Chapter 93: Styx

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Hell was… disgusting.

Edward's power was Chi, the energy of life. So for him, Hell, which was filled with nothing but death, and did not have a single shred of life in it, was disgusting. Edward felt like destroying everything around him.

"Are you confident of defeating Hades?"

Stephen asked as he came to sit next to Edward. Edward, who had been in a silent meditation, opened his eyes and replied, "I am not alone."

Stephen rolled his eyes and replied, "Please, I'm only as strong as Cerberus, and the same goes for Morgana. Zatanna is even weaker."

Edward smiled and teased, "Didn't know you lost your self confidence. Hades may be a god, but he must have weaknesses. Moreover, I've come here to save Diana, beating up Hades is only a secondary goal. And when I rescue Diana, she and I will be more than enough to take care of him."

"What about the other Olympians? They tend to enter conflicts against one another, but they know to stand together against a common enemy."

"Myths haven't shown them to be the most merciful people. If I just let it go, do you think Hades will simply sulk in his palace?"

Stephen shrugged, "Fine, you can make your own decisions. I would advise against lethal force though."

Edward looked at his friend and surprise and asked, "Why would you say that?"

"Just saying."

"Don't worry, I don't intend on killing him, he is a major god. I need to defeat him first, and then instil fear into his mind, and I happen to have a great way to do so."

Stephen looked at Edward in surprise, but kept silent as they drifted onto the river… while it's incarnation was next to them. Stephen may have gone to many strange dimensions, this was a strange concept.

Some time after they passed the Bronze Gates, Zatanna exclaimed, "He has to be compensating for something."

Everyone followed his gaze and saw a giant castle not so far away, and although it was called a castle, it was at least three or four times as big as Dracula's castle, which housed hundreds of vampires.

Edward's gaze only remained on the castle itself for a few seconds though before it turned to a nearby stream, which wasn't the Styx. The goddess by his side laughed, "This is my awful sister, Lethe. She wipes the memories of those she touches. An awful wench is what she is."

The four didn't look anymore surprised by Styx's hateful comments by now as she seemed to have quite a few of them. Be it about Hades, the Olympians, Tartarus or anything they met really, she had a comment to make about it. Only to Edward, and by extension his friends, was she polite to.

Morgana explained in whispers that she impersonated Hatred.

Looking at the other river, which was green in colour, she added, "You can absorb her completely, no one will miss her anyway, barely a few still remember her."

Edward ignored her and jumped toward the other river, while the Drakkar continued sailing. This time, the water did not attack him, it did not even take the initiative to attack him. Still, he landed on it, and once again his Freezing Crystal started absorbing the water.

Lethe was a little slower than her sister as it was only a full thirty seconds that she appeared, but she did not beg for mercy.

"It must be Styx who's sending you? She's always been a hater."

Edward tilted his head at the goddess, not stopping his absorption as he asked, "You strip souls off their memories."

The goddess nodded with a short bow, "Lethe to serve you, my Lord. To serve you much better than Styx. It would probably be better for Lord to only keep me…"

Edward cut her off, "Styx might be the embodiment of hatred, strife is much worse. Stay in your river, or I will kill you, goddess or not."

Lethe lowered her head, and bowed, "Yes, my Lord."

She sank back into the green waters as Edward jumped back to the ship.

As they got closer and closer to Hades' castle, they crossed another river, Acheron, the River of Woe and Misery. Surrounding the castle itself, were the final two of the five rivers of Hell, Phlegethon, the River of Fire, and Cocytus, of Wailing.

Cocytus was annoying as her every word were wails, so he quickly threatened her too, but Phlegethon turned out to be the only male among the rivers, and was not as annoying as any of his sisters.

When he approached the river, he did not absorb it with his Freezing Crystal but with his Dragon Fire. Both forces of nature would strengthen him as they strengthened themselves, and it was the best was for Edward to cultivate, he found out.

Having multiplied his Chi Reserves by 100 and tempered his Spirit by absorbing the Freezing Crystal and the Magworm Lord was great for reserves, Edward had more Chi than he could even use, and his Spirit was stronger than ever.

However, the drawback was that normal cultivation had become obsolete. Even his ADC would take years to make progress. When Edward was in the Spirit Awakening Realm, it took Edward two months to reach the limit after his breakthrough, with ADC.

Using the exact same method, alongside the boosts from his enchantments, it took Edward five months to reach the limit of the Unity Realm. So the time needed to reach the limit of a realm was obviously getting higher with the realms themselves.

