I'll Curse You! You Damn Titans!
Oceanus's army appeared without warning.
The Titans, already thrown into chaos, froze where they stood.
"O-Oceanus... how did you come to be here...?"
Iapetus's voice trembled as he voiced the question. Oceanus answered in a tone of pure ice.
"I came so that no more meaningless blood need be spilled."
"W-what did you say?"
"Cronus has already fallen. Olympus has suffered heavy losses as well, and neither side has the strength left to continue this war. What good would it do for brothers to shed still more blood? From this point on, only pointless slaughter would remain."
"Kh..."
Oceanus spoke with regal composure from his chariot drawn by horses of living water. Iapetus had plenty he wanted to retort—that even with Cronus down they could still fight, that Oceanus was simply trying to overturn a table already set—but none of it mattered now.
Normally a man of decent eloquence, Iapetus would never have been swayed by a few high-minded phrases... yet under the present circumstances, refusal was impossible.
Behind Oceanus stood a force that made the skin crawl. Even at full strength the Titans would have found no answer against that army; now their own power was effectively halved and mired in total disorder. No matter how much one wanted to argue, when the other party stood before you with blade drawn, what words remained?
If persuasion fails, consider whether you simply lack the strength. Faced with overwhelming force, Iapetus was forcibly convinced. He could only fall silent and accept it.
"If any among you still wish to rampage, come forward! We will gladly face you!"
"!..."
"Mmm..."
Oceanus's declaration rang out with absolute confidence.
"Kihiit!... What?"
"...Please read the room, Sister."
"I was just laughing."
"It doesn't look that way at all."
There was a brief, nearly disastrous moment when Keres's eyes almost rolled back in battle-lust, but she merely clicked her tongue once and abandoned any further thought of running wild.
"Well... I'll let it slide this time. Even I wouldn't want to pick a fight with my 'great-grandfather-in-law,' after all."
"Pardon? What did you just—"
"Nothing. Forget it."
At Oceanus's word, the Titans—and the Olympian forces still resisting—lowered their weapons. The fighting ended.
The Titanomachy was over.
"Mmm..."
Zeus, King of the Gods.
Only a few days earlier he had sat proudly upon the throne of Olympus, radiating majesty. Now, seated in the great council chamber, not a trace of that former grandeur remained.
Damn it... how did things come to this...
His body itself was fine. Freed at last from the headaches that had tormented him, he was in peak condition. The problem was the situation he now faced.
With the great war that had raged for nearly two years finally concluded, his position had become painfully ambiguous.
The war had begun as a struggle for dominion over the world between the Titans and the Olympian gods. Yet the true final victor was Hephaestus... or rather, the power that sat behind him: Oceanus's faction, which had maintained neutrality until the very end.
Eurynome, Hephaestus's mother. Doris, mother of Nerites and Thetis who had helped bring Cronus down. Even Metis, mother of Athena, who was even now casting a frigid gaze upon Zeus—every last one of them was a daughter of Oceanus.
In truth, nearly all the young gods who had played leading roles in this war—save Ares—could be counted as Oceanus's descendants to one degree or another. And even Ares, given that Hera was Oceanus's foster daughter, was hardly an exception.
Seated in the council chamber for the postwar settlement, Oceanus radiated the unshakable confidence of a true victor. Zeus found it deeply galling that this force had swooped in at the last moment to snatch the fruits of victory after everyone else had bled themselves dry. Yet he could not utter a single word of protest.
Oceanus held both justification and power. And when Zeus had been writhing in agony from his headache, had Hephaestus—had Oceanus—not intervened, the one sitting upon that Golden Throne right now would have been Zeus himself, not Cronus.
"Damn it!... Can't you free me at once?! Why am I the only one—khhh!!!"
Cronus's roar of fury set the Golden Throne blazing with radiant light. Were it not for the minor side-effect of being unable to rise from the seat, the throne would have looked magnificent. Watching it, Zeus felt a small, spiteful satisfaction even in his present predicament.
Thanks to the efforts of Hades, Ares, and others, Zeus at least stood among the "victors." Cronus, by contrast, was being treated as little more than a prisoner and a criminal. That small comfort was all he had.
With that thought as his meager consolation, Zeus turned his gaze toward the council now properly underway—the council led, of course, by Oceanus.
"First of all, this entire affair is most regrettable. That the children of Gaia should have made such a disgraceful spectacle of themselves... All of you must reflect deeply and ensure nothing of the kind ever happens again."
Oceanus's words carried both sorrow and a sharp warning. Hades and Zeus answered in awkward voices.
