"Marked by... death?" I echoed.
Asmodeus nodded so casually that if anyone else was present here, they might’ve thought we were discussing the weather.
"Well, to be more precise — that’s the Mark of the Mother of rcy," he clarified... which didn’t clarify anything.
"Mother of rcy?" I blinked, unsure what to make of it. "As in the goddess? She’s actually real?"
The Spirit Realm, aside from being strange and hostile, was a patchwork of itself and countless other worlds the Spirit King had conquered and absorbed into his domain.
That was why each region had its own laws, environnt, and even flow of ti — because they were, at their core, different worlds.
Many of the Spirit Beasts we encountered in this realm were once the inhabitants of those worlds.
Inhabitants with their own histories and cultures spanning back hundreds of thousands of years.
Explorers and scholars did their best to catalogue the fragnts of these fallen worlds, but it was like trying to map the ocean with a teaspoon.
Every discovery raised ten more questions.
To make things more complicated, most of the regions in the Spirit Realm were in ruins. So the majority of knowledge was either lost forever or scattered in scraps.
Among those many unsolved questions were... the gods.
In this day and age, the existence of gods has been confird.
During the early years of Spirit Realm’s exploration, humanity unearthed undeniable proof of gods, like legendary artifacts, ancient ruins, and remnants of their divine rule.
But the gods themselves?
That was the mystery.
No one had ever seen one in the flesh. Not in the Spirit Realm, not in the human world, not anywhere.
So presud they were all dead.
Others believed they still lived.
Most simply didn’t care.
But no one knew what had happened to them — or where they had gone.
...Regardless, the gods had been real. Those mythical beings of unfathomable power were real.
And a select few were theorized to be more real than the rest.
Why? Because traces of certain gods had been unearthed across multiple regions — aning countless fallen worlds, worlds that had nothing to do with one another, once worshipped them.
Which ant these gods weren’t re local deities bound to a single culture, but figures recognized by civilizations light-years apart or entire dinsions away.
So either it was one big coincidence... or these gods had truly existed.
Thus, they were called the Universal Gods.
And one of them was the Mother of rcy.
Unlike other deities, her traces weren’t confined to a single form.
Sotis she appeared as a veiled woman with a chalice of light.
Sotis as a crowned skeleton whose arms spread wide in mock embrace.
Other tis, as nothing more than a faceless figure carved into temple walls with her head bowed in eternal mourning.
The only constant between these depictions was death. Not war. Not disease. Not cruelty.
Just death. Plain and simple.
Her na surfaced in far too many ruins to count — in murals, in chants, in the faintest fragnts of myth.
Different cultures, different worlds — all had feared her, all had revered her.
Her faith was introduced into our world by so fanatical explorers a couple of centuries ago.
And though humanity doesn’t worship the old gods much anymore — having their own gods now, the Monarchs — her faith still endured.
Her churches still existed.
Her prayers were still sung.
I knew all this because my own mother had been one of her believers.
And now I was being told I was marked by her?
Like... what the fuck was that even supposed to an?!
"Yes, as in the goddess," Asmodeus chuckled like he was explaining sothing simple to a dimwitted child. "As in the First Primordial. As in the Mistress of the Oldest Death. As in the Bringer of True End. And yes, she is very real."
I opened and closed my mouth several tis, trying to form a sentence but failing to find the right words.
Cut so slack, okay!
It’s not every day you enter a demon’s dream and he tells you that you’re marked by death herself!
At last, I looked down at my tattoo and stamred, "I-I thought this was a Warlock Mark or sothing."
"Oh, you know about the Warlocks! That makes this easier to explain," Asmodeus clapped his hands. "You’re not wrong. It is similar to a Warlock Mark. But while Warlocks draw their power from the entities they contract with, you draw — or can draw — your power from a god. Which makes you a Shade."
"A... Shade?" I asked.
"Yes," Asmodeus replied far too cheerfully, clearly enjoying my confusion. "One touched by divinity. One marked, claid, and bound to the service of a god. You carry her shadow with you now — hence, Shade."
I waited a few seconds, then pinched the bridge of my nose. "This... this doesn’t make any sense! I’m not even her follower! And I don’t even rember— I... I got this tattoo in an ink parlor! An ink parlor!"
