Chapter 49: Trials of Misery

{Unknown Place, Unknown Time}

I sluggishly opened my eyes something I normally wasn't obligated to do because of my blindness and my dark sight which worked even in my sleep, but somehow someway my vision power had been taken away from me and I was back to being completely blind when I shut my eyes.

As soon as I opened my eyes a gasp escaped my mouth as I saw I could see, like actually see colors and all, yet what I had first laid my eyes upon wasn't something I would have wanted to be my first time actually seeing, the brown ground shifted and moved like waves.

I looked around me and before I could gather my thoughts, a dozen earth made spikes, shot from the ground and pierced me at different intervals my blood splattering onto the spikes and ground, slowly I lost consciousness and only a singular thought escaped my mind 'Huh so this is how I die.'

My eyes opened once more a splitting headache appearing in my head. "Wait what?!" I questioned to myself as I saw myself once more in the same shanking ground.

The ground shook, and from it emerged creatures of soil and stone, their maws gaping, their eyes hollow pits of darkness. I saw them approach and thought of summoning my spear but it didn't work, I thought of darkness and shadows yet I also couldn't feel them

As I was about to start just throwing hands instead of what I usually did, The monsters descended upon me, tearing flesh from bone, I felt each bite, each earth made tooth sinking into my tendons, my very cells screaming in agony.

The monsters feasted upon me as I once again succumbed to the void.

Yet, death was not the end. I was reborn, again and again, each time meeting a new, gruesome fate.

The ground liquified as if it were quicksand I tried fighting the pull of the earth, put as I put in more effort the earth itself pressured my legs and I could feel as they burst the quicksand stained blood red but soon the blood also sank.

I was up to my neck in the liquified earth, and moments after the earth flowed into my throat clogging it. I coughed what little earth I could and swallowed the rest, feeling the minerals on every taste bud.

I closed my mouth soon after, but the earth just flowed into my nostrils. It suffocated me more and more, the earth entered my ears and all I could hear was the rustling of the earth as I slowly drowned in it.

As more and more earth flowed into my nostrils and suffocated me, my body instinctively opened its mouth trying to gasp for air, but that just led into more earth entering my already dying body.

The cycle was relentless. Each death was followed by a return to this hellish landscape. The ground beneath me split open, revealing a gaping chasm.

I tried to leap to safety, but I was too slow. The jagged edges of the chasm tore into me, ripping me apart as I fell, feeling every excruciating moment until I hit the bottom, feeling as my skull cracked in the first millisecond and my head burst drowning the chasm in blood and brain remains.

Still as always I found myself back in the same place I was in before, the same moving ground as a dull sigh escaped my lips. Without warning walls of dirt rose around me, closing in breaking my bones, chest cavity, my capillaries and veins exploding under the pressure.

The walls continued on closing until I was nothing but a smear on their implacable surface. I was eaten, crushed, drowned, each death worse, slower and more excruciating than the last and each time I thought it was over, I was forced to endure it all over again.

But as the cycle continued, a numbness spread through my mind, the slight amount of tears that had first escaped my tear ducts soon dried up as I no longer felt even the worst of tortures and deaths.

The terror of death gave way to a dull acceptance. I no longer fought against the inevitable. Only one thought continued growing through my mind almost as if robotically repeating itself 'I wonder when this is gonna end.'

Akhlys demon of misery POV

I rested my knees, sitting in front of my half-brother my newest prey as I grabbed one of his tears with my nail and drank it, "Delicious." I couldn't help but exclaim truly misery from a demiprimordial was exquisite.

But little by little I felt how the boy's misery kept on decreasing at an exponential rate and soon I couldn't feast on any more of the boy's misery. "Well that was short lived but still it was worth it even though it was short."

"I guess we should move onto the second trial now this is where the real fun begins, time to taste the boy's true misery." I said to myself as my face became ecstatic at the thought of his misery.

I started manipulating the Mist around us so much so that the normally invisible Mist formed a layer around us, I then manipulated the Mist into the boy's orifices from his pores, nostrils, ears anyplace the Mist could get into it did. I then directed the Mist towards the boy's brain and then the fun began.

Odysseus POV

I had just been killed by a swarm of earth like bugs that had eaten me from the inside out as I suffocated on the sheer amount of them as suddenly I regained consciousness and found myself in a very familiar place, Camp Half-Blood.

'What the hell is going on now.' I thought to myself when a very familiar voice reached my ears, "Hey Ozzy what are you doing just standing there?" I turned around and three tears escaped my eyes as I saw who was in front of me.

Thalia her black short hair, blue electric like eyes that seemed to hold untold power, and her clothes fitting her punk style which she usually, but there was something different about her she looked to be around 14 years old the age she should have been if she hadn't turned into a tree.

"Why are you crying?" Thalia approached me a considerate look on her face her fingers gracing my face as she wiped away my tears. I remained silent as I almost instinctively hugged her, "No reason just happy to see you." I whispered into her ear my tears still falling at the same pace.

"O-ozzy what are you d-doing?" She asked nervously, "Just let me stay like this a little longer." I whispered back. "Ok Ozzy." She muttered as she embraced me as well.

[Greek Mythos Fact: The younger cyclops were a tribe of primitive, one-eyed giants who dwelt in caves and herded flocks of sheep on the island of Hypereia (which was later identified by the Greeks with Sicily).The Hypereian Cyclops were closely related to the Gigantes and Phaiakians both of which were born from the blood of the castrated Ouranos spilt upon the earth.The first of these giants, in both strength and stature, was Polyphemos. Unlike the rest of the tribe he was a son of the god Poseidon.The three elder Cyclopes were a different breed altogether. These ancient beings fought with Zeus in the Titan-War and forged the weapons of the gods. Nevertheless they were also sometimes located on the island of Sicily.]

*Author Note: I started a patreon called Joanjudo Stories it will end up having 10 chapters in advance, access to the secondary fanfic (will write in spare time) and polls to decide some of the future plots/characters.*