Alex went to sleep peacefully and the entire house was completely silent.

Until it wasn't.

*Creak* *Creak*

'What's that sound?' The unusual noise disturbed the sleeping Alex and he sluggishly moved about, trying to fall back asleep.

The sound was, however, too loud and he couldn't go back to sleep.

Alex stood up and looked around.

The noise came from upstairs and it sounded like an open window was creaking.

He decided to go check if it was the case and silently climbed up the stairs.

When he was on the second floor, he examined the surroundings. There was only a short corridor with windows on both sides.

One of the windows was, in fact, open and Alex approached it to shut it close.

The second he moved, however, his eyes widened.

A silhouette was near the window, and its body was almost completely translucent, and if not for his eyesight, he would have never discerned its existence.

The 'creature' had the face of a human woman, the body of a cow, the sharp talons of an eagle, and the wings of a cicada, albeit supersized.

It was a monstrous chimera of various creatures and its red eyes were the only distinctly visible part of it.

When the monster perceived him, its face formed a sly smile.

Yet, as soon as it saw him looking directly at it, that smile disappeared and it bolted at him.

Its talons aimed for his heart, but Alex wasn't slow either, and he successfully dodged using Hermes' Incarnation.

The monster knew it was going to meet its end if it remained here and instantly flew out of the window.

'You disturbed my sleep, you triggered my fear receptors, and now you want to escape? No way.' Alex declared that he was going to show the monster the prowess of the god of humanity.

He unfolded his own wings and flew out of the window, and looked around.

The creature realized that due to the distance, he wouldn't be able to detect it anymore.

What it didn't know, was that Alex didn't need his eyesight to find its location.

He simply used his Faith Energy and cast Link in a straight line in the sky, and...

*Screech*

The connection was interrupted and Alex bolted in the direction of the monster.

Perhaps due to its incorporeality, the monster was very slightly faster than Alex and led him out of the city.

Alex flew at full speed.

Suddenly, the monster entered an empty well in the wilderness.

'You're not escaping!' Alex folded his wings to fit in the well and navigated into the dark depths.

Strangely, as he went deeper and deeper, he saw a bright light at the end of the well.

He also started hearing a lot of noise, so he slowed down and silently held onto the well.

Alex peeked into the ending and a sense of dread enveloped him.

This place had the smell of blood and rotten food and a really uncomfortable aura spread around.

What surprised Alex the most, however, was the sight.

There was a spacious cave, and red candles brightly illuminated it. There were many people in the cave.

'Those are not people....' Alex thought. They all looked in some way similar to the monster from earlier.

In the center of this crowd of demons, a human man stood.

He had a humanoid appearance, except that he had a third eye on his forehead.

The eye was actually a ruby embedded into his forehead, and it shined eerily. The strange man was holding a dusty book in his hand and seemed to be reciting an incantation.

"Goddess Agas requests five hearts of elderly men and ten fetuses to allow us to see her divine image again." The man spoke unusual and disturbing words.

'Five hearts? Ten fetuses?' Alex felt chills creeping up his body.

Suddenly, fourteen monsters advanced towards the man and each of them spit out a bloody-looking...thing.

Alex couldn't bring himself to see.

Then, the monster from earlier advanced towards the man and screeched.

The man frowned and said, "A winged and strong human man has followed you here? That is why you haven't brought any offerings?"

When he spoke those words, all of the monsters turned their 'heads' towards the well.

Alex, who was sneaking and shouldn't have normally been seen, spoke, "Uh oh."

"Servants of Goddess Agas, eliminate the intruder!"

All of the monsters somehow had wings and they all flew in his direction.

Alex instantly burst out of the well and concentrated all of his Faith Energy towards speed.

He flew until he reached a place with cloud cover and hid inside of the clouds.

Strangely, Alex felt like he saw a red eye floating next to him.

Even more strange, the monsters that shouldn't be aware of his location were getting closer and closer.

Alex immediately moved to another faraway spot.

Once again, the red eye appeared, and the monsters somehow found his location.

This continued.

Every time the red eye appeared, Alex had to change his hiding spot.

Eventually, he got fed up with hiding and instead swiftly landed on the ground. He didn't have the Spear of Victory with him, but he Incarnated into Athena and got ready to battle some monsters.

His golden armor glowed under the moonlight, and when the red eye appeared again, he didn't move an inch.

The monsters got closer and closer until they all surrounded him.

'Precognition is useless with such a large number of opponents...' Alex concluded as he completely turned it off.

A monster then charged at him, but he easily parried and threw it far away. This kept on happening and Alex realized he simply couldn't get on the offensive.

Athena's power against a single or few opponents was incredible, but it didn't work that well in here.

Therefore, he incarnated into a god he's never used.

Alex's eyes turned a blood-red and his hair a pitch-black color. He got taller and Athen's golden armor instead turned into heavy armor.

As he slowly started to resemble Ares, a strange blood-thirst filled him when he saw the large group of monsters. Alex licked his lips and exclaimed, "Bring it on, fiends!"

There were hundreds of monsters, but every time one attacked him, he simply severed its head or a limb or two, and the monster corpses piled up around him.

It didn't take long for the night to return to silence, as the only signs of battle were the numerous corpses on the ground.

As Alex felt satiated, he heard the sound of applause.

He turned around, awaiting another monster he could vanquish.

Instead, it was the strange man from earlier.

He kept on applauding, and he said, "Incredible, incredible, INCREDIBLE!"

The man was shouting senselessly and he unexpectedly grabbed the ruby embedded in his forehead and aggressively removed it.

The man's head started bleeding profusely but he laughed and laughed and repeated these words, "Goddess, I have fulfilled my life purpose, I have found you the best offering...."

"Goddess, I have fulfilled my life purpose, I have found you the best offering...."

A figure suddenly descended from the sky.

Alex gulped when he saw the appearance of this figure.

The woman gently landed on the ground and revealed her appearance.

She had long, twirling horns protruding from her head, and visible red veins covered her entire skin.

On her black, skeletal wings sprouted and gave her a demonic aura.

Her eyes were of similar magenta color to Aphrodite, and her hair was darker than the night sky.

The 'woman' looked around at the bleeding man and slowly retrieved the ruby in the ground.

She didn't give any attention whatsoever to the dying man and turned to Alex.

"What do we have here? Interesting."