The entire Dungeon from the first floors to the deepest crevice in the deep chasm began violently shaking as the adventurer assembly before the doors of Babel took a pause. Consisting of all the most powerful Familia in the city barring the Loki Familia who were at the centre of the chaos going on down below. Ottar pushed an arm out in front of his people to stop them from going any further as the quakes reached the surface and began shaking Babel tower like a rattle, to the degree that windows were smashed outwards and parts of the architecture came loose and fell hundreds of feet to the ground where they smashed into smithereens at the feet of the task force.
"What the hell is going on down there?" Allen shouted at his captain as all the adventurers who had gathered at Ouranos's calling for some sudden emergency struggled to keep their footing.
What could possibly be happening beneath Orario that if felt like the entire planet was tearing apart? That question remained prevalent on the minds of everyone in the city who knew of the situation. But none had an immediate answer to it besides a particular silver-haired goddess who was ignoring her children and staring straight at the ground, her gaze penetrating the Dungeon floors and fixating her gaze upon one particular soul in the Dungeon whose brightness and presence had suddenly exploded like a nuclear reactor and now burned with such intense ferocity that it very nearly burner her eyes out.
Slowly her beautiful face morphed into an expression of concern and horror as the brightness burned out of control, with a mad instability that promised to devour everything in its path. Before that sentiment was held back by restraint and control on Lyze's behalf. But now that the boy had lost his mind with grief and fury, there was no consciousness and no moral shackles to keep this power from having its way anymore. All that remained of Lyzof Keele at this moment was a starving beast of vengeance who sought recompense against the monster that had taken the soul of his beloved.
And in the wake of such emotional agony, Lyze's true power was unleashed. Not the hand-me-downs from Chaos, nor the little favours from his master, nor the gimmicks passed down to him through the Falna. What emerged now was raw, untamed supernatural energy in its purest form, unconstrained by the laws of magic.
A true being of calamity.
"Odr." Freya breathed as she held a hand to her heart, which was threatening to burst out her chest with how fast its beating had become. "What have you done?"
---
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"
A shriek of pure emotional anguish, augmented by real physical pain burst out of the boy's throat as he was hit with the death of the Sword Princess. Tears ran down Lyze's face as his features contorted in mixed expressions of venomous hatred, burning anger, and searing sorrow as his vision became tunnelled, focused solely on Typhon who pulled back in sudden alarm at the spike of power coming from the boy's body.
A shockwave blasted out out Lyze's blowing everyone away as he lost himself to the Flame which now completely overtook him, eliminating his will and replacing it with the desire to consume the strongest opponent currently around and to reclaim the part of it that had been stolen by the abomination. Seas of raging silver flames began to spew out of every pore in the boy's body as he lit up like the sun with light, arcs of burning electricity covering his entire form that fizzed and crackled with intensity enough to raise the hairs of everyone present and made them feel like their skins were about to vibrate off of their bodies.
"What's happening?!" Bara screamed as she blocked her vision to avoid being blinded by the intense brightness Lyze was emitting.
"I don't know!" Finn called back. "I think he's hit Limit Off!"
"Limit Off?" Dain called back. "You mean-"
"The Falna can't contain him anymore." Riveria shouted over the gales that were being generated by the thrumming energy reactor of a boy that was their comrade. "Loki was afraid this might happen!"
"What do we do?!" Gareth called out. "We can't leave him like this!"
"Worry about yourselves!" Finn commanded as he tried to stare at the screaming boy as much as he could without being robbed of his vision forever. "He's beyond our help now!"
And how right the Pallum was.
Lyze had been living and operating under immense pressure for many years now. From the abuse of his early childhood in which he didn't have the memories of his previous life to placate his misery, to the torturous days training under his master, to the confusing and off-putting transition into a suddenly warm and welcoming Familia for the most part who had managed to worm their way into his heart to the point he was willing to die with them if time called for it. Not once had anybody really offered a venting point to Lyze, nor had they truly been able to help him with his trauma.
