Ares-
Another fell. Then another. And another.
My army—the best of Olympus—was thinning. Fast. Like flies swatted by invisible hands. It was chaos, but worse than chaos—it was controlled.
Controlled by something ancient.
Something here.
I turned my eyes toward the center of Ife-Ikoro, where Ogun still hadn't moved. His warriors pressed forward with renewed fury. The very earth beneath them pulsed, as if alive—responding to their need, their rage, their spirit.
There was power here.
Something I hadn't accounted for.
Not just strength of arms.
Something older.
Something buried in the roots.
Something that didn't need Olympus.
And for the first time in a long time, I realized—
I might be outmatched.
Not by one man.
But by the land itself.
Third Person-
Ares clenched his teeth as blood sprayed across his face. His muscles burned, soaked with sweat and fury. He drove his blade through another Ife-Ikoro warrior's chest, twisted, and yanked it out in one clean pull.
The man dropped.
Only to rise again.
Ares snarled. "No."
He struck again—this time through the abdomen. The man collapsed… and rose.
Another soldier to his left screamed as his throat was slashed open by a warrior he'd already killed.
This wasn't war.
This was madness.
His men were falling. Their golden armor—once radiant—was now stained, battered, rattling loose over broken ribs, useless. Even the best of them—the chosen ones—were faltering. The lines that once moved like poetry now crumbled into chaos.
Bodies piled.
Limbs scattered.
Still, the dead came back.
Again.
And again.
He lifted his blade, shouting with a voice that cracked the air. "You want a god? I'll show you why I'm feared across realms!"
Ares surged forward.
He moved like flame through a field of oil. His sword flashed, gleamed, hissed with divine fury. He split chests open, shattered ribs, tore limbs from sockets.
But they kept rising.
They kept coming.
"No," he growled. "NO!"
He slammed a rising corpse back down with a foot to its neck, then—without thinking—brought his blade down across the throat.
The head rolled.
And the body did not rise.
Time slowed.
Ares stared at the twitching head, then at the still corpse. His pulse pounded like war drums in his ears. There was something strange in the air—thick, humming, like chanting without sound. The soil beneath his feet seemed to shudder, alive.
The realization struck him like lightning.
"The head…"
Another rose. Ares spun and lopped it's HEAD off in one clean arc.
The body slumped. Still.
He turned to the battlefield, bloodied, wild-eyed, and bellowed so loud the sky seemed to shake.
"THE HEAD! TAKE THEIR HEADS!"
His warriors—what few remained—looked up in the haze of death, grasping his command like a rope tossed to drowning men.
"THE HEADS!" he screamed again, voice cracking. "CUT OFF THEIR HEADS!"
They moved with renewed purpose now, blades swinging higher—not blindly, but with knowledge.
But the damage had been done.
His forces had thinned drastically. For every one of his warriors, there were ten of them—some alive, most… something else.
He backed up slightly, panting. His hands were soaked in red. His body trembled—not from fear, but from the cruel twist of fate.
He was Ares.
But even gods bled.
And Ife-Ikoro?
It had just shown its teeth.