The God of Underworld

Chapter 348 47

The ink runs thin, as the world begins to fray at its edges, and sentences collapsing into silence.

Hades stands where endings gather, cloak heavy with the weight of unfinished fates, and eyes burning with a will that refuses the period.

Before him, Azathoth churns—not as a flesh, not even as a thought, but a simple blind, churning will that dreams all things into being and unmakes them without care.

The books flicker like dying words, and even the reality itself seems to hold their breath.

Hades stood firm, his boots planted on a floor of solid shadows. In front of him was an enemy he had to kill, the enemy that must be eliminated for everything to end.

"You are nothing but a memory the Author wants to lose," the distorted voice of Azathoth hissed from a million mouths. "You think being able to stand here, being able to walk out of your dimension, means you are now real? Hades, God of the Dead, Ruler of a Fictional World. Here, you are nothing."

But Hades didn't waste words as he gripped Desmos, his spear, and instantly, the weapon hummed with the weight of every soul that had ever lived in the ten universes.

With a roar that shook the foundations of the Library, Hades lunged.

Azathoth watched as Hades moved like a streak of violet lightning as he thrust Desmos forward, aiming for the center of the grey mass.

This wasn't just a physical strike. After all, Desmos held the power to Pierce Fate, and in the story of the Hyperverse that Azathoth decreed, the "Fate" was for the world to be deleted.

Hades' spear struck that very idea; he refused such an absurd ending.

Clang!

The tip of the spear hit a shield of grey static as Azathoth's power—the Authority of Forgetfulness—tried to make the spear "forgotten."

This is its power, as the aspect born from the author's forgetfulness, allowing it to instantly erase anything from existence.

For if the Author forgot the spear existed, then it would somply vanish.

"I remember!" Hades shouted, his eyes glowing with a fierce purple light. "The Ten Worlds remember! I Decree this Weapon as an Eternal Truth!"

This was his Power of Law. His greatest power, the ability to think of any "idea" and elevate them to the level of a concept.

By declaring the spear an "Eternal Truth," Hades elevated it above the reach of Azathoth's forgetfulness.

The spear regained its solid form and punched through the static, tearing a hole in the center of the grey mass as a scream of high-pitched feedback erupted from Azathoth as black ink spilled into the void.

But Azathoth didn't retreat, instead, it expanded; it became a giant, invisible hand made of grey mist as it reached out and grabbed one of the "Books" floating nearby—a parallel universe of the Norse pantheon.

The monster simply squeezed its fingers, and the book turned into grey dust.

Hades frowned. "You—What are you doing?"

"Just wanted to show you. See?" Azathoth laughed. "If I forget it, it never happened. I am the Author's boredom. I am the reason stories end before they are finished. I will forget you, Hades, and your 'Law' will mean nothing in a blank book."

Azathoth unleashed a wave of Grey Entropy and it instantly washed over Hades, trying to wash away his color, his name, and his history.

Hades felt his skin turning pale. He felt the memories of his childhood on Olympus and his marriage in the Underworld starting to blur.

"I am the Concept of Death!" Hades roared, planting his spear into the empty void. "And death is the one thing that can never be forgotten! It is the final period at the end of every sentence!"

He unleashed his own aura, and a tidal wave of Primordial Darkness exploded from his body.

This wasn't just the absence of light; it was the darkness of the grave—the heavy, permanent silence that remains when the story is over.

The black shadows collided with the grey entropy, and the two forces tore at each other, creating a vacuum that began to suck in the surrounding books.

Then, Hades used his Power of Law again as he pointed at the space around them.

"I Decree that this Space is the Underworld!"

Suddenly, the pitch-black void changed.

Iron gates manifested behind Hades, the floor became made of obsidian, and the air grew cold and heavy with the scent of pomegranate and old earth.

By turning the "Outside" into the "Underworld," Hades brought the battle into his own domain.

Here, his power was absolute.

"In my house, nothing is forgotten!" Hades commanded.

He swung Desmos in a wide arc, sending waves of shadow-blades at Azathoth, with each blade made from the idea of "endings", elevated to the level of a concept.

