Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

Chapter 533 Athenia’s Death Ledger

As Batimosʼs realm was clouded with stars, circling above his head they severed the connection between his throne and the rest of the gods, Elanaria watched with glee as the god of rot, quivered like a pig whoʼd just seen the butcher. Even still, she dared not descend on that filthy plane for she had standard, something Batimos had perhaps never heard of.

Staring into the sea of stars, the god knew his death was sealed and that brought through him a visceral hurt spreading throughout his guts. It began from the vile stomach that rests atop the corpses of rotting women, then it rivered into his legs and being as small as they were compared to the rest of him, they couldnʼt hope to lift the god much less help him run away.

A prisoner of his own body, whose very servants have abandoned him for heʼd build a reign of terror and exploitation, thus what fool would stick around to perish alongside him? None, and letting him simmer in that sense, in that hopeless feeling of loss that heʼd made his own servants suffer, Elanaria chuckled at the sorry state of the god, all the while she readied the souls of lesser gods that heʼd sent her way to kill her.

”How does it feel to be so helpless, Batimos? Iʼm not even there and I can smell you soiling yourself like a child,” laughing some more as his bloody eyes ran rampant across the circling stars, Elana reached through the starry seas of Stellaris and planted the souls of lesser gods amongst her mortal army.

Restless at the immense arms of the goddess moving across the stars and making his servant gods nothing more than bullets in her arsenal, Batimos–just as Elana had said, soiled himself from fear. His throat grew parched as a daring smile was cast down to him by the heavens, was it a warning or Elanaʼs cue to make him struggle for survival–to watch him roll in his muck as he tried to escape the goddessʼ clutched, Batimos could not know as both his body and mind were frozen with shock.

”Time is ticking and the goddess of death opens her ledger, rejoice, you cockroach; your name shall be the first to be inked in that book,” waiting patiently for Athenia to mark the death of Batimos on her death ledger, Elana smiled down at Batimos, her elegant face staring him down from the heavens above.

Shadowed under her image with a cape of stars visible through the translucent face, Batimos breathed heavily as the thought of his death finally caught up with his grease-ridden body.

”N-NO! St-stop! WHA-WHAT DO YOU WANT?! I-I CAN SERVE YOU AS IʼVE SERVED THE OTHERS–”

”Too late,” bending the fabric of space, Elanaʼs face drew closer to the pig reeling in with it, the heavens above and the stars on her cape like a pinched cloth. Staring down at Batimos, her nose inches from the pigʼs face, her hand reached for her visor that covered her eyes always. ”Look for yourself, you have an audience with her after all.”

Hollowness sucked in the god of rot through the empty sockets of the goddess of absurdity, pushing him through a blind wormhole held in her eyes, she landed the manʼs soul in a creaking chair sitting at the foot of the throne to the new goddess of death. Landing in the chair and being strapped in by dark hands squeezing around him, Batimos squirmed in his binds while eyes followed the light that climbed up to the goddess seated in front of him.

Holding neither joy nor contempt, Athenia held an inked feather with a skull-decorated ledger floating in front of her. Staring down at the god of rot, she brought his attention to the golden scale on her armrest. One side held but a feather and the other nothing as of yet.

”Your time has run dry, Batimos…” As her eyes turned back to the god struggling in the chair, the dark arms began clawing at his chest. Agony rained with his voice, it echoed and bounced off the invisible walls in the darkness, but then it happened, the hands separated his ribcage and reached for that corrupted heart. Ripping it out with a string of fat-ridden flesh being drawn out, his very soul was separated from his body while he screamed like a child.

As his senses returned, slow yet muddied, he noticed Atheniaʼs clone grabbing his heart and taking it up the steps, there she placed it on the scale, and the moment his heart weighed heavier than the feather–he knew that heʼd failed Atheniaʼs test.

”That seals it,” she said, finally scribing the first name on that ledger.

”Y-YOUU! YOUʼLL START ANOTHER WAR WITH THIS! AGRHHHH!” His hurt had grown so intense that his screams turned to crazed laughs, the man was beyond his senses, and although he hadnʼt realized just yet, the dark hands had already torn him apart.

Throwing the heart against the floor, Athenia looked him in the eye. Holding him hostage in her piercing gaze, the goddess of death had but a few words.

”It already began the council turned against Murdokʼs daughter,” lifting a hand with those words, she snapped her fingers and the next thing Batimos knew it was back in his realm inches away from the goddess of the stars. Her visor placed over her eyes again, she smirked at the sight of him.

”Iʼll use your petty soul well, now go join the ranks of the other dead gods,” pulling her face away and allowing the world to return to its proper space, Elanaria showered the god of rot with the soul of the very same servants that heʼd sent to hunt her.

”AGHAGHA! NO-NONONONO!” Crying like a child again as the stars tore through his flesh and his guts flooded out like puss, Batimos felt his flesh burning from the insides, his jaws shattering at the clash against a soul, and finally, it flashed before him–the end of his life and the forever after of him serving Elanaria unwillingly.

ʼA fitting end for a god who enslaved his faithful and made them pray even if it was against their will.ʼ Thought Athenia, watching it all transpire through the eyes of Elana–her now sworn sister.

”We started a holy war, didnʼt we? The council wonʼt let this go now that weʼve killed one of the sitting gods,” said the clone, standing in front of Athenia.

But even now, the goddess believed the war had started the moment they sent Thalos to kill her. She wouldnʼt be wrong, but her actions have definitely hastened the coming of the holy war.