Chapter 84

Dio filled his lungs with force with a deep breath of the air around him.

The energy he was absorbing made his whole body tingle with joy.

Dio always allowed himself to feel things that no human had ever felt before because he was a demigod.

The sensation of strength and heightened senses is far beyond what a normal person feels, and being here makes that feeling two or three times stronger.

It's only been a few seconds since Dio crossed the door, but he already loves this place.

After going through the same process several times, Dio finally got used to the place enough to open his eyes with his head turned up and see the underworld sky.

The cloud is so dark and black that it can't show what's above it, even when it moves.

He could see perfectly even though there was no sunlight here because of the illumination.

Then Dio looked down at the ground, which was sand and looked like coal powder.

Dio bent down and took a handful of it from his hand. He could feel a little magic in the soil grains.

The place is so rich in energy that even the ground is bathed in it.

Dio took some dirt from a spot where he saw something covered. He easily took the cover off with his hand while revealing a small red stone that looked like a ruby.

"It seems I won't need to worry about money anymore."

Dio said quietly while happily storing the likely ruby in his backpack.

"So, where do I go now?"

Dio muttered.

Dio didn't appear in any unusual place, and he was certainly not close to the palace, and all he could see was empty land and some hills.

Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to scare him because Dio was looking forward to seeing something amazing when he came out of the portal.

In addition, he tried to fly, but nothing happened.

It looks like Dio will have to walk a lot throughout the underworld to get to the castle.

This isn't necessarily a terrible thing because his main reason for coming here was to explore and see what this place has to offer—not to meet his father, whom he never really knew.

The door that his sword can now summon has a certain time limit, which he still needs to figure out.

One of its advantages is that he will reappear in the same location on Earth whenever he reopens it in the underworld, no matter where he is.

Dio will also appear where he opened the underworld door when he wanted to return.

This way, Dio won't always have to take a long path and can go to all the places in this realm.

Dio started walking immediately while picking a random direction because he had no idea how to get around this place.

"This is getting ridiculous!"

Dio said it angrily but also with happiness while picking up his fourth gem from the ground.

Dio knew one of Hades' concepts was wealth—everything valuable that humans consider to be jewels comes from the ground.

That's why the underworld is considered richer than Olympus.

On the other hand, the fact that he can literally find jewels on the ground makes him mad because he had to work so hard to get a very small amount of money on Earth.

Dio has been walking for almost six hours and hasn't encountered anyone. He wasn't tired, but he needed a break, so he sat on a small rock.

When he moved his feet on the ground, the gem was found—an emerald, almost the same size as the ruby.

"Let's keep going."

Dio muttered while standing up and continuing to walk.

After another two hours without seeing anything new, he got tired of maintaining this pace.

Dio started running as fast as he could while using his shadow movement to appear where his vision could reach.

Finally, the scenery changed when he saw a line of hills in front of him, and each one was about ten meters high and blocked his view of what was on the other side.

Dio started climbing one of them, and finally, he found some sign of life—an unusual gray grass covering the entire hill with some gray trees with no leaves.

Dio took a bit of the grass and a dry tree branch near him and put them in his backpack.

Dio will take a small amount of everything he finds to see how much it is worth when he gets back home because everything in the underworld is rare.

When he reached the top of the hill, he walked more slowly. When he got to the top, the view from the other side took his breath away.

There are thousands of souls walking in the same direction and forming lines that lead to a main queue.

Dio had never seen so many souls in his life, and they were all unique, wearing clothes from different eras and even different species, but they were all moving slowly but in an organized way.

They were following an invisible hand to the edge of the vast area of land below him, a shore that touched the black sea—which was actually a river.

"I'm wrong; I'm still not in the underworld."

Dio said while looking astonished below.

Dio is actually in the underworld, but not yet, according to legends.

The area where he is located is known as Taenarum, which is the entrance to the underworld, where souls suffer from visions and other unpleasant things.

Dio really didn't know where the portal would bring him; the spell wasn't very clear about it.

Nevertheless, Dio began walking downhill toward the river.

When his feet touched the black ground, he felt a sudden difference in the environment compared to where he was before.

With thousands of souls around him, he felt cold—not the ordinary cold of winter; it was as if there was no light in these souls, but there was also no darkness.

They were in between.

Dio walked calmly among the souls but avoided looking directly at them out of concern that if he accidentally used his power, their memories would overwhelm him.

So, Dio continues walking with his head down after entering one of the many thin lines leading to the coast of that land.

The line was slow—very slow.

In half an hour, Dio only walked a few meters.

Normally, he was very patient, but the feeling this place gives him is getting stronger, and that's not good news.

If the memories took over his body, Dio would probably become like one of these souls.

Dio left his line and started to walk, even though he knew something bad could happen.

He had to avoid the souls of the dead who were all around him, which was hard because there were so many of them.

Then the inevitable happens.

Dio accidentally touched one of them, and he was flooded with memories of a woman who lived in an ancient Greek called Croton.

The woman did not have a good life, and Dio struggled to ignore the memories and move forward.

Dio thought he had better control over this power—to see the memories of ghosts—but it's not something he uses often.

So, Dio thought having control over when to activate it and choosing what he wanted to see would be enough. But he was wrong.

He had never considered that touch would trigger it, but he had also never tried touching one of them.

Now there's nothing to be done about it except to keep walking.

After two hours and accidentally running into more than twenty souls, he was totally exhausted.

The memories are not just memories. When he saw them, he also felt what they felt. It's not pleasant.

Dio was tired, and this mental weakness is much worse than the physical.

Dio was so tired that he could fall to the ground and simply sleep.

Unfortunately, he can only keep walking. Since the souls are always moving, he can't use shadow movement.

Dio might end up in the middle of a group of them.

But Dio could see a small hill in the distance. It had a tree with green leaves and a white trunk.

It didn't take Dio long to appear right below it. The hill wasn't being climbed by anyone since no one was near it.

With his back against the trunk, Dio sat on the ground and took a deep breath to rest.

Dio had imagined that it would be hard, but he never thought he would be bombarded with so much mental torture, and he was only halfway there.

While resting, Dio ignored his surroundings. A little above the bunch of souls, he could clearly see that this tree was not the only one.

There were many others scattered all over the place, and all the trees were being avoided.

Dio stood up, feeling more rested, and with a swing of his sword, he cut one of the branches of the tree and caught it before it fell to the ground.

It may seem ridiculous, but he wants to know if the ghosts are avoiding the tree or the hills they are on to not block their path.

Dio took a few more breaths and returned, and to his surprise, the souls moved away from him and avoided getting close.

...

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