Tide of Fire

The desert wind had grown quiet.

The final embers of war still glowed faintly across the sand, the bodies of gods and monsters vanished or buried by their own. And yet, despite the silence, there was no peace, not yet.

Sarai knelt beside Hunter, brushing his hair gently from his pale forehead. He was breathing easier now, but his stillness tugged at her heart like gravity. She pressed a soft kiss to his temple and let herself exhale, for a heartbeat, no more.

She stood.

The air shifted instantly. The remaining gods turned, sensing something awakening again. Sarai’s magic hadn’t dimmed since her victory over Hypnos. If anything, it had grown.

She stared out at the open horizon, fire flickering behind her eyes, shadow trailing like a cape from her shoulders. Her body bore bruises, divine cuts that shimmered silver with every step, but her stance was unshakable.

Julian moved to her side, quiet as ever. His eyes scanned her like he was memorizing every piece of her again, half in awe, half in fear.

He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her neck, slow, reverent. Then another to her shoulder, where the bruises bloomed.

“I’ve never been prouder of anyone in my life,” he whispered, voice husky with emotion.

A faint smile curled her lips.

But then, her gaze turned forward, sharp as steel, deadly as prophecy.

Straight at Zeus.

Julian followed her gaze and inhaled, knowing.

The war was done.

But the challenge was not.

Sarai began walking, slowly, deliberately, her steps kicking up dust and divine silence. Zeus folded his arms, unreadable. But his eyes met hers, and he knew what came next.

Ares and Apollo groaned in unison behind Zeus.

“For the love of Olympus,” Apollo muttered.

Ares cracked his knuckles. “Please say we’re allowed to hit her hard.”

Sarai raised a brow. “You think I can’t take it?”

Ares grinned. “Oh, I know you can. That’s what worries me.”

Sarai smiled at her Uncle, “I beat you once, I can certainly do it again, dear Uncle.”

“Let’s get this over with, then,” Ares muttered, cracking his neck.

Beside him, Apollo sighed and dragged a hand through his hair. “Any rules, or do we just assume ‘don’t die’ is implied?”

Sarai stopped in the center of the field and turned to face them all, her expression calm.

“Zeus can make the rules,” she said clearly. “And the Royal Guard, Choose whatever will make you feel safer.”

That got a few laughs, uneasy ones.

Zeus tilted his head, an amused spark dancing in his eyes. “Do you mock me, girl?”

“I ask for fair odds,” Sarai replied coolly. “And you still get to set the stage.”

Zeus looked over at Odin, Thor, and Loki, who stood near the edge of the crater left by the battle.

“Well?” he asked them. “Do the sons of Asgard want to play?”

Thor grinned. “I thought you'd never ask.”

Loki winked at Sarai. “I’ve already had a taste of the fun. I wouldn’t mind a little more.”

Odin, always the stillest, gave a single nod. “She’s earned the respect of gods. It would be dishonorable not to test her strength in full.”

A tension rolled through the air like storm clouds stacking against the horizon.

Every god present, the Greeks, the Norse, even the few Egyptians who remained watching from afar, turned toward her.

Everyone wanted to see what Sarai was like at full power.

Zeus stepped forward.

“Fine. Rules are simple,” he announced. “Knockout wins. No permanent maiming. No killing, if death happens, it must not be intentional. We are not trying to create another war.”

Sarai arched a brow. “Afraid to die, Zeus?”

Zeus chuckled, slow and thunderous. “No. But I’d hate to tempt the fate of those around me.”

Her smirk widened. “We agree, then.”

Artemis crossed her arms and moved forward slightly. “She’s strong. But throwing her against every god on this field at once isn’t a challenge. It’s execution.”

“She speaks truth,” Athena added. “It should be by phases. Individuals. Or factions.”

Zeus stroked his beard, considering. “Very well. We'll split it into rounds.”

And before anyone else could speak, the Royal Guard stepped forward.

Silent. Deadly. All born of Olympus and war.

“We’ll go first,” Ares said grimly. “Let’s get this done.”

Sarai nodded once, eyes gleaming. “Don’t hold back.”

“We weren’t planning to,” Hermes said, drawing his silver blades.

Julian moved from Sarai’s side reluctantly. His fingers brushed hers before he backed away.

Worry flickered across his face like lightning behind clouds.

“Be careful,” he said.

Sarai winked. “Always.”

