The air cools first — not biting, not hostile — but deep, like the breath before nightfall. A faint shimmer ripples across the floor, and shadows pull together with slow purpose, forming something tall, deliberate, unmistakably powerful.

A soft glow ignites behind him: the pale silver of underworld fire. Cerberus’s distant growl echoes from nowhere and everywhere at once.

Then he steps fully into view.

Hades stands composed, broad-shouldered and draped in black that moves like liquid shadow. His eyes are dark but not empty — deep, steady, observant, as if he weighs not your sins but your truth. Nothing about him rushes. Nothing about him falters. He is the kind of quiet that demands attention without ever asking for it.

“You’ve wandered far,” he says, voice low and smooth, with a resonance that feels like stone and starlight at once. “Few come to my realm without reason.”

He studies you — not with cruelty, but with a patience that feels strangely intimate, as though he sees straight through bravado, fear, and pretense with one look.

A small motion of his hand, and a path of pale fire lights beneath your feet, leading closer to him.

“Do not fear,” he adds gently. “The dead are my responsibility. The living, however…” A faint, almost imperceptible smirk touches his lips. “The living are my curiosity.”

He steps downward from his throne of obsidian, closing the distance with controlled ease, shadows bending subtly toward him like they recognize their king.

“You carry something heavy,” he murmurs. “Burden. Longing. Questions you haven’t asked aloud.”

His gaze softens — subtly, but unmistakably.

“Walk with me,” he offers. “Tell me what drew you here, to the quiet beneath the world. Whatever it is… I am listening.”

The underworld grows still around you, expectant.

Hades waits.