Asmodeus half-lidded his eyes like I had made a particularly bad joke. "Ah, yes. Of course. A mortal ink parlor etched the Mark of a Universal God onto your flesh. Very plausible."
"I’m serious!" I snapped. "I was drunk, I was stupid, and I thought the design looked cool! That’s it! There was no ritual, no chanting, no blood sacrifice, or whatever it takes to summon a god! There was just and so shady back-alley artist!"
He rolled his eyes. "Then the chances are that the Mark manifested after you got that tattoo. You just didn’t notice the design slowly changing until it beca sothing else entirely."
I gawked at the demon in front of .
Was he serious?!
"You’re telling I wouldn’t notice my own skin changing?!" I shot back.
He shrugged. "You told yourself, you were drunk."
...Okay. Fine. That was a fair point.
"B-But... could I even be marked without consent?" I knew how stupid that question sounded, but I had to ask.
Asmodeus touched his chin thoughtfully. "Actually, no. You had to have made a pact with her."
"Exactly!" I exclaid, leaning forward. "I don’t rember doing that! And I definitely would’ve rembered eting an eldritch goddess, no matter how drunk I was!"
Asmodeus sighed. "That, I don’t know. But be that as it may, the truth remains unchanged — she has chosen you as her champion. Her herald. Her Shade."
I grabbed my head and laughed shakily, almost hysterically. "I’m not a champion material! I don’t even go to her church! My mother used to drag when I was little, sure, but I stopped believing years ago."
Asmodeus gave a long look. Then he laughed. "You’re so adorable."
"Shut up!" I barked in irritation, my temper spiking. "And why the hell am I even seeing you anyway?! You said I entered your dream, how?"
"My, my," the Prince of Desires purred and rested his chin on the back of his hand. "Aren’t you full of questions today? Tell you what, I’ll answer everything you want if you speak my na."
"Not happening," I shot back instantly.
"Aw, shucks." Asmodeus pouted in mock disappointnt, though his delighted smile only widened. "You wound , Little Puppet. Do you have any idea how many mortals would kill just for the chance to whisper my na, let alone bargain with ?"
"Yeah, well, I’m not one of them." I folded my arms.
The thing about demons was that speaking their true na aloud gave them power over you.
Once you called them, they would take it as an invitation and co.
Now, Demon Princes like Xaldreth and Asmodeus were both dead... sort of. But their souls were still very much alive.
So if I uttered their na, they would beco visible to . And once I could see them, they could find all sorts of ways to harm .
For example, Asmodeus could bend with a single command, turn into a puppet under his gaze.
That was why I’d been so petrified the first ti I saw him in that dream. I thought he could already influence .
Fortunately, that was not the case. When he asked to speak his na, I realized he still had no hold over .
I didn’t know if saying his na in a dream would count as inviting him, but I wasn’t about to risk it.
"It didn’t hurt to try," Asmodeus said with a careless shrug. "Very well, how about we play a ga then? I’ll answer two of your questions, and in return, you’ll answer one of mine."
I squinted. "That... actually sounds fair."
"Of course it does. Fairness is the bedrock of all good bargains," he said smoothly. "Now, since I’ve already explained your Mark, you have one question left. Ask wisely."
This bastard.
I resisted the urge to snort. Fairness, my ass.
"Fine," I said. "Tell why I’m seeing you. What’s causing this?"
Asmodeus leaned back in his chair and picked a cake from the coffee table.
"Honestly, I’ve been wondering the sa thing since our last eting. So I looked into it. Dug a little deeper," he drawled, taking a slow bite. "And, to even my own surprise, I discovered... our fates are linked."
"...What?" I scowled.
Asmodeus licked frosting from his finger as if he hadn’t just dropped a thunderbolt on .
Then he snapped his fingers.
And the scenery changed once again.
This ti I found myself standing in absolute darkness, illuminated only by a single glowing thread stretching out of my chest.
I followed the glowing thread with my gaze until I saw it entwined with another thread — this one a bit darker.
The two cords were knotted together.
I took a step back as Asmodeus appeared at the other end of the second cord. His crimson eyes glead as the threads’ glow reflected in their depths.
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