Staring at Gollmiran's headless body in front of him, Hades sighed and shook his head. He then asked a question that would have made Gollmiran and his companions spit blood in shock if they were alive to hear it.
|In the end, who were they anyway?|
He tried to remember their pantheon name but failed to. Judging it as insignificant, he retrieved Gollmiran's soul before pulling out the teleportation orb.
He channelled the ambient multicoloured energy into it as the orb flashed a bright light. When it died down, Hades was nowhere to be found.
Not long after, the groups of beings who were rushing towards this location arrived only to meet the shredded corpses that were beginning to freeze due to the coldness of space.
Upon discovering Gollmiran's head, they would go on to spread the news of the death of one of Borgeth's main entities.
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Unnamed Planet
Unnamed Galaxy
Underworld Galaxy Supercluster
Year 706 of the 50th General Calendar
The first day of the new year was usually a day for celebration. However, for a group of beings seated at a table in a room on the top floor of one of the many towers of the underworld's capital, this was no day for celebration.
Of the four beings engaged in a heated discussion, one of them was a bearded young man with ash skin. Sprouting from his back were two feathered wings of a similar colour.
Opposite him, was a woman with black hair and eyes, wearing a red robe that was decorated with the symbol of a burning torch.
The third was a beautiful young maiden with fair skin and a face that could only be described as the epitome of young beauty. She was clad in long, flowing clothing and had a wreath of flowers around her head.
Lastly, was a pleasant-looking mature woman with a veil over her head though her face remained visible. She was dressed in brown robes that had symbols of wheat drawn on them.
Suddenly, there was a bright flash of light as another being teleported into the room. Shock filled the faces of the quartet, as they could not sense this until the very last moment.
Naturally, this caused them to be on guard, but after confirming the identity of the one who warped in, they calmed down though they remained surprised about not sensing his entrance.
"Thanatos, Hecate, Persephone, and Demeter? Now that's one combination you don't always see."
The newcomer, Hades, looked around at the quartet weirdly before calling out to them in order. His voice brought them out of their shock, however, before any could speak, he held up a hand to stop them.
"Hold up. Firstly, Hecate.
I used up all its charges, toss it into Tartarus and it'll recharge automatically."
Hades threw the teleportation orb in his hand towards her as he spoke. Catching the orb, Hecate looked at it with an appraising gaze only to cry out in surprise a second later upon realizing what it was.
"This is one of Kronos' artifacts! Weren't these supposed to be sealed?! And you're telling me to just toss it into Tartarus?!"
The identity of the orb surprised the other three in the room. In addition, it also allowed them to find out how they could not sense Hades' teleportation earlier.
Hades, however, took a seat and began cleaning Gollmiran's blood on his greatsword. He then looked up at Hecate and asked.
"Yeah. What about it?"
" 'What about it?' These things are banned, you know?!"
"I know. So?"
Demeter realized that they wouldn't get anywhere with the way Hades was acting so she spoke to Hecate.
"He's not gonna give you the answer you want. Just keep the artifact properly."
Hecate sighed and gave up on getting an answer from Hades. However, before she stood up to leave, he spoke up again.
"Don't keep it anywhere else. Toss it into Tartarus."
As expected, she finally lost it.
"IT'S AN ARTIFACT OF KRONOS, YOU KNOW?! THE TITAN KING!
AND YOU WANT ME TO TOSS IT INTO A PLACE WHERE THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF IMPRISONED TITANS AND GIANTS?!
WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU WANT THAT?!!!"
She screamed at him, however, he just gave her a look of confusion as he repeated his earlier words.
"I used up all the charges. Tossing it in Tartarus would recharge it automatically, What other reason is there?"
It was then that Thanatos, who had been silent, prevented Hecate from shouting once more and asked a question addressing her concern.
"Don't you think a wandering giant or Titan might find it and use it?"
"Tartarus is an entire galaxy cluster, you know? There is a very low probability of them coming in contact with it.
Even if they did, it has no charges so it's useless to them."
Thanatos ignored the fact that the artifact could be charged by just simply tossing it into Tartarus and asked another question.
"What if there are charges?"
"It's bound to me, no one else can use it."
His answer made Thanatos realize the reason Hades never considered the possibility of it being used by another being in the first place. Before he could say anything else, Hades spoke up again.
"Oh yeah. You said that I ended up using a lot of resources in my recent trips."
As he spoke, Persephone's face darkened instantly. This was expected, after all, the trips he spoke of were his visits to the son he had with another woman. No normal wife would be happy about that.
