Before the universe, before the existence of all things at the beginning of all time, nothing existed, only Chaos. An infinite Chaos that expanded throughout the known void. Shortly afterwards, other entities came into existence, first there was Gaea, Mother Earth, huge, beautiful and fearsome; then there was Tartarus in the depths of the earth with its wide paths, and finally Eros, the personification of love or rather desire.
Since Gaia felt very lonely, she decided, perhaps of her own free will or perhaps somewhat influenced by Eros who wanted to have someone in his life, someone to accompany her in her immortal existence, to create the starry sky. This was as big as the Earth and every night it covers it, extending over it. Gaia called this Uranus.
Uranus and Gaea loved each other and so they had many children. To begin with, Gaea gave birth to 12 Titans, both male and female. Then 3 Cyclopes were born, one-eyed giants who controlled thunder, lightning and lightning. And finally, the 3 Hecatonchires were born, giants with 100 arms and 50 heads. After a while, Uranus began to distrust his children, fearing that they would overthrow him, so he did not allow them to see the light. He kept them locked up in the womb of the Earth, where Tartarus was.
Meanwhile, Chaos begat his own offspring, creating Erebus (darkness) and Nyx (night). Later they too would father their own children, Aether, the god of light and the upper sky, and Hemera, the goddess of day. However, unlike Gaea and Uranus, these, like Chaos, were entities rather than gods and therefore did not possess a consciousness as such, only a kind of innate will.
Returning to Nyx, after having fathered two children with her brother Erebus, she had a large number of offspring on her own, without the need for male intervention.
Moros, the god of Doom or Destiny, Ker, the goddess of Destruction, Thanatos and Hypnos, they were twins, with Thanatos representing Death and Hypnos representing sleep, the Moirai, the Keres, The Hesperides, Eris, the goddess of Strife, Nemesis, the goddess of Retribution, Momus, the god of Blame, Oizys, the goddess of misery and Apate, the goddess of deceit.
However, of all these, only a few would end up playing a more important role in the centuries to come, namely the Moirai, the Hesperides, Thanatos and Hypnos.
After a while, immense and imprisoned Gaea could not bear the burden of so many children imprisoned within her and suffered for them, for her children and their sad fate. So she created a weapon with which her children could defeat their father.
"My children, with this magic sickle that I myself have created you must face Uranus, it is time for him to pay for his evils." Said the Goddess trying to motivate them.
However, even with the new weapon and its power, her children felt intimidated by the immense size of their father, the starry sky. But all was not lost, as one of the brothers, to be more specific, the youngest of them all, Kronos, dared to help his mother.
But it wasn't out of the kindness of his heart or the desire to free his brothers and his mother from torment, but simply for the most selfish of reasons, to take his father's power for himself. And so he did...
One night when Uranus arrived bringing darkness with him and fell upon Gaia wrapping her in his embrace, Kronos saw the opportunity and didn't miss it.
RAS~!!
Kronos, with his mother's sickle, cut off his father's genitals and threw them into the sea. Surprisingly, once they fell and sank, foam originated and began to accumulate in the place where they had fallen, and it was there that the Goddess Aphrodite was born. Meanwhile, from the blood that fell on Gaia, three groups of children were born: the Erinyes, the Giants and the Maenads.
"DAMN YOU," Uranus shouted, mad with pain. "I curse you, do you hear me Kronos, I condemn you to have one of your children overthrow and destroy you, just as you did to me."
Ignoring this for the moment, Kronos, wanting to fulfill his promise to his mother, went to the depths of Gaia to free his brothers, however, once he arrived and witnessed how horrible the Cyclops and the Hekatonkiros were, he decided that he would only free his Titan brothers while his other brothers should remain trapped in Gaia's womb so that they could not harm the world with their monstrous appearance.
After all this, Uranus did not die but he no longer possessed his power, which had been passed on to Kronos once he defeated him.
From then on, Kronos ruled the world as the new lord of the cosmos. By his side reigned his sister Rhea, with whom he had several children. But Kronos, still marked by his father's words, feared that one of his descendants would dethrone him, as he had done with Uranus. Therefore, every time Rhea gave birth, Kronos would mercilessly devour his children, swallowing them one by one: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades and Poseidon all fell into his eternal stomach.
Rea, desperate to save the last of her children, devised a plan. When the time came for the birth of her sixth child, Zeus, she gave birth to him in secret in a cave on Mount Ida, on the island of Crete. Instead, she wrapped a stone in diapers and handed it to Kronos, who devoured it without suspecting anything.
