Apollo steadily walked the halls of Poseidon's castle, stifling the sickening smell of fish that assaulted his nostrils. He had thought spending a day within this place would some make him used to the smell, but he was mistaken. The smell of the place alone was enough for him to consider going back to Olympus. However, he dashed such an idea aside. Any place with Hephaestus was no place for him. It was the his negligence that caused the death of his beloved, and Apollo won't be settled foot in Olympus until Hephaestus is dethrone or dead, which ever comes first. 

Arriving at his destination, he turned and entered the room. The lack of doors was definitely unusual, but it hardly mattered. Entering the room he was greeted by the sight of both Poseidon and Hermes who seemed to be drinking something that he wasn't familiar with, he figured the alcohol here would differ from the one found in Olympus.

"So you finally decided to stop wallowing and join us, nephew"

Poseidon exclaimed, and Apollo found himself rolling his eyes at his uncle's remark. He couldn't help but notice the resemblance Poseidon had with Zeus, it. Was minuscule, but it was there.

"I wasn't wallowing I was…."

He took a seat while struggling to come up with an excuse, the death of Daphne was something that affected him greatly even now he could feel the phantom touch of her hair in his hand and a picture of her smiling face was burnt in his memories. So it was difficult denying the fact that he was indeed wallowing in sadness and lamenting her loss.

"He was just remembering his lost love. There's no need to be insensitive. Poseidon, after all we're all family here"

Hermes finished causing Poseidon to let out a humph and let the issue pass, Apollo couldn't help but find it strange that Hermes was suddenly all about being a family, perhaps it was a fragile sentiment that helped him cope with the temporary death of Zeus, everybody knows that Hermes would Suck Zeus' dick if he ever asked.

"Moving on, Poseidon, did you acquire any help from Erebus?"

Hermes moved the conversation forward, he needed Hephaestus off the throne of Olympus by either force or by war he didn't care about who took it because Zeus would reclaim it later but Hephaestus needed to go by all means, as such it was imperative that there was no bad blood among his allies, he Managed to convince Apollo that everything was Hephaestus's faulted and he can't have Poseidon pricking and poking at Apollo's fragile mind.

"No, apparently, Nyx is already at Olympus as we speak, so I imagine an alliance between Erebus and Olympus is already forming."

"What about the enforcers? Did you manage to speak to them?"

"No, Kratos is nowhere to be seen, Nike and Bia followed Nyx to Olympus, and Zelus is not going to be any help"

He informed, and Hermes displayed a faint look of disappointment. With the enforcers, they would have good enough power to challenge, but it seemed that his speculation that they might hate Hephaestus was wrong

"what do you mean Zelus won't be any help"

"I don't know the whole story but apparently he is stricken with grief and absolutely refuses to talk to anyone, you'd think he'd want to help get rid of the person that killed Zeus, but he didn't even spare me a glance when I mentioned that"

"then we'll have to go with the plan B"

Hermes stated that if they can't get any help from Erebus, then they'll have to turn the Citizens of Olympus against Hephaestus 

"Why not challenge Hephaestus to a duel if you want him off the throne? It would be much easier, and I'm certain most of the gods in Olympus don't care about who the king"

Apollo offered his thoughts and spurred the other two to look at him. Strangely, it was true. Taking the throne by simply challenging Hephaestus to a duel would certainly be much easier and less complicated.

"that is true. However, the problem with that is that the law has been revised"

"what do you mean"

"basically you cannot challenge a new God king for the throne for a minimum of 5 years, this is to ensure that the role of king of Olympus doesn't switch to different peoples too many times as that would effect the stability of Olympus"

Hermes explained, While Hephaestus didn't particularly mind a good fight, he can't really enjoy his life if his brothers constantly challenge him to a duel for the right of being king so he quickly had that law revised and now Hermes had to wait 5 years before he could do anything. This was also one of the reasons he got impatient and attacked Hephaestus and lost his eye.

"And everyone agreed to this?"

"enough people did, and it didn't matter who was opposed to the idea afterwards"

"that seems a bit unfair"

"this is why we need the citizens against him because at least then he'll be forced to accept a duel even if the 5 years isn't over yet"

There was certainly no law that said a king had to listen to its citizens but Hermes had figured that at the very least if the citizens forced the issue of Hephaestus being dethroned Hephaestus would have to accept a duel eventually even if he didn't have to.

"So Hephaestus basically guaranteed himself the throne for 5 years? That is definitely unfair"

The 5 years basically meant nobody was allowed to complain about his rule for 5 years, and they have time to sit there and endure it. It seemed that Hephaestus was turning into quite the tyrant.

