As Hades stepped out of the glowing portal, his form now regal, cloaked in shadows, horned, and crowned with the aura of countless godhoods, the ground beneath him shuddered.
His feet touched the ashen soil of the Underworld…
And the realm responded.
A tremor surged across the land—deep and low like a sleeping beast growling to life.
The souls of the dead, long drifting in sorrow and silence, suddenly wailed in unison, not in fear… but in recognition.
The Master had returned.
Far in the distance, demonic beasts—hellhounds, chimeric terrors, and forgotten monstrosities—raised their heads to the sky and roared. They sensed it, too: an ancient authority reborn, the power that had been missing for ages.
Even the very ores embedded in the rocky bones of the underworld, those demonic minerals saturated in darkness and raw essence, began to glow.
A deep, purple radiance pulsed across the cavern walls, through the molten rivers, beneath the silent ruins—as if the realm itself had taken a breath for the first time in millennia.
The air thickened with power.
The shadows bent to his presence.
Time felt slower, more deliberate, as if the Underworld paused to gaze upon its rightful ruler.
This was not a mere return.
This was recognition.
This was submission.
For the Underworld is no ordinary realm.
It is alive, in its own grim, quiet way.
It knows its master.
And now, that master had returned—as a bearer of secrets, death, sleep, minerals, fear, sin, darkness, demons, arcane magic, and soul.
Hades, the one who embraced what others fled from, the one who suffered most in silence and emerged stronger, was now home.
And the realm welcomed him—not with trumpets, but with tremors, wails, and eternal shadows bending in reverence.
As Hades walked forward, each step echoed like fate unfolding across the stone-choked caverns.
At the heart of the Underworld, buried deep beneath the veils of reality, stood the Throne of Shadows. An obsidian monolith veined with void-forged gems, pulsating faintly with ancient memory.
It was neither a craft nor a building. It had been grown by the will of the realm itself.
The throne had waited through countless eras, empty, untouched… until now.
Hades reached it and stood still.
Even the air seemed to pause.
Then, slowly, with regal grace and absolute certainty, he sat.
And the moment he did, a wave of pure, overwhelming power surged through his body.
His spine straightened as if lifted by divine order. His eyes burned brighter, glowing with violet flame. His aura exploded outward like a second skin of living shadow.
A truth bloomed directly in his consciousness: the throne imparted its foundational secret and knowledge.
And along with that, his divine core leapt—pushing his strength to the level of a low-level Chief God.
But with this gift came conditions—two ancient requirements etched into the foundation of the realm itself.
1. Defeat Campe, the monstrous and chaotic Gatekeeper of Tartarus, a primordial guardian loyal to Tartarus, forged from the abyss to keep the deepest horrors sealed. The Underworld demanded strength, for only one who could subdue such a beast could truly rule a realm that balances the line between life, death, and eternal punishment.
2. Restore the True Identity of the Realm.
What had been long misunderstood by gods and mortals alike… was now revealed to Hades alone.
"The Underworld is not merely a joint between Earth and Tartarus. It is not an extension. It is a realm of its own."
A vision of the underworld's past unfolded in his consciousness:
In the beginning, it was small, fragile, and overlooked. A realm too weak to govern itself, but blessed with the potential to rival the Sea, the Sky, and the Earth. So the Primordial God Tartarus, seeing this, sheltered it. He didn't rule it. He guarded it—waiting for the rightful ruler to rise. And now, the throne had been chosen.
Hades opened his eyes. His amethyst gaze, now sharp enough to flay souls, swept across the entirety of his new kingdom, seeing its depths and its heights all at once.
A voice cut through the silence. "Congratulations, Lord Hades, on your ascension."
Hecate stood in the gloom, her head bowed in profound respect.