Zeus grew up in secret, suckled by the goat Amalthea and protected by the Corybantes, who with their dancing and loud cries hid his cries. When he was strong enough, with the help of Metis, the goddess of wisdom and cunning, he prepared a potion that forced Kronos to vomit up his siblings.
Thus, one after another, the gods were returned to the world: first the stone that had deceived the Titan, and then his immortal brothers. United and full of rage, they rose up alongside Zeus to wage an unprecedented war against the Titans: the famous Titanomachy.
The war lasted ten years. Mountains were hurled like projectiles, seas churned like never before, and the sky trembled with each clash of colossal forces. Seeing that the battle did not favor any side, Gaea advised Zeus to free his former brothers, the Cyclops and the Hecatonchires, still trapped in the depths.
Zeus obeyed. He descended into Tartarus and, for the first time in eons, he broke the chains that bound those monstrous beings. In gratitude, the Cyclops offered him powerful gifts: to Zeus, the thunderbolt; to Hades, the helmet of invisibility; and to Poseidon, the trident that stirs the seas.
With these new allies and divine weapons, the young gods finally tipped the war in their favor. In a final and decisive act, Zeus raised his arm and unleashed a bolt of lightning so powerful that it tore the heavens apart and shook the earth to its very foundations.
Kronos fell.
The Titans were defeated and imprisoned in Tartarus, guarded by the Hecatonchires. Thus ended the age of the Titans and began the reign of the Olympians.
Zeus, the youngest but the wisest and strongest, sat on the celestial throne as the new sovereign of the universe. Destiny had spoken and Uranus' prophecy had been fulfilled: the son had overthrown the father and a new order had been born.
(Meanwhile in another world…)
The city was still asleep under the rain. The neon lights reflected in the puddles danced to the rhythm of the distant lightning. The platform clock read 5:47 a.m., and the icy wind blew with a force that penetrated to his very bones.
Ethan was walking alone, as he had done so many times before, his hands buried in the pockets of his jacket and his gaze lost under the soaked hood. There was no one else. Only the sound of his footsteps and the distant whine of a train he never took.
It wasn't a planned death.
Nor was it an accident at all.
It was one of those moments when one finds oneself standing in front of the abyss, without seeking it... and simply not stepping back.
When the truck rounded the corner at full speed, he had no time to scream. Nor to think. Only one idea crossed his mind, fleeting, charged with resignation and a strange calm:
"So it all ends."
And then, nothing. Absolutely nothing. Only darkness and absolute silence.
But something... persisted.
A slight tingling in his fingers. A heartbeat. A murmur in his chest. And then, he felt it:
Warmth.
Not the artificial warmth of an ambulance or the cold glow of a morgue.
But real warmth, like the spring sun caressing the skin.
He opened his eyes.
And the first thing he saw was the sky. A clear, deep sky, full of stars. Not like the lights off in his city... but like a living painting. Constellations he barely remembered of some kind, twinkling above him as if watching him.
He sat up slowly. He was lying in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by tall trees with white bark and leaves so green they seemed unreal. In the distance, he could hear the murmur of the waves and the gentle rustling of branches in the wind.
He was... on an island. He knew it from the smell of the sea, the clean air and the horizon peeking through the trees.
"Where... am I?" he whispered, his voice raspy, his throat dry.
It wasn't his house. It wasn't his city. It wasn't his world.
The body he felt wasn't quite his: lighter, stronger, as if something inside him had changed.
And in his mind, just a distant memory: Greek mythology. He knew the basics: the gods, the titans, the myths of Olympus. He remembered that many gods were born on islands, hidden from the world, raised by nymphs or beasts until they were ready to face their destiny.
But this... it couldn't be real.
He got up with effort. The ground was firm. The forest, silent but full of life. There were no paths, no signs, no technology in sight.
And it was then, as he took his first step, that it happened:
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[DIVINE ASCENSION SYSTEM ACTIVATED!]
New guest detected.
Synchronizing with divine essence...
Determining path of ascension...
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The message appeared in front of his eyes, floating in the air, like an invisible hologram to everyone else, even if no one was with him.
His breath stopped as his heart beat hard.
It wasn't a dream. And he didn't know how, or why. But he was alive, alive and apparently in another world. And with some kind of video game-like system on top of it, as if to do the whole full reincarnation combo.
His eyelids slowly lifted as he opened his mouth. And he did the only thing he thought would be coherent at that moment. Just say:
"What... the... fuck."