Chapter 23 - Returning To The Underworld

Staring at the bodies in front of him, Hades sighed and shook his head. He then asked a question that would have made Gollmiran and the others to erupt in anger if they were alive to hear,

"In the end, who the hell were they anyway? They said they were from bor-something, what was it again?"

Seeing as he couldn't remember the name of their pantheon, he judged it as insignificant and gave up on it.

'Only the last guy was slightly useful, he was a high-rank huh? What a pity'

Channeling his divinity into the teleportation orb in his palm, he disappeared from that area leaving behind the floating bodies who were beginning to freeze due to the coldness of space.

Not long after, the groups who were rushing towards this location would encounter these bodies but only Gollmiran was recognizable, the others were in saddening states. They would then go onto spread the death of one of Borgeth's main gods.

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In the room on the top floor of one of the many towers situated in the underworlds capital, four people were seated at a table engaging in a heated discussion.

One was a bearded young man with ash skin, he had two feathered wings also ash in color at his back. The other was a woman with black hair and eyes, wearing a red robe, decorated with the symbol of a burning torch.

The third was a beautiful young maiden with fair skin. Her face could only be described as the epitome of young beauty. She was clad in long, flowing clothing with a wreath of flowers around her head.

Lastly was a pleasant-looking mature woman, with a veil over her head though her face remained visible. Her brown robes had symbols of wheat drawn on them and she had a horn in her hands.

Suddenly there was a bright flash of light as another being warped into the room. Shock filled the faces of the four as they couldn't sense the teleportation until the very last second before it happened. They were on guard at first, however, after confirming the identity of the one that warped in, they calmed down although they were still surprised about not sensing his entrance.

The intruder, Hades looked around at the people in the room weirdly before calling out to them in order.

"Thanatos, Hecate, Persephone and Demeter? Now that's one combination you don't always see."

His words brought them out of their shock, but before they could speak, he held up a hand to stop them.

"Hold up, first of all, Hecate."

Throwing the teleportation orb in his hand towards her he continued,

"I used up all its charges, toss it into Tartarus, it'll recharge automatically."

Catching the orb, she looked at it with an appraising gaze only to cry out in surprise a second later upon realizing what it was.

"This is one of Kronos' artifacts! Weren't these supposed to be sealed? And you're telling me to just toss it into Tartarus?"

The others were also surprised on hearing the identity of the orb, they figured it was the reason they were unable to sense him earlier, however the one in question just took a seat and began cleaning the blood on his sword. He then looked up at Hecate and asked.

"Yeah. What about it?"

His question was one of pure curiosity, as if he did not understand the reason for her agitation.

"What about it? These things are banned you know?

"I know. So?"

Seeing as they wouldn't get anywhere with the way he was acting, Demeter spoke up to Hecate.

"He's not gonna give you the answer you're looking for, just go keep the artifact properly."

Hecate sighed and gave up on getting an answer from Hades, however before she stood up to leave, he spoke up again.

"Don't keep it anywhere else, just toss it into Tartarus."

And as expected, she finally lost it.

"It's an artifact of Kronos you know! The Titan king! And you want me to toss it into a place where there are thousands of imprisoned titans and giants?! Why the hell would you want that?!"

She screamed towards him, however he just looked at her and repeated his earlier words,

"I used up all the charges, tossing it in there would recharge it automatically. What other reason is there?"

He spoke as if he was confused at why she was objecting to throwing it into Tartarus.

"Don't you think a wandering giant or Titan might find if and use it?"

Thanatos, who had been silent, asked, addressing Hecate's concern. Upon hearing his question, Hades finally realized why she was agitated.

"How big do you think Tartarus is? It's an entire galaxy cluster you know? There's very low probability of them coming in contact with it, even if they did, they wouldn't be able to use it, there are no charges in it after all."

"What if there are?"

Thanatos asked again, completely ignoring the fact that the artifact could be charged by just simply tossing it in Tartarus.

"They still wouldn't, it's bound to me, as such only I can use it."

As he answered, Thanatos finally realized the reason he never considered the possibility of it being used in the first place, because it was bound to him, so no other can use it without his permission.

As he was nodding to himself in understanding, Hades spoke up again,

"Oh yeah, you said that I ended up using a lot of resources due to my recent trips."

As he said that, Persephone's face darkened instantly, that was expected, after all the trips he spoke of were his visits to the son he had with another woman. No normal wife would be happy about that.

The one being spoken to, Thanatos, nodded in affirmation.

"Well, I got something that might solve the energy problems at least."

"Solve the energy problems?"

Thanatos asked back skeptically, all of Hades' trips were performed with his spacecraft, and the craft has a high-energy consumption, also the distance was incredibly large; millions of light years, further increasing the energy consumed.

