The landscapes of the Underworld were strange, and for little Catia (Hades), it was both a familiar country and a field to be re-examined from a new perspective.
Perses's clumsy yet sturdy guardianship was like a solid, outdated shell, wrapped in cares he himself did not fully comprehend.
One day, Catia was drawn to a shimmering fluorescent moss growing near a crevice on the edge of Tartarus.
She took small steps and curiously approached, wanting to get a closer look.
"Stop!"
Perses's voice was like a cold blade, suddenly cutting through the silence.
His enormous body instantly positioned itself between Catia and the crevice, and the aura of destruction spread uncontrollably, completely annihilating the moss and the ugly, long-legged Empusa hiding beneath it.
"This place is dirty." He looked down at the little princess, who only reached his knee, and explained stiffly, as if trying to squeeze relief onto his usually indifferent face, but it only made his expression more strained.
Catia raised her large silver eyes; in her pure gaze there was no fear, only discerning calm.
She gently tugged at the corner of Perses's robe, which lingered with the breath of finality.
"Perses, you protect me." Her words were childishly straightforward, but like a needle, they precisely pierced the hard shell of the God of Destruction.
Perses's body tensed slightly. He was silent for a moment before replying in a hoarse voice: "...Duty."
Hecate, standing a little further away, had a panoramic view of all this. The light of the torch in her hand swayed slightly, reflecting the complex emotions in her eyes.
Once upon a time, she too had craved even the slightest attention and protection from her father, but had only received aloofness and invisible rejection.
Now, seeing Perses's clumsy yet palpable protection of Catia, a mixture of sourness, resentment, and indescribable bitterness spread in her heart.
"Father God," Hecate's voice sounded cold, with a light mockery.
"Your 'protection' truly has... a unique style. Almost as impressive as your power to destroy."
Perses sharply turned his head to look at Hecate, a flicker of piercing pain with the sensation of finality in his eyes, then it was enveloped by a deeper coldness.
He opened his mouth, as if wanting to say something, but in the end it turned into a barely audible, heavy snort, and he fell silent again.
Catia's eyes glided between Hecate and Perses, and deep within her silver eyes, the will belonging to Hades calmly analyzed this tense father-daughter relationship.
This was a knot that could be used, a potential opportunity.
She needed the internal stability of the Underworld, and repairing the relationship between father and daughter could better consolidate Perses's loyalty and make Hecate more inclined towards the core of Hades's camp.
Catia (Hades) quietly exerted the authority of the King of Hades, and a sudden change occurred in the Underworld.
The 'sky' above the Underworld, the eternal dark dome, began to gather increasingly intense dark energy, mixed with the silver-gray power of Cronus and the cold radiance of the dark moon.
These energies intertwined and collided in the dome, ultimately forming a regional, silently roaring 'dark storm'.
The storm did not move, but was fixed somewhere, like a slowly rotating, all-consuming vortex, radiating an unstable aura that made low-level shades tremble and crumble.
It disrupted the flow of some tributaries of the Styx and even made the spatial structure of some areas fragile.
"What... is that?" Hecate raised her torch and looked at the anomalous energy vortex on the dome, frowning.
"Are the laws of the Underworld evolving on their own? Or is it because His Majesty..." She didn't continue, but her eyes were full of anxiety. The King of Hades had not appeared for a long time, and the Underworld was beginning to undergo unpredictable changes.
Perses also watched the storm seriously; the authority of destruction allowed him to feel more of the chaotic power contained in this area, enough to tear apart a divine body.
"Dangerous."
He commented briefly and simultaneously moved closer to Catia, as if the storm could strike at any moment.
Catia (Hades) looked up at the storm, a flicker of vigilance in her silver eyes.
This storm was an excellent 'stage', but how could such a large storm arise with just a little guidance...
"Things are going so well..." Catia (Hades) murmured.
She gently tugged at the hem of Hecate's robe again, looked at Perses, and said in a childish but clear voice: "Sister Hecate, Perses, that place... is uncomfortable. The Underworld doesn't like it."
Hecate looked at Catia: "Yes, Your Highness, it is dangerous. We need to inform Lord Thanatos and Lord Hypnos, and perhaps ask Her Majesty the Queen of Hades..."
"No," Catia shook her head, her silver hair swaying slightly, and pointed at Perses.
"He can go. His power can make it 'quiet'."
Perses was stunned—the power of destruction used to calm a storm? This contradicted his instinctive understanding.
Destruction usually meant adding chaos, not order.
Hecate was also surprised: "Catia, the power of destruction could make this storm spiral out of control..."
Catia insisted, looking at Perses with unwavering trust in her pure eyes: "You can, Perses. Not to destroy the 'storm', but to destroy what makes the storm 'chaotic'. Just like... you destroyed the insects hiding behind the flowers."
This childish metaphor shook Perses's heart.
Destruction... precisely target its purpose? Destroy 'chaos' itself, not the entity that carries it?
This touched upon a deeper area of his authority that he had never explored in detail—destruction as a means of 'purification' and 'ending disorder'.
Hecate also seemed to ponder.
She looked at Perses, the mockery in her eyes disappearing, replaced by a hint of complex expectation. If Father God truly could...
Perses was silent for a moment, and the suffocating aura of destruction around him began to restrain and contract, no longer spreading indiscriminately, but like a sharp sword with a clear target, about to be drawn.
He nodded slightly to Catia, then transformed into a dark ribbon and charged straight towards the dark storm on the dome.
Amidst the storm, the raging spacetime turbulence and dark energy of the Underworld were frantically torn apart.
Perses was within it, and his destructive divine power was released precisely—no longer large-scale annihilation, but, like the most exquisite scalpel, cutting through those 'nodes' where energy conflict was most violent and unstable.
He did not destroy the storm itself, but the 'source of chaos' within the storm, causing the chain of imbalance and collapse.
Each precise destruction caused the flow of violent energy to stagnate, as if a key support point had been removed.
Hecate watched nervously from below, the light of the torch illuminating her father's figure, solid and focused in this chaos.
For the first time, she saw that destruction could indeed possess a... magnificent sense of order.
Catia (Hades) watched quietly.
This was precisely the result he had wanted—to give Perses the opportunity to rethink his power in actual combat, transforming him from a simple destructive force into an indispensable 'scavenger' and 'balancer' of the underworld order.
At the same time, it was also a display, demonstrating the strength and loyalty of the gods of the Underworld.
After an unknown amount of time, the dark storm on the dome gradually subsided. Those chaotic energies were either precisely 'removed' by Perses, or integrated into the stable legal structure of the Underworld after losing their source of chaos.
The vortex dissipated, and the dome of the Underworld returned to its former eternal darkness with the shimmer of the Dark Moon, even more stable than before.
Perses's figure fell from the sky, and the aura around him seemed to have changed indescribably—slightly less brutal, slightly more solemn.
He looked at Catia and knelt on one knee again: "The storm has subsided."
This time, although his voice was still cold, it was slightly less stiff, and in his heart, after completing the mission, there was a note of calm.
Hecate approached him, was silent for a moment, and whispered: "...Well done, Father God."
Perses's body trembled slightly. He did not look up, but the tense line of his jaw softened for a moment.