"Damn it! That damned Mysteries!"
In Backlund, the Son of Chaos, who was watching the distant divine war together with Bernadette, let out an angry and frustrated curse.
Judging from the auras He could sense alone, the Mother Tree of Desire and the Supernova Dominator had both joined the Stars in taking action tonight!
As for that High-Dimensional Overseer, there was even less need to mention Him. With His freedom of movement, He would definitely have gone over to join in the excitement.
Of all the members of the Stars meeting, He alone was unable to participate in tonight's grand event. He did not even have the qualification to witness it with His own eyes!
It was infuriating!
Just imagining the next meeting, with all the other members discussing tonight's divine war while He sat off to the side unable to join the conversation, all while being constantly mocked by the High-Dimensional Overseer and the Supernova Dominator, made Him feel terribly uncomfortable.
He almost wanted to simply skip the next meeting. Yet He also wanted to know exactly what had happened tonight.
What a dilemma!
The Son of Chaos shook the Magic Wishing Lamp, jumping up and down while continuously cursing. All of this was the fault of that damned Mysteries. Without Him, why would He have to suffer so many grievances?!
For once, Bernadette did not find the Son of Chaos too noisy. Instead, she watched Him with great interest.
After quite a while, the Son of Chaos finally calmed down. He snorted lightly and said, "The Hidden Sage also participated in tonight's battle. He has completely fallen out with the Stars. You'll have to be more careful from now on. Don't suddenly get captured by the Hidden Sage."
"Tonight was the Stars' victory. He'll only hide even farther away and won't appear before me again." Bernadette was not worried about her situation at all.
The deterrence of The Stars was enough to keep the Hidden Sage from acting rashly.
It would be fine if He remained hidden, but if He appeared before her, wasn't He afraid that the Stars would directly lock onto Him and extract the Uniqueness and Beyonder characteristics from His body?
Based on her understanding of the Hidden Sage, He would definitely hide, and He would hide very far away.
"Heh. A true god only needs to glance at you once to make you collapse."
"We'll deal with that when He appears." Bernadette glanced at the Son of Chaos again. "If there's really no other choice, I'll throw you out. With your abilities, you should be able to protect me for a while."
"Hehe, I have no interest in that."
"But I'm a believer of the Stars. Don't you want to establish a good relationship with the Stars?"
"…" The Son of Chaos said nothing more. He felt that Bernadette was gradually losing her reverence for Him.
Bernadette gazed at the now-calm starry sky and murmured, "Is tonight going to end like this?"
"Not necessarily."
The Son of Chaos also raised His head toward the starry sky, His gaze falling upon the God of Combat's divine kingdom.
If He were the Evernight Goddess, He would definitely seize this opportunity to infiltrate the God of Combat's shattered divine kingdom and devour Him!
"Do you think something else will happen?"
"Perhaps the Evernight Goddess will make a move. She…"
Before the Son of Chaos could finish speaking, the starry sky that had already calmed down underwent another change!
…
At the fissure in the Original Barrier, the God of Combat's divine kingdom, which had received special attention from the Stars, was now in ruins. Only broken walls and rubble remained, with smoke from the flames of war still rising from them.
The giant clad in tattered, decaying armor and bathed in twilight sat painfully and incredulously upon a still-intact stone staircase.
At the Twilight Giant's chest, a dark-brown wooden staff had pierced straight through His heart from behind.
It was frantically draining the Twilight Giant's life, attempting to drag Him back to the earth, back into His mother's embrace.
The owner of the dark-brown wooden staff was a voluptuous woman in the form of a giant standing behind the Twilight Giant. Around Her, flowers, grass, and bushes continuously yellowed and withered, forming an autumn season that belonged solely to decay.
The Twilight Giant wanted to turn His head and look at the voluptuous woman behind Him whom He called Mother, but He could no longer do so. He could only murmur a name.
"Li… Li… lith?"
"You should return to the earth."
The voluptuous woman spoke calmly.
The next second, the expression on the Twilight Giant's face completely froze, and His body began to collapse.
Clusters of orange-yellow light, colors belonging to twilight, pierced through the dark world and fell toward the vast earth.
Under the gaze of the brilliant starry sky, a corner of the sky burned with the light of twilight.
The clusters of light carrying the aura of twilight fell in different places. Some crashed into mountain ranges, crushing entire mountains. Others fell into densely populated urban areas, causing disasters far greater than falling meteorites.
Most plunged into the sea and fused with the creatures that had luckily survived the previous waves of destruction, giving birth to powerful and insane monsters…
At the manor on the outskirts of Backlund, a small cluster of light also fell, transforming everything within a hundred meters into a forbidden domain of twilight.
Bernadette and the Son of Chaos were fortunate enough to witness this scene, watching twilight collapse and dissipate beneath the night and the starry sky.
