The God of Underworld - Chapter 313

Chapter 313: Chapter 12
The remaining space of the allied Mayan and Aztec Pantheon was a landscape of terminal decay.

Their combined universe was collapsing inward, its very fabric unraveling into threads of light and dust, consumed by the relentless advance of Outer One fragments that clung like parasites to the edges of reality.

All that remained was a single, immense, stepped pyramid—the last bastion of their spiritual and physical existence.

Upon the desolate stone ground at the foot of the pyramid, two figures in their human guises stood amidst the debris.

Kukulkhan, the Mayan feathered serpent god, leaned against a shattered altar, his posture relaxed despite the crumbling cosmos.

Beside him, Quetzalcoatl, his Aztec counterpart, calmly shared a ceremonial gourd of pulque, watching the surrounding universe dissolve into the terrifying black dust of consumption.

“A beautiful sight, wouldn’t you say, brother?” Kukulkhan remarked, taking a slow sip. “The end of all things, viewed from the perfect seat.”

Quetzalcoatl merely chuckled, the sound of his voice dry and light. “More dramatic than I ever imagined, Kukulkhan. But far too messy. I would have preferred a clean deletion.”

Just then, a third god descended from the apex of the pyramid, his steps silent and measured.

It was Tezcatlipoca.

God of the night sky and conflicts, his obsidian mirror, cast on his head, was reflecting the dying light of their universe.

“The portal has been opened,” Tezcatlipoca announced, his voice carrying the gravity of the inevitable. “The space time anchor is stabilizing. In a few minutes, the window will be wide enough for the remaining gods to escape.”

Quetzalcoatl nodded, his gaze fixed on the narrow, shimmering fissure of the dimensional gateway at the pyramid’s peak. “Remember, you must bring the Heart to Hades and join the Hyperverse he has created. It is the only way our pantheon’s can survive this purge.”

Tezcatlipoca looked at the two serene gods, his voice betraying a hint of raw pain. “And you both truly intend on staying here? You, the great founders of our pantheon’s alliance?”

Kukulkhan threw back his head and laughed, letting out a rich, booming sound that was gloriously defiant against the death-wail of the cosmos.

“Someone has to keep these irritating pests at bay while the rest of the lifeboats depart, Tezcatlipoca! If we don’t contain this collapse, the hungry fragments will simply follow your tail right through the portal and poison the Hyperverse before you can even deliver the Heart.”

Tezcatlipoca fell silent, unable to meet their eyes, his hand clenched tightly at his side. He and Quetzalcoatl are rivals, and he even fought and argued with Kukulkhan a few times in the past.

Their hatred is pretty much already an everyday knowledge in their pantheon.

But seeing your rival who has fought with you for thousands of years about to die so you and the others can escape…even someone as Tezcatlipoca couldn’t help but feel this complex emotion known as sadness.

He had wanted to argue, to plead with them, but he understood the cold logic of their sacrifice.

“Your final service will be etched into the memory of our people,” Tezcatlipoca finally stated, his voice solemn. “Your sacrifice will not be forgotten.”

The two feathered serpents merely laughed, a shared, joyful sound of release.

“That’s more than enough, Tezcatlipoca. Go. Ensure the Heart makes it safely.”

Just then, a god positioned at the pyramid’s peak screamed a triumphant, desperate affirmation, “Lord Tezcatlipoca!The portal is stabilized! The gateway is ready!”

Tezcatlipoca looked up, then back at his comrades, then he reached into his robes and produced two clay bottles of wine.

“This,” he said, his voice regaining a measure of his old, mocking pride, “is the best aged wine I have in my treasury. Reserved for the greatest moments. I’m giving them to you.”

Quetzalcoatl chuckled, seizing one of the bottles. He lifted it in a final, solemn salute and downed the entire contents in one long, smooth, unhurried draft.

“Ah! That hits the spot!”

Kukulkhan took the other, taking a few appreciative sips, savoring the taste of victory and impending doom.

“You’re wasting a good wine again! How many times have I told you that a good wine must be savored slowly!”

A smile appeared on Tezcatlipoca’s fave seeing their antics, then with a final, grave nod, he turned and flew back toward the peak of the pyramid, where thousands of gods and spirits were already lining up, shuffling towards the narrow, shimmering bottleneck of the dimensional portal.

The moment he left, the two feathered serpents released their control.

“Let’s go.”

“Finally!”

With a geological rumble, their human forms dissolved, and two massive, magnificent feathered serpents—their true, radiant forms—erupted into the air.

Their immense, coiled bodies circled the pyramid, their vibrant emerald and turquoise scales forming a living shield around the escaping pantheon members.l

Some gods who are seeing this transformation for the first time stared at them in awe.

But the Outer One fragments, sensing the escape and the sudden activation of such immense power, began to devour the remaining universe with accelerated, frantic hunger.

The black tide of infant-like creatures surged toward the pyramid, their wails growing deafening.

Kukulkhan and Quetzalcoatl met the assault head-on.

They spewed cyclones of wind, fire, and lightning, incinerating the chaotic spawn, their immense forms protecting the narrow escape route.

“Hahahaha! Disappear you pests!”

“Come get me!”

They laughed wildly, their divine battle cries masking the noise of the collapsing cosmos, turning the final defense into a perverse competition of destructive power.

“Did you see that, Kukulkhan? My firestorm vaporized a thousand more than your cyclone!” Quetzalcoatl roared, unleashing a burst of pure, solar light.

“Nonsense! My winds are pushing them back conceptually! Yours merely burns the surface!” Kukulkhan countered, striking a swath of black ichor with a sound-barrier-shattering roar.