Even as well as things had been going in recent times as he revealed more and more of himself to his friends and allies, and came out of his impregnable shell, the reality was that he had been pushing his problems deep down instead of confronting them, and they'd slowly been eroding his psyche for some time. Place the stress of the expedition on top of all of that, and Lyze was just a pressurized gasket just waiting to explode at any moment.
And Typhon had pushed the button. With all of that baggage being carried, very few forces in the world could be found to contain such raging emotions and power.
Loki's Falna came to life on Lyze's back as the seal hiding it broke. It glowed in ethereal blue, brighter and brighter until it began flickering as it desperately tried to cap the boy's sudden outpour of power. But every ceiling the Falna put on him, Lyze crashed right through it and continued to generate more and more power. This carried on like a vicious cycles for a few more moments. Then the Falna reached its limit, glowing almost as bright as Lyze was before the divine blessing promptly shattered with a sound like a glass window had just had a brick thrown through it.
Severing the tie between goddess and child.
---
Up above in the Labyrinth City, Loki jerked forwards all of a sudden as she collapsed to the ground, her forehead hitting the stone tiles as she began retching and heaving like she were desperately trying to throw up while at the same time finding it immensely hard to breathe. One of her girls rushed over to assist her, worriedly fussing over her as she helped a trembling Loki stand up to her feet, while a bemused Nekros looked on.
"What's happening to her?" The adventurer girl cried out as she looked up at the man.
He said nothing as Loki's laboured breathing abated a little and she lifted her face to reveal bloodshot eyes and a stream of blood running from her nose. Accompanied by that was a sudden onslaught of tears as the goddess of mischief stared up at the Transcendental.
"I've lost him." Loki nearly sobbed from the brain-shattering migraine she was feeling right now and the sensation of her connection with her child being violently severed in a way which even death on Lyze's part could not cause her this much impact. "He's gone."
"...Then I guess this is where I step in." Nekros said as he took a step forward before disappearing all of a sudden, like he'd never been there to begin with.
---
Lyze's eyes became engulfed in Origin Energy as silver lightning spewed out of his sockets. He tensed his legs, that simple action shattering the ground beneath him as he crouched low to the ground, channelling an inordinate amount of energy to his fists now.
In this very moment, he was burning with a thousandfold more magical energy than he'd used altogether in his time with magic. And that in itself was a large amount considering that beyond a doubt, he had the largest magical reserves of all mortal creatures in the world. What power he'd shown before every time he'd embraced the Flame and used his true personal abilities against monsters, was now insignificant and inconsequential next to the amount of power coursing through his body as the {Cratus} skill drank in all his emotions and added more fuel to the Fire.
With a flex of his legs, Lyze smashed right through the sound barrier as he flew across the 49th Floor towards Typhon with a clenched fist stretched out. The monster in turn charged up its own reserves into its fist and threw it out meet the boy's own. Time seemed to slow down between the two fists, as if atmosphere and reality was being eroded under the pressure of such two powerful attacks drawing close together. There was a spark at the connection before an almighty explosion burst outward from impact, a tsunami of eviscerating energy being propelled outwards in every direction as it raced towards the adventurers who braced themselves to die.
But not a moment to soon did a man just materialise in front of them and put out a hand as he sealed off a bubble of reality around them and the corpses of the dead adventurers. A split second later, the roaring energy washed over the bubble and dispersed around it as Riveria looked up at the man's face.
"Nekros!" She asked. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"My idiot student has just gone AWOL in his head right now, and what's left is just a rabid animal." Nekros said without looking back at her. "I'm just making sure he doesn't do something he'll regret for the rest of his life, while also allowing him to blow this bit of steam off." Nekros spoke as if he were just commenting on the weather.
"Shouldn't you be stopping him?!" Finn asked. "Aren't you his master? Aren't you a god?"
"Nah, he's going to win this one I'm sure." Nekros said. "I think I'll just enjoy the show...which begins now!"
A moment later, the explosion of Origin Energy that had resulted from the two colliding fists just receded back into the point of impact and held there for a second before redirecting upwards into the ceiling, piercing the Dungeon floor by floor as a pillar of silver fire wider than Babel burned right through to the surface in a matter of seconds.
