Chapter 86: The pretender who thought she could play god.

Every person in their lifetime must have imagined having tea in surreal surroundings with a beautiful woman.

Yeah, and right now I was in that imagination.

A woman who defied gravity solely by her being sat opposite me, sipping on tea from a crimson cup.

Her hair was starlight-white, her violet eyes the kind poets would happily drown in and the chair she sat on looked like it had been carved out of a cloud.

Being poetic when you’re sitting in front of a god is just a side effect.

I wasn’t admiring her.

Not really.

Admiration is for fools who forget the monster behind the mask.

For a moment, I almost forgot who I was looking at.

Because beneath the beauty, beneath the gravity-defying chest was a smug bastard who had taken Morvana’s face just to screw with me.

And that steaming cup of tea?

Yeah, I wasn’t stupid enough to think it was just tea.

I didn’t reach for the cup.

Not yet.

Instead, I let my fingers hover just above it as if I was checking the temperature.

In truth, I was weighing the odds.

In my experience, nothing good comes from drinking what a cosmic prankster offers you.

I didn’t think for a moment this was meant to kill me.

I mean, for all the glory I had… I wasn’t yet at a level where a god would have to resort to such a cheap trick to kill me.

No, if the Trickster wanted me gone, he would probably just snap his fingers.

Which meant this tea was something else.

Something worse.

A test, maybe.

Across from me, his lips curved into a smile too soft to be anything but a threat.

“Aren’t you going to drink?” He asked.

I smiled back, matching her tone. “Ladies first.”

In the first place… what the hell even was the Trickster?

Was he male? Female? Both? Neither?

I never really bothered asking before. I was too busy not dying, you know?

I mean, the first time I saw him, he was wearing Razek’s skin, broad shoulders, smug grin and the whole macho villain starter pack.

So I thought, okay, he is definitely male.

But now? Now he was Morvana.

All soft curves, violet eyes, gravity-defying chest, sipping tea like he had been born to ruin men’s self-control.

And he wore it well.

Too well.

Which made me wonder, was there even a “real” Trickster?

Or was he just that good at shifting masks?

“So, what is this ’tea’?” I asked without reservation.

Calling it tea felt like an insult to the whole noble tea-kind, if such a thing existed.

This wasn’t tea.

This was… pitch black liquid that had these little bubbles like an acidic swamp had tried to cosplay as a beverage.

The surface shimmered oddly, too.

“If I were you, I would have definitely drunk that.” He replied. “Afterall, it’s the authority of Hel… you scammed. Hahhahahahahahah”

“What the hell?”

What is Hel’s authority doing in this teacup?

So that’s why it was missing during my evolution.

…Great. Just great. Out of all the cosmic safes in existence, it ends up poured into a porcelain cup here.

“What do you mean?” I asked, keeping my calm.

“Well, you did a foolish move back there,” he said, smug smile deepening. “The scamming part was good, but you left some loopholes.”

He leaned in just enough for the violet of his eyes to glow.

“Like, you should have made sure to be forgotten. And secondly, you should have never tried to covet her authority.”

“I wasn’t coveting… I was just hoping it would have, you know, some cool effects.” I shot back immediately.

How could he even say I was trying to be greedy?

Me? Greedy?

That’s blasphemy.

I was a humble, benevolent man who only ever wanted what was rightfully mine… plus maybe a little extra.

That was definitely not greed.

Right?

“Yeah, I know what you were trying to do… after all, I was chilling in your soul the whole time. Hahahahahahah!”

The laugh rang out but this time it didn’t land like a joke.

This time, it hollowed out my chest.

In my soul?

What the hell did that mean?

“Don’t be so serious… even now we are in your soul.”

“This domain, it’s yours, or to be more accurate, it will be yours in the future. I did some renovations to make it similar to my home… but it could never imitate mine.”

My throat went dry but the Trickster continued without a care.

“As for why you’re seeing me… when I was supposed to have died… it’s because this was my failsafe.”

He took a small pause.

“I hid a small part of my soul to help you.”

