The Death of Hercules

 Hercules tore through the streets of Tiryns, his naked glistening torso heaving, every step sending the heavy slabs of his pectorals and the ridged wall of muscle in his abdomen into motion.  A short, weathered tunic clung to his hips, leaving the rest of his god-forged body exposed. 

In the dungeons of the king, Lydia awaited him — and nothing would stand in his way.

He tore through the streets with dogged determination, eyes sweeping over every face. 

“Where is she?” he demanded of a pair of older women carrying baskets. They shrank from him, shaking their heads.

An old man stepped into his path — Hercules barked the question again, but got only frightened denials. Each refusal fanned his anger higher, his voice booming across the square, his nostrils flaring like a bull’s.

Then he saw a man he recognized — a wiry merchant clutching a satchel. Hercules remembered him near the palace gates earlier. In his fury, he decided this man knew something.

“You!” Hercules thundered. “You’ve seen her — the woman taken to the dungeon. Tell me!”

“I–I know nothing!”

Hercules saw fear and mistook it for guilt. He grabbed the man’s tunic, muscles swelling, and violently hurled him aside. 

The man’s head struck a jagged rock with a wet crack. His body jerked once and went still, blood pooling fast in the dust.

Hercules froze, chest heaving, the roar in his throat dying to silence. He looked down at the lifeless form, the vacant eyes, the dark stain spreading beneath the head — and the truth hit like a spear to the gut. 

This man had known nothing. He had killed an innocent.

The sky tore open. Lightning blazed down, bathing his body in white fire.

 “You have taken the life of an innocent,” Zeus’ voice thundered. “Your god-born strength is gone. Your flesh is mortal. You will bleed… and you will die as any man dies.”

The power drained from him like sand through an open hand. He was still massive, still a warrior — but now only a man.

Undeterred, he stormed the fortress gates to rescue Lydia. Inside, the clang of armor grew louder. 

A wall of Roman soldiers appeared, shields ready, led by a ruthless general.

 “I will stand aside,” Hercules growled, “over your corpses.”

He had no weapon — not even a dagger. But his mind, sharpened by a hundred battles, calculated every movement, every gap in their shield line, every angle where speed could make up for the strength he had lost.

The soldiers began to advance, spears lowering like the teeth of a predator’s jaw. Hercules crouched slightly, ready to explode forward, the muscles of his thighs and calves coiling tight.

The first man who came within reach would learn — god or not, Hercules was still a warrior.

For a heartbeat, it was as it had always been — Hercules in the thick of a fight, his towering frame and coiled muscle scattering foes like dry leaves in a storm. But then the tide shifted.

A soldier’s fist slammed into his ribs. Pain flared sharp and hot. Hercules staggered, the breath driven from his lungs — a sensation alien to him, one he had never truly known. Another blow caught his temple, making his vision swim. A third soldier grabbed him from behind, locking thick arms around his chest, pinning him long enough for a fourth to drive a fist deep into his gut. The impact folded him forward, a guttural sound torn from his throat.

The general’s eyes narrowed as he watched the once-unstoppable hero stagger under the rain of blows. Then it struck him — Hercules had lost his divine power. He was a mere mortal now. And though still a mighty, muscular warrior, he was no longer invincible. The living armor of solid muscle across his bare chest and abdomen was no longer impervious to the steel of Roman swords and spears.

Two soldiers clamped iron grips around Hercules’ arms, their fingers digging into the dense muscle of his biceps, forcing him upright and still. His chest and abdomen gleamed with sweat, stretched wide and helpless.

The Roman general stepped forward, the sound of his boots echoing sharply on the stone floor. He stopped just two paces away, his eyes narrowing as they swept up and down the breadth of Hercules’ frame — from the square shoulders and thick slabs of his pectorals, down the taut wall of muscle over his ribs and abdomen.

The general’s lips curved into a slow, cruel smile.

 “You are not what you once were,” he said softly, almost savoring the words. 

“Your flesh… your muscle… it is no longer divine.”

He leaned in slightly, his voice dropping to a dangerous murmur.

 “You are just a man.”

The general’s hand closed around the hilt of his sword, and with a slow, deliberate motion, he drew it from its sheath at his side. The sound was sharp and metallic, like the hiss of a serpent ready to strike. The torchlight caught the polished steel, casting a cold gleam across its edge.

The general stepped closer, his eyes fixed not on Hercules’ face, but on the perfect symmetry of muscle before him. He raised the sword, its point hovering for an instant above the center of Hercules’ abdomen, between the two vertical columns of chiseled muscle.

The soldiers tightened their grip on Hercules’ arms, pinning him upright. His bare, sweat-slick chest rose and fell, each breath deepening the shadows across the carved slabs of his pectorals. The hard ridges of his abdomen flexed and rippled as he braced himself, his entire torso exposed — a proud display of strength that, for the first time, could no longer defy steel.

Then, slowly, almost savoring the moment, the general lowered the tip until it touched flesh. The cold bite of the steel pressed into Hercules’ skin, dimpling the taut wall of muscle. Hercules inhaled sharply as the blade pressed in, his belly instinctively drawing in. But then — defiance. His jaw set, his nostrils flared, and he drove his abs outward again, flexing them into a hard, unyielding wall.

