CHAPTER 272: CHAPTER 30

The void screamed.

The sound was not something creation was ever meant to hear, it was the death-cry of the concept of silence itself as the silent and empty void shattered and reformed countless times.

The infinite abyss boiled and bled with colorless flame as Hades and the Outer One collided once more, their mere presences rewriting the fabric of the unknown.

Every clash between them completely destroyed and give birth to new concepts.

When Hades swung his arm, the space it passed through did not shatter, but aged, as if the emptiness itself was withering, dying, eroding into fine dust that had never been born.

When the Outer One retaliated, it did not move; instead, the very concept of movement itself twisted as direction lost its meaning, where left become right and forward became behind.

The flame of death met the storm of chaos.

"You are one persistent fella!" The purple inferno that was Hades’ true form flared, his eyes burning like dying suns as his dark purple fire devoured the infinite flesh before him. "Dissappear!"

Every writhing tentacle that reached from the mass of chaos disintegrated into oblivion, only to be replaced by a thousand more.

"H̵̨͎͢͜͝A̸̫͕͟͞͝H̸̛̫̗͝͝A̴͓͙͟͝͝A̷͕͎͜͞͝A̸͎̫͢͝͝ ̸̘̙͟͝͝H̶͕̝͟͝͝4̴̪̜͢͝͝H̵͙͙͜͝͝A̸̞͙͜͞͝ ̴̢͍̟͝͞E̶͇̫͜͞͝R̴̜͙͜͞͝R̸̛͍̝͞͝0̸͓̫͢͝͝R̴͓͉͜͝͝.̴͕͙͟͝͝ ͓̝͟͝͝L̸̝̙͜͞͝A̷͚͜͞͝U̸͇͚͟͝͝G̵̳͎͜͞͝H̸̗͜͞͝.̷̪͕͢͝͝R̸͙͜͝͝E̷̫̜͜͞͝P̴͎͙͢͝͝E̶͇̜͢͝͝A̸͉͜͞͝T̵͍̝͜͞͝.̸̢̩̘͝͝ ͓̞͢͝͝H̸͎̜͜͞͝A̸̻̝͢͝͝H̴͙͜͝͝A̸͚͜͞͝H̸͕̜͜͝͝A̵̗̚͜͞͝͝͝" The Outer One laughed, a sound that came from no mouth yet echoed across every layer of existence.

Its laughter devoured entire concepts, and with each echo, alternate realities shattered like mirrors struck by cosmic stones.

Universes where Hades never existed, where death was never born, where time flowed backward, all burned away under the friction of their struggle.

Still, Hades pressed on, completely unaffected.

"Your voice is horrible," the god’s voice thundered across dimensions, resonating with the calm of an executioner. "I like it more when you don’t do the talking."

The purple blaze that was his body flared brighter, his fire igniting even in the absence of fuel.

The flame was not consuming matter, it was consuming the concept of darkness and death he embodies.

And with the flame burning brighter, the definition of "existence" began to burn.

The Outer One’s infinite mass convulsed, as its countless mouths roared and eyes blinked across the body that spanned eternity.

"𝙒̸𝐇̸𝐘̷ ̵𝐃̶𝐎̶ ̵𝐘̵𝐎̴𝐔̶ ̵𝐅̷𝐈̵𝐆̷𝐇̴𝐓̶,̵ 𝐎̴𝐍̵𝐄̸ ̸𝐎̸𝐅̶ ̵𝐃̴𝐄̷𝐀̶𝐓̵𝐇̶?̸"

Its voice was distortion itself, a cascade of incomprehensible tones layered over each other.

The cosmos around them flickered, the question embedding itself into the concept of "questioning."

Every sentient being across creation, every god and mortal that still existed, suddenly felt the same whisper echo in their souls.

And Hades answered it the only way he believed was the answer; with death.

He raised his arm, and the flame of death burst forth, swallowing the void.

The concept of decay became a storm, spreading through every fiber of chaos that dared to touch him.

The eyes of the Outer One melted like dying stars. Its mouths screamed, but every sound it made was devoured before it left its lips.

For a moment, for a heartbeat heartbeat of eternity, Hades prevailed.

But the Outer One was not bound by moments, nor by eternity. It was a being that existed before the word "before", it already drifted the void before the concept of "beginning".

Its body convulsed, and the primordial chaos turned itself inside out.

Meaningless symbols and forgotten languages flowed from its wounds, each one carrying a curse of paradox.

Time lost all direction; the past devoured the future, and the present dissolved into infinite versions of itself.

Hades found himself existing across all timelines, infinite versions of him, all burning, all fighting, all dying.

He saw himself winning, losing, being consumed, consuming, every possibility converging and breaking apart, and yet he remained one.

He clenched his hand, forcing the void to obey his definition.

"Indeed, you are truly beyond comprehension." he said, his voice resonating like a thousand funerals sung in unison. "I can barely even understand what comes before beginning, yet you already exist before existence was given meaning. However..."

