"Tell everything you know about the Second Summoning."
As soon as the words left my mouth, Khione's icy blue eyes flickered with a deep, unreadable emotion. She remained silent for a mont, as if gathering her thoughts, before giving a slow nod.
"Before I speak about the Second Summoning, I must first tell you about the Demon King," she finally said, her voice steady but carrying an unmistakable weight.
I narrowed my eyes at her. "Are you sure about this?" I asked.
Khione's obsession—no, her unrelenting hatred—for the Demon King was sothing I had noticed long ago. It clouded her judgnt, dictated her decisions, and ultimately led her down the path of summoning heroes from another world. It wasn't re duty that drove her. It was personal. But for what reason exactly, I had never pried too deeply.
I had long known that she took the Demon King's threat more seriously than most gods did—and she was right to. A hundred years ago, that monstrous being had ignited a war that ravaged the world, and even now, his influence continued to cast a dark shadow over the land. Entire kingdoms feared his resurgence, their rulers trembling at the re possibility of his return.
But Khione's grudge ran deeper than history, deeper than re divine responsibility.
Of course, I could have forced her to tell everything before now. It wouldn't have been difficult. But back then, I simply hadn't cared enough to ask. And later… I decided to wait. I wanted to see when she would finally be ready to speak, to gather her thoughts, and reveal the truth on her own terms.
Now, at last, that ti had co.
Khione inhaled deeply, as if steeling herself for what she was about to say.
"I think you've probably heard that the Demon King wasn't always like this," she murmured.
I nodded.
Azariah had told that many tis—usually when she was feeling lost, or when sorrow weighed heavily on her.
She had spoken of the father she rembered, the father she once loved. A man who had been kind, compassionate even. But sothing… sothing had burrowed into him, sinking its claws deep into his soul. A foreign, insidious force that had consud him from the inside out, twisting him beyond recognition.
That thing—as Azariah always called it—was the true source of the Demon King's cruelty. Not him.
That thing had taken everything from her.
One by one, it had claid the lives of all her siblings, leaving only her and her blood sister, Ariah. The two of them, the last surviving children of the Demon King, had endured when the rest of their kin perished in the endless cycle of war and destruction.
Azariah and Ariah had been born from the Demon King's last wife. A woman who, like so many others, had t an untily, inexplicable end. A woman whose death Azariah never truly believed was an accident.
She was convinced that it had been responsible. The thing inside her father.
The thing that had turned him into a monster.
I took a deep breath before relaying what I had learned. "She told that sothing was controlling her father… that it was the true mastermind behind the war and everything that has happened." My voice was steady, but even as I spoke, I felt the weight of those words settling over .
Khione nodded solemnly, her icy gaze distant, as if recalling a mory long buried. "That entity… we call it a Beast of Iblis."
"Iblis?" I repeated, my brows furrowing. The na felt foreign yet oddly ominous, carrying a weight that sent an unexplainable shiver down my spine.
"Yes," Khione confird, her voice laced with a mixture of reverence and loathing. "Iblis was once a God—a mighty one, in fact. He was the progenitor of the Demon race, their creator. But creation was not enough for him. Corrupted by his own insatiable ambition and greed, he turned against the other Gods. He sought power beyond divinity, using the very Demons he had birthed as pawns in his war. Many believe he never intended to give them free will in the first place. They were ant to be his personal army, his perfect soldiers—relentless, unwavering, and obedient. But sothing unexpected happened."
I leaned in slightly, absorbed by her words. "What was it?"
Khione's expression turned somber, her icy features hardening. "The Demons rebelled," she said. "They saw the countless deaths of their brethren, slaughtered like cattle for a war that wasn't theirs. They refused to be disposable weapons. Realizing the truth of their existence, they turned against their creator and sided with the Gods, choosing to fight for their own freedom. What followed was a war so cataclysmic that it reshaped the heavens and the mortal realms alike. Five thousand years have passed since those days… but its echoes still linger."
I exhaled, trying to process everything. "Which Gods fought against him?"
"Almost all of them," she answered, her voice colder now, as if she were recounting sothing personal. "Every Pantheon, every divine ruler, every celestial being that felt threatened by Iblis' power stood against him. And they had every reason to fear. His Dark Magic was unlike anything ever seen before—ancient, primal, and beyond control. He did not rely wield darkness; he was darkness incarnate. Even the Gods themselves struggled against his overwhelming strength. But what truly sealed his fate was his own arrogance.
