Hi guys! Just a public announcement, chapter will no longer be daily but will be posted every other day! I will try to make them longer than usual and of higher quality!
Also if we can get to 250 stones I will release an extra chapter!! Thank you for your support :)
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The world held its collective breath, a silent, anxious globe awaiting inevitable conflict. But Nicholas would not wait for fate's sluggish turn. His decision was a sharp, decisive crack in history's timeline.
He would not be a reactive leader, a mere respondent to a madman's ambitions. He would be the proactive force, the unyielding wall against which the fate that would slaughter millions shattered.
The annexation of Austria began, a grim, predictable move. German troops, clad in grey, crossed the border. Their march was met not with Austrian resistance alone, but with a sudden, shocking communication from the White House.
Nicholas's voice, calm yet steely, resonated across international communication channels. He declared the act an unacceptable aggression, a direct violation of sovereign peace.
Citing the mutual defense treaty, he invoked the Treaty of Versailles. America would respond, not with mere condemnation, but with overwhelming, decisive force.
His orders, prepared meticulously over preceding frantic months, went out. The mighty Atlantic Fleet, a colossal armada of modern battleships and formidable aircraft carriers, already positioned in the North Sea, moved.
They sliced through cold, grey waters, a steel wall blocking German naval access. Simultaneously, a vast, organized American army, waiting patiently in British ports, began its embarkation.
Troop transports, flanked by sleek, deadly destroyers, formed into immense convoys. Their destination was not Austria, but the German coastline itself.
The plan was audacious, brilliant, brutal: a full-scale invasion and subsequent occupation of the German heartland. Its stated goal was the complete dismantling of the Nazi regime before it could fully consolidate its power.
Nicholas possessed an ultimate, terrifying trump card. The Nuclear Project, fueled by limitless funding and guided by his knowledge and smarts, was not just complete; it had produced functional, devastating weapons.
While other nations theorized about atomic power, America held tangible, city-leveling bombs. A single, specially-modified submarine, the USS Vanguard, crept into the Baltic Sea. Its mission was singular, its orders chillingly direct.
A coded, high-priority telegram was sent to the German high command. Its message was stark, simple, unequivocal: "Demilitarize completely. Surrender unconditionally. Or face immediate, decisive action. You have twenty-four hours." It was not a negotiation.
But Hades, the ever-watchful Lord of the Underworld, had anticipated such a move. His network of mortal spies, their fates expertly shielded from Nicholas's probing Book of Probability by the God's own dark authority, had infiltrated the highest echelons of the American and British military.
They reported the nuclear threat. Hades would not let his carefully cultivated European chaos be so easily erased.
His retaliation was swift, horrific, and aimed at the homeland. As the deadline loomed, the very ground along the American and British coastlines tore open.
Deep, jagged fissures, reeking of sulfur and grave-dust, split city streets and quiet farmland. From these hellish openings poured a grotesque, endless tide of underworld monsters.
Empousai with fiery hair and bronze legs shrieked into the air. Leathery-winged Harpies swooped down, snatching terrified civilians. Hordes of shambling, skeletal Laestrygonians, armed with crude clubs, smashed through buildings.
It was a coordinated, supernatural blitzkrieg designed to cause panic, to force Nicholas to recall his armies, to protect his own people.
He stood in his fortified Oval Office, watching the reports flood in. Chaos reigned in New York, Boston, and London; to those blinded by the mist, they would seem like a string of natural disasters, but to those of the unseen world, it would seem infinitely more terrifying.
But a cold, calculated smile touched his lips. Hades had played his hand, but he had underestimated Nicholas's resources. Nicholas would not be distracted.
He reached deep into the vast, humming reservoir of faith generated by over two hundred million souls.
This immense power, stored within his sanctuary, now answered his call. He gripped the Anemos Staff, its wood thrumming with captured storm.
Then, he opened the Book of Probability, its silver script blazing. He wove the authorities together in a masterful, intricate tapestry.
Using the Book, he pinpointed the exact, probabilistic location of every major monster emergence. Then, channeling the oceanic faith, he funneled it through the Staff. But he added a final, brilliant layer of deception.
