Chapter 274
Because Hades was a figure from ancient myth, few people in the current era knew much about him in detail. El-Cid, however, was well versed, thanks to the knowledge Rodrick had accumulated during his lifetime.
Hades was one of the Three Great Gods who stood equal to Zeus, ruler of the heavens and king of Olympus, and the sovereign of the underworld who governed the afterlife. He was also the owner of Kynee, the divine artifact that concealed his true form.
Within the underworld, his authority was absolute. Even during the Titanomachy, when the Titans nearly wiped out the Olympian gods, not a single Titan had descended as far as the Palace of the Underworld [1]. Because in the underworld, nothing could escape his sight, and once he pronounced death, no one survived.
“Well, it’s not like I’ll ever meet him anyway,” Leon said.
El-Cid did not deny it. One of the three Olympian chief gods was a supreme deity several ranks above the goddess of this world. A being capable of projecting power while ignoring causality itself, resetting civilizations, and reconstructing entire ecosystems.
Unless someone like the great hero Hercules of ancient myth marched all the way to his palace and throttled Cerberus at the gates, there was no reason for such a god to pay attention to a lone human lingering near the entrance.
—Even if he were favorably disposed toward you, it’s better not to meet him. Most Olympian gods are emotionally driven. A single trivial action can get you cursed, abducted, or worse.
Leon cast a dubious glance down at the hilt of his sword and asked, “What, even though they’re literal gods?”
—It’s precisely because they’re gods. Some of them are more arrogant than dragons and treat all life on the surface as toys.
The goddess, who watched over the world with nothing but mercy and love, was the real anomaly. To most gods, mortals were little more than playthings. Bestowing blessings on a whim, or curses just as casually, was commonplace. Forcing unreasonable trials, staging meaningless tragedies, manipulating and destroying bonds of fate—such things were hardly rare.
—Zeus, the god-king, is infamous for being consumed by lust for mortals, spreading his seed by the thousands. He tricked them with words, disguised his form, and if all else failed, raped them.
“That’s an evil god! What the hell!”
—Well, the gods thought that giving birth to the god-king’s child was a blessing. Hera, Zeus’s consort, found it intolerable and even cursed the women who were assaulted.
“That’s completely deranged. Definitely not a story you tell kids...”
Leon clicked his tongue, realizing that the myths and legends of this world, centered on virtue and moral retribution, were actually rather mild by comparison. They said reality was worse than rumor, but how could those who called themselves gods be that vile? Having assumed that divine beings were inherently benevolent because of the Holy Church and the goddess, Leon felt that illusion shatter completely.
That was when Rodlin, who had followed Leon without a word, spoke up.
“Master. An interference phenomenon of unknown origin has been detected.”
“Interference? What kind?” Leon asked.
Rodlin replied in her calm, measured tone. “According to the inference of the logic core installed in my core body, biological activity in this area appears to be forcibly halted. The rate of organic decay and decomposition is abnormally high, and energy consumption has increased sharply.”
“What? I didn’t feel anything...”
“It is presumed that you are unaffected by this interference. Possibly due to the ‘blessing of an otherworldly god’ mentioned by that beast, Cerberus.”
“Oh!”
It made sense. As Leon nodded at her conclusion, another question he had held was soon resolved: Why had Cerberus spoken to him, but not to William?
El-Cid affirmed after reading his thoughts. —Just as you suspect. The level of corruption in the Four Great Demon Realms is on an entirely different scale. This area is practically the afterlife already. It means the living cannot enter and emerge unscathed.
Even someone like Cardinal William?
—Power level doesn’t matter. To resist the laws of the world itself, you must become a transcendent being or receive protection from one of equivalent standing.
That was why Cerberus had allowed Leon to approach, while refusing to communicate with William from the outset. Without Anubis’s blessing, Leon himself would likely have lost years of his lifespan with every step he took. Rodlin, neither truly living nor dead, seemed exempt from the laws of the underworld.
Having uncovered another rule of Nether Valley, Leon and Rodlin continued forward. Not long after, the fog that had filled the area had vanished, revealing a gloomy, wavering sky and horizon.
“We should be almost there...” Leon said.
Unnatural colors, ash-gray, green, and violet, twisted together in a violent swirl of the hidden side of the world that living beings were never meant to perceive. Just staring into it was enough to drive one mad. Even the corpse flowers seen at the entrance of the demon realm wouldn’t sprout here.
This was the deepest core of Nether Valley, the center of a distortion where two dimensions intertwined. A place even divine beings hesitated to approach was now reached by a single hero and a golden golem.
At that moment, a deep, resonant voice echoed in Leon’s mind, recalling a being he had encountered once before. —So you have come.
Cerberus, the watchdog of the death god Hades. A transcendent species that could be called either a divine beast or a demonic beast, suddenly dragged its massive body out of the void. Leon stiffened, having failed to sense it at such close range.
El-Cid reassured him, —Don’t be startled. At your level, detecting movement through dimensional boundaries is impossible.
Explain it to me later...
—Sure thing, my disciple.
Regaining his composure thanks to El-Cid’s words, Leon took a breath and steadied himself. Then, he spoke with an easy expression.
“Doesn’t look like I kept you waiting too long, right?”
Cerberus replied, —You’ve reached here surprisingly quickly. And you dealt with all the escapees. Thanks to you, I’ll be spared the incident report.
“An incident report? You?”
Leon glanced uneasily at Cerberus’s sharp claws, and all three heads chuckled at once. Exactly the reaction he’d expected from Leon.
—A joke.
“That... wasn’t very funny...”
Ignoring his complaint, Cerberus continued, —Now then. You will seal the connection between the Underworld and this world, separating the two dimensions back to their original states. Are you prepared?
