God of War III picks up the instant God of War II leaves off, opening with a brooding narration from Zeus as he reckons with the rampage of the rogue Kratos — who now leads a small army of Titans, hauled out of the Great War through the power of the Fates. The Olympians charge into battle at once: Helios soars over Olympus on his chariot, Hermes streaks down its peaks, Hercules is ordered to march his troops into the fray, Hades hurls himself into the Titans in his colossal form, and Poseidon rockets down like a missile, impaling the Titan Epimetheus before swelling into a vast water-being and conjuring spectral steeds, the Hippocampi, to fight at his side. With Poseidon carving through Titan after Titan and bearing down on Gaia herself, Kratos engages the Sea God, luring him into Gaia's grip to knock him from his divine form onto a lone platform. After a brief exchange, Kratos beats the Lord of the Sea senseless, gouges out his eyes, snaps his neck, and casts him into the ocean. Poseidon's death unleashes a cataclysm: the seas surge and a world-drowning flood rises, wiping out nearly all of mankind save those clinging to the heights of Olympus.