I had a third chapter that I should begin to write for my main story. Why haven't I started it yet?... Cursed you, my incapability to stay focused on one fuckin' thing long enough to make actual progress! But in all seriousness, it totall sucks.
Anyways, this is basically a collection of stories I wrote because I couldn't focus on my main story.
Most chapters probably won't be connected to each other much, or getting a second chapter. Treat this as a collection of one-shots or something.
This is humiliating.
Sharp, labored breaths rang out.
In the Dungeon, the floors from the 19th to the 24th were often called the Great Tree Labyrinth by the adventurers by its unique layouts.
The ceilings, walls, and floor in this area were all tree bark. Moss thickly covered its surfaces, illuminating the passageway in bluish-green light, giving off the impression that not a soul had ever set foot in this twisted forest. From afar, the reverberations of distant monstrous howls made leaves tremble, prompting beads of silver dews to dribble off sundry fantastical flora.
By all means, this should be beautiful. This should feel beautiful. Yet, everyone who had ever set foot here knew this beauty was nothing more than a monster's hide.
In this sea of trees that were completely removed from the world up above, a lone shadow ran with every bit of energy he could muster.
The figure was young with supple, delicate limbs that radiated youthful beauty none could compare. Long obsidian-colored hair glistened in the light of the moss. Hidden beneath his silken tresses were eyes as blue as priceless lapis lazuli, hidden within its dim light were once the traits of immortality and eternity.
The many scales covering its shoulders, lower back, and the long pointed-ears framing his face, tapering to even finer points than those of the elven races, were covered in a light layer of golden scales. Hands and feet painted in blue blood reminiscent of the autumn clear sky. A pair of leathery wings growing from his back wrapped around his bare body, tattered and almost torn apart.
Protruding from around his head were horns, crooked yet regal, glistering beneath the light like the crown of a fallen king.
And yet, despite these monstrous traits, this creature still carries with him a trait unmistakably divine.
A Deusdea, mortals would immediately think of him as that way, a transcendent being more commonly known to them as "gods" or "deities". But to genuine divinities, those with everlasting ichor running through the veins of their corporeal hosts, all would scrunt their nose at his scent.
It wasn't anything terrible, mind you, just a scent that opposed the gods' perfect nature.
That scent was known as mortality.
Such mortality was twisted and foul and disgusting. It shrouded him like chains around a prisoner, holding the morbid concept of death above his head like a guillotine.
No god would ever look at him without a look of disgust. It was in their nature to reject abomination such as this. After all, how else would beings of perfection incarnate interact with a being who embodied the ultimate imperfection?
And so he ran.
Thump, thump, thump!
The strange creature held his thin, child-like arms against his wounded chest as he ran through the woods.
Why?
He was bleeding.
Claws, fangs, and blades had inflicted many wounds on his body, messengers of pain never felt before by the unchanging immortal. Glimmering gold trickled from open gashes with every step. The attacks had ripped entire scales from his shoulders, dyeing his marble skin completely gold.
Why?
Terror showed in his eyes. Confusion. Grief.
Feelings he hadn't felt since a long time ago, before his reign had ended by the moving cycle of patricide and he was cannibalized by the same children he had devoured.
Droplets of gold falling down to the ground like tears.
Despite his actions and status, his immortal nature as a Deusdea still remained within the ethereal ichor. A Fertility God, he once was, Bringer of the Harvest. With every step, flowers and herbs shooting up from the cursed ground, flora of unique nature unlike anything the world had seen.
If this was in a time of old, he would have stopped to enjoy them.
If this was in another world, he would have helped his daughters bring these flowers home.
If this was another time, he would have wept for a golden age he had destroyed.
But now, all he could do was to look at this world in despair with bright-blue eyes as his thin throat began quivering.
"Why…?"
The sound that escaped his lips was not the crude howl of a monster nor the twisted laugh of a crazed king, but rather a single hoarse, mournful word.
The voice was a mix of a sobbing child and a regretful parent.
The barking and howling of monsters echoing through the labyrinthine Dungeon closed in.
The lone figure's black hair and slim shoulders trembled in fear.
Sorrow had distorted his beautiful face, one that was once deemed attractive enough to leave his fellow divinities breathless.
The monster- The "child" was crying.
Why, Why is everyone…?!
He was alone.
He was alone again. And this time, it was all his fault.
He couldn't blame anyone but himself now.
No cruel father or vengeful mother. No prophetic dreams plaguing his mind. No beloved children bearing justified revenge in their arms.
He was all alone once again.
Pathetic and weak. Lonely and afraid.
He was a child once more.
He didn't know why was here.
He remembered darkness of the depths, the rumbling and screaming of whatever horrors laid within the unknown of his stepfather's domain. He remembered a crack in the shadow and his mother's arms reaching out and he accepted it like the fool he was. He remembered breaking out from a wall before falling to the floor, naked and afraid like a mortal child, a god he no longer was.
He recognized this place.
He had been here before, all of his siblings did.
His mother's womb.
Yet, there was this miasma lingering around like a plague.
As he wandered around, he encountered a creature much larger than himself. There was something familial he felt looking at the creature, even if it was nothing like him. He didn't really understand why, but he just seemed to accept it. Many of his brothers weren't divine after all - what with the Hekatonkheires, the Kyklopes, and the Gigantes, not to mention the children she had with Pontos and Tartaros - so perhaps this was just another of his mother's new children.
He approached it to ask:
"Where am I?"
Its response was a monstrous roar. After raising its voice in anger, the monster slashed him with its sharp claws. He could do nothing to defend himself.