"Yes that's what's we're placing our hopes in"

As the three Gods were in the midst of their planning, they were suddenly interrupted by the sounds of screaming, which immediately alerted them that something wrong however before they could take any action the entire building violently shook and various appliances fell to the floor with Hermes getting thrown off his chair.

"We're under attack!!"

"By who?!"

Both Apollo and Hermes Exclaimed however despite this being his house that was in danger, Poseidon had remained calm and instead he used his control over water, the water swirled around the top of his hand and formed the shape of a ball which then displayed what was happening outside.

"what the hell it that?!!"

Hermes once again exclaimed followed by another violent shake of the building, what the ball had displayed was a giant creature with a large body, its legs were tentacles and the torso was humanoid with the hair seemingly made of eels that crackled with electricity.

"I don't know, but whatever it is needs to be dealt with, swiftly."

..... 

[Unknown place]

Chronos, the physical embodiment of time and the being that controls every aspect of it, to him time was a tool that was meant for him to use and manipulate in any way he wants however despite having such free reign over a significant aspect of the universe he limited himself, in fact he hardly every utilized the tool he called time to do anything major.

"Hmm I wonder what I should watch today?"

He asked himself as he sat on a strangely mundane chair, one would think that a being like Chronos would construct a throne for himself, one that accurately displayed his stature as a primordial being, but they would be wrong, such things meant to display his large ego were useless to him and instead he placed comfort over anything else. The space he occupied was empty with nothing but himself and a chair. The only other thing that was there was a large floating rectangular box seemingly made from particles of light.

As stated before Chronos hardly used his power over time for anything major, he had long stopped peering into the future or rather he had stopped looking into to the immediate future and instead looked into a future thousands of years from now and a point in time where Gods are mostly forgotten and humans have advanced greatly, although he found it odd that there a existed foreign gods that currently don't exist now but he decided to ignore that after all he will find out when he finds out. 

Humans had built various buildings structures in that would be impossible without the use of magic but they still about to build them anyway, that was quite fascinating to him as such his current favourite things to observe was how such structures were built and created.

Having sat down the rectangular box of light particles began to glow and revealed the scenery of how structure known as the statue of liberty was built, unfortunately for Chronos his watch time was immediately interrupted by a red haired visitor who came in uninvited, with a frown oh his face he turned to look at the guest.

"Hephaestus how did you arrive here?"

He asked with a mixture of curiosity and displeasure. He hadn't anticipated that the current god king would be able to reach this place.

"nice place, It could use some furniture, but the minimalist nature of it all is kind of nice"

Hephaestus chose not to outright answer the question, and Chronos decided to let him take in the sites before proceeding with the conversation any further, he could tell that Hephaestus came with no malicious intent, however he could also tell he came here to ask him two things, one of which he won't tell him.

"you finished"

"Yes Sorry if I was rude"

"It doesn't Matter, how did you find this place?" 

He asked again, this was a dimension he had made sure would be impossible to find, only people like Gaia and Nyx would know of it's existence but even they would be hard pressed to find it.

"Well I thought you lived in Erebus, but Nyx denied you staying there, so if you were not staying in Erebus, I simply figured that the personification of time would exist on a different plane than most"

[NOTICE: Singularity skill achieved]

Hephaestus smiled, The Hogyoku had nearly finished the job he had assigned it, it has turned out to be quite difficult masking oneself from the all seeing eyes of time, as an individual that exists within space which was a realm intricately intertwined with Time it was basically impossible to become invisible to time itself so he had to accomplish a few conditions to even get close to such a goal.

"Smart, I suppose you're the first to arrive here" 

He complimented, although he figured that if Hephaestus could arrive here then that meant others could as well m, he would have to find a way to better conceal this dimension of his, people might end up in places they don't know exist by trying to here and Gaia won't like that.

"what is this place, a dimension within a dimension?"

"close but not quite"

"a dimension between dimensions then?"

Chronos did not answer and simply gaze him a questioning gaze, almost as if asking him what he came here for. It was best not to give Hephaestus any ideas of where this place might be. Hephaestus let out a sigh, Chronos not answering was all the answer he needed for him to deduce where he was currently located.

"fine, I wanted to ask two things, the first being, would you be willing to give me the oracle?"

He asked sincerely, it was important that he has the oracle as he cannot make EA without it, obtaining a piece of the root of existence proved that it will be more challenging than he had thought, not unless he was willing to let out some of the titans in Tartarus and he'd rather not put the world in danger by doing that.

"explain what you mean by give, I can lend it to you temporarily."

"I mean, give it to be me permanently and designate me as it's owner"

"now why would I go and do that?"

