[Third Person Pov]

“W-What are you doing?” Lucian asked, his voice rough, broken, and strained, as though every word scraped painfully up his throat. Shadows crawled across his body like living things, slithering up his chest and neck. They seeped into his torn flesh, knitting muscle and sinew back together, sealing wounds with unnatural precision as darkness literally pulled him back from the brink of death.

“What does it look like?” Hades snapped irritably, not even glancing at him at first. “You were only just revived, and you’re already on the verge of dying again. Do you have any idea how ridiculous that is?”

Lucian groaned as he forced himself upright, his movements stiff and labored. “You’re seeing things,” he muttered, waving a dismissive hand. “I had him on the ropes. Everything was totally under control—perfectly handled, actually.”

Hades finally looked at him, his expression flat and unimpressed. “Lucian,” he said calmly, “your guts are literally hanging out of your stomach. Everything is very far from under control. He would have killed you if I hadn’t stepped in.”

“He’s right,” Agares added from where he stood, completely deadpan. “I would have killed you. Without a doubt.”

Lucian glanced down.

His intestines were piled messily in his lap, slick with blood, spilling from his torn abdomen like a butchered animal. They rested there obscenely, pink and steaming, an image straight out of a slaughterhouse. He stared for a long moment, blinked once, then slowly looked back up at Hades.

“‘Tis but a scratch.”

Agares tilted his head, genuinely impressed by the sheer audacity. “I’m sorry,” he said sincerely, “it must be very difficult raising a son like him.”

Hades let out a long, exhausted sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You wouldn’t even know half of it.”

Without warning, Agares’s barbed tail lashed out, streaking toward Hades’s neck with lethal speed. But instead of striking flesh, it passed straight through him as Hades dissolved into a drifting mist of shadow. A heartbeat later, he reappeared on Agares’s opposite side, seized one of the demon’s horns with a single hand, and hurled him skyward with effortless force.

Agares barely had time to react before shadowy hands burst from the ground below, clawing up his limbs and torso. They yanked him back down violently, slamming him into the earth hard enough to make the ground tremble and his body bounce from the recoil.

More shadow hands followed, wrapping around him layer by layer, binding him tightly like an Egyptian mummy. Agares snarled and struggled, but Hades ignored him entirely, already turning back toward Lucian.

“Are you going to be alright?” Hades asked, his tone neutral—but a faint hint of concern slipped through the cracks of his usual indifference.

Lucian grimaced as he shoved his intestines back where they belonged, muttering under his breath as he worked. Shadows pooled in his palm as he summoned a healing potion, downing it with a shaky sigh. “I’ll manage,” he said weakly.

Hades crossed his arms. “What were you thinking, picking a fight with a Noble Demon? A Duke, no less. You must have missed your place in the underworld quite badly to pull something like this.”

“Why am I being yelled at?” Lucian protested, brushing sweat-soaked hair from his face. “It’s not like I went looking for him. I’m innocent this time. He started killing people—absorbing their souls. I couldn’t just turn a blind eye. If I hadn’t done something, who knows how many more would’ve ended up devoured.”

Hades sighed again, rubbing his brow with his thumb. “That still doesn’t mean you should have engaged him in direct combat. I know you’re smart enough to find another solution—one that didn’t involve fists. You were completely outmatched. You’re lucky he was only toying with you, fighting you in his base form.”

“His… base form?” Lucian asked, blinking in disbelief. “You’re telling me that monstrosity was just his base form? And even then I could barely beat him?”

“Barely beat him?” Hades scoffed. “He utterly owned you.”

Lucian looked away, cheeks burning with embarrassment.

At that moment, a towering pillar of fire erupted behind them. Agares roared as flames incinerated the shadow bindings restraining him. He stepped forward, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck, irritation blazing in his eyes.

“I thought deities weren’t supposed to interfere in their children’s lives,” Agares said mockingly. “Did that rule change while I was away?”

Hades clicked his tongue and muttered an annoyed curse under his breath. “I’ll explain the demon hierarchy to you later,” he said coldly, turning to face Agares. “And I’ll also explain exactly where you stand in this world.”

As he walked forward, Hades rolled up his sleeves. Shadows pooled at his feet, stretching and writhing in anticipation.

“I only broke the rules because you broke them first,” Hades continued. “Ever since the era of Solomon, demons of nobility are forbidden from manifesting in the mortal realm—unless very specific conditions are met.”

And judging by his expression, Agares had failed every single one of them.