“If I weren’t, I wouldn’t have come this far.”
—I guess that is true. Then, follow me.
As Cerberus turned and began to move, Leon and Rodlin were forced to almost break into a run just to keep pace with his stride.
Even the baleful air of Nether Valley lost its force before him and fled far into the distance. The wandering specters drifting through the sky likewise scattered without a second glance the moment one of his three heads snapped its gaze toward them. To those scraps that had spilled out of the Underworld, Cerberus was death itself in the most literal sense.
“Cerberus,” Leon called.
—What is it?
“There’s something I’d like to ask about Sisyphus. Is that all right?”
—Don’t tell me he slipped out again.
Cerberus shook all three heads in an openly weary manner. Given his enormous size, the motion stirred up a gust strong enough to sweep Leon’s hair back.
Turning just one head to face him, Cerberus added, —I’m afraid I have no answers I can give you.
“Huh?”
—Sisyphus, prisoner of Tartaros, is outside my jurisdiction. Do you really think I can freely manage someone who moves while evading my sight? Even if it was an ambush, he subdued Lord Thanatos himself. I don’t even have the authority to access his records.
“I see...”
Leon, left speechless, accepted it quietly. No matter how exalted a divine or demonic beast Cerberus might be, he was still no match for a criminal who had overpowered the god of death. Catching a few escaped prisoners was hardly grounds to demand more. With nothing further to ask, Leon and Rodlin silently followed behind Cerberus.
—We have arrived.
In just a few minutes, Cerberus and the two outsiders reached the source of Nether Valley, the dimensional distortion point. The moment Leon saw it, his hand flew to cover his eyes.
“Ugh?!”
It felt like a red-hot skewer being driven straight into his eyes. However, it wasn’t physical pain. The Stigma of the Observer was perceiving a phenomenon that should not exist, a twisted violation of providence itself.
It was a place where the boundary between dimensions had collapsed, where the laws of two worlds collided and birthed aberrations belonging to neither. In other words, it was the true essence of a demon realm.
Cerberus asked, —What do you think?
“It’s horrific,” Leon forced the words out while barely suppressing the pain in his eyes. “I get why you brought me here. This isn’t something you can stop without the Holy Sword, right?”
—Precisely.
If one tried to forcibly separate a boundary where two worlds were tangled together, the backlash would be catastrophic. It was no different from a rope knotted dozens of times over; pull the wrong way, and whatever lay within would shatter, or new knots would form.
What was needed was a blade sharp enough to sever everything at once. A means capable of cutting through dozens of knots in a single stroke, perfectly acting as the proxy of the world’s laws.
“Alright. I can do this.”
Leon measured the possibility through the Holy Sword and reached a firm conviction. He could cut it.
Fortunately, Cerberus had kept Nether Valley from exceeding a certain threshold, leaving it in far better condition than the demon realm he had seen in the Titan Mountains. If the Underworld itself cooperated in separating the dimensions, even the recoil after severing the distortion could be minimized.
In that case, there was one thing Leon wanted to go over. Leon slung the Holy Sword over his shoulder and looked at Cerberus.
“Before I finish the job, let’s settle our deal.”
All three heads tilted at once, meeting his gaze.
—What are you talking about?
“You said it yourself. That you’d give me appropriate compensation.”
—Naturally. Don’t tell me you intend to haggle over the reward.
“At the very least, I have the right to know what I can demand, and how far.”
Leon and Cerberus locked eyes at the midpoint between them. It wasn’t even worthy of being called a standoff. The one who stepped back first was Cerberus.
—Hmph. Very well. State what you want.
Leon answered immediately with the response he had already prepared. “I want something that can kill a dragon. Artifact is fine, a blessing works too.”
—Dragon-slaying, hm. If it’s an enemy the Hero must defeat, it’s likely a corrupted or evil dragon.
“Exactly. I hear it’s accepted the Demon King’s power.”
—A demonic dragon and an evil dragon at that. A few possibilities come to mind.
Cerberus blinked his six eyes and continued, —From the weapons and blessings confiscated from prisoners of Tartaros, I’ll select those most useful for dragon-slaying. You should be able to take an amount commensurate with your merits.
“Paid afterward, I’m guessing?”
—Of course.
Seeing that there was no room for further negotiation, Leon grinned and turned toward the dimensional distortion. Perhaps because he was mentally prepared this time, the Stigma of the Observer still stung, but not to the point where he couldn’t keep his eyes open. At the center of Leon’s vision, grotesquely warped chaos writhed like a mollusk.
It made him nauseous. Shaking off the sensation, he leveled the Holy Sword horizontally.
Now!
The instant he instinctively sensed a lag in the flow of the distortion, Leon leaped forward and thrust the Holy Sword. With a screech, the twisted dimension received the blade. The silver-white sword sank in as if plunged into a mire, then trembled violently as dazzling light erupted from within. Like a fish impaled on the tip of a harpoon, it thrashed in agony.
The key of providence made manifest by the Goddess’s authority, the Holy Sword El-Cid, shattered the imbalance between the two dimensions. The boundary between the living and the dead was sharply redrawn, and the corpses that had been denied rest crumbled as they finally returned to soil.
El-Cid said, —Focus. It’s coming.
“What’s comi—KEUGH!”
There was no time to ask what was coming. The moment the dimensional gate to the Underworld twisted, karma flowed in through the Holy Sword. As an overwhelming torrent of accumulated karma boiled up as if it would burst Leon’s soul apart, he clenched his jaw shut with all his might as bloodshot veins flared in his eyes.
1. The Titans we have seen earlier in the novel seem to be a separate race from these Titans. ☜
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