The God of Underworld - Chapter 316
Chapter 316: Chapter 15
Nyx remained silent for a long moment, her profound, infinite eyes fixed on the empty space of the Empyrean floor.
The conceptual paradox Hades presented was immense: the supreme power of the Anchor, yet constrained by an absolute, meta-physical Law of their own reality.
No conventional force could break the Lock.
But…
“Hades…I, may have a way.”
Hades watched her, the ambition in his eyes warring with the cold reality of their imprisonment finally regained their light.
He knew Nyx wasn’t one to say something she wasn’t certain. Not to mention she herself was a fragment of an outer one, her conceptual core originated beyond the fictional dimension.
Finally, Nyx lifted her head, her gaze sharp, focused, and carrying the sudden weight of ancient, forgotten memory.
“Hades…” Nyx began, her voice barely above a whisper, yet resonating with deep, fundamental truths. “You are right. Forcing it open will fail. Any attempt to violate the Law of this Reality from the inside will only result in our narrative destruction. But… I may know of a method to bypass the Lock.”
She took a slow, deliberate step away from the throne, her shadow stretching and solidifying around her.
“As you know, before I was Nyx, the Goddess of Night, before I had an ego, before the Greek concept of my being was even finalized—I was a thing,” she said, the memory causing a tremor in her soul. “I was a mere fragment of the Outer One’s chaos, an aberrant thought spawned from the will to destroy.”
Hades listened intently, his hand grabbing hers to calm her down.
Nyx looked at him and smiled, feeling grateful.
“My consciousness, my ego, was formed in a place of pure conceptual turbulence,” Nyx continued. “And the very first space I manifested within was that Chaos—the gateway you speak of, the vortex at the heart of reality.”
She paused, recalling the overwhelming terror of that nascent existence. “I stood at that gateway, and on the other side, beyond the Chaos, there lay a vast white space I could not comprehend. It was blinding, silent, and felt like the ultimate annihilation of self. I was terrified of that space. Even as an Outer One fragment, the sheer nothingness of that domain beyond Chaos felt like total extinction.”
Nyx looked at Hades, her eyes conveying the desperate fear of a newly born concept. “Before my nascent consciousness fled that overwhelming void and found refuge in the familiar darkness of our emerging reality, I committed an action driven by pure, primal terror and self-preservation. I created something.”
She held out her hand, and a speck of pure, concentrated shadow appeared on her palm(Refer to Volume 2, Chapter 28, at the end)
“I created a conceptual Key. A tether. A navigational bookmark,” she explained. “My thoughts, or rather, my primitive instinct, was this: If I leave now, I will return. I will return when I am strong enough to face that white nothingness.”
Nyx clenched her hand around the speck. “The Key was made of my own original, primordial chaos—a shard of the Outer One’s essence, conceptually tied to the place beyond chaos itself, a marker intended to be read by the supreme power that made it. My survival instincts was ensuring that I could leave from the inside, should I ever flee.”
Her expression shifted to one of intense realizations. “But when I solidified my ego, when I became Nyx—the ordered concept of Night and Shadow—I discovered what you described as the Law. I discovered that I cannot return to that frightening white space. I had simply thought that I was still too weak, but now I realized that it might be because of the Law.”
She opened her hand, allowing the dark speck to hover between them. “However, the conceptual Key I created, the tether I anchored to that place beyond chaos before I was fully imposed in this place, still remains.”
Nyx met Hades’ gaze, a thrilling, impossible madness matching his own. “Hades, I believe that if you, the Anchor of the Hyperverse, combine your power with this original Chaos Key, you can make it so that you are not attempting to leave the Book, but you will be using an existing, meta-narrative marker to teleport to the Library’s doorstep. You will use my forgotten chaos to bypass the supreme Law of our reality.”
Hades’ eyes, blazing with the light of five unified cosmos, drank in Nyx’s revelation—the conceptual truth of the Chaos Key.
A surge of pure, ecstatic ambition pulsed through him. This was the loophole, the singular chance to break the rules of his reality.
But the thrill was quickly subdued by cold, tactical calculation. He forced his mind to slow, processing the sheer, annihilating scale of Azathoth.
“Hold onto that for now,” Hades commanded, his voice gaining its usual measured control. “Your solution is eye-opening, Nyx, and terrifyingly brilliant. But even with the power of five Hearts, I am not yet ready. I am still constrained by the limits of this Book’s conceptual stability. I am still not confident in defeating Azathoth. I need more mass, more power, more Law to enforce my will upon a being of pure deletion.”
