AN: New Chapter! Sorry for not posting in so long, I was sick (not COVID).
This chapter is a little short since I didn't want to keep any of you guys waiting any longer.
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The Age of Darkness
Ascension of the Fallen: Chapter 9
After the Elean Wars
A weary, tired warrior looked far into the distance of the barren, Sahara landscape.
All one could see was sand for miles, but they had to be on guard.
Sahara was a death trap, they called it. And they were right.
For one who was to journey beyond the lands of Greece would only find the vilest and exotic of creatures from Tartarus.
For out here were no Empousai, no Drakons, no Cyclopes, or any of your run-of-the-mill monsters. In the great Sahara, only the most powerful and cunning of creatures resided; monsters that had adapted to the harsh, arid climate of the Sahara. Luckily for them, they had met none so far.
The man and his crew had trekked wearily across the Great Plains and hiked across the Mountains of the Peloponnesian peninsula, always praying to Lord Perseus first before all of the gods along the way.
Though he had no domains in travel like Lord Hermes or had no domain of the Sea like Poseidon, Perseus' domain of time single handedly made him the most powerful god on Olympus.
They had sailed across the Great Mediterranean Sea, and fought the most powerful sea creatures, including the Kraken, regrettably losing more than a few comrades along the way.
Fighting the soldiers of Carthage had been no easy feat, but they had managed to pull through.
The journey was long and hard, but at last they were in the Sahara.
A once prideful team had been torn down to a rag-tag group of soldiers.
The only god who had influence this far from the land of Greece was Lord Perseus.
He still granted his mortal protégé aid rather frequently for a god. Food and water were delivered often than not, which was mainly what allowed them to survive in such a harsh climate.
Why had they come out here?
The lost staff of Aesea.
Persetris sighed, checking the ancient scroll of Lore again. He had to be careful not to break the damn thing, old ass piece of paper.
He carefully unrolled the scroll and read through it again.
Aesea was once the guardian of the Gem of Time; an invaluable stone that was made the heart of the world when Chronos created it using all his immortal power.
The primordial Chronos went into a deep slumber afterwards, and for some time, time had no master but the Gem.
The primordial Ananke spent many eons helping her husband recover. Fate had no guider, no guardian. If there was no guardian of Fate, the world would fall into chaos. Thus, Ananke assigned her daughters, now known as the Fates, to the task of guiding Fate.
When the Gem landed on Gaea, none knew what it was. In fear, most local nymphs stayed away from the Gem, all except for one certain nymph.
A curious Aesea approached the Gem; it was the only thing of interest in her rather boring and stagnant life.
The Gem unexpectedly bonded to her, breaking her bond to her tree and binding itself to her.
It was not clear whether she was granted partial immortality or not; Aesea never lived long enough to tell the tale.
She was pulled from her serene, peaceful life into a life of war. The Gem was stored directly in her heart, and many pursued the Gem.
The problem was, Aesea was a pacifist.
The sight of blood was not sick to the nymph, perse; however, death was an untouchable topic for the former nymph, which was why Aesea usually fled from the pursuers of the Gem.
As such, pursuers such as the Titans during the Titan War and the Giants from the Gigantomachy as well as other power-seeking immortals attacked her, causing many all-out skirmishes.
Aesea hated all immortals, but she was partial to Lord Perseus, who never pursued the Gem of time and was virtuous and morally correct. However, they were more acquaintances than friends; the guardian of the Gem needed to keep her distance from all immortals, something that pained her deeply from time to time.
Aesea was eventually surrounded during the Gigantomachy, with numerous giants set to rip the Gem from her heart.
She sent a prayer to Lord Perseus, telling him that her staff would be located in "The Land Beyond the Gods."
Imbuing the Gem in a great staff, she transferred her power into the staff, her essence fading away into the void, as Aesea willed her staff to shoot undetected, soaring far into the night sky.
Persetris closed the old scroll carefully and gingerly placed it back in his bag.
Persetris was out on a task for his patron god and mentor, Lord Perseus. He had proven to his patron god that he was capable during the Elean wars, commanding the battlefield with great power and protecting the pride of Elea from the rash, powerful Spartan invaders. Lord Perseus had asked him
Only the bravest souls ventured far from the lands of Elea, and Persetris was one of them.