“This was my real gift. Because I knew… you would die while claiming the Card of Arcana.”

Countless questions erupted in my mind.

Why didn’t the Heavenly Principles react back then?

Weren’t they supposed to protect mortals from God’s interference?

Then… why?

But questions weren’t all I had because I also got some answers.

Why wasn’t Hel able to see my lies?

Why couldn’t she peer through my soul?

How was I lying so flawlessly to a god when I should’ve been a shaking mess just to meet their eyes?

It all made sense now.

The Trickster wasn’t just meddling.

The Trickster was inside.

Controlling it.

Still… the way he talked about my death as if he didn’t just guess but knew for sure, made my stomach twist.

So I asked.

“How did you know I was supposed to die?”

Yeah, I know. Dumb question.

Especially after finding out a cosmic clown’s been living rent-free inside my soul.

But what else could I do?

Every word out of his mouth was turning my reality inside-out and I was running out of jokes to hide behind.

Unlike Hel… at least with her I knew something. I had read about her in the novel and could guess at the moves.

This bastard was a complete unknown.

And more importantly…

He hadn’t asked me about the Chalice or about how I knew the Primordial Spark.

That silence told me something.

Something worse than any question.

He knew something about my origin.

Or worse… he knew something about the book.

But I wasn’t stupid enough to mention it before I made sure of it.

“I will tell you everything before I vanish this time,” he said, voice serious for once. “And don’t worry… I won’t bug you again. I used all my remaining divinity to help you back then.”

“But before that, drink that tea.”

My eyes flicked to the cup.

“Didn’t you just say it was stupid to covet Hel’s authority?” I asked, genuinely curious.

He had just spent the last few minutes telling me what an idiot I was for trying to evolve my Nexus while holding her authority…

…and now he was offering me tea that supposedly held exactly that.

“This is her authority,” he said at last, the mockery gone from his voice, “but I’ve burned it clean with my own power and purged every trace of her.”

“So that, it won’t drag you down or tie you to her. It could clear your path of ascension…”

He paused, violet eyes narrowing just slightly.

“…or it could do nothing at all. Or worse.”

His fingers tapped the porcelain once.

“It’s a gamble. I can’t predict what results it will have. So, choose by yourself.”

The smile on his face deepened, but there was no humor in it now, only something like curiosity.

“Will you take this gamble or not?”

And then as if to nail the coffin shut, he added:

“If it’s because you can’t trust me…” His violet eyes sharpened. “Then I swear, on my Primordial Spark, that what I am saying is no lie.”

Now that was an interesting oath.

I had heard of gods making oaths but never like this.

The Primordial Spark was something even gods hid, even in the face of death. Which meant there was something out there they feared more than dying.

So when the Trickster swore on it… it had to be real, right?

And yet the thought didn’t calm me. It made my frown deepen.

Why was he helping me so much?

What could he possibly want from me?

Why go to such lengths for a mortal like me?

Or maybe…

I hated the feeling of not knowing something. But screw it.

I grabbed the cup and drank like a bad medicine you choke down because you have no other choice.

If this kills me, I’m haunting this bastard for eternity.

“Hahahaha…” The Trickster laughed softly. “Good job, drinking it.”

I set the cup down.

I didn’t feel any changes but I could feel something happening… something I couldn’t quite point out.

The Trickster tried to say something but before he could, I interrupted him.

“Enough of that,” I said, my voice low. “Answer me.”

His borrowed violet eyes tilted in amusement.

“Answer you?”

“Why were you so sure about my death? Who are you really? And more importantly…” I leaned forward, meeting his gaze. “Why the hell are you helping me so much?”

He met my gaze as the smile on his face receded slowly.

“To understand everything… you need to know about HER. That bitch. That pretender who thought she could play god.”

—

✨ Author’s Note ✨

If you’re enjoying the story, don’t forget to leave a comment—it means the world! Your GTs, Ps, and little gifts keep the magic alive and inspire me to keep writing more. Thank you for being part of this journey!

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