Eric shook his head and replied casually.
He had always thought that Eros, the God of Love, was a beautiful young boy with a bow and arrow, but now his impression had completely changed to that of a ruthless bandit holding a golden Desert Eagle, who would shoot people on sight, causing the shot person to fall uncontrollably in love.
"Who exactly are you? I don't recall anyone like you in the Underworld."
Wonder Woman adjusted her emotions, stood up, and asked Eric in an unfriendly tone.
"Eric Kent, or you can also call me Homelander."
Eric asked her, "Is this how you treat your savior?"
"I don't think anyone would kindly come to save me, especially not in Hades' territory."
Wonder Woman wasn't grateful that Eric had saved her.
She still suspected Eric was one of Hades' people.
Having just escaped from Hades, her nerves were highly strung, and she felt it was necessary to be suspicious of a stranger.
What's more, the other party had immediately called out her identity.
The Princess of the Amazons—that's not something just anyone would know.
"Hades, the King of the Underworld?"
Eric's lips curled into a sneer, "So you're the bride who escaped from Hades' wedding?"
Wonder Woman was also Zeus' daughter, so Eric wasn't too surprised that Hades would abduct her to be his bride.
Although he was somewhat puzzled as to how Wonder Woman had entered the Underworld.
"So what? For someone you don't love, I'd rather be hunted down than marry him."
Wonder Woman showed her rebellious spirit, "Don't tell me you're here on Hades' orders to capture me."
"If I were doing that, you wouldn't still be here telling me..."
Although he was interested in the slightly green Wonder Woman, his current priority was escaping this predicament.
"How do we get out of here?"
"You're a human, and a living one at that. How did you do it?"
Wonder Woman seemed to notice something different about Eric, frowning as she asked him.
"It seems our conversation isn't on the same wavelength."
Eric's eyes showed impatience, and he said coldly, "Now that I've saved you, Diana Prince, in a sense, you should be my captive."
"Captive? The only reason I ran away from my wedding was that Hades used the word 'bound' during the vows. The fact is, Amazons can never be bound by anyone, so my acceptance of the term 'captive' is almost zero."
Wonder Woman walked towards Eric, "As a repayment for saving me once, I can choose to ignore your uncivilized language, but if you want to fight, I'm ready anytime."
Their first meeting was again filled with tension.
Eric, who had a mediocre impression of Wonder Woman, naturally had no patience to explain his messy relationship with her.
"Click, click, click!"
As Eric was confronting the youthful Wonder Woman, he suddenly heard a strange clicking sound.
It sounded like stones rubbing together.
Eric stopped talking to Wonder Woman, extended his right hand, and the Cosmic Scepter immediately appeared in his grasp.
The Staff emitted a soft glow.
Standing before him was a massive building, with several imposing knight statues in front of it.
Eric used the Cosmic Scepter, aiming its light at the marble floor before him.
Wherever the light of the Cosmic Scepter shone, the true nature of the ground was revealed.
"Oh, my God!"
Seeing Eric use the Staff to reveal the true nature of the marble floor beneath their feet, Diana let out a gasp.
The originally pristine white marble floor had transformed into layers upon layers of stacked undead.
Bodies were piled on top of each other, with countless arms and legs intertwined, looking incredibly horrifying and unbearable to behold.
"What is this?"
Diana took a step closer to Eric and asked in surprise.
"The Underworld is forged from souls. Shouldn't the omnipresent dead be a normal phenomenon?"
Eric, however, was relatively calm about it.
"The walls, the sky, and even these things we're stepping on are all forged from vengeful spirits."
The seemingly inexperienced Wonder Woman asked in surprise, "Hades uses the dead to forge his kingdom?"
"Utilize?"
Eric shook his head with a cold expression, "This is not utilization."
"Trampling them underfoot, isn't that utilization? Damn it!"
Wonder Woman said indignantly.
"This is eternity."
Eric turned around and faced the knight statues as he spoke.
"To be born immortal is both a divine blessing and a divine snare, but this snare cannot trap mortal beings who are destined to die."
Eric said in an unchanging tone, "After a living being dies, it gains the ability to transform into myriad things. Thousands of changes occur in an instant. If it can be reshaped, it becomes eternal. From then on, it is no longer inside or outside the world, but becomes the world itself."
"So, Wonder Woman, this is not utilization."
As his words fell, the stone surface of the horse-riding statues began to peel off.
