Every person in their lifeti must have imagined having tea in surreal surroundings with a beautiful woman.
Yeah, and right now I was in that imagination.
A woman who defied gravity solely by her being sat opposite , sipping on tea from a crimson cup.
Her hair was starlight-white, her violet eyes the kind poets would happily drown in and the chair she sat on looked like it had been carved out of a cloud.
Being poetic when you’re sitting in front of a god is just a side effect.
I wasn’t admiring her.
Not really.
Admiration is for fools who forget the monster behind the mask.
For a mont, I almost forgot who I was looking at.
Because beneath the beauty, beneath the gravity-defying chest was a smug bastard who had taken Morvana’s face just to screw with .
And that steaming cup of tea?
Yeah, I wasn’t stupid enough to think it was just tea.
I didn’t reach for the cup.
Not yet.
Instead, I let my fingers hover just above it as if I was checking the temperature.
In truth, I was weighing the odds.
In my experience, nothing good cos from drinking what a cosmic prankster offers you.
I didn’t think for a mont this was ant to kill .
I an, for all the glory I had... I wasn’t yet at a level where a god would have to resort to such a cheap trick to kill .
No, if the Trickster wanted gone, he would probably just snap his fingers.
Which ant this tea was sothing else.
Sothing worse.
A test, maybe.
Across from , his lips curved into a smile too soft to be anything but a threat.
"Aren’t you going to drink?" He asked.
I smiled back, matching her tone. "Ladies first."
In the first place... what the hell even was the Trickster?
Was he male? Female? Both? Neither?
I never really bothered asking before. I was too busy not dying, you know?
I an, the first ti I saw him, he was wearing Razek’s skin, broad shoulders, smug grin and the whole macho villain starter pack.
So I thought, okay, he is definitely male.
But now? Now he was Morvana.
All soft curves, violet eyes, gravity-defying chest, sipping tea like he had been born to ruin n’s self-control.
And he wore it well.
Too well.
Which made wonder, was there even a "real" Trickster?
Or was he just that good at shifting masks?
"So, what is this ’tea’?" I asked without reservation.
Calling it tea felt like an insult to the whole noble tea-kind, if such a thing existed.
This wasn’t tea.
This was... pitch black liquid that had these little bubbles like an acidic swamp had tried to cosplay as a beverage.
The surface shimred oddly, too.
"If I were you, I would have definitely drunk that." He replied. "Afterall, it’s the authority of Hel... you scamd. Hahhahahahahahah"
"What the hell?"
What is Hel’s authority doing in this teacup?
So that’s why it was missing during my evolution.
...Great. Just great. Out of all the cosmic safes in existence, it ends up poured into a porcelain cup here.
"What do you an?" I asked, keeping my calm.
"Well, you did a foolish move back there," he said, smug smile deepening. "The scamming part was good, but you left so loopholes."
He leaned in just enough for the violet of his eyes to glow.
"Like, you should have made sure to be forgotten. And secondly, you should have never tried to covet her authority."
"I wasn’t coveting... I was just hoping it would have, you know, so cool effects." I shot back imdiately.
How could he even say I was trying to be greedy?
? Greedy?
That’s blasphemy.
I was a humble, benevolent man who only ever wanted what was rightfully mine... plus maybe a little extra.
That was definitely not greed.
Right?
"Yeah, I know what you were trying to do... after all, I was chilling in your soul the whole ti. Hahahahahahah!"
The laugh rang out but this ti it didn’t land like a joke.
This ti, it hollowed out my chest.
In my soul?
What the hell did that an?
"Don’t be so serious... even now we are in your soul."
"This domain, it’s yours, or to be more accurate, it will be yours in the future. I did so renovations to make it similar to my ho... but it could never imitate mine."
My throat went dry but the Trickster continued without a care.
"As for why you’re seeing ... when I was supposed to have died... it’s because this was my failsafe."
He took a small pause.
"I hid a small part of my soul to help you."