If it first went from 2 months to 5 months, then it would be a safe estimate to say that were his reserves normal, then he would take between 8 months and 1 year to cultivate to the limit of the Revolving Core Realm.

But his reserves first became 100 times bigger, and as the runes fused with his Core their efficiency became even greater, so the number was above a hundred.

So a safe estimate would be that if he were to cultivate normally, it would take Edward at least a hundred years to reach the limit of the Revolving Core Realm. And that, was with a rich Chi environment, but he had discovered that most places on Earth lacked Chi for him.

Edward's lifespan had become much greater with his breakthrough, he didn't know for sure but with all his Chakras opened and his current perfect realm and much greater Chi, his lifespan was definitely above a thousand years old, so he would have more than enough time to make the breakthrough.

But the problem was, he needed strength now, not in a hundred years. In a hundred years, humanity could very well be gone with the threats they were facing.

So he had to find another solution, and that solution came in the form of the Dragon Flame and Freezing Crystal. Both were assimilated to his Chi Core and his Spirit, respectively, and as the element got stronger, the part associated to it would do the same.

And the two elements needed different things to grow stronger, the easiest of which to find were strong flames and waters, enchanted ones preferably. By consuming a strong fire, the Dragon Flame would take that strength for itself, and the same went for the Freezing Crystal.

However, Edward guessed that fire and water weren't the only things that could make those two stronger.

His time in Ea gave him a lot of time to think, and one of those was the duality of the world. Elves were associated to the moon, while men were associated to the sun. It wasn't just the case in Ea too, as Edward felt the powers of the sun and the moon in Ea were the same as on Earth, so he couldn't just toss the duality to the powers of the Valar.

So he went for a deeper analysis of both men and elves, he didn't have any scientific equipment but it did not matter. With his research, he found the most fundamental difference between elves and men, which also explained the difference between their lifespans.

Men were a soul, a spirit inside a mortal, fleshly body. This mortal body held the spirit within it, keeping it asleep as it lives it's life, and by the time the body dies, the spirit dies off too.

On the other end, Elves did not really have mortal bodies, their spirits were not entrapped into their bodies. Instead, their bodies were more like vessels, perfectly suited for their spirit. As such, even if an elf dies, they don't really die but their spirit are instead sent back to their homeland.

So the moon favoured the Spirit, while the sun favoured the Body. And this all came in place for Edward, as he recalled about a something he had read. Yin and Yang.

According to ancient Chinese believes, the world was created by two opposing but complementary forces, one passive and one active, Yin and Yang. The concept of Chi comes from the same belief, and it would be something that is ever present.

And so this made Edward think, that maybe his Spiritual Energy was actually Chi too, and it was why others didn't have access to it. He had come across his fair share of telepaths by now, but none of them used Spiritual Energy, but another form of energy.

So Edward thought of a theory, and that was that Spiritual Energy was Chi, just like the one in his body. The only difference, was that the Chi in his Core was Yang Chi, while the Chi in his Spirit was Yin Chi.

And it was from this train of thought that Edward guessed that absorbing any source of Yin Chi would help his Spirit evolve, while absorbing sources of Yang Chi would help his Core evolve.

This theory also reinforced Edward's belief that for his next breakthrough, he would have to merge his Core and his Spirit, to merge Yin and Yang Chi to form an ultimate kind of energy.

So back with the Phlegethon, the God of the River of Fire did not take long to appear after Edward started absorbing the river. He, just like his river, was made of flames, not plasma like the Human Torch, but truly of fire. Still, a few traits could be guessed from him, like long hair, sharp brows and a classical toned body, as all Greek Gods statues had.

Phlegethon did not show any of the craziness of his sisters, and instead asked with a rather serious face, "Can you please stop that? It is very annoying."

Edward replied, "I am going to take back what Hades took from me, so he will probably be pissed. Do you want to join in?"

Phlegethon started disappearing into the river as he replied, "No. Let me sleep."

Edward let out a small smile at the sleepy god, he expected the god of fire to be more flamboyant, a bit more of a show off, not a sleeper. Well, he was just here to collect some fire, so he left.

Jumping back onto Styx's boat, the goddess said, "All five Rivers of the Underworld join up in the center of the underworld, that is that bastard Hades' castle. I cannot accompany you any longer my Lord, but I ask you to be careful as I heard a few gods had already arrived."

Edward nodded gravely, but there was no falter in his steps as he walked toward the imposing castle, his three companions following behind.