Chapter 1 The Aftermath

The Netherworld space, ravaged by the demon hunters, was even more shockingly dilapidated.

It had already been a desolate and ruined place. The eternal night sky had covered the world unchanged for thousands of years, poisonous water and magma flowed across the dark, cracked earth, and undead creatures roamed everywhere, extinguishing any vitality. After the demon hunters raided and killed Hades, who was stationed here, the place bore countless scars of war—the earth, already riddled with cracks, was torn and warped by powerful magical energies, forming countless undulating wave-like ridges. Between those waves were terrifying chasms, cracks that pierced the entire Netherworld, and falling into them meant falling directly into the boundaries of space, to be torn apart and annihilated by this artificial world. Most of the undead creatures wandering in the Netherworld were conveniently killed by the demon hunters; shattered, enormous skeletons and unrecognizable flesh and blood were scattered across the wasteland. The outposts and watchtowers originally used to monitor this space were also destroyed. Ruins were everywhere, the demon hunters' holy flame melting these originally indestructible buildings, causing them to collapse like melted butter on the ground...

Hao Ren and his companions walked on the completely destroyed and gradually destabilizing Netherworld land, with Hasson guiding the way by memory. They had to constantly bypass cracks that suddenly appeared on the ground, because the foundation of this world was collapsing, and the entire land was in a state of continuous disintegration and falling apart. Hesperia had also tried to fly in the sky, but this proved to be more dangerous: the soul furnace of Tartarus had stopped working, which directly led to all the human souls collected by Hades running out. These souls, not yet fully burned but devoid of reason, floated in the air in large numbers, forming very powerful energy clusters. Approaching rashly would not only easily trigger chain explosions but also be polluted by the negative emotions constantly emitted by these dead souls. Compared to the sky occupied by these spirits, the continuously cracking earth was a safer path.

After advancing for a while, a dried-up riverbed appeared in front of the group.

Hao Ren stood at the edge of the riverbed, looking into the distance. His gaze crossed a patch of darkness, and he saw that the opposite side of the riverbed was a piece of land gradually extending upwards.

He retracted his gaze and noticed that the river had only dried up recently. Stinky, poisonous mud still remained on the river beach, and the reason for the river's desiccation was obvious: there were a large number of shocking cracks in the center of the riverbed, almost covering the entire bottom. The water leaked from there—all the way through the entire Netherworld, dissipating into the chaotic boundary of the alternate dimension.

Due to the existence of those cracks, Hao Ren and his party had to walk along the riverbank, searching for a continuous and safe route to reach the other side. Fortunately, they had not arrived too late; the collapse of this space was still in its early stages, and they quickly found a suitable "river crossing" point, and also found a strange boat stranded on the river beach.

This was a ferry built with fishing nets and the bones of unknown creatures. The boat was full of fist-sized holes, and even the bottom of the boat had countless visible gaps and damages. It was hard to imagine how this thing could float on the water. And at the bow, a hideous giant, draped in a tattered black robe, three meters tall, and covered in festering sores, had collapsed there. The skin and flesh on the giant's face had fallen off, making his appearance repulsive. His right hand tightly grasped a fierce weapon that looked like a paddle but had countless spikes inlaid at the end, while his left hand clutched a broken lantern. A silver longsword, still slowly burning with holy flame, was inserted into his chest, firmly nailing the giant to his own boat.

Charon, the ferryman of the Netherworld.

"So this is Charon..." Hesperia quietly looked at the nailed ferryman for a while, and suddenly revealed a hint of ironic smile. She took out two coins from her body and placed them on Charon's unclosed eyes, "You also have a time to set off."

It seemed that this slight vibration destroyed the balance of the already decaying boat under Charon, which had been maintained by magic for many years. With a soft cracking sound, the entire ferry built with bones and fishing nets shattered into pieces on the ground. After the cabin broke apart, countless glittering gold coins poured out, flowing down the dried-up riverbed like a flood, forming a golden streak. And in this "road" paved with gold coins, one could also see the Sen Sen white bones mixed in—they were also Charon's collectibles.

Charon's corpse also fell on the river beach, and his already rotten and fragile body was also torn apart by the fall. Flowing out from the cracked skin were also countless gold coins.

This "grand scene" left Hao Ren and Lily dumbfounded, but Hasson had no expression—oh, he was originally expressionless.

However, Hesperia did not have any extra reaction to seeing this scene.

"Charon, I know him," Hesperia shrugged, "Although he was already dead when I became sensible, I have experienced the mythical era to some extent. These barbaric and twisted 'gods'... hehe, are all similar."