He wrapped the entire working in the Kapre Cloak's essence, masking the unique signature of his own power and imprinting it with the distinct, thunderous authority of Zeus, taken from the many of his children they had culled.
Across the besieged cities, the sky, previously clear, suddenly boiled with black, unnatural storm clouds. But there was no rain.
Only lightning. Dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of searing, white-hot bolts of lightning descended. They did not strike randomly. Each bolt was a precision-guided weapon, arcing down with impossible accuracy to strike a specific monster.
An Empousa vaporized mid-screech. A Harpy exploded into golden dust. A Laestrygonian crumbled into bone fragments. The thunder was a continuous, deafening roar, a divine drumroll of pure obliteration.
To any observing god, it was a message: Zeus himself was protecting Nicholas. The deception was perfect. Hades would feel his brother's interference, not the hand of his true enemy.
Zeus, however, atop his throne in Olympus, was of the impression that this was the move of his daughter Athena. From her connection to the Air, he thought that it was a way to mislead Hades and to make him fearful to protect her investment in the mortal world.
With the home front miraculously secured, the Vanguard received its final authorization. The first nuclear bomb, a sleek, ominous device nicknamed "Dawn's Light," was launched.
Its target was a remote, uninhabited stretch of land just outside of the capital city. The resulting detonation was a sun born on Earth. A blinding, silent flash preceded a colossal, roiling fireball. The shockwave that followed rattled all the windows in Berlin.
A monstrous, radioactive mushroom cloud climbed into the stratosphere, a permanent, terrifying scar on the horizon.
The demonstration of power was absolute, incomprehensible. The German high command, already nervous about the conventional invasion fleet now landing on their shores, was thrown into utter panic.
Hitler raged, demanding a fight to the last man. But his generals, pragmatic and terrified, overruled him. The political weakling, not yet the absolute Führer, was powerless against the collective, fearful will of mortals.
They saw the American armies, equipped with advanced tanks and radios, already making rapid, brutal progress inland. The technological gap was a yawning chasm.
The invasion, dubbed "Operation Aegis," was a brutal, relentless push. American divisions, supported by overwhelming air superiority, smashed through initial, disorganized German defenses.
But Hades was not finished; the children of the Underworld Gods rallied under his son and ignored the mortal generals. Hades summoned Phantasmal shades to fight the American troops. Drakons the size of buildings tore through tank columns.
Squads of powerful, battle-hardened demigods, children of the Underworld's minor deities, launched devastating guerrilla attacks of shadow and bone.
The war became a two-front struggle: mortal against mortal, and mystical against mystical. Yet, Nicholas's side held every advantage.
He coordinated with Olympus directly now. Athena's own demigod children, brilliant strategists, were embedded in the American command.
Ares's savage offspring led from the front, their fury a match for the underworld's rage. And from the sky, bolts of "Zeus's" lightning, actually Nicholas's continued, faith-fueled manipulations, continued to strike key monstrous threats.
The march to Berlin was a bloody, hard-fought slog, but it was inexorable. Within a few, frantic months, American tanks rolled into the shattered German capital.
The faith generated by a fearful Europe began to pour into Nicholas's reservoir, a torrent of desperate fear and stunned awe.
With Germany occupied, its surrender formalized, and Hitler imprisoned in a deep, secret prison. Nicholas dared not order his execution, knowing the direct, personal vengeance it would invite from a furious Hades; his time would come after Nicholas was secure, and the time was ripe.
The risk of waiting grew with every passing day. The Olympians were watching, Hades was licking his wounds, and the fragile peace was just a thin veneer over seething divine tension. If he waited any longer, maybe even the Gods themselves would make a move personally.
Nicholas could not delay any longer; his faith reserves were full to bursting, and his role was cemented in history.
Delaying any longer would just be foolish; thus, Nicholas decided that it was time.
The Apotheosis Ritual, the great work that would transform a mortal president into an eternal God, had begun. The year was 1938, and a new deity was about to be born.
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