In that instant he had his answer to the question of what had been crushing down on him and every demon on the planet, something he’d barely ever felt before gaining his first levels of sacrilege and that he’d thought he’d lost the ability to experience at all by that point, a feeling of the overwhelming force of pure divinity, nearly knocking him down with its existence alone.
That was enough to tell him how in over his head he was. He’d been around descended gods before, ones that stepped into the world wearing one of their believers to make it happen and he knew that process weakened the feeling they gave off as well compared to being in their realm, but here one was, blanketing an entire planet with its existence as it wore one of its believer’s skins, looking at him with mild interest as it did.
He lowered his eyes before they could meet. He could fight against the feeling more if he wanted to but he absolutely didn’t. Every instinct he had told him that one wrong move and he’d be dead. He didn’t even want to run away, all he could hope was that the attention on him didn’t linger, even as some of his thoughts almost reflexively continued to examine the situation.
The power it held was obvious but there was more to it than that. Its strength was incomparable to anything else he’d encountered, beyond anything he dreamed of encountering, even in his most pessimistic moments of considering his world's chances, but through that, there was something else. A feeling of familiarity that made his stomach sink while he told himself it wasn’t the time to consider the implications of it, why the god before him felt similar to another he knew when looked at through the lens of king of sacrilege.
Still, it brought questions he wasn’t ready to ask to nibble at the back of his mind despite himself as the mystery god viewed him with a subtle interest, finally speaking up after what felt like an eternity of quiet judgment.
“You’ve certainly brought me an interesting prize,” The god told the demon who held him. “How did you find it?”
“A whiff,” It answered. “Something I’d noticed in the first conquest that I recognized but couldn’t place. Once I’d known what I’d almost let slip through my fingers and did my best to correct it.”
“Mmh, you’ve done better than you know. Not just an artifact of the mythril lands, you’ve found me quite the curiosity. Tell me mortal, you face my divinity unnaturally well and your mind is hidden from me. Why is that? Are you some weapon your world has created in the hopes of going against me?”
He was addressing Ben but he didn’t know how to respond, nor how much to say. The fact that his mind was still hidden from the god like it was from all others was a benefit but anything he could mention would have consequences. Dare he explain his unreasonably high sacrilege? He wanted the god to know as little about him as possible, but it was clear he needed to say something.
Even with his minds rushing to think of how to answer, it was apparent he’d taken too long, with the god pointing downward and making the demon who held him throw him to the ground with enough force to make his bones scream.
“Well?” The god asked again. “I know the dead one bound to you has shared its gift of language, will you answer or not?”
“I’m not a weapon, I’m an artist,” He managed to get out through the pain. “As for the rest, I’m told I have a constitution that rejects gods to an extent, it's not something that anyone gave to me though, it’s just how I am.”
“So you can speak through my power, good, that wasn’t all I had to ask. Your smell, how have you been touched by the mythril lands, and perhaps more important, why does my peoples’ blood flow through your veins?”
“Ah, as for the second, I was once attacked by one and was near death, its organs were fitted into my body to keep me alive,” He answered honestly, seeing no other choice as he thought about how to answer the first part. He was able to put together what the god was asking at least, but it left the question of how much he should be willing to give away, not to mention how much he could. What did the demons know of the world they were invading? Did they already know it was a refuge for those who’d escaped their past slaughter? Could the one before him tell from its throne that the planet it invaded held hundreds of gods who’d escaped with their races?
It was all questions he couldn’t get an answer to, all he could do was tread as carefully as he could when he spoke up. “As for the first, I once gave a prayer to a god of a dead race that had sought me out and it granted me its favour, I assume that’s what you’re referring to.”
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“I see, so it escaped in the end,” The god muttered, clenching a fist in the only sign to show its displeasure. “So you aren’t a survivor of its race?”
“I am not.”
The answer didn’t seem to affect the one before him, but it caused a massive reaction with the demon at his side. The monster that had dragged him there threw its face into the ground at Ben’s words, leaving a bloody mess from the force as it spoke with its head pressed into the floor.
