Chapter Two

I ducked, stabbing my spear forward.

My opponent dodged to the side sloppily and I brought my spear around, swinging at his legs, tripping him. Tilting my head to the side, I hummed at the adequate performance around me.

Grabbing the offending sword with my shield-covered hand, I pulled, unbalancing the one who tried to attack me from the back, and sent an elbow in her side, judging by the yelp I got in return.

My shield deflected the strike from a similar spear to my own. Tilting my body with the strike, I thrust my own deadly stick, slashing the side of the armor my opponent was wearing.

The boy grunted as he fell and I turned, swinging my shield and knocking the blade that was about to cut me to the side.

"Enough."

Everyone around me stopped for but a moment, and then unceremoniously slumped down on the ground, letting out groans of disappointment.

"We've been fighting for an hour and a half! Gods, Finally!"

"You demon..."

"Why did I agree to this?"

Never mind, they were groans of regret.

Sighing, I took off my helmet and looked at the three figures that crumpled on the dirt.

"You got the basics down, just train your stamina."

I remarked with a shrug.

"Basics?!"

"Go to the crows! You maniac!"

"Kill me..."

Rolling my eyes, I grab my spear with my shield hand and start working on taking off my armor.

Hearing the sound of hooves hitting the ground, I glanced to the side, seeing a man whose lower body was that of a white horse. His brown hair was slicked back to not cover his eyes and his bear was in good shape, I had to admit.

"I see you haven't eased up on training, my boy."

I nodded my head, I haven't, if anything, since I turned twelve it intensified. Finally getting all the straps off, I took off the armor with one hand, releasing a breath of satisfaction.

The shirt that I had under was soaked, it was already sticking to my body before, but now, it might as well be a second skin. Tilting my head to the side and popping my neck, I looked around the arena.

Children fighting, kids being prepared to survive, I didn't like it at all, but I had no reason to oppose it for now.

"I heard that your cabin along with cabin seven is on guard duty today, why don't you rest?"

I grunted in agreement, stabbing the spear into the ground and taking off my shield.

"The Apollo cabin is training in archery, and I was just training the newer members of my cabin, I will be fine for patrol this evening."

The old centaur didn't even blink at my casual use of a god's name, he was too used to it, but the reprimand came automatically at this point.

"Names have power, Leonidas, you know this."

I rolled my eyes at that.

"If gods are so petty as to whine about somebody saying their name, I am worried about the world."

Chiron just sighed and shook his head, I understood him, really, but at this point, the amount of accumulated "What the fuck is wrong with you" experiences I had, made me desensitized.

Walking out of the arena and leaving the old centaur behind to overlook the training of the other Demigods.

The camp, which was called "Half-Blood" covered a large area, which meant that I had a lot of time to delve into my thoughts, which were consumed by more training.

___

Life wasn't kind, that was something that I came to accept, but when life gave you a bad hand, the only thing you could do was get over yourself and accept it.

But now, as I rushed toward the source of the screeching, to possibly defend the camp again, The only thing I could do was flip the table life was playing on.

As soon as the army of hellhounds came into my sight, chasing four figures, I could only sigh in resignation.

My spear surged forward, leaving my hand, and digging into one of the flying monsters that came into my view. I knew what it was, one of the furries, the tortures of the king of the underworld.

And the two that followed it informed me that one of the four must be rather important for all three of the furies to be sent after them.

The impaled furie turned to dust as my spear, not halted by the obstacle plowed through the giant wolves that followed behind it.

The other two furries stopped in their tracks, stunned that one of them was killed so easily and I took that moment to draw my sword from its sheath.

Infusing the blade with the divinity I gained from my heritage, I changed its very nature to that of air, molding it, honing it, and tempering it until it sat on my blade like another layer of steel.

As soon as I passed the four figures, of which I identified one of them, being Grover, a Satyr, half man half goat, I swung my blade in a horizontal arch, letting the air that was coiling around my blade loose.

The deadly blade of air cut through the black hounds that were chasing the three demigods behind me, turning them into nothing more than dust and returning them to their rightful place in Tartarus.

The shield in my hand blocked a swipe from the two remaining furies who hissed at me, only to be met with a blade thrust into her mouth as it exited from the other side of her head.

I ducked, dodging the lunge from the remaining torturer of the underworld as she collided with the round and raised my foot, stomping down on her spine, getting a crack that reached my ears despite the sound of Hellhounds that were rapidly approaching.

My divinity reached out, fueled by my intent to my thrown spear as I felt it dig itself out of the ground and barrel back to me, making anything in its way turn into dust and piercing the skin of the one hellhound that thought it wise to attack me from the side while I was preoccupied with dealing with its brethren.

Ice exploded from the place I stomped, mowing down dozens of Hellhounds and dissipating just as quickly as it appeared, leaving only nine giant beasts in front of me and four more that were trying to conceal themselves around me, hiding in the shadows cast by the trees, preventing the light of the moon to reveal their location.

Not that I needed it.