Godslayer's Legend

The outcome of Cattleya’s first major battle following her return was a shocker to every side involved in the war.

She had fought Zeus, Jupiter, Mars, and Minerva to a standstill.

Alone.

Cattleya had confronted two renowned Masters of Universes, both Superior Stage Monarch Realm existences, alongside two other powerful Superior Stage High-Tier Deities, and held her ground against all four by herself.

When many within the Divine Alliance first heard the reports, they refused to believe them. They assumed Hell and the rest of the Infernal Coalition had exaggerated the matter.

However, there were witnesses.

Billions of them.

They had watched the battle unfold with their own eyes and had seen that the crimson destructive aether did not lose to the combined divinities of the four gods.

The only reason Cattleya had withdrawn from the battle was because reinforcements from Olympus had arrived, including Poseidon.

Even for the empowered Cattleya, who’d attained the Authorities of several Universes as their Master, facing three Superior Stage Monarch Realm existences on her own would’ve been foolish.

Even so, her appearance alone dramatically elevated the morale of the Infernal Coalition while crushing that of the Divine Alliance.

Taking advantage of that momentum, Hell’s Main Entities, who’d largely occupied passive positions as commanders throughout much of the war, finally began participating directly in combat.

The years that followed saw the Infernal Coalition ride the momentum generated by Cattleya’s rampages.

With her fighting alongside the rest of Hell’s Main Entities, they gradually pushed the Divine Alliance back across multiple fronts.

Despite all of this, the one who’d started the war in the first place, the Devil King of Hell, Diablo, still hadn’t made a move.

The war had now entered its 42nd year, and Diablo hadn’t left Hell a single time.

In the meantime, it became time for Hades to unseal the Underworld for another two months.

But this time, the moment the Underworld opened, it came under immediate attack from the forces of Zeus, alongside the headless armies of Ares, Apollo, and Athena, led by Artemis and Olympus’ strongest battle god, who was on par with Asgard’s Thor, Heracles.

Hades had initially intended to leave the invasion to Hecate and Thanatos.

He trusted that Hecate was more than capable of dealing with Artemis in direct combat.

But the moment Heracles entered the equation, Hades had no choice but to intervene personally.

This was the Hero god of Olympus, the one who normally commanded the armies that held back the Giants of Olympus in a distant region of the universe, preventing them from launching large-scale attacks against the rest of Olympus.

Hades was very familiar with the power Heracles possessed, and he had no intention of allowing Heracles to rampage through the Underworld.

As such, he personally stepped forward to intercept him, despite suspecting that Heracles’ presence was likely intended as a diversion.

His suspicions proved correct, as while Hades was occupied fighting Heracles, Hermes slipped into the Underworld and headed directly toward Tartarus.

Specifically, he headed towards the section of Tartarus where Hades had dumped Ares’ soul.

In the blink of an eye, Hermes blitzed past every giant warrior in that region, snatched Ares’ soul, then raced through Persephone’s garden and took Athena’s soul as well.

Unlike Ares’ soul, which Hades had thrown into Tartarus out of spite and annoyance at the War god’s endless rambling, Athena’s soul had been placed within Persephone’s garden because of the friendship the two goddesses shared.

Apollo and Dionysus’ souls, on the other hand, were nowhere to be found. Hermes couldn’t detect either of them anywhere, their locations known only to Hades.

With his winged shoes, Talaria, which increased Hermes’ speed even further whenever he was within Olympian territory, whether inside the Olympus Universe itself or any vassal universe conquered by Olympus, Hermes blitzed through the Underworld, stole the souls that were his targets and that he could locate, then blitzed back out within minutes, crossing the interstellar battlefield where Heracles was fighting.

The trail of light he left behind as he moved was meant to serve as the signal for Heracles to withdraw his forces.

As Hermes moved, he glanced toward the direction where Heracles was fighting Hades to confirm whether Heracles had noticed the signal.

However, the moment he looked over, he locked eyes with Hades.

Hades didn’t say a word.

He simply stared at Hermes, tracking his movements as the Messenger god crossed through space at a speed that appeared as nothing more than a blur even to the eyes of High-Tier Deities capable of reacting to faster-than-light movements, much to Hermes’ shock.

Hades simply floated there in the vacuum of space, calmly looking at Hermes without speaking.

Hermes flinched the moment he met Hades’ gaze, instinctive fear rising from deep within his soul as he sensed the power radiating from the god of Darkness.