One of the reasons he was speaking with Demeter as Persephone was to get them to convince him to reduce the amount of trips he was making. Although the underworld had more than enough energy to spare in its reserves, Thanatos had never been one to encourage unecessary usage.

Hades, ignoring his skeptical look, stretched out his hand and muttered silently.

[Authority of death]

The space in front of him, cracked open slightly. Thanatos showed slight surprise at this as he recognized the ability Hades was using; Soul preservation, his surprise increasing as he saw the things that came out of the crack.

Ten balls of light, with one visibly larger than the other nine popped out if the cracked space before it close up. Hades motioned to them as they moved towards Thanatos, ignoring the latter's visible surprise, he asked.

"This should work, right?"

This time, it was Thanatos turn to be shocked, he was even more so than Hecate who had yet to leave the room.

"Did you attack a pantheon or something?"

"Why would I do something as stressful as that? I was on my own and I got attacked so I ended using my assailants as a potential energy source."

To Thanatos question, Hades replied instantly. Hearing this, Persephone became visibly worried.

"Are you okay, you're not hurt are you?"

Normally she wouldn't ask such, however after seeing that the souls in front of her were all those of mid & high-rank gods, she became worried, after all, no matter how strong he was, taking on multiple mid & high-ranks was not something done casually.

Hades on the other hand, replied offhandedly saying.

"Nahh, I'm fine, the only problem I have is trying to get the blood of my swords. The last guy's blood is taking time to go off."

After scanning him and confirming he was not hiding any injuries, she asked again,

"Don't your normally avoid such situations? However, you not only responded to their attacks, you killed them, and you harvested their souls. Replenishing energy sources wasn't the only reason, was it?"

"Nope, needed to fight them for something else. It is not that important to you so do not need to worry about it."

He continued before she could speak again.

"I'm tired so I'm gonna go take a rest, feel free to use the souls as you wish Thanatos, and for you Hecate, Don't forget to toss that in, I'm gonna use it again soon."

He stood up and placed his swords in his subspace ring, before proceeding to walk out the door. Stopping right in front of the door, he turned around and said.

"Thanatos, please make it more widely known that you're the god of death, not me, I don't find it funny to have idiots attacking me to prove their better gods of death than I am, how can they prove who's better if I'm not one in the first place?"

He shook his head and sighed as he walked out of the room, leaving the dumbfounded quartet.

Picking up the three headed dog that was on the ground beside the door, he patted its heads while remembering that Cattleya wanted to meet it.

'I'll think about that later, i need some rest.'

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Meanwhile, the situation in Borgeth could not be described as anything but chaotic. Multiple gods had fallen, all at the same time, for unknown reasons. People across many worlds were in panic fearing that there might be a war. This was information that could not be hidden at all.

The statues and idols representing the fallen gods all across Borgeth were all either cracked or broken, the only reason the statue of a god would suddenly break into pieces, is the death of that god.

Greater panic arose when the all statues of Gollmiran, the main god of death, shattered in their respective temples.

There were even situations of the temples crumbling down, killing all the people in it, the other gods who were not aware of Gollmiran's secret task, turned to the leader of the pantheon for answers.

A god's death had many consequences, lesser defenses for their pantheon in case of an attack being one of them. However, the greatest consequence was the vacancy of their seat, the gods have duties they are meant to fulfill depending on the position they hold.

As a god of death, Gollmiran was responsible for transporting the dying and dead souls to the afterlife in Borgeth. Just his presence was enough for the dead souls to be automatically transferred, in a situation where the soul is being kept back against the laws of the world, it is the duty of him, his subordinate gods and servants to retrieve the soul or souls and transport them to where they are supposed to be.

Some circumstances may permit the soul to remain in the waking world as an undead, however such situations are rare in the grand scheme of things, compared to the millions of souls that pass on daily, a few hundred or thousand undead can be ignored and left to run free for some time.

If such a god dies, a few of his subordinate gods are put in charge of managing the dead souls and the law of death that governs that pantheon until a new god of death is chosen, however most of the eligible candidates for this perished alongside Gollmiran, leaving very few remaining.

The leader of the pantheon ignored the requests from the other gods and focused on calming the unstable law of death, however this was a temporary solution, soon enough a new god has to be appointed the position of death otherwise the consequences would only increase.

There had already been various reports of the dead rising back again, the number of undead creatures have also been increasing exponentially, and this was within just one month of Gollmiran's death. Although the other gods of Borgeth wanted to wage war against the one who killed their brethren, they were not so foolish to not understand that they were in no state to wage war.

Word also got out that the reason for Gollmiran's death had to do with the Master of the pantheon, increasing the dissatisfaction felt towards him.. This would eventually lead to a coup which would change the power structure of Borgeth but that's a story best told later.