Meanwhile at a certain location on a certain mountain range an eerie red glow shone from a magical ritual being held over the seal of the Hundred hands giant. All around the ritual space the emaciated forms of men, women and children kneeled as chains of red energy held them down and slowly drew out their vitality and souls.
"Yes! The seal is on the verge of collapse! Time to retreat before the beast is free and decides to treat me like a snack after this long nap." The crazed god in charge of the ritual exclaimed in cruel joy as he and he alone left the still active ritual in a hurry.
Those that were with him originally were long since dead as sacrifices to power the ritual initially. Mere hours after he fled the area the seal holding the ancient calamity finally broke as the ritual drained the last vestige of energy from the bodies of those powering it. The earth shook for hundreds of miles as the mountain site of the ritual cracked apart as the monster within broke free. Standing at seventy meters tall a bronze skinned form arose from the shattered remains of the mountain. -
It almost passed for humanoid as it had two thick muscular legs holding up it's torso and singular head. What set it far apart from the humanoid form however was the vast amount of seemingly boneless arms writhing angrily from all over it's chest that ended in five fingered almost human looking hands. It's arms were a strange nightmarish combination of an octopuses tentacles and human hands but numbering much more than a mere eight. The head was a bald angular humanoid one with two blazing red eyes and a massive blunt toothed mouth that roared in fury and triumph loudly enough to be heard hundreds of miles away.-
In the great desert things were not going to plan for Thanatos however.
'Damnit all! How did they get so well equipped so suddenly!? The Artemis familia was supposed to be an easy target to fuel Antares but instead they have killed all of my present familia and have me on the run!' The death god thought terribly confused and angry at the way his planned ambush backfired.
To the death gods credit had his information on the Artemis familia not been outdated his initial plan of ambushing the Artemis familia and then using Artemis herself to power Antares would have succeeded.-
The simple disparity in numbers with the Artemis familia now being well equipped rendered his ambush a failure as besides killing a few of the Artemis familia his lacking numbers fell instead. Even now the death god himself only barely avoided capture or being sent back to the divine realm because of his nature as a death god warning him instinctually to flee the moment things failed to add up. Like his domain Thanatos was innately one of the swiftest gods alive and only this allowed him to barely avoid the huntress goddess wrathfully nipping at his heels.-
Even though the ambush failed some of her familia were slain and Artemis wanted retribution. Additionally she hoped to erase Evilus once and for all through the interrogation of Thanatos. Tracking him was easy at first since they were in a desert but when the sandstorm erupted seemingly out of nowhere that changed. Thanks to this act of nature the death god escaped to repair his foiled plan. The dead were cremated as was Artemis's custom for her familia in the wild and things returned to normal for them.-
In the Hestia manor of Orario things were somber as Alex's disappearance weighed heavy upon the goddess there. It had been nearly a week already since the death of the Knuckelavee and not a single sighting of Alex had been heard. Were it not for his connection to her through the falna she would have assumed the worse. No rescue party was dispatched because there were no leads to follow and many eyes were set on the familia greedily with it's biggest threat gone. None dared make a move however as the small familia was being openly protected by several big names. -
Freya, Hephaestus, Ouranos, Ptah, Ogun and Ganesha all made their support for the Hestia familia clear along with the implied threat to any who tried to take advantage of them during this time. There was jealousy and even outrage at the unfair treatment the Hestia familia was receiving but those familias close to the top kept their mouths shut as they knew what was going on. This was the power of connections at work, politics simply. Perhaps if Alex remained gone for too long things would change but by then the entire reason so many eyes were on the familia would be gone.-
Right now it was a simple case of too much wealth and not enough power but everyone knew that there was another monster in the familia who would rise if given enough time. Some considered striking Bell down in the dungeon but were left frustrated as the white haired boy remained in his familia's manor. He had no reason to leave as they had plenty of wealth and Ottar regular trained him while waiting for Alex to return. Ironically it was Ottar himself who was most relaxed during this time as he had complete faith in Alex and simply knowing he still lived was enough for him.-
Few understood just how durable Alex truly was but Ottar was one of them. So long as he wasn't dead Ottar was confident that Alex would return better than ever. As for Alex himself he lay in a coma as his soul slowly grew and changed under the hyper dense smoke that he had absorbed from the Knuckelavee. The "liquid" within his body was like a vast lake that was slowly draining as his soul consumed it.