Free Web NovelChapter 4: Ereba [II]
The agonizing blinding pain radiating from his ruined face was the only thing anchoring Caius to reality.
He was lying flat on his back in a world of endless liquid darkness with his chest heaving erratically as he waited for the ancient deity standing over him to strike the final blow.
He had gouged his own eyes out...
He had mutilated his own physical vessel just to win a rigged game against a being whose mere presence could override his free will...
He was completely spent but the execution never came.
Instead, an intoxicating otherworldly scent slowly washed over him.
It didn’t smell like flowers, or incense, or anything that belonged on the continent of Ur. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
It smelled like the cold stillness of a winter night carrying a weight that made the blood in his veins run dangerously hot.
He heard the soft rustle of movement, and suddenly, the back of his bleeding head was gently lifted.
He was placed onto something soft... Caius was resting on her lap.
Caius flinched, his entire body tensing up in pure survival instinct, but his muscles adamantly refused to obey him.
The physical paralysis wasn’t gone; he was entirely at her mercy.
"Hush, little mortal..." Ereba murmured with her smooth voice no longer echoing through the massive expanse of the void but speaking softly right above his ear.
A pair of incredibly cool pale hands gently pressed against his ruined face.
The sensation was bizarre. It wasn’t the warm, soothing rush of typical healing magic
It was cold...
It felt as though reality itself was simply being rewritten. The violent trauma, the torn optical nerves, the ruptured blood vessels... the Void didn’t heal them; it simply erased the damage from existence.
The blinding agony completely vanished in a fraction of a second.
Caius gasped, his eyelids fluttering as he slowly opened his newly restored eyes.
He could see perfectly and looking down at him was the Goddess.
Her skin possessed a glowing radiance that contrasted perfectly with the river of liquid night that was her hair.
She was still conceptually, impossibly beautiful but the terrifying, mind-controlling aura had been completely suppressed.
She was allowing him to look at her without shattering his sanity.
"I am Ereba..." she stated softly, her deep purple pupils locking onto his crimson ones.
Caius swallowed hard, his voice barely a raspy whisper. "Caius."
"Caius," she repeated, testing the syllables on her tongue as her pale fingers gently brushed a strand of crimson hair away from his forehead. "You are a deeply fascinating creature. To intentionally blind oneself simply to spite a god... It is a madness I have not witnessed in eons."
Caius let out a weak bitter breath. "I told you... I don’t have the luxury of losing..."
Ereba’s lips curved into a small melancholic smile. She raised her right hand with her palm facing the pitch-black sky of the prison.
With a soft crackle, a flicker of pure absolute black flame manifested above her fingertips.
It didn’t cast light. It didn’t emit heat.
It simply existed as a tear in reality, an anomaly that made Caius’s instincts scream in primal terror.
"Do you know what this is, Caius?" Ereba asked quietly.
"Void mana..." Caius replied, remembering the system prompts that had violently swallowed his Ash core.
"It is not mana... Not in the way your world understands it," she corrected, her gaze fixed on the dancing black flame. "The thirteen Major Gods command the elements. They command war, truth, light, and the physical laws of Ur but the Void is not an element."
She lowered her hand, bringing the black flame closer to his face.
"The Void is Nothingness."
Caius watched the flame, realizing with growing horror that the liquid darkness around them was actively trying to pull away from the fire, as if the shadows themselves were afraid of being consumed.
"It possesses the conceptual authority to consume," Ereba explained, her voice dropping to a chilling whisper. "It can devour the magic of the thirteen Gods... It can cancel their miracles... It can turn their divine right into absolute nothingness."
She slowly closed her fist, extinguishing the terrifying flame.
"That is why I am here," she said, her deep purple eyes returning to his face. "The Pantheon could not kill me, for you cannot kill what is fundamentally empty so, they banished me. They locked me in this sensory-deprivation prison, sealing me away for so many millennia that I have long since stopped counting the centuries."
Caius simply stared up at her.
He was officially bound to the greatest Heretic entity in the history of the world.
If the reincarnated God of Light was the ultimate protagonist, then Ereba was the absolute unquestionable antithesis to his existence.
"If you are truly mad enough to want my authority," Ereba continued with her thumb gently tracing the line of his jaw. "If you truly wish to wield the weight of Nothingness to survive the fate awaiting you... you may have it."
Caius’s heart hammered against his ribs.
This was the pact.
"But in exchange," the Goddess whispered, leaning down until her lips were mere inches from his ear. "I require a single wish."
Caius’s strategic mind instantly went into overdrive.
’A wish?’
What could a chained, reality-devouring god possibly want from a physically frail, ostracized human noble? A blood sacrifice? The slaughter of a million innocents? The destruction of the Divine Academy?
