At the brink of nameless cliffs he stands: a statue in travertine, pale as the clouds above. He can see no colors of life, not the scarlet slashes of his own tattoos, not the putrefying shreds of his wrists where chains were ripped from his flesh. His eyes are as black as the storm-churned Aegean below, set in a face whiter than the foam that boils among the jagged rocks.

Ashes, only ashes, despair, and the lash of winter rain: These are his wages for ten years’ service to the gods. Ashes and rot and decay, a cold and lonely death.

His only dream now is of oblivion.

He has been called the Ghost of Sparta. He has been called the Fist of Ares and the Champion of Athena. He has been called a warrior. A murderer. A monster.

He is all of these things. And none of them.

His name is Kratos, and he knows who the real monsters are.

His arms hang, their vast cords of knotted muscle limp and useless now. His hands bear the hardened callus not only of sword and Spartan javelin but of the Blades of Chaos, the Trident of Poseidon, and even the legendary Thunderbolt of Zeus. These hands have taken more lives than Kratos has taken breaths, but they have no weapon now to hold. These hands will not even flex and curl into fists. All they can feel is the slow trickle of blood and pus that drips from his torn wrists.

His wrists and forearms are the true symbol of his service to the gods. The ragged strips of flesh flutter in the cruel wind, blackening with rot; even the bone itself bears the scars of the chains that once were fused there: the chains of the Blades of Chaos. Those chains are gone now, ripped from him by the very god who inflicted them upon him. Those chains not only joined him to the blades and the blades to him; those chains were the bonds shackling him to the service of the gods.