The smoke rising from the great arena was a sign that something was very, very wrong. Zagreus had walked this path more times than he liked to admit, because it entailed admitting that Theseus had beaten him rather a lot. He would rather grant credit for the victories to Asterius. But before, the path to the arena had been a well-beaten road which countless shades walked. Now there were fumes in the air, the ground was scarred by blades, and the remains of the heroes of Elysium scattered the way.

"I dunno who could do this," Zagreus said, gripping the Stygian blade tightly as he stalked towards the arena, burning footprints lingering on the stone behind him. "I mean, a lot of people could do it. But most of them wouldn't want to. So in fact I know who probably did it. Bald guy, grey-white skin, anger issues. Name rhymes with 'Kind-of-a-toss'. Er."

The bodies were not just of the warriors. Some of them had been shades merely attending the arena to watch him fight. And cheer for Theseus. Zagreus tried not to feel like maybe the shades deserved it for their bad taste in champions, but a few bitter thoughts crept through.

"Yeah, but I feel bad about feeling like that. It's not very noble. But I really don't like Theseus," said jealous Zagreus. "Oi, screw you, mate, I'm not jealous of him! I'm just really annoyed at how much I've lost to him. Do you know how long I have to walk through the underworld just to get back to here just so I can try again? It'd be better if I could invite him to the House of Hades and practice sparring against him so I could learn how he fights and the techniques he uses. Like 'hiding behind his shield like a coward'. And 'throwing his spear at my back when I'm busy fighting Asterius'."

Prince Zagreus was a bitter, jealous man, no matter his protestations. But before he could come up with another feeble retort, he was distracted by the rasping breath of a dying warrior. An ancient hero, who had stood against the fearsome Kratos. Though his body was broken and his eyes had been quite thoroughly gouged out by the terrible Spartan, still some remnants of life lingered within his body. Perhaps there might be something he could learn from the hero.

"Okay, I get it! And you just told me that it was Kratos who did it." Zagreus stepped up to the fallen warrior. "Hi!"

"Who is it?" The man groped blindly for his weapons. "Hark! Who goes there?"

"Oh, you know, it's just the prince of the Underworld. No big deal."

"You! Zagreus! If I still had my eyes and my limbs, I would fight you! But now I must live forever as a victim of war's cruel embrace…"

"Why do you care?" Zagreus asked.

"I'm dying, you-"

"No, you're really not. You're dead already. And when you breathe your last, you'll turn into a floating eyeball thing and then can just take up your weapon again and you'll be all healed. I've killed you lot enough to know that even cutting off your head doesn't stop you if I don't get the eyeball thing. And even if you get smushed as an eyeball, you'll just head back down to the House and have to explain things to my father before you get sent back up here."

"Yes! That is truly awful! You might be the prince of Hell-"

"Y'know, people need to stop calling this place 'Hell'. Did Theseus put you up to it?"

"- but the rest of us have to fear your father!"

"Mate," ever-quippy Zagreus responded, "why do you think I'm running away from home?"

But the heroic shade was too deep in his grief to listen. "And then there's Hypnos, who never shuts up with his 'helpful' suggestions about how to beat you! Last time he asked me why I don't just parry your swings!"

"Well, why don't you?" Zagreus paused. "Not that I'm suggesting that you should," he hastily added, for the prince of the Underworld rather benefited from the current state of affairs where the dead had seemingly forgotten much of the ancient flow of battle in favour of savage hacking.

"Except for the actual gits who use shields," grumbled petty Zagreus. "They're the worst. And I can tell you why anyone who uses a shield is the worst, because Theseus does it too. Sure, I guess I sometimes do, but the Shield of Chaos isn't actually much fun. That makes it okay."

"In the name of all the gods, man, stop mocking me while I am on my very deathbed!" groaned the shade.

"But you're not," ill-mannered Zagreus pointed out. Zagreus remembered that he had not actually verified that the one who did this was Kratos, and so he needed to ask. "Fine! Just to check, this was the Ghost of Sparta aka Kratos aka that murderous grey-skinned man with the weird tattoos and a fondness for eye-gourging?"

"Yes! Avenge us, man! Avenge us!" And with that said, the hero breathed his last, and Zagreus raised his sword in salute to his fallen foe.

"That's really not what I'm doing," Zagreus pointed out, bringing the point down on the floating eyeball that escaped from the dead hero. "Stop encouraging them," rudely added the sterile-souled prince as he shook the punctured soul of the dead off his titan-slaying weapon.

With an insolent shake of his hair, Prince Zagreus the plebian with no sense of the dramatic carried on down the broken-up road into the arena.

The devastation had not spared this place. The air was choked with smoke, the banners were torn, and blood stained the sands.

Asterius had not died well. Zagreus sucked in a pained breath to see the disrespectful way that Kratos had taken down the Bull of Minos, who now lay scattered across the arena. His axe was nowhere to be found, and Zagreus had a dark suspicion about why that was the case. But pinned up against the wall of the arena, his blood soaking one of the tattered banners, was Theseus. He had been impaled on one of Asterius's horns.

"So, he got past you too."

"You blackguard," Theseus gasped. "Teaming up with that loathsome man. Just because you couldn't," he coughed up bloody froth, "beat Asterius and me on your own. How shameful, you wretched d-demon."

Zagreus was almost impressed at Theseus's commitment to his bit. The reason it was only 'almost' was that this was probably definitive proof that it was in fact not a bit and this was just what the arrogant Athenian was like. "Where did he go, Theseus?"

"Ha! Betrayed by your-"

"Theseus." Zagreus's voice was too calm. "I am the son of Hades. I am here in the service of the House of Hades. I am asking you - where did Kratos go?"

"Wh-where do you think? Your foul ally has gone up. To the surface. Never trust a Spartan. Blood-crazed fiends. Cursed fools..."

"And what lies beyond your arena?"

"Ha! You think I would betray the trust of Lord Hades? You are a weasel of a man-"

"You don't know, do you?"

"To take a look would be to betray him!"

"Right. Right." Zagreus stretched, stretching out his shoulders. "Sorry it had to go like this, m-" he reconsidered. "Theseus. I was going to beat you this time, you know. But now I need to go stop Kratos."

"Yes," Theseus whispered, with his last breath. "Run away, you blackguard..."

Zagreus's shoulders hunched up, and he seemed about to retort before he exhaled. "Let it go, Zag," he muttered to himself. "Let it go..."

Settling himself, Zagreus gripped his blood-drenched sword and prepared to see what came next after the Elysian fields. The grinding material of the Underworld's lifts took him up, but as he emerged he heard the rushing of distant water. Within the cavernous space he found himself, he followed the sound which led to the spring of the Styx. Yes, from the upper reaches of the Underworld the blood-red river which bore the dead which he knew so well plunged all the way down to the House of Hades, and perhaps even stranger locations beyond.

"Huh, didn't know that," Zagreus said "But can you keep it down?"

But what the prince heard next made his blood run cold, for over the sound of the grinding machinery and the river Styx was the unmistakable whine of a pained dog, accompanied with frantic barking.

Zagreus broke into a run. He emerged into an ill-lit chamber, great and cavernous, with a door at the far end. The river Styx, flowing through the chamber. The grey-skinned form of the Ghost of Sparta, injured but still upright, with the axe of Asterius the minotaur of Crete in hand. And Cerberus, one injured paw held off the ground, blood running from his left head, teeth bared by the other two.

"Get away from my dog!" Zagreus roared, and threw himself into the fray with the rage of Ares himself.