He knew the truth — no mortal muscle, no matter how dense, could turn the blade aside. And yet, his eyes locked with the general’s, blazing with challenge.

If this was to be the strike that ended him, he would meet it unflinchingly.

The thrust was sudden, merciless. The general brutally shoved his sword into Hercule’s bare belly with cruel satisfaction, the muscles in his forearm and shoulder coiling like a striking serpent. The steel blade drove straight into the center of Hercules’ abdomen with ruthless precision.

The cold steel blade sizzled as the point pierced skin and met the tightly flexed wall of muscle on Hercules’ abdomen. For a heartbeat, the blade resisted — the dense, coiled muscle holding against the intrusion — but the general pressed harder, his weight behind the thrust. The flesh and sinew yielded, and the sword sank deep into Hercules’ belly.

Hercules’ body reacted violently — his head snapped forward, chin almost to his chest, his powerful frame bending at the waist as a shudder ripped through him. His abdominal muscles, once an impregnable fortress, spasmed around the invading steel. A strangled grunt tore from his throat, half fury, half pain, his breath forced out in a single explosive gasp.

The general’s grip tightened on the hilt. With a savage jerk, he wrenched the blade free.

The sound was obscene — a wet, ripping slit of steel through flesh and muscle. A burst of dark blood sprayed across both men, spattering the general’s armor and streaking Hercules’ sweat-slick torso. The soldiers holding him felt the hot spray across their arms, but they did not loosen their grips.

Hercules’ body reacted instantly — his entire frame recoiling as if struck by lightning. His massive chest heaved, pectorals tightening, abs clenching hard in reflex around the gaping wound. His back arched sharply, the cords of muscle along his abdomen straining as though to hold in the damage.

A sharp grunt escaped his lips, half growl, half gasp, before his strength seemed to drain from him in a sudden wave. His head sagged forward, then to the side, before he slumped down between the two soldiers.

The soldier on Hercules' left smirked darkly, savoring the cruel spectacle of the general's blade run through Hercules thickly muscled, bare belly. The once invincible warrior's rock-hard abdomen yielding to Roman steel sent an erotic chill down his spine.

They held him upright still, their hands locked tight around the bulging mass of his biceps, feeling the once-mighty arms slacken under their grip. Blood pattered to the stone floor beneath him, marking the first time Hercules had bled as a mortal man.

The general’s hand seized Hercules’ head, wrenching it back to bare his torso once more.

Hercules’ great chest swelled and fell in ragged breaths, the wound in his abdomen dripping a steady line of blood down his ribs. 

He struggled against their grip, but the two soldiers on either side wrenched his massive arms wide, baring the full breadth of his powerful chest and ridged abdomen. Every slab of muscle was now stretched and defenseless, a perfect offering to the general standing before him — sword in hand, eyes fixed hungrily on the flesh and blood he was about to claim.

The general stepped forward and callously drove the point of his sword forward again, this time straight into the upper abs just beneath Hercules’ sternum. The blade met the stiff resistance of thick, flexed muscle, slowing for a fraction of a second — but the general stepped in, putting his entire weight behind the strike.

The steel punched through, parting muscle and sinew with a wet, crisp sizzle before bursting out the middle of Hercules’ back in a crimson spray. Hercules’ body convulsed violently, a deep, guttural sound ripping from his throat. His powerful torso bent forward in reflex, the muscles of his abdomen knotting around the blade as if trying to push it out.

The soldiers on either side finally released their grip, letting his massive arms drop. Hercules’ hands shot to the hilt, fingers slick with his own blood as he tried desperately to pull the steel from his gut.

The general seized a thick lock of Hercules’ hair and yanked his head back, forcing his torso upright and arching his back. Then, with a brutal wrench, he ripped the sword free from Hercules’ abdomen in a rush of hot blood, the crisp, biting slit of steel through flesh ringing out sharp and wet in the chamber.

Hercules was mortally wounded, his breath ragged and shallow. His knees buckled, the weight of his massive frame dragging him down, yet he fought the fall with every last shred of will. His arms, still thick with muscle, trembled violently under the strain, veins standing out like cords as he tried to push himself away from the cold marble. Blood pounded in his ears, his vision swam, but still he resisted the pull of the floor. Every quiver in his biceps, every spasm through his broad shoulders was a silent, desperate defiance of death. But the strength that had once defied gods was fading fast, and the marble seemed to rise up to claim him.

But the strength was gone. His arms buckled, his body slumping forward, then rolling onto his side. His breath rattled once, shallow and broken. Then it stopped.

The general stepped forward, slid his foot under Hercules’ shoulder, and flipped him onto his back. His massive arms sprawled out, his chest still, eyes glassy and fixed. Blood pooled beneath him, warm against the cold stone.

The hall fell silent. The son of Zeus lay dead — stripped of his godhood, felled not by monsters or the will of Olympus, but by mortal steel. The once-invincible Hercules would rise no more.