Chapter 92: Hell

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As he walked through the dark portal, Edward found himself in a dark cave. As the others joined him, they saw only a single path, and Morgana explained, "This is the entrance to Hell. We need to be careful once inside, there will be Charon and…"

Edward did not listen to her explanation though and started walking. Morgana felt like blasting him with a spell seeing how he kept ignoring her, but she decided not to.

Before long, they arrived at a river, but the water was strange, it was completely black. Drifting in the dark waters were all sorts of things too, broken toys, shredded diplomas…

A boat appeared not far from them, and on it was a hooded man. As he arrived near them, he extended his hand and said, "Payment."

Morgana took out golden pieces, but Edward kicked off the ground and directly jumped over the river. The boatman, Charon, looked at him like a fool while the other three magicians were alarmed.

The river was not very wide, and with Edward's speed he would reach the other shore in less than a hundredth of a second. However, before he could reach the other side, the water churned and a giant hand made of the Styx water went to grab Edward.

It was way too fast for Edward to dodge it, but he did not try. As the water made contact with Edward, Chiron mocked, "Death for fools."

However, as the water hit Edward, he did not drop dead on the spot, his vitality did not disappear and his soul didn't extinguish. Instead, a freezing cold aura appeared around Edward as the water was being absorbed into Edward.

The Freezing Crystal acted like it's greedy self as it absorbed the Styx Water with gusto. As he reached the other shore, Edward turned to look back at the Styx River, and dipped a foot in. The Freeing Crystal continued absorbing the water, strengthening itself, meaning it was strengthening Edward's spirit too as it was part of it.

"Please stop!"

However, as Edward was fully intent on absorbing as much as possible, even if that came to dry out the legendary river, a female voice cried out from the river.

A woman appeared from the river, and begged, "Please, don't. You will kill me."

Chiron hurriedly bowed down, "Lady Styx!"

Edward stopped the Freezing Crystal's absorption, and asked with some curiosity, "You are the incarnation of the river?"

Styx nodded, "Yes, so please stop."

Edward apologized, "Sorry, I didn't know."

Styx bit her lower lip and asked, "What are you doing in here, Lord?"

"Lord? I'm no Lord."

"Of course you are, you have the bearings of a king, and have complete control over me. How can you not be my Lord?"

Edward sighed, his Royal Will had a strange effect on some lifeforms. He hadn't even used it actively, the passive effect of it was enough. Since he had opened the Throat Chakra, his every move and every word were filled with Royal Will. A small amount, but enough to be felt as his Royal Will had grown much stronger.

After a moment, he explained, "I need to get to Hades' place, he is trying to marry my bride."

Styx looked offended at that, as if it was her own bride who was stolen as she exclaimed, "I always knew that slimy bastard wasn't any good. Come my Lord, I will drive you and your friends to that scum's so called palace."

As awkward the situations it could create were, at least Royal Will was a great way to find transportation.

Edward jumped toward the river, and before he could touch the waters a rather large boat, which looked like a Drakkar, rose from the depths of the river.

He looked at the other three and asked, "You coming?"

The three left their stupor as they jumped in too. They had all heard of Hell, and how terrible of a place it was, but never had they heard Styx was such a nice and easy to talk to goddess.

The boat moved quite fast as they soon reached their first stop, the Bronze Gates of Hell. They were currently opened, but standing between them was a giant three headed dog, and Styx, who was on the boat with them, explained, "This is Cerberus, Hades' lapdog. It guards the Bronze Gates, and is quite the strong beast. I can kill it for the Lord though."

Edward shook his head as he felt the Chi the beast possessed, and instead said, "Stop for a moment, I need to create something."

Not waiting for her answer, Edward conjured a lump of Mithril and used Dragon Fire to melt it before shaping it into a ball, and finally cooling it down with the Freezing Crystal by enveloping it with his Spiritual Energy.

Once the ball was created, Edward shaped a few others while he was at it, before starting to inscribe them. On the side, Zatanna couldn't help but ask, "What are you doing?"

Without looking away from his work, Edward replied, "A project of mine. This is my own version of the Pokeball, I need to capture beasts alive for that project, so I'm creating those to keep them alive."

Zatanna, who grew up watching Pokemon, couldn't help but get excited at the idea, while Stephen curiously looked at the runes. After a moment he observed, "I don't recognize these runes."

This made the two other witches curious as they approached, and much to their dismay, they did not recognize them either.

