CHAPTER 267: CHAPTER 25

Hades stood before the Outer One, suspended within the void where even the concept of space dared not exist, and for some inexplicable reason, he found himself smiling.

It wasn’t the polite smile of diplomacy he wore when dealing with other gods, nor the cold smirk of superiority that came naturally to him, it was something deeper, something raw, primal, and unrestrained.

His fingers brushed his lips almost absently, as though confirming it was real, that he was indeed smiling at this very moment.

He shouldn’t be. This was no time for amusement, this confrontation would determine whether their entire plan, the hope of countless beings across multiple universes, would succeed or be obliterated into nothingness.

Yet that bubbling excitement within his chest refused to fade, that pulse of exhilaration thrummed through his divine veins like an old, familiar melody he had forgotten but now remembered vividly.

He stared at the incomprehensible mass before him, a being so vast that words like colossal or infinite became meaningless.

Its mere presence warped the laws of reality, its tentacles sprawling through eternity, each one an embodiment of primordial chaos itself, writhing with the madness of creation undone.

And then, one of those impossibly gigantic tendrils moved, if it could even be called movement in a place where direction did not exist, flicking toward him with a speed that defied comprehension, and in that moment, entire layers of existence trembled.

The tentacle’s passing alone was enough to distort the boundaries of causality, its motion a symphony of unmaking that turned light to shadow and time to stillness.

Hades did not flinch. He simply lifted his spear—Desmos—its dark shaft gleaming with suppressed power, and poured every ounce of energy within him into its form.

The void shuddered in response, stars that no longer existed flickering briefly into being around him as the spear became an axis of contained annihilation.

And then, he struck.

The spear lunged forward, its tip carrying the condensed totality of Hades’ divine essence, the weight of every shadow and every silence in the cosmos compressed into a single, absolute point.

This was no mere attack, it was conceptual finality given form, the culmination of the primordial principle of darkness itself unleashed to its utmost limit.

When the blow was released, the boundless void around them rippled like shattered glass, and for a brief, impossible instant, it seemed that even the Outer One might recoil.

Yet it didn’t.

The tip of Desmos struck the incomprehensible mass of chaos—and was negated.

The very concept of "impact" was devoured, rewritten by the higher principle of Primordial Chaos, the concept that embody the outer ones, a truth so absolute that even the essence of darkness could not exist in its presence.

All that remained was silence, as the energies dispersed into nothingness.

Despite his attack being completely nullified, Hades simply... laughed.

A low chuckle at first, rolling from his throat, until it became a full, rich laugh that echoed across the endless expanse of nothing.

His shoulders shook as the tension that had weighed on him for eons seemed to melt away.

’That’s right,’ he thought, the realization dawning bright and wild within him. ’This is it... this is joy.’

The joy of battle.

Not the calculated engagements of gods squabbling for dominance, not the petty wars of mortals or the disciplined duels of divine politics, no, this was pure, unrestrained combat, where he could unleash himself without fear, without hesitation, without holding back.

It had been so long since he’d felt this. When was the last time? Was it against Gaia, when she was controlled by the fragment?

No... perhaps against Uranus, when the heavens themselves raged and the earth bled.

No matter when, it didn’t matter anymore. It had been too long after all.

He had grown so accustomed to restraint, to suppressing his nature, to being the calm, calculating god, the silent shadow beside the throne of Olympus, the unseen ruler of the dead who bore the weight of endless responsibility.

But now, standing before this being that saw universes as morsels, that devoured existence as if it were air, he no longer needed to hold back.

He could finally fight. Truly fight.

A thrill ran through him, every fiber of his divine being trembling with anticipation.

His aura expanded, purple-black light surging outward like the birth of a new cosmos, and the void responded to him, trembling as if even chaos itself acknowledged his hunger.

The grin on his face deepened, eyes glowing with a light that devoured stars.

"Ah," he whispered, his voice carrying through eternity. "I remember now."

He leveled Desmos once more, darkness spiraling along its shaft like the coiling of galaxies.

"This feeling... this madness..." His smirk widened into something feral, unrestrained. "This is who I truly am."

And with that, Hades launched himself forward, toward the endless, writhing monstrosity of chaos, his laughter echoing through the void, as the God of the Underworld finally remembered what it meant to revel in battle.

Then, he roared, a sound that tore through reality itself, reverberating across layers of existence that mortal perception could never hope to grasp.