He asked obviously being coy about the whole thing, he cannot allow Hephaestus to create a weapon capable of destroying worlds not unless there's a something that will ensure that He won't just use it for absolutely no reason and complete unprovoked.

"I know you know what I'm trying to do and don't you think it would be better to have such a weapon at our disposal I just in case there's a threat that needs to be erased?"

"I suppose that's true, but who would have a right go wield such a weapon, you?"

"of course, who else?"

For the most part Chronos didn't doubt that Hephaestus was not evil and did not seem like the type to do things without any justifiable reason however he was careless, hardly considers possible consequences of things he does, in an effort to kill Zeus he ended up killing innocent people and destroying the lively hood of many others and did nothing to compensate them, Olympia was experiencing prosperity not because they were blessed but because of the ambient mana left behind by Hephaestus' attack.

While he may not want the extinction of humanity and would like the keep the world safe he does not consider the lives of humans to be all that important after all it has Already been a year yet he has not once felt bad for what he did in Olympia, in a sense he was just like all the other gods.

"I'm afraid I can not do that"

With all that considered, Chronos denied, as primordial he is more concerned with the continuation of the world, it does not necessarily matter if Hephaestus is evil or not what Matte is if he is responsible enough not to destroy the world and judging by his past actions it was clear he was not. 

"why not? You can see the future I'm sure you know I won't use it unless necessary"

"the fact I'm giving you the oracle has nothing to do with whether or not you'll use the weapon. Come back to me when you figured out why I refused to give it to you."

Hephaestus felt a strange feeling of being scolded, like he was talking to his father or something similar. It was definitely weird. Putting that aside, Hephaestus then used his mystic eyes on Chronos and found the same thing that he saw on Nyx. His lines of death were connected to various things as well. Hephaestus figured this must be because both Nyx and Chronos were Primordials, meaning that their existence was tied to a myriad of things, and killing them meant killing an aspect of the world.

"now what was your second question?"

Chronos asked, shifting the conversation to something else. He wanted Hephaestus to be out of his realm quickly as he was delaying his watch time.

"I wanted you to help me find a black mass. It's like a mist but dark. It's incredibly dangerous." 

Hephaestus stated that since he couldn't find the thing using his mirrors, then he figured that Chronos could possibly know about it's whereabouts or at the very least know where it would be.

"I'm afraid the time for the existence of a black mass has run out"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, the black mass that you speak off doesn't exist anymore"

"is it dead?"

"no"

"could you not be cryptic please, lives are in danger here"

Hephaestus demanded, he failed to understand why Chronos was suddenly being obtuse about something important, he was sure he knew the dangers that thing posed, and that many lives were already lost, incidentally before coming he had asked for Hades to go back to the underworld and check if the was an influx of souls.

"I didn't know you cared"

"Of course I care, I'm the god king"

Hearing his answer Chronos wanted to retort about the incident that happened at Olympia but decided against it, Hephaestus seemed to somehow think his attack to kill Zeus's hadn't harmed anyone either that and that he wasn't being a hypocrite right now, was he trying to save the humans or was he trying to get rid of something that might be a threat to the gods?

"I see. Well, I have already answers you're question it up to you to figure out what it means, bye"

Chronos then forcibly teleported Hephaestus out of his realm. It was actually teleportation, but rather, he accelerated time so that he would leave faster. 

...

[OCEAN]

The area of the ocean over where Poseidon's kingdom was located usually had had calm weather and gentle waves, this was in part thanks to Poseidon himself who ensured to keep the weather nice and clear, bad weather usually effects the ocean and creates currents that can drag sea creatures away from their home, this was an occurrence with sea nymph children who wanted to play close to the surface as such he always made the weather clear to prevent children from getting lost, unfortunately today was different, a storm raged and the clouds thundered loudly, lightning flashed in the sky and great winds blew across the ocean and whirlpools swirled entrapping any innocent sea creature in its infinite tornado.

Beneath the very ocean beings of great power were locked in deadly combat, Poseidon, Hermes and Apollo were dealing with a creatures that seemed impossible to defeat as neither of them could deal it a fatal blow, not to mention the creature somehow could split itself into parts so that it could battle them all at the same time.

Poseidon thrusts his Triton at the creature's stomach piercing right through and pushed it down into the ocean floor, griping his Triton tightly the weapon responded as sparks of electricity surged and crackled before they intensified and in a flash of bright blue light Poseidon electrocuted the beast but it was unfazed and received no damage, the creature used its tentacles to grab him tightly almost as if trying to crushing him before it threw him far from itself.

