The storm arrived before the god.
A golden tempest split the heavens, fracturing the sky itself. The realm of Olympus—once untouchable, once the seat of divine power—shook beneath the weight of something far greater than any of its gods.
Zeus had not left the battlefield against the Outer Gods.
He did not need to.
His incarnation descended instead—a piece of his will given form, a storm-born god of absolute power.
This was not the Zeus they had once known.
This was a king passing judgment.
And Olympus itself would bear witness.
The Sky Shatters
Apollo barely had time to react.
The moment Zeus' incarnation touched Olympus, the entire realm shifted.
The golden clouds churned in chaos. The marble halls cracked beneath the weight of an unseen force. Every god present—Hera, Athena, Hermes, Ares, Aphrodite—felt the shift in reality itself.
And then, Zeus spoke.
His voice was not sound.
It was command.
"You have betrayed Olympus."
His words did not just echo. They reshaped the very air. The storm above Olympus burned hotter, the sky darkening to a near-black void, filled with endless golden arcs of power.
Apollo took a step back—a god retreating in the presence of a king.
"Zeus," he began, his voice steady but not unshaken. "I acted to protect—"
A bolt of lightning struck him mid-sentence.
It did not kill him.
It did not burn him.
But for the first time since his birth, Apollo felt pain.
Zeus did not repeat himself.
Because gods did not justify themselves to lesser beings.
The King's Judgment
Apollo fell to one knee.
His sun—his divine domain—flickered.
The Olympians had never seen this before.
Not Zeus' rage.
Zeus' disappointment.
He did not look upon Apollo as an equal.
He looked upon him as a failure.
"You thought yourself worthy of judgment," Zeus said, his tone neither cruel nor kind. It simply was.
"You believed you could decide the fate of your betters."
Apollo's breath was uneven. The weight pressing down upon him was unlike anything he had ever felt.
He looked up, desperate to see something human in his king's eyes.
There was nothing.
Only the storm.
And then, Zeus raised a single hand.
The sky answered.
The Sky Dominion is Forged
The clouds above twisted, reformed.
Zeus was not simply punishing Apollo.
He was reshaping Olympus itself.
The realm of the gods had always belonged to many.
But now?
It would belong to one.
The sky itself pulled away from Olympus, creating a new dominion—a higher realm, a place beyond the reach of the lesser gods.
The true throne of the heavens.
And with a single motion, Zeus cast Apollo out of it.
The god of the sun fell.
Not to his death. No god could die.
But to something far worse.
He fell from grace.
Hades' Warning
The Olympians did not speak.
They had just witnessed the birth of a new Olympus.
But before any of them could react, another voice cut through the storm.
Hades had not arrived.
He did not need to.
The air itself darkened.
Not as a storm.
But as a presence.
Hades spoke from beyond Olympus, his voice stretching across the divine plane itself.
"Let no god touch Demeter."
His words were not a threat.
They were law.
The air grew heavy. The gods who had stood uncertain—Athena, Hermes, Aphrodite—felt something they had never felt before.
The weight of inevitability.
And they understood.
If any god so much as thought of harming Demeter—
Hades would end them.
True death.
The kind even gods feared.
And not even Olympus could stop him.
The Gods Who Witnessed the End of an Era
Hera's fists clenched.
Athena's eyes narrowed.
Ares smiled.
Dionysus chuckled.
Some gods feared what they had seen.
Some gods welcomed it.
But one thing was clear.
Olympus was no longer what it had been.
Because Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon had left it behind.
And now, the gods had to choose.
Would they rise with them?
Or would they be left in the ruins of a world that no longer existed?
Foreshadowing: The War Among Gods
The first punishment had been delivered.
The first law had been set.
And soon, the first true battle among gods would begin.
Because there were still those who would not submit to the new order.
And war was inevitable.