Chapter 226: Traitor (1)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 226: Traitor (1)
“Hmm…”
Alexei could feel it.
The air of this place—the deepest Abyss and the highest heaven—was subtly twisting.
The four fundamental forces that sustained this world… the very ones The Great Being was most wary of.
The things known as humanity’s last bastion.
Order.
Harmony.
Desire…
And the aura of the Void had just vanished completely from this world.
It hadn’t disappeared.
Someone had taken it.
“Why…?”
Alexei murmured to the empty air, his chin resting on his hand.
Normally, this space should have been consumed by fury.
The earth would have split, the heavens torn asunder, and the Apostles would have been left trembling, not knowing what to do.
Their master’s rage should have crushed them all.
Just like when Belial died, or perhaps… an even greater roar of fury should have descended.
But this place was dreadfully silent.
Why was He so quiet?
“The great, omnipotent Creator… what could be the reason…?”
It wasn’t because He was unaware of the situation.
The omniscient Great Being could not possibly be ignorant of this.
That left only one possibility.
“……”
Could it be that this was all… part of the plan?
Or… had some variable that not even He could have predicted occurred?
Alexei’s blue eyes narrowed.
Sometimes, silence could be more suffocating than a roar of fury.
It was then.
“…What? Me…?”
Far below Alexei’s throne, the Second Seat, a bewildered voice came from a woman of a much lower rank.
She was dressed in the robes of a saintess, yet the high slits on the sides exposed her legs and chest entirely—a contradictory sight.
Alexei thought of her as a whore in a saintess’s mask.
She stared into the void, seemingly responding to someone’s call.
“……”
Alexei watched the unsightly display with great interest, his chin still cupped in his hand.
“Ah… yes…”
She tried to maintain a polite posture, but she couldn’t hide the dazed and bewildered look on her face.
Flash.
A bolt of red lightning struck through the space.
The Evil God had finally lost his temper.
“Agh! Yes! Yes! I’m sorry! I’ll do it right away!”
The whore, Aria, bowed her head repeatedly in submission.
She already had a record of being scolded by the Evil God after failing to sweet-talk a human woman named Yoon Chae-ha into becoming her puppet.
Aria scrambled to her feet.
It seemed she had received an urgent command.
“Lady Aria.”
Alexei called her name softly.
“?! What is it.”
She looked up at Alexei, her eyes a mixture of fear and irritation.
“Where are you going?”
“…You know that cult that contacted us the other day?”
Aria answered, brushing her hair back in annoyance.
“Yes.”
“He wants me to go meet them.”
A few days ago.
A message had arrived from the surface.
In truth, such messages were a daily occurrence. They arrived constantly.
They were everywhere.
Opportunists with a foot in each camp, just waiting to see which way the tide would turn before switching sides.
The world was crawling with such people.
Usually, Aria would treat such messages as spam to be incinerated, or they would be used as toys for a bit of fun before being discarded.
But the message that had arrived a few days ago was from an unexpected sender.
“Arcadia?”
“Yeah.”
Aria answered curtly, a meaningful smile on her face.
Alexei dredged up his knowledge of Arcadia.
The cult that served the human King, who had recently solidified his reign.
The Saintess who had absorbed the power of Desire—a power the Evil God was watching closely—also served the King there.
But why would a group like that…?
Why would they come knocking on this door of their own volition?
A declaration of war would have made sense… but they were by no means on terms to be sending something through back channels like this.
“Strange. Their leader is a true Saintess… Why would she want to defect?”
At that, Aria scowled and shot back.
“I’m a saintess too, you know.”
She shrieked.
Her, in her nun’s habit that left her chest almost entirely visible.
What a joke.
“Haha, that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in a while.”
“Eat shit, Alexei.”
Aria raised her middle finger and stomped away.
As if trying to swallow her irritation, she swept her hair back and added, spitting the words out.
“You know, they have one too, right? All flash, no substance.”
“……?”
