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The Second Interlude

Gaia POV

The hills shuddered with every breath I took the trees swayed even with a lack of any wind in the area and the many small creatures who lived on the local hills squeaked and scurried away as fast as their small legs could move. The power I felt daily from my domain had made me quite arrogant even among my fellow deities. But I was still rational enough to realize when it was time to let grudges fade. So with some internal reluctance, I swore to Chaos that I wouldn't interfere with my descendants' inconsequential childish spat.

That my son had been defeated was quite a surprise. Maybe more because of my personal oversight and what I liked to categorize as a training evaluation of the younger generation which was me just having a little fun with my new favorite grandson Perseus. That it was him that in my mind did most to defeat my fearsome son placated my more unhinged and prideful side because of his domain's close relation to mine, though his domain over Dusk and Dawn wasn't as welcome, though I guess it is quite poetic.

The war I recognized had really gone out of control with divine beings and their constructs fighting across the surface of my domain. The loss of local nature spirits in areas was a tragic loss that I needed to keep my attention on and maybe send my grandson some pointers on. My children I noticed had been taking this war a little too laid back before getting their asses to work probably too late for it to do anything other than slowing down the advance of the... Olympians. There had also been quite a lot of defections from the Titans side already, the... my grandchildren and associated allies under the guidance and advice of Athena and the merciful Hestia searched the memories and observed the arriving defectors with an interesting strategy of Hestia being a warm and friendly figure lowering the guards of the defectors and Athena clinically striking at them with questions once they're off-balanced by the kindness shown to them.

After the defectors are either accepted or apprehended they go to if they were accepted a free patch of land on that floating island of theirs or being chucked into the newly constructed dungeon complex curtesy of Perseus. The dungeon was submerged into the ground under the floating city with only the windows of the highest cells sticking out and of course an entrance. I could have probably broken them out of it but with my change of heart, I didn't really fancy bothering with it. Not that they had anyone I cared for there. I didn't really understand why they made an underground dungeon for their prisoners and incarcerated them with my powers, but I concurred and reengaged in the fascinating show I got to observe. My grandchildren and their associated allies I noticed were quite proactive even with their two rapid relocations after their fight with my son about a month ago. First, they retook their little floating island before systematically visiting neutral Titans and other deities getting them to either join or swear to not interfere in any way.

My children eventually noticed their adversaries' stunt but like always they were too late and did too little, and only managed to conscript a handful of neutral deities. My grandchildren and their associated allies didn't stop there and moved on to deities who were sympathetic to the loyalist cause and either got binding oaths or put them in my grandson's dungeon complex. The Titans noticed this quite fast and tried to guard the remaining loyalist sympathizers which in hindsight was very inefficient but my children didn't think of that before it was too late and a number of the guards consisting of weak loyalists were either on the run, in Perseus' captivity or Tartarus and reforming.

My grandchildren and their associated allies decided to look higher up to the Titan High Command with a strike at Atlas' mountain home once again defeating him and sending him to the 'gentle' embrace of his uncle down under. A lot of Titans were quite shocked by their foes' daring strike having apparently forgotten that this had happened before and had begun to pack their things and leave before Kronos managed to reel them in and discipline them accordingly.

I was definitely grateful I didn't have to deal with that fuckfest because I would have lost my mind and killed them all before asking my parent to make them all fade. This war was basically the only conflict in our dynasty's history and never had there been such a big wave of aggression and betrayal with sisters and brothers on either side of the conflict. That sisters and brothers turned on each other weren't groundbreaking it was rather the sheer amount of them happening in under a decade (which is a quite small time period in the grand scheme of things, especially in our lifetimes) that was so shocking.

I shook my head at such dark thoughts causing an earthquake in a faraway mountain range and let my attention flow again over my domain with no real target for my attention. I saw the prisoners of my grandson screaming in their cells, Kronos and his brothers scheming in their dark mountain fortress. And a big pantheon of gods down S... ahh right the Kemetics or something weird deities those are I thought before letting my attention slip and fall into the realm of my parent.

Atlas POV

Those damn sniveling brats! I was yet again clumped in this sack of shit, piss, and other bodily fluids just waiting for the old warden to let me out of my damn cell and get back at the unruly offspring of Uncle Kronos. I would never let any of my children get out of hand that's for sure, if he can't even handle a couple of unruly kids how can he claim to be destined to lead the rightful rulers of the universe.

It had been such a good day too with me getting gratulation after gratulation for my tireless work to defeat the snot-faced brats at Othrys, and while I wasn't there too often because of the scythe*cough* the horrid smell it was quite nice to be recognized for my achievements, and it would be the proudest moment of my life other than when Uncle Kronos asked me to help him and Uncle Hyperion to imprison those hideous Hekatonkherie and Cyclopes. After that, I went home again to my own mountain and everything went downhill from there with the surprise raid killing me and sending me here.

