13. Madness

Ares continues his plan, and begins to fill Zeus' head with his madness. He says that only he, the king, should kill or not, judge or not, and so on. Using all of Zeus' arrogance on himself, he implants the will to rebel against Leviathan.

Life went on as usual, Hestia and I were always together, she a little sad that she could not save her nephew, but she understood the problem. She started to visit Olympus rarely, since Hades didn't do it either.

One fine day, Hermes showed up at our house, saying that a meeting of the gods was going to take place and that I was not welcome, but that Hestia had an obligation to go. To say that I was furious with the audacity of the little man was an understatement, but I respected Hestia's decision.

How could I have known that there would be the beginning of my end. Days went by and nothing came back from Hestia. As I walked through the world I saw wars and more wars being fought for any reason, from a piece of land to the hand of a girl.

This began to bother me and I could not stand it any longer, so I went to look for Hestia. I found her with red eyes, standing in front of a large fireplace, staring into the fire, and felt that she was struggling emotionally.

I walk over to her when I hear, "I wouldn't do that, she might want to kill herself soon after." I turn around and see Ares. In full armor, ready for a battle.

"What did you do boy?" I look at Hestia.

"Nothing much really, I just induced her into the madness you can do, you know, when we love a person, being, creature, sometimes we become dumb enough to believe anything said. We forget important things and surrender to despair." he laughs.

"Just out of curiosity, before your death, how did you do that?" I am really curious.

"I have come to credit that I will not lose, since I am now powerful enough to face my father and uncles at the same time, I doubt you can with me now. But I will answer you nonetheless. I just made her believe that if the Gods teamed up against you, we would kill you." he laughs even more.

"I understand. My beloved Hestia fell for your tales. Truly love blinds us." I sigh as I release her from Ares' madness.

"Forgive me Levi, forgive me. I let myself be fooled by Ares' games. Forgive me." she cries helplessly. I see the despair and anguish in her tears.

"Don't worry my love. I would never blame you for what others have done. I should have listened to you more myself, but my only focus was to protect you, and sometimes, like now, we failed." I hug her and kiss her lips.

"Levi, please, I want to ask you for the last two things," she looks at me with desperation. "Kill me. Kill my brothers who are controlled by Ares, but forgive them. Don't eliminate them from existence, please," she pleads with me.

It broke my heart. I couldn't kill the only person I love. I would never do that.

"Levi, if you don't do this, you cannot fulfill what we promised each other, which would be to protect the humanity your Father loves so much. Please." she kneels in front of me, her eyes holding a remnant of hope that she will be able to start over with me one day.

"I will do my love. You can leave that I will protect humanity. I promise I will take care of your brothers and sisters, they will be reborn well again. I promise. You too." I lift her up, kiss her lips one last time and use my umbra flame to kill her.

Her divine essence hovers in front of me for a while, and I just bless her to be safe and happy, giving her some of my power. Power that would make her stronger than anyone, with rare exceptions.

Her essence then goes to rebirth. As a deity, she would be in my Father's kingdom, even more so now, blessed by me. She could come and go from the kingdom whenever she wanted. I then let one last tear run down my face and disappear from there. Ares just looks around without finding me.

I start killing each of the Gods, many don't even know how they died. "I hope you are watching Ares. How your defeat will happen." I speak in a cold, hate-filled tone, which he hears loud and clear.

The massacre continues and I head towards humanity, where wars and more wars are being fought. I see a boy protecting his brother from the invaders, so I bless him, so that he can defeat them all. "Your name son." I say as I touch his head with my hand.

"It's Kratos sir. And this is my brother Deimos." he points to the smallest of them.

"Protect the one you love Kratos. And you too Deimos." I bless them both and continue my slaughter. Little did I know that my blessing would bring gigantic changes to these two children.

I go out killing every human being taken by Ares' madness, while he watches all his men being massacred, unable to do anything. I then arrive on an island where women warriors are defending themselves against a son of Zeus and his cronies.

I barely take notice of them and massacre them, protecting the island with my magic so that no man who wants to harm them can reach the island. I transform into a Leviathan and go to meet Ares, who looks at me in fear and horror.

I begin to beat his body, with each punch, shattering and destroying his divinity. He was now in nothing but despair and pain. Physical pain, from the beating he was taking, and despair at having lost a war he had worked so hard to create.

He was not satisfied with this, so I went to the human world, and brought an elderly man, he could barely hold his sword, he was one of the victims of Ares' madmen.

"Old man, here is the creator of all the chaos that has happened in your world. Your chance to kill him and end it is now. Feel free," I say and Ares becomes even more desperate. He doesn't want to die at the hands of an ordinary human. He wants to lose at the hands of the bigger and stronger one.

The old man doesn't even give him a chance, he uses his sword to cut Ares, making many, many marks on his body, when I stopped to take a good look, it seemed to be written, shame. I laughed, even harder, and the old man didn't let me down. He punched Ares in the face with his bare hand.

He wouldn't die if it was a normal thing happening, but the problem is that I blessed the old man, so when the old man punched him, there was barely any of his divinity left, causing him to fall in disgrace and defeat. I take the old man back to his habitat, and bless him with the many years of life he would still have.

Only much later did I learn who the old man was, but it was already too late. His name was Delphi, and he was an oracle chosen by Apollo, to transmit the wills of the gods to humans. He was the one who spread the madness of Ares throughout the world, and since the victory over Ares, he has spread the tales of the shadow dragon to the people.

I take Ares' carcass to the island of the Amazons, the same island that I saved a little while before, and ask them to bind Ares, uniting their magic with mine, so that no other deity or accident could free the cursed one from his eternal prison.