Chapter 251
The ceaseless drumbeat of war had marked the passage of days, each one blurring into the next with a grim monotony of battle and desperate searches.
After successfully repelling the latest Evilus assault and ensuring the safety of the civilians in the northern gathering, Lyra and Kaguya had parted ways with Draco and Dimitra.
Their own quest for Ryuu, their missing companion, consumed them.
Yet, the remainder of that day yielded no substantial leads, no whisper of her whereabouts.
The third day of the brutal conflict bled into the fourth, the dawn breaking with a weary indifference.
It was a little past noon on this fourth day.
The sky above them was an unblemished expanse of cerulean, almost deceptively peaceful. Wisps of a cool afternoon breeze offered a fleeting reprieve, tempering the relentless glare of the sun.
Lyra and Kaguya moved with an almost silent grace along a street, a few blocks away from the main western street.
A recent, unverified tip from an outlying northeastern camp had suggested Ryuu was last sighted somewhere in this vicinity, a thread they clung to.
Their meticulous search, however, was about to be abruptly interrupted.
The sudden resonance of a familiar voice, rich and unsettlingly amused, sliced through the war-scarred air.
“Hello there, Ryuu,” the voice called out, an undertone of mock affection threading through the words.
Lyra and Kaguya halted, their heads snapping around in unison, eyes widening in disbelief.
The shock that rippled through them was immediate, visceral.
“Whoops, my mistake. She doesn’t seem to be with you, after all,” the man drawled, a languid shrug of his shoulders conveying an almost criminal indifference.
“Y…y-you…” Lyra stammered, her voice catching in her throat, a choked sound of utter disbelief.
The sight before her defied all expectation.
That distinctive dark hair, the sleek, almost unnaturally black clothing – there could be no mistaking it.
“Erebus,” Kaguya growled, the single word laced with a potent, venomous hatred that vibrated in the air around them.
The shock was deep.
None of them, not in their wildest nightmares, had anticipated encountering him here, now.
The very architect of this abhorrent war, the leader of the Evilus, stood before them with casual nonchalance.
Completely unperturbed by their obvious ire, the dark god continued, his smile broadening, a truly unsettling sight.
"My little lost followers of justice, you wouldn’t happen to know where I can find Ryuu, would you?”
Lyra and Kaguya didn’t immediately respond.
Instead, their gazes swept the surroundings with a swift, almost imperceptible coordination born of countless battles fought side-by-side.
The street was flanked by numerous half-ruined buildings, their facades crumbling, windows shattered like vacant eyesores.
There were no other adventurers in sight, mercifully.
More critically, there were no Evilus soldiers, no lurking shadows to suggest an ambush.
It meant their opponents were just Erebus and his silent, imposing guard, Vito.
Wasn’t this a chance to end the war? The thought, audacious and electrifying, ignited simultaneously in both their minds.
If they could somehow capture Erebus, the entire tide of the war could irrevocably shift in the adventurers' favour.
But they were seasoned warriors, not reckless fools.
They didn't act on the impulse.
Caution was paramount.
Vito was a difficult opponent, known for his ruthless and sadistic tendencies.
Furthermore, there was no telling what other threats might lie hidden just beyond the range of their detection abilities.
“Ryuu, huh?” Lyra finally broke the tense silence, her voice carefully neutral, a mask of feigned ignorance.
“Well, we don’t know where she ran off to. If you see her, do make sure to tell us.” She maintained a placid expression, her eyes betraying nothing.
“Besides, even if we did know,” Kaguya interjected, her voice sharp as broken glass, “why should we tell the likes of you? How dare you show your face after tricking us like that, Eren!”
Kaguya's hatred for him was a consuming inferno.
She had not forgotten, not for a single moment, how he had toyed with them, manipulated them under the guise of his false identity.
The memory of 'Eren' was a festering wound.
“Oh, you’re still cross about that? It wasn’t even a trick,” Erebus countered, a dismissive wave of his hand.
