Beguiling the Enemy’s Patriarch - Chapter 148

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 148
Hades was one of the few gods who favored humanity. Yet while Raulus enjoyed watching humans squabble and play amongst themselves with contentment, Hades operated differently. He preferred laying hands directly upon mortals. Especially the dead ones.
[Your tastes are truly peculiar, Hades.]
[Mind your own business.]
[….]
In Raulus’s memory, Hades had been insufferably disagreeable from that point onward. The sight of him arranging human corpses in rows and poking through them with meticulous observation was deeply unsettling. Yet considering himself an exceptionally magnanimous and benevolent deity, Raulus habitually refrained from striking Hades and instead remonstrated with measured civility.
[Beloved brother. Why not cease this foolish business of rolling human skulls about, and join me in bestowing warm blessings upon the Surface?]
[Begone.]
[What did you say, you insufferable wretch?]
Of course, such exchanges invariably concluded in fisticuffs.
Hades’s peculiar hobby did not remain merely a hobby. Raulus’s sense of alarm crystallized when he discovered that Hades was not merely intercepting human corpses, but also the departed souls ascending to Udeta.
[This is your final warning, Hades. If you do not withdraw your hand now….]
[Or what?]
[I will cast you out.]
[Try it, then.]
Hades snorted derisively, and Raulus abandoned the carefully cultivated image of a benevolent and gracious supreme deity he had painstakingly constructed.
[Get out of my land, you wretched cur!]
That day’s collision did not conclude with the customary light brawl. Udeta trembled as though it might shatter, and the human realm convulsed. Raulus split the Surface cleanly in two and thrust Hades and his divine followers into the chasm between. Stripping Hades of his divinity entirely was merely an afterthought. Of course, Hades did not remain idle.
[You insufferable fool!]
[How dare you speak thus…!]
What Hades obtained upon losing his divinity was a force diametrically opposed to Raulus’s own. That power, which came to be called magic, was infuriatingly the sole force capable of contending against divinity itself.
So they warred for years in that manner? The memory was too ancient to recall with precision, but they likely fought until exhaustion claimed them. The battlefield was inevitably the intermediate realm—the human lands.
[Damn it all.]
When Raulus finally regained his senses, he beheld the human realm he had so tenderly cherished reduced to near-total devastation.
[My image…!]
Only then did Raulus tear at his own hair.
[My precious ones!]
A ceasefire was established that very day. The taboos of Udeta and Remordi were born on that day as well. The Absolutes could no longer intervene carelessly upon the Surface. Thus that day became the day the world was divided precisely into three realms.
From that day forward, Raulus never laid eyes upon Hades again. The taboos of Udeta and Remordi remained unbroken for over millennia. The Divine Realm found peace, and the Surface, blessed abundantly by his devoted efforts, was restored to pristine condition within mere centuries. Thus, from a certain point onward, Raulus forgot of Hades’s existence entirely.
The taboo of Udeta functioned ineffectively only when he was summoned by human hands. A medium to bind an Absolute, a designated location, and a human of sufficient qualification—whenever these three elements aligned, Raulus descended to the Surface. This ritual had been performed since before the taboo of Udeta was ever established.
So he had never truly considered it. The reverse scenario. In truth, it stemmed from the complacent assumption that no human could possibly possess the ability to summon Hades.
[Well, even this insignificant speck managed to summon me.]
Raulus spoke carelessly, his expression contorting into a frown.
[Why would no human possess the ability to summon you? I was a fool not to consider it. Was I not, brother?]
Across the vast, windless plain, wide sleeves fluttered. A hand adorned with elongated nails caressed long, delicate leaves.
[So then, how does it feel to return home after millennia?]
His gaze fixed upon a woman standing motionless in the center of the verdant expanse. His most cherished insignificant former summoner of recent years. Yerenika’s lips curved upward in a thin smile.
[Splendid. Absolutely splendid.]
His precious little thing appeared in decidedly poor condition.
[Leave the children alone. Why must you torment the innocent ones? Why?]
