Myth: The Ruler of Spirituality

Chapter 467 - 129: Having and Not Having

"What has happened... Hermes, go to the Underworld and see for yourself. Tell me what’s going on there,"

Outside the Mount of the Gods, moments before it had been bright, but now it was enveloped in dullness. The color tone of the entire world darkened for a time, and standing before the throne, Zeus’s Divine Power dispelled the chill in the air but failed to dispel the unease at the bottom of his heart.

Hades was dead, and even now, the Divine King found it hard to believe, even preferring the idea of some kind of misjudgment. After all, since the beginning of creation, he had never heard of a deity dying.

So Zeus called upon his messenger; he wanted him to personally go to the Underworld and see for himself. After all, when it came to speed, Hermes might not be the fastest of the gods, but he was still the Principal God worshiped by travelers. His unique authority allowed him to traverse easily between the two realms, swiftly moving between the earth and the Underworld.

That’s also why the Divine King had chosen him as his messenger.

However, after a long while, there was no response to Zeus’s call within the temple. So the Divine King looked around and finally set his gaze on Helios.

"...Your Majesty, Hermes has not returned since he left seven days ago,"

Helios responded upon seeing Zeus’s gaze turn to him.

"...Yes, that’s right, he went at my command,"

After a moment of silence, Zeus remembered this matter.

He had thought that Hermes had already returned, but clearly he had not. Although several days had passed, Hermes was still in the Mortal Realm.

Perhaps after completing the task he was given, he went off to other places to wander, which was a common occurrence for him. It wouldn’t have been a serious issue, but now, obviously, Zeus could no longer afford to wait for him.

"Sigh—"

Exhaling, the uncertainty in the Divine King’s heart dispersed.

He admitted that he had been a little afraid just now, even though he did not yet know what his enemy was. While gods not dying was an iron rule since the dawn of creation, the movements from the Sea of Origin had never been false.

If two ’absolutes’ were in conflict, clearly one had been violated, and that was exactly what he was worried about.

So Zeus’s first instinct was to have someone probe the situation, which had always been his habit. But after calming down, he abandoned that idea.

If Hades’s ’death’ turned out to be false, then there was nothing to fear. But if it was true...

"Then, my fellow deities, let’s all go and see for ourselves now,"

the Divine King said indifferently.

The next moment, with a violent roaring sound, a golden light flew from a palace on Mount Olympus directly into Zeus’s hand—it was his Thunder.

He had not used it for many years because, since Typhon, there had been few in the world worthy of his full effort. Holding the Divine Artifact that had accompanied him through many battles, Zeus’s mood surprisingly calmed down.

If Hades was truly dead, then whatever caused all this, as long as it had consciousness, it could not possibly coexist with the gods... Since confrontation was inevitable, what purpose was there in delaying?

The three generations of Divine Kings from Chaos might have had their differences, but at least in one aspect they were similar – at least from the beginning to the end, when there was no way to avoid it, they all dared to swing their swords at powerful enemies.

So Zeus stepped out of the palace and stood at the summit of the Mount of the Gods, he looked down upon the earth.

First were the layers of gray clouds, lining up in succession from bottom to top, as if separating the celestial realm from the Mortal Realm.

Looking through these rain-drenched clouds, the rumbling of the earth continued. With a flick of his right hand, the Silver Serpent shimmering on the Thunder plunged from the sky like a chain, sinking deeply into the earth’s poles.

"Come then, let me see what you truly are,"

Directly entering the Underworld that was naturally impossible. Courage was not recklessness, so holding the other end of the chain, Zeus pulled hard.

At first, there was no change, and the earth’s rumbling was masked by the original tremors. However, quickly, Olympus sank slightly and the vast layers of ground were lifted by the Divine King, heading towards the sky.

If he did not want to go underground, then he would just lift up the ’lid,’ that was Zeus’s thinking. Thus, as the land rose under his immense strength, all living beings wailed in despair. But no one could stop him, even the gods behind Zeus were momentarily shocked by such a terrifying power and forgot the lives dwelling in the Mortal Realm.

Until the next moment, a dazzling Light suddenly emerged from underground, causing the earth to split left and right

...

"The seventh day."

In just a few days, within the dark and deep Underworld, the landscape had completely changed.

The shadow of the great sun hung high in the sky, even becoming more solid. Emitting increasingly strong light and heat, it seemed to purify the gray earth to reveal a dark hue.

The Underworld appeared to have lost some of its original properties, it was gradually becoming more like an ordinary ’earth.’ This seemed to be a good thing—if one ignored its other change.

Now, standing in the sky and looking down, the vast Underworld had shrunk to less than a hundred miles in size, and at the very edges, it was continuously crumbling and eroding. The once expansive space was now empty, with only the Endless Void sustaining the world’s existence there.

The Void had no size, and in fact, relative to the material within the world, it could not even be said to exist. If the world beyond was ’non-existence,’ and within was ’existence,’ then the Void that carried the world was ’non-existence’ within existence, ’existence’ within non-existence.