"Cough cough cough"
Hyperion felt his divine power being siphoned away, his laws stripped from him, his ultimate strength dissolving into the Underworld as part of Hades' domain. He coughed weakly, a realization dawning on him.
"I see! I see!"
He looked at Hades, a mixture of admiration and disbelief in his gaze. "Hades, this is your doing. No wonder you've grown so rapidly. you truly are a lunatic. You've been devouring small worlds within the Chaos Sea to construct your kingdom, absorbing the divine power and laws of your enemies through the golden apple."
"Hades!" he exclaimed. "You're a terrifying madman!"
Hyperion's eyes locked onto Hades. He understood that absorbing the essence of other gods wasn't a trivial task. It required immense sacrifice and risk. Swallowing small worlds and forming a kingdom sounded simple, but the repercussions were severe. Hades had almost perished once, falling to the Outer Gods.
Moreover, the golden apple was a double-edged sword. Absorbing divine essence was fraught with peril, different laws clashed, and one misstep could lead to catastrophic damage. It was no wonder that golden apples were often seen as more trouble than they were worth.
"Hyperion," Hades said softly, "don't trouble yourself any longer. Rest well. Perhaps one day, when you return to life, we can share a drink together."
"Hahaha" Hyperion laughed heartily. "Yes! How could a guy like you be unprepared? When I resurrect, we'll drink to our hearts' content!"
With that, Hyperion embraced his fate calmly. As time passed, he transformed into a pure soul crystal, much like Koios. Hades sealed the crystal and the Chu Zhen Great Sword, casually tossing them into the Yellow Spring Biliang.
Not an important matter, he thought. Souls were scarce in the Underworld, so leaving it there posed no issue.
"Arf!"
Cerberus bounded over, playfully circling Hades. He scooped the three-headed dog into his arms, stroking its glossy black fur, his eyes flickering with determination.
The ultimate power of Hyperion was magnificent, yet when compared to Koios, it paled in significance. If Koios' ultimate power was a 1, Hyperion's was perhaps a 5. This was no surprise, after all, the distinction between a God King and a Titan God was immense. To Hyperion, Koios was merely a younger brother; they operated on entirely different levels.
Hades, contemplating the immense power he now possessed, released a torrent of god-killing flames to refine Hyperion's ultimate strength. The flames crackled and hissed, dissolving the pink mist surrounding the power until a crystal-clear gem emerged, much larger than the one Koios had once gifted him.
Hades took out the seed of his own ultimate power. The two seeds fused together, nearing completion. He murmured, "In a third of the time, it could become a complete seed of ultimate power."
It was a matter of fate. In this world, only nine gods wielded ultimate power. The twelve main Titan gods could reluctantly draw on Cronus' strength, but that power was fleeting. Time eroded it, leaving only one path forward: extraction or absorption.
If absorption failed, purification was the next step. This required the ability to kill gods. Only certain powers, like Cronus' God Killing Blade, could achieve this. Other methods, like the God-killing Thunder from Koios and the God-killing Flame created by Hades, were not sufficient.
It was an unfortunate situation.
The God-killing Thunder remained sealed in Koios' memories. The God-killing Flame was a product of Hades' ingenuity, but without a method to purify ultimate power, progress was nearly impossible. Poseidon might not know how to access it, but Hades had managed to obtain 70% of the seeds of ultimate power through sheer effort.
He had devoured small worlds, absorbed gods using golden apples, and even claimed his own father god. The recent confrontation had been a gamble with his life on the line. If even the slightest miscalculation had occurred, it could have cost him everything.
In the grand narrative of their world, protagonists shifted: from Gaia to Uranus, then Cronus, and now Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus, marking the fourth generation. With Athena's birth, a fifth generation emerged. Protagonists were chosen by fate to drive the world's evolution, but this cycle was not fixed. Everything was malleable, an inheritance from Chaos' creation of the world.
While events followed a certain script, those with the will to defy it could alter their destinies. Hades had managed to escape the confines of this narrative, and in doing so, he forced Poseidon and Zeus to confront their own roles. Not all of them would break free, but parts of their destinies would inevitably shift.
The transition from a scripted role to the one who writes the script was no easy feat.