Chapter 322

“Oh.”

Headkar Hella Hotus greeted the Eight Gods very gladly.

“You have come only now, oh Gods.”

“What are you….”

Cordisias simply asked.

“…What are you doing, Headkar?”

“The tower is quite high, is it not?”

“Didn’t you say a rebellion broke out…?”

“It was a lie. Because I wanted to show you this tower.”

There is a crown made of gold on Headkar’s head.

It was a gift the ‘Last Emperor’ gave to the kings of humans.

Headkar presented the numerous soldiers and slaves he commanded to the gods.

The Eight Gods merely found it repulsive.

Tens of thousands of people, the Eight Gods could crush with a single finger.

The human power the king boasted of held no meaning to them.

“…It is a high tower.”

Sen Sorti took up the words.

“And it harbors very impure intentions.”

“Do you recognize what this tower is?”

“Naturally….”

The ‘Last Mage’ bit her lip without realizing it.

She could not know.

Before establishing Hotus, the Eight Gods had also committed the same act here in Dimashq.

“Is it not for summoning an Outer Being?”

“That is correct.”

At the words ‘Outer Being’, the other Eight Gods reacted.

“Outer Being!?”

“…This scoundrel….”

Especially Caseptus and Debius instantly revealed their true forms as Man-Gods and did not hide their anger.

The eagle-headed giant and the steel lion behaved as if they would swallow the human king at any moment.

“Arrogant!”

“You are arrogant, human king.”

Debius drew his sword and Caseptus clacked his beak fiercely.

However, Headkar did not back down in the slightest and instead bared his teeth in a smile.

“Just like you all?”

““…….””

“Please answer me. I am asking if I resemble the old you.”

““…….””

At Headkar’s words, Debius and Caseptus fell into silence.

Because they were certain that the human king knew the secret of the Eight Gods’ birth.

“Oh Gods.”

The king laughs.

He giggled and laughed as if something was so joyful.

The corners of his mouth rose so high they seemed about to touch the corners of his eyes.

But strangely, there was resentment amidst the glistening gaze.

It was impossible to know whom he resented and why.

“Please look at the tower that I built!”

The tower was high.

It was built with the screams and sweat of tens of thousands of slaves.

The sound of whipping is rife.

Headkar looked very cheerful.

He muttered a few words, but they could not be fully understood.

In between, only words like my glory, my power, my country… could be heard.

“I built the tower. So that it reaches very high! This is my glory. It is human glory! Was your tower this high too?”

“We did not build a tower.”

Cordisias answered calmly.

He saw his old self in Headkar.

Though it was different.

He had not summoned the Outer Being with the mind of building a tower.

“Instead, we built a small laboratory.”

“I see.”

“More than that, I cannot understand.”

The Emperor’s eyes flashed.

“After going to the trouble of preparing to summon the Outer Being in secret, why did you inform me?”

“I told you, it was to show you.”

“Did you not think we would stop it?”

“Of course I did.”

The human king pulled up the corners of his mouth.

“But you cannot stop it.”

“His words are correct.”

It was an elegant voice.

“One cannot stop what has already come.”

The Hotus Eight Gods remembered that they had heard a similar voice and experienced a similar situation about 300 years ago.

Behind the human king, a beautiful woman appeared.

Even though she had been there all along, the Hotus Eight Gods did not know.

Because the woman had a higher existence than them.

“I am sorry.”

The woman had three heads.

One was rotten, one was only bone, and one was beautiful.

Three faces that were now even welcome.

“I have ended up coming already again.”

Undying Demon Queen, Lefren.

***

“…Is that so.”

Cordisias muttered.

“You invited us so confidently because you had already summoned the Undying Demon Queen.”

“That is so, oh God.”

“Do you want to call us gods even after mocking us?”

“Didn’t you all force it upon us all along?”

Headkar’s eyes glistened.

Cordisias realized only then what the king was angry about.

“…We considered you, all of you, like children.”

“Children are bound to resemble their parents.”

“You are right.”

The ‘Last Emperor’ covered his face with his hands.

“I cannot bear to scold you….”

He ended up deeply empathizing with Headkar’s heart.

Hadn’t Cordisias also been like that?

He felt frustrated by the thirteen Ancient Gods blocking their ceiling, resented them, and in the end killed and crushed them to make them into weapons.

Headkar harbored the same feelings toward the Hotus Eight Gods.

“Were we like this?”

Cordisias examined Headkar deeply.

“Were we also like this back then, impatient and unsightly….”

He hated the sight.

Who established Hotus for them?

Who made Headkar a king?

Who gave countless help, bestowed grace he didn’t even wish for, and allowed him to play king until now?

It is them.

It was the Hotus Eight Gods.

But just because they were frustrating, he committed such a bitter betrayal for merely such a reason?

He was frustrated enough to want to mock them by showing his betrayal?

It was detestable enough to make him shudder, he wanted to crush and kill him, he wanted to clear him from his sight, but he could not do so again.

As Cordisias said, because all the people of Hotus were like his children.

No matter how detestable, one cannot abandon one’s child.

At least the Eight Gods were such Man-Gods.

“…Please answer, Lefren. Were we also like this?”

“You were a little better.”

“…It means there wasn’t a big difference.”

“I will not speak out of consideration.”

“It is no different from having already spoken.”

“Is that so? Conversation is difficult as expected.”

Lefren tilted her head.

“Undying Demon Queen. The fact that you are here must mean the contract has already begun.”

“That is correct. I have already received the price.”

“…Did you stop Headkar?”