It was quite late in the evening when I decided to... observe the middle point of this planet. I went out of my fortress and walked down to the center of the world where Gaia and Ouranos meet. While this hadn't existed before the betrayal of Ouranos by Kronos the center point now had a pillar of rock and cloud-looking stuff holding the sky up from collapsing and destroying everything. With no living deity of the sky to hold it up the Creator and Gaia made a pillar to hold it indefinitely so no one needed to hold it because that would be a nightmare. I wasn't gloating perse I just felt a slight amount of satisfaction of how even one of the biggest deities fell from grace quite literally while we the mighty and majestic Titans were still standing strong, it just showed who the superiors were to be fair.

Then I suddenly collapsed to my now bisected knees with ichor spraying out in front of me. My now detached legs slid to a stop a few meters in front of me with an uncomfortable squelching sound. I actually winced in discomfort at the sound before first trying to find out how my legs now were suddenly a few meters away from my body and turning my head around to see who the perpetrators were. The first thing I saw was an unnatural layer of dust in front of my fee... knees I remember gritting my teeth only letting a small grunt escape my clenched lips at both the sheer pain suddenly spiking through my body and anger coursing through me. I remembered deciding to find the answer to the other question and being met with the disgusting sight of my daughters and a couple of very unwelcome guests. The worst part was that it wasn't even the sons of Kronos. It was only a son, a nobody, and a couple of those damn clay constructs. This was the last thing I saw before somehow getting my head cut off and waking up in this gooey shit place after what I assumed was a few months maybe?.

Finally, the gooey shell released me with a pop and I rose to my full height of thirty feet. A puny little scorpion scurried away but I snapped my fingers and sent a conjured blade at it with deadly precision crushing its spine and sending it to the ground. I snort derisively before stepping out of the crater of bloody goo and onto the unfriendly blood-red ground of Tartarus.

I set my sights on his heart and begin my journey breathing in the poisonous gas nonchalantly, I suddenly cough quite hard, and holding my breath for now. I ignore that little incident and begin to take some thunderous steps down the very sleek slopes. I followed the Cocytus downriver it definitely wasn't my favorite river down here if you can have one, but I noticed that both this and the last time that I had to follow this damn river. I saw a few monstrous entities in the distance and decided to jump over to the other side of the river because it was so much nicer there with those... small pointy charcoal black trees for example. I continued my depressing march for a few more hours before finally arriving at the most arduous task of the rebirthing cycle.

It wasn't particularly hard just confusing. I walked into the mist for a few meters before walking sideways to the left and then right. The mist was very dense so could just about see my hands in it which was very bothersome, to say the least. I walked sideways a few more times before switching to one backward step. The mist suddenly evaporated and I was finally free of that damn maze, I must have been in that thing for a couple of hours just doing random sequences of movement till I could escape it. But finally, I was free and I was met by the sight of a few huddles of other inhabitants. I ignored them and stomped forwards to the thin Daimon at the end of the massive cave that was Tartarus. The Keres or also called Daemones stared apathetically at me for a moment before nodding and closing her eyes.

The Keres wasn't a beautiful creature by any stretch of the imagination with a part female humanoid body, bat-like wings, pug-nosed, furry-faced, and big fangs rounded out the creature. so to summarize it was quite hideous and both in and outwards, with an appetite for violent death and famine. She eventually opened her bulging eyes and nodded before rasping out "Do create some death" before I blacked out.

I 'awoke' standing at the foot of a very familiar mountain, the reason why I recognized it was because it was the home of Kronos and many of the other Titans. I quickly walked up the steep goat trail leading to the peak of the mountain following the steep and sharp twists and turns up to the impenetrable mountain fortress. At least Helios was helpful for once with comfortable rays of the sun shining down upon me while I was making my way up. I finally made it up to the peak deciding not to teleport because I wasn't allowed to at least on this mountain unless permitted to do it which I thought was quite insulting but the scyth... I mean I of course respected the wishes of my superiors as the loyal second-in-command that I was.

Anyway, as I said I finally summited and was met with the glorious sight of the black stoned Othrys.

Iapetus POV

It had not been a good day, well if you ignored the day from midday and earlier then I guess it could have been called an average day but that isn't how the world works so let's go back a little.

The war wasn't going too well for the loyalist side with defeats every week against those rebels(and while we were at war I could appreciate their cleverness and persistence if nothing else). While I didn't much respect any of them Perseus I recognized could have been an asset to us if he hadn't been one of the heads and instigators of this rebellion and now his only fate was execution or at least imprisonment to an undiscussed extent, it was tragic but it had to be done for the good of the cause.

We at least had some new allies. A lot of Daimons, a race called Telkhines, some children of Nyx, and at last but not least a big herd of Gryphons. While the help was appreciated (at least I thought so) my younger brother wasn't as thankful for the help, though to be fair to him he was correct that these new allies did not compare to the titans lost to the rebels which was a problem indeed.

After a few months of beating after beating Hyperion, I thought that enough was enough and we went on a prison break of the dungeon complex under the rebels' own mountain fortress. It was dug out into the face of the mountain with dozens of small window slits for the cells and a central entrance to the complex. We snuck in during the dead of night with hope in our hearts and the plan seemed to be working, we managed to make our way in undetected and worked our through the cramped unlit hallways with relative ease only meeting a few patrols of those clay constructs the rebels were so fond of using. We finally came upon a cell block and cautiously made our way down the narrow corridor.

