The fight scene was excellent, and they're really hard to do. well done. there were no boring bits in this chapter, so again, well done.

"He placed his hands on the floor and pushed himself up when a sharp stabbing pain flattened him once more. " doesn't make sense. you should put 'he had placed his hands... when' or 'he was placing his hands... when' 'he placed his hands... when' doesn't make sense.

as it is, i like kozu, and i don't really like risho. poor kozu. maybe he doesn't have it in him to be an evil nero-follower (i assume that followers of nero are evil? the whole darkness connotation?)

anyway, please keep writing.

Sounds like a combination of Greek mythology and God of War. The latter comes mainly from the title.

You're making this too complex. Try simplifying it and elaborating more. Even if this is just an explanation or prologue for the actual story, it isn't really good enough to catch the reader's interest and make them want to see how it affects the story.

One last thing, try to avoid ultimate evils. You've set Nero up as the supreme evil in the universe. History is written by the winners. The losers are always the bad guys, even when they might have fought for a noble cause. Darkness does not always mean evil. Wearing a black robe and making human sacrifices does not mean someone is evil, nor does an evil cackle. Just try to avoid the stereotypes.

Shadowhound

nice and short. vaguely intriguing. use of 'in the beginning' a nice touch. the writing was fine.

some things you should consider:

- later on in the story you CANNOT simply refer to Palo or Lao and expect us to remember who that is. You have just introduced over five gods in the space of one paragraph. the reader is not going to put themself out trying to remember them. i gathered that oren = light = good and nero = dark = bad. that is it. if you want to refer to other gods in later chapters without ** off the reader, you'll have to put 'palo, god of the earth'/'palo, earth goddess' each time until you are reasonably confident the reader would have remembered by now. (if, of course, kalix has a conversation alone with nero, it is likely that after that the reader would be aware of who he is.)

- you begin the story with a pretty epic sort of tone. quite grandiose. you'll need a sympathetic character/perspective soon to get the readers emotionally attached.

-the past two things weren't problems, just things to consider in future. but i'm terribly comfortable with this: Oren knew that the only way they could combat Nero was to become crystals themselves and bestow their power among the rest of humanity. The people took that power and fought against Nero to defeat him once again.

huh? what? this strikes me as a major non-sequitor. the rest was logical, but... why is that the only way he can combat nero? nero is *imprisoned*. inside a crystal. surely that is a disadvantage? the people are people. oren's a god. i just fail to see how 'he knew' that this was the best way for him to combat nero. oh yes, imprison myself and let people use my power.
If you have a plausible reason for this, please include it in your story.

typos
the Second Diving War.
A great was fought between the Gods,


ok, i know i've been pretty negative, but that's because i'm interested in the story and i care a little (if i thought it was absolute tripe, i would just write like two lines in the review and wouldn't waste my time). i have no idea where your story'll go from here but i hope it's good.

This looks promising, but try not to bore the reader by too much info right off. In the future, why not start directly with the action? You can always add an explanation later interworked into the dialogue or even just by itself - just give the reader a chance to get involved first.