A Tale of Forgotten Gods

Chapter 118: A True God

Hearing that, Vennisa spoke next. ”As for the deal, I’ll ask a question first. What’s your attraction in people~”

Mo Fei stared at the mirror, believing he heard wrong. ”I beg your pardon?”

”Your type~” Vennisa repeated. ”You know, tall, short, dangerous, or kind. Everyone has a preference; that information is interesting to me.”

Mo Fei looked at the mirror, his mind racing with baffling thoughts. ”You are a mirror...”

”I have a taste! Oh, you have heard these insults that even a mirror breaks after seeing your face, you know, implying that they are ugly... thanks to the Lord that I didn’t shatter.”

He focused on the mirror with expressions that were a mix of annoyed and offended. ”Was that an insult?”

A mocking laugh came from the mirror. ”Ha-ha-ha. I didn’t.”

”You did.”

”Nope, never; I wouldn’t.”

”Even a mirror lies...”

”Answer the question, sir.”

Mo Fei’s eyes twitched as he took a long breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. ”I don’t have a specific type, but maybe a kind with her own ambitions.”

”Boring.” Vennisa sighed in a dramatic manner and continued. ”Your future...”

The mirror suddenly glowed with a blinding light. Mo Fei launched his hand forward toward his eyes as the force pushed him backward. The edge of the mirror almost cracked as he was sent back flying toward the wall and hit it hard with a groan.

The blinding light illuminated the place as the thunderstorm erupted in the dark clouds above. Lightning struck the trees outside and broke them apart.

He looked at the mirror, but the blinding light stopped him from looking.

The crack in the mirror moved further as the light slowly dimmed.

Vennisa’s voice came forward. ”What is wrong? That light almost caught my eyes.”

Mo Fei stood up slowly and grunted. ”Argh, what was that?” He slowly walked toward the mirror again.

”I can’t look at your future either. It was someone else’s future, not yours. I can only help you in the Descent.”

”That is a better choice.”

The three flowers bloomed and reached toward Mo Fei, their petals twisting into grey tendril-like fingers. They dropped a deck of pitch-black cards onto the stone floor. ”Pick one.” Vennisa’s voice commanded as the star cards twisted. ”The Descent requires a beacon. Draw your fate.”

Mo Fei felt a cold shiver run down his spine, yet he knelt, his hand trembling as he spread the cards. The backs of the cards were etched with a symbol he couldn’t comprehend; they weren’t the cards he had seen before—the Tarot cards or Lenormand cards. They were only thriteen.

He closed his eyes, relying on a sudden, strange intuition. His fingers brushed against a card that he found as he slowly flipped it over.

Painted on the card was a youth wearing a splendid crown, walking blindly toward a cliff, that looked extremely to the Fool card, yet the number that on the top was... 13.

”The Serpent Bearer. It’s the 13th star card, known as the Jester archetype.” Vennisa whispered from the cracked glass, her tone filled with a mix of awe and terror. ”The number thirteen. That card is for necessary endings, rebirth, and transition to a higher state of existence rather than mere destruction. Why did it choose you?”

Mo Fei stared at the card. As he looked closer, the painted youth’s face began to shift, slowly taking on Mo Fei’s own features.

Just then, the three flowers bloomed and reached toward Mo Fei, releasing a thick, crimson mist. Although it didn’t obscure his vision and only formed a starry sky right inside the room.

Thirteen distinct constellations glowed in the dark smoke. One by one, they began to shatter, unable to bear Mo Fei’s presence. ”What?” Mo Fei demanded, taking a step back as the pressure in the room made his ears ring.

”The stars are rejecting you...” She paused; her voice grew heavy from the realization and came out as a whisper. ”No... you are rejecting them!” Vennisa’s voice cracked with panic. ”Every soul belongs to a path of the Gods. The Death, the Keybearer, the Dreamer... but your thread of fate is completely severed from the standard laws!”

Suddenly, the mist rushed into Mo Fei’s chest. A single phantom image flashed in his mind as large grey fog hovered above the real world, and a lone, empty divine throne waited for its master. The spirit world...

He gasped for air, collapsing to his knees. The mirror’s glow died out entirely. ”You aren’t descending into a path.” Vennisa whispered into the dead silence. ”You are... creating a new one.”

Crack!

The mirror slowly fractured further and began to bleed as a thick crimson substance oozed from the glass crevices, dripping upward toward the ceiling against the laws of gravity, then finally with a loud splash it dropped on the ground, creating a fountain of blood.

