Tap, tap, tap.
Someone was knocking on the door. Formless darkness seeped through the cracks, squirming into the room like tiny tentacles.
Mortarion felt his gaze slipping beyond his control. His stomach churned violently, and ten thousand years after his appetite had vanished, it was strangely stirred alongside the urge to vomit.
Tap, tap, tap.
Mortarion was surrounded—surrounded by endless darkness and the River of the Underworld. His hands trembled uncontrollably. His instincts screamed, and so did his soul.
Screaming, trembling, hoping to escape.
He suppressed his instincts as best he could, but the Psychic Power comprising him was so agitated that it nearly broke through the shell called "Mortarion" and fled in every direction.
Mortarion clearly understood that if he went all out, he could fight that being. Yet he also knew with equal clarity that he did not want to fight such a being... even one glance made him feel as though his eyes were burning.
Was this... the Underking?
Mortarion trembled, nearly nailed in place by fear and instinct. In the world he came from, there had never been anything so terrifying and bizarre—this was something he had never seen before.
Or perhaps he had seen it, but at that time, this overwhelming darkness had not yet taken shape.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The being outside the door was growing impatient. The door was struck roughly. Mortarion heard something beside his ear, but the deafening ringing and Psychic Power's shrieks drowned out the words.
He watched in horror as the door neared breaking under the immense force.
"Anyone there? Sorry to bother you, but I'm coming in, then?"
Creak—
The door opened, and Hades poked his head in like a thief. He did not understand why Mortarion had not answered him. The Null Field clearly showed that the