Lords of the Underworld [malexmale]

Chapter Thirty-Four

I stood a few feet from the river, glancing over at a crocodile that was sunbathing on the shore. He just stared at me with eerie, unblinking eyes, iron jaws clamped shut, tail slipping off into the water where two other crocodiles sat in silent wait. A snake flitted through the water and vanished. A few cranes had taken off, moving slowly across the sky that was painted in orange, yellow, and red hues around suns that were steadily rising over the mountains in all directions.

"Hades." I turned to see Lucifer approaching me with Ambrosius and Dania. Lucifer was dressed in his uniform with his mask hanging around his neck and goggles on his head, his gold hair in a short ponytail. Ambrosius had his black hair held back with a small black headband that looked like one of the girl's had lent him... or Akin. Dania's long auburn hair was done in a tight braid and twisted into a bun on the back of her head, her bangs swept across her face, her goggles over her eyes. She carried her bow and quiver tight around her. I cocked my head when I realized her quiver was empty.

"Need arrows?" I asked. Dania flashed me a charming smile, placing her hand on her hip.

"It's just for looks. The arrows are always with me." She added, and because she looked eager to show me, she whipped her bow off with expert ease, twirled it and aimed it into the sky to shoot down one of the cranes, drawing the bow back to reveal a silver arrow that glittered into place when Ambrosius gave her a gentle whack on the back, making her huff.

"Seth'll kill you if you kill another one of those." He warned her. Dania pouted, then looked at me.

"Well, you'll see when I skewer Julius's heart to the wall." She assured me, twirling her bow back over her shoulder. I shook my head at her cockiness. I looked at Lucifer, whose expression was grim.

"The four teams are being sent ahead. We need to let Seth know once we reach the mountains. He's going to drop the barrier for twenty seconds to let us run past before he places it again. It'll be easier to teleport to Hell than to run through the mountains. I suggest, once we get across the border, to teleport to Hell, just a few meters from our designated area." He explained. I nodded, reaching up to pull the goggles down over my eyes. Lucifer and Ambrosius did the same.

"Then I say we get to it." I said, bringing my mask up over my nose and mouth. The other nodded. We teleported from our spot in the group out to the mountains that towered around Duat and Hell. They were a dark foreboding group of shadows towering over us, blocking out the suns and making it darker. We moved along the narrow path that broke off the main path, leading to the border.

"Hey," Ambrosius said from beside me, making me frown and glance at him as he walked beside me, "I told dad to watch Nikias in the control room to make sure he doesn't do anything dumb. He'll be watching Ayo too." I cocked my head at that.

"Good. That's a load off my shoulders." I admitted honestly. Ambrosius nodded. We moved further down the path, then slowed to see a large horde of Titan soldiers just on the other side of the mountains, having set up camp with small fires still spewing smoke into the air. I followed the trails to the skies, frowning slowly at the sight of thick black clouds moving in the distance from Inferi into Hell. That cloud cover better hurry its ass up.

"Are you all in position?" Seth's voice crackled over the speaker in my ear.

"Yes. Hurry up." I commanded. There was an annoyed scoff before the air shuddered for a split second before we took off running past the border. The moment we felt the shift in the blistering heat to Hell's moderate temperature, we teleported directly off the path and across Hell to the other side. We appeared dangerously close to where the soldiers were standing guard just in front of the entrance. We stayed low behind the rocks that ran the length of the inner shoreline.