CHAPTER 308: CHAPTER 7

In the serene, blinding light of the Empyrean Realm, Hades sat utterly motionless upon his throne, his eyes sealed against the current reality.

Yet, a deep, conceptual sigh of relief subtly altered the turbulent energy surrounding his still form.

Though his consciousness was currently fractured into an infinite number of simultaneous projections—each one fighting to save a collapsing timeline—he was still able to monitor the crucial events unfolding in the Prime Timeline.

The image of Hecate being skewered by the Outer One’s tentacle had flashed through his awareness, and a spike of cold, annihilating terror that threatened to rupture his focus and shatter the timelines he was attempting to mend.

That was his wife, his brilliant strategist, the mother of his children, and the thought of her extinction, of that profound personal loss, had nearly compelled him to abandon the collapsing roots and surge back to the front.

The catastrophic consequences of that action, the immediate implosion of the entire Hyperverse, were the only thing that held him back.

Thankfully, a moment later, the soothing presence of Nyx, the swift rescue, and the subsequent arrival of the Celtic allies confirmed the immediate danger had passed.

The Prime Timeline was safe, for now.

With grim determination, Hades forced his focus back inward, back into the abyss of infinite timelines and parallel universes.

Through this forced omnipresence, Hades was living an eternity every moment.

He was simultaneously the Hades who became a tyrannical god-king, the Hades who died in the war against the fragments, the Hades who chose peace, the Hades who was a mortal man, and the Hades who succeeded wildly.

He lived, fought, and died across countless iterations, making every possible choice, bearing every possible consequence.

Yet, regardless of the choice, the ultimate, singular goal remained the same in every single life: saving the universe—the specific parallel thread he currently inhabited.

Only by stabilizing and saving those fractured multiversal roots could he inject stability back into prime timeline.

And through those millions upon millions of alternative lives, Hades finally, chillingly, learned the identity of the entity orchestrating the destruction: Azathoth, the Primordial Chaos God.

He saw the evidence in the timelines, whenever the Hades of that timeline is coming close to saving that universe, a being beyond the void would always come and devour him.

And through those timelines, he had pieced together another terrifying truth: Azathoth was not merely an outer one or a dimensional ruler, but it was a being that existed outside the fictional dimension, outside the book’s narrative entirely.

It was a force of the most Primordial will of the writer to erase books, and for some reason, it is focused on him as if driven by some primal, destructive will to devour him whole.

Hades had confronted the fragments of Azathoth in countless doomed timelines.

And although Hades of those timelines were not as strong as the real him, they were still a formidable, genuine Transcendent level beings with power far beyond the current capabilities of Transcendent level Primordial like Nyx.

Yet, every single one of those alternative Hades had failed. Their attempts to combat the chaos fragments ended only in their universe being utterly consumed, deleted from existence.

Even at his current, exponentially amplified level—the Anchor of the Hyperverse, fortified by the flesh of an Outer One—Hades possessed no confidence that he could defeat Azathoth.

The confrontation would not be a battle of strength, but a conceptual duel against the physical manifestation of Primordial chals.

And another troublesome thing in fighting this being was the fact that Azathoth exists outside the book’s narrative, in the Writer’s Library.

Hades had no idea how to breach the dimensional veil to reach the Writer’s domain to confront Azathoth.

The one and only time he had briefly touched the outer reality was when he devoured the Outer One itself, and even then it was a complete accident, a chaotic event born from unimaginable forces clashing.

He could not deliberately replicate that leap to the ’Origin’ without risking total, immediate conceptual collapse.

Since he couldn’t find any solution, he decided to just focus on what he can do for now; stabilizing the Hyperverse.

And unlike the crumbling branches of the timeline, the Prime Timeline, meanwhile, was holding steady thanks to the sacrifice and swift action of his allies.

The immediate threat of the newborn Outer One was now being handled by the immense power of the Primordials and the tactical genius of the unified pantheons.

Thinking of this, Hades solidified his decision.

Azathoth was the ultimate enemy, but he was currently safe in the Void, waiting.

But the Hyperverse’s foundation was not safe.

He focused his infinite, aching consciousness back onto the crushing burden of the collapsing timelines.

Azathoth could wait, but the branches must be saved.

The Prime Timeline demanded his total, immediate attention to the crisis within.

And so, he continued his agonizing, infinite fight for the existence of every potential reality.

