Darren’s boots sank slightly into the sand as he finally neared the shores of the silver waters. The ground beneath him burned with residual heat, red grains clinging stubbornly to his soles, but his attention was fixed entirely on the waters ahead. They were nothing like the seas of Nozar, nor any of the vast oceans of Hiraeth for that matter. It was silver and opaque, its surface looked almost solid, as though the liquid possessed a resistance beyond reason. Light did not reflect from it so much as disappear into it, swallowed whole by the dull sheen. Darren felt a chill crawl up his spine as he stared at it, a quiet understanding that falling into those waters would not end in drowning alone.

  The shoreline itself was barren. No spirits lingered here, much to Darren's surprise.

  Anchored near the shore loomed the Ferry of the Dead, and he slowed despite himself, his gaze traveling over the monstrous vessel. It dwarfed the Hydra he had fought earlier, its sheer bulk casting a long, oppressive shadow across the sands. The ship looked ancient. The man would have believed it if someone had told him it was older than memory itself.

  Sheets of mismatched metal had been nailed haphazardly to its hull, overlapping in places, warped in others, as though repairs had been made across countless eras with whatever materials were available at the time. It looked less like a ship and more like something forcibly held together by stubborn pride alone.

  Its machinery was exposed along the sides, a tangled mess of pipes, pistons, and turning mechanisms that hummed faintly with life. Nothing about it suggested comfort or elegance. This was not a vessel meant to impress, nor one designed for the living.

  It was functional in the bleakest sense of the word.

  Darren got the impression that the ferry did not care who stepped aboard, only that it would complete its task all the same.

  As he continued forward, the heat of the sands blistering, Darren finally noticed him.

  He was seated casually as though he had been waiting for quite a while now. A familiar flicker of light appeared in the corner of Darren's vision as the System acknowledged the figure in the distance. The screen that appeared was not flashing red like so many times before, where it had warned him to take caution.

  Instead, it glowed with a muted beige.

  // Charon, Ferryman of the Dead

  // Threat Level: S Rank [ General Level 347490 ]

  Darren stopped.

  The Ferryman’s General Level towered over his own by an absurd margin. But it did not scare him. If anything, it brought about a quiet sense of confirmation. Of course it would be that high.

  Because this was no man at all.

  This was a god.

  The Ferryman's arms were massive—unnaturally so—thick cords of muscle stretching beneath pale skin, utterly disproportionate to the rest of his body. They looked capable of crushing bone and armor alike with casual ease. Darren had no doubt that if those hands ever closed around him, a fight between them would end before it truly began.

  Charon was bare-chested, his sailor’s uniform knotted loosely around his waist, worn and faded from untold years of use. Between his fingers rested a thick cigar, golden smoke curling lazily into the air. The scent of it was sickly sweet, cloying in a way that turned his stomach, forcing him to suppress the urge to gag. It didn’t smell like any tobacco he recognized, another reminder that he was far familiar lands.

  Still, despite knowing that the Ferryman was another one of those immortals, Charon looked mostly human.

  He sat atop a wooden barrel, posture relaxed and at the same time, knowingly amused as he exhaled another slow plume of smoke before speaking.

  “You sure know how to put on a show, I’ll give you that,” Charon remarked, lips curling into a grin. “Darren Ittriki, I presume?"

  The Ferryman must have seen his fight with the Hydra.

  A show wasn't how Darren would have described it.

  "It's not surprising that you defeated that abomination. I heard you gave Thanatos quite a beating when he pulled your soul out from the River Styx."

  Darren still hadn’t found his voice when the silence stretched a moment too long. Charon's grin faded just enough for irritation to seep through.

  “What? Never seen a Daemon before?” the Ferryman snapped, a trace of hostility appearing in his tone.

  Darren blinked, thrown off not by the sudden aggression, but by the word itself.

  A Daemon.

  His confusion must have been obvious, because Charon studied his face for a second longer before letting out a slow breath. The edge in his posture eased, if only slightly.

  “I'm a Minor God,” Charon clarified, rolling the cigar between his fingers. “Don’t get it twisted. I may be an immortal but I’m a nobody compared to our patron.”

  He glanced toward the silver waters of the Styx, then back at Darren.

  “Hades sent word of your arrival hours ago. I’ve been expecting you.”

  Darren expected as much.

  “But we must make haste,” Charon continued, pushing himself up from the barrel. “Won’t be long before the souls start arriving at the Gates of the Underworld. Cerberus won’t be pleased if I’m late. He’s expecting treats.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  The casual way he spoke about it—souls, the gates, the three-headed guardian of the dead—made Darren’s head spin. He took a step back on instinct as Charon fully stood, the size of the Ferryman becoming more apparent now that he wasn’t seated.

  The immortal was perhaps as large as his father had been, a giant compared to men, but shorter than Death.

  As Charon moved, Darren noticed the Ferryman had a limp. It was subtle, a slight hitch in his step, but it was there.

  “What makes you a Minor God compared to the King of the Underworld?” Darren asked, the question slipping out before he could stop himself.

  Charon didn’t answer right away.

  Instead, the immortal closed his eyes.

  The air shifted.

  Darren felt a pressure, immense and sudden.

