Chapter 20 - God Of The Underworld’s Surprise

'Thi-this is ju-just horrible'

Seeing the situation in front of him, Gollmiran wanted to shed a river of tears, however, his tear glands seemed to have stopped working.

He even started thinking they were more scared than he was.

In front of him, the bodies of nine beings were floating around, all of them; dead. Some of their bodies were in very horrible states as if they had been ripped apart by a raging whirlwind. The only thing consistent about them was the gaping holes in their chests and the expressions of agony on their faces.

They looked like they had been tortured continuously for centuries before finally being killed. That was only natural, after all their souls were ripped right out of their bodies when they were still alive. The pain of having your soul ripped out of your body, regardless of your will is simply unimaginable.

The culprit responsible for the scene in front of him was sitting on a rock, space debris that came from somewhere he would never know. He was cleaning off the blood on his swords while laughing jovially.

The aura around him was something Gollmiran never expected to see, the information they received never mentioned that the being in front of him would be this strong.

As he lamented internally about his impending doom, he thought back onto the circumstances that led to this.

'I simply wanted to prove I was the superior one, I didn't expect this at all, if I had known I would have never accepted this mission.'

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Three Days ago

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Borgeth was a pantheon whose territory was situated west of Olympus. It was one of the few territories in between Olympus and Hell. When ranked, Borgeth was at least a medium level universal power.

However, the people of Borgeth were extremely prideful and did not accept that there existed other powers stronger than theirs. The greatest compromise they could make was saying all other powers were on the same level as them.

This pride was damaged when they clashed with Olympus a few thousand years back. The reason for the clash had been lost to time, however the defeat they suffered was not. Ever since that incident, the people of Borgeth have held great animosity towards Olympians.

They were one of the leading pantheons in their area and had conquered other lesser pantheons around them. Because of this, they believed they were unmatched for thousands of years. This pride kept on growing until it was crushed when they decided to stretch their hands towards Olympus.

During the short war, Hades personally eliminated three of the main gods of their pantheon. The arrogant gods dared to invade Hades domain, the underworld. As such, their deaths were only natural as even the main Olympians don't dare enter the underworld carelessly.

Among the gods that were killed, Borgeth's main god of death was there.

Gollmiran was his successor and ever since hearing of his predecessor's death at Hades' hands, he had hated Hades and felt inferior to him. He improved his strength in hopes of one day challenging Hades to a fight to prove he was a stronger god of death, completely ignoring the fact that Hades was not actually a god of death in the first place.

His hatred towards Hades was no secret so when the Master of Borgeth found out about Hades' involvement with the child of destruction and the statement released in response to the threats of other pantheons, Borgeth included, he felt enraged and decided to teach Hades a lesson.

However, he was the master of Borgeth, they had many enemies, and he wasn't foolish enough to leave his position easily so he called Gollmiran and tasked him with the mission of defeating and if possible killing Hades.

Having spies in other pantheons was an unwritten rule among masters, Borgeth was not an exception. He naturally had spies in both Hell and Olympus, so he was able to find out when Hades left Olympus and arrived in Hell. His spies in Hell, then informed him of when Hades was scheduled to return, naturally this was known by Diablo, however he simply let it be as he knew Hades' current strength better than anyone.

Unless the master of Borgeth himself attacks Hades, he would be okay. Knowing that the master of Borgeth was not foolish enough for that, he simple let the spy be. In fact, he knew the various locations and positions of over 80% of the spies sent by other pantheons to Hell however, that is a story for another time.

Gollmiran, upon receiving the mission that would provide him an opportunity to duel Hades, accepted it without question and set out with 9 of his followers, all of which were at least superior-mid rank gods with the highest being an intermediate-high rank.

Together, they set out towards Hades approximated location, taking three days in total to reach there. Upon discovering Hades' craft from afar, they decided to hide their auras in an attempt to ambush him however their opponent's senses were sharp and he noticed them easily.

When they realized this, they gave up on any ambushes and decided to go with a frontal attack. Appearing in front of Hades, they watched as he casually stuffed his spacecraft into his space expansion bag before hanging said bag on his waist.

As he looked at his assailants, Hades smiled and said,

"To what do I owe this visit, umm... Where are you from?"

