Chapter 180: Ladiath

Arnold noticed that the world has gone silent before he could react to Ladiath.

He looked at Tanaera who was near him. Arnold pinched her cheek but received no reaction. Not just that but her cheek stayed disfigured from him pinching it.  

"I expanded my own energy in this world. This allows me to control the laws of physics in a certain area, depending on how big the area is. This world itself has stopped moving in its artificial space inside the dungeon, thus time within it has stopped completely."

'So he created something similar to time dilation. It wasn't magic, just his own power.'

It's certainly possible for a god to do these things. No, Ladiath is no god. He is merely a World Destroyer-level being. He has the power of a god but doesn't deserve the title befitting of one.

"How do you—"

"—Know who you are?" Ladiath finished what Arnold was about to say, "I am a god. Why would I not know your true identity?"

He said vaguely.

"Then you know that you're just some NPC being controlled by code, right?" Arnold said mockingly.

Player?

Developer?

Hacker?

Or just NPC?

Which one was Ladiath?

He wasn't buying the "It's because I am a god, what else is there to say" bullshit.

"I am certain that I control my own actions. See my hand waving at you? That is the action that my brain told my body to perform."

"…Answer my question."

"Hmm, seeing as how you will not accept my first answer then fine I will indulge you. I can see your system. The original, that is."  

Arnold stepped back.

"You… What?"

He spread his arms, "Are you surprised? Even though you stand before a great being such as I? Should you not find this commonplace for someone of my level?"

No one—other than players—should be able to see his level. The system gives them this power. Of course, Arnold being an NPC with a limited system and all doesn't grant him that right as well. This is the point of the hologram card.

An NPC seeing one's system might not seem like a big deal to others but it's a nightmare for players in a world where every single NPC is self-aware.

Gods will smite you just for existing because they fear the havoc you can wroth upon the world with your knowledge of the future.

Arnold couldn't move. His life now lay in the hands of the World-Destroyer before him.

He could do nothing to change that.

Fearing his impending doom, Arnold gained some distance from Ladiath. Running and using the Yorm Branch to escape might be the only option at this point.

Contrary to what Arnold feared might happen, Ladiath just silently looked around. He was probably not looking at the palace's interior itself but what lies beyond it.

One could say that he was looking at reality as a whole.

"To think this—all of this was once the creation of your people. It astounds me what humans are capable of. I would not be able to replicate this. No, I am certain that not even the Timeline Gods could do it."

The game that humans from Earth created became their reality.

It was no longer just a product that can be installed on your gaming system.

Humans are their creators.  

Arnold decided to pick his words carefully.

"What are you going to do now that you know who I am? You're probably aware that I know more of the future than you do."

"Killing you will be the correct course of action to take because of what you can do with that knowledge of the future. You can prove to be a nuisance to me and my plans."

Arnold wouldn't stand a chance. His life could end right here on Ladiath's whim.

"No need to get prepared to fight," Arnold realized that his hands were clenched right when Ladiath said that, "I have come to realize, in the short time that we have interacted, the worth you hold. It's the kind of worth no other mortal or even god could ever hope to offer. Save for the Destiny Goddes, of course, however, she vanished from the divine realm centuries ago. Even if I knew where she was, she would not consider lending me her powers."

Ladiath approached Arnold and tapped him on the forehead.

"Your knowledge holds equal worth to what her powers can offer."

"….."

Didn't this guy say that he's all-seeing and all-knowing?

"I am but I never said that I can see into the future. I only know so many things because I've been alive for millions of years. My knowledge is also limited since the universe is much too vast for me alone to explore every inch of. I know nothing of the future. This means that I can never deal with a foe that could threaten my life before it's too late. My biggest concern is my plans being interrupted because of some feud between my people—the Outer Gods—and the Divine Gods. Well, they are part of my plan. Partially, that is."

"What do you mean?"

"Before I answer that question: Allow me to show you something." Ladiath waved his arm.

The next moment the terrain changed. They weren't in the palace anymore, but another location.

A wasteland.

Arnold could see something in the red sky, just near the tip of a mountain.

Was that the sun? Why is it shaped so weirdly? Why did it look like the sun was bleeding?

"What do you see when looking around?"

"….." Arnold looked around, "Destruction."

"What you're seeing is the result of a bunch of somethings being freed from the shackles of the gods. All their pent up rage was released into this world."

"Shackles of the gods…? As in imprisonment?"

"Yes."

There was only one reason why gods would imprison an individual or even an entire species. Usually the divine gods would send prisoners to far-off worlds where they can die on their own.

So why imprison them?

They're afraid of what that person might do upon being sent elsewhere. Instead of risking the lives of their creations, they would rather lock up their enemies for all eternity.

From Liam's knowledge, there should be two beings that the gods imprisoned.

The person who stole the "Future Dark Scroll" is one of them.

