{Chapter: 218: The Game of Gods and Seduction}
Just playing.
"I suppose," Dex said at last, sipping the fine wine from a servant's tray, "I'm simply in the mood to observe chaos, not cause it."
Valeera gave a sultry purr of approval and leaned against his side like a pampered cat basking in the heat of its chosen master.
"Then let's enjoy the show," she whispered. "And maybe afterward, you can tear this dress too."
Dex gave her a side glance. "You wore it knowing I would."
She grinned without shame, eyes glowing with dark anticipation. "Of course I did. Why else would I have picked one that costs more than your last airship?"
Shaking his head with an indulgent smile at her sultry tone, Dex glanced sideways at Valeera. Her teasing voice, low and rich like velvet soaked in honey, tickled at the edges of his mind like a whisper of sin. She was impossible to ignore.
If it had been in the past—back when the Abyss hadn't officially launched its invasion and the gods' surveillance of the world had been more relaxed—perhaps that reckless fool could've gotten away with his little pet project. Academic research into Abyssal forces had once been a tempting path for rogue scholars, cultists, and megalomaniacs alike. But now?
Now, the world had changed.
With the abyssal invasion underway and divine vigilance woven into the very fabric of the world's laws, the moment his research crossed a certain threshold, the magical surveillance networks embedded in the ley lines and ambient wards would detect him without mercy. And once caught, it wouldn't be just exile or imprisonment. No, he'd be publicly sentenced—death by fire, flame, and a ceremonial stake shoved violently where the sun didn't shine, just to make a point.
Even if, by some miracle, the barriers failed to detect his activities, the moment he attempted to make contact with the bottomless Abyss, things would spiral. The demons outside the Mi Ling World had been starving for too long—feral, ravenous, and driven half-mad by hunger. To them, an unbranded mortal soul reaching out like a lost puppy wasn't a pact waiting to happen.
It was a buffet.
No subtle whispering. No slow corruption. No cultist-friendly bargains sealed in blood.
Just raw, brutal consumption—flesh, spirit, and soul torn apart and passed around like a shared delicacy. Carved slowly, lovingly.
Dex almost pitied the fool.
If you weren't a formally marked demon believer under the domain of a Demon Lord like Carto, you were as good as dead. Native mortals who tried to contact the Abyss were treated with pure, undisguised malice. They were intruders, not initiates. Invitations weren't extended—they were devoured.
That guy had clearly read some old magic books filled with outdated ideas and was under the quaint illusion that he could offer something of value—information, allegiance, sacrifices—in exchange for power. But he didn't know that was a pre-invasion strategy. Now that the full force of the Abyss was beginning to move, communication was obsolete.
The demons weren't interested in deals.
They were here to conquer.
Dex let out a faint snort of amusement, his sharp teeth flashing briefly. "Bleak future," he muttered to himself again.
The gods would destroy him. The demons would shred him. There was no third path. No guiding light, no salvation, just blood and fire.
He ran a quick mental calculation, estimating the man's chance of survival. About the same odds as a normal person choking to death on a sip of water. Not zero. But close.
Next to him, Valeera tilted her head seeing him lost in thoughts again, her long sun-kissed golden hair falling over one bare shoulder like a silken curtain. She caught his mood, her emerald eyes narrowing playfully as she studied him. Sensing she wouldn't get a straight answer, she gave a little shrug and turned back to her favorite activity: flaunting.
She slipped away like smoke, hips swaying beneath the slit of her dress that shimmered with every step. The gown clung lovingly to her lithe figure—tailored to accentuate her assassin's grace and dancer's elegance. A single long glove hugged her left arm, the other left bare to display the arcane tattoo coiled like serpents down her wrist. Her exposed thigh bore a dagger strapped loosely with scarlet ribbon, both decorative and dangerous.
Valeera was in her element among the highborn women, every inch the seductive predator in the ballroom's glittering jungle. She twirled, let the light catch her jewelry—especially the dark gemstone choker Dex had gifted her the night before. She wore it like a collar, flaunting it to the noble ladies passing by.
Jealousy. They couldn't hide it.
Valeera basked in it.
To them, male companions and rare jewelry were trophies. But Valeera turned them into weapons. Every glance she received, every forced compliment veiling envy, only served to heighten her amusement. Her laugh—soft, knowing, edged with temptation—tinkled through the hall like a spell.
"She's enjoying herself," Dex mused, a flicker of affection in his otherwise cold gaze.
The simpler things in life could be effective sources of pleasure for women like her. Jealous rivals. Envious stares. Flirtation masked as diplomacy. Power, not through brute force, but the kind earned through presence and desire.
Suddenly, Dex's sharp ears caught wind of a conversation happening nearby—a group of finely dressed men were murmuring in increasingly alarmed tones.
The topic? A distant stronghold had fallen.
