With the lingering issues from the previous meeting's transactions resolved, Sasrir scanned the room and began outlining the next plan.
"Within a hundred years, my Lord will formally begin reclaiming all lost authorities."
A hundred years… a long span, yet Lilith and Amanises still felt the weight of pressure.
"At a suitable juncture, we will wage a war against the elves and dragons, while Aurmir will declare war on Gregrace," Sasrir said, looking at everyone. "This marks the beginning of this epoch's end, the darkness before dawn. We may need your help again."
"Agreed," Amanises nodded immediately. The ancient gods should vanish—a consensus they all shared.
Their initial gathering was to overthrow the era of ancient god rule.
"Let it begin," Lilith said, her blood-red eyes tinged with cold indifference and barely suppressed excitement.
They had planned extensively for this, and now it was time to put everything into action.
…
Golden City, a city-state sheltered by the Angel of Dreams during the war with the elves.
Afterward, all its human inhabitants unanimously requested to rename the city "Dream."
The presiding priest rejected this, deeming the direct use of the angel's name blasphemous. Thus, it was named "Dreamsea," symbolizing the boundary between dream and sea, commemorating the Sea of Dreams manifested by the angel to shield the city from an endless tidal wave.
Thereafter, the city received special attention from the Creator's divine kingdom, flourishing greatly.
This should have been a thriving city-state, but today, its leader vanished!
"There are traces of elves!" a Beyonder skilled in divination declared. "I see signs of a 'Storm Priest'!"
"Elves!?" The city's Beyonders were shocked, then fell silent.
The elves had left too deep an impression.
"Elves! Always the elves!" a young, short-statured man leapt up.
"How many of our comrades have the elves killed these years?! Now even the priest is dead!" The young man's face was flushed with agitation, his eyes red.
"We should hunt the elves! Avenge our Dreamsea City's priest!"
"Revenge!" the diviner shouted. "The priest was our teacher. We must avenge him!"
"The elf patrol guard assigned to our city is a 'Storm Priest.' Only it could have killed the priest!"
"Kill it!"
The young man's words were fiery, and silently, a force spread. The Beyonders, emotionally unstable from the priest's death, were swayed.
"'Storm Priest'? It has to be!" another Beyonder nodded with absolute certainty, expressing fear and loathing for the elves.
"Then let's kill that elf to avenge the priest!" The Beyonders reached a consensus fueled by intense vengeance.
"Don't rush. We need a plan!" the young man interjected, halting the group.
He then devised a plan to hunt the elf, incorporating everyone's input, which gained unanimous approval.
"Good! Let's do it!" The Beyonders dispersed to prepare for the elf hunt.
"Cheek…" the seer cautiously called out.
"What? Something wrong?" Chick, who had incited the group, flashed a smile.
The seer shrank back, not daring to press further.
"Go prepare. We start the plan tomorrow," Cheek said, deliberately mimicking a gentle tone.
"…Yes!" The seer, intimidated by Chick, hurriedly left the church.
Watching the seer's retreating figure, Cheek's gentle facade faded, replaced by a grim expression as he returned to his residence.
He opened several hidden doors, descending into a hollow dug underground.
"Child, don't continue down this path. You're blessed by the Lord; you shouldn't walk a mistaken road," a weak voice reached Cheek's ears.
The priest, covered in blood, limbs broken, lay on the ground, bound by ropes infused with Beyonder power. The robust vitality of the Giant pathway kept him alive.
"Mistaken?" Cheek's face twisted, fear, confusion, and resentment surging within him.
"You led me here! You sinner!" Cheek produced a blue bone blade, stabbing it into the priest's abdomen, blood gushing out.
"I didn't know Sequence 7 of the Assassin pathway was 'Witch,'" the priest said earnestly. Before the Angel of Dreams' favor, Dreamsea City was a remote outpost near elf territory, with limited potion formula resources.
Cheek had pressured him too intensely, leaving only the Assassin potion available—a twist of fate, perhaps.
"Don't say that word!" Cheek shrieked, twisting the bone blade, eliciting a scream from the priest.
"'Witch'… 'Witch'…" Cheek descended into madness. He had earned the "Witch" potion formula and materials from the church for driving off monsters.
But its description shattered him.
"It's fate's choice…" the priest recalled years past, murmuring.
Cheek, scarred by his past, trusted no one, leveraging divine favor to coerce the priest. By chance, the priest could only provide the Assassin potion.
It was all fate's design.
"Fate betrayed me! I'll make it pay!" Cheek's voice was cold and resolute.
"You… could stay at your current sequence forever… The higher the sequence, the greater the risk… of losing control," the priest said haltingly, his consciousness fading.
"Impossible!" Cheek's eyes blazed red. "At Sequence 8, I don't even have a chance to reach the Kingdom of Heaven!"
"Why…?"
"At Sequence 8, how could I approach the Dream?" Cheek showed signs of madness.
After obtaining the "Witch" formula, he spiraled into obsessive self-questioning, his mind stretched to the breaking point.
"Why approach?!" The priest was baffled. Drawing near to a god was noble, but a god's side was no place for mortals.
For ordinary believers, it could be fatal.
Cheek's eyes glowed red, keratinous layers forming on his face, black patterns spreading across his cheeks, his hair thickening and swaying without wind. He teetered on the edge of losing control.
Frantically, he pulled a partially eaten cake from a concealed pouch, inhaling its fragrance with near-pathological intensity before tearing off a nail-sized piece and eating it.
The signs of losing control vanished instantly.
"Because… He is the only redemption in this mad world!"
(End of Chapter)