The God Chat was a whirlwind of frantic speculation. The image of the three remaining terrified demon gods, held captive by the God Cosmos, had every God on the edge of their throne.
Zir: "How many do you all think there are? The real number? My guess is in the billions! The demons are going all-in!"
Asura: "A thousand, perhaps? Even for the Demon Lords, mobilizing their entire force of gods has a cost. They are arrogant, not foolish."
Nyx: "Only a thousand? Are you out of your mind, Asura? They sent hundreds of millions of demigods into the Realm of Advancent without batting an eye. I am with Zir. This is a full-scale invasion."
Strategist: "My thoughts align with Asura’s. Intervention on this scale is draining, even for a Demon Lord. They would not commit all of their forces to a single, coordinated attack. This must be a strategic deploynt, not a total war."
As the cosmic jury debated, Sunny turned his attention back to his prisoners.
The demon god, bound by the Law of Truth, began to speak, his body twitching as the words were ripped from his soul against his will.
"All of us," he snarled, a flicker of cunning triumph flashing in his eyes. He had found the loophole. He could speak a truth that was also the greatest lie.
"The Demon Lord has decreed for all the demon gods to co to the world of the living and kill all the Gods."
A wave of pure, existential terror washed over the six billion watching Gods. All of them.
The number was incomprehensible, a death sentence for the multiverse. The demon god grinned internally.
He had followed the command to speak the truth, but he had chosen a truth that would sow the maximum amount of fear.
He had won.
But he was playing a child’s ga of wordplay with a God who had already read the last page of the history book.
A slow, amused chuckle escaped Sunny. "A good answer," he said, his voice dripping with condescending praise that made the demon’s blood run cold.
"But let ask again. I know what the order was. My question is, how many of the demon gods are actually obeying that order and coming here to kill?"
The demon god’s triumphant smirk froze, then shattered. A look of pure shock and horror replaced it.
How could he know? How could he possibly know that many of the demon gods, proud and protective of their own power, had chosen to ignore the suicidal command?
If the gazes of a soul could kill, Sunny would have been annihilated a thousand tis over by the sheer hatred in the demon’s eyes.
With a low growl that was half-fury and half-despair, the demon god was forced to speak the real truth. "Around... twenty thousand."
The collective sigh of relief from the God Chat was so imnse it almost felt like a physical wave.
Twenty thousand was a terrifying number, but it was not the apocalyptic army of billions they had just imagined.
Sunny’s own face, however, fell slightly behind his mask. The fear had been a useful tool.
A manageable number like twenty thousand might make the independent Gods feel a little too confident, a little too bold.
"And why were you five together?" Sunny pressed, his voice relentless. "Is one of you not enough to handle a God as weak as him?" He gestured towards Sheeren, but the angle of the projection made it feel as if he were pointing at every single God watching, a subtle reminder of their own fragility.
"We are friends since childhood," the demon confessed swiftly. "Whatever we do, we are always together."
"Okay," Sunny said, his tone suddenly final. "Now you can go to the Netherworld." He snapped his fingers.
The three remaining demon gods and the two crimson stains on the floor vanished in an instant, their souls ripped from the God space and sent to their new ho in Cerberus’s prison.
In the quiet aftermath, Sunny sent a ntal directive to Sugata.
The souls of Floro and these other powerful beings would be a grand project for the demigod of peace.
He would work to cleanse their evil, and one day, they might be reborn as loyal, powerful shields for Veridia and the Cosmic Empire.
A new ssage, a public proclamation, suddenly filled the God Chat.
Sheeren: "@Cosmos, I, Sheeren, plead before my Emperor. Forgive for not joining the Pantheon when I had the chance. I wished to be independent, but I was a fool. I forgot that independence requires a strength, that I do not possess."
The ssage caught everyone’s attention. This was the God they had just watched being saved from the brink of annihilation.
Sheeren: "Thus, I have decided. From this day forward, I am a subordinate of God Cosmos. My life is his to take. I will forever be loyal to him, and only him."
A stir went through the 500 million independent Gods. They saw an opening.
If Sheeren, a non-mber, could earn a place through such a public display of fealty, then perhaps the door to the Pantheon was not truly closed.
Cosmos: "I am grateful for your loyalty, Sheeren. But as I have said, the chance to join the Pantheon is gone forever. None of you will be added to its ranks."
The bubble of hope that had been forming in the hearts of the independent Gods popped with a brutal finality.
Cosmos: "But know this," Sunny’s next ssage was a cold splash of terrifying reality. "The twenty thousand demon gods that are coming are on a hunt. And they will not stop until all 500 million of you are dead."
A wave of pure, abject despair washed over the independent Gods. Their hearts sank to the deepest, darkest trenches of the ocean.
They had been abandoned, left to face an army of hunters alone.
They didn’t even bother to ask why the Pantheon was safe; they had just witnessed their Emperor casually erase five demon gods without breaking a sweat.
But just as their despair reached its absolute peak, a new ssage from Sunny appeared, a single, fragile thread of hope in an ocean of darkness.
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