Finally, our long journey was at its end. Before us were the gates to the Black Garden and the grand palace within. Soundlessly, the smooth gates opened, revealing the black-sand path beyond.

"Don't stray from the path and ignore the creatures lurking within the crystal forest," I reminded my comrades and stepped through, to lead the way.

The countless blades of grass and leaves chimed in the soft wind, creating a disturbingly calm atmosphere. This was the place the shadow that covered reality lived in, shouldn't it be ominous? The silent beauty of the place only put my nerves on edge. The rivers of blood, the countless mortals fertilising the soil, they had to be somewhere.

For an hour, we walked in complete silence. No guards or monsters challenged us on the way and we reached the front of the grand palace of the Devil. The crystal structure stretched beyond the sky, some of its towers breaking through cracks in reality, into other skies and galaxies. I knew them to be illusions, fueled by countless sacrificed mortals. Such bullshit. Why did everyone believe this... creature punished the worst of the worst. She kidnapped good, hardworking people!!

I scoffed at the reliefs on the gates and walked up to push them open. Before my hands touched the disgusting things, the gates opened on their own. Beyond was a long hallway, filled with statues of various half-human, half-spider abominations. The children of the spider, mortals twisted by her evil magics into abominations.

A hand landed on my shoulder and I turned towards my blood-brother. "Don't worry, we will fall this so-called god and avenge your parents. Believe in the blessings of the true god!"

I nodded and grunted, then pushed onward. I felt disgusted, walking on the soft, black carpet, likely made from scalps of those too strong to be twisted. Once we beat the queen of this castle, I would burn it all down.

The walk through the entrance corridor was longer than the one through the gardens. As I was starting to feel we might be walking through looped space, we reach a new set of doors. These ones were white, depicting the face of a dragon whose teeth were replaced with spider legs.

Again, they opened before I could touch them. Beyond them was a throne room, bigger than the entire castle. The walls were likely under an illusion that showed a false image. We would need to figure out where they stood swiftly, to avoid slamming into them by accident.

The gothic columns at the sides of the room stretched into a ceiling hidden by a projection showing some distant galaxy. Another lie told by the usurper. The god made the world as a single plane with one star and three moons sealing other evil gods.

At the far end of the hall, stood a tall, undecorated throne as black as almost everything else in this god-forsaken place. Behind it, the wall was broken, revealing an image of a giant, orange sun. On the throne, sat a tiny figure. I was glad, that for a little while longer, I wouldn't witness the repulsive face of the monster.

I waved to my companions to get in formation. Today we would put an end to the terror of the so-called Godqueen.

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I poked Mothers spear, floating next to the throne. I pouted a little and sighed. Someone must have made a mistake preparing the schedule. Instead of a company of mid-tier gods, the challengers today were just a couple of young mortals from one of the newly integrated lower worlds.

No matter, I would get an opportunity to wield the spear sometime later. Maybe Mother would accept to spar with me if I cooked these younglings well. I thought back to the old days, soon after I was born and couldn't waste energy on resurrecting people just to eat them. Maybe I'd reincarnate as a mortal for a while, to experience the hardships of life again.

Once I used up my challengers-beatdowns.

I was taken out of my musings by yells from the man at the front of the group. It took them a while to walk the length of the hall. Didn't they know such weaklings were recommended for the Fridays? Oh well, whoever's spot was taken, would get a fair challenge against a younger Sibling.

How should I start the show... maybe the classic?

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The short, Korean teen jumped down from the throne... "Hey, do your siblings like... have different nationalities?"

Diada wriggled a bit on her pillow and put her burger away onto the arm of the sofa. "She was adopted, used to be a maid. Her cooking was so incredible even back when she was a mortal, Mother decided to offer her to reincarnate as one of her children."

The spiderling picked up her burger again. "Those were actually made by her." With those words, she took a large bite and focused back on the projection.

I shrugged, sipped my drink and got lost in the show again.

The tiny woman looked quite human, except for her black and red eyes and the black veins beneath her extremely pale skin. Comfortable, white clothes seemed to be the style of the entire family, or maybe just of the two I've seen.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The heroes prattled in a language I didn't understand and the goddess raised her left hand. After a couple of second a large smile blossomed across her face, revealing her black teeth. "METEOR SHOWER!!" She swiftly swang her arm down and black orbs escaped the sun behind her, quickly becoming larger.

The woman casually waved her hand behind herself and a transparent, blue dome appeared over the throne.

The camera moved far back, passing through walls and ceilings until it gave us the bird-eyes view of the entire castle. It continued to fly further back until it showed all of the Spiders lands at the edge of the Black City. I wasn't sure what exactly what I was looking at, the dimensions of the structure twisted and bent, weaving through... Something flashed through my mind and I could only see the central section of the building, unaffected by magic.

Suddenly, I knew there were things I should never see, should never be aware of. Before I could begin spiralling into it, the orbs smashed into the palace and the camera zoomed back in. Everything in the area ceased to be, only the woman and the throne still stood on a flat of black sand.