“I was just doing the same thing Hermes does all the time. But in the end, I grew tired of it.” He paused, a bright, disarming smile blooming on his face, a smile as deceptively soft as a spring breeze.
“I couldn’t go on hiding my true self from my first mortal friends, could I? Or don’t tell me you all preferred Eren to the way I am now?”
In the very next instant, his voice warped, his mannerisms shifting with an unsettling fluidity. The chilling indifference that had cloaked him moments before melted away, replaced by an unnerving, almost saccharine affability.
“Good day to you, my fair sharp-tongued maidens. Please, do not wear such troubled frowns. What would the righteous and beautiful Astraea say if she were to see you now?” The voice was undeniably Eren's, the cadence and tone eerily perfect.
Lyra and Kaguya ground their teeth, a low, frustrated growl escaping Kaguya.
They were being openly mocked, subjected to a cruel, psychological torment.
Although the voice and the mild mannerisms were those of Eren, the evil, predatory glint in his eyes and the twisted set of his mouth were unmistakably Erebus.
“So, what exactly do you want with Ryuu anyway?” Lyra said, her voice regaining its composure with a visible effort.
“Seems like you’ve been following our girl around for a while now.”
“A stalker god?” Kaguya added, providing crucial verbal backup to her partner, her disgust evident.
“Oh, how sick and repulsive you are, your foul-hearted perversions make us sick!” She continued, but Erebus cut her off, his pleasant facade dropping away.
“Oh, spare me your fake innocence, sweetie, or you’ll get me in a rutting mood, human,” Erebus countered, his words shockingly crude, delivered as though they were self-evident truths.
“Men are all animals, this is something you should quickly learn, lest one of them steals that precious virginity of yours, you filthy girl.”
“You filthy piece of shit!” Kaguya cursed back, her body tensing, barely restraining herself from launching a direct, furious assault.
Erebus, however, ignored her, his attention shifting fully to Lyra.
“And you, little Pallum. Why Ryuu, you ask? Isn’t it obvious? It’s simply because she is the most innocent and naive of you filthy, broken girls who serve that goddess of justice.”
He had once again adopted Eren’s persona, his voice laced with a condescending pity that made Lyra’s skin crawl.
“W-wha…” Lyra managed to stammer out, utterly bewildered by his words.
“I have to know what will happen when such a person is forced to face absolute evil,” Eren continued, his eyes gleaming with a disturbing curiosity.
“Will she break or persevere? Doesn’t such a thought seem intriguing?”
Lyra and Kaguya remained utterly speechless as the evil god rambled on, delving into a twisted philosophical discourse about the true nature of justice.
“Ahem, anyway,” Eren suddenly declared, snapping back to a more casual demeanour, a chilling laugh escaping his lips.
“Just think of it as fortune-telling: whichever side Ryuu ends up on will determine how Orario ends up.”
This entire act, they both knew, was merely one of his cruel whims, a perverse test.
But why them specifically? They couldn’t fathom it.
As the girls remained stunned, Vito, who had stood silent and watchful throughout the entire bizarre conversation, finally spoke.
“Oh, my master, you truly are wicked, to force a naive young elf to determine the entire city’s fate.”
Hearing this, Erebus placed a finger to the side of his head, as if a brilliant idea had just struck him.
“Tell you what! If you girls can answer my question, I will leave Ryuu alone. What do you think?”
“What question?” Kaguya asked, her irritation finally boiling over, her voice sharp with impatience.
Erebus’s smile widened, a truly unnerving expression.
“What is justice?”
Lyra’s brow furrowed into an inquisitive look at the question.
Erebus, however, merely offered a patient, knowing smile.
“Didn’t you hear me?” he pressed, his voice a silken thread of authority.
“Tell me, what is your justice?”
A pregnant hush descended upon the space, broken only by the faint whisper of a breeze.
Then, Kaguya’s voice sliced through the silence, sharp as a honed blade.
“What a trivial question,” she spat, her tone laced with undisguised contempt.
