I've Been Robbed of Half My Life!!
At last we reached the exit of the castle of the Abyss.
The road ahead was still long, but once we cleared this place we could at least catch our breath.
And yet…
“!”
“Tch… So they weren’t going to let us leave quietly after all.”
A swarm of guards filled the space before us. Watching them pour in like a kicked beehive, Nerites’s face twisted into a scowl.
“No choice… Time to use this guy again…”
He reset his grip on the spear in his hand. Twin blades jutted from its tip; part of the shaft was still bound in chains, and an ominous divine power bled from the sealed weapon. The Cyclopes had handed it over calling it their “greatest masterpiece.” Even half-sealed, the savage force inside was more than its wielder could fully control.
Nerites was about to hurl himself at the wall of guards when—
“Guhhhhk!”
“Guaaaah!!!”
In the next heartbeat the guards were shredded, their bodies carved apart and swept away in an instant. Through the gap stepped figures Nerites and the others already knew far too well.
“Y-You lot…”
“Gods of death? Why…?”
Nerites and Thetis kept their guard up as they demanded answers. The moment the two death gods caught sight of Aphrodite nocking an arrow behind them, they hastily raised their hands.
“D-Don’t get the wrong idea. We didn’t come to fight.”
“Ahem! W-We’ll open the path. Follow us.”
“…What?”
True to their word, the pair began cutting the remaining guards down. The behavior made no sense, but the group wasted no time exploiting the corridor they carved. They pushed forward hard.
And finally—
“Here! Over here!”
The Cyclopes waved from the rendezvous point.
“Dad!”
“Kedalion!”
“…”
Kedalion threw herself into Steropes’s arms. Nux hesitated for a heartbeat at the sight, but there was no time to savor the reunion. They loaded the cart and set off at once, cutting across the streets with everything they owned.
Meanwhile the death gods, having finished clearing the guards, watched them go with meaningful smiles.
“Hahahaha… As expected… Fun times always end too damn soon.”
Sticky madness and open regret dripped from every word Keres spoke. She was a woman, yet when it came to battle she carried a thoroughly manly spirit; a faint smile tugged at the corner of my mouth as I looked at her.
That, however, was separate from the larger picture. The fight itself was racing toward the worst possible outcome.
“Foolish insects. Mere bugs daring to raise their heads against this Tartarus. I’ll make your souls scream in torment for all eternity!”
Hatred poured from Tartarus as he closed in. Watching him, I understood once more why ordinary gods could never defeat a Protogenos.
Even after the beating we had given him, his body had recovered to near perfection. His divine power had dropped, true, but the Abyss itself was already feeding it back into him at terrifying speed. Fighting him was no different from fighting a monster with infinite stamina and infinite mana. Every single blow he threw carried enough force to leave us half-dead if it landed clean.
He was this world itself. Tartarus was him, and he was Tartarus. Unless the entire Abyss was brought down, he could not be destroyed.
I was reminded all over again just how completely insane Keres had to be to bare her fangs at something like that simply because she wanted a good fight.
And yet—
“Thanks.”
“…For what?”
In that moment I was sincerely grateful for her madness.
Because without her help—
—Whoosh!
“Huh?”
“Eh?”
—I never would have dragged Tartarus this far.
“This guy…”
“W-Wait, what are you—!”
I wrung out every last scrap of strength I had left, locked my arms around Tartarus’s body, and hurled us both off the cliff. The last thing I saw was Keres’s face twisted in pure shock as she watched me fall.
—Thud!
The deepest floor of the Abyss. Tartarus landed, brushed himself off, and rose as if nothing had happened.
“Honestly… What a pointless stunt.”
He felt no real danger, no meaningful injury. This was nothing more than the unexpected thrashing of a lowly insect. Climbing back up would be mildly annoying, nothing more. If anything, the minor god who had stranded himself at the bottom of the Abyss had only made his own situation worse.
“Did you actually think this would accomplish something? Foolish to the very end. This is the bottom of the world! In this body’s domain there is nothing you can do!”