Raulus spat out a curse and brushed himself off, rising to his feet. The current Emperor—likely the one among all his descendants to inherit his power most densely and vividly—would undoubtedly attempt to summon him again the moment he confirmed Raulus’s disappearance from the Altar. His long silver hair, towering well above my height, rippled through the air.
[I apologize, brother. I cannot keep you here any longer.]
His sleeve fluttered once more.
[My child despises the original owner of that body far too much to be so accommodating.]
A bluish-silver luminescence rose from the Surface, coiling around Raulus’s form like a whirlwind. Tsk, how impatient. Raulus kicked against the ground he stood upon.
[So then….]
In an instant, he closed the distance to Yerenika’s face. Raulus laughed sharply. He embraced the young human’s neck—the one still housing his bewildered brother—as though choking her.
[If you’ve seen enough, let’s go down. Together.]
* * *
One body. Two souls within it. The true form of the absolute ruler who dominates beneath Remordi, and the body’s second owner—myself. Hades seemed not to have noticed that my soul had returned to the body. Or perhaps, even if he had, he found it unworthy of concern. After all, my soul, crushed beneath the absolute ruler’s power, was barely clinging to the body, let alone reclaiming it.
Yet amid all this, the body’s sensations remained painfully vivid—it was truly maddening.
‘I hate pain more than anything in this world….’
A sensation as though my entrails were being torn to shreds. The suffocation of being forced through an impossibly narrow rubber pipe, uncertain of what passage I was traversing. The weight of gravity.
How long was that moment? It felt both impossibly long and mere seconds simultaneously. Within that indeterminate span of time, what I witnessed was far from insignificant.
[So you are the first human to summon me.]
Is he reading memories? I stared blankly at the scene before me.
[What is your name, human?]
Then whose memories was he reading?
“…Soleia.”
Ah, so these were Hades’s memories. The one facing me directly was Soleia—far younger than the version I knew. Barely eighteen or nineteen years old. Even as a girl, she possessed a perfected beauty. I found myself marveling even then. The girl with reddish-brown hair and dark eyes that churned with intensity spoke with crystalline clarity.
“Soleia Lisard.”
At eighteen or nineteen, she should have been growing up within the Elad Marquis Family, yet Soleia introduced herself as Lisard. It made sense—it was the family she had never forgotten. And facing Hades himself, what else would she say?
Hades murmured in admiration.
[Innate magical power.]
“….”
[Yes. You would be able to endure me.]
A peculiar smile graced Soleia’s face—that characteristic smile of hers that seemed to enchant whoever beheld it.
“Countless ancestors have attempted to summon you. But I’ve heard they all failed.”
Her voice was soft and quiet.
“I am the first human to summon you. King of the Underground, I beseech you for a contract.”
Yet she could not prevent her voice from trembling faintly at the end.
[What I desire is but one thing.]
Crack. Dry bones clattered against one another.
[The mightiest divinity to send me beyond Udeta, back to where I belong.]
“Beyond Udeta….”
A withered, skeletal finger touched young Soleia’s cheek.
[Summoner, what is it that you desire?]
Soleia opened her mouth.
“I….”
The scene before me shifted before she could finish her answer. I blinked in bewilderment.
Huh?
I found myself in the darkened Underground. I recognized the location instantly—it was the view beneath Remordi that I’d witnessed two years ago through Raulus’s eyes. Once again, reddish-brown hair dominated my field of vision.
“You mustn’t forget the contract terms, Hades.”
Soleia Lisard had grown somewhat since moments before. Yet her face still bore a youthful softness. Her expression was coolly composed, though a faint tremor of anxiety flickered beneath the surface.
I spotted a group standing at a distance, their faces etched with the same unease. They appeared to be Soleia’s companions—Dark Mages who had lost their footing on the Surface.
Hades let out a derisive chuckle.
[You’re one to talk.]
His next words sent ice down my spine.
[I don’t care how many years it takes—bring them before me. A human possessing such formidable divine power that it reaches beyond Udeta.]
He was unmistakably referring to Auredhian Belgot.
“Don’t worry.”
A captivating smile bloomed across Soleia’s face. The faint anxiety that had flickered moments before vanished entirely.
“No matter how long it takes, I will deliver them to you.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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