It was power far beyond anything he could estimate, and Hades wasn’t even using Kronos’ scythe.

In that short moment when their gazes met, Hermes realised something else—Hades was wearing Kynee, and it was infused with divinity.

The moment that he noticed the helm on Hades’ head, Hades raised his hand and pointed directly at Hermes before forming a circle with his left thumb and index finger.

His lips parted, and he quietly muttered, "Teach him a lesson, Cerberus."

In that instant, the wings of Talaria began flapping faster on their own, increasing Hermes’ speed even further as he attempted to escape the galaxy.

But it was all futile.

The darkness of space surrounding him became the medium through which a three-headed hellhound emerged, its fangs dripping with poison and liquefied curses as its jaws snapped toward Hermes.

Hermes reacted purely on instinct, swinging his staff upward to strike beneath one of the heads and forcing its jaw shut, while he dropkicked the second head.

However, Cerberus had three heads.

And Hermes, who literally had both hands occupied with Athena and Ares’ souls, simply didn’t have enough time to deploy a barrier strong enough to block Cerberus’ fangs.

The hellhound activated its Unique Authority as the guardian beast of the Underworld Dimension, and because Hermes had stolen ’something’ from the Underworld Dimension, his physical capabilities, energy output, and the strength of his Authorities were temporarily reduced under the effect of Cerberus’ Authority.

Cerberus’ jaws snapped shut around Hermes’ legs, the hellhound’s fangs sank deep into his flesh, and the poison and liquefied curses within its mouth seeped into Hermes’ body and soul before it flung him away like a dog tossing aside a toy.

Hermes crashed into a star before falling onto a solid planet orbiting it, tearing through several gas giants on the way down, blood spilling from his wounded legs.

Cerberus, however, didn’t pursue him. The hellhound simply turned around and returned to Hades’ side.

As Hades petted the dog’s head, he looked toward Heracles and spoke.

"Leave. Your job here is done, isn’t it?"

Heracles stayed silent as he stared at Hades, and Hades, turning away, said, "If you make me repeat myself, I will send you back to your father as a headless corpse."

After speaking, Hades vanished alongside Cerberus.

Following his departure, the Underworld’s Army that had been fighting against Heracles’ forces began retreating deeper into the Underworld.

The armies of Ares and Athena, filled with fury, wanted to charge into the Underworld, but Heracles raised a hand and ordered them to stop before commanding them to withdraw, much to their displeasure.

However, when the universe trembled, the Underworld Dimension began sealing itself once more, and the Reincarnation Path ceased to function, they immediately understood that if they didn’t retreat, they would be trapped within the Underworld and become prey for the shades of Hades’ army.

Of course, some attempted to claim that Hades had broken his promise to unseal the Underworld for two months, but Hades didn’t even bother dignifying any of them with a response.

◇　◇　◇

Following the attack on the Underworld that ended with the recovery of Athena and Ares’ souls, Olympus had regained two of its Main Entities and two of its strongest combat forces.

However, these forces were not immediately combat-ready.

To kill a Deity Realm Existence, destroying their physical body alone wasn’t enough. Their soul also had to ’die’, with every defensive layer of energy surrounding it being destroyed.

Hades had only killed the physical bodies of Ares, Athena, Apollo, and Dionysus before extracting their souls. Because of this, their souls could easily be placed back into their bodies, which had long since been repaired and preserved under Zeus’ orders.

Even so, this did not mean they could instantly recover their full strength.

They required a period of recuperation to heal from the damage Hades’ attacks had inflicted upon their souls, and they needed time to adjust to possessing physical bodies once again after existing as nothing more than souls for decades, unable to even use energy to create Astral bodies under the suppression of Hades’ Authority of Death.

It was only a decade after the attack on the Underworld that Athena and Ares were finally able to return to the war as fighters.

During the time following their rescue from the Underworld, Athena had worked alongside Romersk’s Minerva, Egito’s Thoth, and Oblivion’s Julianos as the primary strategists of the Divine Alliance.

The combined intellect of the four Wisdom Gods produced strategies that allowed the Divine Alliance to recover from many of the losses they had suffered against the Infernal Coalition.

However, the Infernal Coalition also possessed exceptional strategists of their own who were capable of countering the tactics created by the brains of the Divine Alliance, causing the war to enter a strange stalemate.

By this point, the war had been ongoing for 52 years.

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