Chapter 65 - The Return
At the dungeon entrance in Orario, the gathered familias were experiencing more and more earthquakes of higher and higher strengths. However, they were without their powers and powerless to help. Finn and Bete were the most frustrated pacing up a storm at the entrance...
Meanwhile, Bell, Ais, Wiene and Mikoto were able to reach the relatively calm 85th floor after battling and running from countless monsters. It appeared the dungeon's reaction was the massive spawning of monsters as if the entire dungeon had turn into a colosseum. Monsters also started spawning in the 85th floor, but so far there has not been a major floor boss, so Ariel and firebolt have been sufficient. Mikoto and Wiene had been holding back to save their spells when an incremental amount of firepower would be helpful. Remembering this floor may have less monsters, they decided to stay as the 1 hour was about up. A couple minutes later, a massive explosion happened that literally blew up the middle of the floor. Furthermore, the destruction continued to the floors above so massive chucks of rock was dropping for several minutes through the newly-created cavern in the middle of the floor. The explosion also caused substantial damage to all of them but fortunately they survived to pour elixir on each other. The explosion also brought them some time as the nearby monsters were either destroyed or injured badly.
Back in Orario, they also felt the massive explosion along with an enormous earthquake that collapsed many buildings in the city. They were able to contact Ais, who told them the gods tried to merge the black sphere and the white sphere, which probably caused the massive explosion. Ais also mentioned that they should not try to enter the dungeon as thousands of monsters were respawning everywhere...
Back on the 85th floor, the rocks have stopping dropping and the team was finished pouring elixir on each other. Thus Bell and Ais took a quick look at the damage above and below. They could see that a lot of the floors below were probably entirely destroyed and that the explosion opened up the cavern up the dungeon to at least 30 floors above them. Thus, they had an extremely quick path now up and down the dungeon. Finally, they could hear voices below as well as smaller explosions which were probably ongoing fighting. Realizing the most likely scenario is combat between divine beings, they decided that there was nothing they could do, so they headed up the dungeon before the next massive explosion happens. Flying up the cavern, they could see that the cavern now extended above the 50th floor, but decided to stop on the 50th floor since there could have less monsters.
Back in Orario, the familias suddenly felt a sudden rush of power. After some testing, their falna powers have returned.! Realizing that they can now help Bell and Ais, Finn led the charge down the dungeon. With thousands of respawning monsters, more help would be needed. While the Ganesha familia stayed at the dungeon entrance with Asterius, the Loki familia and the Freya familia charged down the dungeon. In the early floors, they were able to tear through the countless monsters but they feared for Bell and Ais who could be battling thousands of monsters including floor bosses, high level monsters and whatever the dungeon would be able to throw at them. One hour later, they were able to reach the 10th floor where they met the Xenos, who were also running away from the uncontrollable number of monsters.
On the 50th floor, a black goliath and several large dragons appeared, but Bell decided to fly up instead of engaging the monsters. Thus, they headed up the cavern again. They were just able to get to the 33rd floor where the hole in the floor was only 10 feet wide. From there, they would have to fight their way up the dungeon floors. While they were out of reach for most monsters due to flying, swarms of hornets and dragonflies were starting to appear. With Ariel and firebolt, they beat back the insects closest to them and continued to head up the dungeon floors using various vertical holes. Finally, they were able to reach the 18th floor. At that point, Bell said they had to stop the thousands of monsters from reaching the higher floors and even into Orario. Thus they decided to seal the entrance between the 18th and 19th floor. To buy time, Mikoto used Futsunomitama to block the passageway while crushing monsters inside the passage way. At the same time, Ais and Wiene fought off monsters while Bell focused on charging without limit. After 3 minutes, they unleashed a fully charged argonaut Ariel/firebolt on the passageway while Mikoto applied heavy gravity. That successfully collapsed part of the passage way. To ensure that even the most powerful monsters cannot get through, Bell started charging without limit again after resting for a few minutes and drinking 2 potions. After another 3 minutes, they unleashed another fully charged argonaut Ariel/firebolt on an uncollapsed portion of the passageway along with futsunomitama. That collapsed the rest of the passageway, but Bell was almost at mind zero. Ais immediately gave Bell more potions to help him recover, and that helped Bell a little bit. Having sealed the 18th floor from the floors below, they continued to head up the dungeon as monsters were still everywhere...
Meanwhile in the deep floors, the massive explosion completed destroyed floors 89 to 99 with an enormous mount of rock and dirt. Apparently Ahti and Vellamo took massive damage from the explosion and returned to heaven. However, there were more than 100 divine presences activated, and a fierce battle was ongoing with Thanatos and Enyo, who were also freed from the timeless dimension. With so much divine power against them, Thanatos was incapacitated and his magic stone was forcibly removed. That did not destroyed him but his power was drastically reduced. Enyo was more difficult to control but finally the gods were able to collectively sealed Enyo's powers, at least temporarily. The problem was what to do with them. With the magic stone removed, Thanatos was much less of a threat. However, Enyo was even more powerful. Furthermore, the timeless dimension was collapsed so there is no place to safely keep Enyo. It was decided that both Thanatos and Enyo needed to be brought back to heaven and be constantly held under seal by several gods who would rotate in the task. With that, it was decided that Zeus, Hera and Loki would return to heaven with a number of gods. The gods then disappeared and went their separate ways.
As she monitored the events from heaven, Hestia realized that she would have flatsy to play with in heaven...