In Pursuit of Kronos' Scythe (Completed)

X - The Scythe That Keeps Missing - Part III

Princess Tharalea

Gold light blinded their eyes, followed by an explosion like someone was tearing the entire Underworld down. Leaves churned up in a torrent of fierce green, cutting Tharalea's limbs.

Tharalea's heart pounded like a war drum at the din. This is it. This is it. The prophecy said someone would fall in darkness. The prophecy mentioned each and every one of them should only travel five realms, and Hades' Realm was the sixth for her. She shouldn't fake heroism. She should just stay on the ground. Now, Kronos was killing her and she could never meet her parents again. She shut her eyes, not wanting to see how she was being crushed to powder.

The tips of the leaves were like blades, leaving marks on her skin, mocking her downfall. But the still bleeding wounds were nothing compared to the pain in her heart. The torment when she knew she was doomed but couldn't do anything to alter her fate. Then all of a sudden, an alienated feeling lurched in her stomach. She couldn't quite place words to describe it. She had gone through many portals and she knew the sensation. This was...

Her eyes flopped open on their own accord. Her body and her comrades' thinned into the air in a whiff of blackness, like what had happened to Koby. With a "whish" sound, the torrent of leaves churned up their boneless bodies. Tharalea's body, like a flappy rubber, plastered onto Rexon's, who was clutching to Dorinda's neck. Dorinda's excessively big lips fluttered in a way like someone was directing a mega fan at its face. The "whishing" sound grew intensive; Tharalea's head almost exploded, and she felt like she was being beaten in a cake mixer.

They sailed past a trail of golden dust, where she could hear the faint ticking of the clock out of the whipping din. Tharalea saw Cytherea and Koby's torturous faces grazing past her. She wanted to reach out for them but she couldn't. Her chest yelled in a sonorous protest as the air was extracted out of her about-to-combust lungs. 

Kronos' voice rang, "Nobody can ever threaten me. I can kill you with a flick of my fingers, but there's something in you that I admire. Now, go have fun and die the second time."

The Symphony was returned to the scene where they formed the prism protection against Thanatos. Tharalea and Piotr locked eyes. When the white spell reflected back to Tharalea, and Koby jumped in front of her to shield her, Piotr activated Hercules to knock Tharalea and Koby away. The time had been reversed, and they had saved an innocent soul. But still, they failed to stop Cytherea from being taken away by Thanatos.

Without preamble, they ran after the God of Death. Thanatos cast a sinister smirk at them before disappearing through a wall of onyx stone. They grabbed the wall, searching for any lever that could open it but failed. Hungry growls came from behind them. They turned around and saw monstrous wolves snapping their fangs at them. 

Tharalea cast fireballs to scare some of them away. Piotr retrieved his sword. Rexon seemed to have forgotten how to use a blade and resorted to wrestling the animals. Their pets lunged from wolves to wolves. Then, a gargantuan creature of darkness, a spider that was bigger than a truck scuttled towards them, its pincers clicking. The spider seemed to have hundreds of pairs of eyes on its body, and when they blinked, they dazzled The Symphony.

The quest seekers panicked and ran away, and somehow they got separated. Tharalea merely heard Piotr's voice being muffled, as if he was sucked into acoustical foam designed to trap sound, but she could see nothing, except a spread of pasture. Then there came a splashing sound and Tharalea ran towards the waterfall in front of her, but when she reached there, she saw nothing, except Rexon's bracelet. She felt helpless all of a sudden. She screamed and tried to locate her lost friends and pets, but another sound answered her.