*

*

*

The emergence of the Primordial Gods fundamentally altered the outcome of the battlefield.

The newborn Outer One, momentarily stunned and writhing under the focused blast from Erebus, found itself surrounded by concepts of reality older than its own chaotic existence.

Erebus, grinned, completely feeling exhilaration from his newfound power. He never got the chance to test his strength after he reached Transcendence so he really has no idea how strong he is currently.

Gaia was completely indifferent to his challenges. Khronos was almost nowhere to be found. Tartarus couldn’t even be bothered to entertain him as he would rather sleep. And Nyx...

Well, Erebus didn’t bother picking a fight with her.

He still knew the difference between taking a beating, and—as the Chinese Pantheon said—courting death.

"That’s why... don’t die too early, Outer One!" Erebus roared, sending the full might of Primordial Darkness at the Outer One, causing it to screech in pain as it was attacked in the conceptual level.

Meanwhile, Gaia, materialized colossal chains forged from pure Hyper-Adamantine, the toughest divine material now possible in the Hyperverse that can only be found deep within the Underworld.

These chains, impossibly vast and glittering with primordial light, were designed to bind the physical essence of the creature’s projection.

"I still remember what your kin did to me," Gaia said, her voice resonating with the sound of tectonic plates shifting. "Consider this my revenge."

The chains whipped out, wrapping around the writhing tentacles. Where Erebus attacked the creature’s concept, Gaia attacked its physical manifestation, attempting to root the unrootable in tangible, structured matter.

Khronos, the most complex of the three, floated above the fray, a shimmering vortex of organized chronological power.

"This reality is no longer subjected to your hunger, Outer One." Khronos declared, his voice a dispassionate, echoing cascade of moments. "Let your death be a declaration: We are no longer afraid."

He manipulated the time around the Outer One’s physical form, slowing its reaction time to an infinitesimal crawl.

This gave Gaia the necessary sliver of eternity to tighten her Hyper-Adamantine chains, locking down the creature’s ability to shift its form.

The Outer One roared again, a sound of pure, trapped frustration. It realized it was facing entities that operated on a plane only slightly below its true conceptual form, beings that predated the very definitions it was trying to erase.

While the Primordials held the Outer One, the surrounding battle raged against the endless, teeming tide of the newborn’s spawn.

Lugh and Ra fought with blinding, complementary solar power.

Ra, wielding pure, annihilating heat, flew low, reducing vast swathes of the black infants to nothingness.

Lugh, with his tactical brilliance, used focused beams of divine light that pierced and scattered the surviving formations, illuminating weak points for the Celtic warriors to exploit.

"It seems like millennia of having your power weakened did nothing to dull skills, Ra!" Lugh shouted, vaporizing a thousand wailing infants with a single lance of golden fire.

Ra laughed, the sound joyous despite the carnage. "And it seems like your power did not shame your predecessors!"

The Celtic Pantheon, energized by their King’s power and fueled by the raw strength of their newly secured alliance, fought with unmatched passion.

They used the power of nature and illusion, confusing the simple minds of the spawn and tearing them apart with forces of wind, stone, and the deep magic of the old forests.

Meanwhile, in the relative calm behind the front line, Nyx moved with urgent purpose.

She floated between the grievously wounded bodies of Hecate, Frigg, and Freya, her healing shadows bathing their broken forms.

Hecate, breathing shallowly as Nyx’s shadow-energy stabilized her heart and mended the conceptual tear in her chest, looked up at the fierce, contained battle of the Primordials

"Nyx," Hecate whispered, her voice still weak, "Don’t tell Hades about my injuries once you returned to the Empyrean. I don’t want him distracted when he’s already dealing with alot."

Nyx’s eyes remained fixed on her patient. "You don’t really think he doesn’t know, do you? I felt it earlier. If I was just even a fraction of a second slower, he would’ve abandoned those timelines and focus on saving you."

She then tightened her focus on Hecate’s conceptual wound. "For now, focus on healing yourself. We need to use that spell of yours to make sure that thing was weakened and won’t have the chance to revive itself for some reason."

"...okay." Hecate murmured, the seed of that spell already forming in her brilliant mind. "Okay, although at my current state, I can probably only use it once, and it will last only for a few seconds."

Nyx glanced towards the ferocious struggle where Gaia’s chains were finally constricting the Outer One’s core.

"That is more than enough. Once you’re healed, prepare the spell. And we will attack."