Chapter 1 Unexpected

Much to Hao Ren's surprise, the entrance to the Underworld was not only located in the suburbs not far outside Rome, but it was also completely undisguised—it was practically a blatant landmark, openly displayed for everyone to see. Even the local farmers knew of its existence, though ordinary people knew it as a terrifying entrance without realizing it led to the land of the dead in mythology.

It was a cave in the suburbs, the subject of countless local horror stories.

If a shepherd's livestock went missing nearby, they would immediately offer another animal at the cave entrance in fear, believing that the lost livestock had disturbed the gods. If they did not make such amends, they were convinced that rotting monsters born of the livestock would enter the village at night, spreading plague to every household. Some farmers claimed to have seen the dead emerge from the cave more than once, wearing all sorts of clothes and bloated with decay, as if they had been submerged in a river for three days and three nights. These dead would vanish as soon as they touched sunlight. Travelers passing by at night had witnessed smoke billowing from the cave, accompanied by incessant wailing, which became even more terrifying on moonless nights...

Hao Ren and his group didn't need to inquire much or have Hasson rummage through his memories. A few random passersby were enough to direct them to the cave that the locals avoided like the plague. It was located on the leeward side of a small hill, wide and tall enough for three or five burly men to enter side by side. The land outside the cave was barren for a considerable distance, and even a nearby stream reeked of a foul, fishy odor. The inside of the cave was pitch black.

Dark shadow power churned within the cave, almost visibly.

"This thing is just sitting out in the open..." Hao Ren marveled at the cave, clicking his tongue. Even a glance revealed that it was surrounded by supernatural power, unlike the carefully disguised supernatural realms he had encountered before. "Why would you demon hunters even need to investigate… one look is enough to know this place is strange, right?"

Faced with Hao Ren's astonishment, Hasson simply said, "That's the difference between the Age of Myths and later ages."

"In those days, these things were indeed openly displayed," Hesperiana added. "Traces of supernatural power were everywhere—in the hills, in the wilderness, and even in human settlements. The alien 'gods' never considered hiding their whereabouts. They did whatever they wanted, opening spatial rifts next to human cities without a second thought. No one dared to object, and no one could threaten their rule over the human world. Like this cave before you, what is it, in essence? It's just a sewage pipe and connecting beam from an out-of-control laboratory. Would you disguise these things for fear of affecting the lives of a nest of ants?"

Hao Ren was speechless, and could only click his tongue in the end.

"The fall of Olympus was a landmark event. The Sumerian God War before it dragged on for too long, and the Egyptian God War wasn't decisive enough. Only Olympus was completely destroyed by the demon hunters' relentless onslaught. With our deliberate publicity, this war shook the entire world. Therefore, the year 1 AD is regarded as the dividing line between the Age of Myths and the twilight era—at least, that's how we demon hunters see it, but many alien races calculate it the same way," Hasson said calmly. "You're standing on that dividing line right now. Before this, all 'gods' were high above, complacent and arrogant. After this, all gods were waiting for Ragnarok."

Hesperiana glanced at Hasson and walked towards the cave. "Alright, alright, stop bragging. It wasn't exactly a golden age."

Hasson: "..."

Shadow power coiled within the passage, causing an unusually severe attenuation of light. Even just ten meters from the entrance, it was already so dark that one could barely see their hand in front of their face. Hasson frowned at this sight. "Hades' death has already begun to show its consequences. The Underworld's control system is gradually shutting down, and the polluting energy in the Underworld has lost its filtration, becoming at least twice as concentrated as before."

Although he knew that this was just a "false spacetime" created by Vivian, Hao Ren couldn't help but worry about the ancients. "Won't all that leaked energy cause big problems?"

"It did cause some problems in history, but not here," Hasson nodded. "At another Underworld entrance, a town was contaminated, and almost no one survived. If it weren't for the great explosion at Olympus afterward, which caused the Underworld to be annihilated by spacetime turbulence, the incident would have been a hundred times worse."

Lily scoffed, quite disdainfully. "Gods fighting, mortals suffering. The Age of Myths was definitely not a good thing."

