The Trickster moved through the god's realm like a shadow, like a storm. Every step sent shivers through the divine halls as relics vanished, stolen right from their resting places. The Sound God humd in amusent, playing a lody in the air that disrupted the senses of any gods nearby.
Dante was watching. Trapped inside his own body, he scread at them. "Enough! This isn't how we do things!" But his voice was nothing more than a whisper in the back of their minds.
Then ca the bloodshed.
The Trickster had no patience for obstacles. A handful of divine guards—hybrids like Dante, but ones loyal to the gods—stood in their way. They never had a chance. The Trickster tore through them like paper, leaving bodies crumpled against the marble floors. Dante felt every blow, every kill, every scream.
He felt sick.
He hadn't wanted this.
"You didn't have to kill them," he growled from inside his own mind.
"You'll thank later," the Trickster shot back. "We don't have ti for rcy."
But ti was running out.
Dante's body was failing.
The Sound God was the first to notice—the way Dante's fingers flickered, like light struggling to stay lit, the sudden wave of migraines that struck like lightning bolts. His body ached with a pain that shouldn't exist.
Then the Trickster saw it too. The strain of holding both him and the Sound God inside was erasing Dante from existence. He was fading—his very essence coming apart at the seams.
The Trickster grinned.
"I have the perfect solution."
The Sound God's laughter rang through the halls. "Oh, this is going to be good."
And then they revealed it: blood.
Not just any blood—their blood. Trickster blood and Sound God blood, stored in vials, shimring with divine power. A dangerous reserve they had kept hidden, knowing its power was too unstable to use carelessly.
And the Trickster's brilliant, insane plan?
Drink it.
Dante had no say in the matter. He wasn't even sure if he was fully there anymore—his body flickered, his mind felt like it was stretching too far, like he was going to disappear completely.
The Trickster held up the vial, shaking it slightly so the thick, glowing liquid sloshed inside.
"You wanna live, kid?" The Trickster grinned, fangs glinting. "Drink up."
The Sound God chuckled. "Or fade away. Your choice."
And as the guards closed in, hunting them, the choice was made.
Dante drank.
And the world exploded.
The Trickster could barely keep his grip on Dante's body.
Sothing was wrong.
Dante's form flickered, his entire existence phasing in and out as if reality itself couldn't decide whether to keep him. His fingers warped, his legs twisted unnaturally for brief monts before snapping back into place. His eyes—those weren't Dante's anymore. They crackled with an energy that should not belong to a human or a god.
And the power—
The power was wild.
It lashed out without direction, a storm of raw energy exploding from Dante's body, shaking the entire divine chamber. The Trickster felt it surging through him, felt the unbearable weight of it pressing down on his control. It should have terrified him.
Instead, he loved it.
With every uncontrolled surge, the power struck down another divine guard. It didn't just wound them—it erased them. Their forms were wiped from existence, their screams cut short before they even had a chance to echo. The Trickster didn't even have to aim. The power conveniently landed each attack with perfect precision, as if the very laws of reality were bending to make way for Dante's transformation.
The Sound God whistled in approval. "That's one way to clean house."
But this was getting dangerous.
Dante wasn't just flickering anymore—he was fading, his body losing substance with each passing second. The Trickster felt his grip slipping, like trying to hold onto sothing that was already half-gone.
"Damn it," he muttered.
He had to move fast.
With a gamble, the Trickster threw up a spell—an impenetrable force that sealed the chamber doors shut. The divine halls trembled as golden barriers wove themselves into an unbreakable seal. Even the strongest gods wouldn't be able to crack it.
A mont of silence.
Then, the Trickster grinned, looking around at the empty chamber. Every last relic, every stolen treasure glead in the dim light.
"Now that," he said, stuffing as much loot as he could into an enchanted satchel, "was fun."
And with that, he vanished.
Dante sat in silence, his body still flickering from the sheer weight of Hunger Tier V. His muscles felt stretched, his mind heavier than before. The Trickster's presence inside him hadn't just left a stain—it was reshaping him, warping his very existence into sothing he barely recognized.
He exhaled. "You didn't have to kill them."
The Trickster chuckled, his voice bleeding into Dante's thoughts like a slow poison. "You always say that. And yet, we're still alive, aren't we?"
Dante clenched his fists. "We could've found another way."
"No, we couldn't."
Dante turned his head sharply, expecting to see the Trickster standing next to him, but of course, he wasn't. The Trickster was inside him, speaking with his voice, looking through his eyes. He had taken control. Again.