The other is an unknown entity. Some speculated that there are actually several individuals in that same prison. For now, the entity is known as "Character X".

The two of them once posed great danger to the gods. One was some powerful unknown entity and the other a time traveler(the only one ever mentioned in the game).

Arnold suddenly heard rumbling approaching them from afar.

He looked down the valley but couldn't see what was causing that rumbling. Only clouds of smoke from all the destruction surrounded this dead land.

"Where are we?"

"See for yourself."

The surroundings changed again.

This time they were floating above what seemed to be a destroyed town. Houses were burnt down and trees trampled. Rivers were red with the blood of piling corpses.

What could have done this?

Ladiath pointed in a certain direction. Arnold followed his finger.

He could see a gigantic tree root that was not far from where they were. He slowly gazed up where it came from.

"….." Arnold looked up at the sky.

All he could see were thousands upon thousands of tree roots growing out of the sky, impaling the ground like droplets of rain.

A small tree was in the center of all those roots, growing upside down as if the clouds were its soil.

Isn't this what he saw in his last vision?

Then…

"This is… Eulia Empire… Or what remains of it…" he looked around to see if he could spot that strange sun in the sky.

He saw something else in the sky instead. It was very far away but he could still make it out.

A humongous red eye was looking right at him. It looked like blood was falling from its eyeball.

Was that the thing he mistook for a "sun"?

"What the fuck is that?"

It was in the direction of his city for some reason. Just east of the empire.

He looked at Ladiath to explain.

"What it is shouldn't concern you. What you're seeing is merely what can happen if the gods aren't dealt with. They're the ones who started everything, after all. Especially the creator of humans."

"What do you mean by that? What did Melis do…?"

Ladiath slowly turned around to face Arnold. The tentacles on his face slowly moved in a spiral. Arnold could then see what was underneath all of those tentacles.

A galaxy. He could see a galaxy inside Ladiath's face that had no facial features.

"Explaining what she did isn't necessary. You should see it with your own eyes." Ladiath pointed behind Arnold.

Arnold turned around.

He didn't pay the rumbling any mind at first since he couldn't find its source. For some reason the rumbling was even stronger than before.

The color drained from Arnold's face.

A horde was heading straight for the empire.  

Those weren't just ordinary monsters.

"The offspring…"

Monsters with blueish tentacle-like bodies that had speckles of different colored lights spread over their bodies were marching towards the now destroyed empire.

He could spot a lot of other monsters amongst the tentacle monsters. There were bipedal monsters and even some human-like monsters.

Arnold then stared at Ladiath in silence. What exactly was happening here and why was Ladiath showing him this?  

"I'd like to tell you a story before I explain why I need you for my plans and what those plans are. How you interpret what I'm about to tell you is up to you alone." Ladiath began his monologue as the chaos ensued below them, "—It's an old age tale that deities should never fall in love with beings from other species. Of course, love is unpredictable and it listens to no one. This is precisely why the Goddess of Love is one of the most powerful gods to exist. She feeds off the love of her daughter's creations. Melis is known as the Goddess of Beauty and Life who possesses such beauty that gods would go to war just for her. This has happened many times before. She despised her beauty because of the chaos it's created among the male gods. Because of this she never befriended the gods who show sexual interest in her. Love is but a mere distraction for a god who governs the Nine Realms along with the Realm Guardians. It's not that Melis doesn't or didn't have feelings for others before. Even if they were humans.

I've watched her protect a certain man from being impaled by a spear during a war. That man went on to win the war and even win the hearts of beauties everywhere. The man was ugly, he lacked any redeeming qualities and he was but a mere pawn in wars before her intervention. He fought in wars from ten years old for two decades. Others thought this man would give up but he had a burning desire to protect the people even if they showed him neither kindness nor respect. He had hope because Melis was by his side all along.

She broke the Divine Code of never interfering in the conflicts of her creations. All for love. She did not want this man to die an early death without fulfilling his dream. She told him he was destined for great things, even that he could aid the Divine Realm by achieving his dream of stopping the suffering on his world. That man believed her.

Melis hated herself for believing she could win the heart of a human who could not see her, could not touch her, make love to her. But she thought that she could somehow win his heart by revealing herself. While the man did indeed show interest in her when she revealed herself, that lasted mere seconds. The man's eyes went crazy. His genital swelled up like a wild beast ready to mate. He grabbed Melis by the shoulders and tried to rip her clothes off but his head exploded. The only thing that Melis was left with as that man lay on her lifelessly was a feeling of emptiness with semen and blood staining her dress.

There's a saying that invisible cupid angels follow gods without their knowledge. The cupids kill the humans that lay their eyes on the gods to cleanse the sin that the god committed by breaking the code of the Divine. This sounds more believable than some mysterious essence of the gods killing those unfit to withstand its power.

