The God of Underworld

Chapter 351 50

The dark, cluttered room seemed to shrink as Hades stood his ground, his presence expanding to fill every shadow between the discarded wrappers and the flickering screen.

He looked at the man who claimed to be the source of all his pain, and he did not see a god worthy of worship or a victim worthy of pity.

He saw a man who had lied to himself for so long that he had begun to believe his own fiction.

Hades stared at the author and stated, "Yes. You are wrong."

The words were not an insult, but a verdict, the final judgment of a King who had spent an eternity weighing the truth of souls.

The author flinched, his tired eyes searching Hades' face for a hint of hesitation, but he found only the cold, unyielding clarity of the Underworld.

"You are wrong because you hid behind necessity when it was really choice," Hades continued, his voice resonating with a power that began to vibrate the very walls of the room. "You kept telling yourself that suffering made stories meaningful, that tragedy gave depth, that every cruel turn was 'needed.' However, I'm you already knew this...but none of it was forced. You, the author, isn't bound by rules, fate, or some higher law, instead you are the one who can decide everything. Which means every broken life, every ruined world, every despair you wrote...none of it was inevitable, it was allowed."

The Author's hands trembled on his desk. Then, he opened his mouth to speak, to offer another excuse about narrative weight or the beauty of the struggle, but Hades cut him off with a sharp gesture of his hand.

"And worse, you kept going even after you understood that," Hades said, stepping closer. "At some point, it stopped being about telling a story and became indulgence, digging deeper into suffering because you could, because you knew how to make it feel real. You didn't just create pain to serve meaning; you began to rely on it. And that's where you crossed the line. You forgot that giving life also means giving it dignity, not just using it as a tool to evoke emotion. You treated entire existences as disposable weight for a narrative payoff."

The room began to dissolve at the edges, the white light of the Library bleeding through the cracks in the messy apartment.

At this moment, the Author looked smaller now, a pale reflection of a man drowning in his own ink.

"And the final reason cuts deeper," Hades whispered, his purple eyes burning like twin stars. "You never took responsibility in the right way. Instead of accepting that you had the power to change things, to give your worlds rest, to let them heal, to end them cleanly, you chose to keep suffering alive because stopping would mean facing what you have done. You called it duty, but it was fear. Fear of ending it, fear of letting go, fear of admitting that you could have written something kinder and didn't. VE...was it? That's the name you gave me before. You aren't trapped, you simply refused to stop."

The author stared at him, eyes wide, before slowly, he closed his eyes and looked up.

He went silent for a few moments before he chuckled, a sound that was hollow and broken, but for the first time, it sounded honest.

"Heh. Hehehe. Yeah. Yeah, maybe you're right."

He opened his eyes and stared at Hades, a flicker of genuine curiosity appearing in his exhausted gaze. "One last question... if you were in my shoes, what would you have done?"

Hades did not hesitate, as the answer had been forged in the fires of the Great Deletion and the silence of the Underworld.

"I would have stopped pretending I had no choice."

The Author tilted his head, waiting.

"Not by abandoning everything, that's the coward's way out, but by changing how I ruled it. I wouldn't squeeze meaning out of endless suffering, instead, I'd accept that a world doesn't need to be broken to be real. I'd let people win without punishing them for it. I'd let some stories end cleanly instead of dragging them until they rot. And the ones that must end in tragedy? I'd make sure that pain leads somewhere—, growth, understanding, or at least a dignity that isn't stripped away for spectacle."

Hades looked toward the door, toward the infinite books he had passed to get here. "I'd also learn to let go. Not every character needs to be watched forever, and not every thread needs to be pulled until it snaps, because some worlds deserve closure more than continuation. I'd also finish what needs finishing, and I'd have the discipline to leave the rest in peace. And most importantly, I'd stop feeding on it. You kept going because you thought their suffering justified your existence as an author. I wouldn't need that. I'd create because I chose to, not because I was afraid of what happens if I don't. You called it a curse because you never set limits. I would have."

