Hades did not rush.
That was the first thing everyone noticed.
He just kept walking.
One step.
Then another.
The bident in his hand dragged a trail of black light across the white ground. Not shadow. Not darkness. Something heavier. Something that remembered every grave, every last breath, every prayer that never got answered.
Metatron turned first.
The rings around his body sped up, countless eyes widening as they tried to read what was coming toward him.
They couldn't.
For the first time since he had stepped onto the field, the Voice of God could not properly catalog what stood before him.
Hades's power was no longer only death.
It was accumulation.
Trillions of endings packed into one god-shaped vessel.
Metatron lifted a hand.
A wall of script exploded into being between them. Countless burning symbols, each one a command, each one a law sharpened into a blade.
HALT.
YIELD.
DISSOLVE.
Hades did not even slow down.
The words touched him and died.
Not resisted.
