Malcador blinked. He was standing at the door of the dining room of his residence in Terra.
The old man looked up and saw dark mucus seeping out from the cracks in the wall, and the sticky liquid slowly dripping down.
Machado looked around. There were sounds coming from the kitchen connected to the restaurant, and aromas wafted out, carrying the heat of food.
He thought about it, walked to the dining table and sat down, pushing aside a greasy flat wine bottle on the table with disgust.
The old man waited patiently, facing his "Mona Lisa" in front of the dining table. The woman's face had long disappeared, leaving only a huge black hole; and behind Machado, "Sunflowers" had completely turned into a pure black painting.
The man in the kitchen finished cooking, and his footsteps were heard, humming a happy tune as he walked -
“—Ahh! What the hell!!!”
Malcador calmly watched Hades come out and stumble, almost knocking over the bowl of rice in his hand, but he stood there steadily, looking at Malcador in panic.
"Malcador?! Damn, why are you here, old Ma?"
Hades said, quickly putting down the plates and bowls on the dining table, and then rushed into the kitchen to prepare a meal for Makado.
Malcador stared at the dishes Hades had laid out, and he sighed deeply, deeply, and said wearily, "Come to see you."
"Me?" Hades shouted in high spirits from the kitchen, "I'm fine—How many bowls do you want to eat, Old Ma?!"
"I'm not hungry." "Then one bowl!"
Hades ran out excitedly with a rice spoon in his mouth, put the bowl in front of Macador, and then sat opposite Macador. There was no need to be polite with Macador, so Hades started eating directly.
Malcador stared at Hades in silence.
"what have you been up to?"
The old man asked abruptly, and Hades looked up, "Eat."
"What else?"
Hades hesitated for a moment, his eyes becoming blurry, "Sleep?"
Malcador took another deep breath and looked at Hades calmly, with a hint of resentment in his calmness. "Nothing else?"
"That's all," Hades said. "By the way, Old Ma, why are you here? It seems—" Hades got stuck. He paused, "It seems like you're the only one here recently."
Malcador shook his head, but did not pick up his chopsticks. The old man was very much looking forward to a glass of wine - but he would never touch the dirty bottle.
“… Others have been here before,” Malcador said slowly, “but I’m the closest.”
"Has anyone else been here?" Hades looked up and stopped eating. "I was wondering why I sometimes feel like something is wrong here."
Malcador rolled his eyes. "You don't want to feel a visitor head on, especially one like the one before me."
Hades thought about it, "I can't remember." He muttered vaguely.
Malcador sighed.
"You should get back to work, Hades—you've been eating too much, don't you feel like you're getting fat?"
"A little bit," Hades said seriously, "but my rice bowl has been bubbling with rice, and it would be shameful to waste food, so I decided to go all out."
"At first I felt like throwing up, but later on, I could show off ten at a time!"
Pluto quickly cleared the table. Hades put down his chopsticks and said, "Old Ma, you didn't see the scene at that time. The rice bowl was gushing out rice like a waterfall. I almost drowned there."
"But you ate it all the same," Malcador pointed out dryly, "and grew fatter and fatter."
Hades showed a look of being seriously hurt. "You guys should help me eat some too. Don't leave me alone. Where's the God of Death? Give him some too."
Malcador laughed, and he lowered his eyes to see the unknown glowing object in the bowl in front of him - this part of the psychic energy seemed to come from Slaanesh.
Malcador looked away imperceptibly.
"You are not worthy of it," said Malcador. "And you are not to eat, Hades. It is time to get up and work."
"Get up?" Hades blinked. "I'm awake now. Are you hungry, old Ma?"
Malcador stared at Hades with a serious expression and said nothing. The look in the old man's eyes made Hades feel uneasy.
"What's wrong?" Hades said. He felt that something was wrong with Malcador. The Malcador in front of him was much weaker and thinner than the one he had known before.
Malcador stood up. "This is my home," the old man said, slowly and deliberately. "My abode on Terra - Hades. Why are you here?"
"I never invited you to my place."
Makado's voice became stuck, and his limbs broke apart in space as if the video was stuck.
Hades opened his mouth. "Yes, this is your house," he said naturally, but his expression began to become unnatural, "... So why am I... in your house?"
Hades was horrified. "What the hell is wrong? Wasn't I still in the palace before?!"
Hades stood up suddenly, and the chair behind him fell to the ground with a bang. Hades looked around the room he was in. As he focused his attention on this house, the space began to slowly dissolve like melted chocolate.
“What the hell?!”
Hades looked at Malcador, only to find that Malcador had also melted like chocolate. His twisted mouth was moving, but Hades could not hear what he was saying.
"Malcador?!" Hades stepped across the dining table and tried to scoop out the melted Malcador, but this only accelerated the process. Finally, Hades knelt on the ground, watching in despair as the melted Malcador seeped into the floor.
Then, as if realizing something, Hades turned around and saw that the rice cooker he placed in the kitchen, which was out of place in the whole room, began to spit out something again, but this time - Hades saw clearly - it was - Malcador? !
!!!!!!! Makhado burst out of the rice cooker UGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
Hades's brain went completely blank for a moment.
The intermittent voice brought him back to his senses. Hades lowered his head slowly as if he had been severely injured. He saw the thing that had grown back on the plate. On the white plate, the abrupt mouth opened. Malcador said tiredly,
"Hades, wake up... Hades..."
Under the huge impact, Hades' body shook, and he fell backwards—and fell asleep.
When he opened his eyes again everything was gone.
Everything was silent, all the stars were out.
Endless darkness enveloped him, Hades opened his eyes weakly, and unknown liquid flowed from his mouth.
There was nothing here now, no psionic illusion, no Malcador, no—no one but himself, Hades.
