The abyss erupted with an unparalleled gravitational pull, forcibly dragging Shendu's body inward and swallowing him whole.
The tense atmosphere finally began to settle. The Whale Shark War God bent forward, panting heavily. The Whale Shark King had successfully banished Shendu into his ultimate technique, yet his expression remained grim. The final words Shendu had left behind before being consumed by the Black Sea Abyss caused his heart to skip a beat.
The Whale Shark King's rationale had been simple. Since Shendu was proud enough to duel him using a balanced level of Hetero-Energy, and had indeed stabilized his own power at a single Black Hole, such an opponent stood absolutely no chance against Hades.
The Netherworld Black Hole was Hades' domain, and the Black Sea Abyss connected directly to it. Within that void, Hades could perceive and intervene in everything that transpired. Even though Hades was currently weakened and had not yet fully resurrected, dealing with a single Black Hole's worth of Hetero-Energy would be more than enough. Indisputably, this was a technique far more formidable than the Tsunami Calamity.
The Whale Shark War God stood heavily upon the earth as faint motes of azure light slowly drifted into its chassis. The Whale Shark King had pushed himself to his absolute limit; the planet's Hetero-Energy had briefly entered a state of severe overload, and now even the replenishment process was agonizingly slow. He cast a glance toward the distant Black Tortoise but felt no urgency to strike. At the end of the day, he still believed that Kino and the other Ultra Beast warriors were no match for him and unworthy of his attention.
He was merely anxious.
Although the Black Sea Abyss was a one-way conduit, meaning anyone swallowed by it could never escape unless Hades himself intervened, the Whale Shark King felt a sudden, frantic pounding in his chest. It felt as though he had overlooked something crucial.
What could it be?
He abruptly raised his head toward the firmament. The massive vortex of Hetero-Energy that Shendu had not fully absorbed still hung in absolute silence above the planet.
Can someone swallowed by the Netherworld Black Hole still absorb external Hetero-Energy from within?
Logically speaking, the Netherworld Black Hole was entirely isolated from the rest of the universe. Yet, there had never been a precedent for this scenario, and even the Whale Shark King could not say for certain.
It shouldn't be possible, right? Otherwise, wouldn't he have just delivered a ticking time bomb straight to Hades?
As the Whale Shark King brooded, the massive vortex of energy suddenly began to rotate at an imperceptibly slow pace.
Meanwhile, within the transit corridor of the Black Sea Abyss, Shendu stood with a relaxed posture, letting the distorting gravitational forces from all directions propel him toward the pitch-black void ahead.
To tell the truth, a spark of delight flickered within his heart. The outcome of his battle with the Whale Shark King had already been decided; even a Whale Shark King pushed to his absolute limit was no match for him. Even capsulated within the same single Black Hole tier of Hetero-Energy, the Whale Shark King couldn't have lasted more than a few exchanges against him. A single enhanced Dragon Blast had already reduced the Whale Shark King to a wretched state, and Shendu possessed countless other methods just like it.
Yet right at that moment, the Whale Shark King had suddenly erupted to unleash a grandiose-sounding technique. It carried almost zero actual lethality, but it possessed the ability to displace him to another realm.
Hades...? Sounds rather like a final boss of sorts.
"I am actually looking forward to this," Shendu murmured to himself.
Simultaneously, in the Fifth Parallel Universe.
Guarding the Netherworld Coffin, Logan and Bradley, the last two of the Four Guardians, suddenly stood up in alarm. A brilliant violet radiance flared from within the Netherworld Coffin, causing the entire region to shake violently.
"Huh? What is happening?" Bradley asked, bewildered.
Logan lowered his brow in deep thought. A sudden mutation within the Netherworld Coffin could only be related to Hades himself. Currently, Hades was at the critical juncture of his full resurrection; he could communicate with the outside world, yet he had not disclosed a single detail to Logan or Bradley.
His gaze and full attention had locked entirely onto a single point.
Right at that moment, Shendu came to a halt at the boundary line where the Black Sea Abyss connected to the Netherworld Black Hole. Behind him lay warped, distorted space; before him was a void of absolute darkness.
Standing directly on the threshold, Shendu peered casually into the dark ahead. He could sense a distinctly hostile gaze bearing down on him.
"Who... are you?"
A voice suddenly echoed from the depths of the black hole, deep, resonant, and carrying a heavy magnetism as it questioned Shendu.
"So, you are Hades?" Shendu completely ignored the question, speaking entirely on his own terms.
"Correct. This is my domain. One more step forward, and you shall face eternal damnation within the black hole," Hades stated.
"Excellent, truly excellent!" Shendu suddenly laughed.
He reached his hand out toward the darkness ahead, and his aura surged violently in a split second.
Outside, above the earth of the Third Parallel Universe.
The vortex of Hetero-Energy erupted without warning, beginning to spin at a furious pace. From the heavens down to the earth, the funnel-shaped vortex extended toward the ground like a massive hourglass, ultimately vanishing into a point of absolute nothingness.
All the Hetero-Energy began rushing madly toward an endpoint invisible to the naked eye.
The Whale Shark King was instantly struck dumb. Standing before this colossal rush of energy, he felt as insignificantly small as an ant attempting to shake a giant tree, completely powerless to stop it. Even the spatial barriers isolating the Black Sea Abyss could not impede its trajectory.
He had, it seemed, committed a catastrophic blunder.
Standing right before the boundary separating the abyss and the black hole, the distorted space behind Shendu began to shake uncontrollably. Suddenly, an almost infinite torrent of Hetero-Energy surged from behind him. Like a roaring, tempestuous tide, it slammed directly into his body.
His Hetero-Energy began to skyrocket at a visible pace.
"Eternal damnation? I have no conceptual understanding of that term," Shendu chuckled.
"This is my domain, outsider. Your intrusion has crossed a sacred line."
"Is that so? And then what?" Shendu asked slowly.
"..."
Silence.
Even though he was not yet fully resurrected, Hades' current power was by no means something an ordinary expert could rival. But the entity standing before him was no ordinary person. Within the span of two brief sentences, Shendu had completely absorbed the remaining energy.
From his initial level of a single Black Hole, his power metric shot upward at a terrifying velocity.
By the time it finally stopped, his Hetero-Energy metric had soared directly toward eleven Black Holes.
The sight was thoroughly hair-raising. It left Hades in absolute silence.
He wanted to speak, but he truly did not know where to begin. Even with ten thousand years of refined composure, he felt an overwhelming urge to curse out loud.
He was currently sealed inside the Netherworld Coffin and possessed no means to independently manifest the Netherworld Black Hole out in the open. The only possible way for Shendu to appear here was because the Whale Shark King had sent him in; only his Black Sea Abyss could bridge a connection to this place.
If Hades' current emotions could manifest physically, and if his standard of conduct weren't so inherently elegant...
He would definitely have a few choice words to share.
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