Underworld

“	The home of all death, the hell hidden deep within the spirit world, the witness of the decay of all living things, one that solely belongs to the kingdom of Death.	„
— Underworld's honorific name on Lord of Mysteries, Chapter 561

The Underworld was created by Phoenix Ancestor Gregrace and exists in the Spirit World.

According to Arrodes, "Her" divine kingdom the City of the Dead, later renamed Calderón City by an angel of Abraham Family, was also transferred there, and has gradually become a holy place for her descendants and believers. It was said that the city had a clue of the whereabouts of the River of Eternal Darkness left behind.

After the fall of Death, the Underworld underwent a change that caused disturbances and anomalies. This disturbance leaves most of the spirits unable to sense or enter it, forcing them to wander the real world. As a result, when sentient beings die, they are very likely to become undead, wraiths, or evil spirits. Orthodox Churches of the Northern Continent responded to this problem by sanction purification combined with compulsory cremation to prevent the dead emerging as undead creatures. Southern Continent citizens however, devised many different measures to quell the undead outbreaks. Balam Empire, home of many beyonders following the Death Pathway, swiftly devised several solutions without having to resort to mandatory cremation. As for the areas with waning faith in Death, like Highlands Kingdom, Paz Kingdom, and Haagenti, there was a period when undead plagued the area and created a power vacuum.

It is later revealed that after the reigning Death was deceased, one of the reasons for the original anomaly in the Underworld was the reanimation of the Phoenix Ancestor. It destroyed Death's palace, killed all of Death's Blessed present, and turned the depth of the Underworld into a Pale-White Nation. For a long time after the Underworld anomaly, the body of the Phoenix Ancestor still roamed the Pale-White Nation, keeping the high-ranked beings of the Death domain at bay. It has only fallen asleep in recent years.

As undead beings, Zombies and Wraiths can sense the presence of the Underworld before the fall of Death. After the anomaly occurred, they can only sense it if someone directly opens the door to the Underworld or is already from there. Otherwise, they can only sense it through certain traces.

Inside The Underworld

The Underworld is constructed by a seemingly bottomless pit with its edge being made up of many jumbled worlds that are layered atop each other, spiralling downwards the pit. According to The Knight of Swords, River Styx spans every layer of the Underworld.

In many notes of the Eggers Family, it is written that there are two ways to enter the depth of the Underworld. The first is to descend layer by layer through the worlds encircling The Styx, which are used to punish sinners, ultimately arriving at the realm where the Blessed of Death reside and where the Death's palace is. The second is to cross The Styx directly by being carried by the Ferryman. These seemingly contradictory methods of entering the depth stem from the fact that the geography of the Underworld doesn't completely align with the real world.

Within the Underworld, one can teleport but cannot teleport freely as it is considered as desecration of Death and attracts the punishment of the Underworld.

Pale-White Nation

Pale-White Nation refers to the depth of the Underworld where the Death's palace lays in ruin.

The exterior of the palace ruin is composed of clusters of palaces half-sunken into the void, with a majestic main hall, several high towers, and aerial corridors connecting them. Deeper into the palace complex, the structure seems to sink further into the void, with the only visibly towering structure in the core area being the main hall and its four attached spires, while those on the periphery stood solidly on a barren wilderness.

All things within this nation had their color faded into pale white, infusing the entire world with pallor and giving off dim light. The only things that still retain their colour are the gold embedded on the surfaces of the building and the black at the bottom of the palace complex, representing the void. This black colour originated from two sources: one is the silently falling illusory dark River Styx from above, cascading behind the main hall. The other is the corpse of the Phoenix Ancestor, Gregrace, which slept atop the grand main hall.

Aside from the corpse of Gregrace, there is an egg below the belly of the Phoenix Ancestor, and the corpses of the blessed of Death are also buried here. Among them were two giant serpents with feathered wings and hairy corpses, a bloated rotten giant, a humanoid mountain of white bones, and a woman with hair like thick snakes and her face being two-thirds decayed.

Mini-State Underworld

Mini-State Underworld is a rudimentary, localized version of the Underworld within the local spirit realm for spirits to return to. People of Raklev area established one such mini-state after the Underworld underwent an anomaly. They established this mini state with the help of former official of Balam Empire by utilizing their Gatekeeper ability to open the door to the Underworld and attach it into an Undying's skull from the Church of Death. This arrangement prevented the door from closing completely and allowing a bit of Underworld aura to leak out. The establishment of this small spirit realm is made possible by using the connection of Lake Dalsh within Raklev region with the fallen Death.

Mini-State Underworld allows the deceased to enter and rest there without emerging again. However, this is not the real Underworld. It cannot truly offer rest, nor can it completely bind the spirits. They can only gradually fade away.

Raklev's Skull Blessing annual ritual is a manifestation of the establishment of Mini-State Underworld. It is a day for spirits to emerge, revel, and be liberated. Keeping the skulls of loved ones at home is a way to protect the family from any spirits that might stray from the mini-state and causing harm.

Mini-State Underworld, as a place to return to, bears resemblances with the concept of Chaos Primogenitor Pathway's Paramita, except that mini-state offers the spirits no path for rebirth and can only let them fade away. Oxyto used this similarity to merge her Paramita with the corresponding local Mini-State Underworld, becoming a local version of Death.

See also

• Spirit World
• River of Eternal Darkness