Morvathos was sitting in the throne room. His expression was rigid, his eyes burning with rage, and his breath sharp and uneven. He was angry, furious beyond words.
Abrosis had not only dumped this declining, half-rotted hell onto his shoulders, but the bastard had also emptied the treasury before leaving. Not a single coin remained. Not one.
And that wasn't even the worst of it. No, the real insult was that Abrosis clearly hadn't been doing his job for a very long time. The damage to the reincarnation system, the corruption spreading through the soul water, any competent ruler would have noticed. But Abrosis? The lazy god had either been too blind or too busy indulging himself to care.
If he had maintained Hell even a little, things would never have reached this state.
Morvathos felt another surge of anger, hotter and heavier, burning through his chest. His fists tightened on the armrest of the throne. Even on Earth, a mortal world, there were countless souls,sinners and virtuous alike.
With the endless population growth, karmic coins should have been flowing in constantly. The treasury should never have been empty. Unless, of course, Abrosis had been skimming it all for himself.
That thought made Morvathos' jaw clench until his teeth ached.
He was angry because he never asked for this throne, never wanted this position. And now, not only was he forced to take it, but he also had to clean up another god's mess.
Fixing Hell would take time, effort, and patience, and patience was the one thing he didn't have right now.
Morvathos growled under his breath, the words laced with killing intent.
"I swear… I swear, if I ever find that bastard, I'm going to rip him to shreds."
The oath lingered in the air like a curse.
*Huff~*
Finally, he drew in a deep breath, forcing his rage to settle. He couldn't afford to lose himself in fury. Not now. He needed his mind clear, sharp. Emotions wouldn't fix the broken gears of Hell.
And yet, what he failed to notice , or perhaps noticed and chose to ignore, was that he was feeling far more emotions than he had since his ascension.
His supposed indifference was still there, a cold foundation beneath him, but other emotions, anger, bitterness, even a touch of grim determination, were clawing their way up.
His heart, once slowed beyond mortal rhythm, now beat with near-human speed. Still slower than the living, but close enough to remind him that he wasn't entirely dead inside.
Morvathos leaned back in his throne if you could even call it that. It was just a normal wooden chair, scratched and plain, the kind you'd find in some mortal's dining room, not the seat of the God of Death. He tilted his head vaguely toward the cracked ceiling, his crimson eyes half-lidded in thought.
Plan. He needed clear step by step plan.
There wasn't a single shred of doubt in him about surviving this disaster. Failure was simply not an option.
The only question was speed. Could he fix the reincarnation cycle quickly enough? If the situation had demanded results within weeks, that might've been a problem.
But with a year's time to maneuver, success was inevitable. The only variable was how much blood, sweat, and souls it would cost him.
What he needed now was a path. A clear, simple path toward repairing the Spring of Reincarnation. And to do that, he needed karmic coins. Lots of them. Which, of course, he didn't have.
Currently, the income was pathetic. Just one coin per hour. One. Coin.
The reason was simple and infuriating. With no Wardens, Guardians, or Guards left in Hell, the place was running on the bare minimum settings of the Divine Laws. And the Laws weren't some charitable system.
They charged fees. Constant fees. Every function of Hell bled coins straight into their pockets, and what was left,the measly single coin trickling in each hour, was all he had to work with.
It was almost comical. Here he was, the sovereign of Hell, the vessel of death itself, the terrifying Morvathos Renavyr Oathgrave… broke. Poor as hell in Hell. The irony could have made him laugh if it wasn't so infuriating.
Still, that at least clarified things. He needed to increase the income.
Morvathos shut his eyes, letting his thoughts tighten into focus. The Spring of Reincarnation was useless for now. The spring only produced coins through successful reincarnations, and the better the reincarnation, the more coins generated.
A soul that ascended through the Path of Radiant Virtue, for instance, could produce a hundred karmic coins on its own. But in this age of Earth? Souls of that level were practically extinct.
Even souls on the Path of Blessed Fortune were rare enough to count on one hand.
If he relied on that, he and Hell would both be erased long before the spring was fixed.
That left one option: the Pit of Karma and Punishment.
The pit's mechanism was simple. The more sinners died, the more coins were harvested from their purification. But to raise that income, deaths needed to accelerate. Faster, harsher, constant.
Morvathos opened his eyes. His mind felt clearer now, sharpened to a blade's edge. His path was set.
Manual harvesting.
If he left things to natural laws, it would take years for enough sinners to die on Earth to gather the coins he needed.
Years he didn't have. So he would have to descend personally, rip the souls from sinners himself, and feed Hell with their karmic weight.
"Heh~"
A smirk pulled across his lips. Strangely, his chest stirred with excitement. It was a ridiculous, almost juvenile kind of excitement, like a schoolboy returning after a long absence and knowing he'd changed, knowing he could show off. He had become something more.
Something terrifying. He was the literal God of Death now. And if part of him wanted to flex a little while walking among mortals… well, who could blame him?
"Alright,"
He murmured, his crimson gaze gleaming with amusement.
"Manual harvesting it is."
With that, Morvathos rose from his humble wooden throne. His footsteps echoed through the worn halls of the Crimson Descent Palace as he made his way toward the door, his decision carved in stone.
The hunt was about to begin.