The God of Underworld

Chapter 344 43

"Now, Herios!" Medea commanded, pointing her glowing staff at the monster's eye. "The Earth holds him! Show this shadow the strength of a Soul that refuses to be unwritten!"

Herios' eyes turned solemn as he stood at the vanguard, his golden aura resonating with the sudden, violent surge of human willpower.

But as he prepared to give the order to charge, he felt a presence behind him—a steady, familiar weight of loyalty that felt as solid as a mountain.

At that moment, the air over the ruined mortal realm, once heavy with the suffocating scent of blood and the grey rot of the Outer Ones, was suddenly pierced by a sound that had not been heard in ten thousand years.

It was the synchronized clash of bronze and iron against shields—the rhythmic heartbeat of a nation that had once looked into the eyes of the gods and refused to blink.

Herios turned, and his breath caught in his throat.

Standing there was a man clad in the weathered, battle-scarred plate of the High Guard of Herion, his face was etched with the lines of a hundred campaigns, and his eyes, though glowing with the silver light of a Divine Spirit, held the same warmth Herios remembered from the campfire vigils of the past.

"Kaerion..." Herios whispered, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. "It has been a long time, old friend."

Kaerion, the general who had stood at Herios's right hand when they first defied the mandate of Olympus.

One of the people Herios considered a friend.

He stared at Herios, and did not speak at first, as if taking in the unfamiliar yet also familiar face in front of him.

Suddenly, he knelt, the metal of his greaves clattering against the shattered earth.

"Your Majesty," Kaerion's voice was a deep rumble that carried the echoes of an era thought lost to time. "We welcome your return to the light of day."

"Ah, no need for the formalities, Kaerion," Herios said, reaching out to pull his friend to his feet. "I am no longer a King. I should be the one to kneel, after all, you ascended to the ranks of Divine Spirit, didn't you?"

Kaerion shook his head, his gaze unwavering. "Never. The mortal world may change, and the gods may shift the stars, but to us, to those who bled in the mud of the First Era, you will always be The Once and Future King."

Herios stared at him for a few moments before letting out a chuckled, a low, melodic sound that seemed to push back the grey fog of the Outer One's presence.

He turned his eyes toward the towering, multi-limbed nightmare that the Giants were currently grappling with. "Then, old friend... would you like to accompany me into a battle once more? One last dance against the dark?"

"Not just me, Your Majesty," Kaerion said, stepping aside and gesturing to the shimmering horizon behind him. "I did not come alone."

From the violet mists that Medea had conjured, they emerged.

Hundreds of thousands of them.

They were the Legions of Herion. The soldiers who accompanied Herios as they defied the will of gods and brought forth an era of humanity.

They were not the shimmering, ethereal angels of Michael, nor the golden Devas of the East.

They were men and women in plumed helmets and breastplates bearing the insignia of the Kingdom of Herion.

They held flags that had been tattered in the wars against the gods, now snapping proudly in the wind of the Hyperverse.

These were the souls of the mortals who had built the first civilization without divine permission.

They had no ichor in their veins; they had no blessings from the sun or the moon.

They were farmers, blacksmiths, poets, and mothers who had taken up the spear because they believed that humanity's destiny belonged to humanity.

Herios felt a surge of emotion so powerful it threatened to drown his senses as he looked at the vast sea of iron and bronze, and he laughed—a roar of defiant, joyous life.

"Brothers and Sisters of Herion!" Herios screamed, his voice carrying to every corner of the battlefield. "I have walked many miles, and I have seen many heavens! But I have never seen a sight as beautiful as the faces of those who fight for no other reason than they believe it is right! Would you give me a chance to lead you to war once more?!"

The response was a scream that once shook the gods themselves.

It was a sound that caused even the True Outer One's conceptual barrier to shiver more than any divine strike.

Hundreds of thousands of voices joined in a singular war-cry that claimed the earth for the living.

Then, with a thunderous roar of boots on stone, the human army charged.

Gilgamesh, who was trying to stitch up the tear in the sky, let out an acknowledging smirk, "Hmph. For a king who abandoned his throne, his army is certainly one of a kind."

Scáthach stared, her eyes glinting as she watched the army charged at Herios' call, "Truly magnificent. Worthy of being the army of the one who defied the gods."

"So this is Herios' army....amazing." Medusa muttered, her eyes sparkling.

They moved like a tide of iron.

And while the Giants held the monster's massive limbs, the soldiers of Herion swarmed its lower mass as they used grappling hooks forged in the Underworld and spears tipped with the "Will of the People."

It was a sight that caused even the Great Outer One to recoil.

On one side, the Giants of Hades and Gaia acted as living siege engines, their obsidian fists shattering the Outer One's conceptual barrier through sheer telluric weight.

But through the gaps in the giants' legs, the humans surged.

They were joined by the legends of every corner of the globe.

From the East, heroes who had once felled nine suns with a single arrow launched volleys of light that pierced the Outer One's many eyes.

From the West, slayers of monsters and hydras moved with a lethal, synchronized grace, their blades seeking the chinks in the monster's grey armor.

But the heart of the assault was the common soldier.

"Shields up!" Kaerion bellowed, leading a phalanx of Herion's finest.

They slammed their iron shields against the grey, undulating flesh of the True Outer One.

The creature exhaled a blast of entropic vapor, intending to turn them to ash, but the soldiers did not falter.

Their Collective Will, their shared belief in the King and the World, acted as a spiritual armor.

They were "Humanity" in its purest form—a species that survives through connection; enduring pain and torment, crawling their way out of their caves until their ambitious hands aimed for the sky!

Herios was at the center of the storm, moving like a golden blur of destruction.

Beside him, Scáthach and Medusa fought with a renewed, ferocious energy, as if energized by the morale of the soldiers of Herion.

Earlier, they couldn't do anything against the Outer One, and can only grit their teeth, but now, with the barrier shattered by the Giants and the soldiers' faith, their blades finally did its purpose; cut down the outer one.

At that moment, as the Giants pinned down the Outer One and the humans went all out to attack, and opening was finally made!

Herios, seeing the chance, drove his sword deep into a pulsing nexus of the Outer One's core, causing it to stiffen.

"You are not a god!" he shouted, the golden fire of his blade igniting the monster's ichor. "You are just a shadow! And we are the sun!"

The Outer One, a being that had existed since the first ink was spilled, a being that had roamed the outside of the fictional universe, found itself completely overwhelmed.

It was being bitten by a million ants, crushed by the earth, and judged by the very 'meat' it had intended to consume.

The soldiers of Herion climbed its massive limbs, driving spears into its joints as they laughed despite the Outer One retaliating and killing them.

The archers blinded its eyes, its millions of eyes closing one by one

The sorcerers, led by Medea, wove a web of binding light that turned its own entropy against it.

Finally, as Herios drove his sword into its core, and along with the combined might of humanity and Giants, the monster began to collapse.

It thought that it had it easy, after all, what could mortals do to them, beings feared even by the strongest of gods?

But now it realised, against the unified roar of humanity, its chaos had no power.

As its final eye closed, humanity had killed despair.

The field of battle, once a graveyard, was now the site of the greatest triumph in the history of the human race.

The small and insignificant humans had stood against the "Infinite" and refused to blink.

Herios stood atop a fallen limb of the giant, his sword raised high, his eyes meeting Kaerion's across the carnage.

They had done it.

They had held the world.

Or so they thought...

Before they could cheer...

The world was engulfed in darkness.