  Magical energy surged outward as Charon raised one massive hand and extended it toward the ferry. The response was immediate. Metal screamed as it tore free from the hull, sheets ripping themselves loose with violent force.

  Darren tensed.

  They twisted midair, bending and folding as though guided by an invisible will, reforming into a a staricase that stretched from the shore to the deck of the Ferry of the Dead. Only once the construct settled into place did Charon open his eyes once again.

  “Power,” the Daemon answered simply. “That’s usually the deciding factor for anything of importance, isn’t it?”

  “Ain’t that the bloodydamn truth,” Darren muttered under his breath.

  The Ferryman heard him anyway. A grin spread across Charon’s face, genuine this time, and he jerked his head toward the metal path. Darren didn’t hesitate. The moment both of them stepped onto the construct, it shuddered and then began to move of its own accord. The metal flowed like liquid steel, shifting and lifting them upward without either of them needing to take another step. Darren felt the faintest tug beneath his feet as the pathway carried them toward the top of the deck effortlessly.

  How convenient.

  The ship groaned softly around them, its patched hull and exposed machinery suddenly seeming less shoddy and more…obedient.

  Darren glanced at the Ferryman as they made their way up to the ship.

  Was Charon holding this entire ship together by sheer will alone?

  The idea didn’t seem far-fetched. If this was the power of a Minor God, Darren found himself wondering what someone like the King of the Underworld could possibly be capable of.

  Throughout it all, the System remained silent. Merlyn had no warnings or commentary to give, just when the man had just begun getting used to the machine's voice.

  The System's quiet absence only sharpened his awareness, reminding him why he was here in the first place.

  There were Mission Objectives he needed to complete.

  “Hades told me that you have the Package, and the instructions I need to deliver it,” Darren finally said once they made it on deck.

  The floor beneath his boots was stark and utilitarian, a wide expanse of scarred metal plates welded together with little care for symmetry. There weren't even railings to grab onto. It was crude but Darren could tell at a glance that this single open deck alone could accommodate thousands of souls at once, packed shoulder to shoulder if needed.

  “I do have your package. With me now, Darren,” Charon grunted.

  The Ferryman had already stepped onto another loose sheet of metal embedded into the deck. It didn’t look any different from the others, but the way he gestured made it clear that this was no coincidence.

  Darren hesitated only briefly before following, stepping onto it.

  The second that both of them had found their footing on it, the metal plate lurched violently. Darren barely had time to brace himself before the platform surged forward, shooting downward and into the body of the ship.

  Wind tore past him as the construct accelerated, and he instinctively crouched, lowering his center of gravity to avoid being thrown off entirely. The sheet of metal behaved like a living being, bending and angling itself as it raced through the Ferry’s interior.

  They passed long stretches of hallways in blurs of shadow and dim light.

  Darren caught fleeting impressions of the Ferry, seeing intersections branching endlessly, corridors stacked upon corridors disappearing into the depths of the vessel. Judging by the sheer scale of what he glimpsed, there could easily be hundreds of decks layered within the Ferry of the Dead.

  It was like a labyrinth.

  Without a guide, it would be impossibly easy to become lost forever within the ship.

  Small glass windows flashed by as they descended and Darren forced himself to glance through them.

  Charon had not been lying when he said there was no time to waste.

  Once they had boarded the ship, the Ferry of the Dead had set sail.

  And boy, did it sail fast.

  It took Darren a while to realize that it was cutting through the silver waters of the Styx with alarming speed, without any of the resistance that he had assumed would be present when traveling through this silver bodice of liquid. It was like the River itself parted willingly for the vessel.

  He tilted his head back as a sudden flash of light bloomed before his eyes, a screen appearing to notify him of something.

  // Exiting the Outer Regions of the Underworld.

  Darren nodded, acknowledging it silently.

  He straightened as the platform finally slowed, the violent rush easing until it came to a smooth, controlled stop.

  They stood before a door unlike any they had passed.

  This one was sealed by a massive wheel mechanism, thick spokes locking it shut.

  As they approached, the wheel began to turn as Charon stretched out his hand once more, grinding loudly as it unwound. Each rotation sent a shudder through the floor. Thin cracks formed along the edges of the door, and from them seeped white fog that rolled outward in heavy waves.

  The temperature dropped instantly.

  Darren felt the cold bite at his skin, a stark contrast from the heat he had experienced within the Underworld, stealing the warmth from the air itself.

  “This is the Package that you shall be delivering, Darren,” the Ferryman declared.

  The door swung open slowly.

  The fog thickened, spilling into the hallway, and Darren’s eyes widened as the contents of the chamber were revealed. At the center of the room stood a block of ice, pristine and unnaturally clear. Intricate patterns of frost spiraled across its surface, magic woven so densely into it that Darren could feel its presence humming in the air.

  He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw what had been frozen within that ice.

  The Package wasn’t an object.

  It was a person.

  Encased within was a woman, suspended and unmoving. Her expression was calm with her eyes closed, she looked almost peaceful, frozen mid-breath.

  Whatever magic bound her there was not meant to kill, only to preserve.

  “I present to you,” Charon whispered, his voice echoing softly in the cold chamber, “the Wicked Witch of Humanity…Marianne Elarion herself.”