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Bestellen spoke, saying words that were already well known to the rest of the Bright Gods present.
?
"What do you have in mind, Bestellen?" asked Rhalorr.
"Hm, I believe that this being must have been summoned by one of such accursed demon races… Sigh. This is why we should have exterminated the Demons beforehand… None of such issues would have happened if they were completely out of the map… I was so foolish to think that I should have let them redeem themselves… Beings as chaotic as Demons who possess such extravagant powers are way too out of our scope, some of their powers even defy the laws of Kritias…" said Bestellen, his eyes seemed filled with regret and concern.
"Indeed, they don't even seem 'natural' to our world at all… See? This is why we should have acted earlier, if you three wouldn't have slacked off so much, we could have ended this long ago," said Rhalorr, shifting the blame to his siblings.
"What? This is not our fault!" said Phunana enraged.
"Calm down, my lady…" said the subordinate goddess at her side, her name was Thora, and she was the Goddess of Thunderstorms.
"R-Rhalorr, how can you say that? Don't blame everyone else except you and Bestellen for these things! A-And… And I believe that…!" said Uphy before she was stopped by a telepathic message of Vulcan.
"My lady, don't say the words you want to say! Your life might be in danger!" said Vulcan.
"V-Vulcan…" said Uphy telepathically.
"What? What do you believe?" asked Rhalorr with suspiciousness.
"She believes that we need to concentrate in the present and not blame each other for the mistakes of the past," said Chaneyr, changing the meaning behind what Uphy was about to say… Which was that she didn't believe that Demons were to blame for every problem in the world.
"Hmph…" muttered Rhalorr as he averted his gaze from Chaneyr.
"There is truth in those words, Chaneyr, Uphy. Also, we shouldn't blame each other… What is done is done. Now, we must concentrate on the present, and what we can do for now to change how things are… We need to save our world from this mysterious entity at all cost," said Bestellen.
"My lords, with the utmost respect I ask, is there a way to track that Demon who has summoned such entity?" asked one of Rhalorr's subordinate Gods, a beautiful woman with long hair made out of ice crystals and enchanting beauty, Khione, the Goddess of Ice.
"Hm. There might be a way, although, for a long time I had believed that the race of Summoning Demons, the Dagvaarder Demons had already gone extinct… But it seems that there was one female that survived, now that I've assessed the information of the prayers accumulated, I've realized that there was a certain demon female that existed within a town near the country of Aquaria…" said Bestellen.
Uphy immediately realized that the woman Bestellen spoke about was the mother of the mysterious half-demon boy…
"(If Bestellen gets to know about that boy… what would happen to him? The church already wants him dead, but if Bestellen himself begins to influence the people even more… No, I have to keep my mouth shut…)" thought Uphy, remaining in silence as she faked an expression of concern over such events, which Vulcan was able to see-through, but for the safety of his goddess, he remained in silence as well.
If Bestellen were to know that Uphy had not reported him about such a dangerous half-demon Vulcan couldn't imagine what kind of divine punishment would rain over her, from Stakes of Righteousness that would leave her paralyzed and sealed, to even the point of having her entire Divinity extracted from her, being left as a weakened version of herself.
Although this hasn't happened to the Bright Gods yet, it had happened to 'traitors' within their subordinates, Gods who didn't think the same as Bestellen, meeting a prompt end to their career as a god, and being left sealed and powerless.
"Hm, I have not much info about that, sadly, my territory is mostly the coastal regions, and Aquaria, although 'coastal', exist around the large lake in the middle of the continent, and people there often do not pray constantly to me…" said Rhalorr.
In Kritias, Gods were able to acquire information through the prayers of their believers, not much was needed for them to receive such prayers, as small things as people saying 'Oh Rhalorr, save me!' and more could be considered as prayers, as long as they had faith and openly recited their names, it counted as a prayer.
"What a pity, I have no idea either… I am way too far away from here… Although people pray for me, they had never spoken about demons or anything…" said Chaneyr.
"The same for me, although they do speak to me about some beastmen tribes that had tried to do some pillaging… But I guess those don't matter because such tribes had already been fending off," said Phunana.
"What about you Uphy, do you have any idea? You're one of the goddesses that stays in here," said Bestellen.
Uphy was one of the Gods who stayed most of the time up in the skies of the central continent of Anir's hands, although Kesheia should be with her as well, the goddess was currently busy.
Uphy relaxed a bit, as she tried to say that there was no such information.
"There is… Nothing, I've only heard about some of the tribes of beastmen living in the Devil Forest of that town, but they had been acting mostly passive, and they are way too far away from civilization to have caused any major incident…" said Uphy.
