My Wives Are Seven Beautiful Demonesses-Chapter 160 - No. What Is Tartarus?

[Third Person’s POV]

[Location: Palace of Hades, Underworld]

Hades was quiet for a long time.

Then—

"What about Tartarus?" he asked.

Acedia’s expression shifted. Just slightly.

"That," he said, "is... complicated."

Hades did not move.

He did not blink.

The Underworld, however, reacted instantly.

Not with alarm.

With attention.

Tartarus was not merely a location. It was not simply a prison, nor even a realm. It was a concept given containment—an abyssal recursion of punishment, paradox, and deferred endings layered beneath the Underworld like a scar that never healed. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

When Acedia said complicated, the Palace knew exactly which equations had just been disturbed.

"Complicated," Hades repeated softly.

The word echoed—not outward, but inward—rippling through the deepest administrative layers of death.

Acedia exhaled and scratched his cheek again, gaze drifting to nothing in particular.

"You’re not going to like the answer," he said.

"I rarely do," Hades replied. "Speak."

Acedia hesitated.

That alone was alarming.

"Tartarus," Acedia said slowly, "is not just under your jurisdiction."

Hades’ eyes sharpened.

"It exists beneath my realm," he said. "Bound by my laws. Secured by my authority."

"Yes," Acedia agreed. "But not created by you."

The obsidian veins along the floor dimmed.

Just a fraction.

"That distinction matters now," Acedia continued. "Because Tartarus isn’t just a holding facility. It’s a pressure sink."

Hades said nothing.

"A stabiliser," Acedia clarified. "An ugly one. Dangerous. But effective."

Hades’ fingers curled.

"You’re saying Tartarus bears load."

"Yes."

"From what?"

Acedia’s gaze finally returned to him.

"From futures that refuse to resolve."

The silence that followed was not heavy.

It was sharp.

"You mean prophecy," Hades said.

"I mean unresolved causal dominance," Acedia corrected. "Prophecy is just how gods rationalise it."

Hades turned slowly, robe whispering like a funeral shroud across obsidian.

"Tartarus contains threats," he said. "Titans. Primordials. Usurpers. Things that would destabilise reality if released."

"Yes."

"And one specific entity tied to Zeus’ fall," Hades added.

"Yes."

"And you’re telling me Typhon is going to come back. After his defeat by hands of my brother?

"Yes."

The word did not waver.

It did not carry drama.

It simply existed—solid, unavoidable, and deeply inconvenient.

Hades stared at Acedia as though weighing whether the concept of yes itself should be revoked from reality.

"You’re telling me," Hades said slowly, "that Typhon—the progenitor of monsters, the storm that nearly erased Olympus, the thing Zeus himself had to personally seal—"

"—Is not done," Acedia finished lazily. "Correct."

The Underworld reacted.

Not with panic.

With recalculation.

Somewhere beneath the palace, chains tightened. Not audibly. Not visibly. But the idea of restraint thickened, as if Tartarus itself braced.

Hades’ voice dropped.

"Typhon was defeated," he said. "Broken. Buried. His sinews wrapped around the world. His consciousness dispersed."

"Yes," Acedia replied. "Classic containment-by-disassembly. Very Olympian."

"And sealed in Tartarus."

"Who is his father, by the way—how the fuck did Gaia manage to fuck a place?" Acedia added dully. "Pun very much intended."

Hades closed his eyes.

Not in offence.

In exhaustion.

Hades opened his eyes again.

"That," he said quietly, "is something I have deliberately chosen not to contemplate."

Acedia nodded. "Healthy boundary."

"Do not mock me."

"I’m not," Acedia replied. "If you actually thought too hard about Gaia’s reproductive metaphysics, something in your soul would fracture. Permanently."

Hades stared at him.

"...Point taken."

Silence followed—brief, brittle, uneasy.

"You said Typhon would come back," Hades finished.

The words tasted wrong in his mouth.

Acedia nodded once. No flourish. No drama. Just confirmation.

"Yes."

The Palace of Hades did not tremble.

That was the most unsettling part.

If the Underworld had shaken—if Tartarus had howled, if chains had screamed, if seals had flared—it would have meant resistance. Stress. Strain. Warning signs.

Instead, everything remained perfectly, disturbingly stable.

As if Tartarus had already accounted for that outcome.

Hades turned away slowly, his steps measured, deliberate, each footfall syncing unconsciously with the pulse of the realm. He walked toward the far edge of the hall, where the floor sloped imperceptibly downward into nothingness—a visual trick that only existed because the Underworld needed somewhere for concepts too large to be seen directly.

"You are claiming," Hades said, "that Typhon’s defeat was... not the last."

Acedia sighed.

"Not even close."

Hades stopped at the edge of the hall.

Below him was not a pit, not darkness, not void—but recursion. A layered descent of concepts folding into themselves, each level quieter than the last. Tartarus did not sit at the bottom.

It looped.

"You’re saying," Hades said carefully, "that what Zeus fought—what Olympus remembers—was not Typhon in full."

"Correct."

"The myths say—"

"The myths," Acedia interrupted flatly, "are propaganda written after survival. They record outcomes, not mechanisms."

Hades’ jaw tightened.

"Explain."

Acedia leaned back against a pillar etched with pre-language strictures, arms folding loosely.

