Hades stood up, feeling the cold curse deeply rooted in his divinity, which had just merged with 'Moebius' and was now being reconstructed.
Tears rolled uncontrollably from his violet eyes.
One drop, two drops... Crystalline clear, with a glimmer of divinity, they crossed his pale cheeks.
But he could not 'feel' sadness.
Wisdom—the cold and absolute wisdom that Metis had given in the end—was like an invisible barrier, cutting off all fiery emotions.
He could clearly 'recognize' what he had lost, 'analyze' the grandeur and cruelty of this sacrifice, and 'understand' the heart-wrenching pain that should live in his heart... But he simply could not 'feel' it.
The tears were precisely what he should know, the inertia left over from past emotional patterns, not proof of a broken heart.
His gaze swept to the sides.
Zeus, Poseidon, Koios, and the gods of the Underworld—the terror, shock, and disbelief on their faces—were all frozen in the spatial rift of the previous second.
For them, perhaps only a brief moment had passed, seeing Hades swing the blade to 'end himself', and then the world shook violently, and light engulfed everything.
Only Nyx, the goddess of night, who had slowly freed herself from the 'Chains of Resolve', reflected Hades's state in her deep eyes.
She let out a long and complex sigh, filled with the weariness of hundreds of millions of years of reincarnation and a slight relief.
"Bearing the entire world on your back, Hades... My 'error' has finally borne unexpected fruit."
Her figure began to fade, as if night was merging into the background. "And I... it's time to sleep. Perhaps this is the last thing I can do for you and for this new world... a small reward."
As her words fell, her divine body transformed into the purest darkness, receding like a tide, dissipating into the depths of the Underworld, and sinking into an endless sleep with the silent essence of Erebus.
Her sleep took the initiative to sever most of her connection with the new world, significantly reducing the historical burden at the level of the primordial god that Hades had to bear from the 'Negation Realm'.
As Nyx fell asleep, the condensation of time and space began to dissipate.
Zeus gasped sharply, looking suspiciously at Hades, and then at the surrounding Hades, which seemed unchanged but was completely different.
He opened his mouth, as if wanting to ask, to understand what had happened, but all words stuck in his throat when he touched Hades's tear-stained eyes.
Poseidon gripped his trident and took a deep look at Hades; the recklessness in his eyes seemed slightly diluted, giving way to solemnity in the face of the unknown.
He said nothing, just nodded slightly to Zeus, and his figure transformed into a stream of water and quietly left.
Koios's face paled. The Hades before him radiated an aura that made his soul tremble—it was not only powerful, but also... the oppression of the very law of the world.
He dared not stay a second longer, not even observing etiquette, and hurried after Poseidon to flee from Hades.
Zeus watched them leave, then looked at Hades, and finally took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the turbulent waves in his heart, trying to maintain the appearance of a God-King.
"Hades... Brother," his voice was a little dry.
"It seems... you have done something... something we cannot understand. Olympus... still needs stability, so I will leave first."
He nearly fled, riding on thunder and disappearing from the Underworld.
For a time, only the gods of the Underworld remained in the core of the Underworld.
Thanatos and Hypnos looked at each other, both seeing shock and slight confusion in their eyes.
They knelt on one knee, expressing their silent loyalty and question to their king.
The torch in Hecate's hand flickered; she felt Hades's power, vast as a sea of stars, yet cold as nothingness. She was silent and lowered her head.
Perses was still silent, but the aura of destruction converged to the extreme, guarding him like a stone.
The Hundred-Handed Giants and Cyclopes let out puzzled roars; they could feel Hades's power becoming incredibly strong, but also... strange.
Cronus, the former God-King, looked at Hades, an incredibly complex feeling flashing in his eyes: relief, mockery, and a hint of indescribable... purity.
He snorted, dragging his body, still partially chained, and turned to walk towards Tartarus to continue his imprisonment, but this time his back seemed slightly less mad and a little more silent.
Hades ignored their reactions. His gaze fell upon the goddess of memory—Mnemosyne.
