Chapter 9 – [The Lady Who Reads The End] [1]
[The Lady Who Reads The End accepts your request.]
Cassius's chest expanded as those words echoed throughout the Fractured Land.
Air dragged into his lungs in waves, letting him breathe at last. Then he coughed immediately, spit spraying, having sucked in too much for his weak lungs to handle.
He cursed, feeling lightheaded, his vision tilting from side to side. He grabbed the raft beneath him tightly, fighting hard not to topple into the water.
But that was a useless concern now.
Cassius craned his neck upward and saw the sea of threads expanding, slithering, covering the entire world around him in one frightening instant.
The water stilled then, standing solid as ground.
He mechanically pushed himself up from his kneeling position, swaying slightly from weakness, watching the world around him transmute into something else entirely.
It happened faster than his perception could follow.
One instant he was still in the Fractured Land. The next, the space around him wobbled like unstable water before transforming into a world of moving silver threads.
Up, down, left, right — everything was made of threads. Even the ground beneath his feet.
He almost fell when they shifted.
He knew by then that he was inside a Gate. The Gate of the Goddess.
'Oh my.' Cassius shivered, snapping his head toward one corner of the strange realm where he felt a gaze older and deeper than anything staring at him in a way that made him feel oddly naked.
And there she was.
He unconsciously hissed a breath at the sight of the Goddess. Even though he knew this was not her true body — he was far too weak to perceive her in her [True State], and gods didn't have such rights in Sunu Gaal — he was still struck by the beauty of it.
[The Lady Who Reads The End] sat on a throne made of thread, her own body fashioned from the same material, except for her face.
Silver hair, like platinum refined to the highest degree, fell past her head in both directions. Her blue eyes were still and clear as water, holding a strange, appraising light as they settled on him. Their beauty was almost overshadowed by her long silver lashes made of condensed threads.
Atop her head, hovering a few centimetres above it, a crown turned and turned and turned — like a Wheel that never stopped and could never be stopped.
An incredible amount of essence spilled endlessly from it.
Cassius was awestruck. For a brief moment he thought he saw a wholly different reality inside the turning of that crown.
He smiled wryly, feeling cold sweat run down his neck, his hair standing like spikes of ice. 'As expected of the Goddess of Fate and Secrecy.'
He caught himself and shook his head, regaining his bearing. The hardest part was done — he had met the Goddess.
What remained was striking a deal with her. And that, Cassius was confident about.
So he smiled again, this time less stiffly, and bowed elegantly before [The Lady Who Reads The End].
"I am honoured to be in your presence, my Lady." He breathed, lifting his head just enough to lock his eyes with hers.
"I hope," she spoke, her voice like ice scraping across stone, "for your sake, that your Knowledges are worth my time."
"Isn't all knowledge worth knowing, Goddess?" Cassius retorted, trying to appear calm. "Especially to you?"
"That's what fools believe." She whispered. "Are you one of them, Desdemona's spawn?"
"I like to think I'm smart."
"None praised you for it, I wager. A delusional man… the worst kind. Even worse than a fool."
"Shall we find out?" Cassius proposed, straightening his posture. "Do you wish to hear my three Knowledges?"
The Goddess let out a thin smile. "Humour me, Last Born of Desdemona."
Cassius raised an eyebrow. "You say my title as if you already know it."
"Few beings don't recognise the horrid stench of Desdemona blood." She tilted her head, studying him deeper. "Especially yours. The stench is… overwhelming."
"What do you mean?" He asked, genuinely curious, he had never come across this detail in the game.
But the Goddess answered with silence, then broke it with a cold tone.
"Your time is limited." She reminded him. "A lie told to me will be detected. And punishment will follow accordingly."
"I never planned to lie." Cassius replied, then straightened himself, readying what he had come here to say.
'Now, time to test my blackmail—! I mean, communication skills.'
Damn. Cassius's memories were poisoning him.
…
"Then I shall begin." Cassius said, still standing before the Goddess at a measured distance.
One might wonder what he could possibly say that the Goddess of Fate and Secrecy didn't already know.
But there was an incredible advantage in having played the game, in having seen everything from a wide, bird's-eye vantage point all at once.
And beyond that, Cassius knew the Goddess was powerful, undoubtedly, but neither omnipotent nor omnipresent. None of them were.
'There's a reason they accept to have a Blessed, after all. And it's certainly not charity.'
Which meant he could offer real things, things that might actually move her.
And the easiest way to capture anyone's attention was simple: be a prophet of doom. Or less dramatically, a bringer of bad news.
"I will deliver the three Knowledges consecutively without stopping." He decided, and immediately began.
Silence swallowed the room, leaving only his breathing — and then his voice — to echo across it.
He raised one finger. "First: In the Badur Kingdom, a terrorist attack will unfold in the very heart of the Tier Zero Capital City."
The Goddess's eyebrows lifted slightly in intrigue. A second finger rose.
"Second: The hidden organisation, the Crimson Daggers, has obtained a new Heir. His name is Samael, a High Blessed of a god."
The name Samael and High Blessed made the Goddess straighten her posture instinctively, a recognition far beyond normal flashing through her eyes.
A third finger rose.
"Third and last:" Cassius grinned. A trace of hesitation flickered briefly in his eyes, but he waved it off quickly.
He had no choice but to play this card.
Taking hold of himself, Cassius held the Goddess's deeply focused gaze and parted his lips. "I know, dear Goddess, where the corpse of a god lies."
His words were met by a deep, profound silence. The kind born after something unpredictable, the kind that stunned everyone it touched.
It didn't last. Immediately after, the realm of threads shook like a man struck square by a hammer blow.
"Repeat that, Desdemona's spawn?"
—End of Chapter 9—