Hades met her gaze and gave a single, slow nod. He raised a hand. In response, the earth groaned. Colossal pillars of obsidian erupted from the ground, twisting and merging of their own volition. Stone ground against stone, forming arches, walls, a vast, daunting cathedral of night. Blue phantasmal flames ignited in sconces, casting a cold, majestic light. A path of deepest crimson unfurled across the floor like a river of blood. It was not a place of evil, but of immense, terrifying power. A temple worthy of the King of the Dead.
"The realm's knowledge settles within me," Hades said, his voice the low rumble of a tectonic plate. "We will speak of the future at dawn." With that, he departed, the shadows themselves parting to make way for him.
Hecate remained alone in the spacious hall.
Sigh. 'Teleport.' She disappeared.
---
In a place where light never was and never will be, Hecate materialized. This was the domain of Nyx and Erebus, where darkness was not an absence but a solid, breathing thing.
'Arcane flame.' An arcane flame of her own making—purple light—pushed back the void just enough to reveal a palace sculpted from darkness itself.
She entered.
"Welcome, Hecate." The voice was not a sound but a sensation, a vibration that resonated in the soul.
Hecate immediately knelt. "Greetings, Lady Nyx."
Snap.
A snap echoed through the nothingness. Instantly, torches flared with a stark, white fire, revealing a grand hall. From the floor, a black liquid rose up, took the shape of a table and two elegant chairs, and solidified.
Nyx gestured to one. "Sit, my child." As Hecate obeyed, two cups of tea manifested between them, steaming with a fragrance of night-blooming flowers and stars.
Nyx sipped first. "Has he arrived safely?"
"He has, my lady. The realm… it awakened for him. I have never felt such power there." Hecate hesitated, choosing her words. "Lady Nyx, may I ask some questions?"
"Hmm…" Nyx hummed in agreement.
Hecate looked at Nyx and asked, "Why now? Why such a desperate, grand welcome for this god, when it has rejected all others for aeons?"
Nyx's eyes, pools of condensed starlight, remained closed as she spoke. "The Underworld is not an ordinary land, Hecate. It has conscious will. For the Underworld to function, it requires a ruler, a keystone for the arch of life, death, and judgment. For countless ages, it has waited, patient and empty, for a soul strong enough to bear its weight without being broken by it. It has found its keystone."
Hecate had never noticed or known this—her centuries of caretaking now seeming like a superficial stewardship. She asked her second question: "And you, my lady? Why extend your hand? What does Night gain from the rise of the King of the Dead?"
Nyx finally opened her eyes. "Do you understand the nature of prophecy, child?"
"That it is the highest probability of that happening in the future," Hecate replied.
"Precisely. And his river forks into two devastating torrents." Nyx's voice dropped, becoming graver. "One prophecy whispers of him as the end of all things—a destroyer who will unravel the cosmos. The other sings of him as its savior, the only one who can cleanse the greatest sin ever committed by the Primordials."
Hecate leaned forward, captivated. "What sin?"
A sad, knowing smile touched Nyx's lips. She reached out and gently patted Hecate's head. "That, my dear, is a truth too heavy for anyone but the primordials to bear. You shouldn't know."
She leaned back. "That is the reason of state. The personal reason is simpler. He was born of the essence I embody—the profound, generative darkness that existed before the first dawn. I did not birth him, but a piece of my domain did. How could I not feel a mother's pull? How could I watch a child of my essence suffer without acting?"
Hecate accepted the first reason. The second she filed away—a fascinating, complex truth from an ancient being. She bowed. "Thank you for your wisdom, Lady Nyx. May I take my leave?"
Nyx granted it with a silent wave of her hand. Hecate vanished.
The white flames snuffed out, and the absolute darkness returned.
A voice, hoarse and deep as a crumbling mountain, spoke from the void. "They are mirrors, those two. Feared. Isolated. Cloaked in power yet longing for a connection they believe they do not deserve."
Nyx smiled into the blackness. "It is the way of such souls, my love." A note of warmth entered her timeless voice. "Would you care for some tea?"
Erebus found her hand in the dark. "Only if you brew it."
"Always," she said, and together, they faded deeper into their eternal night.