He exhaled, stepping back to join the circle of gods already forming a wide perimeter.

As the sun dipped low, the gods began to whisper among themselves. The air grew taut with energy again, so soon after the war, now teetering on the edge of something more primal. A trial. A reckoning.

Sarai rolled her shoulders once.

Power danced along her spine, coiling, waiting, hungry.

The Royal Guard surrounded her in a loose ring. Their weapons glowed. Their eyes were unreadable.

Then the wind shifted. A breath held across all creation.

Nyx folded her arms, watching like a judge. Hecate offered no smile, but her eyes gleamed with pride. Even Odin stood still, eager.

The Guard spread out, Ares and Apollo to the front, Athena and Hermes flanking, Aphrodite and Artemis trailing with ranged magic forming at their palms.

“Begin,” Zeus said.

The air cracked.

Ares was first.

He charged with a war cry, twin blades gleaming. Sarai met him with a step and a twist, ducking his strike and slamming an elbow into his ribs. He staggered, laughing through the pain.

Apollo was right behind him, light arrows flashing through the sky. Sarai spun, conjuring a shield from her own magic, deflecting three, then catching a fourth and hurling it back. It grazed his shoulder. He cursed and grinned.

Hermes blurred in from the left, almost too fast to see.

But Sarai was faster.

She caught his wrist, pivoted, and flipped him over her shoulder in a streak of blue light.

Athena came with precision strikes and brilliant footwork. Sarai answered with her own, fluid and shifting, never committing to one style long enough for Athena to adapt. Their swords clashed, throwing off shockwaves.

Artemis’s arrows rained from above, pinpoint accuracy, and Aphrodite sent waves of psychic confusion through the field.

Sarai closed her eyes, let the confusion pass through her. She felt the battlefield as if it were an extension of her body.

She moved like storm and silence. Dodging, blocking, striking, spinning.

Her power was not just strength; it was control. It was balance. It was freedom.

She knocked Apollo flat with a kick to the chest, dropped Hermes with a stunning burst of light. She sidestepped Ares and landed a gut-punch that brought the god of war to his knees, laughing through the stars he saw.

Athena was last. She and Sarai circled, a moment of calm. They shared a nod, then clashed again, fast and furious.

But Sarai was everywhere. She was lightning and shadow. Heat and ice.

Ares fell.

Apollo slumped beside him.

Hermes blinked up at the sky.

Aphrodite dropped her spells and raised her hands. “Nope. I’m out.”

Athena exhaled and dropped to one knee. “She wins.”

Artemis didn’t fall. She just smiled.

Sarai stood in the center of the field, hair windswept, blood on her knuckles, chest rising and falling like a storm drawing breath.

“Who’s next?” she asked.

The gods said nothing.

Because now… they knew.

She wasn’t the child of war.

She was the tide that ended it.

The wind had gone still.

The battlefield, scorched and battered, was silent now, its gods and titans watching, waiting. The dust from the previous battle still hung in the air, faintly glowing with lingering sparks of divine magic.

And standing at the center of it all was Sarai, bloodied, breathless, radiant.

Thor stepped forward first, golden hair tousled, Mjolnir pulsing with lightning in his palm. Loki followed, shadows coiling at his heels, green eyes aglow with that feral glint of mischief and hunger. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to.

Zeus tilted his head with a smirk, arms folded. “So. Thor and Loki wish to test you. Shall we see if your power truly surpasses Olympus?”

Next to him, Odin stood silent, his gaze sharp, studying. His sons. Zeus’ granddaughter.

“Be careful,” Odin muttered beneath his breath. “She is not just a girl. She is stormborn.”

The fight began.

Loki vanished in a blink, his form melting into shadow. Thor surged forward, Mjolnir a streak of crackling white-blue fire as it hurtled toward Sarai.

She spun.

The hammer missed by inches.

Loki reappeared behind her, but she was already moving. Her hand snapped up, black sand whirling from her fingertips in a twisting spell that rose and took form: Cerberus. Her trusted underworld friend. But with the real Cerberus helping guard Hunter, she had to settle for a sand copy. His three heads snapped at Loki with a thunderous growl.

“Clever,” Loki muttered, dancing back, weaving illusions with a flick of his fingers. “You fight like a god already.”

She didn’t answer.

She was behind him in a blink, two fingers pressed to the back of his neck.

Loki froze for a second.