"This was my real gift. Because I knew... you would die while claiming the Card of Arcana."
Countless questions erupted in my mind.
Why didn’t the Heavenly Principles react back then?
Weren’t they supposed to protect mortals from God’s interference?
Then... why?
But questions weren’t all I had because I also got so answers.
Why wasn’t Hel able to see my lies?
Why couldn’t she peer through my soul?
How was I lying so flawlessly to a god when I should’ve been a shaking ss just to et their eyes?
It all made sense now.
The Trickster wasn’t just ddling.
The Trickster was inside.
Controlling it.
Still... the way he talked about my death as if he didn’t just guess but knew for sure, made my stomach twist.
So I asked.
"How did you know I was supposed to die?"
Yeah, I know. Dumb question.
Especially after finding out a cosmic clown’s been living rent-free inside my soul.
But what else could I do?
Every word out of his mouth was turning my reality inside-out and I was running out of jokes to hide behind.
Unlike Hel... at least with her I knew sothing. I had read about her in the novel and could guess at the moves.
This bastard was a complete unknown.
And more importantly...
He hadn’t asked about the Chalice or about how I knew the Primordial Spark.
That silence told sothing.
Sothing worse than any question.
He knew sothing about my origin.
Or worse... he knew sothing about the book.
But I wasn’t stupid enough to ntion it before I made sure of it.
"I will tell you everything before I vanish this ti," he said, voice serious for once. "And don’t worry... I won’t bug you again. I used all my remaining divinity to help you back then."
"But before that, drink that tea."
My eyes flicked to the cup.
"Didn’t you just say it was stupid to covet Hel’s authority?" I asked, genuinely curious.
He had just spent the last few minutes telling what an idiot I was for trying to evolve my Nexus while holding her authority...
...and now he was offering tea that supposedly held exactly that.
"This is her authority," he said at last, the mockery gone from his voice, "but I’ve burned it clean with my own power and purged every trace of her."
"So that, it won’t drag you down or tie you to her. It could clear your path of ascension..."
He paused, violet eyes narrowing just slightly.
"...or it could do nothing at all. Or worse."
His fingers tapped the porcelain once.
"It’s a gamble. I can’t predict what results it will have. So, choose by yourself."
The smile on his face deepened, but there was no humor in it now, only sothing like curiosity.
"Will you take this gamble or not?"
And then as if to nail the coffin shut, he added:
"If it’s because you can’t trust ..." His violet eyes sharpened. "Then I swear, on my Primordial Spark, that what I am saying is no lie."
Now that was an interesting oath.
I had heard of gods making oaths but never like this.
The Primordial Spark was sothing even gods hid, even in the face of death. Which ant there was sothing out there they feared more than dying.
So when the Trickster swore on it... it had to be real, right?
And yet the thought didn’t calm . It made my frown deepen.
Why was he helping so much?
What could he possibly want from ?
Why go to such lengths for a mortal like ?
Or maybe...
I hated the feeling of not knowing sothing. But screw it.
I grabbed the cup and drank like a bad dicine you choke down because you have no other choice.
If this kills , I’m haunting this bastard for eternity.
"Hahahaha..." The Trickster laughed softly. "Good job, drinking it."
I set the cup down.
I didn’t feel any changes but I could feel sothing happening... sothing I couldn’t quite point out.
The Trickster tried to say sothing but before he could, I interrupted him.
"Enough of that," I said, my voice low. "Answer ."
His borrowed violet eyes tilted in amusent.
"Answer you?"
"Why were you so sure about my death? Who are you really? And more importantly..." I leaned forward, eting his gaze. "Why the hell are you helping so much?"
He t my gaze as the smile on his face receded slowly.
"To understand everything... you need to know about HER. That bitch. That pretender who thought she could play god."
—
✨ Author’s Note ✨
If you’re enjoying the story, don’t forget to leave a comnt—it ans the world! Your GTs, Ps, and little gifts keep the magic alive and inspire to keep writing more. Thank you for being part of this journey!
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