An hour later, the Gluton Family’s grand feast has officially ended.

Mammon stood up from his seat while wiping his ‘mouth’ with a snow-white handkerchief. Pocketing the dirtied handkerchief into one of the numerous pockets on his coat, he gave a satisfied smile to Azin and said, “Thank you for the meal.”

“No, thank you for attending my feast!” Azin said with a big wide grin and raised his last remaining cup of blood-red wine. “It was an honor to have you here!”

“An honor!” His children followed the same, raising their bloody red drinks into the sky.

“Fufufu… An honor indeed…” Doing the same, a glass cup filled to the brim with blood-red wine was willed into existence in Mammon’s hands.

Trying their best to calm themselves down from the showcase of Mammon’s godlike ability to create something from nothing, they gulped down their last cup, and with that came the conclusion of their feast.

“Now, I must bid my farewell,” said Mammon. He turned around without bothering to take another look at the grand Duke of Gluttony as his voice echoed in the hall, “See you… later.”

As his figure disappeared from view in the blink of an eye, Azin subconsciously felt his entire body relax and the feeling of dread that constricted his heart and soul finally washed away. Taking a deep breath, he nodded to each of his children and allowed them to leave.

With his permission, the children of Azin bid themselves farewell, and among them was Shuger who was still feeling a bit unwell from the dreadful, traumatizing scene he saw inside Mammon’s ‘mouth’.

Walking up some stairs and stumbling into his room, he sat down on a chair with a heavy sigh and grabbed his throbbing head. He closed his eyes and leaned back on the chair, caressing his forehead which didn’t stop throbbing.

Moreover, the more he tried to calm himself down and ease the pain, the stronger each pulse became. As seconds passed by and the more intensified the pain became, the more his head throbbed, and the more he felt his body turn dull—it was as if his senses were slipping away and he couldn’t even begin to understand why.

It was at this moment that he began to worry and opened his eyes. Coincidentally enough, he was looking at a mirror, and what he saw nearly caused his heart to stop—looming behind him was a shadow that had taken human form wearing a white lab coat and a pair of glasses that acted as its eyes.

The shadowy humanoid figure was horrifyingly tall and strangely muscular. It stood over two meters tall, just like his father, and its apathetic stare that met with his gaze caused Shuger to feel a sense of dread and death.

“M-M-M-“ He tried to shout the word ‘Mammon,’ but quickly found his throat constricting itself as he was unable to utter one complete word. The pain in his brain only continued to increase as he finally saw the veins popping out of his forehead with each pulse, like worms ready to burst out of his skin.

His eyes widened in extreme horror at the gruesome state he was in, but the pain that only continued to grow nonstop overtook his fear and instead replaced it with the desperate struggle to survive.

Even though Shuger didn’t know what was happening to him in this situation, he wasn’t dumb enough to not know Mammon was causing all of this.

At first, he tried to move other parts of his body in an attempt to attack Mammon, but just like his mouth and throat, his limbs felt heavier than mountains and he was unable to move a single twitch of muscle fiber.

His mind immediately panicked, but his will to live forcefully calmed him down and he soon realized that he forgot to try something else—magic!

As he felt his senses connect with his soul and the abundance of magical energy swirling inside, the magical energy known as mana, he swiftly tried to control the mana with his will to use magic but was soon met with obstruction. The mana flowing out of his soul and into the outside world was blocked by a strange barrier, squashing his futile attempt at survival.

“Struggling, are we?” Mammon chuckled and placed his hands in his pockets. “You know, struggling here is futile. I’m a being whose strength is infinitely close to the very pinnacle of this world—a quasi-God.”

“So, do you want to do this the easy way, or the hard way?” Mammon said sarcastically with spite coating his voice. Pulling out a scalpel from his pocket, he snorted and mumbled, “Haha… That’s such an overused line.”

Shuger couldn’t be bothered to try and understand Mammon at this point because the only thing he was worried about was that scalpel, his throbbing head, and his inability to do anything else other than watch.

“Shush, my dear child,” Mammon whispered and caressed Shuger’s veiny head. Then, with one swift stab, punctured the scalpel into Shuger’s forehead and slit open a large wound. “This will be long and painful.”

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Shuger stared in horror as he watched himself get mutilated in the mirror. His whole mind was clouded with pain, but as if Mammon wanted him to experience as much pain and torture as possible, he remained awake and unable to close his eyes or look away.

“Look, look…” Mammon teased and plunged his head into the open wound, grabbing at Shuger’s flesh, and prying it open forcefully. “That’s your skull!”

Then, as Shuger’s skull opened on its own to reveal his brain, Shuger felt his entire mind shatter and break from the overwhelming rush of information. Information that was alien, strange, vague, clear, scattered, and orderly, but most importantly—it was vast.

His memories paled in comparison to the endless stream of info swarming his mind. His entire lifetime of living appeared like a droplet of water when compared to that ocean of vivid imageries. No amount of struggle would allow him to resist his personality and sense of self-being eroded away.

“Ugh, I’m such a drama queen!” Mammon sighed and continued to use alchemy magic to mess around with Shuger’s mind and soul. “I could have done this all in secret, but what good villain would not enjoy a little bit of theatrics?”