---
The residents of Orario instinctively ducked down and cried out in shock and terror as in the distance, a pillar of silver fire burst out the ground and penetrated the black storm clouds above. For several seconds this went on as the whole continent was awash in blinding bright light, accompanied by an intense heat and spiritual pressure that bore down upon all who saw it. A column of pure energy just burning through Heaven and Earth.
All the gods in the mortal realm, in Orario and in distant lands turned in the direction of this column of primordial energy as their own senses went haywire, their divine attributes reacting to this new power that had just erupted out of the Dungeon like an infant tearing its way out of its mothers belly. The gods stared in disbelief at this phenomena, for even as they could see it, they couldn't believe it given the absolute impossibility of the concept even happening.
"Divine Energy..." Hermes whispered as he stood atop the city wall and stared out at the column of fire still rising out of the grasslands between Orario and the western sea, piercing the heavens and ripping the sky asunder. Being a messenger god included more than just running around and slipping letters into people's hands or post-boxes. It also included an insight into the unknown, and transmissions of omens from the universe itself, to be a herald to signify the coming of change. And right now, that part of Hermes's divinity was a buzzing receptor. "...and something else...not Arcanum...something different...something older...stronger..."
...
Finally the pillar of fire seemed to run out as the last of it disappeared into the sky and the bright light faded from the land, returning the darkness made by the black storm clouds which had so quickly covered the West. That did not mean the end of a series of deafening claps of thunder that was so loud, it felt like the sky was collapsing in on itself layer by layer and just waiting to make the final fall to earth.
Thankfully no such things happened as the sounds disappeared somewhere into the beyond.
For a moment, the world fell collectively silent as the mortals and the gods looked around for the next sign, the next omen, the next anything.
Anything besides a smoking hole in the grasslands that led to the 49th Floor.
Then the prayers were answered as out of the clouds came falling what looked like a shining meteorite, only the light was too bright to make out the actual object itself. It looked so much like one of the stars in the sky had fallen down to Earth, and it was headed straight for the Beol mountain range. Hermes wasted no time, not bothering to seek Ouranos's permission as he activated his Arcanum and used an ability he only reserved for occasions like War Games.
Whatever that meteor thing was was most certainly whatever the old Primordial of Sky had raised the alarm about, and Hermes captured it by way of magical screens appearing all over the city and in Ouranos's personal chambers as the heart of the world got to see exactly what was falling to their world. And they rubbed their eyes at what they were seeing.
Descending to Earth was what seemed like a giant monster, with several dragon heads growing out of its back, and a long tail where legs should have been, coupled with some more interesting attributes...ones that seasoned adventurers recognised to be parts of other monster rexes. More confusing however was that the light was being radiated by a glowing figure who had the monster by the throat and was actually propelling the now 400 foot monster towards the tallest of the Beol mountains.
What had happened was simple. The pillar of fire had propelled both Lyze and the monster rex through the Dungeon Floors and into the sky, almost into orbit actually before Lyze with a burst of new power in his blood-crazed haze began flying downwards again and taking Typhon with him as he steered them both towards the largest obstacle that the boy could see.
...
After a few moments, the monster rexes body smashed into the tallest mountain with an impact that rang the earth like a bell. But not a second later did the actual mountain itself just split in two as the monster's body was sent digging through the split, colliding with the mountain base. Again, silence descended upon the mortal realm as they held bated breaths, still not ready to accept the existence of a creature like this, let alone the biggest known mountain in the world just being halved like a steak knife through butter.
Typhon groaned in pain as it shook off the collected rubble gathered on top of it. It sat up and brushed the mess off as it focused on the lingering energy it had managed to consume from Lyze during the explosion. Absorbing it, the monster's size increased yet again but far more drastically this time as it now had so much more energy to consume from Lyze's limit break. From 400 feet, the Desecration grew up to 1000 feet in height as its muscles bulged and its heads opened their mouths in indignant roars that sounded like the voices of multiple monsters at once.
The heads all looked back up to the mountain tops, and those viewing the magical screens did the same to see what the freak was looking at. Crawling up the snowy peak of one of the halves of the severed mountain, a hand reached up and grabbed the snowy top. Hauling himself up, the perpetrator was revealed to be Lyze who stood before his opponent and before the world for all to see him in his glory, the Flame of Origin still coating him in an aura of power.
