The Ascent

People have never been able to retrieve Thanatos as they cannot remove it from its stone. It's like a sword-in-the-stone situation.

Arion takes part in it, having not yet revealed he is the Red Fell Star to the public. Once he manages to pass the Arcane barrier, the sword ends up disintegrating. Everyone freaks out because holy shit this dude just destroyed an ancient artifact. Not to mention that he pulled it out. But then it turned to dust.

The dust actually retreated into his blood through some sorta open wound he had gotten while coming up the mountain.

Some guy goes to attack him with a sword, which Arion manages to avoid and take the sword off the guy. Here, he imbues the sword with his blood and a new, fresh Thanatos is created. Everyone is like what the shit and then they finally realize this bastard must be the Red Fell Star. Turns out the guy wasn't dead. What next, the gods are basically just a group of dysfunctional immortals that all desperately need therapy and to get the hell out of power? Ahaha yeah they are.

History

When the last Red Fell Star descended, (1,000 years ago), they got chased up Aurahida mountain. They were trying to reunite with the blue fell star who was taking up there to lure out the red star since people knew the red star was trying to get to the blue star.
They were successfully lured up the mountain and was trying to fend off their multitudes of pursuers with Thanatos. At the top, they fell with a massive explosion of power, leaving behind Thanatos where it ended up getting sealed off as a result of their own powers. It really screwed with the environment, making the environment covered in red and extremely dangerous. People got blown down the mountain as a result of the massive explosion (supernova death).
More people caught wind of the mighty sword that was dropped at the top of this now incredibly hostile environment. A bunch of machos and idiots all went at the same time in a massive scramble to retrieve the sword. Bounties went up for it, drawing in even more people. In the event, most people ended up having more of a competition to get there first and some of them had fun.
Every now and then, people would go up there again after training for a considerable amount of time. By chance, people ended up going more at increasingly similar times, and then it kind of became a tradition.
After like 30 years it became a sort of festival and a show of strength, like the Olympics. People became less focused on actually getting the sword vs getting there first and having the clout of being the first one up there.

Execution

Every 5 years, participants gather in Belgezthor, at the foot of the mountain range and begin the ascent. From there, they must climb the mountain to the top. There is a massive monetary prize for the winner, but everyone who makes it to the top can try their hand at unsealing Thanatos and claiming it for themself.
A majority of participants end up surrendering, eliminating them by default. People can also force surrender others by firing their own signal.
There are remote observers who basically watch for cheating, but they're often bribed off to let particular participants cheat.
Use of any vehicles or flying is banned and results in automatic elimination. Things must be done on foot. People can't fake this one as they often get spotted by non-bribed Observers.
There are huge festivals that take place in all the different countries, all with different traditions, but all celebrating the same thing. Victory feasts are held in honour of winners and people who made it up. Successfully getting up the mountain is already quite the achievement, but if there's someone who made it on the leaderboard, they still have large celebrations thrown for them, albeit smaller than if they were on the podium.

Components and tools

An attempt at collecting Thanatos is permitted. A minority of people enter it for the sake of claiming Thanatos, but it's still a large chunk. Anyone that makes it is permitted at trying to remove it, but the winners are given a huge monetary prize as well as essentially bragging rights.

Participants

Anyone can enrol, but people are often sponsored by large organizations and whatnot. A lot of training must go in in order to survive the harsh environments and mutated enemies. There are different official routes that people can take, but there's no rule saying the participants must stick to the paths. The different routes are all varying in difficulty. The quicker ones are harder, and the easier ones are longer. People can stray off the path and make their own, however.
The real only rule is that you cannot gravely injure or kill other participants. Fighting is permitted.

Observance

The event takes place every 5 years beginning on the same day. Many people watch it either from a distance or on broadcasts from select Observers.
The record of getting up is 25 hours. Average winner gets up in about 33 hours. The longest time of successfully getting up was 10 days. The length that the competition varies based on the pool of participants.

Primary Related Location

Aurahida Mountain