One blade represented the end of an empire; another, the end of a life; another, the end of a breath.

Azathoth fought back by manifesting its power as The Great Eraser as it created a giant, jagged line of white space—the literal "White of the Page."

This white line moved through the shadows, erasing them instantly.

It didn't block the attacks; it made it so the attacks were never thrown, or rather, it made it so the attacks were never written.

"Return!" Hades declared, and instantly, the attacks that were never written, once again "wrote" itself.

However, Azathoth simply erased them once again.

This back and forth made Hades feel the strain, as every time Azathoth "erased" a move, Hades had to use his Law to "re-write" it back into existence.

It was a battle of mental endurance.

The King of the Dead was fighting to keep the ink on the page, while the Abomination was trying to bleach the page white.

After a few minutes, Hades realized that he couldn't win a war of attrition, and he needed to strike the "Heart" of the boredom.

With that thought, he closed his eyes and summoned the combined divinity of the Ten Worlds.

"Desmos!" he whispered. "Pierce the Destiny of this Abomination! I Decree that Azathoth has a Beginning and an End!"

This was the ultimate use of his Law.

Azathoth, as a personification of boredom, was supposed to be a shapeless, endless force, but by giving it a "Beginning and an End," Hades was forcing it to become a Character in the story.

And once it was a character, it could be killed.

The spear glowed with a terrifying, blinding violet light, and without moments of hesitation, Hades threw it.

The spear flew across the void, trailing a wake of purple fire as it bypassed the grey static, and it even bypassed the white space and struck the very center of Azathoth's shifting form.

BOOM!

A massive explosion of ink and light rocked the dark, chaotic library.

The grey mass of Azathoth was pinned to a giant, ancient book by the spear, and for the first time, the monster had a solid form—a shivering, terrified humanoid shape made of scribbles and ink.

"You... Gave me a form!?" Azathoth whispered, its voices overlapping in shock before its face twisting in pain, "...this... What is this?..is this... Pain?"

"You are now a part of my universe," Hades said, walking toward the pinned monster. "And as the Supreme Deity, I declare your end."

But as Hades reached out to reclaim his spear and deliver the final blow, the entire space began to tilt.

The "Stars" (the books) began to fall, the floor of the Underworld that Hades had created began to peel away like cheap wallpaper.

Then, a new sound filled the air—the sound of a Pen scratching against paper as Azathoth's many eyes suddenly turned a brilliant, terrifying white.

"You fool," Azathoth laughed, its voice now sounding like the Author himself. "You gave me a form. You gave me a role. But you forgot one thing... the Author loves a plot twist."

Suddenly, the grey static didn't just return; it turned Black, and the ink that had spilled from Azathoth began to crawl up Hades' legs, binding him to the floor.

Then, the spear, Desmos, began to crack.

"The Author is bored of the 'Heroic King' trope, Hades," Azathoth said, its body growing larger and darker. "He wants to see what happens when the Anchor breaks. He wants to see a Tragedy."

Hades tried to move, but his Law was being overridden as a giant, celestial "X" appeared in the air above him—the symbol of a deleted paragraph.

"This...!?" Hades gasped. He tried to summon his darkness, but the darkness was being sucked into the "X."

The grey mist began to fill Hades' lungs, gritting his teeth, he looked down and saw his hands starting to turn into sketches—rough pencil lines that were fading.

His spear then shattered, its fragments slowly dissipating, and his body began to dissolve into words: 'And so, the King fell into the dark, forgotten by all.'

"The story is over, Hades," Azathoth whispered, looming over him like a tidal wave of blank paper. "The Author has closed the book."

Hades struggled to hold onto his dissipating spear, but his fingers were losing their grip and the violet light in his eyes was flickering out.

Back in the fictional dimension, the ten universes began to groan as their Supreme Deity started to vanish from the script.

Then, Azathoth raised a giant, shadowy hand, ready to slam the "Book" shut forever.

Hades looked up, his face pale, as the ultimate erasure descended upon him.