His form, once that of a man, began to expand, stretching beyond the confines of scale or proportion.

His body grew into infinity, transcending distance, transcending boundaries, until he was no longer a figure but an embodiment, a colossal silhouette forged entirely from purple flames that burned with the essence of nonexistence itself.

The heat of that flame did not consume nor burn, it erased. Every flicker of that fire devoured not matter, but meaning, reducing everything it touched into pure nothingness.

The entirety of his being was now wrapped in the compressed conceptual essence of darkness and death, two principles that formed the foundation of his existence.

The space, if such a thing could be said to exist in the void, vibrated with the weight of his presence.

Darkness wasn’t merely around him; it was him, extending endlessly, erasing all light, all thought, all time.

For the first time in what felt like countless eons, Hades felt the unrestrained surge of his true nature, his divinity unshackled, his transcendence unleashed.

It had been so long since he had used this form. The last time was when he fought Uranus, when the sky itself thought it could compete with death, and Hades was forced to manifest his dominion to suppress the madness of the heavens.

But even that, magnificent as it was, had been a pale imitation compared to now.

Back then, he had not yet ascended to the realm of the transcendent. Now, every fiber of his being was refined, his very soul aligned perfectly with the infinite depth of his concepts.

He was no longer merely the God of the Dead, he was the Principle of Death itself, given mind and will.

Just then, a colossal tentacle, an appendage vast enough to crush galaxies by its motion, lashed toward him.

Without hesitation, Hades reached out, his own hand now large enough to grasp entire universe clusters, and caught it mid-swing.

The moment his flaming fingers closed around it, the tentacle screamed, not in sound, but in the vibration of universal constants.

The entire conceptual weight of Death flared to life, corroding the essence of the tentacle.

The darkness around Hades thickened, his flames devouring the essence of Primordial Chaos that the Outer One represented.

Concepts were burning, being erased, not in energy, but in its meaning.

Countless eyes opened across the infinite mass of the Outer One, each one glowing with the incomprehensible brilliance of the Primordial Chaos.

It retaliated, not with beams or explosions, but with its very nature, unleashing the entire weight of Primordial Chaos upon Hades, seeking to unravel him, to dissolve his form into indistinguishable nothingness.

The clash was silent, yet deafening, reality itself shook, not because of the force, but because force itself was being rewritten.

Hades resisted. The flames of darkness around him expanded, devouring the chaos that sought to consume him.

Chaos and Darkness, two opposing concepts, both absolute, both infinite, collided in a way that transcended comprehension.

Their conflict was not measured in destruction, but in dominance of meaning.

Beings at their level, battles were no longer contests of strength, nor even of energy.

They were wars of conceptual weight. How deep was one’s understanding of their principle? How completely were they fused with the concept they embodied?

The heavier the conceptual weight, the more authority their existence exerted upon the fabric of reality.

If mere destructive power were the measure, they would be throwing entire universes as energy balls, shattering galaxies like dust.

But such things were insignificant compared to what they now wielded. They were fighting not with matter, nor energy, but with truths.

Every clash was a rewriting of existence itself.

Just then, Hades spoke, his voice vast enough to resonate through every layer of being.

"I now declare, this entire void..." his tone reverberated through infinite distances, "...is my sky."

And the void obeyed.

The entire conceptual weight of the Primordial Sky, a domain he had seized from Uranus in the great titanomachy, awakened within him.

It had remained dormant for eons, buried deep within his soul, never once invoked since the day he tore it from Uranus’ essence.

But now, its power answered his call.

The endless void trembled, then changed.

From absolute emptiness emerged light.

Stars began to flicker into existence, galaxies spiraled outward, nebulas ignited like divine torches.

The cold void was replaced by the living breath of cosmos, the Primordial Sky reasserting its dominion.

The Outer One’s chaos recoiled as creation itself responded to Hades’ command. The void, once the realm of the Outer One’s nothingness, was now his domain.

He stood within a new cosmos of his making, his flaming silhouette towering over the reborn stars.

His purple eyes blazed brighter than any sun, his laughter rumbling through this newly forged sky.

"Now," he said softly, though his words echoed like thunder across eternity.

His spear Desmos ignited again, absorbing the light of the newborn stars, pulsing with energy that transcended matter. "Let’s begin... round two."

And with a single step that rippled across galaxies, Hades surged forward once more, his divine aura igniting the heavens, as Death itself waged war against Chaos.