The sound of a blade sinking into flesh followed it, wet, final. Morpheus inhaled sharply as the cold steel pierced through his gut. His body went stiff. Blood bubbled up to his lips.
Behind him stood a man that looked all too human. Too mortal.
Too familiar.
Morpheus tilted his head, the corners of his mouth twitching despite the crimson pooling down his robes. "I was wondering where you were, Loki."
Loki didn't respond, not right away. He withdrew his hand quickly, as if burned, leaving the dagger buried deep in Morpheus's side. He took a step back, eyes narrowed, and lifted his trembling hand to his face.
His fingers were stained in blood, but not red anymore gray, darkening at the edges like smoke turned to ash. His lips curled in something between disgust and awe.
"You treat us like monsters," Loki murmured, flexing the fingers, watching the corruption crawl. "While your magic is like this…"
His eyes flicked to the blade still jutting from Morpheus.
"You truly are the world's biggest hypocrite, Morpheus."
Morpheus staggered forward, steadying himself against the dagger's hilt with a grunt. A demon sprinted past him, fangs bared, unaware of the two figures standing just outside the chaos. Morpheus didn't hesitate. His hand shot out and grabbed the creature's neck plunging the dagger into its brain, then hurled its body aside.
He knelt briefly, blood leaking between his fingers, and chanted something low.
Pale white runes burned into existence over the wound. Slowly painfully slowly the blood clotted. The edges of the flesh sealed just enough to keep his insides inside. But the hole remained.
No miracle fix he didn't have the time, only the grim resolve of victory.
His breath misted in the cooling air. The sky was still on fire.
He looked up faintly, toward the swirling battle that still raged in the distance. Smoke. Screams. Thunder. Flames. The
slaughter continued.
And Morpheus smiled.
"The battlefield is set, brother," he whispered, voice raspy. "All the players are here. You can come out and enjoy the fun with me now."
The air behind him rippled.
It didn't shimmer. It rotted.
He appeared without ceremony as if arriving from the mist of war. The scent of mildew and blood seemed to follow him.
Herpo had arrived.
His eyes gleamed as he held staff twisted from bone dragged behind him. His fingers stretched and a wide grin split his face.
And when he moved, the battlefield noticed.
Angels dove from the skies to intercept. Demons lunged from the dunes. The line blurred between divine and damned anything in his path was prey.
Herpo raised a single hand and whispered a word no living tongue should remember.
The ground beneath a dozen angels imploded, sucking them into a pit of shadows lined with writhing hands. They screamed as skeletal arms ripped feathers from their wings and pulled them under.
Demons surged toward him, swords raised, spitting fire. Herpo blinked, and a black pulse flared from his chest.
The demons froze mid-lunge. Their skin turned brittle. Then they shattered like glass, their souls howling as they were dragged backward into his outstretched hand.
He absorbed them like air.
He twisted again, chanting low, guttural syllables that reeked of necrotic wisdom and the wind itself turned against the armies. Swords rusted in seconds. Shields flaked apart. One demon's armor melted from his skin like wax.
Morpheus exhaled softly as he straightened, eyes never leaving Herpo's path of destruction.
"Welcome to the party, brother I see you found your staff."
And from above, thunder rolled again.
The shield had fallen, "Morpheus you let Loki sneak attack you?" Herpo bellowed in laughter
Morpheus grinned, "I'm afraid the poor creature used up all of his luck today."
***
The sound was deafening like glass shattering in the heavens.
The shield was gone.
A great ripple passed over the battlefield as the magical barrier, once humming with pale golden light, fractured and dispersed into the air like broken embers. The silence that followed was not peace it was dread.
Then, voices. Screams. War horns.
"Positions!" roared Bjorn, his broad silhouette rising atop a shattered dune. His axe thick and knotted with runes was lifted above his head, catching firelight and spell-glow from a hundred directions. "Hold the line! Regroup!"
Everywhere, soldiers scrambled. Dust and blood mingled with sweat as the frontlines twisted and reformed under pressure. Dozens of witches and wizards, faces streaked with ash, blood, and tears, began to fall back into coordinated formation. Many clutched wands tight enough to bruise their fingers, the tips already flickering with hurried enchantments.
