Chapter 172: The Ghost Of Sparta
The fire still burned.
It clung to the walls of the village, devouring wood and flesh alike. The sky above was red with smoke, and the air stank of blood, iron, and ash. Every scream had already faded, but the silence that followed was worse. It pressed into the bones, heavy and endless.
Kratos stood in the ruins, his chest heaving, his hands shaking as the Blades of Chaos dripped black with blood. His breath came ragged, each inhale like swallowing knives. His body bore no wounds. None that mattered.
Before him, at his feet, lay the bodies.
His wife. His child.
The small hut he had called home was little more than rubble now, flames curling across the fallen beams. Their bodies were untouched by the fire, as if the flames themselves recoiled from what had been done. The woman’s arms wrapped protectively around the child even in death. Their eyes were closed, their faces soft. Peaceful. Too peaceful.
Kratos fell to his knees.
The blades clattered against stone, their chains rattling like laughter in his ears. He did not hear the wind or the crackle of fire. Only the silence. The silence of the two hearts that would never beat again.
He reached out with trembling hands, calloused fingers brushing across the cheek of his wife. Warmth had already left her. His daughter’s tiny hand was still curled into a fist, as if she had been trying to hold onto something, anything, before the end. His vision blurred. He did not remember when he had last wept, but now the tears came, raw and unstoppable, cutting hot trails down his blood-stained face.
His voice broke from his chest, low at first, then louder, until it was a roar that shook the burning walls around him.
"No!"
The cry tore from his lungs, ripped from the marrow of his bones. It was not a warrior’s cry. It was not rage. It was loss, pure and unshaped, the sound of a man unmade.
His fists slammed into the earth, cracking the stone, his body bowing as he pressed his forehead to the ground. "Why?" His voice was hoarse, shredded, almost childlike. "Why would you take them from me?"
He already knew the answer.
Ares.
The god he had begged for power. The god who had placed chains on his arms and blades into his hands. The god who had twisted his desperation into servitude. Kratos had won battles in his name, slaughtered enemies until rivers ran red, and now the same god had dragged him here, tricked him into slaughtering his own blood.
His hands shook as he pulled his wife and child into his arms, cradling them against his chest. He rocked back and forth, the motion small, broken, like a man trying to hold back time with his own body. Tears mixed with ash, streaking his scarred face. His lips pressed against his daughter’s hair, whispering her name over and over, as if saying it might bring her back.
But nothing answered.
The gods were silent.
The fire hissed, and somewhere in the distance, a roof collapsed, but Kratos heard none of it. His world had shrunk to the weight in his arms, the unbearable weight that would never lift again.
He remembered her laugh. His wife’s gentle voice in the mornings, the way she would tease him when he trained too long. His daughter’s tiny footsteps, her questions that never ended, her smile when he carried her on his shoulders. They were more than his family. They were the part of him that still belonged to the world. The part that was not soldier, not weapon.
And now they were gone.
He tightened his arms around them until his muscles screamed. "I swore to protect you," he whispered, his voice breaking. "I swore..." The words cracked, falling apart. His tears dripped onto their still faces, mixing with the ash on their skin. "And I failed."
The truth cut deeper than any blade. He had failed. All the strength in his arms, all the wars he had won, meant nothing here. His enemies lay dead around him, but so did the only ones he had ever loved.
He pressed his face into his daughter’s hair, his body shaking with sobs. His voice was raw, almost a growl. "What am I without you?"
The answer came in silence. In the faint crackle of fire. In the cold embrace of death.
Kratos lifted his head, his face twisted in anguish. He looked at the heavens, eyes burning with tears and fury. His throat tore with another roar, this one directed upward. "ARES!"
The name echoed through the ruins, carried on the smoke, ripping across the sky like thunder. His voice was not just grief. It was a vow.
He laid their bodies gently down, his hands shaking as he arranged them, smoothing their hair, brushing dirt from their faces. He lingered, his fingers trembling over their closed eyes. Then he stood, slow, his body heavy as stone.
The Blades of Chaos lay at his feet, gleaming with blood. For a moment, he stared at them, his chest heaving. He wanted to tear them off, to rip the chains from his flesh and cast them into the fire. But the chains burned with the mark of Ares, and they would not leave him. They were his curse.
He gripped the handles with white knuckles, lifting them again. His face was wet, his jaw clenched so tight it ached. He looked once more at his family, at the ashes falling over their still forms, and something inside him hardened.
Tears still rolled down his face, but beneath them, his eyes had changed. They no longer burned only with grief. They burned with something darker.
The storm of a man who had lost everything.
Kratos turned from the ruins, his steps heavy, his shadow long against the firelight. Each footfall was a drumbeat of rage, each breath a promise carved into the air. He did not know how, not yet, but he would make Ares pay. He would make Olympus hear his pain.
Behind him, the flames consumed what little remained of his home. The air carried the faint scent of wheat and woodsmoke, the last memory of the life he had destroyed with his own hands. He did not look back. He could not.
But as he walked into the night, the ghosts followed. He felt them with every step—the weight of small fingers curled around his hand, the warmth of a woman’s voice whispering his name. They would never leave him. Not in dream, not in waking. He was no longer just Kratos. He was the man haunted by ashes, cursed to carry them until his own blood spilled.
The moon hung pale in the sky, its light silver against the charred ruins. Kratos’s tears dried on his skin, but the pain did not fade. It never would.
His voice came low, almost a whisper, as if to the night itself. "I will never forgive you."
The chains rattled. The blades gleamed.
The Ghost of Sparta was born in that silence.
And the world would come to fear his name.