Hasson shook his head and stepped down the river beach: "Let's go, a good road has been paved."

How many years of wealth had these gold and silver coins accumulated? Perhaps the oldest of them could even be traced back to the origin of ancient Greek civilization. From the day the "gods" on Mount Olympus formulated the rules of life, death, and burial, the humans of the Mediterranean, with fear and awe, regarded these coins as part of the tomb, offering them to the ruler of the Netherworld in order to seek peace for their souls after death. Charon may have only taken a small portion of them, but that small portion was still enough to fill his ship of the dead and his entire skin.

Now, the toll money paid by these mortals finally paved a real road, after the destruction of the Netherworld.

Crossing the dried-up River Styx (River of Woe), Hao Ren saw the Elysian Fields (also called Elysium, Elysion), which had withered. In human myths and legends, this vast garden was the Netherworld "blessed land" where upright and flawless people enjoyed happiness after death, but Hasson revealed the truth about this place.

"This garden was indeed lush, and it does look beautiful and picturesque on the surface, but it is definitely not a 'blessed land'. After the Olympians' Netherworld project failed, they were unwilling to let this alternate dimension, which had consumed a lot of resources, be abandoned, so they transplanted some magical plants that were not suitable for growing in a normal environment. Most of these magical plants are related to necromancy and shadow power, and they need to grow normally in places with strong death and darkness power, so the Netherworld has become an excellent nursery for them. Persephone is the gardener who takes care of this terrifying garden. She detains the human souls that enter the Netherworld but are not suitable as 'fuel', and lets them wander in the garden, but in fact, she uses them as nutrients for the magical plants—the Banshee Bell and the Corpse Flower have a strong hallucinatory and anesthetic effect on the soul, so those souls do not feel pain at all. They are absorbed by these nurseries unconsciously, but until the moment their souls dissipate, they feel that they are enjoying themselves in paradise. This is the truth of this 'blessed land'."

"Although I already knew what the mythical era was like..." Hao Ren looked at the completely withered Elysian Fields. This vast area of plants was also swept by the demon hunters' war-level spells. All the gardens were scorched, with only smoking bushes and scorched dust left everywhere. Among these broken botanical gardens, fragments of human skeletons could be seen everywhere—many of these skeletons were originally buried under the nursery as fertilizer, but the shock waves on the battlefield turned them out again, "Seeing it with my own eyes still feels... so dark."

Lily wrinkled her nose: "Wasn't there a single good person... um, good alien in the mythical era?"

"Of course there were. There were some on Ra's solar barge, in the palaces of Asgard, and on Mount Olympus. Even Zeus himself seemed to have proposed several policies to treat humans kindly, but so what?" Hesperia crossed her arms, "Humans are ultimately just raised by them. Although I am not human myself, to be honest, I really can't stand the mythical era. This kind of social structure that relies on completely enslaving and exploiting one race to maintain another race was never a healthy and sustainable form from the beginning."

Hao Ren deeply agreed with this.

The area that everyone had traveled through before could only be regarded as the periphery of the Netherworld. The true inner layer of the Netherworld was the land where Hao Ren and his party were standing at the moment. It consisted of two parts: one part was the Elysian Fields, and the other part was the famous "Tartarus". And the dried-up "River Styx" was actually the "moat" flowing outside Tartarus and the Elysian Fields. It could be regarded as the boundary line of this kingdom of death. The inside of the boundary line was Hades' true territory, and the outside was a wasteland completely abandoned by the Olympian "gods".

For many years, Hades had focused most of his energy on the inner layer of the Netherworld, and he had directly thrown the wasteland on the other side of the River Styx to those mutated monsters, letting them wander there at will.

Therefore, on the land of Tartarus, Hades' remaining power was still functioning.

The Elysian Fields and Tartarus were adjacent to each other. Emerging from the withered gardens, one could see the layered, scorched earth of Tartarus, covered with mud and volcanic ash. And on this scorched earth, only one fortress stood tall. The fortress rose from the darkness, with three layers of pure copper walls, looking so majestic and heavy that it could make any human army of this era feel despair.

In the very center of that fortress was Hao Ren's target—

A heaven-reaching tower that was constantly rotating and reorganizing, looking as if it were pieced together from countless metal parts. Its base was connected to the Netherworld Temple, and its top reached all the way into the chaotic cloud top, connecting to Hades' temple on Mount Olympus.

However, it was not easy to go to the brass fortress at the highest point of Tartarus, because Hades' power had not completely dissipated—the land outside the fortress was full of wandering undead.