He had been named for the god Perseus; his mother was a slave and had died giving birth, wishing for her son to escape slavery. His father, also a slave, was ordered to fight in battle for his master as a complete novice and was slain horribly and brutally by the Spartans. His body was never brought back.
Ever since then, Persetris had vowed to not be weak.
Persetris' eyes watered at the memory of his father.
Persetris had been a homeless boy when he was caught in the act of stealing bread by Lord Perseus.
Long story short, it had straight up been one of the most terrifying experiences of Persetris' life…
Hermes was the patron god of thieves, but even he was absent that day.
Luckily for Persetris, Tyche was on his side.
He had turned around to see a massive god towering over him, radiating power as a ten-year-old Persetris scrambled backwards in fear and shock.
Persetris first realized it was not just any man, but an immortal.
Next, he realized it was not just any god or immortal, but one of the Olympians, which made him infinitely more screwed.
Unluckily for him, it wasn't Hermes.
Even more unfortunate and terrifying was the fact that it was the king of the gods, Lord Perseus, the god who he was named after. After all, Persetris literally meant "devoted to Perseus".
The god who was famous for his nobility, and who his name was dedicated to, had just caught him in the middle of the day, stealing from bread in the middle of the street.
Ten-year-old Persetris was about to burst into tears when Perseus rumbled, "You shouldn't be stealing in the middle of the day."
"Wh-wh-what?"
The king of the gods merely chuckled, putting a humongous hand on the child's shoulder and crouching down to eye level.
"Tell me, what is your name little one?"
Oh no… Persetris thought.
"What could be so bad about your name that you have to say, 'oh no'?" Perseus chuckled heartily again, and the ten-year-old jerked back in shock that the king of the gods could read his mind.
Oh, who was he kidding, of course he could read his mind.
"P-persetris."
"Hmm… interesting. Persetris. Devoted to me. I've never seen such a unique name before. Where are your parents?"
"They-they're gone...," ten-year-old Persetris sniffled, no longer caring about the people watching him on the street.
"I see… your parents were slaves. Tell me, would you like to be my student?"
Persetris jerked back in shock again. How was he not vaporized? On top of that, why was the literal king of the gods offering him a home?
Perseus chuckled and stood back to his full height, "I sense great potential and untapped ambition in you, Persetris. You had a well-thought-out plan to steal bread: Make sure the streets were clear, and make sure the shop vendor was gone. The only problem was that you were trying to steal in the middle of the day."
Perseus, sensing that the ten-year-old was about to faint, sighed and took the poor kid by the shoulder, flashing them away.
Some seventeen years ago that had been. But now was not a time for reminiscence.
They needed to retrieve the staff and give it to Perseus to prevent any immortals from abusing the sheer magnitude of power it contained.
Persetris turned to speak with his comrades when thunder ominously boomed overhead, despite there having been no storm and only clear skies.
The group looked up, and dark, stormy clouds were approaching fast on the horizon.
Suddenly, a halo of black and gold light appeared in the dark sky. A sword of black and golden light swirled, spinning in the air erratically inside the halo.
A supersonic boom was unleashed as it ripped loudly and violently across the very heavens of Gaea, disappearing on the far horizon.
A powerful wind gust blew Persetris and his comrades over, causing them all to fall on their backs.
Persetris stood up but fell to his knees, banging his fists in futile anger on the great sands of the Sahara.
Even Ouranos himself would have felt the boom in his deep slumber and the great primordial of the heavens would have smiled in his sleep.
For Perseus, king of the gods, was dead.
AN: Added some more lore to this story to give the mythology my own little spin on it, it is my story after all, so I don't want it to be a carbon copy of Uncle Rick's world.
So as I said, I was planning on writing a prequel to this story, which would be about Elea (called Elea or Elis in the real world). I chose this Greek city-state since Sparta attacked it in real life, and since Perseus had a feud with Ares, this would make perfect sense. Elea would worship Perseus, since there seem to be little to no records of Elea worshiping any one god, like Corinth for Poseidon or Athens for Athena.
Side note: I got the name for Persetris from Demetrius, where I found that Demetrius was the latinized version of Demetris, so I got Persetris.