Edward smiled and said, "I would be shocked if you recognized them, since I created this system of runes and didn't share it with anyone," he sent a look at the three and added, "and I can't share it, only I can use those runes. For now, that is."

Strange continued looking at the runes for a while, before remarking, "They feel… strange. And don't make a fucking pun, I mean they feel weird."

"They work by influencing the world. I'll explain you later."

Those runes were indeed only usable by him as they were based on his Concepts. He had used his understanding of the Concepts and transformed them into a rune system.

For now, only his Space and Time Concepts were advanced enough for him to make runes out of them, but it didn't matter as it was the only ones he needed for now.

Those runes were quite exceptional too as they worked quite differently from the usual runes. Normal runes attract the surrounding mana into them and give it a function, powering the rune. The stronger one, which Edward used until now, would tunnel the mana through his body first, marking it with his presence before entering the artefact.

This was a rawer method of working, and although the artefacts were stronger with this method, only a limited quantity of artefacts could exist simultaneously, and the creator had to be alive and in the same universe.

Before, this method did not bother Edward too much and was actually quite good because he only made artefacts for himself and he could use the impact of the runes to cultivate his Chi faster.

However, the Chi used to power those arrays would become unusable in combat, meaning the more artefacts he had, the less Chi he would have for his fights.

Meanwhile, this new method was much better. He did not have to bear the brunt of the runes, meaning they would become self sufficient, but more importantly they were even more powerful than the ones he used before.

They drew the full power of the Concepts and used them like spells, making them very strong. When he had time, he would remake his Spatial Artefacts, first to perfect them so he wouldn't need to use a portal to store things, and also make the space inside bigger.

1000 Cubic meters was already great for storage, but if he could get more then why stop there?

Soon he finished making his Pokeballs, and stored them all. He then looked at the giant dog about seventy meters away before jumping from the boat.

Cerberus' three heads roared at the incoming living human who dared to disregard his presence, and three dark rays of death energy were shot from the three heads, trapping the human in them.

The three attacks engulfed him, and Cerberus grunted in mockery. However, as it looked at the ship where the human came from, it suddenly felt something pierce through it's body, where it's three heads connected.

A tremendous force pushed it down to the ground, and nailed it in there. There three heads tried to turn around and see what happened, but three giant fists made of fire punched each of them in the head, both stunning and burning them.

Then, they each got punched behind the head so hard their jaws cracked against the ground, and they all fell unconscious.

Edward, who was standing on top of Cerberus' unconscious form, looked on in silence as he took out a Pokeball and stored the unconscious body of the monster. Aeglos, which had been pinning Cerberus down, flew to Edward's hand as he placed it on his back.

Cerberus was strong, it's Chi was as strong as Smaug. However, Smaug's defence was many times stronger than anything else of the same level because of it's nature as a dragon, and because it spent decades fusing gold and other precious materials with his hide.

On the other end, Cerberus only had fur on its body, and although it was quite strong, Edward was way too strong for it after his breakthrough.

The guardian of Hell dealt with, Edward jumped back onto the Drakkar, which Styx silently led on, as this level of power was totally expected from her Lord.

Stephen, Morgana and Zatanna did not expect so much though. They knew he had grown stronger, but not by this much.

"How did you get so strong?"

Zatanna was the first to speak, and asked the question all three wanted to ask. Edward simply shrugged before replying, "As I always do, with hard work. Anyone can grow as strong as I am, if they put in the right efforts and I decide to help them."

"Getting full of yourself aren't you?" Stephen teased, a large smile on his face.

Edward shook his head with a smaller smile, replying, "You can't understand since you aren't following my path, but if I were not to give my help, humans would go extinct before any other human reach my height, and yet it's just in front of them."

His blue eyes seemed to shine with a lustre of gold as he turned his head to the three, and spoke with conviction, "You know, I am turning into a god. I'm not being arrogant, I really am. It will take time, probably a few years, but I am."

The three were stunned by his words, or rather by the way he said them. The words themselves actually didn't matter much, but they felt something they never felt before as he spoke them. He was… regal. He lorded over the mortal world, he now viewed it from above.

They weren't the only ones to come to this realization, as Edward sighed as he looked in the distance, the boat passing by the Bronze Gates. As he strayed from his mortality, he found himself to be changing.

He was still Edward, and yet at the same time, he was not. It was normal for someone to change, and Edward welcomed said change with opened arms, but it made him realize a truth of this world. A truth of humanity.

Power changes people.