Mysterious Swordsman of Betrayal

Chapter 3: Tartarus

Bell, Lili, and Welf stared at Percy, their minds reeling from his revelation. The tension in the room was palpable, but curiosity kept their weapons at bay.

"What do you mean you were there before the dungeon appeared?" Bell asked, his voice tinged with disbelief and curiosity.

Percy sighed, rubbing his temples as if recalling painful memories, "It's a long story, but I'll give you the short version. The gods you know now weren't always like this. Back in the day – my day – they could give about zero fucks about humans. To them, humans were irrelevant, beings they ruled over but were not obliged to look after. And some of these gods were the worst of the bunch. It did not matter which pantheon they were from."

The three looked at him in horror and surprise, wondering how he was able to say such... brutal things about the beings they cherished. They wondered about how much stuff he was saying was true.

"In the Greek Pantheon, I was the son of Poseidon and a mortal woman, Sally. Before you ask me, yes, they somehow managed to... do it and then he returned back to ocean while she had me. Being a demigod though, sucks majorly. You are literally fighting for your life every day as a demigod and the sad thing is that you can't win each time."

"What happens when you kill the monsters then?"

"Same thing that happens here. They return after some time. More often than not, some even remember you and look for you specifically," Percy lamented darkly, his gaze while focused on them seemed to be looking into the distance.

Bell asked curiously, "What happened then?"

"Well," Percy responded with a grim smile, "there were a few wars which repeated history and, at the end of one of them, an evil being with power far greater than anything anyone had dared to imagine fighting awoke. After Second Gigantomachy that I participated in where we stopped the rise of Gaia, Tartarus awoke from his slumber. His power was far too great, and the threat came too quickly to prepare so the Gods, Olympians, did what they naturally thought would work. They made a deal with Tartarus."

"What kind of deal?" Lili asked, her curiosity evident on her face as she listened to Percy intently.

"Tartarus wanted 7 of us that were the reason that Gaia was forced back to slumber but if the Olympians simply handed us over, they would lose most of their strength to stand against Tartarus so they proposed that they can hand one of the 7 as a hostage. Someone who would be imprisoned within Tartarus' domain and would be a peace treaty such that Tartarus would not start another war. Of course, Tartarus did not want to start another war either because his forces and power was significantly limited too and there was high chance that the other pantheons would step in if the balance was shifted in their pantheon. As such, he settled to take 1 of the heroes hostage and then declared that he would open his domain as a dungeon for the Olympians and other pantheons to clear. If they failed to show effort, the monsters would have a clear exit from his domain to enter the human realm - your realm. That was the origin of this dungeon."

There was silence after that as the three slowly digested the information Percy had told them. It was pretty much different than whatever little they had known, and the information itself could shake every familia and the way everyone treats the Gods.

"Who was the hero that was imprisoned?" Bell asked even though he had added up the response to it beforehand. Percy smiled sadly which was enough to confirm Bell's suspicions. No one would willingly stay in the dungeon like this.

Minutes passed before Percy shot to his feet and headed towards the door, "You should rest up if you still want to go to Floor 18. The doorway to that will not be open for long."