Catia (Hades) stood at the edge of the ocean that encircles the world.
Before her lay boundless water, merging with the horizon, radiating an ancient and majestic atmosphere.
Unlike the deathly silence of the Underworld and the noise of Olympus, this was eternal 'flow'.
She brought neither Hecate nor Perses, but came alone, using the pure disguise of the Princess of the Underworld as the most inconspicuous probe.
Oceanus, the god of the oceans, seemed to have foreseen her arrival.
When Catia's small figure appeared on the shore, the boundless waters automatically parted, revealing a calm path leading to a magnificent temple of coral, pearl, and ancient water in the depths.
Inside the temple, Oceanus sat side by side with Tethys on a throne supported by waves.
Catia (Hades) noticed many details compared to their last meeting: Oceanus's face, wrought from water and starlight, was tired and silent.
His eyes were deep, like a puddle of standing water that had seen too much and no longer stirred waves.
Tethys, his sister and wife, held his hand tightly, and in her eyes was a deep anxiety, almost as old as the ocean.
"Princess of the Underworld, my granddaughter Catia." Oceanus's voice was like a distant tide—steady, but devoid of vitality.
"Your arrival is like a new stream trying to merge with this long-established ocean current."
Catia raised her head, her silver eyes clear and innocent, but her words touched the very core: "Honored Ocean God, Lord of the River that Encircles the World. I have heard that your wisdom is as deep and wide as your seas. The Underworld has just been established, and everything awaits flourishing, especially... water. Souls need cleansing, and the dry Underworld needs nourishment. I wish to make a deal with you."
"A deal?" Oceanus seemed to show slight interest.
"Yes." Catia nodded, and in her small palm appeared a gleam of light, outlining a simple yet true symbol of 'circulation'—evaporation, condensation, rain, and confluence.
"I would like to exchange the concepts of 'peace' and 'rest' in the Underworld for a fragment of divinity or authority representing the 'water cycle' within your divine system. Let pure water build a tiny circular bridge between the Underworld, the earth, and even your ocean."
The proposal itself was not excessive, and even for Oceanus, it was almost nothing.
The god of the 'water cycle' was for him, who governed the entire world-encircling ocean, like a drop in the sea.
However, Oceanus's reaction exceeded Catia's (Hades's) expectations.
He did not bargain, did not ask for details, and did not even glance at the symbol of 'circulation'.
He merely looked silently at Catia for a moment, as if his gaze pierced through her youthful shell, seeing the cold will belonging to Hades hidden in the depths, and the almost stubborn pursuit of 'cycles'.
A faint, almost pitying arc flickered at the corner of his mouth.
"Yes."
He calmly uttered two words.
Immediately, he raised a finger towards an inconspicuous niche deep in the temple, one that seemed formed by solidified water waves.
In the niche, a rhomboid crystal radiating a soft blue light, as if clouds rose and rain fell within it, slowly flew out and gently fell into Catia's outstretched hand.
The divinity of the [Water Cycle].
Such a key authority, connected to the basic functioning of the world, was almost discarded to a seemingly immature princess of the Underworld whom he had met for the first time.
The entire process was so smooth it was breathtaking, and even more 'unnatural' than the restoration of the Erinyes.
Catia (Hades) suppressed the immense shock in her heart, took the fragment of divinity, and felt the pure cyclic power flowing within it.
She raised her silver eyes to look at Oceanus, trying to find in his eyes a hint of calculation, temptation, or any emotion common to ordinary gods.
No.
There was only a bottomless, despairing calm.
At this moment, Catia acutely noticed a detail she had overlooked: Tethys, the queen of the ocean god, never left Oceanus's side.
Whether it was their first meeting or during the great battle with Cronus—the pair was never separated.
Her gesture was not merely companionship, but rather... support, a silent comfort, as if the moment she left, Oceanus would be completely crushed by some invisible weight.
Furthermore, she recalled the records of the ocean pantheon: Oceanus and Tethys, with three thousand river gods and three thousand ocean gods and daughters, could be said to have a flourishing divine lineage.
But at this moment, this magnificent temple seemed too empty and quiet. Where were the children who should be playing and serving here?