"Face it, kid. You've got a bleeding heart, and that's going to get you killed. I do what you won't. And that's why we're still breathing."
Dante said nothing. He wanted to argue, but sothing deep down whispered that the Trickster was right.
He refused to say it out loud.
Instead, he shifted the conversation. "What's next?"
The Trickster smirked. "Identity theft."
Dante raised an eyebrow. "Subtle?"
"Hell no."
The gods gathered at the Divine Table—the ruling council, the highest authority in existence. Each one of them was a Hunger Tier V god, aning they had long since consud their original host and beco sothing more.
Dante knew what that ant for him.
The blood. The godly blood he drank.
That's why he was here. That's why he could feel the hunger clawing at his insides, trying to devour him before he fully understood what he had beco.
"I'm at Hunger V because of the blood, aren't I?"
The Trickster grinned inside his mind. "Congratulations. You're a ticking ti bomb. Welco to the club."
Dante ignored the sick amusent in his tone.
"Which god are we taking down?"
The Trickster didn't hesitate. "Zephren, God of Balance. He's got a seat at the table, but he's not the most powerful. He's respected, but not feared. Nobody would question his judgnt."
Dante nodded. "So we kill him?"
"No, no, no. Killing him would be too... final."
Dante frowned. "Then what do you—"
And then he saw it.
Zephren, standing alone in the corridors of the Divine Hall, reading through an ancient scroll, completely unaware.
The Trickster struck.
Zephren didn't even have ti to react before the Trickster's power coiled around him like a serpent, dragging him into a loop of ti, forcing him to relive the last five seconds over and over again. An eternal limbo.
One mont, he was reading the scroll.
The next, he was back at the start, reading it again, his mind unable to comprehend that ti had been rewritten.
Again.
And again.
Dante stared at the frozen god, locked in a fate worse than death. He looked away.
"You really like playing with your food, huh?"
The Trickster laughed. "Oh, you have no idea."
Dante exhaled. "You could've just killed him. It would've been easier."
The Trickster grinned. "Oh, I could've done a lot of things. Snapped my fingers, erased him from existence, shattered his very being. But there are so gods even I wouldn't challenge."
Dante narrowed his eyes. "Why?"
For the first ti, the Trickster sounded serious. "Because power isn't always about ability. So gods... their re presence bends reality itself. Even I have limits."
Dante nodded slowly. He didn't like it, but he understood.
They weren't unstoppable.
Not yet.
The Miscommunication Begins
With Zephren out of the picture, the Trickster beca him. His voice, his face, his presence—all perfectly replicated.
And just in ti for the eting of the gods.
The Divine Table was set. The most powerful beings in the cosmos sat in a circle, dictating the fate of the world.
And among them sat Zephren.
Or at least, the version of him that Dante and the Trickster had created.
The mont the eting began, miscommunication took hold like a wildfire.
The Trickster, posing as Zephren, began twisting words subtly, making gods misunderstand each other.
Conflicting statents were 'accidentally' made, causing argunts.
Certain gods were frad for making decisions they never actually made.
Paranoia spread. Suspicion grew.
And with every seed of doubt, the gods unknowingly played right into Dante's hands.
This was the beginning.
The Trickster, sitting in Zephren's place, leaned back with a knowing smirk as the gods debated. He waited for the perfect mont, then casually said, "Oh, and before we move forward—where is Oris, God of Dominion?"
A few gods turned their heads, realizing Oris wasn't present.
The Trickster continued, shaking his head in mock disappointnt. "Strange, considering it was his idea to weaken the southern realms. He was very vocal about it last ti."
Murmurs filled the air. The gods glanced at each other, confused.
"Oris suggested that?" one of them asked.
The Trickster shrugged, speaking with Zephren's voice. "He didn't just suggest it—he insisted. Almost like he had sothing to gain from it."
The murmurs turned to whispers. Suspicion settled in.
And then, before Zephren's voice could be properly heard, the Sound God weaved through the air, shifting the vibrations so that the ssage traveled directly into the ears of every god at the table—except one.
Zephren.
Or rather, the real Zephren, the one trapped in his five-second ti loop, helpless to defend himself.
The gods turned to one another.
"Oris has always been ambitious..."
"But to act against divine balance?"
"If Zephren says it, there must be truth in it."
A seed of doubt planted. A war creeping ever closer.
And the Trickster, wearing Zephren's face, just smiled.
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