Realizing that Hades did not even recognize him, Gollmiran shouted in rage,

"You bastard! How dare you not recognize us great gods of Borgeth!"

Hearing his reply, Hades appeared even more confused as he asked innocently,

"Borgeth? What is that? Is it a place?"

This question enraged the gods of Borgeth even further as one of them even attacked Hades in rage. Seeing the ball of flames sent towards him, Hades frowned and casually swatted it away. This action shocked them, as that was an attack capable of destroying a planet with ease. Even though he never expected it to actually do any harm, seeing Hades swat it away so easily shocked him to the core.

However, this attack was not even enough to scratch Hades, in fact it slightly infuriated him.

"Seeing as you are attacking, I take it you are all hostile right? Good, more tools for me to use."

That was the final point. All the others instantly activated their various authorities, deciding not to hold back against Hades. As for Gollmiran, he shouted,

"You once killed my master and now I shall avenge him and prove I'm a better god of death than you!"

At his words Hades looked towards him in pure confusion,

"But I'm not a god of death in the first place though?"

Gollmiran did not even consider Hades' reply as he attacked immediately. Hades also brought out his twin swords and blocked the incoming scythe. The other gods all attacked with their various weapons and magic too.

Hades blocked the sword that came from behind, turning around to send his own slash. He caught the spear that came from the side and sent a kick to its weirder, drawing blood from him.

To the two magic attacks coming from both sides he dodged by simply moving out of their area of effect at a frightening speed. However, the two attacks seemed to possess homing functions as they instantly changed directions to his new location. Gollmiran sent two aura attacks towards him from behind and another casted magic that called nearby space rocks towards him. As Hades prepared to deal with these attacks, something unexpected happened.

A god with an authority over space flicked his wrist causing all the attacks to disappear and reappear directly in front of Hades giving him no time to conjure any defenses. At the last moment, another god casted an amplification magic to increase the strength of these attacks by almost 50%.

A silent explosion could be seen as Hades was hit by all these attacks without question. As the dust cleared out, Hades tattered appearance could be seen, it was at this moment that they all realized that for some reason, Hades wasn't wearing any protective gear.

Someone in Hades level should possess hundreds of protective artifacts yet none could be seen on him. Gollmiran found this suspicious but before his could address his suspicions Hades injuries were covered by a wave of darkness that spread through his body, healing him almost instantly.

Seeing as he easily recovered from their combo of attacks they prepared another however Hades spoke with his hands stretched out,

"Wait, give me a second."

His searched his space expansion bag before pulling out an orb glowing in blue light. They all instantly became on guard however, Hades next words were surprising.

"Chill out, it's not an offensive artifact, it simply teleports anything and anyone in the area to a set destination regardless of their wills. It was one of the few 'gifts' I received from my father."

Hearing the explanation of the artifact put them more on guard as he could use it to separate them and end their numerical advantage. The god with a space authority even brought up his divinity preparing to resist any sort of teleportation.

"You can't resist it with divinity you know?"

Hades suddenly said, shocking them once again, however he continued before they could speak.

"That's not the main point, you see there are a lot of eyes watching us and it's quite irritating so I simply wanted to take us somewhere else where we could...exchange pointers in private."

He smiled as he said this. Upon hearing his words, Gollmiran laughed and replied.

"It's better this way, let them all see the fall of the bastard who killed my predecessor."

As the other gods were nodding in assent, Hades frowned and said,

"Well I don't want them to see how I kill you all, I like to keep my strengths hidden you see so I won't be accepting any objections."

As he spoke, the orb flashed and they all vanished from the area shocking the countless eyes who were watching the fight from the Shadows.

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At another empty space in... space, the group appeared as the 10 gods who were taken against their will were shocked. Even the one with a space authority could not resist the forceful teleportation.

"Tch... I only got one charge left, might as well use it to go home when I'm done here."

Hades' voice brought them out of their stupor as one of them shouted in anger

"How do you have such an artifact?!"

"Didn't I tell you, it was one of my father's 'gifts'. He used to say 'Surprise!' whenever he used it so I'd do the same."

As he said that, his body flashed and a dark armor appeared over him, smiling ominously he continued,

"It's the god of the underworld's Surprise."

As he spoke, all of them could feel it instantly, the aura around Hades had changed.

It was time for round two.