Date: Unspecified
Ti: Unspecified
Location: Myriad Realms, Card World, Southern Region, Blossom District, Gideon Grim’s Camp
Now I understood how Gideon Grim could sell out his own native realm the mont he got the chance.
Now I understood why he never appeared in Clown Mask’s future vision, or in the card world’s history, until I dragged him into the light.
Because in the end, despite all his heinous and sickening cris, he was a fucking coward.
"What the fuck is he doing?" Corey asked, her enthusiasm to fight Gideon wavered seeing his current state.
Even I had a hard ti believing this was the sa Gideon Grim, once the most wanted man in the Card World. So I used my soul pupils on him and checked his soul pathways and arrangents. His soul pathways matched a strain of soul pathway I extracted from the soul pathways in the roots that his origin card’s ability implanted in his victims.
So yeah, it was him, Gideon Grim A.K.A Handso Fox, alright. The Card World’s first Devil rchant.
"He’s ignoring you," I remarked to Corey. "Go show him the price of underestimating you." I tried to push Corey into the fight, but Gideon didn’t even react, still repeating the sa thing over and over again expecting a different result like a mad man.
"Why are you singling out when you’re standing right next to ?" Corey shot back, not taking the bait. "For all we know, he might be looking down on you."
"Fine," I said with a shrug. "Let’s just agree he’s ignoring both of us. Now go kick his ass."
Corey still didn’t move.
"Didn’t you say you wanted to fight him?" I pressed. "He’s right in front of you. Go do your worst."
"No. I’ve lost all my fighting spirit," Corey said, her voice flat as she looked at Gideon. "Just look at him. He’s pathetic. I think he’s lost his marbles. I don’t want to be known for killing a ntally broken man. You go fight him."
A few minutes ago, she’d been ready to throw hands with just to get a shot at him. Now she wouldn’t even step forward.
"ntally broken?" I scoffed. "That bastard is responsible for multiple genocides across the Northern Region. We’d be the sinners if we let him walk."
I let that sit for a second before adding, "If you don’t want to do it, send Lil’ Baem. She’s always hungry. A demigod should keep her fed for a week or two."
Everything I said was backed by what my sinner squad had uncovered in the Northern Region. Only recently had they connected the dots, the disappearances, the frozen towns, the vanishing villages, up north, all of it had one person in common: Gideon Grim.
They had missed it the first ti because he never used the sa identity twice. Every village, every town, a new alias. A clean trail. Or at least, it had been until he grew confident of his strength and ans. Honestly, I’m surprised he wasn’t in cahoots with the demons much earlier.
"No way. What if Lil’ Baem goes insane after eating him?" Corey shot back, refusing to fight Gideon herself or let her pet snake do it.
"Fortunately, stupidity isn’t contagious. She’ll be fine," I said. "If she is not going to fight. Just call your Forsling Corpse Puppet card spirit and let her handle him."
I kept pushing. This wasn’t just about Gideon anymore. It was about Corey seeing this through. Where I co from, we finish what we start.
"Why are you pressing so hard?" Corey snapped. "If you want him dead, you kill him. I’m not fighting a ntally broken person, let alone kill one."
That... felt off. It wasn’t just refusal. It sounded like sothing else was leaking through. Now I was certain. On the surface, Corey seed normal after inheriting the mories of her past life. But underneath, she wasn’t. She was carrying the weight of it, the emotions, the guilt, the hesitation. This was concerning as she had already beco one with the darkness in her title demon core, so such lingering effects shouldn’t exist after she inherited her past life mories.
These lingering effects were subtle, but they were there. You could see them surface whenever she felt cornered or put on the spot. So I turned my soul pupils on her title demon core. What I saw was... concerning.
Her union with the core’s darkness had weakened. Not by much, just a few degrees, but enough to matter. She could no longer be considered fully one with her darkness.
And that wasn’t a small thing. It raised too many questions. What kind of mories had she inherited to undo that balance? Had sothing gone wrong while recalling her past life? Or was becoming one with the darkness never permanent to begin with but a temporary state that one needs to keep maintaining?
If the last one was true, it ant there was still a lot I didn’t understand about the darkness in artificial demon cores created from the pearls of the clampedo monsters.
I had thought her past life mories were helping Corey mature, giving her a deeper understanding of life through her previous reincarnation’s experience. But now it was clear she wasn’t just taking in the good. She was carrying the bad with it, and it was starting to show. And from the looks of it would only get worse unless we treated it.
"If you don’t want to fight and kill, then leave," I instructed no longer pressing Corey to finish what she asked for. "I’ll catch up once I’m done here. Go." I couldn’t execute Gideon in front of her after the resistance she’d shown about killing soone she saw as ntally broken.
"What about them?" Corey asked, pointing at the card apprentices lying asleep, all of them victims of Gideon Grim’s brainwashing.
"Don’t worry about them. I’ll handle it too," I replied. "Now go."
She hesitated for a mont, then nodded, saying, "I’ll wait outside."
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