Imp to Demon King: A Journey of Conquest
Chapter 457: The Fall of Olympus 4

Chapter 457: The Fall of Olympus 4

Demeter rose from the ground itself, her form wreathed in wheat stalks and autumn leaves. The goddess of harvest had watched her divine family fall, and her grief had turned to something primal and terrible. The very marble began cracking as roots and vines pushed through, transforming the pristine temple into a wild grove.

"You would destroy the natural order!" she accused, her voice carrying the rumble of earthquakes and the whisper of growing grain. The air filled with pollen that could choke mortals and spores that could drive men mad. "Without the gods, mortals will starve! The seasons will fail! The very earth will become barren!"

The goddess spread her arms, and suddenly the entire mountain of Olympus began to shift. Plants erupted from every surface—massive trees with thorned branches, carnivorous flowers the size of buildings, vines that moved with serpentine intelligence. The very stone began to soften and crack as an entire ecosystem tried to claim the divine mountain.

"Oh, spare me the environmental lecture," Adam scoffed, his blazing plasma beginning to wither her plants as fast as she could grow them. He conjured a torrent of superheated plasma, the stream cutting through her botanical army like a flamethrower through tissue paper. "The seasons existed for billions of years before you decided to take credit for them."

Demeter gestured frantically, and the burning plants immediately began to regrow, drawing nutrients from the golden ichor of fallen gods. But Adam was absorbing every heat source on the battlefield, his aura growing brighter and more destructive with each passing moment.

"You speak of natural order?" Adam’s voice grew mocking as he advanced through her garden of horrors, his war hammer crackling with electricity. "Let me tell you about natural order—evolution. Adaptation. The strong consuming the weak. And you, dear Demeter, have grown weak from millennia of worship."

Demeter’s form began to cycle through the seasons—spring’s vibrant growth, summer’s blazing heat, autumn’s harvest bounty, winter’s deathly chill. Each transformation brought new attacks: pollen storms that could blind and suffocate, heat waves that could melt bronze, freezing winds that could shatter stone, and thorned vines that could drain the life from anything they touched.

"I am the cycle itself!" she declared, her form now a shifting kaleidoscope of seasonal power. "I am life and death, growth and decay! You cannot destroy what is fundamental to existence!"

Adam blinked through her seasonal storm, reappearing directly beside her shifting form. His hammer came down in a devastating arc, electrical energy coursing through her divine essence and disrupting her seasonal transformations.

"Fundamental?" He laughed as she convulsed, sparks flying from her plant-wreathed hair. "You’re a middle manager who convinced yourself she was indispensable." His god-slayer blade found her heart as she tried to maintain her seasonal cycling. "Here’s a news flash—life existed before agriculture, and it’ll exist long after your last temple crumbles."

As Demeter fell, the flowers in her hair crumbled to ash, and her vast botanical army withered and died. The marble of Olympus began to show through again, scarred but intact.

"Natural selection in action," Adam murmured, absorbing he divine essence from her burning form.

Dionysus had been watching the battle unfold with the detached interest of someone perpetually drunk, lounging against a wine-stained pillar with his cup perpetually full. Now, as the only Olympian left standing besides the three being systematically repelled by the Hecatoncheires, he took a long drink and smiled sadly.

"You know," he said conversationally, his words only slightly slurred, "I always knew this day would come. Gods aren’t supposed to be eternal, are we? Even wine goes bad eventually." He raised his cup toward the carnage surrounding them. "Though I have to say, you’ve put on quite the show. Very entertaining."

Adam paused, his blade raised but not yet striking. There was something different about this one—a resignation, an acceptance that the others had lacked. No desperate attacks, no furious declarations of eternal power.

"You’re not going to fight?"

Dionysus shrugged, conjuring a second cup and offering it to Adam. "What’s the point? You’ve already won. Zeus’s pride, Hera’s authority, Ares’ brutality, Athena’s wisdom—all of it has been proven hollow." He gestured expansively, wine sloshing from his cup. "I’m just the god of getting drunk and forgetting your problems. Hard to take that seriously in the face of, well..." He waved at the golden ichor painting the marble steps. "Actual problems."

Despite his casual demeanor, Dionysus suddenly unleashed his true power. The air filled with intoxicating vapors that could drive mortals mad with pleasure, while phantom revelers materialised around them—ghostly maenads with tearing claws, spectral satyrs with bronze hooves, and wine that had been transformed into liquid madness itself.

"But if I’m going out," Dionysus grinned, his casual mask slipping to reveal something ancient and wild, "I might as well make it memorable!"

The divine party exploded around Adam like a hallucinogenic nightmare. Phantom wine turned to acid in the air, ghostly dancers tried to tear him apart with claws, and the very concept of sobriety began to dissolve under the assault of pure, undiluted hedonism.

Adam stood in the center of it all, completely unaffected by the madness swirling around him. His Sovereign of the Verdant Crown authority and the hand of Tyr he had absorbed made him immune to mental effects.

"Impressive," Adam acknowledged, then created a wave of static orbs that began firing scalding beams in every direction. The phantom revelers screamed as they were vaporised, their ethereal forms unable to withstand concentrated plasma. "But you’re still missing the point."

He blinked directly to Dionysus, who was still drinking calmly even as his divine party collapsed around him.

"The problem with your approach," Adam said conversationally, his god-slayer blade humming with chaotic energy, "is that you’ve made peace with irrelevance. You decided long ago that you didn’t matter, so you might as well have fun. But that’s not wisdom—that’s just giving up."

Dionysus nodded thoughtfully, finishing his wine. "Fair point. Though I have to ask—what’s the difference between not mattering and choosing not to matter? Philosophy gets weird when you’re facing extinction."

"The difference," Adam said, his blade finding its mark almost gently, "is that one is free will, and the other is just death."

The wine cup shattered on the marble, its contents running red like blood. As Dionysus fell, his eternal smile finally fading, the last echoes of divine revelry died with him.

Adam stood among the fallen Olympians, their golden ichor painting the pristine marble in patterns of divine defeat. The air still crackled with residual energy from his various attacks—plasma burns on the walls, electrical scorch marks on the columns, and the lingering scent of vaporised divinity.

Achilles jogged over, Jörmungandr’s Kiss still spinning lazily in his hands, its drill tip stained with divine blood. His torso was pristine—the blessing of the Styx having healed every wound Ares and Athena had managed to inflict.

"Ares and Athena are finished," he reported with satisfaction. "The war gods of Olympus won’t be troubling anyone anymore. Though I have to say," he added, surveying the carnage around Adam, "you certainly didn’t leave much for conversation. What happened to ’know thy enemy’?"

Adam absorbed the last wisps of divine essence from the battlefield, his plasma aura cycling through colors as it processed the various forms of energy. "I knew them well enough. Hera—pathetic and subservient despite her power. Hermes—fast but predictable. Demeter—convinced her own propaganda about being indispensable. Dionysus—at least he had the dignity to accept reality."

He turned toward the sounds of the greater battle, where the Hecatoncheires began to lose ground against the three strongest Olympians.

Before he joined them, however, he felt his god slayer stir in his grip.