Her eyes, usually pools of quiet calculation, now glittered with a dark, cynical wisdom.
“Justice is a weapon,” Kaguya continued, her gaze fixed beyond Erebus, as if addressing a phantom audience of the damned.
“A tool that makes our every aim a noble one. A blank flag, truly, under which all manner of atrocities can be justified.” Her words hung in the air, heavy with the weight of experience.
It was a bleak, pragmatic answer, utterly consistent with the hardened veneer she presented to the world – a shield forged in the crucible of unspoken past traumas.
One could only speculate on the circumstances that had sculpted such a hardened philosophy within her.
“To follow justice,” she concluded, a chilling finality in her voice, “is to erode oneself in pursuit of an unattainable ideal.”
Erebus offered no immediate rebuttal, no sign of surprise or even a flicker of acknowledgment. His expression remained utterly neutral, a mask of disinterest that only amplified the dismissive power of his next words.
“Not good enough.”
Kaguya’s composure cracked, a fine fissure appearing in her carefully constructed facade.
Her brow narrowed, eyes flaring with indignant disbelief.
“Why?!” the demand ripped from her.
A faint, almost imperceptible smirk touched Erebus’s lips.
“It’s rather charming, the way you spin such elaborate tales to yourself. Quite cute, in fact. Just not quite charming or cute enough for me, I’m afraid.”
As Kaguya stood frozen, caught between confusion and a burgeoning fury, Erebus's voice resonated with an unnerving clarity, reaching into the deepest, most guarded chambers of her being.
He didn't just speak; he unveiled, peeling back layers of self-deception.
"Your so-called justice," he revealed, his words like a surgeon's scalpel, "is nothing but regret. An elaborate illusion you cling to, born of the childish conviction that the world has somehow betrayed you.”
The brutal honesty of his pronouncement struck Kaguya like a physical blow.
She recoiled, a silent gasp escaping her lips.
His words, unflinching and precise, burrowed deep into her core, echoing truths she had long since buried.
Denial withered on her tongue.
Erebus’s attention, sharp and predatory, then shifted.
His gaze, now cool and appraising, landed on Lyra.
"And you, Pallum," he observed, with a slight tilt of his head, “I haven’t yet had the pleasure of hearing your answer.” He paused, allowing the weight of his scrutiny to settle upon her.
"I can practically taste your obvious desire, can’t I? You’re hoping to draw this conversation out, aren't you? Calculating that I might, perhaps, slip up and reveal something I shouldn't? Tell me, isn’t that precisely why you haven’t attacked yet?” His words, spoken with an unnerving casualness, laid bare her entire, carefully crafted strategy.
Lyra’s breath hitched.
Her meticulous mind, usually a fortress of calm calculation, spun into a vortex of chaotic, desperate thoughts.
She offered no reply, her silence witness to the sudden, icy dread coiling in her gut.
"I imagine you fancy yourself quite wise," Erebus continued, his tone shifting from knowing to subtly mocking.
"But to me, your justice is nothing more than false wisdom masquerading as poison. The desperate, last resort of a powerless rat, whose only domain is trickery." His words, each one a precise, psychological strike, caused Lyra’s body to tremble almost imperceptibly.
He effortlessly, almost lazily, plumbed the very depths of her being, and the most agonizing part was the faint, condescending pity lacing his voice.
Observing her involuntary tremor, Erebus’s smile widened, a predatory gleam in his eyes as he pressed deeper into her vulnerabilities.
"Hmm, digging a bit further, it seems. Ah, yes. Your 'justice' is nothing more than a crude cloak of invisibility, isn't it? Woven to hide that rather pronounced inferiority complex of yours. You must, indeed, be someone who clawed their way out of the lowest caste of mortal society." His tone was a complex blend of mocking amusement and that same, insufferable pity.
"Fuck you!" Lyra roared, her carefully maintained composure shattering into a thousand fragments.
A wave of unrestrained fury erupted from her, her voice raw with indignation.
