Chapter 322: Ch 322 : Third Player

The Throne Room, City of Gods.

“Two done. One more to go.”

Sunny whispered the words, his voice barely audible over the vibrating energy in the room. He leaned forward on the Throne, his eyes analyzing his handiwork.

In front of him, to the left side stood Beru, the God of Evolution. The insectoid God radiated a pressure so intense it felt physical. He was the Apex Predator, a being who had evolved to consume everything.

On the right stood Cai Zhen, the God of Cultivation. In contrast to Beru, he was terrifyingly silent. He had no aura. He had no pressure. He felt like a hole in the reality, where light and sound went to die. He was the void, a being of infinite capacity.

“It won’t be long before they surpass even their old strength,” Sunny thought, satisfied. “The Law of Evolution and the Law of Cultivation… when fueled by Faith, they are broken.”

He shifted his gaze to the final candidate.

Thera, the Goddess of Annihilation.

She stood alone, gripping the hem of her robe. Her knuckles were white.

She looked at Beru, and her instincts screamed RUN. She looked at Cai Zhen, and her soul shivered at the emptiness.

She was a Goddess of destruction. She wielded the power to erase everything. Yet, standing between these two monsters, she felt small. She felt obsolete.

“If I don’t grow stronger…” Thera thought, a cold dread settling in her stomach. “I will be left behind. I will be a burden to Cai. I will be useless to the Emperor.”

That fear sparked a fire in her eyes. She didn’t want to be protected. She wanted to be the one doing the protecting.

“I am ready, Emperor,” Thera said. Her voice was calm, but it carried the weight of steel.

Sunny nodded, appreciating her resolve.

“Good. Annihilation is a volatile law. It requires a steady hand.”

He raised his right hand, preparing to snap his fingers. He intended to manifest a new Isolation Sphere, one filled not with Qi or nothingness, but filled with pure, law of destruction to refine her swords.

He gathered his will. His thumb pressed against his middle finger.

STOP.

Sunny froze.

His hand stopped midway, suspended in the air.

Two of his SS-Grade Talents Divine Intuition and Time Affinity had suddenly screamed in unison. A jolt of warning, sharp as a lightning bolt, travelled from his spine to his brain.

“What?” Sunny exclaimed, his eyes turning towards Thera, and then deep into her soul.

The Cosmic Void: The Edge of the Multiverse of Gods

In the cold space between multiverses, the demon lords were gathering.

This was a place where multiverses dared not shine. The vacuum here was thick with malice.

Beezlebub, the Demon Lord of Hunger, floated in the void.

He was staring at a figure who sat casually on a throne made of screaming skulls.

Deimos, the Demon Lord of Discord.

“Deimos,” Beezlebub rumbled,”I have a premonition. The Fat Pig… Belial. He is not going to succeed.”

“You know our premonitions are rarely wrong. It tells me he will return empty-handed… if he returns at all.”

Deimos didn’t look up. He was playing with a small star in his hand, crushing it like a stress ball.

“And?” Deimos asked, his voice smooth and terrifyingly calm. “If even you can sense it, then it must be obvious. So… why do you ask?”

Beezlebub frowned. “If you know he will fail… why did you authorize the attack? Why send 2,000 Demon Gods into a meat grinder?”

Deimos crushed the star. It went supernova in his palm, and he inhaled the explosion like it was cigar smoke.

“Because Discord requires chaos, my hungry friend,” Deimos grinned, revealing rows of shark-like teeth.

“I know he will fail to breach the shell. But Belial won’t die. He is the Lord of Lies; he is harder to kill than a cockroach. As for the 2,000 Gods? They are fodder. Their deaths will paint the multiverse red. It will fuel my growth.”

He stood up, his aura expanding to cover light-years.

“Since the War is coming, I don’t want any of you Lords to die. But the pawns? Let them burn.”

Beezlebub looked at Deimos’s back. A hint of worry flashed in his eyes, but he quickly hid it behind a mask of indifference. Deimos was insane, but he was powerful. Questioning him was dangerous.

“Deimos,” a chilling voice drifted from the shadows.

Maledictus, the Demon Lord of Curses, emerged.

“Why has no God arrived by now?” She hissed. “We have been patrolling this place for nearly a year. The net is set. Yet… We caught nothing.”

“Maybe the ’Hidden Hand’ is guiding them,” Malakai, the Lord of Despair, added, floating beside her. “Or that Cosmos. He is guiding them away from us. Or maybe they know we are waiting, and they are running in the opposite direction.”

Deimos chuckled. “Running? There is nowhere to run. The multiverses are finite.”

