Extra's Death: I Am the Son of Hades novel Chapter 563

The woman studied willpower the same way a smith examined metals.

In her eyes, most people's willpower looked like a ball of gas.

It was light, ever shifting, and easy to take apart. All it took was a tug—a little fear, a little despair—and it would drift apart like smoke.

She didn't even need to try hard.

Then, she would absorb their willpower to strengthen her own.

Demigods, Gods, Planets.

She had taken willpower from all sorts of being.

Some resisted better than others.

Their willpower didn't scatter so easily.

It wasn't a gaseous sphere but something heavier – a clay.

The sphere of clay would be thick, packed, molded by their life experiences and beliefs.

Still, she could dig her fingers in, squeeze out bits of their resolve, and slowly break them apart. It just took more effort.

The woman had lived billions of years living a life like that.

She had reached a realm where her willpower was at the tipping point.

Now, she didn't need quantity, but quality.

She needed a willpower that was different from anyone elses.

If she could absorb it, becoming a Heavenbreaker would no longer be a dream.

'Huuuh…'

'This is it.'

'I can get it from him.'

Nameless Death.

She stared at his willpower. It was no sphere of gas, or clay.

What floated before her was a perfect sphere, cold and shining like a diamond.

It was flawless, and immovable.

Her fingers couldn't squeeze into it. Her influence couldn't stain it. No amount of despair or grief could make a dent.

At first, she found it fascinating.

Then irritating.

And then, maddening.

He stood in front of her, eyes hollow from the weight of what he'd endured, and still he didn't break.

His posture trembled, but his gaze didn't falter.

She, and the Sovereigns, poured nightmare after nightmare into his soul. He should've bent after a few hours, or perhaps a few days.

But he had lasted centuries.

And he still stood.

The Sovereigns of Seven Emotions, wrapped in shifting veils of color and voice, laughed in frustration.

"No matter how strong your willpower is," they whispered, circling him, "it will break sooner or later. All things do."

Nameless Death didn't respond.

That was part of what made it worse. Not the words he said, but the silence. It wasn't defiant. It wasn't peaceful.

It was stubborn.

It was an unmoving mountain in the middle of a storm.

So they changed their methods.

They stopped trying to overwhelm him with raw despair. Instead, they rewrote the torment.

Each time he fell asleep—or was forced into unconsciousness—he woke up in a new life. With no memory of who he truly was.

A coward in a doomed village.

A knight with a broken oath.

A king betrayed by his people.

A warrior fighting a war he could never win.

A scholar trying to save a dying world.

A lover torn from the arms of someone he would never see again.

Each version of him had its own story.

None of them remembered the past iterations.

But each one ended in ruin.

And every time, when that persona collapsed, his soul was dragged back into the core of the prison. Each time, it was cracked a little more, tired a little more. Then forced into another life.

Those lives weren't nightmares.

They were reality.