When it came to Hera's situation, Thea had to admit—even the most hateful people usually had their reasons. And Hera's fall from grace? That was mostly on Zeus and his complete inability to keep it in his pants.
You didn't even need to put yourself in her shoes. Replace Hera with any rational, clear-headed woman in the same situation, and they'd have done ten times worse—maybe even a hundred times worse.
That sympathy flickered again—but it lasted exactly as long as it took for Thea to remember where they were.
The Underworld.
In front of them stood its owner.
As Hades stepped closer, the shadows that had clung to him during his approach finally peeled away, revealing his true form in the gray light of the Underworld.
Thea blinked.
Then blinked again.
She'd expected imposing. Maybe terrifying. At minimum, dignified.
What she got was... a joke.
Less than five feet tall, Hades stood in mismatched red and black clothes that looked like they'd been designed by someone who'd never seen color theory. But the real showstopper was his head.
Like a birthday cake perched on top of his body, seven or eight candles stuck directly into his crown—or maybe his skull, it was hard to tell. Sticky wax dripped down what should have been a face. No hair. No eyes. Just the mouth area showing any trace of features.
This hideous appearance, and he wanted to marry Hera? Diana? Thea was already preparing her ultimate move, ready to give this bastard something fierce in a moment.
She remembered someone commenting that all these old gods had been turned into emos. It was absolutely true.
The goddesses were at least acceptable, still looking human. But Hades before her eyes was simply a joke.
Hera's expression remained icy and unreadable, though Thea caught the tiniest flicker of disgust cross her features.
As for Hermes hovering half a step behind his "employer," he was trying very hard to look like a loyal messenger and failing spectacularly. His eyes kept flicking between Hera and the ring on Thea's hand, as if praying neither would notice him.
Thea kept her posture casual—hands in her red windbreaker pockets, black boots planted steady. The lantern ring stayed on, but she made no show of it.
She also tested the space around her with a thin thread of will—just to confirm a suspicion.
Blocked.
Not by a wall, not by distance... but by rules. The Underworld's spatial layers felt like stacked iron sheets. Teleportation here wasn't impossible—just expensive, slow, and easy to interrupt.
So that was the game. Drag us here, lock the door, then negotiate from a throne.
How elegant, Hades.
As for the whole God King situation, Hera was in a pretty absurd position. Thea suspected this so-called God King throne was just a trap set by that stallion Zeus, but either way, if any of the remaining Greek gods wanted to claim it, they needed Hera's approval.
The younger generation had to make certain exchanges of interest to gain her approval. For example, even the incredibly arrogant Apollo was willing to serve as muscle for this very reason.
As Zeus's brothers, Poseidon and Hades didn't need such trouble—they planned to simply marry Hera. The goddess naturally refused, and this was the crux of their conflict.
Usually, holed up on Mount Olympus, her refusal was just that. But now, tricked by Hermes, with both of them stuck in the Underworld, things were getting awkward.
The candlelit head turned slightly, and when Hades spoke, his voice was surprisingly normal—cultured, even. A stark contrast to his appearance.
"Now then, dear sister. Shall we discuss this... situation... in a more civilized setting?" He gestured vaguely toward his black palace in the distance. "My throne room awaits."
Hera didn't bother with diplomacy.
"Open your filthy gate and let us leave."
Hades was amused by her tone. The wax-dripping head seemed to tilt slightly. "Come to my throne and let's talk properly."
Thea felt it before she saw it.
The Underworld... stirred.
The gray "clouds" above them shifted—not like weather, but like a swarm. When the mass drifted closer, Thea realized they weren't clouds at all.
They were bones.
Countless bird skeletons, some shattered, some still intact enough to flap, spiraled through the air with silent, obsessive hunger.
And the ground—
The ground answered too.
From cracks in the rock and seams in the soil, corpses began to crawl out. Not one or two. Not dozens.
Hundreds. Thousands.
Filth-caked dead with broken nails and hollow eyes, their hatred thick enough to taste. Hands pushed up from the earth like weeds. Rotting heads rolled free, jaws working soundlessly as if chewing on resentment.
"Oh great..." Thea muttered, instinctively shifting her weight away from potential splatter zones. For mortals, these things could scare someone to death, but for her and Hera, it was just a matter of a few fireballs.
The only concern was Thea's mild obsession with cleanliness. Facing corpses covering the ground and walls, that filthy environment, plus the thick stench accumulated by countless dead bodies, made her cover her nose.
Hera, who presented herself with an image of elegance and nobility, wasn't doing much better. She wrinkled her nose and squinted her eyes, equally overwhelmed by the smell.
What caught their attention came next. Countless walking corpses began to frantically converge. Large masses of flesh and blood were forcibly mixed together, and countless pools of stagnant blood were squeezed out. The gray ground was covered with a thick, heavy layer of deep black plasma.
Such stomach-turning imagery made Thea grimace. The masses of flesh and blood didn't care whether she was disgusted—they forcibly formed into a face dozens of meters high. The facial features were blurry, but visible. At the mouth area, a large opening split open, and a dark, slow voice emerged.
"Hera, have you come to be my bride?"
Discovering that the other party had ignored her, Thea was about to pull out her holy sword and go into slaughter mode when she held back. Her friendship with Hera could only be described as "former enemies"—they were far from being friends. There was no need to stick her neck out for the goddess.
As it turned out, even a dead tiger keeps its imposing presence, and Hera had no intention of letting Thea take the lead. Without a word, the goddess instantly grew her body to fifty meters tall, looking straight at the giant face Hades had formed from the flesh of the dead.
Thea gave her a thumbs up. This move was really something—her aggro-pulling ability had reached max level. After Hera grew larger, no one paid attention to her, this "little person," anymore.
However, this trick was all show and no substance. Making one's body larger actually made it easier for opponents to attack and reduced agility. At the same time, divine power consumption per unit time also increased. After just a casual glance, Thea found a whole bunch of problems with it.
But since no one was paying attention to her, she was happy to watch the show. Apart from being dirty and smelly, the environment here wasn't too bad...
"Open your filthy gate and let us leave." Hera knew nothing about negotiation tactics. Right from the start, she issued a hard command. The only good news was that she was kind-hearted enough to include Thea.
Hades was amused by her tone. The face formed of flesh and blood seemed to tremble a few times. "Come to my throne and let's talk properly." After the flesh face finished speaking, it dissolved into sludge and fell to the ground. Countless corpses and zombies emerged from underground, countless death knights assembled in the distance, giants who had lost their intelligence, and monsters killed in myths and legends all made their appearance.
For hundreds of miles in every direction, everything was covered by an ocean of the undead. A path only two people wide suddenly appeared—this should be the "road" leading to Hades' throne.
"You're really going in there?" Thea grabbed Hera, who had returned to normal size and was preparing to walk in.
"Do you have a better idea?" Hera looked at her curiously.
Thea roughly explained her plan. After listening, Hera shook her head. "There isn't enough time. The other side won't give us much time to prepare."
Thea had to admit this point. Once she began concentrating on rewriting the rules, she'd need at least two to three minutes. During that time, Hera would need to hold off the surrounding monsters.
First, there was a trust issue—Hera wasn't Diana. She wouldn't fight to the death to protect Thea.