspecting this frail vessel she had crafted after his… demise.
Yes, it was clear now—he must have died. But what else could have happened? He wasn't delusional.
Slowly, he pressed a hand against the ground. The floor felt strange beneath his skin, the sensation dull but… solid.
He lifted his palm, studying it with a cold precision. His skin seemed layered, covered in some kind of strange, hardened shell. And… claws? He flexed his fingers, testing the edges, and felt a twinge as the sharp tips dug into his palm, cutting through the armor.
'How feeble'
His eyes, too—something about them felt… off. And his tongue tasted...sharp.
He could feel his mother's presence, deep in the stone, the faint warmth of her attention like a heartbeat beneath his feet.
Through the stones, he sent three questions.
What. Why. Where.
The answer returned, grim and quiet. The war had been lost, his Mother bound in chains.
And he… his true self had been shattered, his essence scattered eons ago. All that remained now were mere fragments of his soul, a dim shadow of the Titan he once was.
The realization struck him like a hammer, a bitter blow to the hollow heart of this pathetic vessel. He threw back his head and howled, the sound clawing out of his throat in a raw, broken scream of fury. But the walls around him barely trembled, his rage a pale whisper of what it once had been.
Back then, mountains would have crumbled with a mere word.
The sound died, leaving silence. He forced himself to breathe, slow and steady, letting his anger freeze back into calm resolve.
No, this wasn't the end. He was alive, and his mother's monsters would not trouble him on his descent.
She had chosen this vessel with care, it seemed, and though it was meager, it held a mild potential to absorb divinity.
He only needed to reach the depths of this prison, where he would find what he needed to regain his former strength.
He growled, focusing his mind, sharpening his thoughts to take full control of this frail body.
Steeling himself, he tried to step forward...
...and immediately collapsed, a rush of pain shooting through him as he hit the stone floor.
He lifted his head, staring in confusion at his leg. It had been severed cleanly at the knee, the remaining stump gouged, bleeding...
His own claws had done it, slicing his leg apart without a hint of his control.
Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to examine the damage, ignoring the pain as best he could.
Inwardly, he reached toward the mortal soul he had consumed, the red-soaked essence crushed under his divinity, torn to dust by his mere presence.
A mortal soul so utterly weak, he'd thought it was lifeless, an empty vessel.
Yet now… pieces of that soul seemed to drift within him, jagged fragments caught on the sharp edges of his own being.
He could feel them shifting, settling around his shard like unmelting snowflakes caught in the heat of a sun.
He tried to stand on his remaining leg, steadying himself, only to be yanked down by a sudden, violent pull. His hand moved, jerking with an alien force, slicing through his other leg, tearing it clean from his body. He fell again, clawing at the ground, rage smoldering like embers in his chest.
"Mother!" he roared, but his mouth was smothered, his own hand clamping over it.
His claws dug into his flesh, driving deeper, and he felt the pressure building as his grip tore through his skin, puncturing his eyes.
The world went dark, but he could feel it—within himself, a storm had ignited. The fragments of the mortal's soul were shifting, scraping, grinding against the core of his being, a thousand pieces swirling.
And then it came—the fire. It started in his chest, spreading through his limbs, a blaze that gnawed at the edges of his soul, consuming him from within. He tried to scream, but his own hand held him silent, claws sinking deeper. His skin burned, blistering and peeling as the fire scorched every nerve, every fiber of his being, its heat searing straight to his core. He was being torn apart, his soul cracking, splintering, as the mortal's fragments dug in, pressing closer, sharper.
He forced himself to calm, even as the firestorm raged within him, licking and gnawing at his very essence. Rage, he reminded himself, was but a tool, a spark to be wielded, not to consume. He had endured wars that spanned eons, watched as gods and worlds alike fell, all with an unblinking eye. He was beyond mortal tantrums.
'And yet,' he thought with bitter amusement, 'look at me, writhing like a worm in its death throes'
His fists clenched, claws digging into his palms. The mortal shell's sensation of pain was almost laughable.
What did this vessel know of pain? Of his pain? Pain was the blade that tempered him, not some curse to be escaped from.
He dug into his memories, scattered as they were.
The gods thought they'd won, he scoffed internally. That they could shatter me, bind my mother, scatter my essence to the winds like dust.
'They feared me once, and they will again.'
The storm of shards spun faster within him, spiraling inward like a cosmic maelstrom. It hurt more than he would ever let show, but he reveled in it, the fire, the endless gnashing within him.
It was a reminder—he was still himself, even in this fragmentary, mangled form.
The mortal soul was mere dust around his essence, its weak remnants scattered...
And yet, something clung.
It was laughable, really. A mortal's tenacity, as though that could compare to his divine will.
Endurance, he reminded himself again, his mind sharpening like a blade honed on the whetstone of ages.
They named me Endurance for a reason.
But the soul fought back with a persistence that, despite his disdain, he found almost... admirable.
Each fragment of mortal will felt like a shard of ice, refusing to melt, refusing to be extinguished.
One thought—one wretched thought—echoed within the firestorm, a single fragment refusing to dissolve.
He sneered at it, bearing down with the force of his will, a divine weight pressing down like a mountain upon this speck of a soul. His mind surged forward, breaking the mortal's tenacity beneath him, swallowing it whole.
But the thought did not fade.
It clung, a single ember against the deluge of his hatred, and it burned on, feeding on his very essence.
It was consuming him from the inside out, chewing through the core of his mind, splinter by splinter, like frost creeping across the stone.
But he was Endurance Incarnate. He was a Titan, a force honed over millennia. He gathered his will, kept on fighting against the inferno raging within.
He crushed the storm with the weight of mountains, drowned it in oceans of his hatred, tore it apart, refusing to bend, refusing to break. He was stronger.
He was Himself.
Yet, for every fragment he shattered, the fire only burned hotter, the mortal's last spark rekindling, refusing to die. The soul he had consumed had been stripped to its very essence, ground down to nothingness, beyond even the grasp of death.
And yet, that one piece remained—one tiny, defiant thought that burned, encompassing all that was left of the mortal's being.
Slowly, ever so slowly, he felt his mind slipping, the heat searing through his thoughts, consuming him piece by piece.
His rage blazed hotter than the fire, his hatred vast enough to drown the skies in flame—but the hunger, that relentless hunger gnawing at his core, was... depthless