Agares merely shrugged, casually brushing embers and scorched ash from the fine fabric of his suit. “Loopholes exist for a reason,” he said lightly. “No?”

Shadows thickened around Hades, pooling and folding into one another like liquid night. Darkness clung to him as he slowly cracked his knuckles, the sound sharp and deliberate in the sudden quiet.

“I honestly don’t care about any of that,” Hades replied flatly. “Just understand this—I’ve been in a truly foul mood lately. I’ve been missing my wife.” His eyes narrowed, something ugly flashing behind them. “And then you made it worse by going after my son and nearly killing him.”

A slow, vicious grin spread across his face.

“So this isn’t about rules or laws,” Hades continued. “This is me letting off steam. And I promise you—” his grin widened, “—this is going to hurt. And I’m going to enjoy every second of it.”

“Finally!” Agares cackled, fire erupting around his body as he launched himself forward at breakneck speed. “A real challenge!”

Fire and darkness collided in a cataclysmic explosion that ripped through the illusory space around them, threatening to tear it apart entirely. The shockwave blasted outward with devastating force. Lucian was nearly thrown off his feet, barely managing to summon his spear and drive it into the ground, clinging to it desperately just to keep from being blown away.

Behind Agares, his shadow suddenly stretched and warped unnaturally. From it, ice-cold chains burst forth, snapping around his arms and legs in an instant. Before he could react, Hades was already there.

Hades’s fist slammed into Agares’s gut with terrifying precision.

The impact forced Agares to double over violently. His throat glowed faintly as his cheeks puffed, his body convulsing as something was ripped from within him.

Souls—countless, terrified, wailing souls—were torn free and gathered into Hades’s outstretched hands.

“These don’t belong to you,” Hades stated coldly.

His eyes burned with power as his voice took on a heavy, commanding authority that resonated through existence itself. “Go. Find your vessels. Your time has not yet arrived.”

He released the souls, and they screamed as they shot skyward, phasing through reality in desperate flight, racing to return to their bodies.

Agares snarled, teeth grinding as the chains dug deeper into his flesh, frost spreading where they touched. Rage poured off him in waves. The ground beneath them began to quake violently, the air trembling under the pressure of his power.

With a deafening roar, Agares shattered the chains.

The earth split open as cracks raced outward in all directions. The ground collapsed and fractured, massive crevices tearing through the landscape as lava surged upward in violent eruptions, splashing and flowing wildly around them.

Plumes of hellfire and molten rock bathed the area in infernal heat. The ground shook relentlessly, the environment screaming under the strain.

Lucian struggled to breathe. His lungs burned as the air itself became oppressive. Sweat drenched his body, his vision blurring as his temperature spiked dangerously. Even his spear grew scorching hot in his grip, forcing him to grit his teeth against the pain.

With a furious wave of his hands, Agares unleashed a maelstrom of crackling hellfire toward Hades, a roaring inferno meant to annihilate everything in its path.

Hades took a single step forward.

Darkness surged out from him like a tidal wave, devouring the flames instantly, consuming them as though they had never existed. The shadows spread with every step he took.

Lava-soaked ground cooled and froze in seconds, hardening into smooth, black obsidian as the darkness absorbed every trace of heat it touched.

Steam billowed around Lucian as the temperature plummeted. He shuddered violently, his breath fogging in front of him as freezing cold replaced the suffocating heat.

Then, in an instant, everything vanished.

Lucian was swallowed by darkness.

He blinked in confusion. He was the son of Hades—darkness should have been as clear as daylight to him.

Yet he saw nothing.

He couldn’t see. He couldn’t hear. He couldn’t smell. One by one, his senses were stripped away, leaving him isolated in a crushing, absolute void. The darkness pressed in from all sides, vast and suffocating, a silence so profound it threatened to unravel the mind itself.

Anyone else would have gone mad.

Agares fared no better.

He hurled a burst of flame forward, desperately trying to create light—but it barely reached a foot in front of him before the darkness swallowed it whole.

“STOP HIDING!” Agares roared into the void. “FACE ME, GOD OF THE UNDERWORLD!”

Hades’s voice answered from everywhere, all at once, echoing from all directions, calm and impossibly close.

“Hiding?” he said softly. “How can I be hiding when I’m in front of you… and behind you… and all around you?”

Massive amethyst eyes opened within the darkness.

They were ancient. Endless. Overwhelming.

Agares felt small.

“The darkness you’re perceiving,” Hades continued, his voice carrying the weight of eternity, “—that is me.”

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