As he skillfully played with the molecular structure of Shuger’s brain along with his soul, Mammon’s mind dozed off as he began to think more about the future of his plans.

That’s already one quasi-God, which is me, with Anna already being close to reaching that level with a little bit of practice on her part. Next to reach this level will be Noel once he bonds with that dragon of his in both body and soul… That would most likely happen when they meet the world spirit with a little bit of Envy’s guidance…

In that timeframe, Envy would also unlock spirit magic or something similar to that, and with her favor with the world spirit just below that of Anna, she’ll definitely reach the level of a Demigod by the time my final heist in this world is going to start.

Rob would also become a quasi-God being rather quickly once Lunacians replace all of humanity… Tyr would support that plan anyway since it will want to have more pawns to use to fight against me and Oliga who’ll also be a quasi-God once he fully matures.

So the future quasi-Gods will be me, Rob, Oliga, Anna, and Noel. Demigods on the other hand are going to be more plenty—Winston, Trix, Nuela, Aldin, Shuger, Lance, Rhett, Kain, Alice, Simon, Melvin, Leo, Holly, Pope Harris, the Seven Dukes of Grim Hallow, some beastmen, some merfolks, and probably a few hidden entities out there that keeps a neutral stance.

Arch-level entities are also a lot so that’s good…

Fufufu, what a bountiful harvest it will indeed be!

As he chuckled, Mammon inspected Shuger’s current state and found that all of the memories he wanted to transplant had successfully entered his brain. So, with a snap of his fingers, Shuger’s exposed brain returned to normal, with the fracture on his skull and the wounds on his forehead stitching themselves until they disappeared completely.

Mammon wasn’t done though as he then stretched out his hand to figuratively grab at Shuger’s soul. The moment he did so, a golden light flashed on the lenses of his glasses as Fortune Stealer activated.

First was Shuger’s eternal loyalty, then came his free will, then his identity, and even fate! By the time he was done, the being known as Shuger could be considered to have been fully erased from reality, and instead had his identity and fate stolen by another Shuger, replacing him and becoming the real him.

Shuger slowly opened his eyes, revealing a calm and collected look unlike that of the dying man before. He appeared far more mature and wise, giving off a sense of arrogance and utter confidence in his capabilities.

“So I’m finally born,” Shuger said softly and inspected his face in the mirror. “A bit cute, chubby, but it wouldn’t be too hard to remodel myself into the next ideal Duke of Gluttony.”

“Confident, are we?” Mammon laughed as he placed the scalpel in his hand back into his pockets. He then placed his hand around his chest and pulled something out of his shadowy skin.

To the rest of reality, he pulled out nothing, but in Shuger’s eyes, he saw a mote of golden light gathering around Mammon’s hands that released an incredibly powerful aura and one casual look made him desire it even more. If he wasn’t as rational as he was right now, he might have just wanted to steal it from Mammon’s hands without any care for the consequences his actions would bring.

Even dying seemed more pleasant than not having that golden light be his own, Shuger already knew why he was feeling this way and simply planted his feet deeply on the ground, resisting the urge to move and lunge to grab that hypnotic light.

Mammon chuckled and lightly tossed the mote of golden light towards Shuger. Magically, the golden light seemed to gain a sentience of its own and rushed into Shuger’s chest, disappearing into his body and from reality itself.

As it did so, a golden light flashed in Shuger’s eyes and he felt an intrinsic connection with something mystical, vast, vague, and undefined—he felt an intrinsic connection with stealing.

Taking a deep breath, Shuger closed his eyes and familiarized himself with the feeling. Opening his eyes, he exhaled and stretched out his hand, pointing it at the potted plant placed in the corner of the room.

A golden light flashed once more in his eyes and the potted plant quickly wilted away into dust. In return, he felt his body gain more vitality as the drowsiness he felt was replaced with a sense of liveliness.

Closing and opening his palms, Shuger nodded his head and stood up from his seat. Turning to look at Mammon, he smiled and said, “You know I fucking hate your guts for doing that.”

“Well, you’re just saying you hate yourself because you know damn well you would have done the same,” Mammon rebutted without much care and simply stepped back towards the open window behind.

“So, familiar with your body enough?” Mammon asked while continuing to take backward steps.

“Yeah… It’s fine.” Shuger grabbed his bulging belly and chuckled. “Sigh, it looks like I’ll have to do that Devouring power again.”

“Ugh, I just remembered how much of a plotting asshole we are. Even our title, Devouring Darkness, is just another ruse to delude others away from our actual Supreme Truth.” Mammon laughed and was one step away from falling down the window.

“Oh wow… You’re actually going to do that stupid falling down a window disappearing act…” Shuger rolled his eyes and decided to ignore Mammon. Instead, he threw himself at his bed, head first, and closed his eyes. “I’ll just ignore you.”

“Wowwwwww…” Mammon clicked his tongue and leaned back, allowing his figure to dangle between standing and slipping. “What a killjoy.”

Releasing his step, he fell down the window, disappearing into the darkness of the night.