Chapter 694 - River Styx

Eisen looked down at the ground as a notification appeared in front of him. It was the notification that told him that he finished the quest that he was given for this realm. The old man immediately waved it to the side and then let himself drop down toward the ground, toward the giant hole that was created there due to the explosiosn that Eisen caused through all of these special items.

Of course, on their own, they didn't hold much power, and they weren't all that high-quality, but if you had a couple hundred of them together, they did hold quite a punch to them. That was undeniable at this point, honestly.

Eisen could still see some chunks of flesh laying around everywhere, most of them heavily scorched, but for the most part there wasn't anything that could give Eisen a hint of what it was that was here beforehand. Whether that referred to Cerberus itself or the castle that it lived in.

But right behind him, a gate appeared that Eisen approached with a soft smile on his face. This realm really didn't take that long, so he was glad that-

"You goddamn moron!" An angry, loud voice echoed through the area, nearly hurting Eisen's ears in the process. Eisen looked at the source of this loud voice. It was the man that just stepped out of the gate before Eisen was able to get to it, "You weren't supposed to blow Cerberus to smithereens, you were supposed to lead it to one of the other hundreds of castles and have it fight the other instance of Cerberus there! Who would get the idea of brute-forcing shit like this?! I'm Gluttony, not Wrath, why am I this f.u.c.k.i.n.g furious?!"

Eisen looked at the man in front of him, the God of the Underworld Gluttony, with a wry smile on his face as he moved his fingers through his beard, "Well... Is it bad that I found a unique way to kill it?

Gluttony looked back at Eisen before crossing his arms and looking to the side, "I guess technically it isn't, but it still pisses me off."

"Haha, I get what you mean. Having others mess up the plans you made is quite annoying, isn't it?"

"Right?!" Gluttony replied, glad that there was someone that understood his anger, although he soon remembered that he was speaking to the one that caused his anger this time around in the first place, "At least you get where I'm coming from... And you couldn't've known the intended way to beat Gluttony... And you did save ressources here, I don't have to repair two whole castles and birth two more Cerberi, I just need to do one each... Actually, it feels like I should thank you at this point..."

Eisen laughed slightly as he approached the gate in front of him, "I won't complain if you do, but don't do anything you don't want to do. Anyway, should we speak a little bit now?" The old man suggested. Gluttony looked back at him and then slowly nodded his head in response, "Fine. Then come on, let's do that. I'll explain to you why I wanted you to solve this task the way that I intended, I'll give you the chance to apologize, and then I'll send you over to Wrath's realm." 

The God stepped through the gate ahead of Eisen, but was quickly followed by him, who was in turn followed by Satel. They were in quite a lot of disbelief at this situation themselves. Satel most likely knew about the intended way to solve this realm's task, but didn't expect something like this to happen all of a sudden. Especially, they probably didn't expect Gluttony himself to get so furious over it to then yell at Eisen.

The old man sat down at a table with Gluttony, and the two of them ate a bit. Different to what his name would suggest, it seemed like Gluttony actually had a rather humble appetite. At the very least, he didn't seem to eat in an exaggeratedly hungry way as all the people in the Hall of Gluttony did in Limbo.

"Hm? Ah, I know what you're thinking. 'Isn't he literally Gluttony, why doesn't he eat that much?'. Right?" Gluttony asked, and Eisen looked back at him with a slight smile, "To an extent, yes." The old man replied, "Although not in a bad way, I don't really care how much you eat. It still came to a bit of a surprise to me, though."

"Well, I can see that. But you know, I actually do eat much more than what you may expect. I just don't like the feeling of stuffing myself, but I am one of the few gods that has to eat in order to survive, due to my own nature. It's just that all of this food that I am eating on my side is a special creation. The basis for it was food that held a hundred times the calories of normal food, before then being shrunk down to a hundredth of its original size. Then, those small clumbs of food were combined with each other and turned into the shape that you currently see. And that is actually the version with less-calories... I didn't want to feel too bloated while speaking to you, you see?"

