Chapter 32: The Gods That Dream
Hades had stepped beyond everything.
Beyond Olympus. Beyond the Underworld. Beyond the known laws of creation.
And now, he stood in the presence of something no god had ever seen.
This was not a place.
It was a concept.
A vast and endless expanse where the oldest beings in existence slumbered.
And one of them had just awakened.
The Sleeping Colossus
Hades did not move.
Before him lay a being beyond form.
It was not flesh. It was not light. It was not shadow.
It was all things.
It stretched across the cosmos, its body woven from the very foundation of reality itself.
Mountains had formed upon its shoulders. Stars had been born and died within its breath.
And now, it was stirring.
Hades could feel it.
The weight of its thoughts.
The slow, endless motion of a god that had existed before time itself.
And then, it spoke.
But not in words.
It spoke in creation.
A Voice That Shapes Reality
The moment the Colossus' mind turned toward Hades, the space around them shifted.
Galaxies collapsed and reformed.
Entire laws of existence were rewritten in a single instant.
And then, Hades was no longer where he had stood.
He was in a garden of stars.
A place that had not existed until the Colossus thought it into being.
"You are not meant to be here."
The words did not echo.
They simply became true.
Hades straightened. He did not kneel.
"I am here," he answered. "And that is all that matters."
The Colossus paused.
Then, for the first time in eternity, it opened its eyes.
And Hades felt his existence come undone.
The Fracturing of a God
A mortal would have died instantly.
A god would have been erased.
But Hades was neither.
And so, as his body fractured, as his being began to unravel under the gaze of something beyond time, he did the only thing he could.
He resisted.
The air around him froze.
The Underworld was distant, but he still felt its pull.
And for the first time, the realm of the dead reached into the unknown.
Hades clenched his jaw.
And he fought.