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Currently, I had 203 Fusion Points. That was almost halfway to Level 3, but I didn't feel like I needed to rush to earn points and reach the next level as quickly as possible.
Gaining new skills was nice, but I hadn't even properly explored the skills I gained at Level 2 yet.
Besides, the mystery surrounding the House of Hades still remained. Skelly told me that he had explored several rooms in Tartarus until he found Cerberus.
That meant that possibly the entire Underworld of Hades had been brought into this universe. If the Underworld, Skelly, and Cerberus were here, it was logical to assume that my father Hades, my mother Persephone, Nyx, and the others could also be here.
And if they were, I needed to find them, whether they were somewhere in the Underworld or not.
To begin this search, I needed to follow the natural path of the Underworld, checking room by room while evolving my Stygian Flame and other abilities.
So, I returned to the House of Hades.
As soon as I left the pool and arrived in the main hall, I found Cerberus resting in his usual place.
I approached him calmly, knowing that he always reacted well when I did so.
"Hey, kid. Good to see you still have a comfortable place to rest in this chaotic place."
Cerberus raised one of his heads and tilted it toward me. I ran my hand through the thick red fur on his central head, and he purred—or something close to it, considering his size. It was a deep sound.
After a few seconds there, I moved to the right. That's when I heard noises coming from the kitchen. As I pushed the door open, I saw Skelly, as usual, up to something. His head was almost entirely inside one of the shelves, rummaging through pots and cans.
"You're not stealing anything in there, are you, Skelly?" I teased, leaning against the door with my arms crossed.
He turned quickly, a half-eaten roasted chicken leg in his hand. "Me? Stealing? Of course not! Just... testing the quality of the groceries, boss. It's not my style to touch other people's things without permission, you know that."
I shook my head, laughing softly. "I'm just kidding with you, Skelly. Eat as much as you want, but don't forget to feed Cerberus."
I turned around to enter my bedroom, which was literally across from the kitchen door.
"Hey, boss, just to let you know... your room is..." Skelly tried to say something as I walked toward my room, but he stopped mid-sentence. "Ah, never mind. You'll see."
When I got to my room and opened the door, I saw that the place had been completely ransacked.
My things were scattered on the floor, the bed was leaning against the wall as if it had been ripped from its place, and most importantly: the Night Mirror was gone.
I sighed deeply. It wasn't just because of the mess, but because of the meaning of that mirror.
I still had hopes of using it to evolve some skills without having to reach the next level. Now that option was gone.
"All right, there's no use complaining about what's already happened," I muttered to myself as I crossed the room and opened the back doors leading to the courtyard.
Skelly was already there, waiting for me. "So, boss, off to Tartarus again, huh? You better be careful."
I stopped walking. "Careful? Why?"
"The monsters are stronger and more aggressive lately. Something is definitely wrong down there."
He looked serious, which was rare. But that only made me feel more determined.
I held my hands out to the sides and summoned the Twin Fists. The gauntlets, which looked more like two boxing gloves, were like old friends to me.
"Thanks for the warning, Skelly. But you know how it is here in the Underworld. I can die as many times as I need to." I smiled confidently, adjusting the weight of the gauntlets as I leaped toward the entrance to Tartarus.
The fall seemed endless, the wind hitting my face as I descended. When I finally hit the ground, a pair of Numbskulls and a Skullomat were already waiting for me.
Both looked like aged, yellowed skulls, the Skullomat being an amalgamation of Numbskulls.
The bright red eyes of one Numbskull fixed on me, and it took a few steps back before dashing toward me.
"Perfect. This is going to be fun."
I dodged the Numbskull's charge and split it in half with a right punch.
The other came toward me, but I dodged its charge with a dash and attacked it with full force. The blow from the Twin Fists turned it into pieces of skull.
They were the monsters from the first room, so they were expected to be pretty weak.
But a Skullomat nest was no joke, as it functioned as a generator for Numbskulls. If it wasn't quickly destroyed, this room would soon fill with them.
The proof of this was that while I was fighting those first two Numbskulls, another emerged from the Skullomat.
"Time to move fast," I muttered, then raised my right hand.
My left hand glowed red, and I threw a Bloodstone directly at the floating skull. The crystal, which looked like a Plumbob from The Sims but completely red, flew through the air like an arrow and embedded itself in the center of the Numbskull's forehead.
The impact was enough to shatter the Numbskull into a cloud of bones.
As its remains fell to the ground, I advanced toward the Skullomat, deftly dodging two more newly generated Numbskulls that leaped to intercept me.
A quick blow with my right hand destroyed the first, while a spinning motion with my left crushed the second.
Now I was face to face with the nest.
Taking advantage of the momentum, I unintentionally activated a skill called "Rush Delivery," which only triggered when I was sprinting. In seconds, I unleashed a devastating combo of blows that reduced the Skullomat to pieces.
"That was pretty easy," I said, smiling cheerfully.
A mechanical sound came from in front of me, and I looked at the door at the end of the hallway, which now appeared to be open.
"Next room," I declared aloud.
Adjusting my posture, I walked toward the portal ahead but suddenly remembered the remains of the Numbskulls and the Skullomat.
They weren't very conscious creatures of the Underworld, but they still had souls. Did that mean I could use Stygian Flame on them? I decided to test it out.
[Stygian Flame consumed 5 Numbskull Corpses.]
[5 EXP obtained.]
It was only 5 EXP—five times less than I got when I killed that Stray Devil. However, they were just Numbskulls, and they were generated almost infinitely by Skullomats.
They were also the weakest monsters in Tartarus and, consequently, in the Underworld. How much EXP would I gain when I consumed the corpse of the Bone Hydra?
Thinking about it made me eager to get to the last room of Asphodel as quickly as possible.
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