บท 48: Blessing of Hades and New Knights.

Bite after bite Vander tore Ubel to shreds as he devoured him in his entirety. Even the golden armor was consumed as Vander's jaws crushed through the golden metal. As Ubel had taken in pure demigods his body was full of divinity which was incompatible with Vander's Infernity.

So the genetic information he acquired was edited and changed to run on Infernity instead of Divinity. His body began to heal rapidly and before long the hole in his skull was closed and his dragon heart had fully regenerated.

As for Ubel, all that remained of him was a floating puddle of golden blood that Vander collected and drew into his mouth. Vander's felt his strength and the strength of his familiars grow rapidly. He made sure to control himself so that his body did not go through any unwanted mutation which he did not.

He still looked mostly the same except that his overall power was overflowing.

'So this is what happens when a champion kills another one.'

He stood at full height as he reveled in the pride of having killed his first enemy champion. He only let the pride take him for a few seconds before he buried that away.

"This victory means nothing."

Vander was Persophnes champion, but he had only been that for 2 months. What about the champions who had been fighting for hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of years? The moon began to quake and rumble as the damage they caused was truly catastrophic.

Even now the cracks in the Moon were growing larger and more numerous. Vander noticed how large pieces of the Moon were flowing toward the Earth like meteors. Just as Vander stepped forward to at the very least keep the Earth from suffering too much damage he was frozen in his tracks.

Time all around him had seemingly stopped which was something that even he could not do. He turned around and saw a large dark-skinned man dressed in black Greek-themed armor. All over the armor were different symbols and runes that seemed to be Greek in origin.

Vander took the knee as he planted Dawnbreaker in front of him. He looked down as he somehow already knew who Hades was.

"Lord Hades."

Hades smiled as he looked at Vander.

"You don't have to be so nervous. You are the champion of my beloved and hurting you would just hurt her."

Vander sighed as he began to turn back into his human form. His scales retreated and before long he was back into his human form which did not grow any taller thankfully. He still wore his resonance armor which had not taken as much damage as with Tiamat thankfully.

"Lord Hades, is what Lady Persephone said true? You would give your Divine Protection to the Champion that won this exchange?"

Hades nodded.

"I wanted to give you my divine protecting from the get-go, but I decided not to. I would offer it to you as a reward so that you would feel like you earned it. Well done, for a champion just two months into your career you are doing well. I wonder how far you will go in millennia or ten."

"Thank you for your praise."

Hades shook his head.

"You earned it like you earned this."

Hades placed his hand on Vander's chest and a stream of powerful Infernity surged into Vander's soul. Hades was a god, but as the god of the Underworld, he had Infernity. As such his blessing was truly compatible with Vander which caused his eyes to glow a dark black glow.

With a roar of power, his already staggering aura surged causing Hades to feel even more sure he had to keep Vander away from Abbadon.

"Now you will have my blessing following you until you become a true god."

Vander bowed toward Hades.

"Thank you, Lord-"

"You don't need to call me Lord, just call me Hades."

Vander was not going to deny that.

"Thank you, Hades."

Now that all the formalities were dealt with Hades decided to explain some important information.

"Vander, you need to know something important. Once you get done with this world or accomplish what you need, you should make your way over to Klithundan. It is a World managed and protected by almost all gods in existence. It is where we send our champions to mingle around with each other and to train in the dungeons. Especially the grand dungeon which has no end.

It is nearly endless and has everything that champions would need."

Hearing that made Vander curious.

"Wouldn't champions kill each other all the time?"

Hades shook his head.

"It is managed by all of us so if a champion does that they will make enemies of all champions and gods. Of course, it is not fully safe as death challenges can be issued on the planet."

Vander was curious.

"How do I get there?"

Hades smiled.

"You will have to figure that out. It is the first test to see if you are worthy to enter. Anyway, my blessing is the reward, but I like you. Is there anything you might wish for?"

Vander had an idea.

"How about your blood?"

Hades laughed as no one had ever asked him that. Sadly he could not grant that wish just yet.

"Smart boy, but I will have to say no. My blood would kill you with how much power is contained within. I will give you something I am sure you would like. You are looking to build a strong group of followers, your peerage are you not?"

Vander nodded.

"Yes, that is correct."

What Hades said really did draw Vander's attention.

"I am the God of the Underworld so I have access to the souls of the dead. I can 'acquire' the souls of the dead for you. Take your pick."

Vander looked at Earth which proved that anime worlds existed and there was someone he was sure would make a good addition to his peerage.

"Do you know two knights named Artoria Pendragon and Mordred Pendragon? Can I have both?"

Hades laughed before nodding.

"So you want the King of Knights and the Knight of Treachery as your knights. Two great choices my boy. Granted."

Hades opened a small portal in front of him and reached inside before pulling out two golden bright souls. Although one of them was much brighter."

"I took these two from the Throne of Heroes which might have caused some trouble. Now, no one will be able to summon them again after this as they are no longer present. Just use your knight pieces and you will bring them back."

Vander reached out and took both souls into his hands.