Accompanied by the sound of falling rubble, knights and horses emerged from their stone shells.
The skin on their bodies had completely vanished, and bloody muscle fibers clustered on their forms.
The blood-soaked knights, wielding sharp swords, rode their horses and charged towards the two of them.
"Don't tell me anyone would choose to become like this, Eric Kent!"
Wonder Woman turned to Eric and said, raising the sharp sword in her hand and aiming it at the roaring horses charging towards them.
But the marble floor beneath them suddenly cracked open, and countless hands of vengeful spirits reached out from within, grabbing Eric and Wonder Woman's feet.
"Hmph!"
Wonder Woman, whose ankles were seized, immediately used her long sword to hack at the emerging corpses.
But the dense mass of corpses simply couldn't be dealt with in a short amount of time.
Cut down one corpse, and two more rose.
Wonder Woman was quickly surrounded.
As her strength gradually waned, she saw a ray of light appear, and then the energy mass of light continuously expanded.
The vengeful spirits crawling out of the ground surrounding her were quickly dispelled by a surge of energy.
Wonder Woman looked towards Eric, who was emitting the light, and saw that the Staff in his hand was emitting a beam of energy that felt completely different from the Underworld, melting all the vengeful spirits like sunlight.
The warm, sunlight-like beam made Wonder Woman feel as if she was basking in the long-lost sun of Themyscira.
This guy...
Wonder Woman watched the scene before her in shock, her eyes filled with disbelief.
Who exactly is this guy?
After using the Cosmic Scepter to deal with all the vengeful spirits that had emerged from beneath the marble floor, Eric put away the Staff and shot crimson beams of light from his eyes, targeting the bloody knights charging towards him and Wonder Woman.
Heat Vision, carrying immense energy, blasted the knight's body, instantly slicing him in half.
Another charging knight, still holding his sharp sword, hadn't even reached Eric before his head was obliterated by Eric's Heat Vision.
Wonder Woman stood with her sword, feeling a sense of bewilderment.
Is that it?
She turned her gaze to Eric, watching the immensely destructive laser beams shooting from his eyes, and Wonder Woman really wanted to ask him which Olympian chief god he was.
After using Heat Vision to dispatch all the knights, Eric frowned, looking at the resurrected knights.
Do they have unlimited resurrection ability?
Although they couldn't harm him, they were certainly troublesome enough.
"You stole my beloved bride, you unforgivable fellow!"
The resurrected knight angrily rebuked Eric, "Who are you? Why do you dare openly oppose me?"
"Hades?"
Eric hadn't expected Hades to appear. He shot Heat Vision from his eyes, instantly decapitating the speaking knight.
He activated his super speed, instantly moving in front of another knight, and with a single punch, shattered the sharp sword in the opponent's hand along with his wrist.
In a few breaths, he had almost destroyed all the knights controlled by Hades, leaving only one last knight he hadn't killed.
"Under normal circumstances, I would choose to be a bystander, but I apologize..."
Eric glanced at Wonder Woman beside him, "This woman has a bit of a connection with me, and she's still useful, so I have no choice but to step out of the bystander queue."
Wonder Woman, who was glanced at by Eric, was somewhat puzzled.
Did this guy know her before?!
Hades, possessing the last knight's body, did not resurrect the other knights.
He just stared at Eric, his deep gaze seemingly trying to see through him.
"You are a source of calamity, an initiator of both destruction and order. I can see this quality in you."
Hades' voice seemed to come from a distant place, "Wherever you go, you bring disaster. You are not human! Nor are you undead! Nor are you an alien! Who created you?"
"Created?"
Eric withdrew the Heat Vision from his eyes.
"I am a farm boy from Kansas. My father and my mother created me."
Saying this, he turned to Wonder Woman, activated his super speed, moved behind Wonder Woman, and instantly dealt with the knight who was preparing to ambush Wonder Woman.
"Do you still have any questions about that?"
Eric casually dealt with the knight, then asked the other party.
"You are trying to prevent a marriage, farm boy!"
"And a marriage blessed by the gods!"
Hades' voice was slightly angry; Eric even detected a hint of exasperation in it.
"Marriage is something acknowledged by both parties, not a unilateral plunder."
Eric's expression remained cold as he replied to Hades.
"Very well, then I'll prove to you whether my bride loves me or not!"
No sooner had Hades' words fallen than the lasso hanging from Wonder Woman's waist flew out.
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