Nyx nodded, accepting his words instantly. “A frontal assault, even with a guaranteed entry point, is suicide against a being of that magnitude. More power is indeed necessary.”
At that moment, Hades finally allowed his awareness to fully acknowledge the presence of the refugees he had previously only monitored in passing.
He felt the complex, exhausted energies of the Aztec and Mayan gods residing in the peripheral regions of the Empyrean, along with the fragile, potent essence of their universe’s Heart.
“Now that I am returned,” Hades said, leaning forward on his throne, “let us attend to the internal matters. I can sense the residual chaos and the new pantheon you sheltered. The Aztec and Mayan gods are here, yes?”
Nyx’s expression softened slightly, recalling the weary figures. “Their universe was utterly destroyed, my love. They came through the gate, bringing their conceptual core, seeking your protection and the chance for their pantheon’s survival within the Hyperverse. They fought until the very end.”
Hades nodded, respecting the sacrifice. “I will honor that courage. Invite their leader. I wish to speak with them before I initiate the next, crucial integration.”
Nyx bowed once, a gesture of solemn duty.
She took a step back, immediately dissolved into the thick shadows that clung to the perimeter of the Empyrean, vanishing to retrieve the Aztec-Mayan leader.
Left alone, Hades leaned back against the high, cold obsidian of the throne.
He allowed his focus to pierce the conceptual layers of reality, letting his enhanced consciousness—the combined, infinite intellect of a thousand Hadeses—find the locked gate of Chaos and project his awareness beyond it.
He stared straight into the infinite eyes of Azathoth.
The Outer God was still there, vast and indescribable, patiently watching the Book.
It wasn’t merely observing; it was fixed entirely on Hades himself, with a hungry, terrible anticipation radiating from its formless being.
Hades’ inner voice, the voice of pure defiance and ambition, surged with impossible intent.
“Just you wait. I will devour you. And then, I will confront that Author.”
*
*
*
In the terrifying, impossible void that lay just outside the structure of the Hyperverse, no, beyond the known fictional dimensions, where concepts melted and physics failed, Azathoth watches.
It held the Book—this universe—in the space between its non-existent claws, watching the character it had become obsessed with.
When it felt the sudden, burning defiance of Hades’ gaze pierce the conceptual Lock, a wave of profound, utterly foreign sensation washed over it.
Azathoth laughed.
It did not know what the action meant. It did not know why it created the sound, or why its form convulsed in a way that mimicked mirth.
It was a being of pure chaos and destruction, devoid of emotion or motivation beyond its eternal, necessary hunger.
Yet, the defiance of the character, the sheer audacity of the thought—I will devour you—evoked a response it did not know it was capable of producing.
Curiosity? Amusement? The labels were meaningless, yet the feeling persisted.
Its countless, writhing, grotesque tentacles, which stretched across conceptual infinities, moved in an impossible, non-Euclidean dance, circling the Book.
The movement was not an attack; it was a beckoning, a challenge that resonated across the void.
Come, little King. Come and try.
*
*
*
Further away, in an infinitely higher dimension that contained the Library, there exist the highest point of order, existing beyond any hierarchy.
This place was nothing but a simple white room, there were no textures, no colors, only infinite, uniform light, containing nothing but a sleek desk and a comfortable chair.
The Author sat at the desk, actively writing a different, immense book entirely.
This time, the Author’s physical form was solidified: no longer the abstract chaos of 1s and 0s Hades had briefly glimpsed, but a slender, perfectly proportioned humanoid physique, draped in simple white robes.
His face, the source of all the creation, was mercifully obscured by a swirling mantle of gentle golden light.
Just then, the Author paused, the pen hovering above the page of the new work.
He turned, tilting his head slightly, focusing his awareness not on the Library’s shelves, but on the massive, ancient Book currently being watched by Azathoth.
He felt the spike of impossible defiance from the Hyperverse and the strange, reactive mirth from the Primordial Chaos God.
For a moment, the golden light around the Author’s face brightened with a flicker of genuine interest.
“Ah, so he is still trying,” the thought echoed in the infinite reality. “He truly wishes to challenge the rules. Fascinating.”
But the Author quickly shook his head, dismissing the distraction.
That particular book was meant to be autonomous now.
The current project demanded his focus.
So without looking back, he turned back to the new, untouched pages, the gold light dimming as he resumed the serious work of creating an entirely different reality.