"Hmmm… I see…" said Bestellen, closing his eyes.
"My lord, if you excuse my rudeness, I believe that there are a few Gods capable of foresight that might be of use for your task," said Astraea.
"Right, right, the young foresight users… Call them," said Bestellen.
"Immediately, my lord," said Astraea, as she disappeared out of thin air, only to appear again, with three goddesses wearing black robes.
All three of them seemed to be sisters, and their skin was gray, their nails long and black, with long silvery-white hair and pointy ears. Although they looked a bit demonic, they were former Night Elves, a now extinct and small subspecies of Elves of the past.
All three of them lacked eyes but covered their empty eye sockets with black cloth, which had an imprinted purple eye sign, making them all look similar to each other.
"Ah, the Fates…" said Bestellen, he seemed a bit pleased to see them, they used to be the Subordinate Goddess of Razdall, but 'betrayed' him, and decided to serve Bestellen when the Ragnar?k happened.
"Lord Bestellen…" "It is a pleasure…" "…to met you once more…"
They all spoke continuously, the three seemed connected by a divine power, which also made up their divinity, their consciousness was interconnected, and so were their powers.
They were often called 'The Fates', and they were a group of Goddesses that had the Divinity of Fate Reading, giving them the ability to read the threads of the fate of people and find information within, like a special type of foresight.
Their names were Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos.
After seeing them, Uphy almost had a stroke… if they were to see through her Fate Thread, they would surely find out that she was lying.
Uphy gulped down saliva as she watched carefully while sweating nervously… although as Goddess, she could not sweat, so it was mostly figuratively.
"Oho, good idea, Astraea. The Fates have the power to see through the Fate Threads of all beings, we will be able to easily discern where this demon is," said Rhalorr.
Phunana and Chaneyr seemed just as concerned as Uphy.
The Fates then smiled, floating near Bestellen, as the three took out several golden threads, glancing at them and pulling them with their slender hands and long black nails.
"We need the name…" "…of the Demon…" "…to see her fate threads…"
"Her name… Forohr, find her name within your Book of Records," said Bestellen.
"I have already done it, my lord. The last surviving Demon of that bloodline registered a few years ago since her birth by Fate… her name is Aleksandra Dagvaarder Crimsonblood," said Forohr.
"Hm, thankfully, she was registered, lately, Fate has been incredibly unstable, and we had not been able to register anything within the book of records…" said Forohr.
"Indeed…" said Bestellen.
The Fates smiled, knowing the full name of the Demoness, they quickly checker her fate thread, easily finding it amongst the many, and extending it.
"She still lives…" "Within the Demon Continent…" "Fighting… she is…"
"Otherworldly beings she has summoned..." "Three of such invaders…" "Are in our world…"
"But none of them…" "Seems to be the issue…" "With the Origin Core of Kritias…"
"Hm? None of them is the issue? Then… is there another demon?!" asked Bestellen.
Uphy began to bit her lips as she saw the Fates smile.
"There is one…" "The child…" "Born from her love and that of a human…"
"Hm?!" muttered Bestellen.
"Ervas Igni…" "Its name is…" "Its Fate Thread is not here…"
"How odd…" "How odd…" "How odd…"
"What? How? If it was born in Kritias, its fate thread must be here…!" said Bestellen.
"Not here…" "Nowhere to be seen…" "Nonexistent…"
"Impossible! Although Fate is not acting the same as before, the Fate Thread should keep appearing… right? This is… No matter. We had finally found his identity, where he is?" asked Bestellen.
"Oh, according to the various prayers, there is a mysterious half-demon boy born in a town near Aquaria… who killed a whole group of mercenaries and then escaped into the Devil Forest… Could that one be Ervas Igni?" asked Forohr.
"It must be him!" said Rhalorr.
"Amazing, we have found him, my lords," said Khione.
"Very well, has the church taken any action?" asked Bestellen.
"They had, my lord… There is one of the Five Constellations going directly towards him on a few more days, alongside an army of one thousand men," said Astraea.
"Very well… Although if the otherworldly being is within his group… Such group would not be enough…" said Bestellen.
"Even with your orders, my lord, it will take a long time. It would be better to wait and see what happens before you chose to command another troop, your beloved humans cannot be wasted in such experimentation, let the first squadron go before you make another one charge," said Forohr.
"Very true… For now, let us wait and see…" said Bestellen.
"Phew…"
The gods nodded as Uphy sighed internally… She seems to have slipped off all of this somehow.
The Gods stayed within the large halls, waiting for the time to go by, days for gods were like minutes, so waiting days while sitting in the large hall was no problem for them.
All of them kept discussing and finding out clues about the invader, as Uphy did her best to not reveal anything.
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