Hasson could only smile wryly at this. His position was too awkward in the face of this topic.

The deep, long cave seemed to have no end. After going hundreds of meters deep, it began to slope downwards, its length almost making Hao Ren think he would keep walking straight into the heart of the earth. But this feeling was just an illusion. After continuing for a while, he noticed that the surrounding environment was changing.

The air became icy cold, not the damp, cold natural environment of a mountain cave, but a chilling sensation that emanated from the heart. The moss on the rock walls gradually thinned and disappeared, and the soil underfoot became cold, slippery gravel, as if soaked in blood and venom. An unpleasant, fishy odor assaulted everyone's nostrils.

"Ugh..." Lily almost cried. "Why does my nose have to be so sensitive..."

Hao Ren took out life-support collars from his dimensional pocket, one for each person, including Little Hesperiana. "Put these on. The concentration of toxins and negative energy in the surroundings is already high enough to be harmful. Wearing these will save some of your own energy."

In fact, the toxins and negative energy had been concentrated enough to be fatal just a few meters after entering the cave, but that lethality was only for ordinary people. Hao Ren and his group relied on their powerful physiques to ignore it, but the situation was getting worse and worse. Just as Hasson had said, the Underworld itself was a dangerous space filled with harmful substances due to a failed experiment. Now that its only administrator, Hades, was dead, who knew how much worse this place would continue to deteriorate. To save everyone's magic and energy, it was good to use equipment to resist it.

Little Hesperiana took the collar and curiously fiddled with it. Eventually, with the help of Big Hesperiana, she figured out how to use it. It was clear that the little girl was quite satisfied with this magical device—even a "vampire" wouldn't like the environment of the Underworld.

Suddenly, the path ahead opened up.

The cave came to an end, and an extremely vast space appeared before Hao Ren. He saw a dark, cracked earth stretching endlessly beneath his feet, with poisonous rivers and steaming lava flowing across it. Flames and steam erupted from the earth's fissures, each eruption seeming to carry the miserable wails of countless souls. The sky was covered with a chaotic substance as deep as rock. It was hard to tell whether it was clouds or a real rock ceiling, but one could see dark red things like lava flowing on the dome, making one fear that it might pour down at any moment.

Above the sky was a fissure that spanned the entire dome. The fissure glowed with an unsettling red light, and through that light, Hao Ren could vaguely see another world on the other side—a world being consumed by war, with grand explosions and the collapse of colossal structures unfolding in succession.

That was probably Olympus, in the midst of war. The demon hunters' last attack had damaged the Underworld's spatial structure, and it seemed to have created a rift in the visual field, projecting the scene of Olympus into this space.

Such a vast place couldn't possibly be under the city of Rome. Such a sight had only one explanation: the group had unknowingly crossed the boundaries of time and space through that cave and entered the alien space created by the Olympus "gods."

"What are those things?" Lily looked up and curiously observed this dark and terrifying place, suddenly noticing many floating, translucent things in the sky. These things hovered hundreds of meters above the ground like mist, sometimes gathering and sometimes dispersing, without a fixed shape, but within the "mist," there were constant, intriguing phantoms appearing.

Hao Ren also noticed those things. He stared intently and suddenly saw several faces filled with pain and various bizarre death scenes emerge from one of the mist clouds.

"Holy crap?!"

"This is the Underworld," Hasson said calmly. "It needs some 'decoration' to live up to its name. Those are the souls of the humans who died under Hades' rule. The Twelve Olympians ruled the human world like they were dividing a cake, making rules according to their own preferences to govern human life and death. In Hades' rules, all humans who died in his territory could not be freely released unless they had paid enough tribute during their lifetime or their relatives offered gifts to the King of the Underworld after their death. Otherwise, wandering souls had to serve him in the Underworld as fuel to drive the three soul furnaces of Tartarus' core—now that Hades is dead, the soul furnaces have lost control, and those souls who were fuel but haven't burned out have all been released."

Watching those souls drifting in the sky, unable to be released for all eternity, Hao Ren's face darkened despite knowing that these were just illusions of history.

Hesperiana sighed softly, "The Age of Myths..."