Chapter 44. Hades (1)
They swallowed hard.
Something was rising from beneath the ground.
A pitch-black handle.
Decorations that looked as though screaming souls had been carved into them.
Hades’s staff.
[Did you call me?]
Cynthia shivered as the air abruptly turned cold.
“...That thing...”
“Is that really... Hades?”
Jooheon reached out and grabbed it.
The instant he did—
A black god appeared.
Dark waves burst outward in every direction.
Even Jaeha, who had created countless things in his life, stared in shock.
“Oh...”
Jooheon casually planted the staff against the ground.
“Good.”
“Hades has arrived.”
Rulebook practically ground its teeth.
[...Summoning complete.]
[Remember this! Hades is classified as a high-risk Artifact!]
[If anything happens to you, we absolutely refuse to take responsibility!]
[Something terrible is going to happen!]
[It might drain your life away!]
Rulebook kept warning him.
Jooheon ignored it and raised the staff.
“Now, Hades.”
“Time to drag those bastards down.”
He tapped the staff against the ground.
THOOM!!
Shadows spread hundreds of meters in every direction.
The entire city began to change.
Entrances.
Stairways.
Everything.
As though the city itself were declaring that it now fell under the jurisdiction of death.
Majesty Yoo Jaeha watched in admiration.
“...A god with real rank really is different.”
Cynthia swallowed hard.
Jooheon glanced at her.
“Don’t freak out.”
“This is how we force Demeter out.”
The moment Hades’s territory began consuming the city...
The plants reacted first.
Potted plants.
Leaves.
Vines.
They turned black and shriveled in an instant.
It was as though an enormous hand had descended over the city and sucked the life from everything.
Cynthia screamed.
“Wait!”
“My vineyards! My wine cellars!”
Jooheon looked at her as though the answer were obvious.
“This is the land of the dead.”
“Obviously all the wealth you accumulated has to die too.”
“What?!”
Then—
One of the roadside trees began violently shaking as though screaming.
Jaeha noticed the convulsions and quietly smiled.
...Demeter’s Artifact reacted.
He immediately sensed the Majesty power inside it.
This Majesty is pretty strong.
Powerful.
Then a voice emerged from the tree.
[Why don’t you stop?]
It was only a voice.
Yet the pressure behind it weighed down the entire city.
Jooheon looked up.
“...That voice.”
[Did you really think your pathetic power would work on my land?]
[This place is a field I cultivated personally.]
Cynthia’s eyes widened.
“...Delaira...!”
Apparently, Delaira had used a Contact Right to speak to Jooheon.
[Expand Hades one more time and I’ll rot your rookie world before you can do anything.]
[Aside from Zeus, there’s nothing worth looking at there anyway.]
It was a threat.
Jooheon rested the staff over his shoulder and smirked.
“What?”
“Scared?”
“You’re all talk.”
“You planted roots in someone else’s land without permission.”
“Didn’t you notice I just took ownership of this world?”
Delaira’s voice rose with even greater contempt.
[You merely stepped your filthy feet onto it, little boy.]
[The roots belong to me.]
A warning.
No.
More accurately—
[Don’t cross the line.]
A threat spoken from a position of superiority.
But Jooheon had heard threats more often than people told him to eat.
It only annoyed him.
Sure enough...
His lips slowly curled upward.
“Hey.”
“If that is supposed to mean ‘stop’—”
Jooheon slammed the staff down.
Hades’s shadows instantly expanded.
They crushed Demeter’s territory backward.
“It sounds more like you’re asking me to step on you harder.”
[You bastard!]
“So watch your mouth.”
“You don’t decide where the line is.”
“I do.”
Cynthia shouted in terror.
“If you provoke Delaira, this world will—!”
Jooheon nodded.
“Yeah.”
“Everyone will probably die.”
What?
“But I’m planning to destroy all the accumulated wealth here anyway.”
“So it doesn’t matter if the city gets ruined.”
...What?!
“Wait!”
“Destroy it?!”
“I thought you were only going to make the city barren!”
“A barren city?”
Jooheon scoffed.
“That’s just planetary garbage.”
“You think demolition contractors exist for fun?”
He held out his hand.
“So pay me.”
Pay him?!
Then the staff rose again.
The instant it touched the ground—
THOOM!
BOOOOOOM!
Black waves spread across the entire city.