With a roar that shook the very ocean itself, The creature opened its mouth wide as a beam of golden light charged, Poseidon wasted no time and quickly rushed at it and tried to disrupt the attack however he a bit slow and he could only manage to be close in to the creatures range and suffer the brunt of the attack. The golden light burned and evaporated the surrounding water, creating a hole that extended straight from the sea floor to the surface, and Poseidon was nowhere to be seen.

"Damn it"

Hermes Exclaimed as he also struggled with fending of his own battle partner, for him and Apollo it was a bad match up because they were in the territory of another god because of this they could not exorcize their full strength and the creatures seemed clever enough to keep them in the ocean while it dealt with Poseidon or perhaps it also had a home field advantage so it can't let it's pray escape. While the creature was fighting Poseidon, it kept its giant size, and only its offshoots were a smaller size about the height of a house, a clear sign of who it considered to be a threat

"Get.. off me"

Hermes tussled and wrestled with the beast and tried to get rid of it as best it could but that was impossible the creature had clung to him tightly and its tentacles were strong, as result it was tiring trying to pry them off because of this no matter what he tried he could not get away from its grip. His strength as a God was useless and his speed as messenger god was also useless, he glanced over at Apollo and saw that the young god was defeated, his body was laid on the ocean floor limp and near death and the creature was on top of him pinning him down almost as if eating him.

Unbeknownst to Hermes, it was not that he could not get out of the creatures grip nor was it that his strength was useless but it was because the creature possessed the ability to siphon his power and strength for itself but the process was near undetectable so it seemed that the creature was stronger however For Apollo on the other hand the Siphoning was faster because it was already familiar with his power. Hence, the moment it touched him, it was already over.

"I need to get him out of here, I can't have him die,"

Hermes spoke and used the last of his remaining strength to struggle even harder and tried to pry the creatures tentacles off him. Although he was quite surprised that Apollo fell first. Well, he supposed the sun was weaker in water, so it made sense that he was significantly weakened compared to him.

The creatures grip suddenly loosened, he would have be surprised but he ignored that and quickly moved, he was nowhere near as fast as he would like but fast enough to reach Apollo in mere seconds before grabbing and pulling the creature off him which for some reason offered little resistance, tossing the thing aside he grabbed Apollo and prepared to toss him out of the water, he looked up and saw… 

Poseidon found himself having been flung straight out of the water and was now falling down towards it, one side of his body had severe burns that had burnt off his skin and left only a layer of muscle but the wound was slowly healing and repairing. Looking below him, he saw that creature was ready to welcome him with its Maw open wide and waiting for him to fall into its mouth.

"Humph foolish creature"

He exclaimed, unamused by the beast's inability to comprehend that he could fly, Poseidon halted his falling and positioned himself upright before extending his hand, the water surrounding the beast swirled around it and began to cling to its body and with a Flick of his wrist a giant ball of water covered the beast's entire body, it tried to struggle but it was futile, the ball floated up in the air and with another wrist flick from Poseidon, the ball of water lowered in temperature and slowly become a ball of ice, Poseidon used his divinity to harden it and made it more difficult for the creature to escape before he whipped his arm to the side tossing the ball away from his ocean.

"Wherever it lands, it's their problem now."

With a tired sigh he descend into the water, it was fortunate that his kingdom hadn't suffered too much damage and he was able to respond quickly when the creature appeared, he did not particularly care where the thing landed as long as his home was safe.

Before he could enter the water Hermes flew out with Apollo who seemed to be a bit sluggish, the two sprung out the water followed by the two Offshoots of the creature, Hermes flew high and quickly spun around and tossed Apollo into the sky before turning back to face the Offshoots.

"you didn't kill them?"

"they're tougher than I anticipated"

"No, you're just weak."

Poseidon stated before trying to do the same thing he did before, but unfortunately, he did not get the chance as a beam of golden bright light rained down from the sky striking the two abominations.

"fucking Spawns of Tartarus, die!!"

Apollo let out a shout in great anger as the power of the sun flowed within him and the bright beam burned the creatures in to nothing but dust and boiled the ocean creating a cover of steam.

"where's the other one?! Where is it?!!"

"Calm down Poseidon took care of it, right now you'll have to go warn Hephaestus about this" 

"why would I do that"

"because we may want Hephaestus off the throne but we don't want this to escalate into a problem we can't handle, not to mention that creature is strong, this is an opportunity to have it kill Hephaestus, an alternative to the plan, even if it doesn't kill him it will tire him out then you can exact your revenge on him when his guard is down."

Hermes explained and Apollo agreed or at least seemed to as he nodded to the words Hermes spoke. Hermes could not set foot in Olympus right now and Poseidon needs to check if there was any damage to his kingdom during his clash with the creature thus only leaves Apollo as the viable option.

"fine."

Apollo did not protest to the idea.