Chapter 1017: Eldritch Gods. 3

Chapter 1017: Eldritch Gods. 3

"A lot of things... A lot of things," Siena said solemnly as she thought about the 'rituals' some very 'fanatical' faithful performed.

Due to the rules of the religion, the blood god's faith did not attack innocents, but all criminals were fair game, and let's just say they were VERY creative when it came to punishing these beings.

"The imagination of mortals can shock even demons and gods at times. I completely understand you, Siena," Nyx said.

"Hehehe, my little lambs are doing well," Lily laughed.

"It was you, wasn't it, Lily!? It was you who taught them those things!?" Siena pointed her finger.

"Of course, if they represent my Emperor, they must be the best at torture," Lily nodded proudly.

The demonic ladies simply gazed at the hell sky with a distant look as if remembering the 'arts' that Lily used against Victor's enemies in hell.

Honestly, it wasn't a pretty sight to behold, even by their standards as demons.

"Your art is quite impressive," Azathoth spoke.

"Hehe~, to hear that from you makes me very proud, Azathoth," Lily laughed.

Violet, with a face a little paler than usual, just shook her head and then clapped her hands.

"Let's set aside this conversation for a moment and focus on Darling's plan."

"...Oh? This is new. What has Victor planned for this time?" Pepper asked.

"Oh, Pepper doesn't know about this yet," Violet said.

"Neither do I," Zaladrac said. Updated from n0velb(i)n.c(o)/m

"Me neither," Gaia raised her hand.

"Well, if you stop sleeping and read the report we've made, you'll know," Sasha sighed.

"Laziness," Pepper commented.

"Boring," Zaladrac spoke afterward.

"I'm busy keeping the planet running," Gaia said.

"Sigh..." Sasha put her finger between her brows. "Fine, I'll explain briefly."

"Basically, Darling has decided to unite everything under his domain."

"... By everything, you mean..." Pepper asked cautiously.

"All the remaining pantheons and putting Earth itself under his domain," Sasha said.

"... So, another war," Pepper sighed.

"Not exactly," Velnorah denied. "Instead of an unproductive total war, it would be more of a silent invasion."

Velnorah began to explain about the dragon heart, about the clones, and how all the souls of these clones would be under Victor's control. Then she began to explain about the tower of nightmares and turning it into a place of trials where mortals could step out of their status as common humans and become something more, changing their race.

"... Where did this sudden Korean Manhwa plot come from?" Pepper asked incredulously.

"Now that you mention it, it's quite similar, huh," Siena spoke.

"From the perspective of this plot, we are the gods who created the tower or dungeon, and they are the mortals we will nurture for war. Shall we call ourselves constellations now?" Pepper asked, a little more excited than usual. She would always support this kind of trope. After all, it's fun to play something she saw in the novels and manga she reads.

Ignoring Pepper's excitement, Scathach spoke. "Will the rewards from the tower of nightmares mostly be race changes?"

"How is she?" Ruby asked with visible concern in her voice when she saw Nero floating with pain on her face.

"The hard part is over, and she awakened her divinity. Now, she needs to break the loop."

"How will she break the loop?" Ruby asked.

"When she accepts herself for who she is."

"... Does she need to accept that she's a hybrid or something?" Ruby asked.

"Wrong. She needs to accept the situation she's been placed in. So far, she's thinking, 'What if I had this power?' 'What if I had this family?'"

"Weakness isn't bad; staying in weakness is the problem. And what she's doing is the worst of both. She's ignoring her weakness," Victor sighed as he looked at the timer counting down from 1000 years.

"I see, so it's the same situation as mine, huh."

"Yes... Although you didn't have as intense trauma as Nero, you still thought about the incident when you were kidnapped. By understanding that you had no choice, accepting the things that happened, and embracing that feeling, you awakened your divinity."

"Divinity, in essence, is fully accepting who you are, all the ugly parts, all the beautiful parts, all the flawed parts. You have to accept yourself. Until that happens, there will always be something holding you back from continuing your journey."

"Something extremely difficult to do considering people always want to ignore the ugly part of themselves that they hate."

"Yes," Victor nodded.

A quiet silence fell over the place as husband and wife just watched their daughter as the timer continued to decrease. Conveniently, they were ignoring the goddess of destruction meditating nearby.

When the timer reached 900 years, Ruby asked:

"What is Nero's divinity?"

Kali's ears visibly perked up when she heard that question. This was something she was also curious about, but she pretended not to be interested.

"Apocalypse. She is the goddess of apocalypse," Victor spoke naturally. "As a result of her divinity, she can create a cosmic cataclysm that destroys all dominant powers of a domain. The types of apocalypse she can bring are calamity, cataclysm, disaster, and large-scale tragedy. She can also alter cause and effect in an area to intentionally create events that would cause an apocalypse that would destroy a civilization."

The unsaid part of all this was that she could do this unintentionally, and her very existence could cause all these events at once because she's not a normal god but an Eldritch God.

Just by stepping into a city and letting her divinity loose, that entire city will be destroyed for various reasons that already exist in the city or will exist in the future.

"... Holy hell." Ruby clearly knew this; hence, she was shocked. "Are there means to counteract the influence of her divinity?"

"Gods with divinities related to Order and who are stronger than her can somewhat counteract her influence."

The unsaid part is that even if these gods exist, because she's an Eldritch goddess who operates under a different set of rules, her divinity will still be triggered, but it will be on a smaller scale and much more distorted due to the influence of 'order.'

It's impossible to completely avoid the chaos created by an Eldritch God. They are just those kinds of beings. Unless the enemy was ridiculously stronger than the Eldritch God, they could not avoid all the chaos.

Eldritch Gods are contradictory and corruptive by nature, and these characteristics affect their very concept as well.

"You need to keep an eye on her, Darling... We don't want her to cause the apocalypse in our city, do we?"

Victor chuckled. "Don't worry, I'm used to dealing with this. Remember our daughters."

"... That's true," Ruby sighed.

What Nero can do is relatively 'harmless' compared to some of Victor's daughters, like Yol herself, who can bring the unreal into reality.

Breaking into a cold sweat, Kali promptly decided to ignore the level of bullshit she just heard and just focus on her meditation.

'I'm too young to deal with this shit. Let's just ignore it all,' Kali thought.

.....