"To outright kill a god in front of the entire pantheon?"
Godslayer wasn't exactly a pleasant term. The gods never liked the children of Genkai harboring thoughts or actions of slaying gods, even if the target this time was Evilus.
Zeus wasn't worried about the boy being hated by the gods. What concerned him was something else.
"Can that kid handle it?"
"He can't handle it?"
Hera nearly burst out laughing.
"If that boy could pull off a plan like this, then he's certainly prepared. And this operation against the Dark Faction isn't just to intimidate Orario. It's also meant to shake those hiding among the gods themselves.
"So do you really think he'd lose his nerve at this stage?"
Zeus thought it over and had to admit she was right.
That kid aimed high. Since he was already putting on such an enormous show, then the preparations for something like godslaying were definitely in place.
"We'll see."
Zeus said no more, waiting to see how the grand performance would unfold.
...
The two gods who had been walking through the passage soon met at a junction where several tunnels converged.
"You…"
Thanatos looked at Dionysus in surprise, then suddenly let out a laugh.
"Hah… Hahahaha… So that's how it is. So that's how it is. It was you."
With that, Thanatos finally understood who had been pulling the strings behind everything.
He had been guessing all along about who "Enyo" really was, what kind of person he could be. Now he finally had a clear answer.
"I never expected it to be you, Dionysus."
Thanatos truly hadn't imagined that this man would be "Enyo."
He knew Dionysus well enough. In the past, the man had seemed perfectly normal, always speaking properly and acting upright. From the very beginning, Thanatos had never even considered him. Who would've thought the least likely candidate was the real "Enyo"? What an irony.
But seeing that Dionysus's face showed no satisfaction at all, Thanatos understood after a moment of thought.
"So you fell into the trap too."
Dionysus knew very well he'd made a terrible mistake.
"I didn't expect someone else to know everything about us and be setting things up from behind the scenes."
Thanatos felt frustrated, but he also understood that this was his defeat. During the game, he had failed to pay attention to the larger setup and ended up getting blindsided.
"I did suspect there was a third party involved, but I kept getting pulled away by the Spirit incidents, your situation, and the Guild's issues. I never stayed focused long enough to pursue that line of thought."
"So do you know who defeated us?"
As fellow losers, Thanatos wasn't trying to fight Dionysus to the death. The game had already been decided, and in such an overwhelming way at that.
"A mysterious child hidden by the Guild and Hermes, secretly raised in the shadows. I don't even know that child's identity or affiliation."
Dionysus answered without hesitation.
"Even you, someone who hid this deeply, don't know? The Guild and Hermes really went all out this time."
Even Thanatos was surprised by this. He hadn't expected that Dionysus himself didn't know who the child that defeated them was.
"Clap! Clap! Clap!"
A round of applause echoed from one of the passages.
Both gods turned toward it, and a figure in a white coat with a hood slowly walked out, step by step.
"Pleased to meet you, God Thanatos, God Dionysus."
Only now, seeing the boy approach, did Thanatos finally realize that the one who had shattered the entire Evilus plan was just a child this young.
The revelation stunned him for a moment.
Thanatos let out a helpless sigh.
"Who would have thought the one who destroyed all of Evilus would be such a young child?"
"I wonder which god had such good eyes to discover such an unusual kid."
Thanatos found it difficult to imagine that someone so young had orchestrated Evilus's complete collapse.
Embarrassed by the praise, Bell bowed slightly.
"My apologies. My identity has to remain somewhat confidential. Even though I have to send you both on your way this time, I can't reveal who I am so casually. It would cause a lot of trouble..."
The two gods took it rather calmly.
Thanatos waved his hand dismissively.
"Well, since the Guild and Hermes worked so hard to raise you, there's no need to expose your identity in front of the two of us."
Dionysus didn't mind much either.
"I'm not too concerned about that. But I am curious—when did I start giving myself away?"
"Well, actually, we figured it out a few months ago, when you used Divine Wine to drug your own Familia child and transferred them into Penia's Familia."
"...Ah. That moment."
Though Dionysus didn't know what method was used, the timing and description were enough for him to understand that the boy had truly witnessed that scene.
"I only meant to use Penia's child as a scapegoat. I didn't expect that the process itself would get noticed."
"I even made sure to keep everything clean, and it still got spotted..."
He had carried out the whole thing inside his own Familia, yet it had still been seen. Truly unlucky.
Seeing that Dionysus misunderstood slightly, Bell offered a simple explanation.
"Actually, I didn't notice it on purpose. I just happened to be investigating the secrets of various familias, and I accidentally saw it. I didn't expect to walk right into such an important moment."
The explanation was reasonable, but Dionysus only felt his luck growing worse. How could someone just happen to witness that?
No wonder Loki started suspecting this supposedly harmless man.
It wasn't because of anything else—it was simply because someone had seen him converting his own child.
Whoosh...
Dionysus really did feel cursed. If he hadn't acted out of sympathy, his identity might never have been exposed so easily.
Still, if he had to do it all over again, he would probably still transfer his child to another Familia and stage a full wipe-out to cover his tracks.
...
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