My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger

“Wait, wait, before you do anything let me know what you intend to say.” The Blind Old Daoist quickly stopped Damon, who was already standing on the surface of the water.

Ripples spread beneath Damon’s boots as he stepped back slightly. He raised an eyebrow, then shrugged carelessly.

“The usual stuff.”

He glanced toward the Blind Old Daoist, then spoke in a slow, somber voice that echoed softly across the silent chamber.

“Hail Minerva, Goddess of Doom.

Lady of the Inevitable.

Mistress of Final Judgment.

She Who Weighs the Scales.

Bearer of the Black Thread.

The One Who Watches from the End.

Mother of Dread and Silence.

Hail the Queen of Shattered Realms.

She Who Writes the Last Law.

Matron of War Unending.

Lady of Death.

The Fate Unyielding.

The Hand Behind the Curtain of Destiny.

Hail the Goddess of the Abyss.

Hail Goddess of Doom.”

When Damon finally stopped speaking, the Blind Old Daoist nodded slowly several times.

“Hmmm. Hmmm. I see. You are dead. Very dead. You are deader than dead. I cannot even see your soul escaping.”

The sudden seriousness in the old man’s tone made Damon uneasy. He frowned slightly, replaying the words he had just spoken inside his mind before realizing what he had accidentally implied.

“You mean the Goddess of the Abyss part? I mean, I did not call her the bride of the Demon God or anything like that.”

The Blind Old Daoist chuckled softly.

“If you did, then you would be a fool.”

At those words, Damon heard Ashcroft grumble bitterly in the back of his mind. After all, Ashcroft had arrogantly referred to Doom as the bride of the Demon God more than once.

The old daoist sighed and shook his head slowly.

“When you face the Goddess of Doom, know this. Never say anything that associates her with the Unknown God. Not as his bride, nor even through a shared domain.”

Damon nodded slowly before muttering under his breath.

“What a weird couple.”

The Blind Old Daoist immediately shook his head.

“They are not a couple. If anything, they have never truly been together. Doom was simply one of the unfortunate beings born with an attribute declaring her the Unknown God’s bride. As for whether Unknown planned it or not, that question remains unanswered.”

Lilith crossed her arms thoughtfully, emerald eyes narrowing slightly.

“I never understood that. Why did Doom not simply get rid of the attribute once she became a true god? She should be capable of virtually anything.”

The Blind Old Daoist fell silent for a moment, as if carefully considering how to explain something beyond mortal comprehension.

“From what I heard, she tried and succeeded. However, she kept reacquiring the attribute no matter how many times she destroyed it. According to the rumors, it was Doom herself who prevented the attribute from being permanently lost.”

“That makes no sense to me,” Damon replied immediately.

The old daoist looked thoughtful, his fingers lightly brushing against the vines growing through his body.

“The one who prevented the attribute from disappearing was a future version of Doom forcing her younger self to keep it.”

Damon raised a brow slowly.

Gods were absurdly convoluted beings. None of that sounded remotely sane to him.

“Ahh, whatever. I will risk it all.”

He took another step toward the lake, but Lilith suddenly grabbed his arm tightly and refused to let go.

“This is too dangerous,” she said quietly. “What if we calm down and think of another plan? A safer plan.”

Damon shook his head slowly.

“We have thought long enough. Now is the time for action. Every day we waste is another day Unknown wins.”

His expression hardened as he approached the Lake of Tears once more. The glowing water reflected faint light onto his face as he called out.

“Hail Minerva, Goddess of Doom.”

The Lake of Tears immediately began to churn and roil violently, as though reality itself had reacted to her name.

“Lady of the Inevitable.”

Thin glowing strands suddenly appeared across the chamber like threads woven through existence itself. Damon saw glimpses of unavoidable futures. Wars. Graves. Falling stars. Corpses he recognized.

Blood leaked slowly from his nose.

“Mistress of Final Judgment.”

A vast scale formed within the reflection of the lake, weighing countless lives and destinies against one another.

Lilith bit her lip anxiously. She could not let Damon face this alone. If they died, then they would die together. Besides, she was far better at extinguishing disasters than Damon ever was.

Without hesitation, she rushed forward and grabbed his hand tightly.

Damon glanced at her, blood still running from his nose, then smiled faintly.

He squeezed her hand gently, drawing strength from her warmth.

“She Who Weighs the Scales.

Bearer of the Black Thread.”

They witnessed their deaths.

They saw black threads severed one after another while the scales judged every action they had ever taken.

“The One Who Watches from the End.

Mother of Dread and Silence.”

Silence followed.

Not ordinary silence.

It was the silence of the dead. The silence after worlds had already ended.

“Queen of Shattered Realms.

She Who Writes the Last Law.”

Before their eyes, realms collapsed into ruin. Entire heavens cracked apart like shattered mirrors.

“Matron of War Unending.

Lady of Death.”

There was nothing left except destruction. Endless black ruins stretched across existence.

“The Fate Unyielding.

The Hand Behind the Curtain of Destiny.

Hail the Goddess of Doom.”

The moment those final words left Damon’s lips, reality broke.

Damon and Lilith suddenly found themselves falling toward a gigantic scale.

The scale was incomprehensibly vast. Galaxies spun around it like dust particles. Universes rested upon its plates while invisible laws judged all things.

They fell for mere seconds.

They fell for an eternity.

Then suddenly they were falling upward.

Lilith’s eyes began bleeding as she stared into the endless void surrounding them. Damon could no longer hear his heartbeat. He could no longer hear his breathing. He felt dead, as though only his fading will remained while his body had already become a corpse being dragged toward burial.

Something sensed them.

A presence.

It carried inevitability. Destruction. Finality.

It felt as though it was their destiny to come here.

Their destiny to end.

Damon instinctively pulled Lilith closer against him. He heard her mouth moving as if she were saying something, but no sound reached him.

If this truly was the end, then at least they would face it together.

Just as they were about to collide with the scale, something vast and unknowable reached downward.

A gigantic hand suddenly seized them from the void.

The scale instantly became distant, impossibly far away despite how close it had seemed moments earlier.

The hand felt strangely familiar.

Then the scenery changed.

The endless void vanished.

Instead, they found themselves somewhere incomprehensible.

It looked like a home.

Yet everything about it felt wrong.

There were objects Damon could not properly comprehend. Massive structures towered around them like impossible monuments. He felt tiny, unbearably tiny, because he realized he was literally standing within someone’s palm.

Slowly, Damon looked upward.

What he saw stole the breath from his lungs.

A silver haired man gazed down at them.

He was beautiful.

Beautiful beyond reason.

His skin was dark like polished ebony, flawless and divine. His face was so perfect it almost transcended mortal understanding.

Yet at the same time Damon felt overwhelming disgust the instant he looked at him. His stomach twisted violently. The contradiction nearly made him vomit.

Then came the familiarity.

That horrifyingly familiar sensation dragged Damon into despair.

He laughed softly despite himself.

A broken laugh.

Then he, Lilith, and even Ashcroft within his mind all spoke together at the exact same moment.

“Unknown God.”