“My apologies, my lord! I did not know I was wasting your time on something as insignificant as this!”
“It’s fine, as I said, you’ve brought me something interesting. To the point I can’t help but wonder what else it knows, if only its mind wasn’t hidden from me.”
It lightly tapped its fingers across its seat in thought, staring Ben down the entire time, leaving him to feel the weight of that gaze. It felt like the god could see right through him, even without access to his mind, but it led to a choice from the divine before him, lifting a single finger as the only signifier of any change as a new notification went off in Ben’s mind.
“Hmm, so that of all things worked but it feels as though I’m only being rejected more so. Fascinating.”
A small muttering from the god but one that suddenly gave Ben a feeling of answers, at least in small part to one of the things he’d gone through since arriving on that world. He was sure that the demon god, Oaun it seemed, had given him his blessing then to try and strengthen the connection between the two of them, to get past Ben’s resistance to the divine and let him into his head, only for it to have the opposite effect. When he’d first gained his sacrilege, Myriad had told him it felt like it more heavily resisted gods he had a stronger connection to, with what just happened not only proving it, but giving an answer to why his demon body skill had just leveled up so much. It was a connection he’d already had to the god before him, however loose it might have been. Just being on the planet under that thick blanket of divinity had to have been enough for king of sacrilege to help it grow in an attempt to resist it.
Getting the blessing on top of that was enough that he was handling the force on him better than he had been only seconds before, but with its attempt failed and nothing more to do, the god before him began to lose interest, sinking back into its seat and waving a hand.
“No matter. It will make for an interesting trophy so you’ll be rewarded, prospect. Now just to put this with the rest.”
Not sure what was being talked about, Ben watched as the god lifted his hand, and suddenly he was somewhere else. No longer in that strange throne room with the demon and the divine, instead sitting in what he could only call a cage.
The walls, floor, and ceiling were all clear and surrounding him were the sounds of screams as Ben processed where he’d been sent.
What he’d first viewed as a structure made of glass was instead a massive, complex barrier of countless rooms, each of them holding a prisoner from across tens of thousands of worlds, all forced to look out onto the gate that had brought them there. Prizes to mark the conquests the demons had kept managing, all on display for the thick masses below that would see them as nothing but a meal should they get the chance. His existence reduced to a forgotten spectacle among the mass of others who had to have been trapped there for untold millennia.
It made Ben truly understand the reality of the situation he found himself in as he punched the wall before him and screamed.
Again. He’d been captured and imprisoned again as what the god had called him sunk in. He was a trophy, a reward to be won amongst all of the others it seemed Oaun had kept, races of all sorts held there with many not being anything he’d seen before, all of them trapped to serve as a closer reminder of what the demons had claimed beyond the distant planet.
Even as he screamed against his situation though, even as he pounded against the wall while his rage spilled out of him, his mind continued to think. He wasn’t dead, he hadn’t been tortured or dismembered, he was simply trapped. Something he’d been before and something he’d escaped too. He wasn’t obviously being watched by any guards and the demon god hadn’t even bothered to take his supplies.
As bad as all of that was, with the way off that planet right in front of him too in the form of all of those nearby gates, that meant he even had options to take advantage of, so long as he could only pull himself from his prison.
Okay, I’m trapped, locked up who knows how many lightyears from home, but at the same time that’s all I am. I haven’t been crippled, I haven’t even lost any limbs or a single material I have on me. That means I can work to get out of here. Maybe it will take a while but at the same time, if all I’m facing is imprisonment then how bad could it actually be?
A question that was answered with the sounds of laughing and a voice from the cell beside his, speaking up once he was finished with his despair.
“It’s a bit too soon to go insane over this newbie. At least give it a decade, maybe even try for a century if you’re feeling feisty.”
Turning to look, Ben felt his stomach drop with what he saw talking beside him. A member of a dead race from a god he despised like no other, it seemed he’d be spending his time there with what had to have been the last galwaxian.