“Then what should we do, Deimos?” Malakai asked, his voice dripping with misery. “We look like fools standing here. Should we mobilize the full force? Scour every multiverse?”

“We can try,” Deimos mused, tapping his chin. “We can chase the rats. We might catch a few weak ones. But I feel… I feel that no matter how hard we chase, we won’t catch the ones that matter.”

The Demon Lords fell silent. If the Lord of Discord said it was futile, it was a prophecy.

“Then what are we doing here?” Ichor, the Lord of Corrosion demanded, “If we can’t kill Cosmos, and we can’t catch the Old Gods, what is the point? We look like guards guarding his multiverse.”

Deimos turned to them. His grin widened until it seemed to split his face.

“We are not guarding his multiverse, Ichor. We are guarding a gate.”

He pointed a clawed finger toward the shimmering, impenetrable barrier of the Multiverse of Gods in the distance.

“We are waiting for Cosmos.”

“I am sure,” Deimos whispered, his red eyes burning with anticipation. “He will be passing through here. Soon.”

“And when he does…” Deimos clenched his fist. “We will be here to welcome him.”

Hidden deep within the folds of the Demon Capital, Lom sat in his meditation chamber.

His hand clutched a sleek, black artifact, a specialized receiver linked to the souls of the Demon Gods standing near the lords. He heard every word.

“So,” Lom whispered, a treacherous smile playing on his lips. “He is coming out of his shell.”

“Cosmos is finally making his move. But why now? Does he want to surrender? No… a man who had gathered more than 6 billion Gods and the king of the old gods… Will surely not surrender”

Lom’s mind raced. He was the third player in this game. He served neither the Gods nor the Demons truly; he served himself.

“If Cosmos comes out, it will be a total war. Deimos against Cosmos.”

“Good,” Lom thought. “He can’t die just like that. He needs to take down at least one or two Demon Lords before he falls. If the balance of power shifts… I can step in.”

“Let the giants kill each other. The scavenger inherits the earth.”

City of Gods: The Northern Quadrant.

While the Demon Lords plotted in the void, a different kind of imprisonment was happening inside the paradise.

Deep beneath the streets of the Northern District, hiding in the shadows, floated a small dark sphere.

The darkness of the Pearl of Calamity was a stark contrast to the outside world.

A dark sphere where two figures sat in the gloom. Mongo and Kairos. The spies who had infiltrated the city days ago, only to find themselves trapped by the Emperor’s omnipotence.

“I hate this,” Mongo groaned, looking at the outside world. He watched happy Gods walking toward the God-Maker Realm.

“I would have loved to enter that realm…” Mongo sighed wistfully. “Imagine the power I could gain. All the laws would be mine.”

He looked over at Kairos.

But Kairos was meditating. He sat perfectly still, floating in the center of the Pearl. His eyes were closed, but the air around him rippled with distortion.

Kairos slowly opened his eyes. They weren’t normal. They were gray, spinning clockwise like the gears of a watch.

His gaze fell on Mongo.

Click.

Mongo froze.

He didn’t freeze in fear. He physically stopped.

The blood in his veins halted. The electrical signals in his brain paused. The dust motes floating around him hung suspended in mid-air.

Mongo’s consciousness was still active, trapped in a body that was disconnected from the flow of time. He tried to speak, but his vocal cords wouldn’t vibrate. He tried to blink, but his eyelids were stone.

’No… my body isn’t frozen,’ Mongo realized with horror. ’The Time around me is frozen.’

It lasted for three seconds. Then, Kairos blinked, and reality snapped back.

“GASPP!”

Mongo sucked in a massive breath, falling to the floor. He coughed violently, clutching his chest.

“You…” Mongo wheezed. “You monster. You’ve gotten stronger.”

Even before entering the City, Kairos could freeze time. But that only worked on mortals. Mongo was a God! To freeze a God required an authority over the Law of Time that was past the limits of a talent.

“I want to enter the God-Maker Realm too,” Kairos admitted calmly, ignoring his partner’s distress. “The Law of Time… it is difficult to comprehend in this cramped box. In there, I could master it.”

“You… you’re crazy,” Mongo shuddered, standing up. “You just froze me with a glance. Isn’t that enough?”

“It’s never enough,” Kairos said, looking at the ceiling of the Pearl.

“But you are right,” Kairos sighed. “To enter the Realm… we would need to exit the Pearl of Calamity.”

“And the moment we step out,” Mongo whispered, pointing at the ceiling, “He will know.”

“Yeah,” Kairos nodded grimly. “That’s problematic.”

They were powerful enough to freeze time, yet they were prisoners in a city of freedom.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep