Extra's Death: I Am the Son of Hades novel Chapter 599

The atmosphere inside was thick with an odd pressure. It felt as though the place was filled with life.

The deeper they went, the more certain he became.

Life pulsed faintly in the stone around them.

The tunnel eventually widened into a vast cavern.

Before them stretched a city buried beneath the mountain, so vast that its edges were lost in the dim light.

The structures below were massive, built with hard lines and dark materials. Towers stood like watchful giants, and bridges connected them in networks overhead.

But it wasn't the architecture that caught Nameless Death's attention.

It was the statues.

They were everywhere.

Lining the streets, standing at forges, perched atop balconies.

Enormous figures, all frozen mid-movement.

Each one had broad shoulders, thick limbs, and heavy torsos.

They looked like a dwarf human who was increased in size, but the proportions were kept the same.

"What are they?" Nameless Death asked.

"Dwarves," Zagreus replied as they walked.

"I thought the dwarves were supposed to be short?"

"They had proportions of a short person."

Nameless Death frowned as he looked around the place with his Intent gaze.

The place felt wrong to him.

These statues lacked Intent of Existence. It was something that everyone had, even a corpse, and non-living objects.

Normally, a person's Intent of Existence was hidden by the energy they had cultivated. So the higher rank a person had, the harder was it to peek into their Intent of Existence.

Conversely, it was easier to check the Intent of Existence of objects without energy.

The more Nameless Death looked around, the more he felt something was wrong.

The statues were unsettlingly detailed.

They weren't chipped or worn. It was like time had simply stopped around them.

Some held walking through the roads. Others were talking or laughing. Or they were supposed to be.

Nameless Death and Zagreus walked across a high bridge that curved into the heart of the city.

Below them, he could see statues frozen mid-speech, others gathered in what looked like market areas. The city hadn't died in battle. It had just... halted.

Nameless Death stopped suddenly and turned to look at the statues inside a smithy.

It was gripping a hammer with both hands, mid-swing, mouth open like it had been shouting.

He stared at it for a long moment.

"Something wrong?" Zagreus turned to him.

"I felt like it looked at me."

"You sure you didn't snort something weird on the way in? That thing hasn't moved in eons. None of them have."

Nameless Death didn't respond.

He wasn't sure himself. Maybe it was just the energy of the place playing tricks. Or maybe not.

They continued forward.

As they neared the center of the city, the buildings grew larger. The roads widened. Stone gave way to metal. Pipes lined the walls and ceilings, some still faintly warm to the touch.

At the heart of the city stood a towering fortress.

Its outer gates were sealed shut with layers of runic metal and thick stone. The structure looked less like a castle, and more like a machine built for war and survival.

Zagreus pointed at it.

"That's the High Forge."