Chapter 66 - The Return
After the gods departed from the deep floors of the dungeon, the violent earthquakes gradually reduced and then stopped. In heaven, Zeus, Hera, Loki and a number of gods returned with the sealed Thanatos and Enyo.
In Orario, as the earthquakes reduced and ceased, the citizens started to pick up the pieces while the Ganesha familia and the Xenos continued to guard the dungeon entrance. To their great joy, Gros and Lyd were materialized in front of them, though medical attention was still required.
The Loki familia and the Freya familia continued to charge down the dungeon worried about the thousands of monsters that could be surrounding Bell and Ais. While the monsters were primarily low level, the act of destroying the many thousands of monsters were exhausting for the fighters.
On the 18th floor, Bell, Ais, Wiene and Mikoto started heading up the dungeon again after having sealed the 18th floor from below. Before they could leave, another black goliath appeared. However, they did not stay to fight, deciding that it was better to get closer to the surface and worry about the monsters later. Even though it was the early floors, there were thousands of monsters every where and still difficult for them to avoid everything. Nevertheless, they were able to get to the 13th floor before running into their friends from the Loki and Freya familas. Seeing that their friends have regained their powers and the earthquakes have stopped, they were quite sure that the gods have returned and probably were victorious over the enemy. They quickly called Hestia to confirm the situation, but Hestia was only able to only to talk for 30 seconds. While she was able to confirm that the gods were back and Enyo was defeated, she was struggling in a cat fight with Loki pulling each other's hair out...
Realizing that their god rescue mission was successful, the adventurers must now handle the thousands or tens of thousands of monsters that spawned as the dungeon's revenge for the divine invasion into its depths. Since the passageway between the 18th and 19th floors was sealed, they would first concentrate on the spawned monsters in the top 18 levels. With Bell still drained of energy, Ais returned him to the surface with an escort from Wiene. At the same time, the Loki familia and the Freya familia focused on cleaning out the huge hordes of monsters. Fortunately most of the monsters were lower level, but there were still hundreds of minotaurs to be taken care of...
The next morning, Bell woke up in his bed and Ais brought him breakfast in their room. However, Bell said he was too weak so Ais had to give him a reward and feed him by hand. Ais quickly told him that the Loki familia and Freya familia spent 5 hours destroying several thousand monsters. So everyone was exhausted and resting up. With that information, Bell was instantly healed and got up, much to Ais' surprise...
With Bell recovered from his near-mind-zero, they went over to the Loki home. While visiting with their friends, Freya showed up to make a few announcements. First they were told that Zeus, Hera and Loki led a contingent of gods back to heaven to continuously seal and watch over Thanatos and Enyo, who were considered incredibly dangerous. Second, while Loki would be staying in heaven with her assignment, the Loki familia would be allowed to continue. Third, updates for both the Hestia familia and the Loki familia would happen on the moon, and familia members are allowed to spend 1 day per month with their goddess. Bell would get an extra day per the prior arrangement. Finally, Freya told them that all the baby virga and violas were apparently destroyed by the explosion, but they did see that there may have been an entrance to an area below the 99th floor. However, there was no longer an easy way to investigate as the entrance was covered up by a pile of rubble several floors high.
The meeting would take place on the moon in 2 days to go over details, and both Hestia and Loki would also be there...