bodies before breaking free enough to start climbing through it.
It was tough going but we made our way through far enough away that we no longer felt the threat of the Hellhounds making it through. Unfortunately, we also had no other choice but to continue on as we climbed and crawled and squeezed our bodies through the tightly entwined roots. Scraping our skin on the rough texture covering the branches and the smaller thorns snagged our clothes. Although with most thorns at this level being the length of my shoe they were easy to avoid. But on looking up these thorns also ranged from a foot long, all the way up to the length of school buses.
I couldn't help being thankful for this as I knew if they'd have been smaller then we would have been cut to pieces. Thankfully, having bigger thorns meant they were easier to navigate around. The downside to this of course was that one wrong move and we could easily find ourselves impaled.
However, it was a risk we were willing to take considering the alternative was being ripped apart by Hellhounds. And I wasn't surprised when they stopped following us as the large beasts were five times that of a Great Dane and would find it difficult getting through such tight spaces. For a large part of the journey through, Nero and I had no other option but to crawl down on our bellies and drag ourselves over the smoother roots that covered the forest floor.
But it was worth it when, not long after starting, we could hear their whining and the growls of frustration, sounds that only died down the further we went. All we had to hope for was that there wasn't another way through for them to find.
“Okay, I'm getting real sick of commando training,” Nero complained, and I couldn't say that I blamed her. I opened my mouth just about to add to her complaints with those of my own, when I saw in front of us an opening. I could not explain the utter relief I felt when seeing this, making me grab out to shake her arm,
“What?” she said, looking down at my grip on her instead of looking in front.
“Look…LOOK! We made it through, we made it!” I shouted after what it seemed like crawling for days. Of course, in reality it could only have been an hour or two but that was definitely enough, as I didn't think I had ever felt so tired in all my life!
“Thank the Gods!” Nero let this out in a whisper as if her prayers had been answered. This also managed to entice us to use that last shred of energy we had left for there was finally light at the end of the brutal tunnel. Or should I say, a wide-open space, one void of any brutal forest.
Once through to the other side, the bare landscape showcased a broken temple. It looked as if it had fallen from the Heavens and landed here, right back before mankind even truly existed. Back to a time where the only wars fought were those between the Gods. It was incredible but there was still something so haunting about it. Taking in all the details, all that was left to do then was close your eyes and think for a moment before suddenly you could see it as it once was.
The temple looked very similar to how I imagined the Temple of Olympian Zeus before it had fallen into ruin. However, this particular temple was one of Earth’s creations and it was situated in the centre of the Greek capital, Athens. Its construction began in the 6th century BC during the rule of the Athenian tyrants.
They were certainly ambitious and envisioned building the greatest temple in the ancient world. However, it was not completed until a different reign of Roman Emperor, one whose name was Hadrian being now in the 2nd century AD, which was an astounding six hundred and thirty-eight years after the project had begun.
Once finally finished it was known to be the largest temple in Greece, being made with an impressive one hundred and four colossal columns. But the temple's life was short-lived, as after being pillaged during a barbarian invasion in 267 AD it fell into disuse, only a century after its completion. It was never repaired and was reduced to ruins after this point.
Centuries after it merely became a useful place to be quarried for building materials after the