[This chapter includes intense and unsettling scenes involving violence and psychological horror. Reader discretion is advised.]
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"Hehehehheheheehheehheheheheheh…"
I looked around, searching for the source of the laughter and then I saw him.
A lean figure draped in a cloak that shadowed half his face, leaving only a smile visible, one that made my insides twist just from looking at it.
The body was shaped too strangely to tell whether it was male or female and even the voice echoing through the hall made it impossible to determine.
So, for convenience, I decided to refer to him as a he.
Definitely not because I was so anti-feminist but because that was the image he had carved into my mind during our first eting, when he had taken the appearance of Razek.
"Oh, my dear Eidolon… you seem troubled." He chuckled mid-sentence. "You wish for to save your child and eradicate this entire empire? Do you not think you are being a little greedy?"
Eidolon looked up at him with fierce eyes. Even from where I stood, I could feel the determination in them.
"I am ready to give everything for that to happen." He muttered.
"Hahahhahaahhahahahaha— and what would I do with your weak mortal existence, oh dear Eidolon?" The Trickster's mischievous voice echoed. "Even my beasts wouldn't care to devour that. So tell … what would I do with it?"
Eidolon bit his lip until it bled but he had no answer and only then did I understand why he hadn't summoned the Trickster earlier.
He hesitated because he wasn't certain whether paying such a cost, bearing such pressure, would even be worth it. The Trickster was not a being who helped without gaining sothing in return and from what I could see… unlike what Winter had claid, that the Trickster was repaying his father for so past contract, that clearly wasn't the case.
It seed even Winter never knew what had truly transpired here.
Which made sense because he had been lying lifeless just a short distance away.
Before Eidolon could respond, the Trickster spoke again.
"But fear not, Eidolon. Although your existence lacks any spark to interest … your son is different. I can sense countless paths stretching out from him and one of them… is quite intriguing."
He tilted his head slightly.
"So… I shall help you but even so, resurrection demands an equal price. Are you ready to die for the sake of your blind child?"
He chuckled again as if all of this were nothing more than a grand joke.
Eidolon nodded. "I do… If it ans the safety of my child, I am ready to die a thousand deaths."
The mont those words left his mouth, the Trickster burst into hysterical laughter. He bent backward mid-air as if he had heard sothing unbearably amusing.
"Emotions are useless shackles that bind you to idiocy." He said between laughs. "And yet… I am no different. I, too, am a fool, hoping for sothing useless, binding myself to the very sa chains of emotion."
With those words, he snapped his fingers.
The world which had been frozen until now resud its flow as the Emperor stared wide-eyed at the deity floating in the air as casually as a cat watching its prey.
Before he could even react, laughter erupted from every direction.
"Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah."
Even I was surprised and looked towards Trickster imdiately but it wasn't the Trickster laughing this ti. Instead, it was the people in the chamber.
They laughed fanatically, clawing at their own faces like madn as the Emperor's gaze darted around in horror before it stopped on a woman seated beside him on a throne.
The queen, most likely.
Her face was drenched in red, flesh torn open, bone faintly visible beneath ruined skin. Tears stread down her face in agony continuously but what made my stomach twist even more… was the boy seated on her lap.
The sa one I had seen earlier with arrogance and pride as he watched his father kill Winter.
Now he is dead.
His body lay limp in his mother's lap, her other hand still pierced through his neck. Though not on the Emperor's level, she seed to be the second strongest in the chamber and had sohow managed to kill her son before the corruption could fully take hold on her.
She hadn't killed her child out of brutality but out of protection and then, in her agony… She turned that sa hand upon herself before piercing her own neck as well.
Before collapsing, she gave the Emperor one final, sorrowful look.
I turned my head slightly as I heard similar screams erupting behind , near the massive window. Beyond it, the town mirrored the sa horror unfolding inside the hall.
People clawed at themselves in the streets.
The roads were painted crimson.
And the worst part, the Trickster hadn't even done anything. He had rely allowed a fragnt of his true presence to leak into the world and this was the result.
In the novel, I had read how gods could drive weak mortals insane just by being perceived but here, even the strong weren't spared even as they hadn't even looked at him.
His re presence had shattered them.
Fuck…
I had always known the Trickster was strong but this was the first ti I had truly seen what that ant.
anwhile, the Emperor still stood frozen, staring at the lifeless bodies of his wife and child with hollow eyes.
He alone hadn't been affected by the corruption, not because he was immune but because he had been deliberately spared.
At least… that was my understanding, as I noticed the Trickster watching him with open amusent as if waiting for him to do exactly what he wanted.
Tears stread down the Emperor's face as he looked up at the Trickster.
"You are… no deity.
You are a monster…"
He muttered as a blinding golden light erupted from his body. The palace ceiling shattered and collapsed, stone and debris crashing downward.
I remained unaffected as they passed without any problems but I saw how both Winter's and Eidolon's bodies were effortlessly protected by the Trickster, who still smiled like an idiot who had just gotten exactly what he wanted as he gazed up at the sky.
I followed his gaze and saw the scene beyond the shattered palace. Countless golden halos filled the sky. At least thousands of figures stood suspended in the sky, each cloaked in a radiant golden divine glow.
So it was true…
Gods really had descended at will in ancient tis.
I had read about it in the novel, of course but seeing it with my own eyes was sothing else entirely and if that army of thousands of Gods wasn't enough, behind them were… Countless lesser divine beings with white wings looked like ants as they spread across the sky.
I didn't know exact numbers but I felt it was definitely in the millions… or at the very least very close to that number.
I could feel the divinity pouring from them as well and I understood imdiately who they were.
Angels.
Or, as they were often called, the true kin of the Gods.
But even after seeing that overwhelming host, the being floating alone before them rely widened his smile.
"It seems it has indeed been too long… The world appears to have forgotten ."
His grin stretched further.
"I suppose it's ti to show them who I am."
"Hahahahahahahahaha—"
A wild laughter echoed across the heavens as the Battle of Gods began.
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