As Thanatos nodded in affirmation, he remembered the reason he had called Persephone and Demeter was to get them to convince Hades to reduce the frequency of his trips to Hell.
Although the underworld had more than enough resources to fuel Hades' spacecraft for dozens of millennia, Thanatos didn't have a habit of over-usage.
Hades stretched out his hand and used the soul-preservation ability of the authority of death.
The space in front of him cracked open slightly. Ten balls of light, with one visibly larger than the other nine, popped out of the cracked space before it closed up.
"This should work, right?"
Hades motioned to the souls as they moved towards Thanatos. This time, it was Thanatos' turn to be shocked, even more so than Hecate who had yet to leave the room.
"Did you attack a pantheon or something?"
"Why would I do something as stressful as that? I was on my own and I got attacked so I turned by assailants to a potential energy source."
Hearing Hades' reply, Persephone became visibly worried.
"Are you okay? You're not hurt, are you?"
Normally, she would not ask such a question, but the souls in front of her were all those of mid-tier and high-tier deity realm existences.
No matter how strong he was, taking on multiple gods on that level was not something that should be done casually. Of course, she had absolute confidence in his victory, even so, she was worried he would be hurt in the process.
"Nah, I'm fine. The only problem I have is trying to get that last dude's blood off my sword."
Persephone scanned him multiple times and confirmed he had no injuries before asking.
"You normally avoid such. However, this time, you not only responded to their attacks but also killed them and harvested their souls.
What was your real reason?"
"Nope. Needed to fight for something else. It's not important to you so don't worry about it."
Before she could ask him anything else, he succeeded in getting Gollmiran's blood off his sword and spoke up once more.
"I'm tired, mentally. As such, I'm gonna take a rest.
Feel free to use those souls as you wish, Thanatos. Don't forget to toss that in Tartarus, Hecate. I'm gonna use it again soon."
He stood up and placed his sword in his subspace before proceeding to walk to the door. Stopping right in front of the door, he turned to Thanatos and said.
"Thanatos, please make it more widely known that you're Olympus' god of death, not me. I don't find it funny to have idiots attacking me to prove they're better gods of death than I am.
How can they prove who's better if I'm not one in the first place?"
He shook his head and heaved a sigh of exasperation while walking out of the room, leaving the dumbfounded quartet behind.
Picking up the three-headed dog that was on the ground beside the door, he patted its head while remembering that Cattleya once said she wanted to meet it.
'I'll think about that later, I need some rest.'
On a side note, Borgeth was in chaos due to the death of one of its Main entities but that's a story that's not worth telling.
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"Well, that's enough for you guys' stories, huh?"
Arthur yawned lightly as he patted the sleeping Layla's head. Hades who was seated opposite him nodded in affirmation as he gazed out the window.
"A lot of things happened in such a short time."
"I know right..."
Hades turned his gaze to Cattleya who was sleeping soundly with her head on his lap as he spoke to Arthur.
"We somehow got turned into pillows, huh?"
Arthur chuckled as he looked at Layla who was sleeping on his lap and poked her cheek a bit before speaking.
"Now, you all know about what happened before my birth, during the period I was born, how I found out about the prophecy, why I began training at such a young age, and the adventures I went on with Uncle Creusery that exposed me to the dark side of society at such a young age.
It's high time you readers got back into the main story, don't you think?"
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Planet C-E-8
Star system C-E
Nemo Galaxy
Year 709 of the 50th General Calendar
Eight-year-old Devildom Prince Arthur Vaughn was staring at the planet that was watching a world burn with a solemn gaze.
Ever since the incident about two years ago, where Creusery consigned a planet to oblivion in front of him, he had been taken on various 'adventures' with his uncle and had seen his fair share of celestial bodies meeting their untimely ends.
This caused the eight-year-old to become almost numb to the scene in front of him as he only heaved a sigh while thinking of when Creusery would return from the next planet and take him back home.
Beside him, was a man that Creusery had introduced him to, a being that held a special position in the Hell universe.
He was a tall man over six feet with hair as dark as the night. As for his race and position, he was a high drifter, a breed of drifters much like the high elves and Arch Devils.
Bearing the name Larry, this man was the one who presided over all drifters in the Hell universe. He was someone who Creusery believed would be helpful to Arthur in the future so he introduced the young eight-year-old to the man.
Larry chuckled as he saw the expression on Arthur's face and was about to speak up. However-
****BOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!