But the laughter slowly grew strained.

The chaos was infinite, and their energy was finite.

Despite their immense power, the injuries accumulated, and the mouths of black infant-like tide managed to score deep, searing conceptual wounds into their vibrant scales.

Exhaustion began to settle, and injuries are wearing them down.

Finally, the shouting from the peak ceased as all the remaining gods and spirits had passed through.

Tezcatlipoca was the last figure visible, standing before the closed portal.

He took one final, long look at the two glorious, wounded serpents circling below, his eyes silently conveying the respect, grief, and terror he felt.

Then, with a decisive action, he stepped through, and the portal immediately snapped shut.

It was just in time.

The sky above the pyramid split wide open, and the true scale of the invading entity was revealed: countless black tentacles, writhing and slick, reached through the dimensional tear, their surface covered in endless, shifting eyes and mouths.

It was the full, immediate attention of a greater Outer One.

Quetzalcoatl looked at the terrifying spectacle, and instead of despair, a deep, satisfied chuckle escaped his massive serpentine throat.

He turned his scarred head toward his friend. “Afraid, Kukulkhan?”

Kukulkhan’s vast body shimmered with defiance, his voice a roaring gale. “Afraid? Who is afraid?! I say we fly toward that thing and choke the life out of its limbs ourselves!”

Quetzalcoatl laughed, the sound mingling with the cosmic death-wail. “I can do better! I say we introduce it to the true destructive power of the sun from the inside!”

“Now we’re talking!”

With that final, shared roar of absolute defiance, the two massive feathered serpents turned from the crumbling pyramid.

They did not retreat; they flew upward, soaring straight into the endless, hungry limbs of the Outer One, embracing their final, glorious fate in a blaze of impossible light and impossible courage.

*

*

*

At this moment, a profound and violent shudder ran through the entire Hyperverse.

It was not a tremor of destruction, but a colossal, systemic jolt, the cosmic equivalent of a deep, resonant bell tolling the successful forging of a new reality.

Through the veins of the fused realities—the Greek, Norse, Christian, and Egyptian cores—a torrential wave of newfound energy surged, a unique essence derived from the wild, deep magic and sovereignty of the Celtic cosmos.

In the Empyrean, Nyx felt the immense power stabilize the swirling, chaotic air of the realm.

Her stern composure melted into a profound sigh of relief.

On the Egypt Realm, Hecate felt the surge replenish her depleted conceptual energies, the residual phantom pains of her wounds vanishing instantly.

Hera and Aphrodite, overseeing the distant strategic frontiers, felt the systemic pressure on their defensive structures ease instantly.

They all looked up at the ceiling of the Empyrean, where the starlight seemed to have grown brighter.

“It is done,” Nyx murmured, the word carrying the full weight of her trust and anticipation. “Hades has succeeded and the Celtic Heart is integrated.”

*

*

*

Across the Hyperverse, the effect was immediate and intoxicating.

Zeus felt his thunderbolts gain a new conceptual density, their raw power exponentially magnified.

He laughed, a booming sound of sheer, unadulterated power that echoed through Olympus.

Odin, leaning heavily on Gungnir in Valhalla, felt the deep roots of Yggdrasil draw profound new strength, and his personal rune magic gained a startling new layer of permanence.

Poseidon, submerged in the turbulent depths, felt the chaotic temporal eddies in his domain instantly calm, the new Celtic stability rooting the very flow of time in his waters.

They sensed the barrier lifting.

They could feel it, an inevitable conceptual push.

One more strategic infusion of power, one more victory, and they would finally step into that rarefied realm known as Transcendence, joining Nyx, Erebus, and the Transcendent Primordials.

*

*

*

Currently, in the heart of the now-integrated Celtic Universe, Hades opened his eyes.

He was suspended in an empty, crystalline void—the space where the Four Treasures had collapsed into the unified Fifth Heart.

He felt his power not merely growing, but ascending beyond even his own comprehension, deepening its roots and infinitely branching its reach.

The concept of “becoming one” that he had enforced upon the Four Treasures had added the distinct concepts of Choice, Knowledge, Destruction, and Creation directly to his core being.

He looked up, toward the boundary of this freshly absorbed universe, and right now, he could feel the familiar, overwhelming presence of Azathoth, and that was now a threat he could now quantify.

But beyond the power of the Primordial chaos god, Hades sensed something else entirely.

A detached, steady awareness. An omnipresence that felt utterly non-hostile, yet was observing his every move, every thought, every agonizing decision.

Someone was watching him. Intensely.

This observer felt fundamentally different from any deity, any Outer One, or any dimensional entity.

It existed on a conceptual plane entirely outside the spatial-temporal boundaries he had just rewritten.

It was an awareness that permeated his universe without interacting with it—a ghost beyond the physics of the Hyperverse.

Was it the writer? Or was it Azathoth, attempting a subtle form of remote surveillance?

No. Far from it.

He began to ponder the meaning of their reality, drawing upon the sudden wealth of conceptual knowledge gained from his timeline traversal.

The very language used by the writer to describe this reality is “a book”.

‘A book,’ Hades reasoned, ‘is something that has a reader.’

His mind, sharpened by the power of Law and the insights of infinite lives, pierced the veil of narrative.

If our reality is a book, there must also be a reader, right?

Hades’ eyes, blazing with the combined light of five universes, focused intently on the silent, detached awareness that permeated his reality.

His voice, though only a whisper in the silent void, carried the absolute power of the Supreme Deity.

“The one who is watching me now… the one who exists outside the laws I have just decreed… was it you? The one reading this?”