"Great, it's nice to meet you. Let's get you to safety."

The boy didn't seem to agree, so much so that the darkness danced around him quickly, as if it wanted to protect him. Ada intervened promptly and immediately tried to branch it, but it dissipated on its own after a few moments.

A son of Rutia? The girl asked herself.

Darryl gripped the demigod tighter and tried to pull him up.

"Are you the boy we were looking for?"

Without saying a word, Shirei simply nodded and let himself be placed on his feet. Only then could Ada fully look at him. He was tall, very tall, and his body looked lean, more like a guy with a predilection for agility rather than strength. His black hair fell over his face, but barely revealed his irises.

When their eyes met, Ada's first instinct was to jump and close her eyes.

Purple.

Perfect, round and bright purple eyes.

Only one god of the fourth generation had that peculiar tone.

Cragar! Ada shouted in her mind.

The other members of the group also seemed to come to the same conclusion and, for this reason, stopped for a moment.

Darryl was the only one of the four who remained rather impassive, almost as if he wasn't surprised. He moved Shirei's arm around his shoulders and helped him take a few steps, which in another moment would have been a very funny scene. Shirei was at least ten centimeters taller than Corgi's son, so the latter wasn't giving much help.

Elaine advanced towards the two and bent her knees slightly, "I am a healer, if you tell me your symptoms I can try to heal you."

Mardi's daughter smiled sweetly at the demigod who, however, left her without any response.

"Ada,” Darryl beckoned the girl closer by bending his index and middle fingers, "Can you take a look into the Interworld?"

The demigoddess nodded and closed her eyes. With her mind, she traveled through her body until she reached her chest, where her heart was beating strongly. Exactly nearby she saw her own divine particle shining and activated it. She felt the mana contained within swirling and spreading throughout her body until it reached her eyeballs.

When the demigoddess reopened her eyes, the world around her had changed.

The sensations surfaced like a raging hurricane, slamming her in all directions. It was like being swallowed up by an endless vortex, where green, white and black merged into a chaotic dance of indistinct colors. In the sea of that distorted dimension, Ada vaguely glimpsed Shirei, but his form was altered, almost unreal. It was completely natural, the boy was still in the mortal world, so she would not have been able to see him except through the ether particles that outlined his figure in negative. He was surrounded by a green fog, while five ghostly flames rotated above his head, one closer than the others. Beside him, a dark mass floated in the air, revealing a black sword that gave off a sinister aura. Ada struggled to orient herself, to find a fixed point in that tumultuous ocean of magic and chaos. But, despite her efforts, all she could perceive was the roar of the aether surrounding her and the disturbing presence of Shirei, hidden behind the dark veil of the Interworld.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"What do you see?" Havel asked impatiently.

Rutia's daughter looked at Shirei and tried to describe what was happening. The demigod was surrounded by a myriad of luminous green particles, namely the aether.

She shook her head and looked more carefully, she was wrong.

The particles did not envelope the boy, on the contrary they were expelled from his body with great rapidity, almost as if he was blowing a gas out of every pore.

"It's..." she hesitated, it couldn't be possible, "It's expelling the aether into the Interworld."

Darryl grimaced, "He's overdosing on mana."

The boy explained himself better after seeing the confused faces of his companions, "This place is one of the entrances to the Underworld. He must have come from there."

Ada nodded. She was stupid, that's where she'd heard the name before and why it sounded so familiar.

"In the Underworld the amount of mana is extremely small compared to the mortal world. If he's used to so little, the mana here is filling him so much it's overflowing."

What Darryl had said made sense, but Ada couldn't help but notice a mistake in the speech he had just given. All demigods could control mana, but Shirei was eliminating aether from his body. According to what they taught in the Lilies Park, there were no demigods capable of storing aether in their core.

It was impossible.

Ada deactivated her powers and prepared to report the anomaly, but was interrupted by an unexpected event.

The very earth trembled beneath their feet. An otherworldly voice, deep and threatening, resonated in the area, penetrating the brains of those present.

"Come back to me," he echoed.

An irresistible call that seemed to awaken ancient memories in Darryl. He knew who those words belonged to and wished he hadn't recognized the timbre generated by that being's vocal cords.

As the ground cracked under the pressure of an unknown power, the voice continued with implacable determination. "We must destroy the gods. Come back to my side."

It was a promise: to bring destruction and rebellion, throwing the celestial world into a dance of magic and metal.

The demigods looked around, trying to deny their growing fear.

From the depths of the cracks that had opened in the ground, from the black waters of Lake Avernus and from the shadows of the surrounding trees, creatures began to emerge that seemed to come directly from the most hidden areas of the Abyss.

Their structure was similar, but, with some exceptions, creatures with distorted appearances excelled. Living deformities wrapped in threadbare robes, as if torn from the very weave of chaos. Their heads, devoid of all traces of hair or eyes, were smooth as stone, but not devoid of expression. In the center of the faces, an open mouth revealed a long, serpentine tongue. Their bodies, skeletal and malnourished, were covered in taut, cracked skin, as if they had been deprived of nourishment for eons. Long, sharp claws adorned their bony hands, ready to tear at the flesh and blood of the living. Their movement was mechanical, devoid of any grace or fluidity, like marionettes controlled by an invisible puppeteer. Each step was accompanied by an ominous sound, their bodies creaking and groaning under the weight of their very presence.

Some had membranous wings, others dragged along the ground. Lake Avernus was also coming alive, with aquatic creatures climbing out of its depths, the whitish edges of their gills vibrating in contact with the open air.

But what worried the demigods most was their cry, a heartbreaking howl that penetrated the ears of those present, as if their words came from a dimension beyond time itself, announcing their arrival with a delay of a few seconds.