"Your petty attempts to get your mother back make everyone here tired already!" Hades scolded his son in a tired voice. King of underworld had repeatedly scolded stupid boy for trying to escape into the upper world, guy hoped to return his mother even after so many years. Zagreus looked at his father with an awkward smile. He didn't truly care about what he said, he doesn't have the idea to stop halfway. "Maybe we can move on to the part where you punish me by sending to clean the kennel," Prince suggested, scratching back of his head. He wanted sooner return to his own war against the world. "Your audacity will one day pay off with the blood of those who you love," Told king while signing new decrees, with a gesture of hand he made it clear to son that he could go.
"Thank you for your generosity king" The heir bowed with a bit of sarcasm and then walked away from king's room. As soon as prince went out door, a reaper immediately appeared in room. Thanatos bowed slightly before beginning his report: "Ares was able to convince Olympus of the need for a war between them and the world of Dao. Zeus gave his personal permission to capture new lands, Poseidon was clearly against it but chose not to do anything. At this very moment, Ares and Athena are discussing a plan of action for such an event" Thanatos reported in a cold tone while looking at king without any emotion.
"What about recent outbreak of death aura, were you able to find cause of this phenomenon?" Hades asked, leaning his fist on cheek, meanwhile, his fiery eyes examined black chess piece standing on the table. "As for this question, answer is no, I could not find the source. I dare to suggest that this is another anomaly caused by titans" The reaper answered briefly, creating in hand an image of a place where the death aura supposedly came from. "Hmm, maybe it is, okay you can go" Nodding, king sat comfortably on throne. "As you command" After bowing, Thanatos disappeared by turning into a pile of black feathers.
Meanwhile, in another part of palace, a prince was busy cleaning the latrines. "I can't get used to this smell, Dusa how do you even manage to do this every day?" Zagreus asked as he wiped dirt from the floor. "I don't care about such stuff anymore, you know, in a couple of three centuries you stop paying such attention. Perhaps you will soon get used to it!" With joy, gorgon cleaned the rooms of dirt while working with all her snakes. Even Hermes could envy her speed, it is unlikely that in universe there is someone or something equal to her in cleaning. "Forgive me for distracting you from your duties, but could you lend me your assistant Dusa?" With a smile, Nyx politely asked servant. "Of course!" Gorgon nodded, trying to imitate a bow.
"It's good to see you, lady Nyx" The prince smiled awkwardly as he cleaned his hands of dirt with water. "I see this time you returned a little earlier than usual" By approaching to son, she handed a towel so he would dry his hands. "Fighting with three Megs at the same time was not the best idea. My back still hurts from their whips" Reflexively at the sensation of phantom pain, prince arched his back. "I hope your relationship hasn't deteriorated too much" With mild anxiety, queen stroked son's head. "No, everything is still same, even though Meg does not admit it," Zagreus replied embarrassedly, clearly remembering some very obscene details of his personal life. "Be careful with each other, though," Nyx advised, taking out a golden apple from the void. "Mom, don't you know why the flow of souls in river has become unstable lately? According to Charon, something strange is going on in lower levels of Tartarus" Prince declared as he followed his stepmother to chambers of Hypnos.
Stopping abruptly, queen trembled for a moment at mention of lower levels. In a serious voice, she commanded her son: "Listen to me Zagreus my boy, never go to lower levels, no matter what happens. Nothing good awaits you there, only crazed creatures hungry for flesh. I will personally talk to Charon about this and we will solve a problem, while you should focus on your mother!" Nyx grabbed boy by shoulders and gently kissed him on forehead.
"To be honest, at first I was not interested in going there, but after your words, curiosity slowly began to invade my mind," Young Olympian confessed while looking at stepmother in surprise. "I'm serious, it's too dangerous out there even for warriors like you. Tartarus breaks the most persistent, I don't want to see that!" Pain flickered in Nyx's eyes as she tenderly touched her son's cheek. "Sorry, you're right. I still need to go upstairs and not down, I'll go to my chambers, have a good sleep, mom" Touching his stepmother's hand in response, prince went to his place. As soon as prince moved a very decent distance away, queen whispered with trembling lips: "I can't lose another one, not this child"
Upper level of Erebus
With a wave of hand, Haemon blasted three skeletons to dust without even paying attention to their attempts to hurt him. Their weapons couldn't even scratch his skin, and the monsters in upper level were very disappointing. Mere presence of Olympian turned many of them to dust. An aura of despair slowly spread through the gloomy corridors of a dead world. "Why they are weak here?" Haemon asked slowly while looking at the body pierced by a spear. "Because you're stronger?" Shadow in the form of a huge cat answered with a crazy smile.
