9 Chapter 8: Prey?

3rd

A man is seated in a cave dressed in a black chiton with skull-like ornaments on both his shoulders, attaching a black cloak with gold on the inside and black Spartan shoes with silver patterns and gold outer soles.

He held a fist-sized rock in his hands and stared at it intensely, expecting something to happen, this man, or rather god, was Hades, the god of the Underworld and wealth.

Two months ago, Hades awakened his divinity, and to Poseidon's surprise, it was three times his own.

Nonetheless, Poseidon still taught Hades how to control his divinity and utilise it for other things like making a divinity shield, enhancing his body, and sensing divinity along with other things around his surroundings.

After learning to sense and gauge the divinity of others, the first thing Hades did was check Poseidon's divinity.

When he did, he found out that he has two times that of Poseidon's. Learning this, he believed that he was stronger than Poseidon, and no one denied it; It led him to become arrogant.

{AN: I know I said three times before.}

After his first month of training his divinity control, Poseidon allowed Hades to train his domain's abilities.

Poseidon wasn't sure what kind of abilities Hades could use with being the god of wealth and the Underworld, so he left Hades to figure it out himself.

And that's what he's doing now. After few more seconds of Hades staring at the rock, it began to glow in a dark purplish aura.

Instantly it started to change by gaining a clear and glistening look.

"*Phew* I did it."

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Hades's pov

"*Phew* I did it." After two weeks of repeated failure, I finally changed the properties of a stone to a diamond.

{AN: I think the whole philosopher thing was turning lead to gold}

I guarantee that Poseidon will be astonished at this, just like how he was when I awakened my divinity or when I pulled gold from the ground.

Even though he tried to hide it the second time, I could still see it; but it isn't like I blame him.

My abilities are magnificent, and the things it makes, such as gold, silver, platinum, diamond, and many other precious metals and stones, are incredible, especially with the applications they have.

Anyone would be bewildered by it, though at first, when I learned of my domains, I was a bit conflicted by it.

How would I be able to kill my father if the domains I rule over aren't combat-oriented?

And with Poseidon telling me that his domains allowed him to control water, earthquakes, and storms, I felt I was lesser than him again.

But after I used my first ability, extracting gold from the earth, Poseidon gave me ideas on utilising them for combats.

I was both thankful and hateful towards him for thinking that he was the one who finds use for my abilities while I doubted them.

"Tch!" It upsets me just thinking about it, but I quickly calmed down after remembering the fact that I've long since surpassed him.

I should probably find him to tell him that I'm going to be visiting Hestia today. He's most likely still doing that useless thing, physical exercise.

{AN: Hades was the strongest greek god in DXD. But I don't think it was because he had a good physique}

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Poseidon's pov

"9998, 9999,10000"

*Crackle*

I made an ice throne to sit on after my morning workout, which I finished up with push-ups. It's been two months since I've been doing this exercise every morning and night.

Before I do it, I always exhaust my divinity by practising my water and vibration manipulation.

My water manipulation has progressed by leaps.

I can even manipulate plants which are easy since plants are 90% water. Being able to do this, I do not doubt that I can even control blood, which I'll no doubt try once I leave this place.

I can also transform my body into any form of water; at first, it was hard for me to reshape my body to how it originally was, but over time, it became easier.

As for my vibration manipulation, I'm trying Whitebeard's technique from the One Piece anime. They are easy to use when I'm channelling the quakes into solids.

As for water and air, and takes way more divinity, the more comprehensive the range of destruction.

I haven't trained my other domain abilities, so there wasn't any progress on those, but I have an idea for a technique using my space manipulation; Limitless, it was called in Jujutsu Kaisen.

But from how broken the ability is, it will probably take me years to recreate and master it.

"Well, I might as well go fight one more of those cyclops." They're pretty good at testing how much my physical prowess has advanced.

"Hmm?" I felt a familiar divinity approaching me from where my home is. When the figure came out of the bushes, he was a black-haired man in black greek style clothes that I would usually see in those Greek theme movies.

"Hades." Of course, it was Hades with a smug look on his face.

"What do you want?" When I asked that, he holds out his hand with a fist-sized diamond in it that most back in my world would even kill for.

"What you extracted another diamond?" He frowned a bit at my lack of interest.

As the Underworld god, Hades has control of everything below the earth, which includes precious stones and metals.

"No, I turned a stone into a diamond." He said to me smugger than he previously was, which I thought was impossible.

"Is that it?" He frowned when I asked him.

"What do you mean this is a major advancement in my abilities!"

"Are you even capable of using it in a fight?"

"I haven't thought of how yet."

"Then you had no reason to come to me with something this useless." I could see the embarrassment and anger in his eyes, but I didn't care much for it.

"What are you still doing here?"

"I'm going to go visit Hestia and the others." He said, gritting his teeth while holding back his anger towards me from embarrassing him.

"Ok, go." Turning his back, he started walking off.

"Oh, and Hades do me a favour don't waste my time on trivial things like this."