Skin torn and humiliated, he ran away without understanding why.
As confusion seized his body, the gold seeping from his wounds and the unfamiliar sensation of pain inspired terror in him.
Since then, he had been attacked again and again. Monsters born from the same womb as him, his brothers and sisters, threatened his life. There were no exceptions. In all honesty, he should have seen this coming after the first time. They had done that once, betrayed him for his just sons and glorious daughters, how should this time be any different.
He did try to fight back against the monsters, yet all of his attempts only ended in his opponents' favor.
Every time he tried to use his godly strength, his body hardened like a statue and he could do nothing but to stand still and withstand their hits. Every time he tried to use his Arcanum, the ground around him shook and more monsters appeared, ones painted the color of ash and death, more dangerous than anything he had faced here in this place.
After enough pain, enough embarrassment, he decided to stop entirely fighting back and just run.
Rushing out from the depths of his mother's womb, the exhausted "god" next encountered creatures of a completely different species.
They were humans equipped with swords and bows.
Humans, as he last remembered about them, weren't supposed to be like this. They were the toys of his nephew Prometheus - son of his older brother Iapetus and one of those Oceanides - who had lovingly called them his "children" for reasons no Titans could understand.
But these humans weren't like that.
They were well-dressed, almost to the point he could mistake the armors they were wearing to be Titan-forged steel. The weapons in their hands were also very different from the stone-tipped spears or clubs he last saw those humans carried.
Not to mention, accompanying them were a pair of fairy-like male and female. The long-eared pair nestled together, protecting each other.
He thought he had seen creatures like those two a long time before, when his prophetic dreams brought him to the icy north where none of his mother's children dwell, where creatures like them evolved from maggots squirming within a giant corpse.
He approached them, unaware of his inhumane gaze.
"Help me."
In an instant, a blade opened a new wound on his face.
He had expected it to happen. He just didn't know why he had expected they would be different from anything else in this cursed place.
Now, he was just lucky that it didn't hurt his eye.
It was a pain in his ass to regenerate another eye after the last time.
Faced with this new animosity, he fled once again.
It seemed that the group was more confused and shaken than he was, the most apparent was their terror as they hit him the first time. His luck didn't last long, as they quickly scattered and swung their swords and the pale-faced one readied their bows with muffled shrieks.
Arrows streaked at him from behind as his tears were threatening to finally spillover.
Pain. Suffering. Sadness.
The scales on his back deflected the arrowheads but cracked with each impact. His torn, lacerated shoulders felt as if it was on fire.
Once again, the world had excluded, alienated, and rejected him.
It branded him an outcast.
He knew that he deserved this, that this was the punishment for his crimes.
How else should a Cannibal King be punished, if not to be hunted by mortals and monsters alike like the freak of nature he truly was?
Yet, despite it all, why couldn't he stop these tears from running down his face?
What… am I…?!
This question had plagued his mind since his rebirth.
No matter how many times he asked, his mother gave no answer.
He knew she didn't have much care for her first children anymore, especially after they had failed her again and again. But deep inside of him, a childish spark of hope still remained there, yearning for the ever so-distant maternal love he had never received.
Tap, tap, tap.
The lonely echoing sound of two feet hung in the air of the seemingly endless Dungeon.
"Ahh!"
A downward slope.
He lost his footing like a mere child and tumbled heavily down the hill crisscrossed in tree roots.
W-What happened?
Looking at the weird angle his leg was now in, he was almost sure it had been broken. He couldn't believe it. Not again.
A strange thing about his regeneration. When it was certainly powerful - not as fast or powerful as it was back then, but then again, not many gods were as powerful as him back then - it couldn't heal broken bones as easily as it did anything else. He could be pummeled to the verge of death or had his organs torn by a monster's genitalia and it would instantly heal him enough to escape afterward. Never fully healed, just enough to run away. Broken bones or bloody gashes were still there for the world to see, like marking upon a prisoner's body.
Distant howls and the footfalls prompted a shiver in his body. He examined the surroundings before setting off dragging his immobile leg along. As if Ananke had smiled upon him, his wounds had already clotted enough to stem the flow of blood, allowing him to hide his trail.
In one corner of the Dungeon, he found a single tree and an abundance of plants. Using the leaves as a shelter, he hid within.
His back pressed to the wall, he held his breath. Trembling he squeezed his badly injured body tightly with both arms and fought back against the endless crashing waves of terror.
When was the last time he felt this scared?
He thought back from the numerous stains on his own life and couldn't help but wonder.
When had the fearless King of Titans regressed into such a scaredy-cat?
Suddenly, he realized something was approaching.
His breath caught again.
He could hear footsteps coming closer and closer with each passing moment. The crescendo of steps made him recall the scorching pain he felt when he was first killed, almost as though the memory itself radiated heat, paralyzing him with terror.
How did he burn to death again? Whether it was by his son's lightning or his daughter's flames?
His body shook uncontrollably.
His cheeks still wet, another wave of terror crossed his face.
Looking up at the human figure drawing near, the old god hugged himself with all his remaining might.
Then…
"A monster… no, a god?"
Hair as white as a lightning streak. Rubellite eyes the shade of patricide.
His body was embraced by his eldest child's divinity, claiming him as her own like a lion guarding her cub, ready to strike out the moment he was harmed.
In a dim corner of the Dungeon, Kronos had a fateful meeting with his grandson.
Idea: What if instead of our daughter Wiene, it was a Xenos!Kronos that Bell saved in the Dungeon.
If some parts seemed familiar to you, yeah those are probably a somewhat direct copied-and-pasted from the original Light Novel.