“The self-proclaimed Hero.”
“…Aha.”
At last, all the puzzle pieces clicked into place in Alexei’s mind.
The one who was overshadowed by the great Saintess’s radiance… destined to remain forever second best.
If fate had run its original course, the balance shouldn’t have been so skewed.
The Hero and the Saintess, two suns, should have coexisted.
But at some point, Arcadia had become entirely the Saintess’s domain.
Come to think of it… that timing, too.
It was, coincidentally, after the King’s ascension.
“I understand now.”
Alexei nodded, satisfied.
“You do? Well, I still don’t.”
Aria crossed her arms, her expression still sour.
“He’s just a bishop of some human group, at best… What help could he possibly be to us that The Great Being himself would…”
“Then just do as you’re told.”
Alexei cut her off, waving his hand dismissively.
“You don’t need to think about complicated things. This time it’s a man, so it should be easy for you. Just go, take off your clothes… and do what you always do. Seduce him with that body of yours.”
“Hey! It’s not like that this time!” Aria shouted, her face flushing with wounded pride, but Alexei didn’t even spare her another glance.
“Yes, yes. Of course. Good luck with your work.”
He turned his back to her and once again reached out into the void.
At his gesture, darkness coalesced, beginning to form a new chessboard.
This was a memento left by the deceased Belial, the very essence of his Authority.
The power to manipulate reality.
An object like a mirror, which projected the causality of reality and simulated the future’s flow.
“Well now…”
An exclamation of awe escaped Alexei’s lips as he looked down at the completed chessboard.
Upon it stood a thicket of bizarre pieces he had never seen before.
And they were all on the side opposing the human King.
Moreover, one piece among them stood out, glowing with a conspicuous red light.
“Oh?”
Alexei rested his chin on his hand and prodded the strange piece with his finger.
This piece… it had definitely been shattered to pieces once before.
A piece that had been corrupted by darkness and had already… been killed by the King.
And yet.
It was grotesquely pieced together, as if someone had forcibly scraped up the broken fragments and stuck them back together with a black, sticky adhesive.
And it was now far larger… and more monstrous than its original form.
It was broken… but put back together?
According to the laws of causality in this world, a destroyed fate was supposed to be annihilated.
This… was not something just anyone could do.
Alexei’s red eyes glinted with interest. He glanced up at the void where The Great Being resided, then his gaze shifted to Aria, who was just about to leave.
“Aria.”
With a single gesture, he snatched the whore from the air and pulled her roughly into his arms.
“How about you ignore the Evil God’s command for today and spend the night with me instead?”
“Wh-what?”
Aria’s face reddened, startled by the sudden physical contact and proposition.
But instinctively, her hand was already exploring the inside of Alexei’s thigh, revealing her lewd intentions.
It was at that very moment.
Ssssk…
In the brief instant Alexei held Aria back, the black pieces threatening the white king on the chessboard began to vanish one by one, like a mirage.
Once again, the king on the board stood with no enemies before him.
The future had changed.
This was the variable created by her lack of intervention.
“I see.”
Alexei let out a short sigh.
“…Should we do it right now?”
Aria asked, her breath hot as she tugged at his clothes.
“No. I was joking.”
The smile vanished from Alexei’s face in an instant.
Whoosh!
He threw Aria, who was still in his arms, out of the Abyss.
“You son of a bi—!!!”
Aria’s curse faded as she disappeared into the darkness of the Abyss.
“Farewell.”
Alexei murmured, watching indifferently as the Apostle Aria fell.
When he turned his gaze back to the chessboard… the massive, hideous pieces had once again appeared, advancing toward the king.
“Your role will be a great one, whore.”
Everything was turning, interlocking like cogs in a machine.
He finally understood the Evil God’s will.
The reason The Great Being had merely been watching…
The plan.
He understood it perfectly.
There was no need to create an enemy for the King from the outside.
Because an enemy from within is always the most terrifying.
