CHAPTER 303: CHAPTER 2

High above the cosmos, in the infinite gulf of the Void, Azathoth registered the satisfactory completion of its first strategic move.

The initial chaotic bombardment was successful.

Through the cosmic lens of the Book, it had observed the frantic, organized response of the Hyperverse.

Hades had immediately diverted his most capable forces, Michael and the angelic legions, the magically supreme Egyptian gods, to the frontiers, forcing the Anchor to expend his consolidated power on defensive stabilization.

The Hyperverse was stressed, its resources stretched thin dealing with phenomena that defied its established laws.

Perfect.

Azathoth’s only goal now was to wait for the constant, corrosive chaos to push Hades to the brink, maximizing his power before the final devouring.

With that passive objective set, the immense, formless entity retracted its focus.

The Book, now devoid of the ultimate reader’s attention, gently closed itself, and Azathoth sank back into the comforting oblivion of its eternal slumber.

*

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In the restored, yet currently chaotic, capital of the Egyptian Pantheon, a coalition of the Hyperverse’s most potent Goddesses of Wisdom and Magic arrived in a shimmering flash of diverse power.

The air thrummed with the combined auras of the newly arrived goddesses.

Hecate, the Greek master of the Crossroads.

Freya, the Norse goddess of beauty and war, master of Vanaheim Rune Magic.

Hel, the Queen of Helheim and master of dark arts and black magic.

Athena, the Olympian goddess of strategic warfare and wisdom.

Metis, the ancient Titaness of wisdom and prudence.

Frigg, the Norse Queen and Seer.

They were greeted by Thoth, whose usual scholarly calm was replaced by visible panic.

His Ibis-mask gone, revealing his anxious face as he ushered them past the renewed, gleaming gold pillars and towards the solar throne.

Ra sat upon his throne, his face etched with exhaustion despite his recent power boost.

The brilliance of his solar aura was noticeably dimmed, having been actively fighting the chaos that was currently making time and light behave nonsensically on his borders.

"Greetings, Lord Ra. Apologies for being abrupt, but may we ask what is the exact situation?" Hecate asked, her voice sharp with professional urgency.

Ra ran a weary hand over his face. "The situation is absurd! We were just whole again! We were stronger than our prime, thanks to your husband, and ready to enjoy our eternity. And before we can take a single breath of relief, this starts!"

He slammed his fist onto the arm of his throne. "The problem, Goddesses, is that the chaos is targeting the logic of our cosmos! Time is inverting in pockets, causing our pyramids to momentarily revert to sand and then snap back into solid granite. The conceptual seepage is bleeding memory from our gods! I almost cursed the moment Thoth told me the chaos was carrying the residual thoughts of devoured sun-gods from other realities—it’s trying to overwrite my own divine concept!"

Ra shook his head, looking utterly defeated by the abstract nature of the threat. "We are fighting concepts that are designed to be meaningless! We can’t even define the attack!"

The goddesses frowned. The situation seems far more troublesome than they anticipated.

"I see. But do not worry, Lord Ra," Hecate assured him, summoning a powerful, warding light around her hands. "We are the anchors of wisdom and the architects of magic. We will devise a defense. If it is chaos, then we will build a structure of absolute order to contain it."

*

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Meanwhile, on the shattered, celestial outskirts of the Christian Heaven, a different, equally formidable delegation arrived.

This group was comprised of beings who held supreme command over the fundamental forces of emotion, life, and the mortal coil, chosen by Hades for their stability and resilience in the face of despair and fear.

They rode atop Campe, the massive crimson dragoness of Tartarus, a primordial beast whose scaly hide was now fused with Norse runic protections.

Now usually, she would only let Hades ride her, but this time it was urgent, and since she was much master, she had decided to offer the others a ride.

Her passengers included:

Hera, the regal Queen, commanding the mission with her innate authority.

Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and passion, whose aura of serene love was a counter-force to the surrounding psychic turmoil.

Styx, the embodiment of the sacred, unbreakable oath, the who is most proficient in sealing arts in all of underworld.

Lethe, the goddess of oblivion and forgetfulness, whose presence could nullify the cognitive chaos.

Demeter and Persephone, the mother-daughter duo of the life and harvest cycles.

They landed outside the massive, shimmering Celestial Barrier that Michael and the other angels had erected around Heaven under Hades’ order.

The barrier was straining, flashing violently as it repelled the barrage of ultraviolet-red light and spinning, geometrically impossible shapes.

Michael, the Archangel, his form radiating intense light, immediately greeted them.

He looked utterly exhausted, but his demeanor was still one of unflinching duty.

"Lady Hera, Lady Aphrodite, welcome to our wounded Heaven," Michael greeted them, his gaze scanning the group with respectful gratitude. "Your presence here is a profound act of allegiance."

Hera bypassed the formality. "Archangel. My husband’s orders were clear. We are here to stabilize your borders. Tell us, what is the current internal situation, and what is the nature of the pressure on your shield?"

