Chapter 232: Chapter 76
Nyx’s realm was an abyss of velvet black, deeper than the void, where no stars shone and no mortal concept of time dared intrude.
Shadows breathed here, and the silence itself seemed alive.
Upon an obsidian bed carved from the bones of forgotten constellations, Hades sat at the edge, his body bare, silver hair tousled in disarray, violet eyes glowing faintly in the gloom as they traced the words etched upon a scroll of primordial vellum.
His expression was calm, yet the very air around him trembled with the weight of his existence.
From behind, Nyx pressed her equally bare form against him, her pale arms sliding over his chest with a lover’s familiarity.
She rested her chin upon his shoulder, her midnight hair cascading like rivers of shadow down his back.
Her voice was low, a whisper and a lullaby entwined, as she asked the question that lingered like a thorn in the darkness:
"Will you truly marry those three?"
Hades did not look at her, nor did his hand still upon the scroll. He gave only a slow nod, his voice even, steady, without hesitation.
"Yes. They are important to me. Without them, I would not be who I am now. They shaped me. They are the reason why I am the Hades of today."
Nyx exhaled a quiet hum, neither disappointed nor jealous, for jealousy was a thing far beneath her.
She drew him closer into her embrace, as if to remind him of her presence, yet her words carried serenity.
"I do not mind. Wives, queens, companions—those things will come and go. But at the end of the day, when the last star collapses and the last breath of creation dies, it will still be you and I. We are bound deeper than flesh, deeper than any vows. Our domains are older than Olympus itself. We are inevitability entwined."
Her fingers traced over the lines of his chest, pausing just above his heart. Then her tone shifted, softer, dangerous with secrets.
"Tell me, Hades... do you not wish to know? About yourself. About the past you cannot remember. About why you are so unlike all the rest."
Hades’ hand froze on the scroll. For a moment, silence stretched as if even the realm itself awaited his answer.
Then he shook his head, his silver hair swaying lightly with the movement. His reply was curt, his gaze still on the words before him though they no longer registered.
"It does not matter. I cannot remember it. Whatever I was, whatever I came from, is gone. I am who I am now. That is enough."
But Nyx only smiled faintly, her lips brushing the curve of his ear as she whispered, "No, it is not gone. It is buried."
"What do you mean?"
Nyx smiled, "Can you listen to small tale of mine?"
Her voice grew heavy, resonant, as if the whole void were speaking through her.
"Eons ago, before Olympus, before the Greeks claimed dominion, I was born from a fragment of Chaos itself. Not as Nyx, but as a mindless, writhing storm of tendrils, a hunger without identity. I was not a goddess. I was a beast, a devourer, no different from the Outer Beings that feast upon universes as mortals gnaw bread."
Her arms tightened around him as she continued, words pouring like an ancient river.
"I had no thoughts, no emotions, no ego. Only instinct. And that instinct commanded me to consume. So I turned upon this universe, not when the Greeks ruled, but in the epoch before them, when a pantheon of so-called Roman Gods reigned supreme. I sought to unravel their cosmos, to devour their pantheon, to drink their civilization dry until nothing remained but a shell—and from that stolen energy, to awaken as something greater, something transcendent."
The scroll slipped from Hades’ hand, forgotten, as her words pulled him deeper into the shadows of a history long erased.
"I nearly succeeded," Nyx whispered. "I toppled their civilization. Their gods fell screaming into my maw, their temples crumbled into dust, their empire drowned in silence. I feasted upon their strength and wove it into myself. And for a moment, I stood upon the brink of ’becoming’. I was no longer formless void. I began to feel. To be. My ego awakened, my sense of self was born. I became Nyx."
Her voice dropped lower, like the hush of an abyssal tide. "But I failed. The ascension I sought was incomplete. I gathered only half the energy of that dying pantheon. The other half slipped from me... to a soul. A single mortal soul that survived by chance so infinitesimal small it mocked reason. A flicker of life that endured where all else perished. And the energy I lost clung to it, nourished it, reshaped it, made it endure against annihilation itself."
Nyx tilted his chin with her fingers, forcing his eyes to meet her endless, starless gaze. "That soul was you, Hades."
Silence pressed heavy, the truth suffocating in its enormity.