Dex's attention sharpened.
From their words and anxious pacing, he deduced it was the very fortification he'd personally destroyed not long ago—a temporary defense post located just behind one of the Mi's primary protective lines. With it reduced to ash, chaos had erupted.
Now dozens of small countries and fractured principalities were scrambling to mount a defense, sending distress calls to neighbors and desperately forming resistance cells to slow the advance of the Abyss.
"…Lord Zard has already arrived at the front with the artifact Sword of Radiance," one man whispered.
"…I've started construction on an emergency shelter in the Principality of Geling. The refugees keep coming," another said grimly.
"…the gods won't allow this to continue. They must act. Those cursed demonic families will be purged," said a third, practically foaming at the mouth with divine fervor.
Dex listened to it all with an amused half-smile before turning his eyes away, bored.
In a war that spanned multiple planes and involved divine avatars, celestial armies, and the endless legions of the Abyss, mortals were just leaves in a hurricane. Discussing strategies or resistance in this context was almost adorably naïve.
If the gods—those glittering paragons of divine warfare—won, then Mi Ling World would survive.
If not?
Then everything—land, soul, culture, history—would be consumed. Reduced to shrieking echoes in the howling void. As it will fall and become part of Endless Abyss.
That was the hard truth of planar warfare.
There were no compromises. No second chances.
Just winners… and the extinguished.
Dex took a sip of his drink and lazily watched Valeera laugh while one of the duchesses nearly tripped trying to keep up with her in a wordplay exchange. She glanced back over her shoulder, caught Dex's gaze, and gave him a wink—sultry, smug, and just a little dangerous.
He smirked.
Let the world burn.
At least he had front-row seats with a enchanting company.
---
The gods were worshipped by the native races of this world—exalted in golden shrines and whispered about in prayer-filled halls. Though they hovered high above in unreachable heavens, their divine thrones were shackled tight by the invisible chains of faith.
Once, perhaps, they ruled with unquestioned dominance—crushing dissent beneath celestial decree. But now? Now, under the abyssal siege of Carto and his abyss legions, those once-untouchable gods were pinned beneath the crushing weight of responsibility. They were prey marked by divine scent. The pressure they endured was unrelenting.
And there were certainly demons like Dex, brazen enough to crave a taste of the divine flesh.
After all, even in the festering heart of the Abyss, a god was considered high-grade meat. A once-in-a-millennia delicacy.
Of course, Dex didn't count the bottom-tier trash gods found in lower-level realms. Those self-proclaimed deities who could barely take on two battle tanks of Earth weren't even snacks—just a bit of gristle to floss your teeth with after the real feast.
In truth, if the gods truly wanted to escape their fates, they could. They had a route out: abandon their godhood, discard their divine domains, renounce their priesthoods, and sever ties with their own godly kingdoms. Doing so might allow them to rip free from the world's constraints and flee beyond the reach of Carto's wrath.
But it was a deal with a bitter price.
What waited beyond that desperate leap was no liberation—just the half-dead carcass of a pig that once reigned in gold. A life of eternal fleeing. No prestige, no power, no purpose. Better, then, to fight and perish with divine dignity than to become cosmic refuse.
Compared to the gods, the fate of the mortal races was worse by far.
No matter how hard they trained, prayed, or bled, their struggle meant little. Victory or defeat rested not on their valor but on the outcome of a divine war waged far above their reach.
If the gods triumphed over Carto, the world might stagger on. If the gods failed, everything would be consumed—land, blood, soul—all swallowed by the abyss.
No reward in victory.
No escape in loss.
The tragic fate of cannon fodder.
Dex understood this bleak truth well. That's why he had little patience for those who gathered in halls and taverns, loudly debating hope and sacrifice. It was all a performance. The stage had already been set; the script was in divine hands.
So he waited. Calculated.
If the gods pulled off a miracle and banished Carto, Dex would vanish at the speed of light, without so much as a backward glance.
If Carto won, then the world would fall—and he'd need to flee before the cleansing fires swept through.
There was no scenario in which he gained anything. The only outcome he truly longed for… was mutual destruction. A draw soaked in celestial blood. A fractured world. A perfect playground where he could slink in the shadows for years—unwatched, unwanted, undisturbed.
---
Meanwhile, in another corner of the grand hall…
Perfumed silks rustled like whispered secrets. The air shimmered with the glow of enchanted lanterns, bouncing off golden jewelry, sapphire-threaded gowns, and the proud postures of high-society predators.
Several exquisitely dressed women had gathered like a flock of jeweled vultures.
Different races. Different ages. Different strengths.
Yet united by one singular trait—beauty, the kind that turned heads and made lesser beings stammer.
And now, all of them stared in the same direction, eyes brimming with venomous intent.
At her.
Valeera Golner.