"...Ten thousand times the amount of calories..? I'm just curious, but can I-"

"No, you can't get any access to that food. You asked me this many, many times before, even if you may not remember. Well... Not that it stopped you from just coming here and stealing some of it on multiple occasions to create pills for yourself to consume. You made them in special ways so that you could take on and it would last you for up to a week. You used it for times when you needed to meditate for long periods of time." Gluttony explained to Eisen, "But I'm not letting this pass anymore now that you've lost your memories, you hear?"

Eisen laughed a bit as he heard this story. He actually felt a small tingling in the back of his head, as if he was going to remember some of these instances that Gluttony was speaking about soon. Not that he minded. He was gathering quite a lot of new memories that he would be unlocking soon. It wouldn't take long until Eisen reached 50 memories that he managed to recover, which seemed like another huge step. Actually... Eisen still had a lot of memories to catch up on to reach 40. He was told that there would be a big change every ten memories that he actively remembered. He really did wonder what was going to happen then.

The old man looked in front of him with a blank stare while he thought about everything that came to mind, and a few moments later, Gluttony let out a long, deep sigh, "Alright, seems like I'm boring you. Let's get you to Wrath so that you can get ouf of the Underworld soon. Anyway, you have my Acknowledgement anyway. I don't even know why we have to give you these tasks in the first place, but that's just how it works."

Eisen looked at Gluttony with a smile, "Thank you. I appreciate to hear you say that." The old man said, before he headed toward the gate that the God just created for him. As he was walking over there, Eisen heard Gluttony whisper something to Satel, although he didn't know what exactly this God had to say to the Guide-Devil.

The old man pushed the gate in front of him open and then stepped through it, before he immediately tried to turn around due to the disgusting stench that hit his face as if a pro-boxer punched him. It was 'that' powerful.

Eisen immediately held his nose shut as he looked in front of him. All that he saw was the slimy, disgustingly foul river Styx. At least that's what it was in Dante's Inferno. At the top of the slimy river, numerous monsters of all shapes and sizes were ripping each other apart violently. The old man already had a bad feeling about the task in this realm.

[New Quest – River of Wrath]

[Description] In order to be acknowledged by the Gods of Hell, you have started to make your way through the nine circles of hell. On your first stop, you reached Limbo. On your second, you reached L.u.s.t. On your third, you reached Gluttony. On your fourth, you reached Wrath- Your task in this realm is to swim through the river Styx to reach the gates of Dis.

[Conditions] Swim through the river Styx

[Rewards] Wrath's Acknowledgement

[Penalty] None

Eisen turned around and looked at Satel, who was just standing there with a broad grin on his face, "What? Don't like the challenge? We can turn back, if you want..." The Devil pointed out, but Eisen just let out a deep groan as he shook his head, "No, this is fine... I can... I can do this..." The old man said, already gagging at the sight of the disgusting, foul sludge he would have to swim through.

The old man quickly changed out of his current clothes into a simple pair of replacement pants. He didn't want to swim through there completely n.a.k.e.d, but he also didn't want to ruin his current clothes. Eisen approached the river-bank in front of him and looked into the distance. He could see the towers of this City of the Underworld, Dis, he was supposed to reach by swimming through this river.

The moment that his foot touched this disgusting sludge, he could feel shivers run all over his body. It didn't only look unpleasant, but it felt unpleasant as well. Not only was it so slimy that it gave Eisen and uncomfortable feeling as he became slowly more and more submerged in this substance, but it was also somehow rough and was rubbing over Eisen's skin like sandpaper. He didn't know that it was possible for these two sensations to come out of the same substance, but it was fact that they did. 

Soon, Eisen became submerged up to his neck, and he proceeded to try and swim through this thick substance, something that was hard enough already. But the worst thing was that this was nearly like quicksand, and he felt like he was being constantly pulled down. Of course, he was still able to fight against that pull, but it did take him quite a lot of power to do so.

And on top of that, Eisen had to face the monsters that were angrily ripping each other apart in front of him, and was trying to cut them apart with his Blade, once more trying to absorb the souls instead of just ripping them apart.

Just like that, Eisen faced one of the most disgusting challenges he had to face so far.