Michael led them closer to the barrier, the impossible light casting grotesque, wavering shadows.

"The pressure is relentless, Lady Hera," Michael reported, his voice tinged with the cold exhaustion of a military general dealing with an unwinnable siege. "We are fighting things that are not alive, but are fragments of conceptual decay. The sheer meaninglessness of the energy is what threatens us."

He continued, detailing the psychological and structural crisis: "The non-geometric shapes are causing severe stress to our dimensional mathematics. Our structural angels, the Dominions, are having difficulty maintaining their forms near the perimeter. Furthermore, the various colored light is not merely visual but also penetrates the mind, inducing a primal, cosmic terror in the lower angelic choirs. We are losing angels due to psychic collapse."

Michael paused, his luminous eyes meeting Hera’s. "Internally, we are holding the line. But the deeper threat is subtle: the chaotic energy, carrying the residue of consumed universes, is attempting to prey upon our grief over the Father’s departure. The forces are using our sense of loss as a lever to fracture our faith."

Hera nodded, "...I see."

She turned towards the others, who all looked grim.

This situation is too troublesome.

*

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Hades sat on the Empyrean throne, his usual impenetrable calm momentarily fractured.

He pressed a hand to his temple, the silent, profound ache radiating outward, a dull thrumming that seemed to vibrate with the very tension of the strained cosmos.

Though his Hyperverse was stable, his concentration was failing under an invisible, overwhelming conceptual pressure.

It was then that Nyx, the Primordial Goddess of Night, materialized behind him.

She moved from her higher plane of existence with the grace of shadow given form, her arms draping over his broad shoulders in a gesture both affectionate and possessive.

She leaned her head close, her essence a cool balm against the stressful heat of his divine core, her face full of worry.

"Hades, you looked in pain. Is everything alright?" Nyx murmured, her voice a deep resonance that calmed the agitated air of the Empyrean.

Her infinite, star-dusted eyes were narrowed with genuine concern, having watched his struggle from her detached perspective.

Hades sighed, a sound that felt less like air escaping and more like cosmic plates grinding together.

"The chaos is systemic, Nyx. I feel it, not as a threat to the Hyperverse itself, but as a wound to my own being." He withdrew his hand from his temple. "Countless of the infinite parallel realities across all timelines have just been destroyed. Obliterated by the acceleration of the Outer Ones’ feeding."

Nyx instantly frowned, the constellation patterns on her form shifting into sharp, angular lines of worry. "That is terrible news. The Hyperverse would surely start to destabilize as the energy leakage, the conceptual stress would overwhelm the defensive measures."

Hades nodded, confirming her assessment. "If it weren’t for the absolute, immovable stability of the Empyrean and the Underworld, the damage would even be more catastrophic. The entire structure would already be fragmenting."

The question of why the fate of these external timelines mattered so profoundly was critical, and it illuminated the true nature of Hades’ ascension as the Heart of Hyperverse.

Why was this vast construct called the Hyperverse, and not simply a Multiverse?

The answer lay in the excruciating price of his power.

One of the non-negotiable requirements for Hades to successfully absorb and fuse with a Heart of the Universe—whether Greek, Norse, Christian, or Egyptian—was that he must also bear the entire conceptual weight of the infinite parallel universes stemming from that core reality.

Each single "Universe" he absorbed, the Prime Universe where the main narrative unfolded, was merely the primary trunk of an unimaginable cosmic tree.

Every decision, every path not taken, every variation of every event spun off into an infinite number of parallel timelines.

So technically speaking, one universe is in itself, a multiverse.

Hades hadn’t just absorbed four Universes; he had absorbed four entire Multiverses, making his creation a Hyperverse, a multi-dimensional construct defined by the integration of innumerable parallel realities.

Now, as the Outer Ones accelerated their consumption, they were indiscriminately cutting the roots of these absorbed Hearts.

They were affecting entire parallel timelines, shattering the infinite variations that supported the structural integrity of the main core.

And since Hades had physically and conceptually fused his being with the four Hearts, he was experiencing the destruction directly.

The loss of those timelines was not merely external damage; it was the psychic equivalent of having segments of his own brain violently erased.

This was why he was suffering crushing headaches, the existential agony of countless realities being brutally deleted from his consciousness.

Furthermore, this agony had a cascading effect on his creation.

Since Hades was the Heart of the Hyperverse, whatever happened to him—his pain, his distraction, his conceptual strain—immediately manifested as a flaw or weakness in the Hyperverse itself, further accelerating the destabilization that Nyx had observed.

"They are starving us of our foundation, Nyx," Hades summarized, his voice a strained whisper of power. "The Outer Ones know that the integrity of the Hyperverse lies not in the center, but in the stability of our infinite timelines. And they are cutting them down one by one, using their deletion to poison my own core."

Although it wouldn’t affect his power, but it was seriously annoying. Like a buzzing mosquito in your ear when you’re about to sleep.

"For now, rest." Said Nyx, her eyes solemn, "Leave the rest to me."