"Thank you, Lord Hades. My peerage is coming along nicely. I was thinking of taking Berserk Lancelot, but might as well go for the King of Knights and her daughter."

Hades began to walk away.

"I will keep the Moon from falling apart further, but I won't be fixing it. That will be up to you. Good luck."

Before Vander's eyes, he simply vanished as if he was never there. Time resumed normally and the Moon stopped falling apart just as he said.

'Now that was a true god. Damn it, I should have asked about the levels of gods.'

He looked at the souls in his hands before waving his hand and safely storing them away. He was still wearing his resonance armor as he turned to look at Earth. His 4 wings tensed as he shot toward New York causing an impact crater just from the raw strength of his jump.

In less than a second, he reentered Earth's atmosphere as a burning meteor. If he landed on Earth with that much kinetic energy he would probibly cause continent-wide Earthquakes so just before he landed he tensed his wings and used magic to convert his kinetic energy to power.

As such when he landed on the roof of the Empire State Building, the wards placed on Olympus managed to handle the blow. Vander sighed in relief that he managed to land without causing too much damage.

He retracted his wings and walked to the edge of the building before jumping right off. He used wind magic to cradle his fall so he landed without causing any more damage. He looked around and noticed that he was being looked on by the ordinary people who had all been in shock at seeing the Moon just begin to crumble.

"Tiamat. You here."

"Up here."

She flew down on two blue dragon wings from the sky that retraced when she landed. She noticed his presence armor seemed extremely different from normal as when she fought him he could only use Dual Resonance.

"I see that you managed to go up in the number of the familiars you resonate with. Congratulations on winning even if you did just piss off the Moon Gods and damage earth's ecosystem."

Vander sighed.

"It was either that or destroying Earth. I am sure that the Moon can be fixed with enough time."

She crossed her arms as she looked up at him.

"Are you going to do it?"

"Hell no."

Vander walked next to Tiamat and placed his hand on her shoulder. In a flash of black flames, they vanished and appeared inside Olympus in the Throne Room. Zeus and Hera were no longer than only Olympions here as the rest of them had gathered.

He noticed how Artemis or who he thought was Artemis was giving him a very angry glare. Vander pointed at Zeus just as he canceled his presence. Daisy and Ripper retired to his soul while Terror crawled up his shoulder.

"So, could you have handled him?"

Zeus as prideful as he was could not say yes. They would have gotten slaughtered one after the other and consumed.

"No, I am thankful you handled that menace. If we had given him time to grow in our camp we would have been left without any demigods."

Serafall crossed her arms.

"So you don't care that at the very minimum a few of your children were killed?"

Hermes, Hephaestus, Apollo, and Ares were the gods who had some of their children killed, but they had different reactions to it. Hermes actually looked quite enraged as his aura was flaring wildly while Apollo seemed remorseful. Hephaestus was hanging his head low.

Ares of all people had his arms crossed while his head was resting on the back of his throne.

"You might not think so, but losing one of my sons like this is not fucking nice. My children are meant to die on the field of battle not defenseless like common cattle."

La Folia looked at Zeus with squinted eyes.

"So, what happens now? You lost demigods all because you did nothing to keep them safe. What if someone else shows up that does the same."

Zeus looked at the rest of the gods with him and knew if he did not do something they would become angry with him.

"Yes, things need to change. I will make it law so all demigods are led to the camp as soon as they are 6 years old before their powers awaken. This shall make sure an incident like this does not occur once again."

Naerdeath had a better idea.

"Or you know, you could just wear condoms or learn contraceptive magic."

That made all the male gods pause as they had all manner of excuses as to why they could not. As for Serafall, she was bright red as she was trying hard to not laugh. Zeus noticed and coughed.

"Well, there are laws you know. Divine laws that even us gods cannot break like having to get our mortal lover pregnant."

The male gods began to nod and give all manner of excuses as to why they could not. Vander raised his hand as if he did not care.

"Look have all the demigod kids you want, I am not judging. Still, do you mind giving me if I pick one to add to my peerage?"

Zeus thought about it before he nodded.

"Go ahead. You earned that much, but will you allow them to return?"

"I am not going to keep them hostage you know. Pleasure doing business with you."

"Wait."

Vander paused as he looked at Artemis. She had silver hair, silver eyes, and pale skin and totally gorgeous, but her face was ruined by her glare.

"How can I help you?"

She pointed to the sky.

"What are you going to do about that?"

Vander shrugged.

"Not much I can do. I am a destroyer, not a builder. I wish you the best of luck in rebuilding the Moon. I mean you have the full support of your pantheon behind you."

Before she could say anything more Vander slammed his palms on the ground. He teleported his entire group directly to Camp Half-Blood to make his choice of who to take. While he was there he did not get much chance to look at them thoroughly.

As for Artemis, she slammed her fists on her throne while Apollo laughed.

"Sorry about that sis. We better get to work."

'I will make you pay for this Vander.'

She had no intention of hurting Vander, but she needed some petty revenge. Maybe she could find where he lived and spray paint the walls or something.