The red portal didn't just stay open. It grew, its edges solidifying from flickering light into a hard, obsidian-like ring. The air around it hummed with a deeper, more resonant malevolence. The pleasant courtyard now felt like a thin island in a sea of screaming chaos.

From the stabilized gateway, a new wave emerged. These were not the brutish foot soldiers or the smarter black-skinned commanders. These moved with a silent, predatory grace. Their forms were more refined, their armor intricately carved with infernal sigils that pulsed with a sickly light. They carried weapons that seemed to be extensions of their own limbs—whip-swords that crackled with dark energy, and barbed spears that wept a viscous, black fluid.

One of them, a tall figure with skin like cooled lava and horns that formed a twisted crown, pointed a clawed finger. "The life-bringers. The usurpers. Your essence will fuel the conquest."

Artemis let her arrow fly. It was a perfect shot, aimed for the creature's throat. The demon didn't even flinch. It simply caught the arrow out of the air, its fingers closing around the celestial silver shaft. The metal smoked and blackened before crumbling to dust.

A cold silence fell for a heartbeat.

Then, Hermes laughed. It was a nervous, high-pitched sound. "Okay. Point taken. You're a bit tougher."

The lava-skinned demon smiled, a horrifying stretch of its features. It gestured, and the new elite warriors fanned out. They were fast, almost matching Hermes's speed, and their dark-energy blades could parry Apollo's bolts of light with sharp, sizzling cracks.

The fight changed. It was no longer a statement; it was a brutal, grinding struggle.

Hermes found himself actually having to dodge, his usual taunts replaced by grunts of effort. He was a blur, but now the demons were tracking him, their weapons slicing the air where he had just been.

Apollo was forced to his feet, his lyre now a shield as much as a weapon. He strummed a powerful chord that sent a wave of concussive light forward, throwing back three demons, but more simply stepped over their fallen comrades.

Artemis abandoned her bow. She drew twin hunting knives, meeting the demons in close quarters. She was a whirlwind of silver, her movements economical and deadly, but for every demon she cut down, its armor seemed to harden against the next strike. She was being slowly, methodically pressed back.

Persephone was their anchor. Vines and thorns continued to erupt from the marble, tangling and impaling. She grew forests of razor-edged bamboo that split into splinters against demonic hides, and fields of flowers whose pollen exploded into blinding clouds. She was holding the line, but the sheer, relentless pressure was like trying to hold back the tide with a net.

A demon with a whip-sword lashed out, the dark energy crackling towards Apollo. Persephone threw a wall of ancient, petrified wood in its path. The whip shattered the wood, but the deflection gave Apollo the split-second he needed to retaliate, vaporizing the demon with a focused beam from his palm.

"We can't keep this up!" Hermes shouted, barely avoiding a decapitation. "There's too many! And they're still more coming!"

The lava-skinned commander watched, its expression one of cold, analytical satisfaction. It was studying them. Learning their rhythms, their limits.

"It is as the King foresaw," it intoned. "Your power is bright, but static. You have no depth for a long war."

It raised its own blade, a jagged shard of pure darkness, and prepared to join the fray. The air grew heavy, the very light in the courtyard dimming as it gathered its power for a killing blow.

And then, a new voice cut through the chaos. It was not loud, but it carried an impossible weight, a chill that had nothing to do with temperature. It was the sound of absolute, final silence.

"The assessment is flawed."

From the shadows at the edge of the courtyard, a figure emerged. He had not arrived through a flashy portal or a burst of speed. He was simply there, as if he had been part of the architecture all along.

Hades, Lord of the Underworld, stepped into the light. He wore no armor, only his simple dark robes. In his hand, he held a simple, unadorned bident. His presence didn't radiate power; it absorbed it. The chaotic noise of the battle seemed to dampen, the red light of the portal paling in his vicinity.

The lava-skinned demon froze, its weapon still raised. Its eyes, which had held only contempt, now widened with a flicker of primal recognition. This was not a "life-bringer." This was something else. Something that spoke its language.

Hades's gaze swept over the scene—the struggling gods, the relentless demons, the pulsing gateway. His eyes, dark and depthless, finally settled on the demon commander.

"You speak of depth," Hades said, his voice flat and calm. "You have seen the surface of life. You have not seen what lies beneath it."

He took a single step forward and tapped the butt of his bident on the marble.

The effect was instantaneous.

The floor beneath the demons did not crack or bloom. It simply... vanished. Not into a pit, but into nothingness. A yawning chasm of absolute void opened up, silent and cold. Dozens of the elite warriors, caught mid-charge, had no time to scream. They plummeted into the abyss, their forms swallowed by the infinite dark before the hole snapped shut, leaving the floor perfectly intact.

The remaining demons stumbled to a halt, their advance broken. The lava-skinned commander stared at the spot where its soldiers had been, its confidence shattered.

Hades looked at it, his expression unchanging. "Tell your King," he said, the words final as a tombstone sealing shut. "This world already has a master of the depths. And he is not in the mood for tenants."

The demon commander, its will broken, took a stumbling step back toward the portal. With a final, terrified glance at the Lord of the Dead, it turned and fled into the red light, the few surviving demons scrambling after it.

The courtyard was silent once more, save for the heavy breathing of the four Olympians.

Hermes let out a long, low whistle. "Well. That's one way to clean house."

Hades ignored him. His gaze was fixed on the still-open portal. The obsidian ring remained, a festering wound in reality.

"The door is still there," Artemis said, wiping demonic ichor from her blade.

Hades nodded slowly, a deep frown on his face. "A door, once opened, is difficult to close from this side." He finally turned, his eyes finding Persephone. The cold intensity in them softened, just for a moment. "Are you unharmed?"

She nodded, a small, grateful smile touching her lips. "We held."

"For now," Apollo added, his usual bravado tempered by the reality of what they had just faced. "But if that was just a lord... what comes when a King steps through?"

No one had an answer. The red portal pulsed, a silent, ominous heart, promising that the question would not remain unanswered for long.

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