25+ Advance chapters on [email protected]/Saintbarbido.
(Loth's P.O.V.)
For a realm of the dead, the Underworld was alive in a way that didn't make sense.
It wasn't just the shifting gray landscape or the eerie glow of the Styx winding through the dead lands like a blackened vein.
It was the way the air carried whispers, faint and broken, never forming full words. The stretched out shadows bending at unnatural angles. The way the ground felt empty, even when it held weight.
And I felt seen.
Not just by Percy and Annabeth. Not just by the shades that drifted aimlessly across the barren fields, their translucent forms flickering in and out of sight.
Something deeper. Something watching. Something other than Nyx and her godly offsprings, other than Hecate.
Whatever it was didn't feel like a God. Gods didn't have a pulse that I could feel through my soles. Nor did they cause the Mist to shudder with every breath.
So yes, The Underworld was alive and it had a heart.
I shook off the shiver at possibly catching the attention of a second Primordial and kept walking, aura sense still active, but only confined to a few feet around us. No sense in offending anyone else. Cough *Tartarus* cough.
We had been moving for what felt like hours, each step taking us deeper into a place that wanted us to forget the way back.
The further we walked, the more the terrain changed.
The gray nothingness gave way to something worse—jagged black hills, stretching like the ribs of some long-dead beast.
The mist grew heavier, thick with something that made my skin prickle.
It wasn't heat. It wasn't cold. It was pressure.
Like the atmosphere itself was bending under the weight of something we couldn't see.
I glanced at Percy. He hadn't said much since we left Charon's boat, but his fingers kept twitching near Riptide's hilt. He felt it too.
Annabeth, on the other hand, was focused. Not just in her usual battle-strategy way, but like she was analyzing every single detail around us.
She suddenly turned to me.
"You haven't said anything in a while," she observed. "You're thinking about it."
I didn't have to ask what it was.
Hecate. Nyx. The moment one goddess had claimed me and the other had wiped her away like nothing.
"I'm fine," I said. It was only half a lie.
Annabeth's gray eyes stayed on me, calculating. "You don't look fine."
Percy glanced between us. "Yeah, not to be that guy, but… what happened back there? I mean, Annabeth and I felt this sudden weight, like I was suffocating, and then —" He shuddered. "—and then you looked like you were about to pass out. And then—"
"That was Hecate's power putting pressure on us. But don't worry, she was gone just as fast. Or rather erased." I revealed.
Annabeth's expression darkened. "Erased? How?"
"With a hand flick."
"No I meant by who? Hecate is the Goddess of Magic. Who or what could do that to her?" Annabeth pushed.
I stopped and turned to stare at them.
"It's better you didn't know but fuck it."
So I told them everything.
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
That was the thing. Percy and Annabeth had felt Hecate's power. They had seen how the Mist itself trembled at her presence, how reality had bent under her will.
And then she had been dismissed. Casually.
Percy ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah. That's… bad."
"Really bad," Annabeth muttered.
I exhaled through my nose. "Look, I don't know what Nyx's game is, but she marked me. That much is clear. And if 'mom' was desperate enough to try and override that, it means she knows something I don't."
"And now she's not around to tell you," Annabeth said.
"Exactly."
The conversation should have ended there. But there was something else. Something I hadn't told them.
Nyx's words echoed in my head:
"She doesn't treat you well… Chains disguised as power."
I didn't say it out loud. I didn't want to think about what it meant.
But I knew one thing—whatever was happening to me, whatever I was becoming, the gods weren't just noticing anymore.
They were picking sides.
We kept moving.
The jagged hills became gates of obsidian, stretching high into the darkened sky. Beyond them, a massive fortress loomed in the distance. Hades' palace.
And guarding the entrance?
Three figures.
At first, they didn't look like much—just three men standing in front of the massive black iron doors. No armor. No weapons.
But as we got closer, the air changed again.
They weren't just men-I knew my Greek lore thanks to Annabeth.
"Are they?-" Percy asked unsure.
"The King Judges? Yup. We are screwed." Annabeth sighed.
Minos. Tall and broad, with a face carved from stone, his black chiton perfectly pressed, a golden laurel circling his forehead. His presence radiated the weight of a thousand verdicts.
Rhadamanthus. Thinner, with sharp, almost bird-like features, his golden scroll shifting constantly, like the ink itself was alive, rewriting its records in real time. His eyes flickered with eerie intelligence.
Aeacus. The smallest but the most unsettling. His gaze was like a black hole—no light, no warmth, just judgment.
"Stay behind me incase this turns ugly." I said, pink sparks flicking around my fingers.
They stood unmoving as we approached, their expressions unreadable.
Then, as if they had been waiting, they spoke.
"You do not belong here," Aeacus said. His voice was dry, like crumbling parchment.
Percy stepped forward, his grip tightening on Riptide. "Yeah, no kidding. We're just passing through to Mister Hades' Palace."
"Mister Hades?" I repeated, throwing Percy a funny look.
"Can't hurt to be respectful." He shrugged.
Annabeth slapped our backs. "Which you're both failing at." She sighed and bowed at the Judges. "Forgive my idiot companions your majesties. As Idiot number 1 said, we seek entrance into Hades' Palace. It's a matter of Life and Death."
Rhadamanthus's eyes narrowed. "Not all of you."
That stopped me cold. God, not this again.
Minos' gaze swept over me like he was reading something I couldn't see. His frown deepened.
"Strange," he murmured. "Not entirely mortal."
Percy blinked. "Uh, yeah, he's got magic. That's not exactly new."
Minos ignored him, his eyes locked onto mine. "Your soul is… split."
I stiffened. "What?"
