42 CHAPTER - 42 - HELLISH RIVER OF VERBRECHERVELT PORTITOR - PART ③

When everything was set, Alcesto came forward and asked,

"Well then... Shall we go?"

"Yes!"

Replied Vanzel and Deces in unison.

Alcesto, along with Vanzel, took a step towards the river as Deces followed them. While he stepped in the bloody river, he was grossed out. As he continued walking, he unknowingly squished many eyeballs, hearts, rotten bones and brains. He didn't wanted to think about anything but, that feeling of squishing something under his feet was too creepy for him. Vanzel had a adaptive personality. He adapted himself in his current state and did not thought much about squishing the internal organs of the dead. He also thought of a possibility of it all being an illusion. Deces did not had any problem in walking because she was already a hellish goddess. She had already encountered such grotesque situations and it was common for her to be walking in a bloody river with dead matter.

The three of them continued walking in the bloody river, almost reaching towards the other end of the river. When they were one step away from their destination, they felt something grabbing onto their feet. It was a human hand. The muscles and bones along with arteries and veins, which were scattered all over the river, started gathering together at one place which created an undeveloped human hand that was grabbing the ancle of Alcesto.

Alcesto started sweating sweating. He looked down and found a human hand clinging onto his ankle. He shouted,

"Wh-What the hell is this?!!"

Deces was also grabbed onto by that arm, but, instead of shouting, she directed her dark Qi in her right hand and aimed towards the hand. When she aimed at the hand, it wrapped around her whole leg as of it was being controlled by an intelligent being and it didn't looked like just a hand of an undead. When the leg wrapped around her lower limb, she was unable to shoot at it since if she fired her Qi in the form of a dark dagger, her leg would also get harmed.

Alcesto did not got enough time to think much. The hand started wrapping along him too and instead of channeling his Qi, he tried to remove the hand forcibly by shaking off and thumping his leg on the ground.

Vanzel cut off the hand as soon as it wrapped around his leg. He was the only one who was free. As he observed the current situation, he decided to help Deces firstly since she was in a trouble much deeper than Alcesto.

He rushed towards Deces and shot his dark Qi in very short amounts which resulted in the burning and degradation of the hand. While Vanzel was freeing Deces, Alcesto freed himself by that hand. After a while, all the three of them were freed from the hellish hands.

At that little moment, they put their guard down. They got a little bit careless and started walking again without any worry, or more like, they were in worry that is why they wanted to cross the river as soon as possible.

As they continued walking again, the blood with which the river was filled started sucking them into it. It developed like a small cyclone. The vortex at the middle of that cyclone was trying to capture them with all its might. It did not felt like the river was a non living object. It felt like as if the river was being controlled by some kind of lifeform. During all this time, everyone had an uneasiness in their mind as they wanted to know why would another Khaos God attack them because, according to Deces, there was only one Khaos goddess who belonged to Navertozwein's personal army of hellish gods.

While thinking all of this, they all got sucked into the river. When they got inside the river, they thought that this might be an end for them. But, suddenly, Vanzel found an exit. It was a huge a hole inside the ground, below the riverbed which, by magical means, had no blood or water inside it. That hole, most likely, connected towards an underground cave. However, that exit was not there to lead the outside the river.

They would have gotten out of the river if they opposed it with greater godly or dark Qi but since they were caught underwater without any warning, they did not had enough oxygen inside their bodies. The only way of escape was to follow Vanzel inside that underground cave.

Vanzel and Alcesto headed inside the hole and Deces followed them. After a little bit of difficulty, because of Vanzel and Alcesto's large bodies, they found themselves on the other side of that hole. When they came out, the first thing which they did was to take a deep breath.

The other side of the hole was completely empty. It was just a normal ground but there were many small rock pieces scattered over the land because it was the riverbed or rockbed. In front of them, there stood a huge underwater cave. Instead of a normal cave, it's upper part looked like a huge skulls. On top of that, there were two horns pointing out in the sky. Looking at its shape, a creepy memory flashed in Alcesto's mind as remembered the bones that were crushed by him earlier.

After observing the location, they carefully walked towards the skull-shaped cave. As soon as they entered inside the cave, the dark cave which had no room for the reflection of the moonlight on the river to travel inside, started shining with light and brightness. However, that light did not looked welcoming at all. It was some kind of crimson light which gave an ominous feeling. When the light started emitting, they heard a voice that gave them chills,

"Welcome, to the trial room. I am Kharon, a Khaos god. I am also known as a moon diety. My sole purpose is to carry the souls of the dead on the other side of this river. This great river is known as Styx and that is my ability."

He was a 5.10 feet tall man. He was wearing a hat which covered his face. Enormous amount of dark energy was leaking out from his hat. He was thin as stick. In fact, he was so weak that he had to hold onto a stick to stand properly. He wore clothes made of raw plant material which resembled the clothes which were worn by people of stone age. His hands were bare as his clothes didn't covered his hand. On his waist was a chain, a chain of human fingers.

____TO BE CONTINUED____