"He believed himself invincible, beyond the reach of death itself. But his hubris proved to be his undoing. His own creations—the Demons he once sought to enslave—turned against him, siding with the Gods to bring him down. It was a battle that shook existence itself… and in the end, Iblis fell."
I narrowed my eyes. "But… he wasn't truly destroyed, was he?"
Khione's hands clenched into fists, her knuckles pale. "No," she admitted grimly. "We thought he was. The Gods, the Demons, all of us believed that Iblis had finally been erased from existence. But we were wrong. He was too cunning to let himself perish so easily. Anticipating the possibility of his own demise, he devised a contingency—a plan to ensure his will would persist even beyond his death."
A sense of unease crept into my chest. "What did he do?"
"He used his own body to create sothing… unnatural," Khione said, her voice thick with disgust. "Fragnts of himself—each one carrying a piece of his consciousness, his essence, his insidious will. These fragnts beca known as the Beasts of Iblis. They are parasites, seeking out hosts, latching onto the most suitable ones, and corrupting them from within. Over the centuries, they have taken root in mortals, kings, and even… Gods. Those who succumb to their influence lose themselves entirely, becoming re puppets to his will. We call them the Corrupted Gods."
"Corrupted Gods…" I muttered under my breath.
The term felt eerily familiar. I had heard it before—Aphrodite had spoken of it.
I recalled the conversation vividly. When I questioned her about Paris and Agamnon—their sudden surge in strength, their unnatural transformations—she had rely told , in passing, that they had been taken, consud by sothing far greater than themselves. They were no longer the n they once were; they had beco vessels, pawns of Corrupted Gods.
At the ti, I hadn't pressed her for details. Truthfully, I hadn't cared. Paris and Agamnon were of no concern to . Their fates were inconsequential. But now, standing here, listening to Khione, I realized that I had been blind to the bigger picture. The Corrupted Gods… they weren't just an anomaly. They weren't just an isolated affliction.
They were connected to the Demons.
Iblis had created them—warping true Gods, tainting them with his own essence, reshaping them into monstrous echoes of their forr divinity.
"Then… the one controlling the Demon King… was a Corrupted God?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
Khione t my gaze and nodded solemnly.
A heavy silence stretched between us.
If that was true, then whatever had possessed Azariah's father was not rely so minor fiend—it had to be sothing unimaginably powerful. A being strong enough to bend the will of a Demon King, a force capable of twisting rulers into nothing more than marionettes dancing on its strings.
Khione's voice was calm, but there was an edge to it—cold, sharp, unyielding. "Iblis has spent the last thousand years feeding. Every war, every massacre, every soul consud by despair—it all fuels him. The Corrupted Gods are rely his tools, conduits through which he leeches from the mortal realm. And for what? A single purpose: to return. That war he ignited… it was never just about conquest. It was a ritual. A ans to an end. And he has already gathered far more than we ever anticipated."
I clenched my fists. "I see… And you knew this from the beginning. That's why you summoned the Heroes, isn't it?"
She gave a slow nod.
"Nobody believed at first," she admitted, her expression hardening with frustration. "The other Gods dismissed the Corrupted Ones as re fragnts of Iblis, remnants of a long-forgotten past. Compared to him, they were weak—shadows of what he once was. But I knew better. I knew that if we allowed ourselves to grow complacent, if we let down our guard, then, little by little, Iblis would regain his strength. He would reclaim his body.
"And if that happens…" She exhaled sharply, her icy eyes narrowing. "This ti, we won't win. Five thousand years ago, every Pantheon, every God and Goddess, stood united against him. Now?" A bitter laugh escaped her lips. "Now, the highest Gods of each Pantheon despise one another. They sche, they fight, they hoard power like it is their birthright. If war cos again, there will be no unity. They will think selfishly. And that will be our downfall."
Her words hung in the air, suffocating, undeniable.
And yet, sothing still felt… off. There was an undercurrent of emotion in her voice—sothing beyond duty, beyond the re desire to prevent a catastrophe. Sothing personal.
I studied her carefully. "There's more to this, isn't there?" I asked. "Why do you hate him so much?"
A flicker of sothing passed through her gaze. Pain.
For the first ti since our conversation began, she hesitated.
Her lips parted as if to speak, but then she stopped herself. Her jaw tightened. Her fingers curled into fists at her sides. And then, finally, she whispered—
"My father."
The words ca out bitter, hollow.
"Boreas. He was killed by a Beast of Iblis." Her voice trembled ever so slightly before she forced it into steadiness. "And now… now he has beco one of them. A Corrupted God."
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