Now, he was sinking alone in the Styx that he had created with his own hands, trapped at the bottom of the river, thinking about life in despair.
The water of the Styx squeezed him heavily, making it difficult for him to breathe.
It's obvious that his brain is not working very well right now.
Hades felt his thoughts sluggish. He wanted to think about what had happened, but there was always something stopping him from doing so. It was preventing him from thinking and making any decisions other than instinct.
Just as they had expected.
So Hades used his brain power and began to think hard.
The first is the simplest one, 1+1=2, 1+2=3... Hades climbed up the mountain of logic one by one. He needed to rebuild the channel of logic and rationality - this was also the most fundamental reliance for his survival.
This is also why he is a normal person in this world full of crazy people.
This took him a lot of time. Here, Hades had no concept of time, but he seemed to have one, starting from 1+1 and deriving all the concepts and derived laws he obtained.
And then... and then what
Hades' eyes were blurry as he recalled painfully, thinking of Malcador, then the Emperor, then the Emperor's failed sons, Mortarion, Angron... the Legion, the mortals... Macragge...
Little by little, he re-arranged his connection with this world, which was a million times more careful and meticulous than wiring his own computer case. Although there were many fragments that did not belong to his memory mixed in, Hades knew that this might be... what those people threw at him.
This made him feel like vomiting - Hades had no idea how much he had eaten. The act of "devouring" was personified as "eating" in his subconscious mind. He thought of Malcador who had just been scattered all over the floor - Hades sincerely hoped that they would not sacrifice themselves completely to him.
But those fragments were not complete. Only a small part of the information was captured by Hades, and the rest entered the bottomless pit called the Black Domain along with the psychic energy.
Hades couldn't see it all. He could see the red figure on the snowy plain, the giant cocoon in the garden, and the...
Hades decisively stopped thinking about this.
Those memories were only fragments, and he didn't know what exactly happened, so Hades sealed these memories that didn't belong to him and continued to sort out his own information.
During this process, his urge to fight, jump, chop and kill those false gods became stronger and stronger. Hades saw people's perseverance and faith, which was exactly what he had been fighting for before.
He doesn't have high demands, he just wants people to live like human beings.
As Hades patiently combed the process, the pressure on his chest became less and less, and Hades realized that he could move, so he struggled and tried to swim upwards.
It was pitch black, pitch black, and it was endless darkness. Hades swam for a very long time, until he almost doubted his life. Was there really an exit here, or was he swimming in the wrong direction
But fortunately, Hades could keep swimming, praying that Malcador was okay, Mortarion would not ascend to a higher level, and the Emperor did not go to the toilet... while swimming upwards, which was another extremely long process.
As time went by, Hades felt that he was getting closer and closer to reality, or perhaps there was something preventing him from regaining control of himself. Hades began to get tired, and his breath-holding time reached its limit. Sometimes, he fainted due to lack of oxygen, but woke up again in the cold water and continued to swim upwards.
For most people, this is a painful process. They don’t know whether the direction they are heading is right or whether there is an exit. The pain of drowning tortures them at any time. They will doubt themselves and everything in the process, and finally go towards self-destruction.
But for Hades, he only hoped that the distance he swam upwards was greater than the distance he sank to the bottom when he fainted.
However, Hades thought, if the exit was at the bottom, it would be fine if it sank a little deeper, but he was afraid that the amount of water sinking would be the same as the amount of water swimming upwards, and then he would vomit blood.
So he swam up, fainted from lack of oxygen and sank, woke up and continued to swim up, then sank again from lack of oxygen...
Finally, a beam of extremely dim light penetrated the river.
Hades' eyes lit up, and he swam upwards even harder - fortunately he did not give up - although he secretly slacked off 6981 times along the way, he still swam upwards relentlessly.
Fortunately, he is a Death Guard, Hades thought. If it were any other legion, they would have been destroyed long ago. Only Mortarion's stupid education and stupid genes could train them to be so determined not to surrender and to hold on even when they hit a wall.
Go back and give Mortarion some chicken legs!
But Mortarion doesn't like to eat, so Hades does it for him!
It was getting brighter and brighter, beams of light piercing through the water waves. Hades looked up and saw the light spots gradually enlarging, turning into lines, stretching, and becoming wider...
Hades paused.
He looked at everything in front of him in disbelief. The gentle off-white light shone on his face, and the light waves rippled with the waves.
Those who shine are all people.
Hundreds, trillions, of sleeping people floated quietly in the current, their faces peaceful and calm.
They seemed as if their entire bodies were carved out of some kind of glowing jade, emitting a soft fluorescence all over their bodies, and slowly sank to the bottom of the river under the soothing of the dark water.
In the light, Hades raised his hands and saw that he was pitch black, like the deepest night.
Well, he doesn't sparkle.
Hades realized who those people were. He carefully pushed them away and continued to swim upstream. Only then did he realize that the scene just now was just a drop in the ocean.
As he moved upward, the light became stronger and stronger, and Hades had to squint his eyes to keep moving forward. He seemed to be swimming in the center of a flowing star. He gently pushed away those people, or perhaps any other existence, and swam upward.
This was still a long process, and he fainted 359 times. Fortunately, the people under him held him back, allowing him to sink more slowly.
Finally, Hades saw the glittering water, with colorful auroras flowing on it and reflecting his face.
He saw Malcador's figure floating not far below the surface, but there was no glow, just Malcador's original form.
Without hesitation, Hades swam over, picked up Malcador, and rushed out of the water.
Hades opened his eyes with tears in his eyes, and he saw Malcador in front of him, slowly crumbling.
"Fuck you..."
These were the first words Malcador spoke to Hades.
(End of this chapter)