Before her, hung five golden thin clouds, held by thin black chains.

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Mortals, so fragile. I willed their bodies and equipment to reconstruct themselves on their souls. The two mana inclined members of the party were trembling and turning to run. The other three sadly didn't seem to understand what happened and rushed at me.

I shook my head and took a step through them. They were unaffected and I remembered to move air back into place. With that done, I waved a swarm of spider legs from my shadow, cutting the brave heroes into thin slices.

With another golden flash, they were alive and I stretched their bodies until they turned into a red tapestry. It was quite the accurate portrait of their leader if I said so myself. 

I burned it down and brought the group back again. It wasn't a lot of fun, was it?

I teleported back onto the throne, bringing the palace back into existence.

"Your challenge is far from over heroes, face my servants!!" I declared and opened my eyes. All of the surfaces in the throne-room filled with the eyes of Mothers dragon. With wet squelches, swarms of spiders crawled out of them. I felt the dragon itself turn its sight towards the palace. I focused my perception on the window in the back, now showing just the black of the creatures slit pupil.

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The false deity, finally realised its illusions wouldn't sway us and sent it's abominations to tire out our bodies. I extended a holy aura over the ground, to burn away the monsters spawning at our feet. The creatures screamed in agony and tripped over each other, running away from their bane.

I smiled and raised my sword. "Follow me, let's cut our way to the false deity!!" I yelled and charged towards the throne.

The spiders crawling over the ground jumped and swarmed me from all side. I pulled on the blessing within my armour and releases a shockwave of my Gods power. I slashed at the head of one monster, that didn't get pushed away, slamming the creature into the ground.

A torrent of fire came from behind my back, clearing a path towards the throne. I picked up my speed and... a sudden pain shot throughout my left arm. One of the spiders, one of the spiders bit through my Holy armour!!

I hit the monster with my sword, but at the awkward angle couldn't do it properly. "Catherine!! Blow that thing off me!" I braced for the coming explosion... and nothing happened. She must have been busy with her own battle. I kept slashing at the creature until it finally let go.

My armour was without a spec of damage, as pristine as the day I received it from God. Illusions. I flexed my arm to rid myself of the pain, but it didn't move. Instead, I just smacked an open wound on the inside of the armour. 

I grit my teeth, to bear through the pain and continued going towards the throne. I felt my arm slowly dissolve, widening the gap in my flesh. No matter, as soon as I dealt with the Abomination, the spiders would likely flee. Such a small wound was nothing for Michael's blessing.

I felt my consciousness slip and began falling forward. I stomped my foot and suddenly felt energized. My arm functioned perfectly again too. God must have intervened, so I would keep fighting!

I stood at the foot of the throne. "You are going down who..." My consciousness slipped again. I looked up at the woman, posing as a god. A mocking smile spread across her face and she pointed at my feet. As if such infantile tricks would work on a Hero.

I raised my sword and yelled once more, "I will destroy you b..." My mind blanked again. What was going on? The woman shook her head, the smile replaced with a bored expression.

"One more insult and this little exercise will end, mortal." Her voice pierced my mind and shook the palace.

"We are all mortals, beneath the great God, you demented..." Again, I lost consciousness. I shook my head and took a step forwards. A clang of metal interrupted the silence I didn't notice had reigned for a while already.

I looked down and stared into my own eyes, looking up at me, from within my helmet. "Wha..." I took a step back and tripped over something else.

I looked around the ground. It was littered in my corpses. A sudden pain flashed through my chest and once more, I stood straight. At my feet, laid a new corpse, this time with a hole through his chest.

Rage exploded within my heart and I raised my sword, once more, to charge the monster toying with me. The woman didn't seem to pay me any attention, focused on something behind me.

As my blade almost cut into her neck, a great force blasted me back. Mid-flight, I hit something soft and a scream of pain came from somewhere far above. Once I landed on the ground I looked up.

A red spiderweb stretched from wall to wall. High above, the faces of my friends stuck out of the flesh construct. Before I could think of anything, the entire thing caught fire and got swiftly replaced by four blue souls floating just ahead of me. Moments later, my friend's healthy bodies and unmarred armours reconstructed themselves over their spirits.

"I've grown tired of this, you will leave." The voice of the woman boomed through the palace and I found myself on the sidewalk, in front of the gates to the palace gardens.

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"Is it always..." I practically exhaled towards Diada.

"No... this Sister just gets annoyed easily. Today's challenge was supposed to be done by some fairly competent, lower gods... so... More burgers?" the spiderling explained and shrugged helplessly. 

"Sure!" I grabbed two burgers from Diadas open portal and turned towards Tom. "You want one?"

"Oh, maybe we could switch to some more lighthearted show Diada?" I asked over my shoulder while patting the kitten on the head. He seemed a little tense, trying to smash the snack into a shut mouth.