Miramor froze, voice cracking into panic.
"How… how can it be possible? How… how… how?!"
He staggered back, shields of shimmering force snapping into place in a frantic blur.
"What… what did you do?"
Hades didn't answer. Shadows gathered at his side, mineral dust swirling in with the darkness. His hands moved with slow, deliberate precision forging a spear that seemed to devour the light around it. He poured into it everything, power, energy, divinity, every thread of force he commanded.
"MIRAMOR!" Hades' voice cut like a blade. "Let me show you the true power of a king."
Miramor's nullification field flared to life, a dome of shimmering distortion. It had erased countless attacks before. But this time, the darkness in Hades' weapon bled through its edges like ink through water.
Hades' grip tightened. His stance is grounded. The earth beneath him cracked and sagged. With a single motion, he hurled the spear.
It moved like lightning, a streak of black, leaving a tearing trail in the air. The first shield shattered in an instant, then the second, then a dozen more. They didn't break, they disintegrated like ash in a storm.
The spear pierced through Miramor's chest.
No pause.
No resistance.
A black hole bloomed where its heart had been.
Silence followed.
Hades closed his eyes and let his divinity of secrets probe the scene. Illusions could linger. Traps could fake death. But this time, every sign was genuine. Life was gone.
His shoulders dropped. The pressure in the air lifted. With a slow breath, he stepped forward, reached into the fading form, and withdrew a glowing white core.
Fatigue crashed over him. Muscles leaden, body aching, he let himself fall to the ground.
---
Meanwhile,
Far away, Hectate's teleport is at the eastern edge of the underworld. She appeared before a large child lake, the air so cold that it freezes anything but lake water still does not freeze.
"Rantor! Come out. We need to talk."
Silence.
"I'll give you one last chance. Come out"
Still nothing.
Her expression hardened. "Fine."
'Arcane Tempest'
The sky blackened, violet thunder splitting the clouds. The continuous bolts hit the lake with a deafening crack and erupting water into steams and shards of ice. The shockwave rolled for miles. Millions of volts of electricity are flowing in the lake.
And with a deafening roar tore through the lake.
The lake exploded upward, and a colossal black tortoise carrying glaciers on its back, each peak jagged with centuries of ice emerged out.
Rantor didn't waste time. A beam of condensed energy burst from his mouth, cutting the air with a howl.
Hectate raised her hand. 'Mirror Shield'
A silver aegis shimmered into existence. The beam struck, vanished into the shield's surface, and re-emerged in reverse smashing back toward Rantor.
He withdrew into his shell just before impact. His rebounded beam hit his shell but nothing happened.
He still withdraws into his shell suddenly, his shell began to spin slowly at first, then little by little gaining speed and momentum and reaching hurricane force. The water surged upward into a spiralling column, pulling everything toward him.
Anything like stones, monster in the range of hurricane force and grind them all into fine particles like a juicer convert fruit into juices.
Hectate also pulled towards, but she scraped her boots against the ice. 'Crossroad'
A crimson X burned beneath her feet. She used her binding spell on herself to anchor herself in place.
'Glaciate Domain'
As word comes out from her mouth, the world responds to her command like a slave and freezes in mid-motion. The roaring waters became still sculptures. Wind halted. Even Rantor's tornado hung in the air like glass.
Hectate's palm rose.
'Arcane Nova'
Concentrated pure arcane energy forms and takes the shape of a sphere. It shimmered with violet arcane radiance like a violet star in a void. It drifted forward lazily, like a cotton seed swaying in the wind.
Rantor's eyes widened in his frozen prison.
He can sense formidable power behind its harmless appearance.
He tries to break free from this frozen prison, but every effort is futile.
The sphere touched.
The world went black. A dome of annihilation expanded outward, vaporising everything in its path. Shockwaves created by this explosion are still felt clearly from the other end of the underworld realm. Dimensional cracks like spiderwebbed in the sky.
When the chaos cleared, a crater stretched for miles. Rantor lay at the centre, shell scorched and cracked, body bleeding. But his kind had more vitality than almost any creature alive. Tissues regenerating at a visible rate, closing his wounds.
Rantor recognise Hectate as a formidable opponent, but he still chooses to retreat from the battlefield instead of surrendering. His legs pushed against the ground.
Hectate's brow lifted. "Impressive. Even Cronus would hesitate to take that head-on. And you… You're still breathing."
She snapped her fingers. "Not for long."
The ground erupted an Earth Golem lumbered forward, fists like boulders. A Skeleton Giant rose, purple fire blazing in its skull. A Venom Tree Serpent slithered into existence, its fangs dripping acid that hissed and burned through stone.
The serpent coiled around Rantor, biting deep into his wounded plates. Poison seeped in, halting his regeneration. Golem and Skeleton are punching him in his injured places.
Rantor still didn't stop, he retreated while stomping and occasionally releasing a concentrated beam at them.
As there are not enough to stop him, Hectate raise his hand.
And more magic followed: Curse, Spectral Bind, and Gravity.
The giant tortoise staggered, his body weight increased severalfold, and an invisible hand bound his every minimal movement.
Suddenly, energy flared up in Hectate's body. Now, her divinity just steps away to reach the mid-level of a god chief. Her gaze shifted towards the south direction and she smiled.
"Huh…It seems my dear husband achieved his objective."
As poison and curse start taking effect, Rantor vomit blood from his beak.
" With the effect of poison and curse. He'll die… eventually," Hectate muttered. "But I don't have centuries to wait."
Her gaze sharpened. "I need to create a new spell, a spell which has high penetration ability enough to pierce his defence."
She began crafting and talking to herself as magic gathered. " For high penetration, the structure should be pointed and aerodynamic like a lance or an arrow and add a spinning property as it will enhance its sharpness and speed"
"Structure is ready now time for its main power. I can use arcane, darkness, crossroad, night, ghost, nether energy"
She paused. "…And Moon."
Her face shadowed at the memory. The past clawed at her mind but Rantor's pained roar dragged her back.
"No. No distractions."
Energy swirled around her arcs of every divinity she owned. She studied each one's nature. Only the Nether energy remained at the end weak, but with the strange ability to enhance and evolve others.
A thought clicked.
"Hades uses this as a fusion and to enhance his spell. Maybe…I can follow his style and create what I need."
She tried.
The energies fused for a moment. Then they flared violently and exploded, ripping chunks from the ground.
She coughed, shielding her face. "How does that fool manage it…?"
She tried again. Failed again. And again. Each detonation shook the battlefield, her frustration mounting.