Prologue: A terrible, horrible, no good, very bad Transmigration
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Twilight and Dawn.
Everywhere one looked they would see a tapestry of frozen twilight and the eternal dawn endlessly stretching into the horizon. It was as though time itself had been frozen, nothing moved, nothing breathed. It was a serene, peaceful landscape, a beautiful canvas untouched by chaos.
And yet, for the being seated upon the 15-foot-high throne at the heart of this stillness, it was nothing short of maddening.
The figure seated there, the being who commanded this divine kingdom, looked every bit the warrior of legend. His muscular form was a monument to power, every inch sculpted as if he were a Greek god brought to life. And His eyes, bright and shining, glowed the color of dawn itself.
Above him, suspended in the air like an extension of his will, floated a titanic twilight sword, its blade glowing faintly with the soft radiance of twilight. It hung in the air like a reminder of the fate that awaited him.
He didn't even know what to feel, as a storm of emotions flooded him all at once: happiness, excitement, frustration, anger, betrayal, even a murderous rage. It all culminated in a single word that perfectly captured how he felt.
"Fuck!"
The word rippled throughout the unchanging twilight kingdom, fortunately not bypassing it to reach the Astral World where other Gods Divine Kingdoms resided.
"Why this world?" He would have happily accepted being a God in DanMachi compared to being one in this gridmark world that was on par with Warhammer 40k.
Being that emo drunk ass God Soma was better than who he was now. Even if weaker, at least in DanMachi the worst thing you had to worry about was a dragon showing up. Maybe a city getting nuked by a pissed-off god, but that was rare.
Over there, gods drank wine, flirted with mortals, played at being human. You could vibe with a Familia, throw hands in a war game , maybe sponsor a harem protagonist and kick back while plot armor did the heavy lifting.
However, here? In Lord of the Mysteries? A world where unknowable horrors crawled in the cosmos, where gods went mad, where looking at the wrong thing could demote your brain to soup and your soul to fuel for some Ritual of Ascension that was probably happening three timelines ago and somehow retroactively erased your childhood friends.
….
Okay, that last one might've been a bit of a stretch, but the fact that He could come up with it at all should be enough to prove His point.
As for who He was—that being Soma felt like a blessing—well, if the constant use of capitalized pronouns wasn't a big enough clue…
He was a God.
And not just any God—but the one fated to die at the hands of His imposter "Mother," Lilith, and the definitely-not-second-protagonist, Evernight.
He was the God of Combat.
Give yourself a round of applause if you guessed that correctly.
….
Thwack!
The sound rang out like thunder across the Twilight Kingdom—flesh slamming violently against flesh—as His palm struck His own cheek.
He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly through His nose, and stared at the endless sky of dawn and dusk.
"…What am I doing?" He calmly questioned aloud.
The emotional storm that had been boiling just moments ago was now suppressed with an ease that would've been unthinkable in His past life.
"Divinity." The answer came to him instantly. From both the novel and His knowledge as Badheil, the God of Combat, He knew well: godhood warped perception —changed how Beyonders felt emotions, or whether they felt them at all.
Sometimes, it was detachment—a hollowing of joy in simple things. Other times, it was obsession—fixation to the point of madness. Or in the cases of natural born Mythical Creatures like Amon, emotions didn't exist. Only amusement and self-preservation held meaning.
"I shouldn't suppress my emotions." He muttered to Himself in realisation.
Right now, His Humanity was at an all time high based on the impressions he's feeling. Badheil's memories had only flickered briefly in His mind when He first transmigrated into this body. They hadn't fully taken root yet, hadn't crushed Him under their weight… but their influence was undeniable.
For one, He could feel the rage—simmering just beneath the surface—at how Lilith had pretended to be His mother Omebella for thousands of years, wearing her name and appearance like a skin suit.
Two—
"I want to spank Evernight."
The Badheil part of him wasn't angry at Amanises for trying to usurp His position and claim a neighboring Pathway—for He had the same ambitions. It was survival of the fittest. The law of the jungle still held: only the strong survive. Fairness, mercy, and morality had no place on the battlefield of gods.
In the novel, that Badheil had called out to Ombella—His "mother"—for backup, unaware it was actually the Sanguine Ancestor, Lilith, wearing Her face. Lilith, who had long allied herself with Evernight. So when She appeared on the battlefield during the one-on-one between Him and Amanises, it wasn't Her presence that shocked Him.
It was the betrayal.
That was where His fury at Amanises stemmed from—not the ambition, but the deception. She had used Her Authority over Concealment to hide the truth.
He was Badheil right now, and at the same time He wasn't. He had considered the thought of handing his Uniqueness and three Sequence 1 Hand of Glory Characteristics to Evernight.
But the very idea filled Him with revulsion—and a bone-deep rage. To fold to the ones responsible for His mother's death? To kneel before those who will orchestrate His downfall?
Unthinkable.
"This is is likely the mix of divinity, convergence instincts, and Badheil's love for His mother," He had a gut feeling—an instinct as the God of Combat—that if He ever tried to submit, if He truly gave in and offered Himself to Evernight…in hopes of survival.
The flickers of Badheil's memories would become a tsunami. One that would drown His Humanity completely.
Now, the question now was—
"How can I survive and correct Evernight and Earth Mother?"
….
Ding!
Host Found!
Initialising Chaos Gacha…
…Initialising Complete!
Chaos Gacha is Online!
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A/N: …Surprise? I don't really know what else to say other than I had an idea—which kept nagging and made me delay Grand Summoner—to do a God of Combat SI. Then I thought about how he can circumvent his demise without instantly becoming the most overpowered person. And then I remembered how the Chaos Gacha has gotten popular, so with a 'Fuck it, we ball' mindset I chose it.