We could already hear the imprisoned inmates' moans and screams down the hall. They were quite disturbing, to be honest even making me imagine what horrors our loyal subservient subjects were witnessing and experiencing down here. It did sound like we may have come too late to be completely frank, but we continued silently to the first set of cells who were empty, unfortunately, but we moved on with confidence. The next ones were empty, and the ones after that too, we made our way through the whole block and was met with the same empty spartan cell separated from the hallway by a stonewall with an eye height slit and a quite weak ward to hold whatever was in there contained.

The air became colder and colder as we walked downwards the one solitary hallway. What struck me as a little odd at the time was the sudden complete silence after we managed to search through the first block of cells. Then after what was probably an hour or two of searching we were met with the screaming again though this time, it came from behind us, and while it had only been one hallway since the start it did have slight twists and turns so you could never see more than maybe fifty meters in front or behind you while in the middle of such a twist.

We made our way back and the sounds eventually faded away again this time even before we managed to backtrack to the only cell block we had found. I know that both I and my brother were quite unnerved by the eerie silence and damp cave air. While we had stopped when the aforementioned sounds had, we decided that this was enough searching and to report back to the almighty king also called out little brother. We picked up the pace and after about fifty minutes of a brisk walk, we calculated that we were back at the end of the cellblock or what was supposed to be it at least because now there was only a fork with a dark corridor straight ahead and one to our left. This was unexpected but we decided that we probably missed it when we walked the other way and proceeded up the fork which was straight ahead.

This led to yet another identical fork where we again advanced straight ahead with irritation lacing our steps. To cut this short we eventually managed to find our way out after maybe 10 to 12 hours of the identical fork after identical fork. We, of course, tried to flash out of there but the ward that we thought had been built around the cells were apparently around us and they weren't 'weak' at all.

This sham had occupied two of the loyalists' high command for over half a day where multiple simultaneous offensives occurred by the rebels wiping out whole armies who had managed to hold them in a stalemate for almost a decade now. They could, of course, be replaced but our problem was that we relied on our killed soldiers to regenerate in Tartarus before being sent up again which could take a few weeks to a few months at least depending on how powerful the creature was. We would of course now replace those armies temporarily with easy to conjure constructs, but they would unfortunately not be as effective as Perseus' clay constructs because they were embued with a small part of his essence maybe just a sand grain with the help of his domain over Nature. Which nobody on our side knew how to replicate unfortunately so it seemed like even the elder titans wouldn't get too much rest the next few weeks.

While these dark thoughts had been clouding my mind I had been escorting my lovely wife Clymene to the council chambers for what the king called an emergency meeting or something I wasn't too sure what he meant by that but I was quite curious indeed as to why it was being held.

We made our way down the black stoned corridors of Othrys when my wife suddenly shook me from my thoughts "Darling are you all right? You seem distracted, is this about the secret mission you went on last night?" I nodded glumly but didn't elaborate and Clymene let it go with obvious reluctance before switching topics "You know I heard rumors of our son finally coming back again after that dastardly assassination a few months ago" This did gain my attention and I looked at my wife in surprise "And where did you hear that from?" Clymene gained a slightly mischievous grin and replied sweetly "A mother has a sense for such" I smiled at the charming attempt of humor and it reminded me of the early years of our marriage. Though I didn't get to reply because we had finally arrived and I nodded to her as a farewell and she went to mingle with the other non-councilmember wives and other titans present.

It looked like we were waiting for a few more council members to arrive so I vaguely followed my wife with the mingling, though I met up with my two sons that at least were here Epimetheus and Prometheus. My two other sons Atlas and Menoetius weren't present unfortunately Atlas for obvious reasons and Menoetius because his domains of violent anger and rash decisions were quite debilitating for him in public settings.

Kronos finally scraped his menacing scythe against the black marble floors like he usually does for the start of these meetings creating a horrible screeching sound making everyone wince before either sitting down in their thrones or standing to the side and silently observing. In contrast to the usual meetings, the council doors suddenly slam open, and in comes Atlas as regally as he can and sits down in his own specially made throne for the head general. The silence is quite suffocating only made more awkward by the slow and painful screech of the council doors closing again.

After a few minutes of stunned and, awkward silence Kronos begins regally like the king he is like nothing happened but everyone in the council chamber knew that Kronos really wasn't impressed by his nephew's stunt. "I have come up with a plan that will once and for all exterminate those pests we have allowed to live until now...

End of Chapter

As you may or may not have noticed, I had about a one and a half month-long break because of both technical difficulties and a need for a break. But I will now be gradually trying to get some uploads done to this story so be prepared. Thanks for all of the comments, PMs, and reviews I really appreciate them and they have helped me to get the motivation to continue the story further.

I noticed before taking a break that both my motivation and the quality were dropping for my story(at least I felt so) so I decided to take a break to gather myself and really try to maintain or even surpass the quality of my prior chapters. I hope you enjoy this and future updates:)

Next: A What?

Thank you for reading