He spread his arms, and the fire of death became light, a terrible light that burned not to destroy, but to end and erase.

The Outer One shrieked.

Its mass tore through the dimensions, swallowing alternate timelines in desperation, eating fragments of reality itself to heal.

Where it devoured, the laws of existence changed, in many alternate realities, mortals suddenly became gods, gods became myths, myths became atoms, and atoms became ideas.

They were even now, two beings that no longer belonged to creation, tearing apart the frame of reality itself.

Many universe near them disentegrated and erased from memories without even knowing why.

And those who survived, powerful pantheons such as Olympians and Norse who are in the Nordic Universe, the Egyptians, Celtic, Hindus, and others, all saw the sky turn black, then white, then nonexistent, revealing the void that exist beyond the boundary of their universe.

Their temples, their worlds, all flickered as the void war beyond reality consumed the pillars of order that held everything together.

In one moment, all of creation became a canvas of static, and the only color that existed was black and purple.

Hades roared, his divine voice shaking the corpse of infinity. His body cracked, his purple flames flickering as the eyes of chaos dug into his form, consuming fragments of death itself.

But even as he burned, even as his own concept began to unravel, Hades laughed.

He understood now.

He could not destroy chaos, for chaos was the natural truth. It was not evil, it was not good, it was simply the beginning without purpose.

But there was one thing chaos never possessed, one thing beyond its comprehension.

"You are the infinite, the eternal, someone with no beginning nor an end," Hades whispered, his voice trembling like the toll of a funeral bell across eternity. "And that’s why you are also incomplete."

The Outer One paused.

"𝐈̷𝐍̷𝐂̵𝐎̷𝐌̸𝐏̶𝐋̵𝐄̵𝐓̴𝐄̵?̶" it echoed, and the word trembled through existence, breaking countless universes that could not withstand the concept of self-reflection.

"Yes," Hades said, the corners of his mouth curling into a cruel smile. "You exist beyond life and death, beyond creation and destruction, but you can never died. You have never known mortality. Death is the most primal and natural phenomena that exist, even gods can die. But you cannot. You who have no concept of death, is incomplete."

The purple flames began to change.

It was noo longer pure, it was no longer consuming, they became finite.

The fire of death twisted, forming a sigil across Hades’ chest, the mark of mortality itself, the domain he had stolen during the Titanomachy.

Normally, this level of authority would not be effective to something like the outer one.

But Hades had used the Breakdown Sphere to elevate its conceptual weight beyond the concept of phenomenon.

The authority over mortality he had invoked had now became the ’truth’, a proof of existence.

Those who exist must die. This is now the truth.

The outer one, who does not have the concept of mortality or death has now became a mistake. A mistake in existence that must be corrected so that it conforns to the truth.

Hades extended his hand. He will now correct that mistake.

"Let me teach you... how it feels to end."

And the mark flared.

The concept of mortality was born in the void, something that previously does not belong there.

The entire structure of the Outer One’s existence shuddered. Its infinite body froze, its eyes widened, and for the first time since the birth of chaos, it felt fear.

Reality screamed again, louder than before, and the cosmos convulsed.

Time fractured, space folded, and gods across existence fell to their knees as the universe trembled under the invocation of mortality.

Hades’ body began to crumble, burning away in his own fire. His divine essence was splitting apart, his godhood unable to contain the weight of what he had unleashed.

But he smiled.

Because for the first time, the Outer One bled and did not heal.

A single drop of undefined existence fell from its infinite form, landing into the abyss.

And as it did, the void began to die and reform; universes were created and destroyed, as if the the birth and destruction of existence countless times in a single moment.

The Outer One screamed, its voices layered across every frequency of reality.

It tried to rewrite itself, to erase the idea of mortality, but the word had already been spoken, and once spoken, it existed, and since it existed, it is now the truth.

"𝐘̸𝐎̵𝐔̶ ̶𝐅̸𝐎̷𝐎̷𝐋̷!̵" it roared, collapsing upon itself, its mass folding like a dying dream. "𝐘̶𝐎̷𝐔̴ ̸𝐂̸𝐀̵𝐍̶𝐍̴𝐎̸𝐓̶ ̵𝐊̶𝐈̴𝐋̸𝐋̶ ̴𝐖̷𝐇̷𝐀̵𝐓̷ ̵𝐈̵𝐒̶ ̸𝐓̷𝐇̵𝐄̶ ̵𝐁̴𝐄̶𝐆̶𝐈̴𝐍̸𝐍̴𝐈̸𝐍̵𝐆̵!̷"

But Hades did not answer. His fire flickered once, then twice, and as the darkness swallowed him whole, he whispered:

"I said it didn’t I? What exist must die. If you began, then you must end. That is the truth I have invoked. That is the truth that you must follow."

As his voice dropped, the void collapsed.

The multiverse screamed, the gods wept, and beyond the dying light, nothing remained but silence.