"What... what is your wish?" Caius asked cautiously, bracing himself for an apocalyptic demand.
Ereba pulled back slightly with her expression softening into something incredibly vulnerable.
"I wish to see the world through your eyes," she said softly.
Caius blinked. "What?"
"I have been trapped in this dark, silent void for an eternity," Ereba murmured with a profound heavy sadness lingering in her eyes. "I want to see the sky again. I want to see the sprawling empires, the untamed wilds, the changing of the seasons. I simply want to see the outside of this prison."
The sheer simplicity of the request hit Caius like a physical blow.
She didn’t want blood... She didn’t want a crusade... She just wanted to not be blind to the world anymore.
A heavy, unspoken understanding passed between them.
They were both prisoners in their own right.
He was trapped in a doomed narrative, ticking down the days to his execution and she was trapped in an infinite abyss, entirely forgotten by the world she used to walk.
"I promise," Caius said with his voice firm, stripping away all the sarcasm and bitterness he usually carried. "I’ll show you the world."
Ereba smiled.
It was a genuine, breathtaking smile that made the liquid darkness around them ripple with warmth.
She placed both of her hands on his cheeks, holding his face gently.
"What is your full name, mortal?"
"Caius Draxos," he answered without hesitation.
Her smile widened with her deep purple eyes glowing with a renewed terrifying divine authority.
"Well then... go forth, my Champion."
Instantly, the liquid darkness of the void violently collapsed inward.
The sensation of falling aggressively overtook his senses.
The endless black sky, the terrifyingly beautiful face of the Goddess, and the cold void completely shattered into a million fragments of abstract light.
Gasp!
Caius violently sucked in a massive breath of air.
He found himself sitting perfectly cross-legged in the middle of his luxurious heavily bolted bedroom.
The suffocating smell of the void was instantly replaced by the scent of expensive incense.
The heavy gold-threaded tapestries hung silently on the walls and the slivers of moonlight spilled exactly where they had been before.
Time violently snapped back into motion.
The dust motes floating in the air immediately resumed their slow, drifting descent.
Before Caius could even fully process the jarring transition, a massive, glowing blue tab violently pinged directly into his retinas casting a cold light across his face.
[Your Monthly Sign-Ins Have Been Cashed in! Come Back This Time Next Month!]
The blue screen hovered for three seconds before dissolving into pixels and fading from his vision entirely.
Caius let out a massive trembling sigh, completely losing his balance and collapsing backward onto the soft expensive carpet.
He stared up at the vaulted ceiling with his chest heaving as the adrenaline slowly began to recede from his veins.
He had done it...
He had survived his first Monthly Sign-In.
He had secured the Grimoire Of Emulation, and he had formed a permanent, soul-bound contract with a reality-devouring Goddess...
He was no longer a defenseless, Unblessed cripple waiting to be slaughtered by the Protagonist.
He finally had teeth.
’That was too close...’ Caius thought, running a trembling hand through his crimson hair.
’What was that?’ Caius violently flinched, his head snapping to the side as the incredibly smooth voice of the Goddess suddenly vibrated directly inside his skull.
’Ereba?’ Caius asked mentally with his eyes widening in shock.
’Yes, Champion,’ she replied smoothly, her presence wrapping around his consciousness like a cool shadow. ’What was that glowing script that just materialized before your eyes? Was that the authority of a God of Truth?’
’No, no, that’s...’ Caius hesitated, struggling to find the right words to explain a video game mechanic to an ancient deity. ’It’s a System... It’s the anomaly that brought me to your prison... It’s entirely separate from the thirteen Gods.’
’A System...’ Ereba mused, the concept clearly alien to her. ’Fascinating. Whatever it is, it possesses enough conceptual weight to bypass my prison’s seals. I shall have to study it.’
She paused for a moment, and Caius could almost feel her looking through his eyes, scanning the ornate luxurious room.
’Your living quarters are quite adequate, Caius,’ she commented with a hint of genuine appreciation in her mental voice. ’The tapestries are quite vibrant.’
’Thanks...’ Caius replied automatically, still trying to get used to the fact that there was a literal deity renting space inside his head.
Suddenly, a massive spike of pure panic shot through his chest. He bolted upright, his eyes darting frantically around the room.
’Wait a minute!’ Caius practically shouted in his mind. ’If you are actively bound to my soul, and you’re looking through my eyes... won’t the other Gods immediately sense you?!’
The implications were catastrophic.
He was living in the Draxos estate, a massive military stronghold absolutely saturated with the Blessed of the God of War and worse, the Original Protagonist was the literal reincarnation of the God of Light.
If Ereba possessed a dark, Heretic aura, he would be smited by a pillar of holy fire before he even made it to breakfast tomorrow.
