Chapter 23

74

"Sorry, I broke our deal. I simply liked him too much, so I killed him. Haha, try to understand, won't you? After all, it would have been such a shame if you ate him and I could no longer admire him."

"But our agreement still stands. I'll keep a close eye on the Sealed Artifacts of the major churches and the Hidden Organization and find another replacement. You can trust my word. Besides, we're natural allies at the moment. So please continue keeping an eye out for the location of my sefirah."

-Excerpt from a conversation unknown to anyone.

75

The True Creator sat in the armchair beside the bed, turning his hand over and over as he examined it against the sun in the sky, his brows slightly furrowed.

No matter how many times he went over it, he still felt it was utterly unimaginable-that one day he could escape the prison of madness, temporarily break free of his endless struggle with "God Almighty" and his extreme divinity, and once again look upon this world quietly and peacefully, with a human body and an infant's eyes. After mental derangement, a feast of betrayal, death, and thousands of years of incoherent, furious howling, he was once again walking upon the earth, firmly grounded and perfectly lucid.

This was a heaven-sent opportunity, as though "fate" had offered him a blessing and a wager, betting that he could successfully attain a new life.

Was it Ouroboros? Was it really Ouroboros? His loyal Angel of Fate had indeed entrusted his life and luck to him. Having withdrawn from the confrontation with the Evernight Goddess, he had now stepped back into the river of cycles to seek a new life. Yet in more than two thousand years, Ouroboros had never shown the power to free him from madness through good fortune. Why had he managed it this time? But if it was not him, who else was secretly orchestrating all of this?

Could he have done it?

The True Creator thought of that ally of his whom even gods could not fathom. The first image that came to mind was the cold yet gentle smile that always hung on the other man's face; the second was an indescribable culinary abomination. His expression shifted slightly, and he immediately banished the second image from his mind.

Could it be the effect of a Sealed Artifact? Impossible. If a Sealed Artifact capable of freeing a Sequence 0 true god from madness really existed in this world, it would never have been left out in the wild. It should already have sparked divine wars time and again throughout history. Such an effect was too precious. It would hardly be surprising if the gods betrayed their allies for it.

Moreover, the Devil Pathway itself could never possess such power. The Abyss was filthy, polluting and corrupting everything that approached it, and the devils that lived within it were anything but benevolent. He had no reason to help him, even if the gods' hostility meant he needed a true god as a patron and ally.

Without a doubt, Abyss Angel Edward Vaughan was a man with a complicated identity. Although he was a Remnant of the Old Days, he had unfortunately arrived at the end of the Fourth Epoch and become a devil in that age of bloody slaughter and death. He had abandoned the moral principles a Remnant of the Old Days ought to possess, integrating into this world by profiting from the harm he inflicted on others.

For a long time after approaching him, Edward had remained in a rather terrible state. Only later, when Roselle—another Remnant of the Old Days—arrived and Edward took the initiative to approach him, did he seem to recover his memories of that bygone epoch. Little by little, he had regained his humanity and returned to normal... Regained his humanity and returned to normal... A devil had returned to normal?

The True Creator suddenly found this strange, yet could not quite say what was wrong. A devil like Edward, with a strong ability to manage himself, was something both the gods and he himself were happy to see. Yet that did not seem to be what a "devil" should truly be like! An uncontrollable desire to torture and kill, cold-blooded ruthlessness, no sympathy for anything around him, only thoughts of destruction-that was what the Devil Pathway should produce. The True Creator happened to have an example for comparison: Demon Monarch Farbauti.

Even if the former had been a human from the old era, he could not possibly resist all the distortion imposed by his pathway through morality alone. The difference between them was too great.

What was this peculiar feeling? It was as though the Abyss Angel knew that a mad, bloodthirsty devil would be hunted down, so he deliberately dressed himself up as harmless, while still remembering to make his presence felt at regular intervals-for instance, the several infamous massacres of entire cities during Roselle's wars of expansion-lest the gods think something was wrong with him...

But why could he control his pathway's cold-blooded urges? After going around in circles, the question seemed to have returned to the possibility of a Sealed Artifact.

The True Creator pondered for a long time without finding an answer. He looked out the window and happened to notice that a potted plant on the windowsill of a house across the street had bloomed. A few small flowers adorned the drab wall.

As though a bolt of lightning had struck his mind, he suddenly remembered-

One day, countless years ago, in a rare moment of lucidity, he had been gazing into the distance when he happened to see Edward Vaughan carrying a small handful of unidentified seeds, apparently Boston ivy or ivy. Edward intended to plant them at the foot of a wall so that they would cover its entire surface by the following summer.

It had been an ordinary day, and there had been nothing particularly remarkable about the scene. Yet at the very instant Edward was about to scatter the flower seeds into the hole he had dug, the True Creator suddenly heard a warning from his spiritual intuition. His body reacted faster than his conscious mind, and he immediately spoke up to stop Edward from planting them-as though something utterly terrifying would happen the moment those seeds fell, took root, and sprouted.

76

At seven in the morning, Klein woke up on his own. The sky outside was gray. Although the previous night had been nerve-racking, a good night's sleep had restored his energy. After washing up, he went downstairs, opened the door, and collected the newspapers he subscribed to from the mailbox. Unfolding the Tussock Newspaper, he saw a prominent headline in capital letters-

"INTIS AMBASSADOR BECKLAND MURDERED; TERRORIST ORGANIZATION 'AURORA ORDER' CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY!"

