Chapter 172: New God
"Two and a half years!? That long? I thought I was in the underworld for 3 months but 18 months actually passed!" The news shocked Sol.
"Did time in the underworld move slower than the mortal realm? Or something else happened?" His mind went into overdrive as he tried to make sense of the situation.
"There is nothing I can do about it, I will just ask Minerva about it, She must know what happened," He thought to himself as he followed the man.
They walked through a modern city, in a sense, it was beyond modern, people were gliding with anti-gravity suits and holograms were everywhere instead of screens.
"Luckily this is not a hundred years to the future or something, if this is a hundred future ahead then I don't know if I can meet Nerva and the others, they might think I died or something," He thought.
But Of course, they would know if he died or not since Nerodia's life was tied to his, as long one of them was alive then they don't need to fear about the other's well being.
"How far is it from the temples? I still can't sense them," Sol asked the man who led him.
"Um... We will need to drive quite a bit to reach it," The man said a hovercar came to pick them up.
It was a strange sight to Sol. When the upheaval came, the world looked like it came from an apocalyptic movie. Then, in the underworld, it looked like a middle-age or something out of a fantasy movie.
Now in the city, the view was just like he came into a sci-fi movie or something, "Is it only this city or all the other cities also becoming so advanced," he wondered.
The hovercar went to the other side of the city with ease, as it could move without being caught in a traffic jump.
On the other side of the city, he still could not see the temples even though they were supposed to be very visible because of their size.
To this surprise, the car actually drove into a tunnel. He could feel the pressure increase as they went underground, they did not stop even after a hundred meters underground.
"is there an underground temple? I thought they just spawn near the city," he thought to himself.
The car finally stopped when they reached a giant metal door. Dozens of demigods guarded it, each of them was only a lesser demigod, but their exosuit was on the same level as the major demigod he fought before.
"Damn, if a lesser demigod could actually have physical power equal to major Demi-titan with that suit, then this city would be invulnerable!" Sol was shocked by what he saw.
"We are here, We just need to pass this door to get into the temples," The man told him.
"In there? Why did it appear so far underground? And why is there a giant door blocking our way?" Sol had a lot of questions in his mind, but he kept it to himself since he would find out once he contacted Minerva.
The man who led him went to the group of guards and talked to them for a bit before they opened the giant metal door.
Once the gate opened, he found the temples were inside a giant cavern, but what shocked him were the hundreds of turrets and cannons on the wall that pointed at the Temples.
"What is happening here? They are trying to trap the temple? Is this some kind of sealed place?" He looked at the spectacle with wide eyes.
"We are here, You can get to the temple, don't be afraid since the guns would not attack you, they are only here as a precaution," the man told him.
"Precaution? Precaution against what?" Sol asked the man since he could not hold it in.
"Against the Gods, they might descend into their temples and attack us since we decided to follow the New Gods," The man informed him.
He only nodded before he went toward the Temples. His destination was the temple of Minerva. She was the only God he was close with.
"I hope she will talk with me. If she doesn't want to meet me then I will be in trouble," he prayed in his heart.
The moment he got to the temple, he tried to knock at the door, but before his hand could touch it, the gate already opened by itself.
"It's been a long time, Mr. Vestitor, I have been waiting for you," The familiar form of Minerva was waiting for him on her throne.
"Greetings, your cuteness," He greeted the Goddess before he went before her. She conjured nothing for him to sit on, so he just stood there waiting for her to talk first.
He did not conjure his own seat because of respect; he did not want to offend the Goddess because he let himself sit without permission.
"You have done well to return here, The Gate of the underworld had been opened and the souls had gone to their rightful resting place," She praised him.
"I did not have any choice, I need to open it if I want to return, and to be honest, the one who opened the door was not me," Sol said honestly.
"Yeah, we know the situation. It had been half a year since the underworld got divided in two, Pluto and Styx still fighting for the ownership of that realm up to today. Not even us had expected this, that was out of our calculation," Minerva told him.
"It has been half a year? I thought it happened yesterday!" Sol could not keep his curiosity.
"The trip from the underworld to the mortal realm and the other way around took half a year, even though you feel like it was just a second, it actually took six months," Minerva explained.
"Six months! I thought the time move differently, but it turns out that the journey took so much time!"
Sol finally understands why so much time had passed since he went into the underworld, even though it was a bit surreal for him.
"Your cuteness, If I may ask, what happened in this a year and a half? I returned to this place to find technology had developed so far and there is this New Gods." Sol asked.
"I would usually charge you for asking for information, but since you helped in opening the gate of the underworld, I will help you just this once," the Goddess cheekily said.
"Thank you, your cuteness, I will remember your kindness," Sol replied.
"The mortal realm was in a war, those who followed us, the Gods were fighting against people from the Legion pantheon. War broke loose and cities fell, but my father, Jupiter, forbade the Gods from interfering with these wars," she explained.
"The goddess of the earth, Gaea was on his side for once. She said it would be better if we let the war go naturally. On the other hand, other Gods were not satisfied with the decision, they could not take it when the legions destroyed their pantheon and their cities."
"They wanted to take back what was theirs, so they sent major demigods from the gods' realm to fight the mortals."
"They said that they were not interfering since they let the mortal fight among themselves. You might not know, but Major demigod could be categorized as immortal already, but to us, they are just as mortal as the other, So Jupiter let them do as they please."
"The war was chaotic. At first, the legions were losing since the major demigods joined the fight, but they somehow got help from a third party. Some of them rapidly grew stronger and the man you hear about, Deus, became a Lesser God in the middle of the war."
"That changed the course of the war drastically, The major demigods were losing and when Jupiter finally agreed to intervene, it was too late. The man called Deus somehow became a Minor God just a few days after the war concluded, and the moment the gate of the underworld opened, He became a Major God!" she told him.
"What? How can there be such a coincidence?" Sol was shocked.
"Then what Jupiter did? He did not try to fight this Deus? Should not he be strong enough to beat the New God?" he asked the goddess of wisdom.
"That is the problem, We had tried to find him, but we could not find him no matter where, He just disappeared as Apollo did before. We suspect he used the same means as Apollo. If Pluto is not so busy fighting with Styx, then we would have asked him for help to find this New God. But he is too busy right now," She sighed.
"Then how about the followers of Deus? Will you let them be?" Sol asked.
"My father took the same approach as before, he let mortals take care of their own problem," She sighed once more.
"Wait, doesn't that make me in enemy territory right now?" Sol finally realized as he grimaced.