Ereba’s soft laughter echoed pleasantly in his mind.
’Peace, Champion. You have nothing to fear...’ she soothed.
’But I thought they locked you away because you were a threat!’
’They did,’ Ereba explained calmly. ’But you must remember the nature of my authority... I am not Darkness... I am not Death... I am Nothingness...’
Caius blinked, slowly starting to comprehend.
’The thirteen Gods, their Blessed vessels, and their divine instruments are tuned to sense mana,’ she continued. ’But they cannot sense what fundamentally does not exist... My aura does not register on their reality.’
Caius frowned.
’Wait,’ Caius thought frantically. ’If my soul looks completely empty, my father will execute me on the spot! Severing a divine tether is an absolute death sentence everywhere really!’
Ereba’s soft melodic laughter echoed pleasantly in his mind.
’Do you take me for an amateur, Champion? I am Nothingness. I did not simply delete your pathetic Ash core... I consumed it.’
Caius blinked.
’You consumed it?’
’Precisely,’ she said. ’And because I reside within your soul, I am actively projecting the residual husk of that dying Ash mana over your core. To the absolute highest authority in this world, you do not look empty.’
She paused, letting the weight of her words completely sink in.
’When they look at you, they will only see the exact same pathetic, sputtering gray ember of the Minor God of Ash that they have always seen.’
Caius’s jaw slowly dropped.
It was perfect camouflage.
He wasn’t just armed with an anti-magic cheat... he was completely, fundamentally invisible to the radar of the gods.
To his monstrous father, to his bloodthirsty brothers, and most importantly, to the psychopathic Protagonist, Caius Draxos was still just a pathetic cripple coughing up chimney sweepings.
No one would ever see him coming.
He let out a long, breathless laugh, burying his face in his hands as a massive wave of relief washed over him.
He was safe.
For the first time since transmigrating into this nightmare, he actually felt secure.
’Caius.’
’Yeah?’ he replied mentally, still smiling.
’Since I am now perceiving the world through your senses, I have a request.’
’Name it,’ Caius thought confidently. He had promised to show her the world.
If she wanted him to walk over to the window and describe the night sky, he would gladly do it.
’I would like to see your penis without clothes.’ Caius completely froze.
His smile instantly flatlined.
He slowly lowered his hands from his face, staring entirely blankly at the far wall of his bedroom.
’...Why?!’ Caius shrieked internally, his face immediately flushing a deep violently embarrassed shade of crimson.
’For research purposes,’ Ereba responded with her tone completely even, devoid of any shame or hesitation.
It was a matter of pure, academic curiosity. ’It has been a very, very long time since I have observed human male anatomy. I wish to see how the evolutionary structure has held up over the eons.’
’Absolutely not!’
’Do not be stingy, Champion. A pact is a pact.’
’That was not part of the pact!’
Before Caius could even fully process the comedic whiplash of his new, reality-devouring Goddess demanding to see his junk for scientific research, reality aggressively violently reasserted itself.
BOOM!
The heavy, reinforced oak door was violently obliterated.
The thick wood exploded inward with the concussive force of a military battering ram, completely tearing off its iron hinges.
Massive splinters and jagged shards of wood rocketed across the room, embedding themselves deeply into the expensive carpets and tearing through the gold-threaded tapestries.
Caius violently flinched, throwing his arms up to shield his face as a thick cloud of dust and debris completely swallowed the entryway of his room.
The heavy suffocating scent of iron and aggressive martial mana instantly flooded his sanctuary.
Through the settling dust, a silhouette slowly stepped over the shattered remains of his door.
It was a tall incredibly thin man dressed in a pristine immaculate butler uniform.
His posture was perfectly straight, and his hands were folded politely behind his back but his eyes... his cold dead eyes were glowing with a terrifying swirling pale light.
He was a high-tier Blessed, radiating enough force to crush a normal man’s windpipe simply by standing in the same room.
"Young Master Caius," the butler said.
His tone was perfectly respectful, yet laced with a menacing lethality that made Caius’s blood run cold.
"The Patriarch is looking for you."
The thin man tilted his head slightly, the glowing pale light in his eyes intensifying.
"And his summons are entirely non-negotiable."
Caius slowly lowered his arms, his heart hammering against his ribs as he stared at the terrifying display of casual overwhelming power.
A mere servant of House Draxos could obliterate a reinforced door without even moving his hands.
The meat grinder of his family was not going to let him hide anymore.
’Wow...’ Ereba mused softly in the back of his mind sounding entirely unbothered by the sudden violence. ’That was scary.’
Caius gritted his teeth, slowly pushing himself off the floor to stand before the lethal servant.
’Tell me about it.’