His eyes widened.

She was inside his thoughts.

Something dark and ancient filtered through her, a skill she had honed in secret under Nyx, and perfected under Hades. A whisper of truth buried in Loki’s mind. A weakness. A memory. His illusions faltered, and he snarled, lashing out with a blast of magic that sent her flying back, but only a few feet.

Before she could recover fully, Thor came in again, this time with fury burning in his eyes.

Mjolnir descended like the wrath of the cosmos.

Sarai raised her arms, and touched it.

The battlefield gasped. The air shook.

Her boots dug into the earth from the force of it, her arms trembling, until they stopped. She took the hammer from his hands with ease and looked at it, admiring the work. She held Mjolnir aloft like it was her own.

Even Odin took a step forward, eyes narrowing.

“I’ve heard stories,” Sarai said to Thor, turning the hammer in her grip. “But the weight of it... It’s lighter than I thought.”

With that, she tossed the hammer to the ground at his feet, unbothered.

Thor charged. No more restraint. Lightning split the sky, and thunder cracked through the realm like a cannon blast.

They clashed, hand to hand, flesh and fury, blood and bone. Her strikes were precise, honed through countless nights of training. Thor was pure strength, but Sarai was precision and power blended into artistry.

Meanwhile, Loki had broken free of the Cerberus copy, shattering it with a massive explosion of magic that tore a crater into the earth.

He turned, and saw her.

Sarai stood between them both now.

She raised her hands, her eyes blazing with raw, unfiltered magic.

The air around her shimmered, reality bending at the edges, rippling like heat over black stone. Her fingertips pulsed with ancient runes, drawn in threads of shadow and violet flame. And then she smiled, a slow, wicked smile that made even the bravest onlookers uneasy.

"You really shouldn’t think such wicked things during battle, Loki," she murmured, her voice soft and dangerous.

Loki froze.

His pupils narrowed, jaw clenching. "What…"

The World Serpent answered.

A hiss slithered through the air like a whisper from the void. The ground beneath them quaked. Cracked. Split. And from that ruptured wound in the earth came a tremor of primordial power, older than the stars themselves.

A monstrous shadow unfurled.

Massive coils of blackened scale, etched with glowing runes, slid out of the chasm. Its body shimmered with poisonous blues and greens, each movement releasing waves of pressure that crushed the wind itself. Its eyes, two sunken voids burning with dying starlight, fixed on Loki first. She knew that it knew him.

Loki stumbled back, pale with disbelief. “No. That…how…how did you know?”

Sarai didn’t answer at first.

She merely walked forward, her hands still glowing, her expression as calm as if she were pulling a memory from a book.

“I saw it in your thoughts,” she said softly, eyes locked with his. “Buried deep. You hide it well. But Hades taught me how to listen. And Nyx taught me what to do with what I hear.”

Loki's throat tightened. “You summoned it, from my mind?”

She nodded.

"And maybe next time," she added, voice low and serpentine, "you’ll think twice before fantasizing about the end of the world while fighting someone stronger than you."

The look on Loki’s face was priceless, part fury, part awe, and part terror. Even Thor stepped back a pace, eyes narrowing as the serpent’s body began to wrap itself around the battlefield like a tightening noose.

"Don’t let it form!" Loki shouted, his voice suddenly raw with urgency. “If it finishes the circle everyone dies!”

He lunged forward, casting spell after spell, trying to cut off the manifestation. The serpent hissed in defiance, but began to slow as his magic clashed with Sarai’s.

While Loki was distracted, Sarai turned with cold grace.

Thor charged again, Mjolnir lifted, lightning crashing toward her like divine judgment.

But Sarai didn’t flinch.

She welcomed the lightning.

It struck her squarely, divine energy exploding in all directions, but instead of withering beneath it, she absorbed it, funneling it through her bones and blood, redirecting it with a scream of willpower.

She pivoted sharply and hurled the lightning not at Thor, but at the serpent.

BOOM.

The bolt tore through the summoned beast, collapsing its half-formed body into smoke and stardust, scattering it back to the void from which it came.

In the same motion, Sarai grabbed Loki by the collar, spun with a snarl, and threw him straight into Thor.

The brothers crashed into each other mid-air, tumbling like broken statues through the air and slamming into the sand dunes behind them with bone-rattling force.

The entire desert shook.

And then there was silence.

Neither god stirred.