Typhon shrieked at him again, vocalising its own hate and indignation at the boy while the King of Chaos just stared down at the beast. Lyze then raised his arms to the skies as the clouds suddenly began to converge and swirl around the mountaintop he was stood on, creating some sort of circular opening in the sky.
An out of the sky came raining down a true surprise to all the gods.
Bright blue lightning shot out of the clouds and smashed into Lyze's palms as he began to absorb them and then gather their power in his palm. But the nature of this lighting was different. It was no ordinary sparks of cloud collision like nature would usually have it. This lightning was created out of a very familiar energy to the gods, a lightning that some had not seen since times immemorable. Those who had seen it before knew exactly what it was made of while other more specific gods just gasped in disbelief they recognised exactly what kind of Lightning Lyze was drawing from the sky.
"Olympian Lightning." One god breathed. "I haven't seen that since the early days of Zeus."
...
More profound things were happening with the actual Olympians themselves though. In his chambers, Ouranos gawped in dismay at what was happening with the boy. As a first generation Primordial of the Olympian Pantheon, he had been there to oversee the births of majority of the other Olympians, both the major and the minor ones. Even Zeus, who was acknowledged by other pantheons and by the mortals in ancient times to be the king of Olympus. The last time an new Olympian had appeared was several hundred millions of years ago before the mortal races even existed, and even that one was a very minor deity. A god still, but nowhere near powerful as some of the big shots.
So it came as the greatest shock to him that yet another had appeared, from among the mortals themselves no less, and one whose dormant divinity was sending ripples throughout Olympus all the way back in the upper world. Yes, Ouranos could sense his homeworld suddenly come alive at the revelation of the newest member of his close kin, a new major god whose powers could even potentially clash with his own at some point, the mountain heralding all gods who came from it of the emergence of its newest future deity.
"The Lastborne of Olympus..." The old man muttered. And simply like that, his mind was made on what to do with the boy if they all survived this manic episode of rage induced hysteria.
Apollo who was hiding within his mansion began trembling with equal measures of fear and anger as he remembered the last time someone had conjured Olympian lightning, though the last time had definitely not been a mortal boy.
East of the Labyrinth city, on the other side of the cluster of Elven forests besides a great lake, stood a nation the capital of which was renowned to be a central hub of knowledge and learning, a place often frequented by the world's greatest minds. In a high tower within that city, sat a goddess among a pile of books, her eyes glued to the pages as she sat in her solitude. However, for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, she lifted her head up from the pages as she sensed the power of her Pantheon being channelled into the mortal world.
Somewhere deep in the supercontinent, on a determined yet discreet path walked a lanky black haired god with sharp eyes as he took a moment away from his scheming of next year's most profound plan in his organisation's history to pay attention to what he could clearly feel was the generation of Olympian lightning, a feat that even an Olympian would be careful about performing. And the presence of the Lastborne...
His eyes widened before a large grin spread across his face and he put a finger to his chin as he pondered how he could fit this into his plan.
...
But most important of all was the attention of what seemed like an old greying man rocking by the fireplace in his mountainous village with his sleeping grandson on his lap. The little boy was a small thing, with pale hair and red eyes who adored the old man, and in equal measure adored many of the heroes in the books that were sprawled out before the fireplace where he had been reading not so long ago.
The old man's ancient golden eyes flew open as he was met with the same sensation as Olympians from all over the globe. Only this was more personal to him given the fact he was king of the pantheon this power was being drawn from. A mortal, drawing upon the power of the Olympian gods, his power of all others. A daring foolhardy boy who was conjuring a lightning that only he himself used to have access to in days where he didn't live like a mortal.
But regardless of each individual Olympian's reaction to this information, a singular word came to all of their minds simultaneously, an utterance projected into their minds by their homeland in heaven as Olympus itself signalled its resident gods the arrival of a new player in their Pantheon. One name, one word that came out on the tongues of every Olympian on Earth which they all said correctly. Because this was a word of truth, of revelation.
The name of the newest upcoming Olympian.
""Kratos.""
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