In the rear, the backline forces had already sprung to work. Elevated platforms, crafted from magically shifted stone and transfigured rubble, rose from the sand. Sniper teams, perched on these makeshift towers, lined up shots. Concussive hexes and pinpoint jinxes zipped forward, collapsing enemy charge formations before they could crash into the shieldless front.
"Don't let them close!" a witch in auror robes shouted, flinging a severing charm that cleaved a charging demon's arm clean off. A healer nearby, Ahmed's people rushed forward, dragging a wounded fighter back by the collar, chanting under breath, wand glowing pale green. The wounded man's chest had been ripped open, and the healer pressed both palms over it as silver vines of magic stitched him back together.
Bjorn stomped his axe into the sand, sending a ripple through the battlefield. The ground beneath the enemy's feet rose and twisted tripwires of stone, claws of earth erupting to pull down the first wave of demons.
"Formations! Defensive circles! Watch your flanks!" barked a stocky commander in dragon-hide armor, wand slicing through the air as he barked an incantation that called up a line of protective shields.
Nearby, the Sages' Eye once fresh graduates but now hardened soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder. Their robes were torn, one girl's cheek slashed open, and the tallest of them had his wand-arm wrapped in stained bandages. But they held. They cast in practiced rhythm transfigure a dozen spears, banishment charm, into protego. rotating their roles like a clockwork machine, covering for each other. Scarred eyes darted with veteran precision, and when one faltered, the others picked up the slack without a word.
Overhead, Valkyries shrieked and circled, no longer kept at bay by the shield. Arrows of ice and spears of shadow fell like rain, but the wizards responded with clouds of defensive mist and floating runes that lit up like miniature suns. The aerial chaos now spilled into the sand.
"Push them back!" yelled another voice—a sandy-haired witch wearing the colors of the Southern quarter. Her wand unleashed a cyclone that tossed three winged demons into a crumbling pillar. "Give Ra and Anubis space!"
And above them all, Ra soared.
Still in falcon form, massive and wreathed in fire, Ra banked hard and dove toward Anubis's side. Lightning from Thor's last strike still crackled across the dunes behind them.
Anubis stood in a crouch, one paw-like hand digging into the ground, his chest heaving. His body was torn claw marks from Valkyries and bruises from Thor's hammer blackened his ribcage. When Ra circled and landed beside him, the sand beneath his talons turned to glass.
"You couldn't help at all!?," Anubis growled, his canines stained red.
Ra's eyes shimmered with gold. "Where's the rest of the family?" Ignoring Anubis completely
"I don't know," Anubis answered grimly. "But they better come soon."
Then the magical powerhouses rose together.
With a leap, Anubis charged forward, claws carving trenches in the dirt, slamming into a pack of demons before hurling himself toward Thor again. Ra launched from the ground in tandem, flames trailing behind him like a comet's tail. They struck as one—Ra from above, Anubis from below—crashing into Thor with the fury of sun and beast.
The battlefield rippled again.
Even among the lowest ranks, soldiers felt the tide shift. One poor wizard, no older than seventeen, stared wide-eyed as the three titans clashed in the distance. Dust choked the air. All he could do was throw up shielding spells as shockwaves from the impact sent spells misfiring and bodies stumbling.
"Get down!" someone screamed, dragging him behind a transfigured boulder as a stray lightning bolt tore through a hill of sand and disintegrated an entire squadron of demons and three humans too slow to duck.
Bjorn gritted his teeth and buried his axe into the ground. "Move forward! The gods are buying us time—use it!"
And so the line moved.
Broken wizards picked up dropped wands. Spell-broken soldiers were healed, their wounds cauterized mid-run. Smoke and fire rose in pillars across the battlefield. Ash drifted like snowfall, but beneath it all hope pulsed.
The shield was down. The war was no longer behind barriers.
Now, it would be decided in blood.
—
A/N: trying to show the different perspectives of how grand this war is, hopefully it doesn't feel bloated