"This is why I despise gods! All-knowing, all-seeing bastards!" she cursed, defiance blazing in her eyes.
Few could stomach having their deepest insecurities laid bare, their most guarded vulnerabilities exposed so cruelly.
"Now, now, girls, don't get upset," Erebus purred, a disarmingly cheerful note entering his voice. "You both possess decent potential, I assure you. You'll go far."
Lyra ground her teeth so hard her jaw ached, a silent scream of frustration caught in her throat, but Erebus continued to smile placidly, utterly unperturbed.
"However, I'm afraid you've lost this particular round. I’ve seen all there is to see of you both. Your imperfections are undeniably mortal, yes, but in the end, you are naught but a pair of lost lambs, bleating in the dark."
He clapped his hands together once, a light, final sound.
"And since neither of you has provided the answer I desired, I shall be off to find myself an elf." His tone was remarkably chipper, almost jovial, considering the psychological devastation he had just wrought.
The two young girls stood, fists clenched at their sides, a tempest of emotions swirling within them: humiliation, rage, desperate resolve.
Erebus had violated their innermost selves, plundering their deepest secrets, and he wasn't finished yet.
"Now run along, little girls," he teased, his voice dripping with condescending amusement.
"Go tell Astraea that this big, bad, handsome god made you cry."
"Handsome, you wish," Lyra muttered under her breath, a faint, desperate attempt to reclaim some shred of her dignity.
"But it's true, isn't it? I know you secretly want me," Erebus countered, flashing a quick, insouciant wink.
"I would rather share a bed with a maggot," Kaguya retorted, seizing on the slim chance for even the smallest measure of verbal retaliation.
"Ahahaha! You girls truly are a riot!" Erebus laughed, a genuine, booming sound that somehow managed to be even more insulting than his pity.
"However, I've entirely lost interest in you." With that, he turned, taking a step as if to depart.
But his path was immediately blocked by the sudden placement of a pair of razor-edged boomerangs, their sharp curves glinting, and the point of a longsword, held with deadly intent.
"Not so fast," Lyra’s voice cut through the air, sharper now, laced with a renewed, steely determination.
"I know it's hardly 'classy,' but we can't exactly allow the 'big boss of the bad guys' to just walk away when he's standing right in front of us, can we?"
"Killing a god might be beyond what we can handle," Kaguya added, her voice regaining its cold, self-assured edge, "but putting one in chains, that's a different story entirely."
Yet, Erebus didn't react with anger or even surprise.
Instead, an expression of deep, almost sorrowful pity settled upon his features, alien to his previous demeanour.
"So, in the end, you truly won't accept my mercy, hmm?" Erebus murmured, his gaze sweeping the landscape as if searching for something specific, something out of place.
"I suppose this is simply the way good and evil are destined to clash."
After a brief, contemplative moment, his eyes landed on an almost intact, surprisingly pristine church in the distance.
A slow, knowing smile spread across his face.
"Very well, Vito, my boy," Erebus called out, his voice now imbued with a casual, yet undeniable, command.
"I ask that you ensure my safety, at least for the time being."
‘For the time being, what does that mean?’ Lyra wondered, a flicker of fresh confusion, swiftly overshadowed by a burgeoning sense of dread.
But she had no time to dwell on the cryptic phrase, Vito had come forward.
"It's been a while, ladies," Vito greeted, his voice theatrically smooth, punctuated by the slow, deliberate pop of a single eye opening fully in his blank face.
"The eighteenth floor, if memory serves. As two parties equally aggrieved by the same god, shall we dance?" he added, a predatory amusement colouring his tone.
Lyra and Kaguya offered no verbal response.
Their answer was in their immediate, synchronized charge.
They surged forward, a blur of focused intent.
They needed to end Vito’s theatrics quickly, capture Erebus, and preempt whatever other unforeseen variables this omniscient god might have prepared.
A/N: Feel free to read ahead on pat3on and donate.