"Typhon is not a singular entity in the way gods like to define enemies," he said. "He’s a convergence. A compound catastrophe. Gaia didn’t give birth to a monster—she externalised a reaction."

Hades turned slightly, eyes narrowed.

"A reaction to what?"

Acedia glanced up.

"To Olympus."

The word landed without malice.

Just weight.

"Zeus’ ascension wasn’t clean," Acedia continued. "You know that. He didn’t just overthrow Kronos—he rewrote hierarchy through force. That kind of regime change creates backlash in the causal fabric."

Hades said nothing.

"Typhon was that backlash," Acedia said. "Given form. Given hunger. Given inevitability."

"You’re implying," Hades said slowly, "that Typhon is not an invader—but a correction."

"Yes."

The Underworld dimmed another fraction.

"Then Zeus didn’t defeat him," Hades said.

"He delayed him," Acedia replied. "By severing manifestation from origin."

Hades’ fingers curled against the stone railing.

"And Tartarus?"

"Is where the severed parts were anchored," Acedia said. "Not just Typhon’s remnants—every unresolved dominion-breaker Olympus couldn’t erase without admitting fault."

Hades exhaled.

"So Tartarus is not merely a prison."

"No," Acedia agreed. "It’s a landfill for broken inevitabilities."

Silence stretched.

The Palace did not object.

It had always known.

Hades’ voice was quiet when he spoke again.

"You said Tartarus bears load."

"Yes."

"And if realms interlock..."

Acedia didn’t answer immediately.

He didn’t need to.

Hades turned slowly.

"...Tartarus destabilises."

"Not immediately," Acedia corrected. "But it stops being singularly contained."

"And Typhon?"

"Gets options."

The word echoed far too loudly.

Hades’ gaze darkened.

"You’re telling me," he said, "that agreeing to your network risks releasing the one entity explicitly prophesied to end Zeus’ reign."

"Yes."

"And refusing guarantees—"

"—That he comes back anyway," Acedia finished. "Just messier. Later. With more collateral."

Hades stared.

"For all your indolence," he said, "you have a remarkable talent for presenting catastrophes as scheduling conflicts."

Acedia shrugged. "Time management is important."

Another silence followed.

Then Hades asked the question he had been circling since the beginning.

"Why me?"

Acedia looked at him.

"Because you’re the only death-system that never lies to itself."

The Palace stilled.

"You don’t pretend souls vanish," Acedia continued. "You don’t recycle them for glory. You don’t mythologise suffering into virtue. You process. You conclude."

Hades said nothing.

"Which makes you dangerous," Acedia added. "And reliable."

Hades turned back toward the throne at last—but again, did not sit.

"And what happens," he asked, "to Tartarus if I agree?"

Acedia hesitated.

Again.

"Tartarus stops being isolated," he said carefully. "Its contents don’t spill—but their pressure redistributes."

"Into where?"

"Into everywhere death touches."

Hades’ eyes narrowed.

"Be precise."

Acedia exhaled.

"Underworld, Duat, Hel, Naraka. Even places that don’t call themselves afterlives. Battlegrounds. Cycles. Seals. Anywhere finality is deferred."

Hades absorbed that.

"And Typhon?"

Acedia met his gaze.

"Stops being your problem alone."

The Underworld shifted.

Not in fear.

In calculation.

For millennia, Hades had borne the quiet weight of endings—of things no one else wanted to decide. Olympus reveled. Mortals prayed. Titans raged.

He processed.

"And Zeus?" Hades asked.

Acedia’s lips twitched.

"Oh, he’s going to hate this."

That earned a breath of amusement from Hades—brief, sharp, quickly gone.

"You realise," Hades said, "that if Typhon returns and Zeus falls, Olympus collapses."

"Yes."

"And the balance of pantheons destabilises."

"Yes."

"And reality suffers."

Acedia tilted his head.

"Reality’s already suffering," he said. "You’re just very good at hiding it."

Silence.

Deep.

Deliberate.

Then Hades asked, almost casually:

"Does Zeus know?"

Acedia blinked.

Then laughed.

A real laugh this time—short, wheezing, surprised.

"No," he said. "Absolutely not."

Hades’ expression turned unreadable.

"And when he finds out?"

"He’ll panic," Acedia replied. "Throw lightning. Call councils. Blame everyone but himself."

"And try to reinforce Tartarus."

"Yes."

Hades nodded slowly.

"That will fail."

"Yes."

Another pause.

"You said Tartarus contains futures that refuse to resolve," Hades said.

"Yes."

"What happens," Hades asked quietly, "if one of those futures involves Zeus losing?"

Acedia’s gaze sharpened.

"Then Tartarus becomes the very thing it was designed to prevent."

Hades closed his eyes.

For a long moment, the God of the Dead stood perfectly still—listening not to Acedia, not to prophecy, not even to the distant flow of souls.

But to the Underworld itself.

It was steady.

Efficient.

Uncomplaining.

And very tired.

"When," Hades asked without opening his eyes, "does this begin?"

"So... you agree?"

"What option do I have other than that when everything is so inevitable?"

"...So?"

"...Do I have to say it?"

"Yes."

Sigh~

"I agree."

***

Stone me, I can take it!

Please leave a review; it really helps.

Comments are almost nonexistent. Which, in turn, demotivates the authors. Please have some compassion.