"So this is the God of Combat's end?"
Watching everything from afar, Bernadette inexplicably felt a chill spread from her heart throughout her entire body.
Tonight, a god had fallen.
This should be the first deity to fall during the Fifth Epoch, the Iron Age.
Just like that, He lightly fell from the starry sky and completely lost all signs of life.
Even a true god as powerful as Him could fall after taking a single wrong step. She was only Sequence 2, making her situation even more like walking a tightrope, unable to afford even half a misstep.
Only now did she truly understand why The Stars had forbidden her from trying to save her father.
Even true gods were this fragile, let alone her.
"This is the fate of a fool." That was the only evaluation the Son of Chaos could give.
"A fool?"
"How else do you think the God of Combat died?" The Son of Chaos scoffed disdainfully.
If the God of Combat had not been foolish, He only needed to remain within His own divine kingdom and avoid involving Himself in tonight's events. Naturally, He would have survived.
Other than stupidity, there was no other possible explanation for His fall.
…
Southern Continent, inside the royal palace of the East Balam Empire.
As someone from a neighboring pathway to the God of Combat, Gregrace had naturally clearly witnessed His fate as well.
She was not particularly surprised by this outcome. She had already told the God of Combat that He was destined to fall tonight.
Did He think He would be safe simply because the Evernight Goddess had not made a move? How foolish.
She did not even need to guess. The God of Combat's fall was definitely related to the Evernight Goddess, and the Uniqueness of the God of Combat pathway would inevitably fall into the Evernight Goddess's hands.
She would become the Evernight Goddess's next target.
Carefully reviewing everything that had happened tonight, the Evernight Goddess had hardly exerted Herself at all. Clearly, Her target from the very beginning had been the God of Combat.
If the God of Combat had successfully taken the Uniqueness of the Death pathway from her tonight, then while He attempted to devour that authority, the Evernight Goddess would have taken everything in one fell swoop.
In that case, the only condition the Evernight Goddess would still lack to advance to the level of a Great Old One would be the River of Eternal Darkness, that sefirot.
No matter how tonight's battle unfolded, the Evernight Goddess would obtain at least one Uniqueness from a neighboring pathway.
The only difference was whether the one who fell would be her or the God of Combat.
Through the power of the Stars, she had once seen the future. If she had not made this trip to the Southern Continent, she would have fallen before the God of Combat.
"The protection of the Stars…" Gregrace sighed emotionally. Only then did she realize that Azik was still standing in the room.
"The God of Combat has fallen?"
"Mm. He fell at the hands of the Earth Mother Goddess. More precisely, He died because of the Evernight Goddess's schemes."
Hearing this answer, Azik fell silent. When he had been alone with the Evernight Goddess tonight, he had already had such a premonition.
Sure enough, the God of Combat had still fallen into the Evernight Goddess's hands.
The Evernight Goddess truly deserved to be the true god one needed to be most wary of!
"I'll help you resolve one more minor problem."
In a rather good mood, Gregrace touched the tip of her right wing to Azik's forehead, helping him stabilize his soul once more.
The Evernight Goddess's actions tonight had more or less affected Azik's soul.
However, the Evernight Goddess had deliberately left behind a portion of Her power. Using this power, Gregrace helped Azik stabilize his soul again.
Even if the other half of his soul did not return, he would no longer lose his memories. He would simply still die once he reached the end of his lifespan and enter another cycle of reincarnation.
"Thank you." Azik took a deep breath, feeling a clarity and lightness unlike anything he had experienced before.
From today onward, he no longer needed to live while carrying the heavy burden of his past. He could begin a brand-new life, an ordinary life belonging solely to Azik.
"This is a blessing you deserve." Gregrace flew back onto the table and said with some emotion, "If this were the old me, you definitely wouldn't have had the opportunity to choose today."
Azik also sighed with feeling. "Living another life will always add a little humanity."
"Humanity? I don't need something that belongs to humans. I simply want to live in a different way," Gregrace said. "After returning through rebirth, I washed away the muddle-headedness and madness of my past. My mind has never been as clear as it is now."
Through this experience of resurrection, she had completely understood how she should resist the madness that continuously accumulated within her.
Whenever her madness reached a critical point, she could do as she had done now: die and live another life, using this method to cleanse the madness that had continuously accumulated.
She did not know whether other deities had attempted anything similar. Perhaps such a method belonged exclusively to the Death pathway.
If true gods of other pathways fell, even if they had left behind some means of resurrection, there was no guarantee they would not be betrayed during the process.
Once a new true god of the same pathway appeared, they would have completely fallen.
However, she did not need to worry about this problem.
After all, The Stars watched over everything, and naturally, He would also watch over His believers.