||Domain Declaration: Underworld.||
Hades' voice rang out and the surroundings transformed immediately.
The grey sands of the asteroid's surface turned black and the figures of six illusory rivers could be seen around them. On the meadows beside the rivers, hazy figures could be seen wandering around them listlessly.
The entire area had effectively become a pseudo underworld.
Hades had used his authority as the king of the underworld, to declare this neutral area, as a temporary underworld.
◇ ◇ ◇
Gollmiran was a high-ranked god in the superior stage of the high-tier deity realm. His zone was strong enough to withstand being offset by most gods he knew were on the same level as him.
However, that did not mean it could not be broken. The current situation was evidence of that fact.
He had combined his zone with eight other gods. Although their realms of existence were lower than his, they were still able to enhance his zone and increase its power.
Even so, it was still broken.
Five of the gods he combined zones with were in their true god forms, yet, it was still broken.
He was simply unable to accept the reality in front of him, the same was true for the others as the shock was beyond measure.
They knew the reason this happened, yet they refused to admit it. After a while, one of them was able to accept the reality in front of him, albeit reluctantly.
He spoke up, with a shaky voice.
|Mo-mon---!|
However, his words were never completed. Perhaps it would have been better for him to have remained unaccepting of the situation like others, if so, he may have lived a little longer.
**PUKK!!
|You talk too much.|
Hades' voice could be heard as he pulled his sword out of the magic god's defenceless chest. The stellar amount of divinity loaded in the sword was enough to pierce the god's defences with ease.
Just being in Hades' domain, also did more in weakening him than when Hades was in their combined zone.
In such a situation, the magic god who could easily survive multiple solar systems exploding simultaneously was easily ended by a stellar-level strike.
|That was for the meteor.|
Hades retrieved the god's soul via soul invitation before turning to the rest and continuing.
|Play time is over.|
His actions brought them out of their shock as they watched another one of their brethren fall right before their very eyes.
Roaring in rage, the others roused their divinities and dashed towards the five-meter-tall Hades who was gazing at them as one would look at mosquitoes they were about to crash.
He sliced off a piece of the large asteroid he was on and placed it in his subspace before stretching out his palm and casting.
|Dark Magic: Black Nova|
It was one of Hades' most powerful attacks, a spell that most high-tier deities would use as a trump card.
A sphere of pure darkness, about the size of a ping-pong ball, emerged from his palm. Slowly and softly, it drifted to the ground.
The instant the sphere touched the ground—
It became a hypernova.
A thunderous roar completely overtook his sense of hearing. Even those who were tens of thousands of lightyears away were able to see the hypernova in all its glory.
It was just that big.
Some who noticed the hypernova's light or sensed the enormous amount of energy it released, either decided to run away from it or move in its direction to check it out.
As for Hades, his vision was covered in the blinding light of the explosion, he was unable to hear anything and because the spell had locked him in place, he was not even able to move.
His pseudo-underworld was also deactivated automatically, alongside all other authorities he had active. It was an effect of the Black Nova spell, the caster was not allowed to do anything else while it was active.
His domain, however, did its job of amplifying the spell's effect by almost 15% before being deactivated.
One might think it was only 15%, however, it should be remembered that this was 15% of a hypernova.
Everything in the spell's area of effect, including the asteroid he was standing on, had already been repeatedly broken down on a molecular level.
As for the gods of Borgeth, any and every defensive spell, skill, or technique they could have cast, any defensive artifacts or treasures they might have activated, were all rendered useless.
Teleportation was pointless, after all, the explosion spread out at a speed many times faster than that of light.
This was the power of a hypernova.
If they had battled in a universe, any and every star system within the next few thousand lightyears from their location would have been reduced to space dust.
The end result of the spell was nothing short of devastating. There was nothing left, asteroids, stars, name it. Nothing was left.
As for the ones the attack was originally intended for, all Hades had to do was fly around and pick up the souls from the bodies floating around, or at least what was left of them.
The darkness was not a problem as he could see very clearly even in the deepest darknesses due to his authority.
|Soul Invitation|
The souls of the gods that were still lingering around what was left of their physical bodies were sucked towards his hands.
All the defensive layers around their souls were destroyed completely, the hypernova also dealt soul damage after all.
Some had survived, albeit barely as they were weakened to the point where even a mortal legendary expert could end them but they survived all the same.
This was within expectations, they were gods after all.
Surviving a supernova or two was within the realm of possibility for them.
Unfortunately, this was a hypernova, one cast by Hades, a god far stronger than all of them combined.
Them being weakened greatly was expected, this also meant they were unable to resist their souls being torn out of their physical bodies as they screamed out in pain.
Hades counted the souls as he preserved them and realized that one was missing, he looked around and saw the last one standing, the only high-tier deity in the group.
|As expected of a universe's main entity, you can survive my enhanced hypernova and still have the strength to resist your soul being pulled out from your body.|
Gollmiran did not have the strength to reply to Hades. Even if he was in a better state than the others, he was still weakened greatly and barely had one defensive layer left on his soul.
It was as if Hades' attack dealt more damage to him as he was the strongest among the gods of Borgeth present.
Looking at the shredded bodies around him, he could only despair.