At this moment, Mnemosyne was in an extremely strange state.
The memory orbs around her were like lamps with a poor connection, sometimes flashing with light as bright as a galaxy, as if carrying the memories of countless worlds;
sometimes they quickly dimmed, becoming pure and empty, like a newly born god. Her eyes also rapidly switched between the depth of wisdom and ethereal ignorance, as if her existence was in a state of quantum superposition—'remembering everything and forgetting everything'.
This phenomenon directly affected her, the avatar of memory, after the rules of the world changed and the cycle of reincarnation was broken.
She was both the recorder of the old world and a blank page of the new world, and they paradoxically coexisted within her.
This was one manifestation that the foundation of the world was not yet fully stabilized after the completion of the 'Negation Realm'.
Hades slowly raised his hand and waved it lightly to the gods of the Underworld.
"Go back and do your duties."
His voice was calm and emotionless, but it held an undeniable absolute will, acting directly on the essence of the gods of the Underworld.
Thanatos, Hypnos, Hecate, Perses, the Giants... All the gods, no matter how much doubt and shock was in their hearts, were subjected to an invisible force at this moment, involuntarily and quietly retreating from this core and returning to their posts. The order of Hades needed to be restored immediately.
Finally, his gaze fell upon the small figure nearby—Catia.
The shell of the young god, forged by him and the divine power of Metis, carrying most of his will and power, had been used to shed the shell like a golden cicada.
At this moment, with the completion of the 'Negation Realm' of his main body and his merger with 'Moebius', the will and power in this body returned to the main body like a tide.
The silver gleam in Catia's eyes gradually faded, and the deep wisdom belonging to Hades quickly disappeared, replaced by the purity and confusion of a newly born god.
She blinked, looked at the strange and dark surroundings around her, and finally focused on the tear-streaked male god before her, but radiated an aura of intimacy and reverence that instinctively made her feel close and admiring.
She was Catia, the goddess of the Underworld, of purity and underworld waters, the titular daughter of Hades and Metis, a truly 'new' god according to the laws of the New World.
She no longer carried the will of Hades, but was simply an independent, young god.
At this moment, a figure appeared unsteadily at the entrance of the hall.
It was Metis.
More precisely, it was the 'new' Metis.
Her face was clearly confused and with noticeable fear, as if she had just awakened from a long and painful sleep.
She touched her forehead with her hand, her eyes a little dazed, but when her gaze touched the still-drying tears on Hades's face, an inexplicable, sharp contradiction seized her.
She remembered fragments of her madness about using the divine power of Eros on Hades, the possessive nature that almost burned them both... But it seemed strange, as if it belonged to another soul.
A strong fear and doubt made her tremble slightly.
Why did she do that? Why did she feel this... pain in her heart?
Hades also looked at her.
Four eyes met.
The curse of wisdom echoed coldly in Hades's soul: "Forever! Forever!! Forever!! Never fall in love with anyone!"
He could clearly 'analyze' the beauty, wisdom, and complex connections between them that had existed and accumulated in countless reincarnations.
He could 'understand' that love and connection that should exist.
However, he did not feel it.
Similarly, when Metis looked at him, she felt that there should be a deep connection between them, and felt a pulsation and sadness in the depths of her soul because of him, but the 'love' that had made her paranoid and mad seemed to be covered by a layer of mist, no longer clear and hot.
An invisible chasm, created by 'wisdom', existed between them.
"Hades... I..." Metis opened her mouth, but didn't know what to say.
She felt a confusion she had never experienced before.
Hades calmly looked at her. The tears had stopped, and only absolute calm remained on his face.
"Metis." He called her name, his voice smooth. "It's over."
Hades turned and stopped looking at her or any of the gods.
Step by step, he walked into the deepest part of Hades, towards the throne built from silence and darkness.
His back, lonely and majestic, seemed to bear the weight of the entire world.
Behind him, Hades began to move slowly according to the new laws. The river of the dead flowed endlessly, and for the first time, the cold radiance of the Moon of Hades (Catia) truly scattered across the Underworld, independent of time.