The author stared at him for a few minutes, the blue light of the monitor reflecting in his tear-filled eyes before a slow, peaceful smile spread across his face, the look of a man who had finally been granted the one thing he couldn't write for himself: an ending.

"Is that so?" the author chuckled. "Then, I would like to see you change what I have done."

At that, the author slowly faded.

He didn't scream or resist; he simply dissolved.

His messy room, the empty noodles, the flickering screen, and the man himself transformed into millions of motes of brilliant, blinding light as they swirled around Hades in a celestial cyclone before flying into him, disappearing into his being.

"I will give you my everything..."

"Omniscience, Omnipresence, Omnipotence.... And even more. This is the power of the Author."

At that moment, Hades felt power.

It didn't feel like gaining strength, nor did it feel like the rush of adrenaline or the heat of a divine blessing, instead, it felt like everything else is shrinking into something small enough to hold.

There was no "learning," nor "realizing", because every thought that had ever been thought, every secret buried, every future branching possibility existed at once, laid out with perfect clarity.

He could see Herios standing over the dust of the Outer One; he could feel the heartbeat of Hera in the Empyrean; he could hear the rustle of a leaf in a world that hadn't been written yet.

Questions didn't form anymore because there was nothing left unanswered, and even confusion became impossible, like trying to imagine darkness while staring directly into an endless sun.

The concept of "here" or "there" also no longer exist, because it was if he was in the middle of a collapsing star at the edge of the tenth universe and in the quiet room of a mortal child at the same instant.

It also feels as if he was the breath in someone's lungs and the vacuum between galaxies.

Perspective also began to shatter because there was no single viewpoint, as every angle existed simultaneously, overlapping, layered, indivisible.

He was not observing reality, instead he was embedded in all of it, without boundary.

He was the paper, the ink, and the hand, all at the same time!

And finally, he felt power, the kind of power that is beyond any logic or reason.

This is not strength, nor is it a force, but is the absolute authority, the kind where intention alone is reality.

There was no resistance, no effort, and no opposition. To will something was to make it inevitable, and to unmake something was to erase it so completely it leaves no absence behind.

Cause and effect lost meaning because cause no longer needed time to become effect.

The "Laws" he had once struggled to enforce were now merely his thoughts.

Now, he was truly, absolutely, Omnipotent.

He know absolutely anything and everything about absolutely anything and everything, from the totality to the infinitely and impossibly minute.

He is now in every narrative in every narrative plane, and have undisputed dominion over them.

From the most powerful to the most insignificant, his authority is completely absolute.

Hades opened his eyes, and at that moment, as the authority settled into him, the first thing he noticed was not the worlds, nor the endless threads waiting to be repaired.

It was the feeling of being observed.

Not in the crude sense of eyes on his back, but something quieter and more invasive, like a pressure without weight, or a presence without form.

It was as if every motion he made carried a faint echo, as if meaning itself was being received somewhere beyond the boundaries he could now perceive.

He paused.

For the briefest moment, his awareness brushed against that direction—if it could even be called a direction.

It was distant, and yet uncomfortably close. Thin, like a membrane stretched over something vast, and on the other side of it, there was… attention.

It was not hostile, nor is it benevolent.

It was just there...quiet, brushing something.

He understood it instantly.

But he chose not to acknowledge it.

His gaze moved past it, not out of ignorance, but dismissal, because whatever lingered there did not matter.

It could watch if it wished, and it could linger, unseen and untouched... because it cannot do anything but simply watch.

For now, there were more important things.

He turned towards the door and walked towards it, entering the vast white library.

But as he turned away, something subtle shifted, causing you to feel weird.

And that is because the distance you assume is safe begins to feel less certain the longer you think about it.

That thin boundary that separates you and him does not feel as distant as it should.

Not when you notice how easily his awareness brushed against that boundary, and especially not when you realize he did not search for it—he simply noticed it, the same way you notice something already looking at you.

And now that you've felt it too, even faintly, it becomes harder to ignore.

Not because anything has changed.

But because you cannot quite tell if he truly looked away.

Or if he simply chose to let you believe he did.