Blood of Hercules (Villains of Lore Book 1)

Softly it began.

Eons before humanity was born, the state of Sparta was spread across thousands of archipelago islands in modern day Greece.

Sparta was composed of a hundred immortal Spartans, their animal protectors, and local creatures. Creature was a blanket term Spartans used to classify all races of civilized people who had special powers but weren’t Spartan.

Ruled by an oligarchic federation, Sparta’s immortal citizens were content to live quiet, slow lives of island luxury.

They knew nothing of conflict, greed, or jealousy.

All was peaceful.

Then humans arrived.

Humanity was in immediate awe of the immortal people.

Sparta taught humanity art, agriculture, and governance.

Humans worshipped them.

Thus, Spartans became humanity’s gods.

Centuries later, Spartans and creatures migrated with the humans to modern-day Italy, enjoying the wealth and status of godhood.

The Roman Empire was born.

But the affairs of man were not to be taken lightly.

The mortal population exploded in size.

In contrast, Sparta struggled with fertility—its numbers stayed around one hundred.

Then humans discovered Spartans weren’t completely immune to death—they could be chopped into tiny pieces and scattered, or starved and tortured into comas.

Humanity turned on their gods.

Emperors declared war against Spartans because they wanted all the power and wealth for themselves.

But humanity forgot it was dealing with a race more intelligent than themselves.

Sparta disappeared.

Completely.

Spartans and creatures migrated to Northern Italy and went into hiding in the dolomites.

But before they left, they destroyed all the advancements they’d shared with humans—the Library of Alexandria burned to the ground.

Without Sparta’s guidance, Rome fell.

As the centuries passed, the living gods who had steered humanity toward greatness became nothing but myths.

Time trudged forward.

Protected by anonymity, advancing in the shadows, Spartans and creatures amassed unfathomable wealth and created superior technologies.

But Sparta wasn’t as peaceful as it seemed.

There were two divisive factions of Spartans: Chthonic Houses and Olympian Houses.

Each House was a separate family bloodline of power, named after its founding leader—a Spartan more powerful than the rest.

All Spartans from Olympian Houses had powers that enhanced themselves, physically or mentally.

They didn’t hurt others and instead focused on self-improvement and the sciences.

There were fifty different Olympian Houses, with dozens of members.

Olympians kept their numbers strong by having children with humans, and these half humans, half Spartans were called mutts.

In contrast, the Chthonic Houses were the Spartans with bloodred eyes.

Chthonics had powers that only hurt others, such as torture, mind control, pain.

Only four Chthonic families had ever lived. Born at the dawn of Sparta, unlike the Olympian Houses that rose and fell, they remained the same.

Always.

The infamous Chthonic four—the Houses of Hades, Aphrodite, Artemis, and Ares.

Each only had a handful of members, since they rarely procreated with the weak humans, who couldn’t handle their powers. A few creatures, those with the darkest of abilities, sided with these Houses.

Throughout history, the two factions kept an uneasy truce. Peace was maintained by the federation, which was led by the strongest Olympians.

But at the turn of the twenty-first century, the peace shattered.

The Great War started.

The four Chthonic Houses attacked the fifty Olympian Houses in a bid to overthrow the federation and seize power over Sparta.

Vastly outnumbered, hundreds of Olympians fought against twenty-four Chthonics.

Still, conflict raged for decades because the Chthonic’s abilities were so heinous.

The weaker Olympian Houses fell first as Chthonics mercilessly hunted them and scattered their pieces across the globe. The strongest Olympians banded together and sought vengeance.

In 2045, there were only eight of the strongest and oldest Olympian families left standing: the Houses of Zeus, Hera, Athena, Hermes, Poseidon, Demeter, Apollo, and Dionysus.

The war was locked in a stalemate, with numbers dwindling on both sides.

Sparta was at risk of collapse.

The four overpowered Chthonic House leaders remained, but all twenty of their children had been captured and killed.

If the war continued, there would be nothing left to rule, so the two sides signed a ceasefire.

In the new federation, the Olympians held even more of an overwhelming majority.

Peace was reestablished.

A few years later, in 2050, Titans—immortal monstrous creatures—inexplicably appeared on earth and started slaughtering humans.

The Olympian led federation saw an opportunity to reintroduce themselves to humanity.

The gods rose again.

They also seized the chance to punish Chthonics.

As reparations for the war and their crimes, the federation ruled that all remaining Chthonics—and any sons they bore, as well as the dark creatures who sided with them—were in charge of handling earth’s Titan problem.

They called this new organization the Assembly of Death.

But that wasn’t all.

The Chthonics and creatures were also forced to fight Titans, and one another, in the Dolomites Coliseum. It was a disturbed contest known as the Spartan Gladiator Competition.

The SGC quickly became the most violent tournament to ever grace the face of the earth.

It ushered in a new era of brutality.

Nearly half a century later, Titans still roamed the earth, Chthonics were starting to rebuild their numbers, and Olympians were increasingly bearing less powerful children.

Once again, the federation struggled to keep its power, and the tides of history pointed toward war.

Sparta was more fractured than ever.

To address the growing divide, the federation enacted a controversial marriage law.

Chthonics immediately sought to undermine it.

That is where our story begins.