So soon? And the Aurora Order was clearly only carrying out a commission. Why claim responsibility? Hmm... Right, terrorist organizations need to look impressive and build an image too. That's how they attract enough fresh blood, and it goes hand in hand with secret preaching... Mr. A is quite formidable. He should be a Shepherd... Standing in the entrance hall, Klein read the report carefully. Suddenly, he noticed something and frowned.

In the report, the journalist gave a brief introduction to the Aurora Order and listed some of its illegal activities, instantly making it more famous than the vast majority of Hidden Organizations. The writer then described the gruesome crime scene in an outrageously exaggerated, horrifying tone—the poor ambassador's limbs had been broken and his head twisted off. The killer had torn open his chest and abdomen, ripped out his internal organs, and scattered them carelessly across the floor.

Blood seemed to seep from every line. Klein could not tell whether it was an accurate account or an exaggeration, because the method felt extremely familiar to him-a devil! Although the details differed, the overall impression was exactly the same as with Madam Sharon! This was definitely the Devil Pathway!

But whatever the case, it's over now... Unable to reach a conclusion, Klein spent several minutes feeling uneasy before letting out a breath. The blond, blue-eyed bodyguard was hiding somewhere nearby. He was merely a "newcomer to the Beyonder world"; displaying an unexpectedly keen sensitivity to devil rituals would arouse her suspicion. He turned to look out the window, where thin mist drifted amid sparse raindrops beneath a gloomy sky.

Next, he had to go out and catch an adulterous couple in the act.

77

The Monarch of Decay nudged a planet with his fingertip, making it complete a turn in the air in defiance of the laws of physics.

Only three-quarters of this planet remained. Its land had long since dried out, and it lacked sunlight, rain, and every other condition necessary for plants to survive. Naturally, it also lacked food, warmth, and anything else animals needed to live. Yet this planet, which should have died ten thousand years ago, still retained its vitality. Living alien creatures still clung to existence upon it. They should have died long ago, but their souls and final scraps of life were locked within their bodies. The concept of death had been stolen away, leaving only endless despair and eternal decay.

The Monarch of Decay watched it. When he had first passed this planet more than ten thousand years ago, its creatures had been developing with vigor and enthusiasm.

These beings pursued power and revered technology. In their struggle to obtain powerful weapons, they had waged war against their own kind countless times. Their courage in courting self-destruction had drawn him to stop and watch. In just a thousand years, weapons developed to their utmost limits and civil wars had reduced the population to one-fifth of its former size. A desperate soldier had activated the final weapon of annihilation, hoping it would kill every living thing and finally bring peace to a planet perpetually shrouded in war.

-That was how it should have gone.

-Yet the unending clouds of war and the horrors of mutual slaughter had intrigued the passing god. With great interest, he had crushed that ultimate weapon of annihilation, accidentally crushing a quarter of the planet along with it. The flower he had planted a thousand years earlier finally bloomed after absorbing the possibilities of countless lives. Rooted in the concept of the planet itself, it fixed the forms of every living thing upon it, preserving them in that moment's state and then allowing them to weaken. Ten thousand years had passed since then.

After watching for a while longer, he began to find it dull. He plucked the flower and watched the planet, now deprived of its anchor, rapidly crumble like a sandcastle. The land cracked open, revealing a core that had gone cold thousands of years ago. In an instant, everything that remained, along with the life upon it, turned to cosmic dust.

He heard the creatures that had first praised him, then cursed him, and later begged him, ecstatically shout praises to his name as destruction arrived. They welcomed death as joyfully as though they were welcoming a new life.

The little interlude passed. The destruction of a planet drew no god's attention. The Outer Deities maintained their strange peace as always. The spiritual world clamored without end, while the vacuum of the universe remained silent and deathly still. Only the low murmurs of Bethel Abraham drifted intermittently through it, perhaps the sole living voice among the stars.

He watched Earth. They watched Earth.

A thousand years passed as though they were a single day.

TBC

*The True Creator had a vague suspicion, but dared not be certain. After all, he had no evidence and did not know the other party's true purpose. Besides, if Edward really came from beyond this world, rashly exposing him might lead to unimaginable consequences.

*The True Creator's intuition sounded an alarm at the time because of Edward's actions.

"Any flower planted by the Monarch of Decay himself must be a flower that destroys worlds."

*The "Withering" pathway.

At low sequences, it plundered life and spread debilitation. At middle and high sequences, it underwent a qualitative transformation: the target of its plundering changed from tangible "life" to intangible "possibilities," ultimately extending to the "civilizations" woven from those possibilities.

Every life held countless possibilities, and countless possibilities intertwined to form a planet's future. The Monarch of Decay could drain all possibilities across an entire planet, stealing even death away. The flower took root in the concept of the planet, absorbing life's possibilities and using sorrow, beauty, and lives unwilling to give up as fertilizer, until only the possibility of "decay" remained. Thus, countless lives that could have bloomed in splendor reached their end, and the planet lost its future as well.

All hope was stripped away, watering the world-destroying flower in his hand.