Mo Fei’s heart hammered against his ribs from the things he was witnessing. At that exact moment, the illusory ticking of an ancient clock echoed directly within his mind, growing louder and faster with every passing millisecond.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

His vision blurred as tears dripped from his eyes. The crimson mist that had entered his chest began to boil inside him. He could feel it—countless invisible, slippery tentacles, which were extending from his pores, reaching out into the boundless grey fog of the spirit world that he had just glimpsed. Although they weren’t connecting to the existing deities or any nonliving or living. They were anchoring themselves to that lone, empty divine throne.

”Ahh!! ARGH!” Mo Fei let out a low, ragged groan.

His right eye twitched violently as his pupils dilated, splitting vertically into two separate, independent irises; then they shifted into four and circled inside his eyes, and then finally they went inside his eyes, turning them white.

He felt an intense, maddening urge to laugh, to cry, to tear his face off just to see what lay underneath. This was the classic sign of losing control! The terrifying price of touching a domain that belonged strictly to the Gods! From the bleeding mirror, Vennisa’s voice returned, and at that time it was no longer dramatic or playful. She spoke hoarsely as terror crept into her voice.

”The Thirteenth Seat... The sequence that shouldn’t exist... You... Who are you?!”

Boom!

A bolt of crimson lightning tore through the dark clouds outside, illuminating the ruined room in a blood-red glow. The thirteen pitch-black cards on the floor burst out orange flames, turning them into ash as they were pulled away by the air. But the card in Mo Fei’s hand remained untouched.

The youth on the card, whose face seemed identical to Mo Fei’s own face—was no longer just walking blindly toward the cliff. The painted figure slowly raised his head, his eyes narrowing with the wisdom of all the worlds, and he curved his lips into a mocking smile before jumping into the cliff.

It was the smile of a Spectator watching a grand, cosmic comedy.

At the very next moment, the card twitched, multiple blood stains on the card formed where the figure stood.

Mo Fei clutched his head, which threatened to split open, forcing him to lose consciousness to maintain his sanity through willpower only. He looked at the card, then looked up toward the ceiling, his gaze seemingly piercing through the stone roof, and looked straight into the boundless eternal grey fog above the spirit world. His white eyes began to bleed as he let go of the card and screamed a guttural roar. ”AHHH ARGHH!! URGGGHHH.”

A thought came into the the depths of his mind, although it couldn’t wash away the madness, yet it left a deep clarity. He wasn’t a traveler walking an already established path of the orthodox Gods. He wasn’t an Ascended climbing the pre-made ladder of the Orfinals.

He was the exception. He was the wrong.

Mo Fei exhaled a breath that turned into grey mist; his split pupils showed a reflection of the empty, waiting throne of the cosmos. His insides screamed in pain as he grabbed his hair and clenched his head tightly.

I am the thirteenth constellation. A thought which wasn’t Mo Fei’s, his mind echoing with a strange historical weight. I am the path without a predecessor. I am... The one who walks beyond the edge.

He smashed his hand on the ground multiple times, which almost broke his hand, leaving a small crater on the ground.

His scream tore through his throat, still suffering the madness.

The mirror bled in front of him as the blood reached him and he quickly pulled back. Suddenly, the whole place shifted into a chamber; he was in the light part of the spirit world, standing beside the throne.

He slowly walked forward as a massive gate opened while clenching his head.

Inside, the infinite depths of the spirit world unfolded, and with it, a gaze.

From across the cosmic expanse, a manifestation of the Death flickered into existence. That thing was a conceptual mass of silent, decaying twilight and countless pale, reaching hands. That was the ’Embodiment.’

The True God of Death did not even look at him intentionally; only a mere stray glance of ’His’ symbolism swept across the chamber, burning his entire body, decaying his flesh, and turning his hands into skeletons.

”Agh!”

The moment Mo Fei’s white eyes perceived the entity, his vision instantly went pitch black. The invisible tentacles extending from his pores withered and turned to ash. The throne behind him groaned as hairline fractures moved across its divine structure, unable to withstand the conceptual weight of an active deity.

Mo Fei’s skin turned pale, turning the color of a weeks-old corpse as his heartbeat completely stopped for three seconds and his body fell on the ground. The maddening whisper of a billion dead souls flooded his mind, threatening to wipe his ego out completely.

With one last attempt, a struggle, Mo Fei dragged his consciousness backward, severing the connection and tumbling back onto the spirit world.