An Unsolicited Apology
That was... that bastard. The one who had snatched Violet away by offering her a contract right in front of my open eyes. I was absolutely certain. The Court Jester, the Great Warrior of Tartarus, and the Ruler of Serpents and Darkness. I had been grinding my teeth, waiting to exact my revenge on these three.
You might ask, isn't it common for a high-grade constellation to take a lowest-grade constellation's incarnation? Common my foot. Any constellation who had been on the receiving end of that would be dying for revenge. They only endured it because they had no other choice.
Meanwhile, inside the prison cell, the woman, Aisha, finally seemed to grasp the reality of her situation. Her face had turned deathly pale as she trembled.
“Ex... excuse me? You must be joking, surely? Hahat... Execution? Are you saying you intend to kill me? You might not realize what a catastrophic loss that would be to this nation, but...”
Slam! The knight, looking thoroughly fed up, slammed the cell door shut with enough force to shatter it and walked away.
“Where do you think you are going! Wait a moment! Execution? You must explain this to me in greater detail!”
Clang!
“Quiet down in there!” the guards barked, striking the iron bars of the cell with their spears.
Regardless, Aisha was now pounding her fists against the stone floor, wailing at the top of her lungs.
“My Constellation! Please, I beg of you, answer me! Sob, sob...”
“Shut up, you crazy bitch!”
“You think you're the only one facing death here?!”
“Everyone, shut your mouths!”
I shook my head.
“Man, what a racket.”
Leaving the chaotic prison cell behind, I turned off the screen and accessed the constellation forum.
There was no need to keep watching that side anymore. Besides, with such juicy drama unfolding, there was no way I could stay away from the community.
• So what the hell actually happened?!(Comments: 14)
• The Underworld terror attack is definitely a conspiracy theory. I went and checked, the culprit is just a psycho.(Comments: 62)
• I was watching the Pantheon live.(Comments: 37)
• What kind of balls does a mere human have to do that without even being an incarnation?(Comments: 3)
• To dare cause a ruckus in the Pantheon... they must be out of their mind.(Comments: 0)
• Today's Pantheon Incident Summary.jpg(Comments: 134)
• The culprit is currently on B2 of the Imperial Capital Guard Prison.(Comments: 5)
The forum was literally being flooded with posts about the incident.
It hadn't even been this chaotic when my grade was re-evaluated from a lowest-grade constellation to a supreme-grade constellation.
“Tsk... This is a bit annoying.”
Whether you're a human or a constellation, first impressions are everything.
From observing the community's notices and general atmosphere over the past few days, I had learned that it was an unspoken rule for a newly registered constellation to post a greeting or self-introduction.
And for the past few days, the hottest topic in the constellation community had been me.
I had been carefully planning my debut post, intending to ride this wave of hype right after securing a magnificent incarnation!
But now, the community's attention had completely shifted elsewhere.
“Well, to be fair, it was an incredibly shocking event.”
As I scrolled through the posts, a familiar username caught my eye among the trending posts—the so-called 'recommended posts' of the constellation forum.
Let's see what they wrote. I clicked on the post.
...The situation had escalated far more than I expected.
Only after reading a few more trending posts did I fully grasp the situation.
Granted, while a terror attack on the Pantheon was a major event, only a small section of the outer wall had collapsed, and no one had died.
It shouldn't have blown up to this extent, but things had spiraled out of control on the constellation forum.
The catalyst, of course, was the post by the directly affected constellation, the Ruler of Serpents and Darkness.
The Pantheon had been attacked, destroying his special prayer room and sacred statue, and even injuring his incarnations.
From a constellation's perspective, it was certainly enough to make one's blood boil.
If he had simply demanded the punishment of the culprit, it probably wouldn't have escalated so dramatically.
But the problem was that he and his nebula had interpreted this incident as a targeted attack against their entire faction.
When in reality, it was just a single lunatic running wild.
A nebula was... simply put, like a guild for constellations.
Of course, they usually consisted of deities with similar backgrounds or achievements, and whether a constellation joined a nebula would determine how the constellations in the night sky of the lower world were formed... There were unique details like that.
But at its core, it was essentially a guild for constellations.
Another unique feature was that the constellations within a nebula shared a portion of their power, and as the nebula grew, unique faction-wide abilities would manifest.
Because of this, constellations felt an immense sense of belonging and loyalty to their respective nebulae.
But perhaps the Ruler of Serpents and Darkness possessed an absurdly inflated ego despite being a mere mid-high grade constellation, or maybe he thought he was some kind of big shot.
He had taken a lone lunatic's terror attack as a premeditated strike against his nebula, concluding that he had been targeted because of his immense symbolic importance.
He even came up with the ridiculous theory that a normal human, rather than an incarnation, had been chosen by a hostile rival nebula to make it easier to cut ties and avoid suspicion.
The real issue, however, was that his nebula, Underworld, actually bought into this absurd speculation.
It did have a certain twisted logic to it, and above all, the fact that a powerless commoner with absolutely no mana had used a weapon never seen before lent credibility to his claims.
Whether they truly believed it or were just using the incident as an excuse to play the victim, I couldn't say.
Regardless, the target Underworld pointed its finger at was the nebula they routinely went to war with whenever they were bored: the 72 Demons.
Both nebulae were comprised of similarly gloomy, dark-natured deities.
Since being a constellation was ultimately a business of selling faith, those with overlapping concepts tended to despise each other the most.
If the rivalry between the 72 Demons and the Heavenly Wings was like the showmanship of WWE, then the relationship between Underworld and the 72 Demons was like the UFC—a brutal, real fight where they had to tear each other apart to claim a share of the exact same market.
To make matters worse, both Underworld and the 72 Demons were massive, highly influential nebulae.
On top of that, the petty keyboard battle that erupted under the Ruler of Serpents and Darkness's post was incredibly undignified for divine beings.
It had escalated into a clash of pride between the Great Warrior of Tartarus, a supreme-grade constellation of Underworld, and the Princess of Frost, a supreme-grade constellation of the 72 Demons. Rumor had it that skirmishes had already broken out between their incarnations in the lower world.
So, in a situation like this, there was only one thing for me to do.
A few minutes after posting.
Just as I had anticipated, a flood of virtual handshakes and alliance proposals began pouring in from the 72 Demons nebula.