Going forward a thousand more years Melis finally met someone who was unlike the other male gods. He was handsome, brave, competent and a very kind man. Despite being only a demigod and possessing just a single world to rule, many of the goddesses fell for him and the male gods admired him. The man showed no interest in forming relationships with anyone. Or that's what everyone thought before he proposed to Melis right after a successful battle in the nine realms. Melis didn't accept at first as she didn't know this man at all when he proposed. She had been watching him and showed slight interest since he was so different from the others.

The two of them were married for a few decades. The man abstained from engaging in intercourse with Melis. This angered her as she finally found true love but could never fully embrace that love. Intercourse immediately after marriage is a ritual that had existed for millions of years even in the Divine Realm. Yet, the two never did the ritual. She did everything she could to seduce him. However, nothing was successful. The pair only kissed. One day, Melis was waiting for this man to return from the frontlines. She waited for him prostrated on the floor, with her face mere inches from the floor—the pose for an obedient woman who considers her husband to be above her. The woman who rules nine realms, thousands of worlds, begged a mere demigod to bless her with a child so that she could feel fulfilled."

Listening to that last part made Arnold remember a certain fanfiction novel surrounding a goddess and a demigod. It started floating around Star Fantasy's forums. At first he thought it was but a mere fanfiction started by a fan of the game but turns out it was real.

"The Empress Who Wore The Commoner's Shoes."

He muttered.

"Empress" as in "Goddess".

"Wore the commoner's shoes" in this context refers to taking on a role assigned to a certain individual.

The whole theme of the novel was to depict a goddess becoming an obedient wife to a lesser god—a demigod. The fanfiction became very popular amongst female players despite the controversy it gathered by some groups.

Arnold remembered seeing a copy of that book in Alecs' Inventory that one time. Said person denied ever owning the book. Imagine a headstrong woman like that liking a book about obedient wives.

"How did things work out with Melis and that man?" Arnold asked because he was interested in where things would lead and how Ladiath fits in this story.

"The two indulged in each other's bodies for years without rest. Melis left most of her duties to her archangels and Order while she gave in to her carnal desires. Her palace was always filled with moaning and screeching. The hallways were covered in their bodily fluids and every bed and piece of furniture stunk of sex. Her peers began seeing her as a degenerate."

"….Hmm…"

"One could even say that Melis was finally happy and that the emptiness inside of her was filled, an emptiness that thousands of worlds and nine realms could never fill. Things began changing somewhere along the line. This happened right after Melis fell pregnant with the demigod's child. That man was nowhere to be found when Melis wanted to tell him the news. Having a child was her final wish. The happiness she felt slowly became something much darker when she found an encrypted message that was left for her by the one she loved."

Ladiath looked down at the monsters that had finally arrived at the empire's walls. They began destroying the walls to gain entry. Miraculously, the walls were still going strong despite the destroyed cities that they should've protected.    

"She learned that day who he really was. She wanted to claw the child out of her belly but stopped herself many times. As such, she waited. She wanted to believe that her beloved was killed and replaced by that thing she so despises."

Ladiath turned to Arnold.

"The child's birth confirmed what she had feared. That everything inside that message was true and that she had been fooled all along. Melis couldn't look at the child. Hatred and disgust didn't allow her to. She went to a river in the dead of night with the baby covered in a thin blanket, barely shielding it from the cold. She tried to drown the child first and leave it under some bushes. But what would happen if others discovered a lifeless body of a child near the river? Fingers will be pointed towards her since the child looked… well, peculiar. Many deities frequent this body of water so she couldn't do it. Instead, she threw the child in the water, relying on the current of the crystal clear river to wash away her sins and hate."

"…Who was that man really?"

"Who was he indeed," Ladiath avoided answering the question, "The humans worship a failure of a goddess. Her actions bring only ruin to her worlds. She had to seek help from the Sky God to contain the chaos that broke out on her worlds. Alas, the chaos were few too many for just one god to handle. As such, the worlds which harbored the chaos had to be sealed away—or rather—disconnected from the Nine Realms somehow."

"That's why the dungeon exists? It's like a prison?"

"Precisely. The two gods did their best to make it virtually impossible to escape the dungeon. Despite this, every lock has a vulnerable spot somewhere inside of it."

"The dungeon storms… Is that it?"

"Indeed."

So the fact that the storms can spit you out somewhere else due to its space-time properties wasn't a mere coincidence.

It was a bug in the game.

Arnold looked at Ladiath in a few seconds of silence.

"…How do you fit in all this? How do you even know about what Melis did?"

Why did Ladiath go this far to convince Arnold that Melis was incompetent scum?

"Unimportant. Let us move on to something else. My time chamber won't last long."

"Tch, fine… What did you mean when you said that the gods should be dealt with?"

"I suppose it's time I tell you. I must break into the Divine Realm." Ladiath then pointed at Arnold, "You will help me achieve that."