"Explain" Olympian demanded in a cold tone. "Oh well, in a nutshell worlds like this have a particular concept of power. Lower means stronger and ugly while higher means weaker and beautiful" Cat explained while hovering over Olympian head.
"Hmm, how deep were we?" Haemon wondered as he passed through labyrinth of mirrors. "Very deeply, we practically touched abode of titans with giants. If you noticed where we have lived for last millennia, there was not a single human being, well, excluding, of course, half-breeds like a sphinx and others" Raising his paw, cat created an image of entire underworld. "People never get into lower tiers, they live closer to surface, at this moment we are closer to Tartarus than surface, therefore we are surrounded by a majority of insignificance like murderers, rapists, thieves, and others. By the way, left" Cat waved its paw in other direction.
"Do you know about that woman in strange clothes?" As climbing up at the smooth stone wall, Haemon turned to the cat who lay comfortably on his head. "Why do you need it?" Cat asked while yawning. "It is better to know everything about a possible enemy" Haemon jumped from wall to wall like a spider. "He-he, a barbarian who thinks about who his enemy is is not a barbarian at all! You are a lord of primal instinct, you must be driven by desires to become stronger and devour something! Not curiosity for enemies, although I know that this is not what drives you at all, something darker" Opening one eye, cat smiled mischievously. "Are you suggesting love?" Olympian asked as he jumped to ground. "No, love is not something that you may be familiar with, lust is probably what lurks inside of you" Cat seemed to intentionally begin to pull the owner's hair with his claws.
"I'm not familiar with this" Barbarian replied in a cold tone, while smashing the dead man's head with a slap. Cat's eyes opened sharply when he remembered one very curious detail about his brother: "I forgot that you have never touched a woman in all these thousands of years, only to think an Olympian who has not known female affection. You are older than humanity itself, well, at least the one that appeared thanks to Apollo. You are a bloody relic from the time of Typhon!" Shadow could not contain his emotions, his laughter like thunder swept through the halls of the dead.
"Artemis and Athena are also virgins, why are you so excited?" Raising one eyebrow, Haemon looked at the cat with curiosity. "Apparently you don't understand ha-ha damn you are the ninth wonder of the world in t flesh! Athena and Artemis are not true virgins by definition, given that both had a relationship with their brothers, although they didn't marry them. Two of them can be called virgins in quotation marks, but to be honest Hestia almost fits this definition"
"If not one but, there is always one but ha-ha, once upon a time when kind grandfather Kronos dined with his lovely children, and as a result of this they all ended up in the stomach or to be more precise, in the depths of personal dimension of time lord. And who knows what might have happened to them there? Can we trust a words of family hearth mistress? Of course no!" Cat lowered its head to meet eyes of its owner. "But here you are, the one who is older than Ares and only true pure Olympian! You can be proud of yourself master since you managed to save innocence for many centuries" The words of the shadow were full of sarcasm with a mixture of irony.
"Even Cthulhu with this scarlet boy on the throne was able to charm someone, but you by some miraculous way didn't wasn't able to attract the attention of Arachne or Lamia. Ha-ha, I can't!" Shadow laughed hysterically, plunging his claws into the Olympian's hair. "Quiet" Haemon commanded after noticing extraneous movement. "Looks like we finally managed to find our couple of lovers!" Rubbing his paws in anticipation, the cat settled down comfortably to enjoy the spectacle.
Meg stood in the center of a huge hall filled with nameless shadows while smiling broadly. She thirstily hit ground with a whip, as her fingers greedily went through hair on her head. Furies were sadistic in nature and took particular pleasure in torturing those they loved with all hearts. "Zagreus, I see you can't wait to go back to the blood fountain!" Prince nervously smiled, while putting his sword on shoulder: "Tsh, I was hoping that you would be busy with someone else" As hitting ground with a whip, jailer threw back her head high. "And miss out on all the fun darling? No, you can't just get rid of me"
Stretching his shoulders, Zagreus assumed a fighting stance. "Let's dance!" The minds of both warriors were pierced by a wild whistle similar to release of an arrow from a bow. A sharp roar led to shock mixed with horror from what he saw, and in an instant body of a fury was pierced by a long bone spear. The tip of the spear plunged into ground, creating many cracks, the body of the tormentor hung in the middle, and blood flowed from her mouth without stopping, staining cracks on floor. Weapon penetrated her chest, crushing all ribs, but even after receiving such terrible damage, Meg managed to somehow remain conscious.