He looked down on the crouching figure with pure arrogance. A casual gesture of his hand, and countless Abyss guards materialized around him. The pest’s power was clearly spent. All that remained was to order the guards to take their time turning him into a bloody rag, then drag that death-goddess above down for a shared session of torture…
“?”
An ominous surge of divine power suddenly pressed against his senses. Tartarus’s expression froze.
“What?”
Moments earlier the pest’s power had been completely drained. Now it was flooding back so fast even Tartarus could feel it—exactly the way he himself drew infinite strength from the Abyss.
And the source of that power was…
…right under the pest’s feet.
—Rumble…
“!? Wh-What… is this…?”
The ground began to shake. Tartarus staggered as the floor itself heaved beneath him.
“Exactly as you said.”
Looking up at him, the minor god—the god who would one day be known as Volcano—spoke.
“This is the Abyss. The bottom of the world. And—”
The floor of the Abyss split open. From the crack poured a light of impossible brilliance, as radiant as the sun and far hotter.
“—beneath that Abyss… is me.”
“! Th-That’s…! C-Could it be—!”
—BOOOOOOM!!!!
A pillar of flame erupted with a deafening roar. Fire, smoke, and ultra-hot magma exploded upward, swallowing Tartarus and every guard in an instant.
“Wh-What! What are you?! Just what the hell are you?!”
Tartarus screamed as the lava dragged him under. The god answered with the full weight of his authority.
“It’s over!”
—BANG!!!
A single blow slammed into Tartarus’s abdomen with earth-shattering force. Power on a completely different scale punched a massive hole straight through his center.
“Gyaaaaaaaaaah!!!”
Wrapped in flame and molten rock, Tartarus lost all balance and was swept away by the surging torrent of magma. This was no mere attack. It was a sudden catastrophe—the most powerful, most violent rage of nature, erupting from a place deeper than the underground of the world itself.
In later ages the humans of the surface would speak its name with awe and dread.
Volcano
“Th-This is…?”
The colossal pillar of flame that had burst from the cliff was not ordinary fire. Ultra-hot magma roared upward with ferocious force, and Keres’s face went blank with pure shock. Even she, goddess of violent death, felt a thrill race down her spine. The power was so radiant, so scorching, and so beautiful it felt like staring at a living work of art.
For a goddess of death, the scene carried an entirely different kind of ecstasy.
“Gyaaaah!!!”
“It’s hot! My whole body’s burning!!!!”
Abyss guards melted screaming inside the endless fountain of lava. Their agonized cries hammered against her ears.
“Haa… haa… haaaa…”
Her heart pounded. Her breathing turned ragged. Her entire body tingled, and for some reason her lower half burned as if set on fire. Countless beings screaming and dying before an irresistible catastrophe—ahh, how sweet a sight! How beautiful!
“To think such a death existed… Aah… I’ve been robbed of half my life!”
In the midst of that first-ever shock and climax, Keres’s gaze locked onto one figure—the one who had painted this masterpiece of destruction, the one who had brought mighty Tartarus low with boiling lava and flame: the nameless “minor god.”
“Hoo…”
In the center of a sea of boiling lava I let out a quiet breath. I had felt it the moment I arrived. The bottom of the world was naturally the place closest to the underground magma. Tartarus’s authority had suppressed all volcanic activity, but for a god of volcanoes, calling that power up was never difficult. I simply needed to go as deep as possible if I wanted any chance against a monster of his caliber.
Even this would not destroy him for good—only buy a little time. Right now, a little time was all I needed.
Then—
“Hey! You alive?”
“…”
Keres glided toward me on spread wings. One arm had already regenerated; she flew close and held out her hand.
“Grab on. I’ll take you up.”
“…Unexpected. Figured you’d pick another fight right away.”
“D-Don’t get the wrong idea! This is just me paying back the debt from earlier! Even if not now, someday I’ll make you scream too!”
“I’ll be looking forward to it.”
Mildly puzzled by her oddly flustered reaction, I took her hand and shot upward. Far ahead I could already see my companions near the exit of Tartarus. Heading that way, I felt a thin thread of relief.
Then—
“…You. What’s your name?”
A faint tremor colored Keres’s voice. We had never even introduced ourselves. I answered quietly.
“Hephaestus.”