"Khhh..."
"W-we are deeply sorry... Lord Oceanus."
Their faces were full of discontent, yet with Styx and Hephaestus flanking Oceanus and radiating murderous auras, both Titans and gods had no choice but to bow their heads.
"Haa... I have much more I would like to say, but let us leave that matter there. It is time we begin the postwar settlement in earnest."
After the brief lecture, the real council began. Though called a council, it was in truth the opening of another war—one fought with words.
"This war was a tragedy born of Cronus's greed from the very start. He must be sealed in Tartarus as an example to all."
"Ha! The ones who drove me out and stole my throne dare speak such words?!"
"That's because you swallowed us the moment we were born!"
"Even if power had blinded you, how could you do such a thing to your own children?!"
From the outset the Olympian gods launched a fierce assault of condemnation upon Cronus. The other Titans, however, showed little desire to take his side. Even gods who had long since discarded morality could not bring themselves to defend so monstrous a crime of kin-slaying. Moreover, Cronus had squandered a war already as good as won through a single catastrophic blunder; he had lost the Titans' trust as well.
Atlas tried to speak up, but a man short on wisdom was of little use in a situation like this. In the end the Titans reached a swift consensus.
"On that point, I agree."
"!? C-Coeus...?"
"Had Cronus not panicked and overreached in the first place, none of this would have happened."
"Hyperion! Even you?!"
They would cut Cronus loose and steer the negotiations toward whatever advantage they could still salvage.
"You filthy traitors!"
Thus Cronus—the root of all evil who had ignited the war—was sentenced to eternal imprisonment in Tartarus.
"I curse you! You damn Titans! To repay kindness with enmity... to sell your souls for petty gain and dare turn against me! Against Cronus, who once cut down the very heavens!!!"
Even as he was dragged away still bound to the Golden Throne, Cronus poured out a voice thick with hatred upon the Titans who had abandoned him.
"Right to the end, you are disgustingly loud. As if cutting down the heavens were such a great feat."
"Aphrodite..."
"Very well, I shall hold my tongue."
"And stop clinging while you're at it..."
So the noisiest and heaviest agenda item was resolved with relative smoothness. What followed, however, proved far less simple.
In the original myths the Titans had fallen as complete losers alongside Cronus, cast wholesale into Tartarus. In this reality their position was far from total defeat. Compared to Olympus—which had lost most of its fighting strength and seen its very stronghold half-destroyed—the Titans actually held a slight edge in remaining power.
Thus Titans and Olympians, neither pure victors nor pure vanquished, were forced to negotiate for a long time on relatively equal footing, carefully balancing their respective interests.
In the end, only Cronus, Atlas, and a handful of Cronus's closest retainers were condemned to Tartarus. Most of the high Titans retained their offices, merely ceding a portion of their authority as the price of compromise.
Yet even these matters paled beside the next item on the agenda.
"Now then... regarding the third matter..."
Oceanus's voice grew heavy. Shadows deepened on the faces of the gods; the Titans' expressions filled with awkwardness and guilt.
The reason the Titans, despite their relatively advantageous position, had been forced to concede so much to the Olympians was this:
"What is to be done about the Sacred Fire?"
"..."
"Khhh..."
The Sacred Fire.
The eternal flame that burned in the deepest heart of Olympus—the very wellspring of infinite power that sustained the world. Containing a fragment of primordial Chaos, the Sacred Fire had long poured abundant energy into all creation. Because of it, every living thing of earth and sky had flourished under nature's bounty, and humankind had reaped rich harvests without toil, living long, happy lives before drifting peacefully into sleep.
But during the Titans' assault on Olympus, the Sacred Fire had been damaged.
A few Titans, drunk on plunder and blinded by its overwhelming power, had tried to seize it for themselves. Those fools had been swallowed by the flames on the spot and vanished without a trace—yet the responsibility for having touched the untouchable still rested upon the Titans as a whole.
"I-is there any way to restore the Sacred Fire...?"
"There is none. It is a miracle forged around a fragment of Chaos that can no longer be obtained. Even Lady Gaia herself would only shake her head."
Coming from Hyperion, Titan of the sun, the words carried absolute weight. Gods and Titans alike sank into deep gloom, unable to produce any clever solution. They could only accept the cold reality:
The age of endless abundance and boundless happiness—the Golden Age—was over.
Then—
"...There may be one possible method."
After long thought, a single voice broke the silence.
At Hephaestus's words, every gaze in the chamber—god and Titan alike—locked upon him.