"You are no child of Cronus, no mere Olympian born of Titan blood. You are a survivor of a world before worlds. The last remnant of Rome’s annihilation, bound to half the power of a dead pantheon. You are my mirror, my equal, my failure made flesh. That is why you are an anomaly. That is why Olympus could never truly bind you. That is why you stand apart."
Her lips brushed against his temple as her arms locked around him, possessive, eternal. "You are the survivor of the past epoch. My other half. And though you have forgotten, I will never allow you to forget again."
Nyx’s voice lingered in the air like velvet smoke, wrapping around Hades as she continued, her tone filled with that ageless weight that made even silence feel inadequate before her truths.
"I did not notice you at first," she admitted softly, her fingers brushing through his silver hair as if he were both her child and her lover. "You were a flicker, a remnant I had overlooked in my hunger. But I was not reconciled with my failure. I was so close to ascension—so close to breaking free of being bound by existence itself. How could I accept defeat? How could I allow that last step to be denied me?"
Her lips curved in a smile that carried no warmth, only the memory of endless ambition. "So I turned to creation. Using the fragments of Roman essence that still dwelled within me, I sculpted a new pantheon from my own power. I birthed the Primordial Gods, poured into them what I once devoured, and commanded them to weave this universe anew. From the bones of one epoch, I built another. From my body, I seeded what the mortals would one day call the Greeks."
Her hand slid across his chest, tracing the beat of his heart. "Every law, every star, every whisper of divinity... all of it was made to grow this universe, to fatten it, to one day ripen into the feast that would complete me. I raised it as one raises cattle, nurtured it with care, and when the Titans rose in their age, this world had matured enough that I could have devoured it all and finally taken my rightful place beyond gods."
Her eyes grew distant, a rare shadow of hesitation flickering in her eternal calm. "And yet... when the moment came, I faltered. I had grown attached. To the light of this universe. To the dance of its lives. To the voices of those who had come to call me Mother. It was supposed to be my harvest, yet I found myself unable to lift the scythe."
Her voice softened, and a strange fondness crept into it as her arms tightened around him. "I lingered in that dilemma, caught between hunger and affection, and that’s when you awakened. You, Hades. You stirred awake, and with that awakening, I felt what I had long thought lost—the other half of power that had slipped from me eons ago. It burned within you, raw and untamed, the final spark of the Romans made flesh. In that instant, I knew. You were what remained of the past, a living remnant of a bygone epoch, the half of me that had escaped."
Her lips hovered near his ear, her breath a caress, yet her words sharpened. "At first, I thought to devour you. Once your strength matured, I could have claimed you, consumed you, and completed the ascension I was denied. That was the plan. That was destiny. But..."
She paused, shaking her head in amusement as she chuckled lowly, a sound rich with self-mockery and inevitability, "unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—I found myself unable to carry it out. Just as I had grown attached to this universe, I had grown attached to you. More deeply. More absolutely. I cannot bring myself to harm you, Hades. Not when you are both my failure and my salvation. Not when you are... mine."
Her smile deepened as her fingers tilted his chin upward, forcing his violet eyes to meet the endless abyss of her own.
"Do you not find it strange? How your strength grows so much faster than that of your brothers? Why even Prometheus looked upon you with such unease, whispering that you are an anomaly? This is the reason. You are not like them. You are not of this age. You are something that survived when all else perished."
Hades remained utterly silent. The scroll he had been reading dangled forgotten in his hand, unrolled halfway, words abandoned.
His gaze held steady, calm, but there was a weight in the quiet between them that neither chose to break.
Nyx only pressed herself harder against him, her body molding against his back as though she meant to fuse with him entirely, her lips grazing his temple.
Her final words were possessive, absolute, spoken with the serenity of someone who needed no reassurance.
"It does not matter who you marry. Queens, witches, goddesses—they can have their ceremonies, their claims, their vows. But at the end of the day, Hades, you will always belong to me. You were born of my hunger, my failure, my essence. You are bound to me more deeply than any bride could ever bind you. And whether you accept it or deny it, you will return to me, because we are two halves of the same origin. My shadow. My survivor...."
She brought her lips to his ears and whispered,
"My Hades."