Gripping his fists, he threw away the diamond as he walked off.

I started being demeaning Hades a few weeks back after noticing that he became arrogant about his divinity being three times my own.

Something that I was angry about at first, but after some thinking, I realised that it was most likely because I got the ability to absorbs other gods divinity.

Hence, as a drawback to that, I started with a much more minor divinity than the other gods would.

With Hades being the strongest Greek god in dxd, it would explain why he had so much as three times my own even after I absorbed some of Kronos's divinity.

Besides, with Hades having so much divinity, it benefits me originally he had three times my own, and only after just two months, I reduced it to two times.

So it should just take me at most a year to get the said amount of divinity he has, and if I were to help the other three idiots to awaken their divinity, it should cut that time down massively.

But then again, I don't want to help those three, especially Hera and Demeter.

*Sigh*

Sometimes you have to do what you don't like to get to where you want to be; this is something I'll have to think about later.

"Now where are those one-eyed bastards?"

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3rd

*Boom!!*

Web cracks formed under Poseidon's feet as he caught the cyclops stone-age war hammer in his left hand.

*Thrust!*

"Arghhh!!" With the ice trident in his right hand, he thrust it into the eye of cyclops.

*Shluk!* *Thud*

Ice pikes exploded out of the cyclops' head immediately after the cyclops's body falls to the ground.

"Hmph, that was a bit too easy. I need to find stronger creatures; I might as well head back."

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"What the hell is that?" A rancid scent assaulted Poseidon's nose.

*Sniff*

Smelling himself, he made sure that it wasn't the cyclops that he killed blood was still on him. Realising that it wasn't him, he searched the area where the scent was more pungent.

Soon, Poseidon didn't have to smell for it since there was a blood trail leading to the cave that Hades stays in.

"I thought the idiot said he was going to visit his sisters did he go hunting instead? Well it doesn't matter to me what he does."

*Thud* *Thud* *Thud*

Walking away, he heard heavy footsteps coming from the cave; when he turned around, he saw fierce gold eyes staring right at him with gigantic paws, golden fur, and razor-sharp ten-inch claws that glistened as they came bearing down on him.

*Crackle*

Poseidon made an Ice shield in front of him, not entirely sure that his divinity shield would hold up against the attack.

*Glissh!*

The beast's claws sliced right through Poseidon's ice shield like a hot knife on butter.

'Damn it!' Poseidon thought to himself as he left up his hands in an x cross guard to protect himself.

*Shplort!* *Grit*

Poseidon gritted his teeth as the claws pierced through his flesh and bone.

*Boom!!* *Crash!!* *Thump!!* *Thump!!* *Crack!!* *Crack!!* *Bam!!*

The force of the hit sent him flying back, hitting the ground; he rolled for a few seconds, then he came to a stop by crashing into the trees.

'What the fuck is that!' Poseidon thought to himself as he saw a golden 7 feet lion staring at him. 'I can't be thinking of that right now I need to kill it first.'

Getting up, Poseidon stumbled, which seemed to confuse him but only for a while.

*Crackle*

Poseidon struggled to make an ice trident as he watched it slowly coming into existence which puzzled him.

When the trident was finished made, he tried to grab hold of it but realised that his hands weren't moving.

"What the hell?" Looking at his sides, Poseidon saw his limped hands with bones sticking out of them; of course, Poseidon was surprised by this since his hands should be healed already.

Hearing the heavy footsteps, Poseidon tried using his time manipulation to speed up his healing, but it wasn't making a difference.

So he attempted to reverse his body to the state it was three minutes. It was working but at a negligible pace.

*Thud* *Thud* *Thud* *Thud*

Before Poseidon could even think about what was happening to him, the beast rushed him at an unimaginable speed, which is what it seemed to Poseidon currently.

Poseidon tried to use his room to exchange places with the lion, but the technique failed to activate.

*Shplort!*

As a consequence of this, the beast's claws once again found themselves in Poseidon's flesh, but this time, it was in the chest.

Digging so deep it assuredly ripped through all his bones and organs; Poseidon was thrown back like a ragdoll.

*Bam!* *Thump *Thump*

Before Poseidon could come to a stop from his rolling, the lion appeared beside him and bit on his shoulder.

Throwing him to the ground, the lion stepped onto Poseidon's stomach and digging its claws in, destroying all his organs and bones that managed to survive its previous attack.

"AHHHHHHH!"

Not being able to hold back the pain anymore, Poseidon released an earth-shattering scream.

"ROOOOOAAAAAAAAAR!!!!"

Recognising Poseidon's scream of pain as a challenge to its strength, the lion released a roar that sent all remaining trees flying.

*Sniff* *Sniff*

Bringing its snout closer to Poseidon's face, the lion sniffed him.

"Grrrrrrr."

*Sniff*

Taking its paw off Poseidon, the lion sniffed again then turned its head to the right, where it saw something glistening.

*Sniff* *Sniff* *Sniff* *Sniff*

Walking over to it, the lion sniffed it then immediately rushed off as if finding what it was looking for.