“He wouldn’t even listen.”

The three-headed Demon Queen said.

“I told him. The undying is already within you all, it just hasn’t been revealed. Then he asked me to make it reveal.”

“…Are you going to do so?”

“I must do so.”

“…….”

Cordisias laughed slightly.

He felt grief.

Even after becoming a Man-God, this grief remained the same.

No, rather, as the years lived increased, the sadness and pain only became more intense.

The grief was strong enough to sometimes make him feel fear.

“…It will repeat.”

He recalled 300 years ago.

It was like that then too.

Just because he exchanged a few wrong words with this three-headed Demon Queen, the whole world perished.

Every single human lost their form and changed into something non-human.

“Lefren.”

“Yes, Cordisias.”

“…Do you know where the people of that time, those of 300 years ago, are?”

“I know. I am the kind of existence that cannot know.”

Lefren lifted a finger and pointed down.

She was an Outer Being, and perceived things invisible to the eye too easily by piercing through.

“There is a hole below here.”

“It is a hole created because you appeared 300 years ago.”

“I see people there. I had given them fruit.”

“Are those things people?”

“They are people. It is just that they became complete even though it was not yet time to be complete. So they must wait for their time, and they become the most suitable form to wait for their time.”

“It is difficult.”

Cordisias smiled bitterly.

“Undying Demon Queen!”

Headkar Hella Hotus angrily intervened.

He was a young man not even thirty years old yet.

It meant he didn’t even recognize his own impatience, let alone overcome it.

“It is I who summoned you! This Headkar Hella Hotus called you!”

He behaved like a child jealous of adults’ conversation.

In reality too, it was not much different.

“Do not mistake the partner of the contract!”

At the shout close to a tantrum, the Undying Demon Queen and Cordisias smiled bitterly at the same time.

Cordisias ended up empathizing with the Undying Demon Queen’s feelings from 300 years ago.

Seeing the appearance of being fretful and anxious with impatience over what he would get anyway, only a bitter smile came out.

“Lefren.”

“Speak, Cordisias.”

“Could you perhaps grant one request?”

It is not a difficult task for us either, but it would be easier for you.

Guessing the content of the request, Lefren nodded.

“I will do so.”

“I haven’t said what the request is yet.”

“Isn’t it to show the inside of the hole?”

Lefren said.

“I am sorry. I was too fast again.”

The Demon Queen had her palms pressed together.

“We have already come inside.”

***

The scenery changed.

The high tower, the tens of thousands of slaves, and the people holding whips disappeared, and there was nothing.

Literally, there was nothing.

It was a vast blank space where one didn’t even know what was missing.

“Oot…!!!”

Headkar Hella Hotus fell and landed on his buttocks without realizing it.

In this place, only Headkar was purely human.

The Undying Demon Queen and the Hotus Eight Gods looked down at such Headkar.

“…This place, what is this place, ‘Last Emperor’…!”

“There is something you must see.”

Cordisias turned his head.

“Sen.”

“Shall I call them out?”

“Please do so.”

Sen Sorti waved her hand.

The space where there was nothing lifted.

A forest was revealed.

The thickets were dense and there were many old trees.

The faces of the Hotus Eight Gods came to harbor a calm sadness.

It is because they knew what that forest originally was, no, rather, what it still is even now.

“What do these look like to you, Headkar?”

“…A forest.”

“No. These are not forests.”

Cordisias moved his lips.

“These are my people.”

He felt a penetrating sense of responsibility.

“When I was still only human and not a god. When I was like the current you. Before summoning Lefren, they were the people who were my subjects.”

“……?”

Headkar felt his hair stand on end.

He saw the forest.

It was grass and trees.

Things one could not even think of as people.

“…Those, are people…?”

He began to stutter.

“No, no, if they are your subjects… if it was before you became a god… then exactly when….”

“300 years ago.”

Cordisias said coldly.

“Do you not understand, Headkar? Those are our mistakes. We forced the undying into their hands without knowing what it was, and they all became like that.”

“……Ah……?”

“It is sad.”

Cordisias recited.

“Even if they say children are bound to resemble their parents, I want you to be better than us. I want you not to commit the same mistake as us.”

“T, t, then….”

“Why could you only amount to that, Headkar?”

Headkar turned his head hurriedly.

“Wait…!”

He looked at the three-headed Demon Queen.

Because he remembered what he had sought from the Demon Queen.

“…M, my people too… the people of Ho, Hotus too…!”

“Do you know now?”

Lefren took up the words.

“Why have those people been grieving all along?”

The Hotus Eight Gods were all looking down.

The thought that they had to undergo the perish of all humans again, which was enough with once, made them sink.

“I, I will withdraw it!”

The human king, Headkar raised his voice.

“Even now, even now!”

“That cannot be done.”

Lefren raised her hand.

She placed the world between her palms.

The Eight Gods knew the coming future and closed their eyes gently.

There was only a pitiful feeling.

“You offered the price and I received the price.”

“No-!!!”

“The Fruit of Immortality inside every human. You said you wanted it to be revealed.”

Headkar screamed desperately.

The Demon Queen placed even that scream between her palms and crushed it.

“Take what you want.”

***

All of humanity perished for the second time.

Every human in the whole world could not handle the Fruit of Immortality and changed into grass and trees.

Headkar Hella Hotus was the same.

There was not a single existence that became a Man-God like the Eight Gods.

This was also the end of Hotus.

***

This time too, there were a few infants who survived.

It was fewer than the last time, only 1,335.

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