The Nameless Heir

He sat there, eyes closed, watching the world through the spread of his shadows. Every street. Every city. Waiting.

Daedalus had told him the story of his life. Long enough ago that the faces were gone from memory, but not the stench of it.

There had been demigods so steeped in their parents' favor they thought themselves untouchable. The strongest of their kind, draped in blessings, held up as living proof of divine blood.

And like fools, they'd turned it into a contest. Not for survival. Not for peace. Just to prove which of them was the better child.

The gods had encouraged it. Backed their champions. Fed the fire.

Until it burned too hot. Until it threatened to take the whole world with it.

Then the gods did what they always do.

They stepped back. Pointed fingers. Shifted the weight of their own disaster onto the same hands they had filled with power.

The leaders—once praised, paraded, and protected—were stripped bare. Their blessings torn away. Their cities closed to them. Cast out like the war had been theirs alone.

Once great, now forgotten, they had been cast out from their homelands, turned away by the very gods who had once claimed them. Pride stripped, blessings torn away, they carried nothing but hatred and despair.

They had come to Daedalus—an exile himself, driven from Athens for killing his own nephew. He had understood their pain, or at least pretended to. Kael could almost picture it: the old inventor taking them in like wayward children, offering shelter where no one else would.

Once the gods' chosen. Now bitter shadows of what they were—still chasing the same arrogance that ruined them.

And Daedalus… for all his genius, he gave them exactly what they wanted.

It didn't matter how far they'd fallen. That pride stayed.

One day, they slipped away from him. Left without a word. Crossed into a world that had no gods to stop them.

They took what they'd learned and turned it into weapons. A place that had once been quiet, untouched, became something else—ruled by demigods.

For years, they lay with mortals, trying to make children strong enough to carry their will. Strong enough to prove they'd been right all along.

He didn't open his eyes. His voice carried through the shadow, flat, cold.

"This was never survival," he said. "Just the same pride that burned their first world to the ground. And Daedalus… for all his brilliance, he's the one who taught them how."

He let the words hang for a moment before adding, quieter but sharper:

"They didn't follow him out of loyalty. They used him. Took everything from a man already broken… and then left him with nothing."

He pulled the shadows back, letting them sink into the ground like water retreating from a shore.

The street was empty now. The people had vanished into their homes, or deeper into the dark, trusting him to keep watch.

Kael stayed still, listening. Not for danger—that would find him soon enough—but for the kind of silence that meant the world was waiting to see what he'd do next.

He rested against the wall, eyes lifting to the sky. The moon stared back—far too bright for the kind of night this was. It made the cracks in the street gleam. It made the broken glass look like frost. It didn't care who bled beneath it.

That was the problem with the sky.

It always looked down.

It never reached.

Just then, a swarm of missiles cut through the sky toward him.

Those explosive was Daedalus's idea originally—he had taught them the basic concept.

From that, Athena's daughter and the son of Hephaestus built on his work, refining it, shaping it, until it became something far beyond what he had shown them.

A weapon so strong it could erase humanity if they chose. And with that kind of power, they had given the demigods the destruction—and the illusion—to feel like real gods.

His eyes tracked their path, calm, unblinking. Power like that in the hands of halflings didn't make them gods—it only made their fall more certain. They would burn the world trying to prove they were more than what they were, and he would be there to remind them.

Those missiles were faster—much faster. He didn't have time to wait. Shadows rose at his command, shaping into spears that ringed every building in the city.

But the missiles weren't after the city. They were locked on him.

They rained down, explosion after explosion, but nothing happened. He sat there—unmoved, unbothered.

In their minds, this was power. To him, it was noise.

He leapt, rising into the air, eyes locked on the soldiers and their machines. He knew their names. He knew what they could do.

The chain had given him more than Daedalus's obedience—it had given him his mind. Every design, every weapon, every flaw. All of it was his now.

He scanned the soldiers—only a few carried godly energy. The rest were human. Ten, maybe thirty thousand troops. Countless tanks. Aircraft closing in on the city.

"What are they doing?" he thought. "Sending people instead of showing up themselves?"

They knew those things couldn't stop him, yet they still sent them to their deaths.

"Are they so cocky they think they can beat me with this? So confident they can win without facing me? Are they mocking me? Looking down on me?"

His gaze hardened. "Demigods… looking down on me?"

He dropped into them like a landslide. The ground took his weight for a heartbeat before it broke.

They didn't have time to move. Some didn't even have time to scream.

Black spears erupted, skewering men and hauling them skyward in one violent pull. Armor split. Bones cracked. Blood rained in heavy arcs, streaking the field red. Those left alive stood frozen, eyes fixed on the spines rising from the ground.

For a heartbeat, there was only the sound—metal shrieking, bones snapping, the wet thud of bodies hitting the ground.

And then they screamed.

Then the panic set in.

The higher-ups shouted over the chaos, their orders tangled with the screams around them. Weapons shook in their hands, the fight already gone from their eyes. They'd been told to hold the line, but instinct screamed louder—get away from him.

They had barely cleared the line when engines roared through the wreckage, shaking the ground.

Smoke crawled low across the torn earth, slipping around the hulks of burning metal. Soldiers moved back through the debris as fast as they could, boots grinding over twisted steel, their eyes locked on the bodies that weren't getting back up.

They didn't run. Not yet.

The moment they cleared the line, the rest opened fire.

Tanks braced and fired, each shot kicking up dirt and flame.

On both sides, launchers let loose, their missiles cutting through the air on a straight path to him.

Fighter jets screamed overhead, rocket pods flaring as explosives rained down.

From the flanks, launchers howled, sending guided missiles streaking toward him.

He didn't move. He raised a single finger.

The shadows answered.

In an instant, they surged up and over him, forming a solid black dome that sealed him inside.

The bombardment hit, shaking the ground as it tore into the dome. Shells slammed into the barrier, fire flashing bright across its surface, but inside there was only a low, dull vibration—like rain on a roof.

When the last echo of the blasts faded, the black dome began to sink.

It didn't shatter. The shadows slid away in slow coils, winding down his arms and legs before sinking into the ground.

He stood in the open, not a mark on him.

He stood there—untouched.

Then he stepped forward.

The instant his boot touched the dirt, his gaze swept the field. Every soldier's shadow answered him.

They erupted under their feet, spearing up from below in a single, violent surge. The strike punched through armor and flesh alike, hurling men into the air. They screamed as their weapons slipped from their hands before the shadows let them fall.

The line of tanks pushed forward. Kael was already moving.

He vaulted into the air and landed on the lead vehicle hard enough to make the steel groan. His heel drove down. The armor buckled. Fire burst from the seams, tearing the machine apart from the inside. Burning metal rained onto the street. He kicked what was left into another tank. The impact crushed them both in one deafening blow.

He gripped the turret and twisted. Steel screamed in protest.

He lifted it off the ground and started swinging with his momentum in a wide, brutal arc. The impact crushed men like paper, snapping bone and shattering armor in the same breath.

Then he hurled the tank into the sky. It spun once before slamming into an aircraft, the impact ripping them both open and scattering fire and steel over the field.

They kept firing. He kept walking.

He snapped his fingers.

The ground stirred. Black liquid bled upward through the cracks, sluggish at first, then twisting into itself as if it was alive. The liquid-like shadow swelled above him, coiling tighter and tighter, waiting for his word.

It grew heavier, tighter, until it hung in the air like a sphere ready to burst.

Then it did.

The shadows tore outward in every direction, breaking apart into a storm of bullets, each one sharp enough to tear through steel. They pierced through armor and flesh with ease.

The air stank of blood, every hit landing wet and heavy.

With a single stomp of his foot, the ground split beneath him.

Spikes of shadow tore through the field, ripping into men and metal without slowing. Beneath the survivors, the ground bulged and warped, shadows twisting into a maw with teeth like broken stone.

It lunged upward without warning.

The jaws snapped shut with a crack that split the air, crushing steel and bone in the same bite. The screaming stopped. The maw pulled its prey under, and the darkness swallowed them whole.

Gluttony rose.

It bit down, the snap echoing like stone splitting. Tanks, men—gone in a single motion, dragged into the black until nothing remained.

The line broke.

Those still alive ran. Some tripped over the bodies. Some dropped their weapons. Fear clung to the air, thick and bitter. A true feeling of helplessness.

He stepped over their bodies like they were nothing. Like they were not even worth the dirt on his boots. Blood slicked the leather as he crossed the field.

Shadows curled at his feet while his eyes followed the survivors running like cowards.

He didn't move to chase them. Not yet.

Let them run. Let them carry the story.

The demigods would hear soon enough.

From the shadow, his throne rose.

He leaned back into the throne, arms draped over the armrests, eyes shut as if the next ten hours were nothing.