Rhadamanthus's scroll flickered, text shifting. He tilted his head. "Never has something like you entered these halls."
I didn't like that wording. An Anodite's soul was EVERYTHING. My physical body was merely a suggestion. Like clothes. My real form, the entirety of my memories, personality and power intertwined, was my energy being. To hear that it was split was more than a little concerning.
Annabeth stepped closer to me, frowning. "What does that mean?"
Aeacus's voice was like ice. "It means he should not be allowed to leave the Underworld."
My blood went cold.
Percy immediately stepped between me and the Judges. "Hey, no. Not happening."
"The balance must be upheld," Minos intoned.
I forced my voice to stay calm. "What balance?"
Rhadamanthus finally looked at me—really looked.
"You are not one thing," he said slowly. "Not god. Not mortal. Not shade. You exist where you should not. The Mist bends to you, but so does the dark."
The shadows shifted around my feet.
I felt something in the air—something pulling at me, like an invisible thread.
My fingers twitched. Dammit Nyx, what did you do to me?
"What do we have to do for you to let us in?" I questioned in determination, staring straight at them.
Minos straightened. "You will not pass untested."
Aeacus' expression remained cold. "To enter the palace, you must prove yourselves. A trial for each of you. Should you fail…" He tilted his head. "You remain."
Remain.
As in, stuck in the Underworld.
I clenched my fists. "Of course."
Annabeth squared her shoulders. "Fine. What are the trials?"
Minos turned to her. "The Trial of the Mind. Solve the puzzle, or be lost within its corridors forever."
Rhadamanthus looked at Percy. "The Trial of the Warrior. You will fight a hero who has already fallen."
Then they turned to me.
Aeacus's voice was final. "The Trial of the Veil. The Mist will decide if you are its master… or its prisoner."
I swallowed hard.
Then, without warning, the world shattered.
One second, I had been standing before the Three. The next, I was alone.
No Annabeth. No Percy. No Underworld.
Just white.
Not empty, not like a void. The space around me breathed, shifting in ways that didn't make sense. The ground felt real, yet I couldn't see it. The air was thick, but when I inhaled, it carried no scent.
Then, the Mist moved.
Not the usual fog that hung over reality, twisting mortal perception. This was raw. Uncontrolled. Alive. All consuming.
Shapes formed in the swirling mass—at first vague, indistinct, like ink dissolving in water. Then they solidified.
I saw myself.
Not a reflection. Not a clone. A hundred versions of me.
Each one slightly different. Some taller, some younger, some older, some with eyes burning brighter, some with scars I didn't recognize. One of them stood out—a version of me without any Mist aura at all, just a normal human, staring at me with something that looked an awful lot like pity.
Then the voices started.
"Which one is real?"
I turned sharply, but there was no one there.
The Mists began closing in, the alternate versions of me shifting between illusions and reality so fast it made my head spin.
"The master of the Mist does not bend it. The master of the Mist is not bent by it."
A test of control.
I exhaled. I knew what this was. The first page of the mist manipulation booklet said it clearly.
The Mist was above all else a Tool-something I had learned to push and pull, shape and reshape. But like any tool, it could be used against you. This wasn't me controlling it. This was the Mist controlling me.
I shut my eyes.
I am Loth.
The illusions wavered.
I am real.
A wave of heat spread from my chest, and I felt the Mist hesitate.
Good. I had my Anodite magic.
Now I just had to win.
It didn't make it easy.
The copies of me attacked all at once, some wielding pink energy constructs, others lunging like beasts with Blitzwolfer's claws extended.
I didn't hesitate.
I ducked under one's strike, sweeping its legs out from under it before slamming my palm into its chest, forcing a pulse of raw energy through the illusion. It burst apart in wisps of Mist.
Another grabbed my arm—I twisted, flipping it over my shoulder and slamming it into the ground hard enough that the illusion fractured.
But no matter how many I destroyed, more kept forming.
I gritted my teeth. This wasn't the way.
Destroying the illusions meant nothing. This wasn't a fight.
It was a decision.
I straightened, lowering my hands, and let the next illusion come straight at me.
The fake Loth raised its hand—then hesitated.
I met its gaze, my voice steady.
"You are not real."
The Mist shuddered. The illusions began to dissolve, not in battle, but in acceptance.
I was not their enemy. I was their truth.
The final illusion, the normal human version of me, sighed.
"Great," he said simply. "You passed, lucky bastard. Tch. Hope you choke on saliva and die."
"Someone's jealous I've levelled up." I snorted, flexing my new physique to the old, weak version of me.
"Yeah yeah, just don't forget who you are, dickhead."
Then he was gone. But not before flipping me off.
The white void snapped away—
—and I was standing back in the Underworld, in front of the Palace, the Judges nowhere to be seen.
The Trials had ended.
Annabeth looked shaken but victorious, adjusting her cap with a smug but exhausted expression.
Percy was breathing hard, but he smirked. "So, turns out I'm better than Achilles."
I exhaled. "You fought Achilles?"
"Ish." Percy shrugged. "Long story."
Before we could say anything else, the doors to Hades' palace groaned open.
A voice drifted from within, cool and indifferent.
"Enter."
We stepped forward.
The throne room was vast, stretching into unnatural darkness. Obsidian pillars lined the path, and the air smelled of something ancient—not decay, not death. Just… finality.
And there, seated atop a massive throne of bone and iron, was Hades.
He didn't look how I expected. No flaming skulls. No monstrous form.
Just a tall, severe-looking man, dressed in black robes, his dark hair streaked with silver. His fingers tapped idly against the armrest of his throne.
And his eyes?
They knew everything.
Even before he spoke, I realized something that made my stomach drop.
Hades had already been expecting us.
And worse?
He already knew what I was.
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