An even bolder and more terrifying idea arose in her (his) mind.
Holding the divinity of the [Water Cycle], she did not immediately thank him and leave, but quietly asked, in a seemingly innocent but actually sharp tone, as if it were mere childish curiosity:
"Dear grandfather, your palace is so quiet. I heard you have many children, as many rivers as can't be counted. Are they... not at home? Also, on the way here, I heard the ancient water spirits whispering, saying they haven't seen Uncle Pontus, the 'Lord of the Deep Sea', and his children for a long time. Did they move farther away to play?"
This question was like thunder, suddenly tearing apart the mask of calm that had not changed for ten thousand years!
The ancient Titan's body suddenly trembled, and the water divine power flowing smoothly around him instantly became violently disordered, as if a monstrous underwater current had erupted beneath the calm sea!
He suddenly looked at Catia, and for the first time, in those deep eyes, a very intense emotion flashed—it was not anger, but a kind of deep trauma, mixed with great pain, fear, and... desperate, violent turmoil!
"Shut up!!"
For the first time, Oceanus's voice was filled with thunderous rage and... a faint hint of imperceptible panic.
A majestic divine pressure, like a tsunami, bore down on Catia, but before it could touch her, Tethys embraced him.
"Oceanus!" Tethys cried out anxiously, tightly gripping her husband's hand, her eyes full of pleading and the same pain.
Oceanus gasped sharply, as if the loss of control at this moment had exhausted his strength.
He stared intently at Catia, his eyes extremely complex, and in the end, all the strong emotions transformed into a deeper, suffocating weariness and sadness.
He no longer looked at Catia, but turned his gaze to the boundless dark depths of the temple, as if he could pierce through the watery curtain and see the forgotten and hidden terrible truth.
"...Get out of here, Princess of the Underworld." His voice was hoarse and weak, with a kind of indifference that chilled the heart like ashes.
"Take what you want and go. There are abysses that are not worth prying into. Some cycles... once set, cannot be stopped."
He did not deny it! He did not refute the inquiry about the disappearance of Pontus and his gods! His reaction itself was the most obvious answer!
Catia's (Hades's) heart was frozen in ice.
She understood.
Pontus, the primordial sea god, along with his children Nereus and Thaumas, had not retired into seclusion and had not fallen in any known divine war.
It was highly likely that they, like Uranus and his power of Eros, had been unconsciously devoured and assimilated—their divinity and very will worn down by countless 'reincarnations' as the foundation of the world!
They had become part of the ocean, lost themselves, leaving only an empty representation of authority that still maintained the functioning of the world.
That's why Oceanus's power was so immense, yet at the same time so dead!
He carried not only the world-encircling ocean, but also the echoes and pain of countless ocean gods who had been worn down and absorbed!
His numbness, his calmness—his casual bestowal of the [Water Cycle] divinity as if it were nothing... all of this had an answer.
He remembered everything.
He had witnessed his brothers, sisters, nephews, and descendants being gradually 'digested' by the world itself through countless reincarnations. He was powerless to stop it, and even himself might gradually be assimilated.
He was already in despair.
Tethys's persistence was not only out of love, but also because she was the only support that could barely hold him up and prevent him from completely collapsing.
Catia (Hades) clenched the fragment of divinity in her hand, symbolizing 'cycle'.
This fragment now felt as heavy as a thousand pounds.
It was not just the water cycle; it was more like a bloody metaphor for how gods were consumed by the very mechanism of the 'cycle' itself!
Hades recalled the deep-sea vortex he had observed, and the continuous decomposition—was that the truth about the disappearance of the deep-sea pantheon? (Chapter 18)
Furthermore, the deep-sea vortex—Pontus and Charybdis.
Why was their power governed by the ocean god? How could Charybdis, as Poseidon's daughter, appear in the ocean before her father was born?
Catia said no more. She bowed slightly to the ancient gods immersed in infinite sorrow, turned, and step by step left the temple shrouded in great mystery and despair, following the watery path from which she came.
Each step seemed to tread upon a road paved with the corpses of gods.