Crowned in the realm of death

The time had finally come.

Far from the cold, golden walls of Mount Orthys, hidden beneath layers of divine secrecy and the whispering leaves of ancient trees, Rhea took refuge in the cave of Mount Lyctos, deep within the isle of Crete.

The world itself seemed to sense what was about to unfold.

The sky turned black.

Thunder cracked across the heavens like the roar of a war god.

Storm winds howled, shaking the mountain as if nature were holding its breath.

And then through the chaos of the storm came a sound that cut through the darkness:

A cry.

The first breath of life from her sixth child.

A wail of power and defiance.

He is born in storm and fury, as if the heavens welcome his coming.

In her trembling arms, Rhea held her son 

A tiny infant with eyes like lightning and hair as white as clouds.

She looked at him, this fragile, divine spark who was destined to rise higher than any before him.

The one whom fate whispered would challenge Cronus.

"Zeus," she whispered, voice trembling with awe and hope,

"My child of thunder… my last hope."

As the storm raged on, she wrapped him in divine cloth, kissed his forehead, and with tears hidden behind a mother's resolve.

She left him in the care of trusted spirits and sacred beasts, far from the tyrant's gaze.

And with her heart aching but her will unshaken,

Rhea returned to Mount Orthys, holding the stone in her arms, wrapped in white cloth…

Rhea returned to Mount Orthys just in time.

Her footsteps were slow, heavy with the weight of grief. In her arms, wrapped tightly in soft divine cloth, was the white stone the gift from Gaea that now carried the hope of Olympus.

She took a deep breath, masking the fire of resolve within her heart, and let her expression fall into one of despair and exhaustion.

Moments later, Cronus entered the grand chamber, his presence dark and overwhelming. His eyes, sharp and always suspicious, darted to her arms.

 "The sixth?" he growled.

Rhea doesn't say anything, holding the stone as if it were her real child and in another hand sword. Battle between them begin but cronus win with overwhelm power and snatch child from her hand.

Without hesitation, Cronus lunged forward, his hunger for survival greater than any shred of fatherhood. He didn't even look at the "child."

No warmth. No hesitation.

Only paranoia.

With a triumphant snarl, he swallowed the stone whole, its weight sliding down his throat and into the prison that held his other children.

Then, he laughed a deep, echoing laugh that filled the golden halls.

 "Hah! The curse is broken! I have defied fate and defeated my father's prophecy. "

He raised his arms to the heavens as though proclaiming his invincibility to the cosmos.

But he did not know…

He had not defeated fate.

He had only fed it.

For the real child Zeus, his sixth and final son had been born far away from his reach, beneath the stormy skies of Crete.

There, hidden from Cronus's eyes, the child was now being nurtured, trained, and protected by ancient spirits and sacred beasts

Amalthea, the divine goat who fed him,

Kouretes, the warriors who masked his cries with clashing blades.