Hades ignored him and brought out the piece of the asteroid he put away earlier on and sat on it. He then began cleaning of the magic god's blood off his sword while thinking about how Diablo's words were correct.
'it was really the best way to stabilize my unstable power.'
He laugh jovially and Gollmiran flinched due to fear but Hades could not care less. As for Gollmiran, he was on the verge of tears. His subordinates who had followed him for thousands of years had been killed and he was bound to be next.
'Thi-this is j-just horrible!'
He thought internally while staring at the broken bodies of his subordinates floating around before looking at the laughing Hades.
The amount of energy being emitted from his body was something that Gollmiran never expected to see, the information he received never mentioned that the being in front of him would be this strong.
As he lamented internally about his impending doom, his mind could not help but wander to the circumstances that led to this.
'I simply wanted to prove I was the superior one, I didn't expect this at all. If I had known, I would have never accepted this damn mission!'
He remembered the words of Borgeth's master. He was told that Hades could never beat him, he was so in over his head that he did not realize he was simply being used.
After all, even if he had succeeded in killing Hades by some force of nature, when Olympus came for revenge, he would have been sacrificed as a scapegoat in an attempt to appease them.
However, he never considered that. He also forgot about the stories of Hades and his brothers.
'They defeated the master of Olympus when they had just become high-tier deities. It's only natural that he's gotten stronger since then.'
Even though his injuries were healing at a visible speed, it was never going to be enough to defeat Hades. The gap in strength was just that much.
From what he could sense, Hades could still dish out more than three more hypernovae of that scale and have more than enough energy left over.
He now understood the true meaning of Hades' words; 'Playtime is over'.
Hades had only been playing with them from the start, he hadn't taken them seriously at all. This was evidenced by the fact that they could not survive one of his spells while he was being serious.
Although he felt rage at being used by the Master of Borgeth, Gollmiran was too far away to get any revenge, besides, he doubted Hades was going to let him live after he discovered the latter's true strength.
|Have you recovered enough to fight? I'm done cleaning my sword.|
|What's the point? Just kill me already.|
|You survived a serious attack of mine. You deserve respect for that, even if it's only temporary as I would most likely forget about your existence soon.|
|Hah! So I'm not even worth remembering, huh?|
Hades shrugged his shoulders and replied.
|Your words, not mine.
So, are you going to have a last stand or die a dog's death?|
Gollmiran sighed and pulled out his spare weapon before replying.
|It would be a dog's death, either way, at least, I have the option of making it a little less disgraceful.|
|Let's begin then...|
Hades trailed off a little as his body disappeared. He reappeared above Gollmiran with flames flickering off his body. He then twisted his body and slashed with his greatsword.
Focusing on Gollmiran's muscle movements, he snapped his finger and pushed his momentum to the opposite direction, catching Gollmiran off guard.
Shocked at the sudden change in attack direction, Gollmiran widened his eyes at the deep cut on his shoulder.
|Ssssss!!|
Taking a sharp breath of pain, he grabbed the sword while the flames tried to sear his arm, however, Hades only smiled at that action.
Darkness enveloped the sword as it began corroding his hand, causing Gollmiran to growl out as he forcefully pulled the sword out of his body.
|Tsk...Just let me hit you already!|
Hades let go of the sword and flipped his body into the air while pushing his hands in front of him.
|Firestorm|
Four eight-ringed magic circles appeared underneath Gollmiran's feet and a firestorm emerged from within, attacking Gollmiran's body relentlessly and leaving faint burn marks everywhere.
Hades' body flickered behind Gollmiran before leaving a shallow slash wound on his back. He flexed his fingers and created a small dagger of darkness, shoving the dagger deep into the wound then twisting it.
He then jumped back to avoid Gollmiran's panicked swing.
Making more daggers enhanced with divinity, he twisted his body and threw them towards Gollmiran who swatted them away like flies before clasping his hands together.
|Infermum Sanction!|
Several columns of fire were created around them. These columns then spun towards Hades
However, before Hades could do anything offensive, Gollmiran's sword rapidly closed in on his head, forcing him to slide backwards as to avoid being decapitated.
|I really would not like to get hit by an attack I just used on someone else, you know?|
Quickly tracing his finger along the floor, he sent spikes of darkness piercing towards Gollmiran. Unfortunately, they were deflected with ease. Even so, they were just a distraction in the end.
Exploding out from under the floor, a giant spear of darkness shot out towards Gollmiran.
Widening his eyes, Gollmiran realized that he couldn't block this and could only grit his teeth and try to reduce the damage he took.
The spear pierced through his body and propped him up in the air before another appeared and pinned him against the ground while he coughed up a mouthful of blood.
Seeing this, Hades saw this as a perfect opportunity. Gollmiran noticed Hades dashing towards him while dispatching the columns of fire that were trying to ensnare him. He tried to unhinge the spear from his chest but failed due to a lack of strength.
Gritting his teeth, Gollmiran formed a knife of flames and tried to cut the spear in half.
Nevertheless, before he could succeed, Hades activated his Zone and pulled him inside.
Gollmiran widened his eyes and tried to move but it was too late. His already low strength dropped even further. At this point, he could not dodge the sword that came for his neck.
The head of Gollmiran, Borgeth's god of death, rolled.