With a wild cry, the prince was about a rush to help, but the next attack from unknown made him jump back and use his sword as a shield. The purple bone whip forced prince to make every effort not to lose his head. Crashing into a wall and eventually breaking through it, he found himself in another room filled with jugs. Spitting out a clot of blood, he cursed to himself: "Damn, what a monster father sent this time! Did my antics get him so much that he decided to set a titan on me? Poseidon drowns me, my hands are still trembling after that blow!"
The unknown decided not to give more time to think, and with a roar something round flew into room, falling right at the feet of prince. As soon as young Olympian looked at fallen something, he was almost seized with madness, this was head of his beloved. Bastard not only brutally ripped her clean, but he also embellished her by gouging out her eyes. Head turned into black goo and disappeared through the floor. "Will you show yourself!?" Cold-bloodedly demanded prince, although his voice was calm, it felt anger mixed with rage. Then unknown nevertheless decided to satisfy request of king's son, from a hole in wall he appeared a stranger in a lion's skin, although the creature remotely resembled a man, it certainly was not. Tall with a lean physique created the image of a bloodthirsty killer. Capable of killing half a dozen minotaurs with a single wave of his hand.
"Did father pull you out of very mouth of Tartarus!?" Zagreus shouted aiming at the enemy in stomach, but he didn't answer, only moved back a few meters to shift trajectory of a blow. Then, by raising his knee, he struck back at prince's stomach, knocking him down, young man fell to his knees, coughing up blood. The enemy again showed no mercy and grabbed Olympian by the hair and threw him like a ball against the wall. "KHA!"
Hitting the wall again, Zagreus almost lost consciousness for a second before his opponent so graciously decided to wake prince up with a kick to groin. "Freak!" Young man cried out, brandishing his sword to hit giant in the thigh. Monster grabbed blade with his bare hand, as if it were not a weapon at all, but a toy in the hands of a child. Grasping warrior's neck with another hand, unknown raised him above ground, thereby allowing each other's eyes to meet. Maybe due to the small amount of light or his completely clouded mind, a prince wasn't able to see monster's face.
Only blood-red eyes cut into mind of prince. "Take that!" Zagreus screamed in a snoring voice, releasing a stream of all his energy in form of red lightning directly to the face of madman. Smoke poured out of monster's head like a fire, young man's trembling hand fell with the hope of victory. Suddenly, the beast seized it with a stone grip, smoke immediately disappeared and as a result plunged prince into horror, since creature stood as if nothing had happened, and only snow-white fangs bared their teeth in a smile. Having crushed young man's hand, madman didn't waste any more time on trifles and brought poor fellow's head to ground, thereby depriving olympian of his consciousness completely. As raising a clawed hand for a finishing blow, barbarian stopped cause was called out.
"Haemon stop!" Shouted a shadow in cat form, appearing in front of owner's face, while showing a time-out gesture with his paws. "Why?" Hunter asked calmly, still holding his hand to strike. "Eh, as much as I hate him too, we can't kill him right now since he's the freaking lord of rebirth. His peculiarity is that he is reborn every time he is killed. It's worth thanking our mommy, cause she rewarded this brat with a piece of our strength!" Cat hissed angrily, sitting on shoulder of Olympian. "Hm, can't we kill him in some way?" Still calmly asked barbarian lowering his hand. "Ha-ha, there is always some way, you need just to get creative! In meantime, let's better leave mommy a present as a token of our love" Smiling wickedly, cat touched index claw on Haemon's right hand. Finger flashed with a black flame, making clear the madman's plan.
After a while, Haemon finished with a message. "Can you open the passage to the lowest tier?" Eyes of barbarians stared at perfect flesh art. "No problem" Nodding cat with a wave of claw cut through reality itself, opening passage. "Do you think they'll like it?" Heading towards the portal, Haemon looked at his brother for the last time. "Definitely, although for me you overdid it with his eyes," Cat said as he disappeared into a portal. "Well, farewell brother" Smiling, Haemon followed his friend.
When Nyx and Meg saw message left by lord of madness, king's throne room trembled from their anger. Haemon had truly acquired a twisted concept of art during his time in the lower tiers.